The date was April 20.
More specifically, it was morning, the time when students were on their way to school.
Because of that, groups of students could be seen everywhere along the road, walking toward campus in twos and threes.
The high school girls in particular made for quite a pleasant sight at this hour.
At that age, they had more or less grown into themselves.
And with those JK uniforms on, the sight of their skirt hems swaying over their legs was already eye-catching enough. Add a pair of knee-high socks, and the allure only grew stronger.
"Pffft-!"
Kurz suddenly sprayed out the breakfast drink in his mouth, because a "heavy tank" had abruptly entered his field of vision and even shyly smiled at him.
Hey, why was she walking toward him too?
Without the slightest hesitation, Kurz jumped into the truck and drove off as if he were flooring the gas pedal.
The truck he was driving had been used before dawn to deliver some things to the target school and place them in the nurse's office.
At the same time, less than fifty meters from the gates of Jindai High School, a blue-haired girl was chatting and laughing with several girls beside her.
Then suddenly -
"Wah!"
Kaname Chidori cried out as she stumbled and fell, then immediately felt a sharp sting.
"Kaname, are you okay?"
"You're bleeding!"
"I'm so sorry! I'll take you to the hospital right away!"
The short-haired woman who had accidentally knocked her over apologized in a panic.
"It's fine, really. It's just a little scrape. Don't worry about it. It'll probably be better by tomorrow."
"No, if it..."
After quite a long exchange, the short-haired woman finally stopped insisting.
"Kaname, you should at least go to the nurse's office and have the wound treated."
"Okay."
After her friend Kyoko Tokiwa urged her again, Kaname, who did not think it was a big deal, finally agreed to go get it taken care of.
Mostly because that woman had made it sound ridiculously serious. She had said that even a tiny wound, if it got infected by accident, could cause all kinds of problems.
She made it sound terrifying, saying it could lead to amputation, or a large patch of flesh rotting away from infection, leaving her leg horribly disfigured.
That absurdly overblown "warning" had scared Kaname enough that she decided she should at least go to the nurse's office and put some antiseptic on it.
When she arrived at the nurse's office -
"Um..."
Kaname stopped mid-sentence just as she was about to call out for the school nurse.
The person in front of her was not the nurse she knew, but someone else entirely: a very young-looking man.
He wore glasses and a white coat, and had a refined, intellectual air about him. He really did look like a doctor.
Had the school changed nurses?
Hm?
There was also someone else, a girl about her age.
She had rare silver hair, skin as white as snow, and exquisitely delicate features. She was unbelievably beautiful. A foreigner, maybe?
A transfer student?
No, judging by the way she was dressed. She was wearing something like a nurse's uniform, so she looked more like the school nurse's assistant.
How strange. The school had replaced the nurse without a word, and the new staff were a handsome young doctor and a beautiful assistant.
"I'm the new school nurse, Kain. And this is Miss Testarossa."
The young school nurse introduced them like that.
"Hello~"
"Hello~"
Kaname immediately returned the greeting politely to the nurse's assistant.
"You were hurt, right? Come over here. I'll treat it for you."
"Ah? You really don't need to go to all that trouble, Miss Testarossa. Just give me some antiseptic and I'll put it on myself."
"That won't do. It needs to be treated properly, otherwise..."
Great. This Miss Testarossa was just as overly anxious as that short-haired woman who had knocked her down earlier.
"Come on, Chidori. Please lie down here."
"Huh?"
Kaname stared blankly at one large piece of equipment in the nurse's office.
It looked like one of those CT scanners you saw in hospitals.
No, seriously, this was just a tiny scrape. Was there really any need to make such a huge deal out of it and run a CT scan?
And since when was a school nurse's office equipped with something like this? Wasn't that a bit too advanced?
"Oh, right. If you have any metal items on you, please take them off first."
"Um, that's really not necessary."
"It is necessary. You may think you just got knocked over and that it's nothing serious, but do you realize that the impact could have actually damaged your tailbone? And if something goes wrong there and it compresses a nerve, you could end up bedridden for life, unable to move, even losing control of your bladder and bowels."
The school nurse named Kain said this with a grave expression, even pulling up a few cases on the nearby computer.
Kaname was thoroughly intimidated.
"I-I understand."
So she obediently cooperated.
Even though she still felt a little suspicious, this was the school, not some private clinic.
In a place like this, they probably were not about to do anything shady.
Kaname took a few things out of her pockets, then lay down as instructed, and the machine that looked like a CT scanner began to operate.
About five minutes later -
"All done, Chidori~"
"Okay."
The nurse named Testarossa helped her sit up.
The machine was narrow, just wide enough for one person to lie on, so getting up from it was a little awkward without a good place to brace herself.
"Mm, you look perfectly healthy. No problems."
After the school nurse said that, he handed her something.
"This is...?"
Kaname looked puzzled. It was not the usual sort of medicine for external wounds. Inside was a white liquid, thick and flowing.
"This is oral medicine. Drink it and you'll recover very quickly."
That made Kaname suspicious. They were not using students as test subjects for some experiment, were they?
"Chidori, you're not thinking we're experimenting on you, are you?"
With that, he took out another bottle, opened both of them, and poured half of each into the other before drinking the mixed contents himself.
Kaname blinked for a moment, then understood.
"No thanks. I'd still prefer the usual topical medicine for cuts."
In the end, he really did give her the kind of medicine she wanted, but he also gave her the oral one.
He said that if she ever suffered a more serious injury, it might come in handy.
And since it was small and easy to carry, Kaname stopped refusing and accepted it before leaving.
"That really was too obvious. Too deliberate. Chidori probably suspects Melissa bumped into her on purpose just to make her come to the nurse's office."
Tessa said this with a slightly troubled expression.
And the machine in the nurse's office was, in fact, equipment related to determining whether someone was one of the Whispered.
Even though Kain had already said Chidori was Whispered, making this test seem unnecessary, it was not actually just a simple examination.
The device would gradually cause hidden black technology to surface within Chidori's mind.
That would also make her realize that she was not normal.
It would shatter her ordinary life a little. In a way, it was rather cruel.
But since Chidori was Whispered, and since she was already being targeted, it meant that living a truly normal daily life was going to be almost impossible for her anyway.
If the enemy captured her later and forced that black technology to surface, they would not be nearly so gentle. It would cause her intense pain.
So it was better for their side to guide it out slowly instead, like forgotten memories from childhood gradually resurfacing due to some trigger later in life, without causing any real harm to body or mind.
And once awakened, she would become smarter too, able to face danger with greater calm and composure.
Looking at the scan data on the laptop, data that only Tessa could understand, she confirmed it.
Kaname Chidori was indeed one of the Whispered.
"So she is Whispered?"
Kain could not read the data himself, but from Tessa's reaction, it was obvious that this confirmed it.
And the reason he had given Kaname the Earth Elixir was naturally to improve her physical condition, so that if she encountered something dangerous, she would be in better shape to handle it than an ordinary person.
The Tessa before him had already taken it as well.
"Mm."
Tessa nodded.
At the same time, the bell signaling the start of class rang out, and under normal circumstances nobody would be coming to the nurse's office now.
That meant their free time was exactly the time she would use to undergo training.
(End of Chapter)
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