Chapter 1

A Second Transfer Student

She licked her lips and tasted sweat.

The Territory deployed around her body allowed her to control everything—from gravity to temperature and humidity. Thus, the fact that she could detect sweat, no matter how little, indicated that the cause came from somewhere other than external conditions. Most likely on the list were excessive exercise, serious illness, and abnormal tension.

“…” Origami Tobiichi swallowed hard to try to regulate her breathing before adjusting her grip on the high-output No Pain laser blade in her hand.

Her slender body was not wrapped in her familiar high school uniform but rather the wiring suit and CR unit, the mechanical armor that modern wizards donned to perform their feats of wizardry. A wizard in this getup with her Territory deployed was basically superhuman.

However, the supposedly superhuman Origami was currently backed into a tight corner.

“Aaaaaaaah?!”

“…!” She gasped at the cry she heard over the radio in her headset. It was a voice she knew. A member of Origami’s Anti-Spirit Team—AST, for short.

This was the ninth person to fall. Which meant that all her allies had been taken down.

“…Ngh.” Hiding behind an obstacle, Origami issued commands in her mind.

Instantly, the light inside her Territory bent, and a scene she couldn’t have seen from her current position came into view: the special maneuvers area adjacent to the Ground Self-Defense Forces, Tengu Garrison, a special field Origami and the rest of the AST used to enact their magic when practicing with their Realizers.

In the center of this space, cluttered with ruined objects, stood a girl with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Mana Takamiya.

Origami spoke her name silently while she looked her over.

She was probably around fourteen or fifteen. There was still an innocence left on her intelligent face, which was adorned with a beauty mark under her left eye. Her petite physique was wrapped in mechanical armor that was ill-suited to her looks—the CR unit.

Her wiring suit was a little different from that of Origami and her comrades, with what looked like shields equipped on her shoulders. This was supposedly the prototype for the next generation of equipment.

“—All right. Only one person left. Come at me from wherever you’d like,” Mana said, without so much as a glance at the AST member fallen at her feet.

Origami couldn’t see them from her position, but she knew that the eight other AST members who had been taken out of the game were on the ground behind the obstacles that covered the area. Mana was crushing them. Origami felt almost like she was fighting a Spirit.

Mana had been assigned to the Tengu Garrison at the end of last month. Apparently, she was the Self-Defense Forces’ ace. Rumor had it she was one of the leading five Realizer users in the world. Apparently, she had killed a Spirit by herself.

From the stories alone, she was an exceptional monster. But when she had asked if any of them could best her the day she was introduced to their team, there was no way the self-professed elites of the AST could let a challenge go unaccepted.

Thus, under the pretext of testing Mana’s strength, they had agreed to a special training session of one against ten. To be honest, Origami herself hadn’t been particularly interested. But…

“…” She recalled the conversation she’d had with Mana that day.

When Mana was assigned to the Tengu Garrison, Origami and her teammates were in the middle of watching the playback of an earlier battle.

Mana had looked at the boy on-screen—Shido Itsuka—and said, “Brother.”

Origami didn’t know anything about Shido having another sister. So she asked about it later, and Mana looked surprised.

“! Master Sergeant Tobiichi, are you acquainted with my brother?! Hmm… Yes, I suppose I could discuss this with you—if you take part in this exercise. That is my one condition.”

This left Origami little room for choice, and so in the end, she had joined the exercise.

This was the result. Nine of her team members had already been neutralized, and Origami had lost all her equipment other than her close-range laser blade. In contrast, Mana didn’t have a scratch on her.

“…If we continue in this manner, the time will run out on us, you know?” Mana sighed, her phrasing slightly unnatural.

There was no point in her hiding there. Origami stood up.

“—Oh!” Mana exclaimed. “Have you finally resolved yourself to your fate?”

“…” Origami issued commands in her mind and activated the thrusters on her back.

The only weapon left to her was No Pain. Her final choice was to bring this to close combat. She leaned forward and raced through the air at incredible speed.

“You’re brave. I do not dislike you for this.” The corners of her mouth curled up as Mana converted the unit on her shoulders and equipped it in her hands. “Murakumo—Sword style.”

In the next instant, an enormous blade of light appeared from the tip of the shield.

But Origami didn’t stop. Brandishing No Pain, she moved even faster. She knew very well, however, she would face a counterattack rushing her enemy like this.

“—Now.”

Thus, the moment that her Territory touched Mana’s, Origami rapidly contracted hers. The field was normally deployed outward three meters in all directions, and now she dropped this circle to a tenth that size in a single breath.

The thrusters behind her protruded from her Territory and regained their normal mass instantly. At the same time, Origami released the link between the thrusters and her wiring suit, curled her body up as if to cradle her sword’s sheath, empty of its blade of light, and slipped past Mana.

“Wha…?” Mana’s eyes grew wide. This movement had clearly been unexpected.

Having lost their master, the thrusters obeyed the law of inertia and closed in on Mana like an enormous bullet.

“Ngh! Oh no…!” She quickly regained her composure and sliced the thrusters in two with her blade of light.

Fireworks crackled and sparked, and the severed corpse of the thrusters dropped to the ground, jetting smoke.

But that had been precisely Origami’s objective.

“—!” She rematerialized No Pain’s blade and turned the tip toward Mana’s back—a single blow to pierce through the momentary lapse of guard while Mana’s attention was taken up with repelling the thruster.

Just as Origami intended, the blade scratched Mana’s CR unit.

“Wha—?!” she cried out.

The moment the tip of her laser blade reached Mana’s equipment, she felt a sensation like a hand running over the entire surface of her body, and then her movement stopped.

“Phew! That was dangerous.” Mana turned her head and looked at her.

Origami gasped. There was no doubt: Mana had stopped Origami’s movements with her Territory.

This wasn’t entirely unexpected, however. Given Mana’s reaction speed, Origami had thought she might respond to Origami’s attack in the instant after dealing with the thrusters. After all, she was very close to Mana’s body. Inside her domain, her Territory.

But she’d also calculated that Mana’s Territory would be unable to affect hers when she had shrunk it down to thirty centimeters. It seemed, however, she’d been too optimistic in her calculations.

“I regret to tell you, that’s check.” Mana turned slowly and touched her blade of light to Origami’s shoulder.

A buzzer sounded above their heads, and then Origami heard a voice over her headset.

“Game set. Win goes to Mana Takamiya.”

Having returned to the garrison hangar after the exercise, Origami sank down and stared at the floor. As if remembering the sensation from less than an hour earlier, she clenched her right hand.

