Chapter 7: How Did Things End Up Like This?

Usobuki Raika — Affection Level 2 Voice

"Huh? How to get cigarettes? Ah, you don't know? —There's a secret merchant around here. Unlike the school store, this shady merchant deals in adult merchandise. Wanna meet them? You want some, right? —The finest, most erotic doujinshi. …………Heh. Obviously I'm fucking with you, dumbass!"

The sound of bamboo swords clashing echoed throughout the kendo dojo. I desperately watched her movements, barely managing to fend off her attacks.

Spending time crossing swords with Hazuki was exhausting, but it was by no means unpleasant.

I could tell that I was slowly getting better.

I was starting to see the movements of Hazuki's sharp sword. I could predict her next strike from the way her body moved. Once I could do that, I could start thinking about ways to counterattack.

And yet, I still couldn't reach her.

"──Too slow."

"Ngh!"

The wooden sword slipped effortlessly past mine and came straight for my face. Hazuki's foot slid across the floor.

I tried to retreat, but the tip of her sword caught my face before I could get away.

WHACK!

The impact traveled through my protective gear.

Realizing I had lost, I lowered my wooden sword.

Once we'd reached a stopping point, Hazuki and I decided to take a break.

Sitting on the dojo floor and chatting together had gradually become a habit for the two of us.

"…Another perfectly clean point, huh? Maybe trying to force my way through was a mistake."

"No, it was not a mistake. You are a man, and I am a woman. Challenging me to a contest of strength was the correct choice."

"Hazuki, you're really not bothered by that kind of thing?"

It felt like an attitude pretty far removed from fighting fair and square. Yet Hazuki's expression remained perfectly calm.

"This is training for a fight to the death, not a sport. Use whatever means are available to you. Though, if I had been using my Matoi-hime powers, I would have blown you straight out of the dojo."

"That's terrifying. I'd die!"

As she spoke in her usual matter-of-fact tone, she handed me my bottle like she always did. I thanked her and accepted it, while she silently put her own bottle to her lips.

I did the same. The sweetness of the sports drink seeped into my exhausted body.

As I screwed the cap back on, Hazuki spoke up in a stern tone.

"Hey, Shota. The reason you've been spending so much time with me and trying to learn more about me is because Raika said something to you, isn't it?"

She had hit the nail squarely on the head, and I was thrown into a panic.

"…It has nothing to do with what someone else wanted."

"That's a lie. No, partially true and partially a lie. Raika's words were what brought you to me, but now you interact with me because that is what you genuinely want."

"……"

Yeah. Hazuki really was sharp.

I'm good at seeing through lies, but I'm not particularly good at telling them.

At this point, the reasonable thing to do was to be honest. I'd never been good at lying when it really mattered, so I decided to tell her the truth.

"It's true that Raika asked me to keep an eye on you. But she didn't tell me anything beyond that. All she said was that she was worried about you."

"That overprotective idiot…"

There was an anger on Hazuki's face unlike anything I'd ever seen before.

"Let me correct one misunderstanding. I do not need the helping hand Raika seems to think I need. You do not need to save me. Raika has already saved me."

She had perfectly guessed the very word Raika had used: "save."

Apparently, Hazuki saw right through what Raika had asked me to do.

Hazuki looked at me with piercing eyes. There was a clear resolve in her expression.

"I once became obsessed with seeing my convictions through to the very end. From the outside, I had become consumed by what seemed like madness, causing everyone worry and trouble. But thanks to Raika, the cloudiness in my eyes has cleared."

There was no lie in her words. She was looking straight at me.

After thinking for a moment, I decided to give her my honest opinion.

"No, even so, Hazuki still seems a little twisted to me. Like you're trying too hard to be righteous. Or maybe you're too single-minded about your mission. Too… uncompromising. Something like that."

"I see. No, perhaps you're right. …Even so, Raika's judgment is mistaken. I no longer need anyone else's help. I've already received more than enough."

Her eyes, filled with an unwavering light, pierced straight through me as she declared:

"The one who truly needs saving is Raika. I want you to save Raika—the Raika who keeps charging forward, unable to resolve the distortion within herself."

