Before today, Su Yuzu had never imagined that sometimes eating delicious food until you were stuffed could actually be a kind of torment.
Watching Sister Mai's villainous smile brimming to the very top with vengeful intent.
Su Yuzu suddenly felt she could profoundly understand... what was meant by karmic retribution.
Every Combat Record she had once fed the girls to bully them now came striking back at this very moment, carrying an almost indomitable will.
And they were determined to cram the last sliver of empty space in Su Yuzu completely full, leaving not a single gap.
Fortunately, though, the girls around Su Yuzu clearly weren't nearly as full of malice, as thoroughly wicked to the core, as Su Yuzu.
They wouldn't be like Su Yuzu—
Feeding down 'fatal' 「Combat Records」 at the very moments the girls were most flustered, in places like the training hall, the commercial street, the movie theater.
She'd even exploit loopholes in the Feed system, deliberately timing her feeds right at midnight, 23:59:59, just so she could feed two 「Combat Records」 in a row, watching a girl try her hardest to act like nothing was wrong in front of her.
When in reality, the walls of her heart had already been crushed flat, ground down by heavy tanks.
Soga Yura and the others still cared about Su Yuzu.
They no longer piled Su Yuzu's bowl full as if it were a punishment, the way they had that morning, leaving her not the slightest room to breathe.
Instead, they let Su Yuzu choose for herself.
Even just a single bite would be fine.
Even Sakura Mai, who looked as though she meant to take her revenge—to pay back every bit of the embarrassment from the changing room—only symbolically forced the girl to eat one clam that looked a touch too large.
But in reality, apart from making Yuzu whimper with her mouth stretched too wide to close, it didn't seem to put too heavy a burden on the girl's stomach.
And even... all the delicacies that had originally been prepared entirely for Yuzu.
After Yuzu took just one tasting bite of each, most of them ultimately ended up in Sakura Mai's mouth in the end.
Mm, most of them.
Aside from Sakura Mai, Soga Yura and the little rabbit also wanted to share this sweet, cloying burden on Su Yuzu's behalf.
But Soga Yura and Saotome Yukina, who stood at two complete opposite extremes when it came to the breadth of their chests, were unsurprisingly of one accord when it came to the size of their appetites.
Only Sakura Mai could, like a whirlwind sweeping away the last stray clouds, elegantly and yet without any loss of efficiency, clear away every last one of the fine dishes Su Yuzu had left after her single tasting bites.
That clean, decisive efficiency even made Su Yuzu wonder whether Sister Mai had another hidden Talent by the name of Big Eater.
Among all the many catches, the only thing Su Yuzu finished was the... charred electric fish tail Soga Yura had grilled—the one that didn't look very appetizing and tasted a bit burnt.
The electric fish tail, which down in the sea had seemed so full of malice toward the girl, in the end also became a dish on the girl's plate.
Soga Yura watched Yuzu bite down mouthful after mouthful of the scorched fish meat, still a little hesitant.
Soga Yura could only pitifully argue—or rather, protest—that it had only gotten burnt because she'd waited too long at the changing room door.
Faced with Soga Yura's protest... what could Su Yuzu possibly say?
She could only say that Soga Yura was always right.
As Su Yuzu forcefully swallowed the last mouthful of fish, Soga Yura, who had long been waiting before her, hurriedly held out her own handkerchief. "Yuzu... if Yuzu doesn't want to eat it, you don't have to!"
"You don't have to force yourself to humor me just because I'm the one who grilled it...."
"Not at all~" Leaning her body slightly forward, Su Yuzu let Soga Yura carefully wipe away the grease and cumin from her lips.
"It tasted really quite good~"
It wasn't as if Su Yuzu were saying it just to comfort Soga Yura.
True, the electric fish tail Soga Yura grilled couldn't compare in flavor to the squid Ms. Tsukiyomi grilled, couldn't compare to the eel the little rabbit grilled, and far less to the exquisite delicacies painstakingly baked by Ms. Unohana Chiyo, who had gradually become an all-around homemaker after her retirement.
But... after all, with such precious ingredients, making them turn out badly would honestly take a fair bit of skill too.
Clearly—
Soga Yura hadn't yet advanced to the level where she could turn any ingredient whatsoever into a dish of dark cuisine.
It's just... Su Yuzu pressed a hand to her chest.
For some reason, she suddenly felt a bit of heartburn.
Was it because she'd eaten too much in the morning, and then gone straight into grilled food afterward?
Su Yuzu didn't know.
Apart from Su Yuzu... Sakura Mai's condition was also just a little bit off.
She struggled to suppress the restlessness of the Sword of Erasure, but... this time, the Sword of Erasure's restlessness was completely unlike any of its previous outbursts.
Sakura Mai could clearly hear the voice of the Sword of Erasure.
She heard cursed spirits howling in fury.
Countless malevolent demons trampled over one another's bodies and skulls within the Abyss, trying to claw their way out, those demons roaring at the rift of the Abyss.
Pairs upon pairs of Dark golden vertical pupils, like bright lanterns, flickered and wavered within the Abyss.
And at the Side of the Abyss... the hair of the maiden who stood silently, leaning on her sword, was whipped into wild disarray by the hot, breath-laden wind.
She gazed at Sakura Mai.
"Want—"
"Want—"
"Want!!!"
Sakura Mai could hear the craving of the Sword of Erasure.
She strove... calmly... to dispose of every last dish Yuzu had left behind.
It was as if, with every little bit she ate, the sword spirit of the cursed sword would be suppressed... or rather, fed just a little.
But it still wasn't enough—
Even Sakura Mai's appetite already felt as though it was about to give out.
But it still wasn't enough!
The Sword of Erasure still craved on, insatiable, wanting more.
A little more—
A little more.
But... Sakura Mai's pair of emerald eyes struggled.
She couldn't eat another bite.
And besides... Sister Yuzu had already finished eating too.
Then...
[Eat her!]
[Eat her!!!] Sakura Mai's gaze fell upon the girl—upon her crystalline lips that seemed to glisten under the gentle seaside sunlight, and the fair, pale neck beneath the sailor-uniform-style collar of her school dress.
"I'll go rest first." Reining in her own will with matchless mental power, Sakura Mai slowly walked back to the lounge in the ship's cabin.
Su Yuzu watched Sakura Mai's retreating back.
She could sense that something was off with Sister Mai.
In [Operator Development], Sister Mai's Q-version chibi looked as though it were ablaze with fire.
The girl's lovely chestnut hair seemed about to go up in flames along with it.
But very soon... Su Yuzu noticed another anomaly.
Her own Q-version chibi was a little off too.
Above her own Q-version chibi's head... pink-purple bubbles kept rising, one after another.
[Poi... soned?]
Su Yuzu tilted her head.
—Seabed——
After Kirishika tossed down the electric ray she had taken a single bite of, and it was gnawed utterly clean by the swarming school of fish, a scroll straight out of the animal kingdom quietly played itself out on the seabed.
[Spring has arrived, and all things revive...]
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