Even the Aberrants were celebrating her birthday — hers and Soga Yura's?
What kind of insufferably self-important person would even think something like that.
But… if the person thinking it was Su Yuzu, somehow it all seemed perfectly reasonable.
Jokes aside, Su Yuzu genuinely turned the thought over in her mind — what had actually happened during those two days? Her birthday, and Soga Yura's.
On the day itself, she'd dragged Soga Yura and all the girls she was close with out to the commercial street for a proper celebration. And in the evening… the evening had been the Soga family banquet.
She'd gotten bored, gone up to the observation deck to look at the view, then brought Soga Yura back with her to Sister's room. And served as Sister's real-life body pillow for the night.
The second day had been nothing but lazing around with Soga Yura from morning to night.
Those two days had been almost aggressively normal. Clear skies, gentle breeze, not a single alert, not one Aberrant barging through the door. The weather forecast had mentioned light rain in some areas, but even the sunlight had been golden and warm.
Su Yuzu genuinely could not find a single thing out of the ordinary.
Leaving Keigunen Private Academy, Su Yuzu boarded the train heading for Imperial Capital University.
She knew this route by heart. She'd taken it more times than she could count.
Back before she and Soga Yura had reconciled, Su Yuzu used to ride this same line often — carrying a freshly made bento or a tin of still-warm homemade cookies — and wait outside Imperial Capital University's front gate for Soga Yura, or Sakura Mai, or any of Soga Yura's other classmates.
The two sisters looked remarkably alike. Apart from a subtle difference in height, and… a few other more pronounced differences, they might as well have been stamped from the same mold.
Su Yuzu never had to worry about Soga Yura's classmates confusing the two of them.
Back then, waiting by the gate, she'd heard all kinds of impressions from those girls about Soga Yura. Dazzling. Radiant. Always smiling — and yet somehow, despite the smile, you always felt like she was standing somewhere just out of reach.
Well. Someone that exceptional making people feel a certain distance — that was only natural, probably.
Sometimes, after being turned away one too many times, her heart felt like a candy wrapper that had fallen to the ground and been crushed under a stiletto heel.
On days like those, Su Yuzu would ride the train all the way to nearly the end of the line.
There was a secluded stretch of coast out there. No beach — just jagged rocks and the crumbling concrete pillars of an abandoned construction project. Black waves crashed against the uneven reef and left behind a fine froth of white foam.
The girl would let every sour thing inside her shatter with the bubbles, and leave it all behind.
Su Yuzu hated complete darkness, but she'd always felt an unexpected kinship with the tide.
She got off at Imperial Capital University station and strolled at a leisurely pace toward the front gate.
Imperial Capital University's entrance looked considerably more imposing than Keigunen Private Academy's, even just at first glance.
The only eyesore was the flower bed off to the side of the gate — it stuck out oddly, like something was missing from it.
There had once been a statue there. It had since been removed. The original figure had been magnificent: a Valkyrie, bow drawn taut, expression resolute — a symbol of pride for Imperial Capital University.
But then… nearly twenty years ago, after Kujou Iruka fell into the Abyss, Imperial Capital University had torn it down.
[Nearly twenty years ago…
Su Yuzu suddenly caught the faint scent of something off.
Less than twenty years ago, Kujou Iruka fell into the Abyss, and the era of the Sixth rule-type ability user… came to an end.
Then, seventeen — no, eighteen years ago, the bearer of the "Word of Command" rule, Saintess of the Holy Royal Court, Saint Michael stood against Kujou Iruka in Chiba, intercepting her advance on Tokyo.
Saint Michael broke his own wings and his Word of Command as the price — halting Kujou Iruka's assault and successfully driving her back.
The sun's radiance lit up the night, and for three full days and nights it did not fade. Saint Michael's power continued to blanket the land around Tokyo, keeping the city bright and guarded.
And then —
She and Soga Yura were born.
The era that belonged to her… arrived.
And right there… the anomaly appeared.
Each era had only one rule-type ability user.
Then… in the two or three years after Kujou Iruka fell into the Abyss — how had Saint Michael appeared at all?
No wonder Imperial Capital University had concealed the fact that Kujou Iruka was a rule-type ability user, and no one had ever known, no one had ever questioned it.
Because the previous era —
Should have belonged to Saint Michael.
No one would think to suspect that Kujou Iruka, a contemporary of Saint Michael, could also be a rule-type ability user.
But she knew.
Had Director Saionji simply been wrong? Was Kujou Iruka not actually a rule-type ability user?
It was possible.
But Su Yuzu trusted that Director Saionji's judgment of her own student wouldn't be mistaken.
She waited by the gates of Imperial Capital University.
The teacher on gate duty was a mature-looking woman. She saw Yuzu and smiled warmly. "Little Yuzu's here again? Come on in and sit for a bit." Then she clicked her tongue. "That Soga girl, honestly…"
In the beginning, the woman had actually mistaken Su Yuzu for Soga Yura. But after witnessing the sisters face off against each other — the air between them sharp enough to cut — she'd learned to tell them apart.
After all… one was a skyscraper, and one was an airstrip. Quite easy to distinguish, really.
She launched into a cheerful scolding of Soga Yura's wrongs, muttering about a sister who bullied her little sibling like that — and while she talked, she reached across the desk and pressed a milk candy into Su Yuzu's palm.
Su Yuzu smiled and accepted the candy from the woman's hand.
In the eyes of elders, the young always seem like children. There was nothing worth arguing about.
She understood the woman was simply fussing over her out of affection.
It had been this very woman who'd gotten her Soga Yura's class schedule — and even told her which teachers taught which courses, and where to find them.
"Sister and I have already made up," Su Yuzu said, clasping the woman's hand and tilting her face up with a smile.
She saw something like light bloom instantly in the woman's eyes.
"You made up?"
"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness… what wonderful news."
She forced a stern expression onto her face, but the smile was already spilling out from the corners of her eyes. "Really now… and it had to be sweet Yuzu who went to her first."
"Yuzu should have given her a proper lesson — made her come crying to beg for forgiveness."
"I did give her a lesson!" Su Yuzu shook her little fist with an exaggeratedly fierce look.
"Sister cried so, so much."
"Sister Mai said… she cried through two whole outfits, couldn't even get her words out straight."
"Good, good, serves her right!" The woman nodded emphatically, then immediately softened her tone. "But Yuzu —"
"Your sister is actually under a lot of pressure, you know. She's the head of the Soga family now, and that's a heavy load to carry."
"One good lesson is enough. Don't be too hard on Yura."
"Though… a sweet child like Yuzu could never really bully anyone."
"Ahem — ahem, ahem —"
At that very moment, a sound came from the doorway of the guardhouse — a girl's cough, half indignant, half mortified.
Soga Yura stood there, cheeks puffed out, glaring at the teacher and at Yuzu.
"Yuzu…"
"Yuzu could never bully anyone." She absolutely could. Soga Yura didn't even know where that girl had learned half her dirty tricks.
"Just… just the other day…"
"She'd absolutely bullied her into the ground."
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