"Gwah! You set me up!" Mizuno shot Agnes Tachyon a furious glare.
"Hehe, how is that 'setting you up'?" Tachyon spread her hands innocently. "I just listed Scarlet-chan's good points—you agreed. That has nothing to do with me~"
"Ugh…" He had no comeback.
It was sneaky, sure, but in the end, he'd been careless.
If he'd stayed alert, spotted her angle sooner, and chosen his words more carefully, he wouldn't have stepped right into her verbal trap…
"Um… Mizuno-san…" Daiwa Scarlet clutched his hand, eyes shining with hope, her chest rising and falling with anxious breaths. "Are you really willing to become my trainer?"
"Ah…" He looked at her, racking his brain for what he'd just said.
He remembered starting with "Of course…" but he'd caught himself before finishing. There was still room to recover!
"Ahem…" Mizuno cleared his throat, hurrying to clarify.
"Actually, what I meant was… I'd be happy to help you find a really good doctor."
"And besides…" he went on,
"Scarlet-san, you didn't actually fall gravely ill and need to become my Uma Musume to recover—like Tachyon-san claimed—did you?"
"Guu…" Scarlet's ears, twitching moments ago, drooped at once, her face crumpling with hurt.
But a few seconds later she rallied, turning away with a haughty huff:
"Hmph~ Fine. If you don't want to, forget it! It's not like I'm desperate to be your Uma Musume or anything…"
Even so, she squeezed his hand tighter, clearly unwilling to let go.
"Who says she's not sick?" Tachyon cut in, jabbing a sleeve-covered finger at Mizuno's nose. "Wasn't Scarlet-chan and Vodka-chan's personality swap entirely your fault?"
"Urk…" Mizuno bowed his head, speechless.
She wasn't wrong. This mess was on him.
Sensing his guilt, Tachyon set a hand on his shoulder, her expression turning wicked as she pressed on:
"You've caused these two adorable kids so much trouble—practically derailing their lives. Of course you need to take responsibility!"
"Exactly!" Vodka, who'd also been faking sleep, sat up and pressed his hand to her flat chest so he could feel her racing heartbeat. "You've made such a deep impression on me… I'll never forget you for the rest of my life…"
"Ugh…" Confronted by one of his victims, Mizuno hunched even lower.
"And so…" Tachyon leaned close, whispering in his ear like the devil on his shoulder, "See how it is…?"
Mizuno trembled, overwhelmed by shame.
"Your sins are so heavy that even giving your whole life wouldn't be enough to repay them~"
"Hehe~" Eyes narrowing in satisfaction, Tachyon kept pushing:
"All we're asking is that you temporarily become their trainer until the personality swap is resolved. Compared to your entire life, that's extremely lenient!"
"That's right!" Vodka chimed in, pressing his palm even more firmly against her chest. "I want to be your Uma Musume and form a lifelong bond with you!"
"Hmph~" Scarlet kept her face turned away in feigned disdain, though she couldn't help sneaking glances at him. "Well, if you insist, I might consider letting you be my trainer."
Under the onslaught, Mizuno could only bow his head and apologize over and over. "Uu… I'm sorry…"
"Hehe~" Seeing her moment, Tachyon went in for the kill:
"So, Mizuno-san, to atone for your sins, will you become Scarlet-chan and Vodka-chan's trainer?"
"I'm wil—wait, no!" Mizuno snapped out of it, head jerking up as he glared at the trio. "Scarlet-san and Vodka-san's personalities… didn't they already go back to normal?!"
The tsundere Scarlet and the straightforward Vodka—that was how they originally were.
"Huh? Yeah, so what?" Scarlet and Vodka blinked, honestly confused.
After watching Mizuno risk his life in the warehouse yesterday, their wish had been granted; their personalities had reverted hours ago.
So what was Mizuno's point now?
They didn't get it at all—but Tachyon did.
"Ahaha, well…" Tachyon turned away, sleeve lifted to block his view as she frantically winked at the two juniors.
"?" No matter how exaggerated her signals got, Scarlet and Vodka remained hopelessly clueless.
"Enough!" Mizuno barked, staring at Tachyon in disbelief. "You were trying to trick me again?!"
"Sigh…" With her scheme exposed yet again, Tachyon palmed her forehead and shot the two a withering look.
These kids were way too honest—no guile at all. If they'd just pretended their swap was still in effect, they would've had him as their trainer by now…
"This failure will be good data for next time." Tachyon pulled a notebook and pen from her pocket and calmly began recording the reasons her plan had flopped.
"You scheming little—!" Mizuno seethed. The fact she felt zero remorse made his blood boil.
If Symboli Rudolf was the type to drag a trainer into her basement with brute force, then Agnes Tachyon was the kind who'd drug you in the dark—smiling as she slipped in the knife.
Now he truly understood why officers in history hated civil officials: not only were they glib, they also plotted treachery behind your back.
Honestly, he'd rather be tied to a bed and Uma Pyoi'd by President Rudolf herself than get framed by Tachyon and handed over to Scarlet and Vodka without even realizing it.
"Phew…" He exhaled in relief and looked at the two innocently bewildered girls.
Good thing they were honest enough for him to notice something was off and catch Tachyon's setup. Otherwise, his Uma Musume count would've jumped straight to five.
And everyone knew five was a death sentence.
Anyone with sense knew: training five Uma Musume at once was suicide.
Besides, Mizuno was a rookie with barely two months on the job. He still had a lot to learn. Taking on five at once meant he couldn't guarantee caring for each properly.
If any Uma Musume failed to reach her dream because of his negligence, he'd never forgive himself.