“…”

Her body was terribly heavy because she had just released her Territory. The mere act of lifting her arm and closing her hand felt unnatural, like she was swimming in viscous mud. Even this totally natural phenomenon seemed to her to be a sign of her own powerlessness, and she unconsciously tightened her fist.

“Mana Takamiya.”

She handled her absurdly precise Territory with such dexterity that the special equipment seemed to be extensions of her own limbs. The rumors made sense now. She really was a genius.

Origami should have welcomed this development. Mana was a human being and a member of the AST. Which meant that, like Origami, her goal was to defeat Spirits. With a wizard of her class, the rate of success for their missions would increase drastically.

Even though she understood this in her mind, the incomprehensible frustration and annoyance only grew worse in her heart.

“…So strong.” Origami glared at her clenched fist.

“You’re something else, too, Master Sergeant Tobiichi.”

She heard a voice from above and jerked her face up. Mana was there, in nothing but her wiring suit, holding a sports drink in each hand.

“Have some if you would like.” She held out the bottle in her left hand.

“…”

Even though she, too, had just released her Territory, Mana moved normally, with no sign of sluggishness.

Origami looked up at her with complicated feelings as she raised a heavy arm to take the bottle.

Mana nodded, satisfied, and continued speaking after taking a drink. “To be honest, I was surprised. It might have been a mere few millimeters of a sword tip, but it has been quite some time since anyone caught me with an attack.” She said this with no aggression, sounding as though she was simply assessing Origami’s skill.

Origami gritted her teeth. “How can I get as strong as you are?”

Mana’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know how to respond to that…”

“I heard you killed a Spirit,” Origami said. “I want details.”

“You heard I…killed a Spirit?” Mana shrugged. “Well, the words themselves are not incorrect.”

Origami cocked her head slightly to one side. “Meaning?”

“Mm.” Mana paused. “It’s best not to treat that thing as in line with the other Spirits.”

“Any detail is fine. No matter how trivial. Tell me.”

“Well, I suppose, but… Even if I don’t tell you now, you will likely have the opportunity to see her soon enough. It is for that reason I was assigned here.”

“…?” Origami raised an eyebrow. “I was told you were assigned here to strengthen our fighting capacity.”

“That is not incorrect,” Mana agreed. “But to be more precise, the signal of a certain Spirit has been confirmed in this area.”

“A certain Spirit?”

“Yes. The worst Spirit. I’ve been chasing her for some time. Her identifier is—”

Whap! Whap! They both took a hit to the head.

“…!”

“Ow!”

Origami and Mana pressed hands to their heads and then simultaneously turned their faces to the right.

AST Captain Ryouko Kusakabe was standing there in her SDF—Self-Defense Forces—uniform, holding what looked to be a rolled-up pamphlet in one hand.

“The. Two. Of. You…”

A vein popped up on her forehead as she snapped a finger out at the metallic lumps recovered from the exercise grounds—the thruster unit split perfectly in half.

“I said this was a mock battle, didn’t I?! So why would you destroy our precious equipment?!”

The two girls stared at the clumps of metal for a moment before opening their mouths.

“I couldn’t create an opening with Second Lieutenant Takamiya by holding—”

“It may have been a mock battle, but I judged that we would not get correct data unless I—”

Whap! Whap!

“Save the noble speeches for after you look up the price of a Realizer unit,” Ryouko told them. “Our budget isn’t infinite.”

“Understood.”

“I will use discretion.”

“Honestly…” Ryouko sighed. “Be more careful from now on.” Their commanding officer squared her shoulders and walked off.

Once they could no longer see her, Mana pursed her lips, displeased. “That captain is a real problem. It’s stinginess that allows the Spirits to have their way with you.”

“Agreed.” Origami nodded.

“It looks like you and I will get along, Master Sergeant Tobiichi.” Mana brought the corners of her lips up. “After all, we are taking on a creature known as a Spirit. If we fixate on money, we will never achieve victory over the ones we could win against.” She gave a dramatic shrug.

Wordlessly, Origami looked again at her face. She really did have a similar air as Shido. But Shido only had one little sister. Supposedly.

Origami had never spoken with her, but she’d seen her any number of times. Kotori Itsuka. It went without saying that she was not the same person as Mana. But according to the Origami database, Shido was adopted, so she couldn’t entirely exclude the possibility that Mana was his biological sister.

“Second Lieutenant Takamiya,” Origami started, “you promised. Tell me how you and Shido are related.”

“Shido? Who is that?” Mana appeared confused.

Strange. Origami continued doubtfully, “The boy in the video from the Hermit battle we were watching the other day. The person you called ‘brother.’ You promised you’d tell me if I took part in the exercise.”

“Bro…ther…” Mana frowned.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh. Just a slight headache.” She pressed a hand to the side of her head.

Origami had seen Mana like this before. She’d had the same reaction when she saw Shido in the video.

“…! Apologies, apologies. I’m all right now. Er, we were talking about my brother, yes?” As if to dispel the pain, Mana shook her head lightly before touching the chest of her wiring suit and pulling out a small silver locket. Inside was a picture of a small boy and girl.

“Shido,” Origami murmured. Yes, there was no mistake—this was young Shido Itsuka. And the girl with the distinctive beauty mark beside him was definitely Mana. “What’s this?”

“A photo from a long time ago. It’s the only clue I have to my brother after we were separated.”

“Tell me the details,” Origami urged.

“I’m sorry, but…” Mana tousled her hair, troubled. “I’m afraid I don’t remember so much.”

“…? Meaning?”

“Oh. You see, I have no memories of the past.”

“…Amnesia?”

“To put it simply, yes, I suppose that would be it. But the moment I saw that video, I remembered. I used to call that person my brother.”

“So then why set that condition of fighting you?” Origami asked, suspicious.

“Oh.” Mana lowered her head in apology. “I wanted to see your actual abilities. You seemed like the most capable in this squad. In fact, you were better than I anticipated.”

“…” Origami stared back at her without saying anything. She didn’t know how to feel at being told she was “better than anticipated” after she’d been so thoroughly schooled by the overwhelming difference between their powers.

“Master Sergeant Tobiichi?” Mana looked up at Origami. “Together with my apology, I have one other favor to ask.”

“What?”

“I realize this is perhaps asking too much, but…you do know my brother, yes? Would you tell me whatever you know about him?”

“…” Origami felt like their positions had now reversed, but after thinking on the issue briefly, she assented with a small nod. “His name is Shido Itsuka. Age sixteen.”

“Yes.”

“His family consists of his father, mother, and younger sister. Currently, his parents are on an overseas business trip, and the house is empty. Skilled at all household chores.”

