"What's wrong?"
"Student Soga." The woman, who seemed to have picked up a little hope for life again thanks to Su Yuzu's encouragement, gazed at the girl before her... a girl who somehow looked even more ashen than she herself.
For some reason, she couldn't help feeling that Miss Soga's condition seemed to be even a touch worse.
"No——"
"It's nothing." Releasing the hand that gripped the woman's wrist, Su Yuzu shook her head with a touch of nonchalance.
Then... on the [Recruit: Yes / No] prompt, she lightly tapped [Yes].
The woman's hands, which Su Yuzu had been clasping, drooped down before her, and her once-stern gaze, when it fell upon Yuzu, seemed to soften just a little.
『How nice...』
『A girl as understanding as Soga... no, as Miss Yuzu.』
『If only I were a boy——』
『No...』
『If only I were a little younger.』
『Maybe then I, too, could muster up the courage of that Sword Princess of Erasure of the Sakura family.』
『...』
Before the woman——
Even though she knew, deep down, that it was just like flipping a coin twice in a row—whether the second toss came up heads or tails had nothing to do with the first.
But... a person's heart is always so hard to change.
After successfully Recruiting the female Operator before her, Su Yuzu couldn't shake the feeling that she had just narrowly missed her chance with Tsukiyomi Fuya.
However——
Su Yuzu had still chosen to Recruit.
The woman before her looked decent and pleasing enough to the eye.
And besides, once the Recruitment succeeded, at worst she could just leave her sitting there, like some of the low-star Operators she'd Recruited before who were only good for padding out the gacha pool.
If the day ever came when she really did need their help, having this contractual bond... might just come in handy.
Even if the Favorability between the two of them was already teetering on the brink of collapse.
She could still take the attitude of being willing to toss away a single 「Combat Records」, and use that as leverage.
"Big sis wouldn't want your colleagues to find out, now would she..."
Huh——
Why did she get the illusion that she was the villain here?
In any case.
Even without leveraging this contractual bond as a threat, she could still glean plenty of information just by observing the woman's status panel.
All benefit, no harm.
At worst, she just wouldn't Develop her, and that would be that.
Su Yuzu took a casual glance at the woman's info.
And then... she froze for a moment.
A woman clad in a black gauze dress, diving down into the depths of the sea.
She reached out a hand toward Su Yuzu beyond the character art, and behind her were sunlight and raging waves, rendered faintly iridescent by the refraction of the seawater.
The soaked gauze dress faintly revealed the alluring traces of her underwear straps.
But... what caught Su Yuzu's attention even more than those licentious traces was the look in the woman's eyes—her gaze carried a cold, biting chill, together with a kind of sacrificial resolve.
『Th... this is bad.』
Su Yuzu stared at the pitch-black sea surface behind the woman.
Just from looking at the character art, Su Yuzu felt as though she could already smell the scent of a blade.
[Akiyama Yo]
[☆☆☆☆]
[Level.27 Submersion Esper]
[Talent: Water Drawing]
[Talent: Moistened Body]
[A seasoned, mature, and dutiful investigator from Imperial Capital University's Department of Oceanography.]
[A "mature beauty" who has been single since the womb for forty-one years.]
[Although Akiyama Yo has always been trying hard to escape singlehood—and... during her tenure at Imperial Capital University, Akiyama Yo has by no means lacked for suitors—unfortunately, it seems no one has ever been able to capture the beauty's heart.]
[Initial Favorability: 21 (Friendly).]
[...]
Looking at the woman's character profile, Su Yuzu, for some reason... suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of guilt well up inside her.
Just as Saint Michael had judged, she really was a deeply sinful creature.
But... what concerned Su Yuzu more at the moment was still Akiyama Yo's character art.
That cold, biting chill in the woman's eyes, that sacrificial resolve—Su Yuzu knew it all too well, and loathed it all too much.
She was the type who would rather watch a third-rate comedy than a first-rate tragedy.
Su Yuzu hated unhappy endings.
This place might well be very dangerous.
But this should not be the woman's endpoint; there would still be many suitors to pursue her—her footsteps should not come to a halt here.
Su Yuzu suddenly felt a bit grateful that she had Recruited Akiyama Yo.
She was definitely going to change something.
There was very little information contained in the background of Akiyama Yo's character art.
There were no key landmark reefs, nor any easily recognizable markers.
On the sea surface, dappled with sunlight, all that could be faintly made out amid the raging waves was a small orange-and-white boat.
Orange and white, huh... Su Yuzu looked at the Imperial Capital University school buses around her, and some of the thoughts in her mind grew all the firmer.
"Student Soga..."
"And the rest of you students, and Ms. Unohana too——" Akiyama Yo looked at the girls. "Everyone, do get some good rest first."
"Get yourselves back in order."
She pulled out a set of table and chairs from the side of the school bus, gesturing for the girls to sit down and rest.
Then, Akiyama Yo began directing the investigators accompanying them.
Su Yuzu had just been about to fish out some desserts or the like to hand around to the girls, when she caught sight of a scene she would find hard to forget.
It was like Transformers... no—
It would be more apt to say it was like the base-construction vehicle from a game like Red Alert.
The many Imperial Capital University school buses that had been trailing behind Su Yuzu and the others formed a ring around the bus they were on, then swiftly unfolded and transformed, turning into rows upon rows of heavily-armored buildings in alternating white and orange, brimming with a mechanical aesthetic.
"This is..."
"The 「Mobile Research Campus Vehicle」."
"Seventeen 「Mobile Research Campus Vehicles」 are just enough to sustain the most basic research needs."
"When energy is sufficient, once the buildings are set down, their force fields can intercept ordinary attacks below the Third Sequence level."
"Even while in motion, the vehicles' armor can simply ignore a sea of Walking Husks and plow straight through them."
"So coooool!!!" Su Yuzu's eyes had all but turned into starry-eyed stars.
She found it hard to resist this sort of thing that looked all flashy and gaudy yet was also incredibly cool.
Inside, she even had a sort of conflicted feeling like... 『I'm sorry, my... the Soga family's little nest egg, but I really, really want this super cool thing.』
No wonder—back when she was on the bus, Su Yuzu had felt that the size of the space inside seemed a little off.
So that was it—it simply hadn't unfolded yet.
Akiyama Yo noticed the girl's gaze turning back toward the school bus they had ridden in. "Unlike the other Mobile Research Vehicles..."
"This vehicle... belongs solely to Professor Tsukiyomi."
"When it unfolds, it's a mobile astronomical observatory."
"However..." Akiyama Yo explained to Su Yuzu, "Professor Tsukiyomi is still asleep, so we won't be unfolding it for the time being."
The desire in Su Yuzu's heart to cling tightly to Tsukiyomi Fuya's thigh grew even stronger.
Beside her, Soga Yura took note of the girl's gaze.
『So that's how it is...』
『So Yuzu likes this kind of thing.』
She had already begun mulling over the budget.
Whatever Yuzu wanted... even if it were the stars, she would pluck them down for her!
—In every sense of the word.
Inside the vehicle, the woman dozing lightly while wrapped in the girl's blanket suddenly, instinctively, drew in her neck.
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 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... 😉