So the smart move was to persuade these two to find a better-qualified trainer.
But first, there was something even more important he had to settle with Agnes Tachyon.
"Tachyon-san, since their problem's been solved, per our agreement, shouldn't you give me the antidote now?" he demanded.
"Antidote for what?" Tachyon tapped her pen against her lip, all innocence.
"The Want-to-Love Potion…" Mizuno cut through her act at once, naming the crucial item outright.
"Oh~ You mean that thing~?" Tachyon said with an exaggerated look of realization.
But even though she clearly knew exactly what Mizuno meant, she made no move to hand anything over. Instead, she gestured toward Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka—both watching Mizuno expectantly—and smiled sweetly.
"You see, these two already want to form a trainer relationship with you. To an Uma Musume, that's basically entrusting her entire life to someone. Given that, what would you even need the antidote to the Want-to-Love Potion for?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?!" Mizuno's gut dropped; trouble was coming.
"I mean exactly what I said." Tachyon snapped her notebook shut, chuckling. "I'm not giving you the antidote."
"Gwah—!"
He'd figured she wouldn't hand it over easily—this was Agnes Tachyon, infamous black-market dealer and expert schemer. She'd obviously want to milk him for more profit, or maybe even get back at him for helping Rudolf raid her lab.
But this? She'd never planned to give it to him at all?!
"Hey! If you don't give me the antidote, aren't you worried your precious kouhai will suffer because of me in a few days?!" Mizuno shot back, desperate. "You know what kind of degenerate I am! Every Uma Musume I touch ends up corrupted—thinking about Uma Pyoi twenty-four seven! Can you really stand by and watch Scarlet-san and Vodka-san turn into hopeless perverts, their dreams completely ruined?!"
He threw every ounce of energy into pleading his case—but Tachyon had long since finished analyzing him through her "data collection." She'd already heard from the girls what kind of person he really was.
"Not really afraid~" Tachyon said casually, shaking her head.
"When it's a human up against an Uma Musume, who ends up suffering more is still debatable, don't you think?"
Then she glanced toward Scarlet and Vodka, raising a teasing eyebrow. "Besides, I'm pretty sure they'd both be very happy about it~"
"D-Damn it…!"
The image hit him like a sledgehammer—him, under the potion's influence, forcing himself on two young, innocent Uma Musume. Guilt flooded him, crawling beneath his skin like fire ants.
If that really happened… the only way to atone would be death.
"…" Mizuno slumped weakly against the headboard, eyes closing in despair.
"What's wrong?" Scarlet asked, worried. She didn't quite follow what Tachyon and Trainer-san were talking about, but she could tell he seemed unbearably sad.
"It's nothing… It's just that, in three or four days, I'll have to go somewhere far away," he murmured.
"Somewhere far away? Can we come too?" Vodka asked innocently.
"No. Absolutely not." He shook his head at once.
Because the place he meant wasn't just far—it was somewhere he'd never come back from.
Better to bury himself quietly than let the potion turn him into a monster who'd scar them forever.
"Hehe~" Watching his grim resolve, Tachyon quietly gave him an "A" on her internal evaluation chart.
This guy's trustworthy.
"Alright, alright~ I was just joking." Tachyon threw an arm around his shoulders, grinning. "The so-called 'Want-to-Love Potion' was completely made up. I never even developed such a thing."
"Besides, even if I had created a real one, do you really think I'd give it to you—a guy whose true character I barely knew—and let you assault poor Scarlet-chan?"
"Really?" Mizuno eyed her suspiciously.
Understandable. She'd already fooled him twice. His trust level was hovering around zero.
He stared hard, searching her face for any hint of deceit—but Tachyon didn't so much as flinch. In fact, she elaborated patiently, as if explaining a scientific paper.
"I had no reason to lie. Just last week I was still failing to synthesize even a halfway-functional antidote to your Uma Mint condition, while also struggling to fix Scarlet-chan's personality issue. Where would I find the time to invent something as complex as a Want-to-Love Potion?"
"The potion I gave you was just a standard nutritional supplement. I only said it was an aphrodisiac that would take effect in a week, to motivate you to complete your assignment quickly."
"And the reason I didn't give you the antidote," she said matter-of-factly, "is simply because no such antidote exists."
"Really?" he asked again, still unsure.
"Really." Tachyon nodded firmly.
Then, glancing between Mizuno and the two Uma Musume still holding his hands, she smiled cryptically.
"But now that you mention it, a real 'Want-to-Love Potion' sounds like a fascinating research direction. It could prove useful one day…"
"Hey! I'm warning you—don't research anything illegal like that!" Mizuno swallowed hard. "And even if you do make it, don't use it on me!"
"Hehe, no promises~" Tachyon slipped off the bed and turned to face him, her tone shifting back to business.
"Oh, right—are you really refusing to become Scarlet-chan and Vodka-chan's trainer?"
At that, Mizuno suddenly felt three scorching gazes on him, sharp as needles digging into his skin. The hands Scarlet and Vodka held tightened until they hurt.
"Uh…" He broke into a cold sweat.
Why did it feel like if he said no right now, he wasn't leaving this lab alive?
But saying yes wasn't an option either. The last thing he wanted was to show up before Urara and the others after a few days away and announce he'd somehow gained two more Uma Musume.
Carefully, Mizuno weighed his words before answering:
"Scarlet-san and Vodka-san are both very talented Uma Musume. Unfortunately, I'm still inexperienced—and with my current condition, I can't make that kind of decision right now. Please let me think it over first."
"Hehe~ what a cautious response." Tachyon hid her smile behind her sleeve, crimson eyes glinting mischievously.
"In that case… how about we make a deal?"