“Hmm.”

“Blood type AO, Rh positive. Height one seventy point zero centimeters. Weight fifty-eight point five kilograms. Sitting height ninety point two centimeters. Upper arm thirty point two centimeters. Forearm twenty-three point nine centimeters. Chest eighty-two point two centimeters. Waist seventy point three centimeters. Hips eighty-seven point six centimeters.”

“…Sorry?”

“Visual acuity right eye, zero point six; left eye, zero point eight. Grip strength right hand, forty-three point five kilograms; left hand, forty-one point two kilograms. Blood pressure between one twenty-eight and seventy-five. Blood sugar is eighty-eight milligrams per deciliter. Uric acid level is four point two milligrams per deciliter.”

“S-stop! Stop!” Mana cried out, flustered. “I didn’t ask about that!”

“Oh,” Origami said.

“And, er, why do you have such detailed data? Is this a joke?”

“Not at all,” Origami replied with a serious face. “These values are accurate.”

“…” Mana furrowed her brow, sweat springing up on her face. “Excuse me for asking, but what is your relationship with my brother, Master Sergeant?”

Origami opened her mouth not even a heartbeat later, with absolutely no hesitation or indecision.

“I’m his girlfriend.”

“Hey. What are you doing, Shido?”

“Huh?!” Shido let out a baffled cry when abruptly posed this question in the living room of his own house. He looked back and found a girl in a school uniform, her long hair tied back in pigtails with black ribbons, standing there dauntingly with her hands on her hips.

Shido’s younger sister, Kotori Itsuka—in commander mode.

Her adorable round eyes were scrunched up grumpily, and the stick of the Chupa Chups in her mouth stuck out like the tail of a threatening animal.

“What do you mean, what? I’m going to school.” He looked down at himself. He was wearing his (summer) uniform, schoolbag in his right hand, lunch bag in his left. This was headed-for-school style from any angle.

Kotori shrugged like something out of an American sitcom as she shook her head. “Wohkay, let’s do this again. What’s that in your left hand, Shido?”

“Lunch.”

“For you?”

“No. For Tohka.”

His own lunch was tucked away in his schoolbag. Shido had made this lunch for the girl who lived in the building next door, his classmate Tohka Yatogami.

“And how are you going to give it to Tohka?”

“I was going to drop it in her mailbox…”

Since he couldn’t exactly go giving it to her at school, he used the spare key for the mailbox and left a lunch there every morning.

“Oh!” he cried. “Is that it? It’s starting to get hot now, so are you worried it might spoil? Don’t worry. I put an ice pack in there and an antibacterial sheet for good measure. Although, well, I guess it would’ve been better if I had some pickled plums in there, too. But you know, Tohka doesn’t really like—?!”

Kotori kicked his shin, and Shido doubled over, groaning. He dropped his bag, but he managed to somehow hang on to Tohka’s lunch.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

“You’re talking like you’re asleep,” she snapped. “Why’re you gonna go all the way to her mailbox?”

“I can’t give it to her otherwise. To start with, we leave for school at different times—”

“Right there.” Kotori grabbed the Chupa Chups in her mouth and snapped it in Shido’s direction. “It’s been two weeks since Tohka moved next door. How many times have you walked to school with her?”

“Huh? Umm.” He sent his gaze upward and counted in his mind. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t. Not once.” He scratched his cheek with his now-free right hand.

For a variety of reasons, Shido and Tohka had lived together in this house for a brief period, but during that time, they’d staggered their departures for school to keep weird rumors from starting in their class. But they were neighbors now, no longer living under the same roof, so there was no longer any need to be so cautious. In fact, they walked home together pretty much every day.

He supposed they hadn’t managed to shake the habit, and Shido left for school a little earlier even now. Well, there was also the fact that Tohka had a bit of a harder time getting out of bed than he did.

“You live next door to each other and are in the same class.” Kotori planted a hand on her forehead in exasperation. “I don’t know why you have to go out of your way to pass up on a walking-to-school-together situation. And you won’t be able to give Tohka your everything when another Spirit shows up. So make sure you’re with her the times when you can be.”

“Uh. Uh-huh…,” Shido half groaned and fell silent.

This world faced sudden disasters known as spacequakes. As the name would suggest, the space around its origin was gouged out with a tremendous explosion. It was a serious natural disaster—even in their modern age, even with means of predicting spacequakes and rapidly rebuilding buildings.

Although it wasn’t publicly known, the cause of these spacequakes was deemed to be a creature called a Spirit. When the Spirit, which normally existed in a separate dimension, appeared in this world, the spatial environment distorted, which had been theorized to be the spacequake trigger.

Naturally, the people who knew about these Spirits espoused various strategies to avoid this catastrophe. There were two main methods. One was to annihilate the Spirits with force. And the other was…

“I hope you remember. When the next Spirit shows up, you’ll have to make her blush and giggle again.”

“I—I understand,” Shido replied with a baffled sigh.

Yes. This was the other method: contact the Spirit when she appeared, chat her up, date her, increase likability…and seal it with a kiss.

He didn’t understand exactly why, but Shido apparently had the ability to lock away the Spirit’s powers by doing so. And it was Ratatoskr, the organization Kotori belonged to, that had noticed this power.

“Good. So then you’ll walk to school with Tohka today. Okay?”

“Mm. Roger that.” He had no particular objections. He picked up his bag and started toward the front door.

“Hey, Shido. You forgot this,” Kotori said, and Shido looked at his hands.

“Huh? Did I have anything else?”

“This. Here.” She set a small earpiece in the palm of her hand and stretched out her arm. And then she held up the index finger of her other hand and pointed at her ear, as if to say he should put in this earpiece right now.

“…Uhhh? Why do I…?”

“It’s a perfect opportunity. We’ll do a bit of training at the same time. C’mon, put it in. There we go.”

The corner of Kotori’s mouth curled up as she half forced the earpiece into his ear.

“Tr-training? What exactly are you going to do this time?”

“Right, yeah. Today’s assignment is to act in a way that doesn’t make Tohka jealous.”

“Huh? Not make her…jealous? What does that mean?”

“Mm. You remember when Yoshino showed up last month?”

“…! O-ohhh.” Shido nodded.

Yoshino was the small girl Spirit who had appeared after Tohka. Tohka had been strangely sulky for some reason when she appeared.

“The gist of that is Tohka doesn’t care for you getting chummy with other girls.”

“Huh…? Wh-why not?” Shido asked.

