Having seen Shingai Hitomi off, Su Yuzu went to settle the bill.
She had run the numbers on this luncheon very carefully. The price landed right at the outer edge of what she could bear — just about enough to scrape Su Yuzu's little stash of pocket money completely clean.
Still, this was an expense paid for the sake of Developing girls.
True, the guest list had also included Teacher Saionji Sagara, Kujou Katora's adjutant and her underlings, and... potential future fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law, plus more mothers-in-law, and yet more mothers-in-law. But going by all of Su Yuzu's past probing, it should still be enough to trigger the double return she earned for Developing girls.
Pull off this one job and she would have the funds to run "Behemoth" for the whole month to come.
But... it was only when Su Yuzu went to pay that she discovered someone had already covered the bill for her.
It was Soga Yura.
Soga Yura's little-sister obsession had reached a certain stage, which meant she understood Su Yuzu's financial situation very well indeed.
Otherwise she wouldn't have gone to such lengths to pile the storerooms of Keigunen Private Academy high with the daily necessities Su Yuzu was used to, dressing it all up as merchandise that could be bought with points — a rather subtle way of "keeping" Su Yuzu.
Soga Yura knew that, given her little sister's finances, producing that much money all at once would be next to impossible.
And even if she managed it, her Yuzu would be living on dirt for a good long while afterward — or, worse, wake up one day possessed by the spirit of some Tenjouin and set off on a career of living off women.
So Soga Yura had thoughtfully paid the bill for her.
For Soga Yura, Eldest Young Lady of the Soga clan and the one who actually held the reins of the Soga family at present, that sum really was nothing more than the price of "a meal."
Su Yuzu looked at Soga Yura standing in the doorway, beaming at her, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Well, this was just... thank you ever so much for your concern, Sister.
A chance to double her assets had slipped right through her fingers.
And on top of that, she now owed Soga Yura an enormous favor.
Yet Su Yuzu couldn't say a word about it, because she understood that every bit of this came from Soga Yura's goodwill.
And Su Yuzu had always been sincerely grateful for a girl's goodwill.
Even if... sometimes that goodwill was very hard to swallow.
The Event in which Su Yuzu had stood accused finally came to a close, at least for now.
She planned to take the girls to an amusement park and unwind properly.
The tentative roster: Su Yuzu, Soga Yura, Sakura Mai, Saotome Yukina and Sakai Miho — plus... the "Seat of Evil" and Kirishika.
Su Yuzu had originally meant to invite Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi and Kujou Katora as well.
But Kujou Katora seemed to have a genuinely mountainous amount of work to handle lately.
She had been all set to say yes, too.
But... after a stretch of heavy deliberation and hesitation, Kujou Katora gave up such a perfect opportunity... such a well-attended opportunity... to be bullied by Lady Yuzu.
Honestly, that refusal made Su Yuzu catch a whiff of something not quite right.
Ever since Saint Michael's lost radiance, the light that had blanketed the Tokyo metropolitan area, disappeared, the Fourth Action Division's workload had exploded overnight.
The city as a whole still looked as calm as still water.
But even inside Keigunen Private Academy, strange little urban legends had begun making the rounds.
"The White Mist You Must Not Enter."
The students who walked into the white mist, they said, vanished without a trace, every one of them.
Afterward, some corner of the city would be sealed off behind reams of yellow-and-black warning tape, with burly figures in black uniforms bustling about at who knew what.
"The Terrifying Cafeteria at Midnight."
At the stroke of twelve, a horrible crunching would come from inside the cafeteria, like some ghoul chewing in the dark.
And afterward, mountains of ingredients and carefully sealed stores of food would all be gone without a trace.
Some claimed to have seen a horrifying shadow in the cafeteria — a ghost shaped like a little girl.
When students reported it to Director Saionji Sagara, even the Director, who always cared so much about her students, would only fob the matter off.
By the next day the cafeteria would be stocked to bursting again, as if the Event of food vanishing for no reason the night before had been nothing but a long dream.
As for the second one, Su Yuzu actually had a fairly good idea of what was going on.
That night... Kirishika had gotten hungry.
And this creature had gone and egged the "Seat of Evil" on into raiding the cafeteria for a snack.
What Kirishika never saw coming was how badly she had misjudged the "Seat of Evil's" hunger for food.
The "Seat of Evil"... ate the entire cafeteria bare all on her own.
She brought nothing back for Kirishika. She left nothing for Kirishika either.
As a lesson, Su Yuzu made sure Kirishika and the "Seat of Evil" got a thorough taste of what fourfold hell felt like.
But the first urban legend... Su Yuzu knew exactly what that yellow-and-black tape meant, and she recognized those burly men in black suits.
The Fourth Action Division.
Their deployment meant an Event involving Aberrants had occurred.
If the Tokyo metropolitan area under Saint Michael's protective power had once been merely a sieve that was hard to breach, then now... the city lay utterly exposed to the sight of the Aberrants.
It left Su Yuzu uneasy.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
The girls' outing stayed on the calendar.
And at the same time—
A purge and a reshuffling centered on "Epiphany Manufacture" was playing out in silence within the Tokyo metropolitan area, across this island nation.
Laboratories belonging to the radical faction were occupied by personnel from a rival faction — and even by the Investigation Bureau, by its assault units.
Vast quantities of radical research data concerning Aberrants were seized from them.
The ringleaders of the "insurrection" were taken into custody.
The faction that had once been the rising star inside "Epiphany Manufacture" lost its entire foundation in a single night — wiped out, nothing left of it at all.
The girl in the wheelchair was pushed through the doors of this laboratory. Those hollow yet imperious gray-black eyes swept over the assembled people: some with heads meekly bowed, others... with fists clenched and eyes full of hate.
"It was you people—" A researcher with the look of a madwoman about her, clutching a thick sheaf of reports, made to lunge forward.
"It was you, you pack of pigheaded old relics—"
"This is jealousy!!!"
"Your envy, your scheming!!!"
"They are destroying the progress and development of the entire Technology Division."
The maid pushing the girl's wheelchair let her gaze go cold. She was already prepared to put the shrieking woman on the floor.
But... the girl raised her right hand, just slightly.
The tall maid withdrew.
Even so... she kept a wary eye on the woman who had charged at them, her face as cold as if she were looking at a corpse.
"Our envy... is destroying the progress and development of the entire Technology Division?"
Shingai Hitomi looked at the woman, and then she smiled.
She reached out with both hands. For some reason, the half-crazed woman turned utterly docile in front of her, docile as a child, and let those hands cup her cheeks. "All because of these backward little things?"
"What nonsense are you spouting?" The woman went blank.
"What I am saying—"
"is that you are far too far behind."
"While you were still trying to profane and pry into the domain of the gods with mortal eyes,"
"I was already here."
"Care to join us?"
"Wh... what?" The woman stared at the girl before her, terrified of those gray-black eyes.
Under that gaze she felt stark naked, without a single secret left, without a single covering. And she had no idea why this terrifying creature had swerved the conversation so abruptly.
"Care to join us?" Shingai Hitomi looked at the pitiful thing in front of her, at ideals ground to powder, and the corners of her lips lifted in something almost like pity. "I will guide you—"
"—to greet the true god."
____
________________________________________
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