"…Why do you think that?"

"She has been obsessed with the same things all this time. Helping me and everyone else. …And then something else I don't really understand. She lives solely for those things."

Honestly, I hadn't sensed anything that twisted about her.

But I couldn't believe Hazuki was lying. I couldn't imagine that her assessment was wrong when she'd been beside Raika all this time.

Once I thought about it that way, I remembered Raika's figure as she casually smoked, trailing violet smoke into the air.

The way she'd absentmindedly followed the drifting smoke with her eyes. Those dark, clouded eyes.

I'd been so easily fooled by her carefree attitude that I hadn't considered it before.

Maybe she had been troubled by something, too.

"Come to think of it, maybe I didn't know Raika at all."

"She's good at lying. Even among the Matoi-hime, a group full of liars, she's among the very best. It's infuriating. She has a habit of exposing our true feelings as though she can see right through us, yet she refuses to show us anything about herself."

Come to think of it, I knew almost nothing about Raika herself.

I didn't know her age. She was constantly lying. She was always thinking about her comrades.

In the end, I had almost no information about what was going on inside her.

Wasn't that actually pretty strange?

I'd had countless private conversations with her and thought we'd grown closer through them. But in reality, maybe Raika had barely told me anything about who she really was.

I remembered those empty, pitch-black eyes.

The distortion I'd only noticed because Hazuki pointed it out.

I couldn't help but find out for myself.

"I'll talk to Raika properly one more time. I don't know whether she actually needs saving, but I'd like to get to know her a little better. After everything she's done for me, it'd be strange for me to know so little about her."

It wasn't just Hazuki she'd helped. She'd helped me, too.

When I'd been suddenly brought here and was feeling completely alone, she'd flashed me a sly grin and reached out her hand.

So if she needed help, I wanted to help her. At the very least, I wanted to listen to what she had to say.

That was how I honestly felt. There wasn't a trace of a lie in it.

"That's for the best. …No. I'm asking you to do it, too."

Hazuki lowered her head ever so slightly as she agreed.

◇

The moment I heard my smartphone's notification sound, I immediately checked the screen.

Immediate confirmation, immediate reply—that was one of the fundamentals of being a working adult. You could say it was practically an instinct that had been drilled into me.

The message was from the Protagonist-kun.

I'd been thinking, "What, is he finally about to tell me he's dating Hazuki?" only to be completely blindsided.

『Want to go into town together this Sunday?』

"──What the hell are you trying to romance me for, you dumbass?!"

You Need to Romance a Proper Heroine!

　〈TIPS〉Despite her usual behavior and the things she says, Usobuki Raika has a strangely strict side when it comes to common sense, manners, and proper etiquette.

And then came Sunday morning. I was at the meeting place.

"How did things end up like this…?"

The Protagonist-kun had been strangely persistent, and in the end, I'd agreed to go with him… Since things had come to this, I'd decided to drag Hazuki into it and make it a three-person outing, but she had simply replied, "Go on a proper date with him."

What the hell? How does Hazuki know that the Protagonist-kun was going to ask me out on a date?

I can't read him… I can't read the unpredictable actions of adolescent boys and girls at all.

I casually checked the wristwatch I'd worn on the inside of my wrist. Ten minutes early. Had I arrived a little too soon?

From the wristwatch down, I'd made sure I was dressed like a reasonably normal girl, at least to the bare minimum. A white cardigan draped loosely over me. A clean-looking skirt that fell to around my knees.

I didn't need to worry about my figure. I was naturally slim, so there was no problem there.

Observing the appropriate dress code for the time, place, and occasion was simply part of being a responsible working adult.

As a woman going out in public, I had to put in at least the minimum amount of effort into my appearance. …I was extremely unhappy about this and wanted nothing more than to go home right now, though.

"Ah, sorry. Have you been waiting long?"

I raised my head at the sound of the Protagonist-kun's voice, which I felt like I hadn't heard in a while.

"No. You're early. There's no problem."

I looked at him in his unfamiliar casual clothes.