Kotori let out a contemptuous sigh. “Any. Way. When you’re friendly with other girls, Tohka’s mental state grows unstable, and as a result, her Spirit power flows back into her body again. If that happens every time a new Spirit shows up, we’ll be in a real pickle. And so.” She turned her pointed finger on him. “While you’re walking to school today, our staff will play some tricks to rouse her jealousy. You intercept them and keep her cool.”

“Keep her cool?” Shido looked confused. “What exactly am I supposed to do…?”

“Whatever. Just go.” Kotori was apparently not interested in what he had to say. She turned him toward the front door and gave his back a shove. “It’s just about time for Tohka to leave. I’ll fill you in over the earpiece.”

“No, b-but…” Shido still hadn’t processed the situation, but over these last two months, he had learned painfully well that it was pointless to fight Kotori when she was in this mood. With no other choice, he slipped his feet into his shoes.

“Ohhh, right,” Kotori said from behind him. “One more thing. We got a guest today. Make sure you chat with her a bit. Although I’m sure it’ll just be a basic hello situation.”

“A guest?”

Without replying to Shido’s question, Kotori stormed up the stairs. She’d said she would instruct him over the earpiece, so she was probably going to the balcony to be collected by Fraxinus.

He stared after her, baffled. But that wasn’t going to change anything. He opened the door and stepped outside. Instantly, daylight burned his retinas.

“Ngh…”

It was June 5. The rainy season should have started already, and yet for some reason, they’d been blessed weather-wise—almost like the sky had used up its supply of rain last month.

The sunlight that would have been intercepted by the clouds in a normal year reflected off the surface of the earth and raised the temperature. There was a good chance he wouldn’t have been able to bear the heat, and Shido had switched to his summer uniform that day.

“Huh…?”

He caught sight of a figure standing in front of the Itsuka house and opened his eyes wider.

A girl about the same age as Kotori. Clad in a thin, breezy dress, with a white straw hat tilted far forward as if to shield her eyes. Hair blue like the ocean spilled down from the brim, and from this distance, he could tell the sapphire eyes were turned toward him. The most distinctive thing was her left hand. For some reason, she was wearing a comical rabbit puppet.

“Yoshino?!”

There was no way he could forget the name of a girl with such a distinctive look. Shido opened the gate and walked over to her.

“Heya, Shido. Been a while, huh?!” The rabbit puppet flapped its mouth open and closed.

“Y-yeah, haven’t seen you in ages. Umm, Yoshinon,” Shido replied to the puppet. The puppet’s name was Yoshinon. It was Yoshino’s friend.

The thing itself was a normal puppet, and he was sure that the voice was actually ventriloquism. But when Yoshino was wearing it, another personality called Yoshinon existed alongside her own. The puppet’s actions and speech were not connected with Yoshino, it seemed.

“What’s up? Are you all finished with your tests for today?”

“Hmm, finished the tests themselves a while ago. I was juuuust practicing a bit, okay?” Yoshinon said, waving its short arms happily.

“Practicing?” Shido asked, and Yoshinon yanked up the brim of Yoshino’s hat.

“…!” Yoshino’s shoulders jumped up. But after swallowing hard, she opened trembling lips.

“G-good. Morning. Shido…!” she said, her voice just a little bit clearer than it had been last month.

“Oh?!” He opened his eyes wide and reeled slightly.

The shy, introverted Yoshino left pretty much all responses to the outside world to Yoshinon, preferring not to speak too much herself. At least, this was the first time he had heard her speak in such a loud voice.

Here, he heard a snort of satisfaction in his right ear. Kotori. He assumed she was aboard Fraxinus now.

“What do you think? She can talk with me and Reine now, too, y’know.”

“Really? That’s amazing, Yoshino!” Shido said, and Yoshino yanked down the brim of her hat, embarrassed, but the corners of her mouth slid hesitantly upward.

Shido could hear Kotori flick her Chupa Chups to one side. “In the near future, I want to have Yoshino live off-ship, too. Maybe because she’s got Yoshinon here to talk to, she accumulates stress less than Tohka. And sure, it’s fine if she remains on the ship, but Ratatoskr does want the Spirits to learn how to be in the world and live happy lives.”

“Hmm. That sounds like a good idea.”

“Mm. So she’s just popping in to say hi today.”

“Meaning?”

“If Yoshino were to live off the ship, the first choice would be there, yeah?”

Shido lifted his face and looked over at the apartment building towering next to the Itsuka house.

The building that Tohka lived in was a special residence for Spirits specially commissioned by Ratatoskr. It was built so that even if the worst happened, it wouldn’t be destroyed easily.

“Well…I guess so, yeah.” He nodded.

“In which case, it’ll be rough if she can’t actually talk with Tohka.”

“Ohhh…”

That was very true. They would probably be in different apartments, but in a sense, they would be neighbors.

Above all, Tohka and Yoshino were both Spirits. Yoshino still seemed to be a little awkward around Tohka, but it was obvious that it would be better if they could really talk with each other.

The automatic door of the apartment building slid open, and a girl walked out, yawning.

Long hair the color of night contrasted sharply against the sunlight. Beautiful face. Eyes like sparkling crystals. This was Shido’s classmate, the Spirit Tohka Yatogami.

“…!” Shido gasped.

Tohka was not in the blazer she’d been wearing up to last week but her summer uniform—a short-sleeved blouse with a ribbon around her neck.

Well, Shido was technically also in summer clothes now, so there wasn’t anything strange about it. But his heart unexpectedly skipped a beat at this outfit that emphasized the silhouette of her body.

“Mm? Shido?!” Tohka finally noticed him and cried out, eyes open wide. “What’s wrong? It’s weird to see you in the morning!”

“Y-yeah,” Shido said, looking anywhere but at Tohka. “I just thought it might be good to go to school together once in a while. You know.”

Her cheeks colored slightly as her face lit up. “You did! Mm-hmm, that’s—um, I think it’s great!” She nodded, overjoyed.

Her unabashed delight made him tongue-tied. At a loss for what to say next, he held out the lunch bag in his hand. “Also, here. Lunch.”

“Ooh!” She took it, a smile spreading across her face. “So! What’s in it today?!”

“Asparagus wrapped in bacon, a ground-meat cutlet, a fried egg, pasta salad, and mini tomatoes,” Shido said. “Oh! And chicken rice.”

“Wow…!” Tohka shivered as she whirled her head around to check out the area and clutched the lunch bag to her chest. “I-is this okay, Shido?!”

“Huh…? I-is what okay?” he asked with a blank look.

