Sakura Koishin had something she wanted to discuss with her?
What could Auntie Sakura possibly want to discuss with her?
Held tight in Sakura Koishin's arms, Su Yuzu rose onto her toes and looked past her shoulder... at Sakura Mai, who was bracing herself against the wall, lips pressed thin, watching her with a very complicated look.
A bead of cold sweat slid down Su Yuzu's temple.
She thought... she had a pretty good idea now of what Sakura Koishin wanted to discuss with her.
Su Yuzu threw a pleading glance toward Soga Yura, who stood a little farther off, having doubled back from outside the moment Sakura Koishin appeared.
Soga Yura looked at Su Yuzu, wrapped up in Sakura Koishin's arms.
If any other woman had grabbed her Yuzu like that, hugging and nuzzling her, kneading her cheeks and making her call her "Sister," Soga Yura would have already lost her temper by now.
But Sakura Koishin was different.
Soga Yura had studied Sakura Mai's family background thoroughly, and she understood: Sakura Koishin might play around and run wild, but her nature was nowhere near as loose as it looked.
Sakura Koishin and Tennoji Jurei had found each other, come to know each other, and stayed together.
Otherwise, with a temperament like Sakura Koishin's, she would hardly have given birth to Sakura Mai over an excuse as flimsy as "I lost at rock-paper-scissors."
When Tennoji Jurei had gripped her hand, aching for her, Sakura Koishin had only lain there in the hospital bed, happily rubbing her cheek against the baby's, and said: Jurei is a swordswoman, you know~ How could I let Jurei carry a child?
Jurei's swordsmanship would have slipped.
But I'm different~
I'm a Healing-type Esper. In fact, I'm the wildest Healing-type Esper in recorded history.
So there was absolutely no problem.
Soga Yura... had always quietly envied Sakura Koishin and Tennoji Jurei, if she was honest.
Putting on a deliberate show of annoyance, Soga Yura turned her head to stare at the wall instead of at Su Yuzu.
Held in Sakura Koishin's arms, Su Yuzu felt cold sweat trickling down beside her temple.
However breezily she had strolled away when Tsukiyomi Fuya begged her for help just now, that was exactly how mortified she felt at this moment.
[Retribution came this fast?]
[The wheel of karma turns, and heaven spares no one.]
This was nothing like being hugged by an ordinary girl or an older sister type. In Sakura Koishin's arms, Su Yuzu was so helpless she didn't even know where to put her hands.
After all... Sakura Koishin's position was on a completely different level from those older girls.
Listening to Sakura Koishin's beaming voice at her ear, seeing Sakura Mai propped against the wall behind her, and, farther off, Soga Yura pointedly examining the wall...
Su Yuzu could only conclude that karma worked terrifyingly fast.
"S-Sure," the girl said, her voice coming out dry, even though she'd just had plenty of water.
"I don't know what Auntie Saku—" Su Yuzu didn't get to finish before she heard Sakura Koishin's gently rising hum.
"Hmm?"
Su Yuzu corrected herself at once. "What did Sister Sakura want to see me about?"
Hearing how Su Yuzu addressed Sakura Koishin, the girl bracing against the wall behind her went a shade darker in the face.
"Ara ara ara~"
"Something very important, of course."
Sakura Koishin simply hoisted Su Yuzu up and swept her along toward the hospital room.
Sakura Mai and Soga Yura exchanged a look across the corridor, and years of unspoken understanding aligned them in an instant.
Watching Su Yuzu being carried along by the collar like a naughty little girl, walking obediently forward, both of them had to admit there really was always something to tame anything.
A girl this wicked could only be subdued by an even more wicked senior.
Sakura Koishin was one such.
Soga Ishikawa Asumi was another.
Except... thinking about how those two went about subduing Little Yuzu—
Both of them opened with a strike straight to the face, then hauled Yuzu into their arms.
Soga Yura suddenly felt her own future looked rather bleak.
"S-Sister Sakura, where are we going?" Su Yuzu looked at the direction Sakura Koishin was heading. "Tsukiyomi-senpai's injuries have only just started to heal a little, she needs rest—"
Sakura Koishin's course led straight to Tsukiyomi Fuya's room.
"It's fine~ I'm here to take a look at her wounds." Sakura Koishin was beaming, not flustered in the slightest. "Little Yuzu should trust her big sister! I happen to be the strongest Healing-type Esper in the entire Tokyo metropolitan area."
She had come to treat Tsukiyomi Fuya in the first place.
The rest was just incidental~ Purely incidental~~~ Truly, entirely incidental~~~~
She was only going to have a little chat with Little Yuzu about Mai on the side.
Glancing back at Sister Mai and Soga Yura following behind Sakura Koishin with stony faces, and thinking of the wretched state Tsukiyomi-senpai was in right now, Su Yuzu felt her whole world starting to cave in.
Why... did every great battle have to be followed by another great battle?
A brand-new battlefield of jealousy was rising slowly right in front of her.
Just imagining the four-way standoff between Tsukiyomi Fuya, Sakura Koishin, Sister Mai and Soga Yura was enough to make Su Yuzu feel thoroughly unwell.
"Yuzu-senpai?" The yawning girl's ahoge swayed on top of her head; the little rabbit snapped fully awake the instant she spotted Su Yuzu.
The little rabbit gave a hop and followed along.
She stared at Yuzu-senpai, who looked for all the world like she was being bullied, dangled by the collar.
When had Saotome Yukina ever seen Su Yuzu in a predicament like this? The ahoge on the little rabbit's head began to whip back and forth faster and faster, curiosity nearly leaving afterimages in the air.
[By the look of it...]
[This is Mai-senpai's mother?]
[So young.]
[But... doesn't that mean... she's the legendary Sakura Koishin-senpai!?]
[History's Strongest Healing-type Esper, produced by Keigunen Private Academy.]
Well... in terms of combat power.
Even the legendary Seventh Sequence healing saint, the one said to raise the dead and put flesh back on bare bone, probably couldn't take more than a few punches from Sakura Koishin.
More importantly... Saotome Yukina genuinely admired Sakura Koishin's bold deeds back in the day.
What a pity—
The Soga family held too much power.
There was simply no way for Saotome Yukina to pull strings through her own family and force her way into Su Yuzu's dorm the way Sakura Koishin had done all those years ago.
Su Yuzu wanted to bury her face in both hands.
Wasn't the little rabbit supposed to be off sleeping?
Why was she showing up here!?
Was that ahoge of hers actually a radar?
The four-way conference had just become a five-party summit.
Sakura Koishin shoved Su Yuzu into the hospital room. Tsukiyomi Fuya, curled up on the bed with the face of someone who had lost all will to live, saw Yuzu pushed through the door and nearly took her for a hallucination.
"Y-Yuzu?" She started to sit up, then caught sight of the smiling Sakura Koishin coming in right behind her.
"Head of the Sakura family!?"
And then... Soga Yura, Sakura Mai, and that little rabbit who never minded how big the spectacle got all filed in one after another.
Tsukiyomi Fuya lay there on the bed, helpless.
[Is this... some new form of torture?]
And Su Yuzu, the root of the whole disaster, looked at the helpless Tsukiyomi Fuya, at the stone-faced Soga Yura, at Sakura Mai trailing silently behind Mother.
And... at the most terrifying of them all, Sakura Koishin, plus the little rabbit who was here purely for the show.
[Is this... me paying off my debts?]
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