It was somewhat refreshing. But seeing some guy's clothes didn't exactly excite me. Even though my body had become female, I had no intention of becoming a woman on the inside as well.

"Raika, when you dress like that, you kind of look like a normal girl."

"Zero points. Do you want to get yourself killed? That's a completely unacceptable response to seeing a woman in nice clothes. Go back and redo your life from your previous incarnation."

"No, but you look totally different! Your whole vibe is different. Even your eyes look a little less dead!"

"It's called a dress code. Who goes out with a gloomy expression on their face?"

For a liar like me, manipulating my expression was child's play. It's just that when I acted naturally, I ended up looking like a lifeless corpse.

"But you really came here alone…"

I was confused because I couldn't figure out what he was trying to accomplish.

"Well, yeah. I was thinking that even though you've helped me out so much, we haven't really talked about each other at all. You said it yourself, didn't you? That Matoi-hime and Anchors should get to know each other better."

"Haa… I'm an exception. I don't need your help."

Is this guy the type who takes everything a teacher says completely literally? Obviously, I'd only said that so he would get closer to Hazuki.

"But you're the one who told me to help Hazuki, even though she said she didn't need help."

"Children should be helped whether they ask for it or not."

"You're different?"

"I'm in my late twenties."

I declared it with a smug grin, but he gave me a skeptical look.

"Raika, you're a liar, after all. Isn't it possible that you're actually just the age you look?"

"Who knows? …Anyway, I haven't heard anything about it, but where were you planning to go?"

I changed the subject and asked him, and he gave a small nod.

"I do have a plan, but what kind of things do you like, Raika?"

"Huh? Me? …No, nothing in particular."

"Really? Then what do you do on your days off?"

"I go talk with the people in charge of managing the Matoi-hime. They can't enter combat zones, so I have to keep them updated on the situation. It'd be a real problem if we didn't have support when something happened."

"I see. Sounds like a lot of work."

We continued talking as we walked toward the station.

"In our group, there's no one else to do it besides me."

"Are you sure? I don't think everyone is necessarily bad at talking."

"Really? Let's start with Victoria. She's hopeless. All she talks about is her Evil Eye and Evil Dragon."

"Y-Yeah, that's true…"

She was constantly suffering from a severe case of chūnibyō, and she acted like that whenever she talked to anyone. It was rare for an actual conversation to take place.

"But I've gradually started to understand what Victoria is saying. Her way of speaking is unusual, but I think she's actually a pretty sensible girl."

"Oh, you managed to have a conversation with Victoria? That's good. Did you pin her down already?"

"P-Pin her down…? I didn't pin her down! Do you think I'm some kind of beast who pins down every girl I meet!?"

"But judging by your reaction, you did pin her down, didn't you?"

The Protagonist-kun fell silent.

Looks like I hit the mark.

"Ahh, so you pinned a girl down. It might have been an accident, but that's a serious responsibility. So how are you going to take responsibility, Mr. Harem King?"

"W-Well, if you put it that way, I've also ended up pinning you down, so are you saying I have to take responsibility for that?"

"That has nothing to do with this, you dumbass!"

Just remembering it irritated me, and having him bring it up himself made me furious.

I could tell from the circumstances that it had been an accident. But the way he'd gotten so close and then blushed while looking at me had made me feel like I'd somehow been dragged into a romantic comedy, and it had given me goosebumps.

"Listen. There isn't even a one-percent chance of me becoming your heroine. So before you waste your time talking to me, go deepen your relationships with the other girls."

"I don't get along with everyone because I want to become their boyfriend, though."

"What did you say? Are you trying to say those girls aren't cute!?"

"No, I didn't say that…"

"Are your eyes painted on!? Hazuki is cute because she's so serious and hardworking. Mana is cute because she's emotional despite always trying to rationalize everything. Hibari is cute because her eyes are always sparkling. And Victoria is cute because, despite all her bizarre behavior, she's actually really kind!"

"Ah, yeah. Sorry?"

The Protagonist-kun looked at me with slightly uncomfortable eyes.

Satisfied that he'd understood, I snorted and pressed my electronic payment card against the ticket gate.