Tohka lowered her voice. “To have both asparagus in bacon and a ground-meat cutlet for lunch. Won’t it be real trouble if everyone else finds out that we’re living in such luxury…? In the worst case, a violent fight could break out over this lunch—”

“Yeah, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“R-really? I hope not. B-but making chicken rice is like turning your nose up at a god… It doesn’t breach any international laws, does it?” Tohka spoke with a very serious air.

Where exactly had she picked up words like that?

“No, forget it,” he said. “Oh! Do you not like chicken rice? I can trade you mine if you want?”

Because Origami would pick up that bone again if their lunches were exactly the same, he had been changing the menu slightly for the last two weeks. His was actually leftovers from supper the day before, though, so it hadn’t taken him any extra effort.

But the instant Shido made this proposal, Tohka shook her head from side to side so vehemently, it threatened to fall right off, as she clutched the lunch bag.

He had to smile at this. It did make all his morning efforts worthwhile when she was this happy about her meal.

She shifted the lunch bag to one hand with a slightly nervous look on her face and took a deep breath as if to calm her racing heart. “Mm?”

Her eyes abruptly grew rounder, and she turned her face toward the girl next to Shido. Apparently, she had only just noticed her.

“Oh! Yoshino! I haven’t seen you in forever!” Tohka called out, a carefree smile spreading across her face. Although she’d had her own quarrels with the girl, she seemed to not care too much about that anymore.

“…!” But Yoshino trembled as she took a step back.

“C’mon! You can do it!”

“O-okay…” Cheered on by Yoshinon on her left hand, she managed to hold her ground somehow. She took a deep breath and braced herself before raising her eyebrows.

“Oh! She sells seashells at the seashore…!”

For some reason, she shouted vocal warm-ups.

“Mm.” Tohka furrowed her brow in confusion and turned her eyes toward Shido. “Does this…mean something? Is it a code?”

“No… Yoshino?” Shido asked, smiling wryly.

“Aah!” Yoshinon flapped its hands. “Wipe that from memory, please! She just went too far with our practice! Retake! One more time!”

Yoshino nodded and stood in front of Tohka once more. “G-good…morn…ing…” Her voice was quieter than it had been with Shido. But it was clear; she got the words out.

“Ohhh, morning!”

“…!” Yoshino shivered again, but she managed to keep from retreating.

There was a brief silence as the two girls faced each other.

“Why aren’t you saying anything, Shido?” Kotori’s shrill voice echoed in Shido’s ear. “Yoshino’s anxious. Give her something to talk about.”

“Huh…? O-oh.” He glanced over at Yoshino. Now that she mentioned it, there was something a bit different about her from the last time he’d seen her.

“Yoshino, you’re wearing a straw hat today, huh?”

The last time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing a cap. Today, it was a cool white straw hat.

“…! Y-yes!” Yoshino held her ground, hiding behind Yoshinon for a second. “It’s hot…today, so. Um. Reine…said…”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Shido said. “It looks good on you. Very cute.”

“…!” Yoshino turned bright red as she dropped her eyes to the ground.

It seemed that she still hadn’t gotten over her shyness. He grinned unconsciously.

“Hey, you’re gonna just let the convo end there? You gotta bring Tohka into it.”

“Oh… Right. H-hey, Tohka. Don’t you think so, too?”

“Mm?” Perhaps not expecting the conversation to involve her, Tohka turned her eyes on Shido, looking slightly surprised. She then dropped her gaze to Yoshino. “Mm. Mm-hmm, very cute, Yoshino.”

“…! Th-thank. You…,” Yoshino stuttered, still looking at the ground, before suddenly raising her face to look at Tohka. “U-um… T-Tohka. You’re…cute. Too…”

“Mm? Wh-why… This is embarrassing.” Even as she spoke, however, she scratched her face like she wasn’t displeased. She laughed awkwardly before glancing over at Shido. For some reason, her cheeks were slightly flushed. “Y-you… You think so, too, Shido?”

“Huh?” he replied, baffled. He hadn’t imagined the conversation would come back to him.

“I’m wearing a different uniform today than last week… How is it?”

He had noticed that the second he saw her. The breezy Raizen High summer uniform suited her perfectly. She looked so cute that his head might snap clean off from nodding too hard in agreement. He was silently giving thanks to the heat of summer in Japan.

“Y-yeah,” he managed to say. “It really suits you.”

“Mm. It does?” Tohka fell briefly silent once again.

In the next instant, he heard an angry buzzer in his right ear.

“Yeah, no.”

“Wh-what…?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. What are you doing, Shido? Your training’s already started, you know.”

“Uh…? Wh-what do you mean?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“I told you.” Kotori let out an enormous sigh. “The task of the day is to not make Tohka jealous. Shido, why did you tell Yoshino she’s cute but not Tohka?”

“Huh…?” he said stupidly and reflected on his own actions. Now that she mentioned it, he felt like he had only said the uniform looked good on her. “W-was that bad?”

“Well, yeah. There you are telling another girl how cute she is right in front of her, without saying it to her. Tohka might not be aware of it, but her mood meter’s dropped a bit.”

“B-but Tohka’s not gonna care that—”

“Listen,” Kotori rebuked him. “It’s true that Tohka is a Spirit. Lots of stuff about her is different from a person. But with this sorta thing, you shouldn’t act like she’s special. Tohka is a regular girl.”

“…!” Shido bit his lip. He was embarrassed by his own self now. He’d been talking all this talk about how Spirits should be able to live a normal life, while maybe thinking that Tohka was somehow a bit different from humans.

He clenched his fists and turned back to the girl. “T-Tohka!”

“Uh…?!” Her shoulders jumped up in surprise when he raised his voice. “Wh-what, Shido?”

“Y-you’re cute, too!”

“Wh-what…?” Her face turned beet red as she pulled back.

He was aware that his own face was red now, too, but he kept going regardless.

“Yeah, cute! Super cute! Incredibly cute! You look great in the summer uniform! For real. The second you stepped out of the apartment building, I was shocked! I couldn’t take my eyes off you! For a second, I couldn’t speak! That’s how cute you are! So much that I can hardly stand—”

Here, his mouth was covered by Tohka’s hand, blocking the flow of words.

“M-mmph!”

“I—I get it! Please stop!” Tohka begged and whirled around.

He gasped. What he had said wasn’t a lie, but he had maybe gotten carried away and gone too far.

While he was thinking about this, peals of laughter echoed in his earpiece.

“Pft! Hngh heh! Ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Kotori, obviously. When he listened closely, he could also hear the sound of a chair squeaking. She was rolling around in her seat.

“Amazing, Shido. Are you an idiot?”

