Prologue

Counterattack

“…Why is this happening?” Shido muttered, despair in his heart, and blinked as he reviewed his current situation.

He saw two girls before him. One was willful, her bright hair tied back. The corners of her adorable mouth turned up slightly, and a daring smile spread across her beautiful face. His eyes traced the figure of her slender body from the base of her neck to the pop of her collarbone, and it aroused in him somehow the desire to protect her, which seemed very much at odds with her audacious behavior.

“Keh-keh…Shido. What troubles your heart? You merely need to choose your master. Which is me. Kaguya Yamai. Do so, and I shall grant you your every wish, hmm?” The girl—Kaguya—stretched out a graceful hand like an actor playing a part and nudged Shido’s chin up. This simple gesture sent an electric current shooting through Shido’s brain.

But that was not the end of it.

The other girl’s face was so much like Kaguya’s that she could have been her doppelgänger. Hair twisted in a braid, somehow listless eyes. Her body projected a sensuality that unconsciously drew the eye.

“Temptation. Shido, choose me—Yuzuru—over Kaguya. I will show you pleasures Kaguya’s meager body couldn’t possibly.” She stroked Shido’s cheeks with a fingertip, and the sultriness of it made Shido freeze unconsciously.

“Hah… Stop right there. Your paltry offering is only troubling Shido.”

“Scorn. Knowing you can’t win with a frontal attack, you come pick at how I comport myself. Pathetic.”

Kaguya and Yuzuru glared at each other and then turned their eyes on Shido at the exact same moment as they each extended a hand to him simultaneously.

“Now, Shido.”

“Question. Whom do you choose?”

“Oh, uh, I mean, I don’t know what to say…” Shido took a step back, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

“Then you should say…I am the cuter one, yes?”

“Question. Is Yuzuru…not enough?”

They pressed Shido for an answer, eyes turned up at him.

“Unh…” He was confused and full of questions. He had indeed agreed to tackle the Spirits in order to save them. And yet for some reason, he was currently being tackled by said Spirits.

He dodged the question with a vague smile, but that only made the girls reach out to him even more insistently.

“Now. Which of us?”

“Petition. Please make your selection, Shido.”