The brim of the peaked cap was already jammed up against her head, and Su Yuzu's hands braced behind her on the shoe cabinet.
Somehow the positions had flipped again — now it was Kujou Iruka pinning Su Yuzu.
As if all it would take was Kujou Iruka putting the tiniest — well, a hundred-million-times-tinier — bit of weight on Su Yuzu's shoulder, and Su Yuzu would go limp right there against the cabinet.
She stared into those deep blue eyes, nothing at all like Kujou Katora's, brimming with pure big-sister presence.
Deep inside them she could almost catch a glint of something brilliant and blazing.
Th-th-th-this — and she was still expected to give an opinion?
"G-gorgeous."
Su Yuzu was fairly sure she had never been bullied this badly in her life.
But... a big sister in a military-style uniform really was gorgeous.
Impossibly sharp. Impossibly dashing.
That long-hemmed coat on top, and a lower half that looked like it had nothing on it but stockings and no trousers at all — that was a whole other flavor of lewd.
Her eyes refused to move away.
Being pinned to the floor by a big sister like this, having her murmur right against your ear — honestly, that almost counted as a treat.
Hearing the girl's near-trembling voice, Kujou Iruka didn't pull back. Quite the opposite—
She had the air of someone pressing in closer and closer.
Su Yuzu could feel the texture of the open woolen jacket against her, and...
Beneath the soft sweatshirt, the lovely, stirring lines of Kujou Iruka's body.
As a top-tier Aberrant, Kujou Iruka's figure wasn't like the little rabbit's, or Tsukiyomi Fuya-senpai's — the type whose frame seemed impossibly soft while still being sweetly, achingly shapely.
The impression Kujou Iruka's body gave Su Yuzu was closer to Sakai Miho, once she'd finished growing up.
"Perfect—"
That was the whole of it.
Su Yuzu looked into those deep blue eyes, so close now they were practically pressed to her face, forcing her to bend her waist back until she was nearly folded into a backbend.
With nowhere left to escape, she shut her eyes and all but shouted, "Gorgeous!"
"Super gorgeous!"
"You're the most gorgeous of all!"
A smile spread across Kujou Iruka's face.
The corners of those vivid lips curved up at a subtly amused angle.
She stroked Su Yuzu's cheek, brushed the trembling strands of the girl's hair, and let her fingertip settle at the corner of Su Yuzu's mouth, as though tracing the shape of her lips.
"Do you like it?"
"Eh?" Su Yuzu opened her eyes, blank.
She looked at Kujou Iruka, pressed so close, so very close, as if she hadn't understood the question at all.
"I said—" Kujou Iruka's fingertip pressed in, degree by degree, as if to mold that small face into whatever shape pleased her.
"Do you like it?"
That poise of hers — the disdain of someone who reigned supreme above heaven and below it — left Su Yuzu with a genuinely strange impression.
"I don't care how those ants look at me."
"I changed clothes only because you told me to."
"And now that I've changed..."
"the only thing I care about is whether you think it looks good."
Kujou Iruka hadn't said a word of it, and this was only the first time the two of them had ever met, but... that strange conviction settled in Su Yuzu all the same.
Ordinary people—
In front of Kujou Iruka, they were insects.
They didn't even qualify to be toyed with, to be kept as her playthings.
She simply wanted to bully and play with the cute little kouhai in front of her.
The "Throne"... of this era.
"I like it..." Su Yuzu's voice sank lower and lower.
"Good, then." Her fingers went on flicking back and forth over Su Yuzu's defenseless earlobe a moment longer before Kujou Iruka released the girl's face. She straightened up, caught Su Yuzu's small hand, and pulled her toward the door.
Su Yuzu's legs still felt a little weak.
But... Su Yuzu was, after all, Su Yuzu.
If it had been Soga Yura instead, by now she'd have had no choice but to let Kujou Iruka carry her out the door.
Deep in the night, carried through the streets by a big sister in military dress.
That would be Shame play on the level of a public execution.
Though... Su Yuzu's present situation wasn't looking all that much better.
Stumbling, she let Kujou Iruka drag her out. Her eyes went on their own to the security camera blinking red in the corridor, and she reached back to pull the dorm door shut.
And Kujou Iruka—
She looked straight up at that camera without a shred of fear, and even gave it a smile weighted with meaning.
She was Kujou Iruka.
A Seventh Sequence Aberrant.
An existence on par with a natural disaster.
Though~ to the poor little thing behind her, she was more of a man-made one.
Alone, she could bring a city down.
Reduce the whole of it to wasteland.
Back then, Saint Michael had sacrificed herself, burning her own life as the trigger for the [Word of Command], just to keep Kujou Iruka — still only Sixth Sequence at the time — outside the city limits.
But now... that irritating woman was dead.
There wasn't a single soul in this city who could survive one exchange with her.
Click. Clack.
Boot heels struck crisp against the steps as Su Yuzu followed Kujou Iruka down.
There was an elevator, but... this wasn't so bad either.
As they reached the ground floor, Su Yuzu caught the noise of girls in the lobby, arms linked, horsing around.
Her body went taut on reflex.
Kujou Iruka felt the girl's tension, naturally.
In the stairwell, people were coming toward them.
Su Yuzu could already picture the little game Kujou Iruka would play — shoving her up against the wall in a kabedon on purpose, right in front of a Senpai or a kouhai.
Exactly like... what she herself had done to Saint Michael.
The moment Kujou Iruka's footsteps stopped, Su Yuzu's pulse climbed, and climbed, and climbed again.
But... Kujou Iruka only drew Su Yuzu aside to make room for the girls coming up.
That cluster of girls looked at Kujou Iruka, then at Su Yuzu — hand held by Kujou Iruka, working very hard to keep her face cold — and their eyes lit right up.
Huge news!!!
Su Yuzu-senpai and... some Senpai nobody recognized!!!
But this Senpai was so dashing, too.
And... it was so rare to catch Su Yuzu-senpai looking like this... like she was the one getting bullied.
They badly wanted to stay and gawk, maybe even trail the two of them.
In the end, though, the girls only kept their bright, burning stares fixed on Su Yuzu as they climbed the stairs one slow step at a time.
Only once that group of kouhai had gone up did Kujou Iruka turn and lean in against Su Yuzu's ear.
Su Yuzu went rigid at once.
The hand resting on Kujou Iruka's waist clenched tight around the wool of her jacket.
Kujou Iruka's left hand traced over Su Yuzu's face, slowly drawing the girl's stiff mouth upward into a curve.
"Smile—"
"Make it real."
"I don't like seeing that cold face of yours."
It wasn't about liking or disliking.
It was an order.
A captor's order to a hostage.
In other words—
She just liked watching Su Yuzu get bullied.
Su Yuzu managed a small, miserable smile.
What else could she say?
After all, the woman in front of her had just done her the courtesy of not turning her into a humiliating spectacle in front of a crowd of kouhai.
But before Su Yuzu could let out that breath of relief—
she saw them. Behind Kujou Iruka, a pair of beautiful crimson eyes, staring straight at her.
A pair of... Soga clan eyes, staring straight at her.
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