“Sh-shut… I know, okay?” he groaned, the sweat on his forehead catching the light. “But I made Tohka mad again. C’mon, Kotori, what should I do?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Huh?”

“Tohka’s mood meter shot up like a rocket, plotting a max single-day gain. She’s never been in such a good mood. How about you go around and take a peek at her face? It might be of interest.”

“Uh…? Wh-why?” He gave voice to the question.

Kotori didn’t answer him, however. “Well, at any rate, I’ll let this go with no penalty. We’ll be collecting Yoshino soon. And you and Tohka are going to be late if you don’t hurry up and get to school.”

Yoshino lowered her head in a neat bow. “I…have to…go. Now. Have fun. At school…Shido, Tohka.”

“Okay. Come say hi again sometime.”

“Mm. See you.”

Shido and Tohka waved. Yoshino bowed once more and trotted off to the other side of the road.

“Okay. Should we get going, Tohka?”

“Mm, I guess so.”

They started walking along the asphalt baking under sunlight.

“Tohka? Hang on a sec.” Shido stopped, sensing something off in her back.

Yes. She was wearing the thin summer uniform. The lines of her underclothes—her bra—should have been faintly visible. But…

“Mm?” She turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Tohka, are you…um…? Do you have one on?”

“Do I have what on?”

“…A—a bra.” He stumbled over the word.

Tohka looked at him curiously. “A bra? What’s that?”

“…!” He gasped before pushing her back inside the apartment building.

“Wh-what’s wrong, Shido?!”

“It’s too late for that!” he yelped. “Y-you mean to tell me you haven’t been wearing one all this time?!”

“W-wearing what?!”

“…!” Shido tapped his earpiece.

“Oh my. We did provide some for her, at any rate. I guess she didn’t know what they were for.”

“Don’t ‘oh my’ me! With the winter uniform, it was one thing, but wearing no bra with this shirt is serious!”

“I guess so. They should be in the top drawer of Tohka’s dresser. Could you teach her how to put one on?”

“M-me…?!”

“Is there anyone else there? C’mon, if you don’t hurry, you’ll be late.”

“…! Aaah, dammit!” Shido made up his mind and turned back to Tohka. “Tohka, you have to take me to your apartment for a sec!”

“Mm? Oh, sure…” Still perplexed, Tohka led him to her room. They had to pass through three defensive walls on par with a bank safe’s to get to her apartment, which were probably there for emergencies. For however large the building looked, her actual living space wasn’t that big.

“This is it,” Tohka said and opened a door. Inside, the setup was that of a normal apartment.

When Shido closed the door, he pointed to the hallway while standing in the entryway. “G-great! Now bring me what’s in the top drawer of your dresser!”

“Mm…? O-okay.”

Tohka tilted her head to one side, confused, while she took off her shoes, and then she came back just as Shido had instructed with a pale pink bra held casually in one hand. “Is this what you want?”

“Ngh! Y-yeah.” He didn’t have much experience looking at the underwear of a girl his age. His face turned red as he beckoned Tohka with one hand. “L-listen, Tohka. So this thing…”

It wasn’t like anyone was there listening, but he was still embarrassed somehow and lowered his voice.

After he’d whispered to her the purpose of and how to put on a bra, Tohka’s face was also red.

“Wh—?! Wh-wh-what are you talking about, Shido?!”

“Sh-shut up! It’s embarrassing for me, too, okay?!”

Tohka held up the bra with both hands and stared at it intently. “This goes…directly on my chest…?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“M-mm. Do I absolutely have to wear it?”

“…You do. Otherwise, it’d be…dicey.”

“D-dicey in what way?”

“Y-you’re probably fine right now, but if it rains or something. I mean, you know…”

After a period of shock, Tohka seemed to understand what Shido was saying, and her flushed cheeks grew even redder. If this were a manga, smoke would have been pouring out of her ears.

“Wh—?! What are you thinking?!” Tohka shrieked and covered her chest with her hands.

“Th-that’s why I’m telling you to put it on already!”

“…Mm,” she groaned as she looked at the bra again, the blush reaching up to her ears. “F-fine. I’ll try!” She trotted off down the hallway.

“Phew.” He let out a sigh of relief. “That was a close call.”

However… A few minutes later, Tohka popped her face out from the hallway. “Sh-Shido… Can you help?”

She stepped forward. For some reason, she had taken her blouse off, and now she had her arms through the sleeves backward.

“Tohka? Wh-why’s your shirt on backward?”

“H-how am I supposed to fasten this?”

“Oh…” He suddenly understood. This was her first bra. Fastening the hooks by herself was a difficult task. He considered his options.

“Nope. Don’t go racking your brains over this. Go and hook her up already.” Kotori sounded annoyed.

His face stiffened. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to argue with her, but he had no alternative proposals. He swallowed hard and then opened trembling lips. “I-I’ll fasten it for you. Turn around.”

“Wha—?!” Tohka’s eyes opened wide, but apparently, she couldn’t think of any other way, either. After a moment’s hesitation, she tentatively turned her back to Shido.

A bewitching back peeked out from the gap in her unbuttoned blouse, and he unconsciously held his breath.

“D-don’t stare…” She turned her face away, embarrassed, as she grabbed her own shoulders tightly so that she wouldn’t accidentally drop the bra.

Shido shook his head with a gasp. “I-I’ll do my best…”

Nervous, he fastened the hooks with shaky hands, chanting “Control your urges” to himself…while he resolved in his heart to make sure she had front-closure bras from now on.

“Mm… It’s kind of hard to move with this on.” Tohka fidgeted, not used to the bra.

“…Put up with it. It’s that kind of thing,” Shido told her as he put a hand to his still-overheated forehead.

“M-mm.”

They had been walking for maybe ten minutes, making awkward conversation, when he heard footsteps. Someone was running toward them just as they were approaching the T-shaped intersection.

“Hmm?” He raised an eyebrow, but by the time he turned his eyes in that direction, it was already too late.

A high school girl came at them from the right, toast hanging out of her mouth.

“I’m gonna be late!” she cried as she ran at top speed, the embodiment of a shojo trope no longer seen in modern manga. And despite the toast in her mouth, her words were perfectly clear.

“Wha—?!” He tried to pull back at the sudden arrival, but he was indeed too late. The girl tackled Shido and knocked him flat on his backside.

“Ah! Ow-ow-ow.”

“A-are you okay, Shido?!” Tohka knelt down beside him, looking worried.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He stood up and brushed himself off before turning his eyes to the girl who had crashed into him. The impact had been enough to knock even Shido, a boy, down. A girl would have been helpless to resist gravity.

