CHAPTER 1

The Sunny Spot During Morning Classes
Winter_Clothes.

1

September 30.

The final day of September and a half day for every school in Academy City. The reason was simple—everyone would be changing uniforms tomorrow in preparation for the colder seasons.

Academy City was large—in fact, it took up one-third of the redeveloped western areas of the Tokyo prefecture—and hosted around 1.8 million students. Even simple uniform changes sent the local clothing industry into a frenzy.

The actual measurements and ordering had been finished around the time of the Daihasei Festival, so the only thing happening today was giving newly made winter uniforms to students who didn’t already have them. But despite that, the event caused large crowds, giving an idea of how uniquely massive the event was. Plus, students traditionally wore their new uniforms right away, partly to break them in.

But for students who had nothing to do with the seasonal clothing change, it was just a regular half day.

Take the boy named Touma Kamijou, for example. He’d enrolled in a certain high school this year and purchased a winter uniform back then. For him, there were no sizing issues whatsoever. No need for him to throw himself into the chaos.

It wasn’t just him, either. The chaotic masses seemed to be limited to certain grades—most of the students running around like chickens with their heads cut off were second- and third-years. All the first-years were having a nice, relaxing day.

In any event, they were now on their ten-minute break between third and fourth period.

Touma Kamijou, the aforementioned average high school student, had opened a window in the hallway and was now busy staring out of it and daydreaming. Last period had been math class, and it had been so boring, he felt like he was going to die. As soon as the break started, he’d gone to the drinking fountains to wake up and wash his face.

His height and weight were average. The only thing unusual about him was maybe a bit of extra muscle on his bones. They hadn’t come from any club-related physical fitness activities—they were from less healthy endeavors, like getting into fights in alleys and running away from them. His spiky black hair looked like a glimpse of a fashion magazine picture, giving an image many male high school students tended to build up with the thought of Maybe I should make an effort to look a little nicer. Of course, with bleary, wandering eyes and a wide-open yawning mouth, maybe his image wasn’t particularly strong.

As he stood with his elbows resting on the windowsill, feeling the first cool breezes of autumn now that the summer heat was gone, he sighed and said to himself, “I hope I meet someone soon.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he felt two punches thrusting into his temples from either side as though he’d been caught in a vise. There was a crazy cracking noise.

To the right of him stood Motoharu Tsuchimikado, and to the left, Blue Hair. Both were Kamijou’s classmates.

“You— The heck’re you doin’?!” he babbled at them, shaking his head to clear it.

Tsuchimikado looked at him, eyes glinting behind his sunglasses, not saying anything for a moment. “Nya. That sounded pretty sarcastic comin’ from you, Kammy.”

“I bet just your words could cause some insane lady to come tumblin’ out the classroom door over there,” said Blue Hair in his usual, obviously faked Osaka accent. “That’s how it always is with you! Anything could appear when you’re around, from super-electromagnetic robot girls to pretty nymph ladies! You’ve got it all!!”

When he was around, one could generally expect indecipherable gibberish. He never did it to be mean, though.

All three of them wore black vests with stand-up collars and black slacks. Kamijou’s vest was unbuttoned, showing the red T-shirt he wore underneath. Students normally wore button-down shirts underneath, of course, but Tsuchimikado had hair dyed blond and Blue Hair wore necklaces. The school didn’t care about the dress code too much.

“Anyway, what do the two of you want?”

“Yo, that’s right! Check this out,” said Blue Hair, thrusting a manga magazine—the most popular in the country—into Kamijou’s face.

What a good friend. He hadn’t used it to hit him.

Blue Hair flipped the magazine over, revealing a color advertisement for mail-order goods. “Check it! Mr. Shoulder Massage, see?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Sounds cool, huh? My right shoulder’s been achin’ the last few days. And when I tried to rub my own shoulder, my left shoulder started to hurt.”

“Hey, this is the one they were doing those late-night infomercials on.”

“I know, right?! It’s super friggin’ crazy! This shoulder massage machine takes up, like, the whole back page, so it’s gotta feel so good!!”

“Huh,” said Tsuchimikado suspiciously. “They’re probably exaggerating. You can’t put real numbers on how good something feels, nya. Aren’t they basically sayin’ all the testers felt real good, but hey, who knows, right?”

“Geh! You have your stepsister rub ’em every day! You wouldn’t understand!!”

“Not every day! Maybe like once every three days, nya!!”

This all sounded like the usual small talk. Especially how Blue Hair later claimed that something had changed the topic. Kamijou wondered what they wanted him for.

The two responded to his thoughts.

“Anyway, Kammy, what do you think? I think it’s gotta be good stuff for sure.”

“I, for one, don’t think it’ll have you crying out in joy, nya.”

Kamijou sighed. They just wanted a third opinion to break the tie. Why were they so fixated on this shoulder-rubbing machine, anyway? “You know, I’m not a massage specialist or anything. My opinion doesn’t mean much. One of you might have a majority, but what would be the point?”

“Sheesh, why do you have to be so freaking useless?!”

“Don’t call me useless!!” he shot back on reflex, finally realizing they were just trying to fire him up. He let them do it, though. That was how verbal conflicts started. “I don’t really think it does much. Everyone gets knots in their shoulders, but they all hurt differently and in different places. And wouldn’t it be less effective for one gender than another? They’re pretty much announcing that this is the miracle we’ve all been waiting for to relax our shoulders, so it’s a little fishy, I guess.”

“I told you, nya. Stepsisters are the best cure for shoulder cramps.”

“You can’t say that without actually doing science!” protested Blue Hair. “Besides, I don’t have a girl to rub my shoulders! That’s why I’m having this problem in the first place!!”

He and Tsuchimikado started showering each other with blows. As Kamijou watched the fruitless conflict develop, he decided to offer a third perspective. “Well,” he said, peeling them away from each other. “Why don’t we put it to the test for real? I happen to know just the right person—one who gets shoulder pains and has a huge weakness for mail-order products.”

2

One of the students in Touma Kamijou’s class was named Seiri Fukiyose.

She had a strong sense of responsibility, and she’d been working on the Daihasei Festival executive committee until just a few days ago. Her black hair was tucked behind her ears, and her chest was on the large side for a student. She gave off the impression that she was fussy about rules and regulations—a textbook and a notebook were already out on her desk despite the class still being on break. She wore a long-sleeved sailor uniform, and aside from her skirt being a bit short, everything from her scarf to her slippers was measured and standardized.

She also found it fun to collect mail-order health products. Possibly due to a complex about it, nobody knew about her hobby…aside from a certain boy.

She was in her seat, not in any rush to compare homework or notes with others, making idle conversation with the classmate who sat next to her, Aisa Himegami, when…

“Is Fukiyose in there?!”

Bang!! The classroom door had barely opened before a shout from that direction made her flinch. The ones asking after her were the Idiot Delta Force of their class—Kamijou, Blue Hair, and Tsuchimikado. They’d caused all sorts of problems in the past, and Fukiyose had sworn to herself she would remain calm no matter what happened when dealing with these three.

Kamijou, though, had other ideas.

“I’ll never ask you for anything else ever, Fukiyose! Let me have a rub!!”

The big-breasted girl heard a single, strange crack in her mind.

Before the word calm could even reach her brain, she’d already intercepted the charging Motoharu Tsuchimikado and Blue Hair with straight punches and rattled Touma Kamijou in that hard forehead of his as he grimaced at seeing the other two get mowed down. She looked down at the villains writhing on the floor and dusted herself off before their 135-centimeter-tall female teacher, Komoe Tsukuyomi, entered the room.