“Owwww!” the girl cried out loudly, a short distance away, just as he’d feared. However…

“What the…?!” His face turned beet red, and his shoulders shook.

A natural response. Because the girl was sprawled out on the pavement with her skirt flipped up very neatly, revealing an impressive panty shot. He got the feeling that she had deliberately flipped up her skirt after falling.

“Eek?!” The girl’s shriek pushed this doubt out of his mind. She covered herself and stared at him with a flushed face. “Y-you saw, didn’t you?!”

“N-no, I mean…” Shido was at a loss for a reply.

The girl slowly stood up and came over to him. “A man has seen me. I can never get married now.”

“Huh…?! No, uh.”

The girl loomed in close to him.

“Eeah…?!” Shido yelped.

“Wha—?!” Tohka was close behind.

The girl paid this no mind and traced a finger across his chest. “You will…take responsibility for this, yes?”

“Uh. Oh, I mean, I don’t…” Shido averted his eyes, face burning. Aah, it was so hot. So, so hot.

“G-get away from him, you!” Tohka grabbed her shoulders, whirling the girl around and away from Shido.

“Please think it over, okay! Our. Future,” she said and then, for some reason, ran back in the direction she’d come from.

Tohka gaped after her, baffled for a moment, before pushing her lips out in a pout and turning her gaze on Shido.

“Wh-what’s wrong, Tohka?”

“…Nothing.” She whipped her face away and started stalking off toward the school.

“Uh. Hey, Tohka—”

Bzzzt. He heard a buzzer through his earpiece. “You’re out, Shido!”

“Huh…?” He furrowed his brow.

“What are you even doing?” Kotori sounded exasperated. “That was a horror show. And now Tohka’s pouting.”

Shido finally understood what was going on. “W-was that girl…from Ratatoskr?!”

“Yup. My crew. What? Were you happy to get hit on or something?”

“…Ugh.” His face stiffened, and he ran his hands through his hair.

“Aah, I really wonder why you can’t react well when things come your way. Or why you can’t follow up properly.”

“F-follow up?”

“Right. Like you clasp her shoulders gently and whisper in her ear, ‘Don’t sulk. There’s no way I could have eyes for a woman other than you, you know.’”

“I could never do that!” he shouted. “And as if that would cheer Tohka up!”

“Hee-hee, it might work surprisingly well. You forget what happened before? Girls want you to put your feelings into words.”

“Ngh…!”

“Come, come. Should you really be just standing there? You’ll lose sight of Tohka.”

“Ah!” He gasped and looked forward. Tohka was already gone. “Crap…”

He started running in a hurry. He found her surprisingly quickly.

She was standing around the bend with her cheeks slightly puffed out, hiding.

“T-Tohka…”

“Mm. Let’s go, Shido.” Apparently, she’d been waiting for him, but she was still grumpy.

“R-right,” Shido answered, frantically flipping through possibilities in his mind.

He swallowed hard, made up his mind, and was about to throw his arm around Tohka’s shoulders. But he couldn’t actually muster up that kind of courage. He settled for patting her shoulder awkwardly and having Tohka turn toward him.

“D-d-don’t sulk. Th-there’s no way I’d have eyes for any girl but you. You know that, right…?” He knew it was hopeless before the words were even out of his mouth, but he gave Kotori’s words a try.

“…!” Tohka’s eyes grew wide. “Wh-wh-wh-what are you talking about, Shido…?!”

“U-uh. I-I’m sorry. Just forget it…” Instantly embarrassed, he waved his hand and tried to pretend it had never happened.

“M-mm,” Tohka said, quietly for some reason, and started walking again.

He wasn’t sure, but he felt like she had a little pep to her step.

Raizen High School was about a thirty-minute walk from the Itsuka house. Shido would normally arrive at around eight o’clock, but because he’d waited for Tohka and dealt with a few extra surprises that day, he was a little later than usual.

The hands of the clock affixed to the school’s exterior wall indicated that it was 8:20. Ten minutes before homeroom started.

“Whoops. We better pick up the pace,” he said and stepped into the school entryway.

“Mm. Right.” Tohka nodded.

“Itsuka!” A tenth-grade girl lying in wait called out to him.

“Huh… Me?”

“Yes!” The girl fidgeted awkwardly before offering him what looked like a letter. “I’ve aaaaaalways had a crush on you! Please read this!”

“H-huh?!” His eyes flew open, and he stared at the object the girl had thrust out at him. An envelope sealed with a heart sticker. A stereotypical love letter. “A…! A love letter?!”

Shido took a step back but then quickly realized what was going on. After everything else that had happened that morning, there was no way this was a real girl confessing a crush. She was probably from Ratatoskr. If he didn’t firmly reject her, he was sure that buzzer would sound in his ear again and some punishment would be carried out.

He swallowed and put out a hand out to take the letter. He was going to rip it up, but the girl was staring at him with damp eyes, and he stopped unconsciously. Even if he knew she was from the organization, he did still feel bad.

He returned the letter to the girl and shook his head. “I-I’m sorry. I just don’t feel the same way.”

The girl looked about to burst into tears. “I—I guess not. I’m so sorry to spring this on you!” She whirled around and ran off down the hallway.

“Oh dear.” He heard Kotori’s voice in his ear. “What a shame.”

“Hmph. Like you’re going to trip me up with such an obvious event.”

“…We did actually have a love letter event set up, but it hasn’t started yet, you know.”

“What?” His cheeks twitched.

And then he noticed another girl peeking a frowning face out from around the corner. Like the earlier girl, she had a letter in her hand.

“I-is that…?”

“One of us.”

“…S-so then, who was that other girl?”

“If you’re lucky, you get a love letter from an underclassman once in a lifetime, and you let it slip away. Nice work on destroying things before they could even begin.”

“…” Shido let his mind race wordlessly. Huh? What is this? I don’t get it.

“Well, at least you didn’t do something as stupid as accepting a love letter in front of Tohka, so I’ll give you this one.”

“Y-yeah?” he stuttered, still dumbfounded.

“What did that girl want, Shido?” came Tohka’s curious voice from behind.

“Oh.” Shido shook his head. “N-nothing.”

“But in that case, I guess that means no penalties today?” He heard Kotori’s voice again. “Tooooo baaaaad.”

“…What were you planning to do if I failed?”

“Hmm? Oh, we were just going to hand out pictures of you taken the first time you used wax in your hair. You were peering at yourself from every angle like you were such hot stuff.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Wohkay, I got homeroom soon, too, so I’ll take my leave and head to school. Don’t go forgetting today’s training, hmm?”

The transmission ended.

“Honestly…” He sighed and walked down the hallway with Tohka.

When he opened the door and went into their classroom, his classmate Hiroto Tonomachi was scribbling on the board near the entrance. He looked over at Shido.

“Huh? What’s going on? You’re late, and now you show up with Tohka? Whoa, whoa.” He glared at Shido before roughly sketching an umbrella on the board with the chalk in his hand. Naturally, the names he wrote under it were Itsuka and Yatogami, symbolizing their love.

“What are you, five?” Shido laughed dryly.

But Tohka looked troubled as she stared at Shido and Tonomachi in turn. “M-mm. Was it bad that we came to school together? I didn’t know that.”

“N-no, totally not bad, Tohka.” Flustered, Tonomachi erased the drawing and waved his hands. “It’s more a beauty-of-form kind of thing. And I wish all the couples would blow up as a single person, myself.”

“Huh? What?” Tohka’s eyes grew wide.

“Just talking about a damn nice guy like Itsuka who’d never make a girl unhappy.”

“Hey…” He glared at Tonomachi.

But his friend didn’t so much as flinch. “We’re good!” He flashed a toothy grin.

“Mm. Really? But…I don’t want that. Shido exploding, it’s…very sad. Isn’t there anything we can do?” Tohka said, quite seriously, clearly not poking fun or making a joke.

Faced with her innocence, Tonomachi shouted, “D—! Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn!” and ran toward the hallway.

“Wh-what’s wrong with Tonomachi?” Tohka frowned.

“Oh. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be back soon,” Shido said and walked over to his seat, second row from the window.

He glanced at the desk to his left. A beautiful girl was sitting there like always. Pale skin, face somehow like a doll. She was mysterious with an aura that made her seem not of this world.

“M-morning…Tobi—”

“…”

He felt an incredible pressure.

“O-Origami.” He just barely managed to correct himself in time.

“Morning, Shido,” the girl—Origami Tobiichi—replied with a tiny nod.

The usual greeting. But it didn’t stop there that day.

Origami caught sight of Tohka over Shido’s shoulder, and her gaze sharpened. “Did you walk to school together?”

“Huh? O-oh. Y-yeah, we did.”

“You did.”

He could see no particular change in her expression or tone. But for some reason, he felt a vague threat growing.

“Mm?” Maybe noticing this aura or maybe not, Tohka set her schoolbag and lunch down on the desk next to Shido’s and turned toward Origami. “What? You need something?”

“No.”

“Hmph.” Tohka snorted, not bothering to hide her displeasure.

As a general rule, she was friendly in her interactions, but this girl alone was different. And it was actually no wonder at all.

Origami was a member of the Self-Defense Forces’ AST—the squad tasked with using force to eliminate Spirits like Tohka.

Until Shido had sealed Tohka’s power, she had indeed come up against them time and time again in seriously life-threatening battles. On top of that, Origami’s parents had been killed by a Spirit, so her hatred of and hostility toward the Spirits was on another level. It was only natural that the two girls wouldn’t be able to get along.

The bell rang.

“…! C-c’mon! It’s time for homeroom! Tohka, sit down. Okay?!”

“Mm? O-okay…” Tohka sat down obediently. For now.

Shido also settled down in his chair as he expressed his gratitude for this divine intervention from the bottom of his heart.

His scattered classmates took their seats. Tonomachi too had returned, slipping in through the rear entrance so as not to draw attention. He was surprisingly conscientious.

Soon after, the front door opened, and a small woman with curly hair and glasses stepped in. She looked just like the students, but despite her youthful appearance, she was a full-fledged member of society. Social studies teacher Tamae Okamine (aka Tama), age twenty-nine.

“Okay, hi. Good morning, everyone.” After her usual, somewhat spacey greeting, Tama moved to open the attendance book on the podium, but then her hand stopped. “Oh, that’s no good. I had an announcement for you all today.”

She looked up at them with excitement in her eyes.

“Hee-hee, it’s, well, we have a transfer student!” she cried, snapping a finger out at them and striking a pose. A clamor rose up from the class.

This was to be expected. A transfer student was a big event in school life. Everyone had gotten swept off their feet when Tohka joined their class, too.

“Mm?” Shido looked visibly confused.

Tohka had only just transferred to their class a couple of months ago (or that’s the story they were going with), so he wondered why another transfer student would be assigned to them so soon. It wasn’t like this class was noticeably smaller than any of the others.

“Okay. Come in!” Ms. Tama called out with glee, interrupting Shido’s thoughts.

The door slowly opened, and the transfer student walked through it.

Instantly, the class fell silent.

The new student was a girl. Despite the sultry season, she was wrapped tightly in a winter blazer, and her legs were hidden in black tights. Her black hair was best described as shadowlike. Long bangs hid the left half of her face, and he could only see her right eye.

But even so, he could easily tell that this girl had a bewitching appeal on par with or greater than that of Tohka, a Spirit with superhuman beauty.

The sound of the class collectively gulping reached his ears.

“Okay. Please introduce yourself,” Tama urged.

“All right.” The girl nodded gracefully, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote the name Kurumi Tokisaki in a beautiful hand on the board.

“My name is Kurumi Tokisaki.” The girl—Kurumi—continued in a voice that carried well.

“I am a Spirit.”

“…?!”

That word.

Shido felt a fist squeezing his heart tightly.

Amid the chattering students, only Tohka and Origami evinced the same reaction as he did.

Perhaps noticing this, Kurumi looked toward him and smiled briefly.

“…!”

“Uh, um, okay! That was a very idiosyncratic introduction!” Sensing that Kurumi had nothing else to say, Tama clapped her hands together to indicate that they were done. “So then, Tokisaki, would you mind sitting at that empty desk?”

“Not at all. But I have one request first.”

“Hmm? What’s that?” Teacher Tama asked.

Kurumi put a finger up to her chin. “As I’ve only just now transferred to this school, I’m unfamiliar with the campus. I’d very much appreciate it if someone could show me around. After school would be fine.”

“Oh, of course. That’s true. So then the class rep—”

Kurumi took a step forward before their teacher could finish and came to stand directly in front of Shido’s desk. “Would you mind, Shido?”

“Huh?” His pupils shrank to tiny points in surprise. “M-me…? And, like, how do you know my—?”

“Is that a no…?” A sad look came over Kurumi’s face that practically screamed that she would burst into tears if he refused.

“N-no, I mean, it’s not that…”

“All right then, it’s settled. Please and thank you very much, Shido.” She flashed him a pert smile before walking over to her seat with a light step, under the gaping stares of her new classmates.