Watching helplessly as Kujou Iruka's fingertip brushed across her lips, Su Yuzu felt cold sweat break out on her forehead.
As the saying goes, even the most careful plan has a gap in it somewhere.
Never in a thousand years had Su Yuzu imagined... that the Favorability Gift she treated as a cure-all for everything, "strawberry cream crepes," would one day blow up in her face.
If the little rabbit's orange-tier Favorability Gift was the sort of thing you could hand to anyone without going too far wrong, then—
For Kujou Iruka, who was an Aberrant. For Kujou Iruka, who had no sense of taste at all...
...to have a delicacy like this set down right in front of her, and be utterly unable to swallow a single bite.
There was probably nothing in the world more agonizing than that.
Su Yuzu could practically watch Kujou Iruka's Favorability going into free fall.
And then... came the mental image of herself scrubbed clean and dumped onto a bed, Kujou Iruka deciding to make good on her promise and sample her flavor instead.
That was just... just too terrible.
"I'm sorry—" Before Su Yuzu could even finish apologizing, Kujou Iruka's fingertip was already pressed to her lips.
Not far away, the young manager of the crepe shop was sneaking looks in Su Yuzu and Kujou Iruka's direction.
She remembered Su Yuzu very clearly.
The little miss of the Soga clan.
Forever bringing all sorts of girls around to patronize her business.
Her impression of Kujou Iruka ran just as deep.
That domineering... that overwhelming woman, forceful enough to make even Su Yuzu wear the face of someone getting bullied — she was the spitting image of the Kujou Senpai in the manager's memory.
The pity of it was that the manager knew perfectly well: whoever had turned up in the Tokyo metropolitan area—
—whoever had turned up at Keigunen Private Academy, it could not possibly be her Kujou Senpai.
Kujou Senpai had long since fallen into the Edge of Aberration. She had become the single greatest disaster in all of recorded human history.
There was no way she would be standing around at Keigunen Private Academy, tormenting a girl as though she were doing it purely for sport.
"Momomiya can't hear a word we're saying..."
"But she can still see us, you know." Kujou Iruka's eyes stayed on Su Yuzu.
"What... do you mean...?" Su Yuzu couldn't quite follow her.
"Miss Yuzu..."
"Ever heard of the Pocky game?" Kujou Iruka watched the girl across from her, a wicked smile curving up at the corner of her mouth.
Su Yuzu's eyes went wide, her gaze all but trembling.
Of course she'd heard of it.
Pocky was a chocolate-coated biscuit stick.
And the Pocky game... two people started eating the same stick from opposite ends at the same time. Whoever let go first, or bit through the Pocky first, was the loser — and naturally had to accept the corresponding punishment.
Su Yuzu had never once dreamed she'd hear that particular punishment proposed by Kujou Iruka of all people. After all... this was the very first time the two of them had met.
There was no destined bond between them, no love at first sight either. Wasn't Kujou Iruka's approach a little too wild?
In truth, even Kujou Iruka didn't entirely understand it.
Before she fell into the Edge of Aberration... or rather... before she ever laid eyes on Su Yuzu, she had been a fairly blunt, straightforward person.
Hardly anyone had ever been worth a second glance from her.
A kouhai? All a kouhai ever did was slow down her sword draw.
But... standing face to face with this girl, this junior, all Kujou Iruka wanted was to bully her—
To bully her without mercy, to ravage her thoroughly.
To watch that teary, sniffling little face of hers.
Maybe it had something to do with her connection to Kujou Katora?
Even Kujou Iruka couldn't put the reason into words.
But... looking at the flustered, "pitiful" state of the girl in front of her, Kujou Iruka knew she had picked exactly the right game.
Aberrants might be incapable of tasting ordinary food.
But... human panic, human awkwardness, human bashfulness — to them, all of it was a delicacy beyond compare.
And more than that—
The one seated in front of Kujou Iruka was no ordinary human.
She was Su Yuzu.
The "Throne" of this era.
Her adorable, endlessly bulliable junior.
"Here...? Right here?" Su Yuzu's eyes darted around before she could stop them.
It was already deep into the night, but this was the commercial street's busiest hour, with students and outsiders streaming past in both directions.
The crepe shop where she and Kujou Iruka sat wasn't particularly conspicuous, but... at the end of the day it was a stall that opened straight onto the street.
Anyone walking by could see the two of them clear as day.
Not to mention... Su Yuzu glanced toward the crepe shop's manager.
The manager Kujou Iruka had called Momomiya looked busy enough serving her other customers, and yet her gaze never once seemed to leave Su Yuzu and Kujou Iruka.
Kujou Iruka didn't answer.
But her eyes said everything without a single word.
[Do you really think you have a choice?]
Su Yuzu badly wanted to pinch her own cheek and figure out what on earth had come over her, that she'd gone and invited an Aberrant out to sample good food.
The "Seat of Evil" had definitely been a bad influence on her... no, the "Seat of Hunger."
Right—
That had to be it.
Inside the Assault Department's girls' dormitory, the "Seat of Evil" lay sprawled on her bed and let out an enormous sneeze. "Is somebody talking about me behind my back?"
"Is it... Su Yuzu?" She spoke that slightly forbidden name with genuine caution.
After all, apart from the daily Feed, everything Su Yuzu had ever brought the "Seat of Evil" was endless terror and nerve-shredding dread.
But... as an owner, she was honestly far too qualified.
As long as she got Fed something tasty, forget the daily-serving Lady Fate assault — even being wrung completely dry wouldn't be such a big deal.
Kirishika, lying on the same bed, slid her arm out from beneath the "Seat of Evil" and promptly draped it back over her. "I think she's off somewhere sneaking good food without us."
"Definitely—"
"Definitely—"
"…"
Out on the street, meanwhile, Su Yuzu's hellish Shame Play was only just getting started.
Compared to a Pocky chocolate biscuit stick, which at least left a person some room to maneuver—
—the crepe allowed far less ground to give. Su Yuzu had barely bitten down on the edge of the wrapper and she was already nearly nose to nose with Kujou Iruka.
And on top of that... there was all that filling packed into the middle of the crepe.
Cream and strawberries were soft, yielding things.
Getting them smeared across her face would feel awful.
Worrying about the filling spilling out all over the ground felt even worse.
Worst of all... Kujou Iruka, an Aberrant of all people, kept advancing bite by bite, eating away the sliver of retreat Su Yuzu had left.
Su Yuzu clenched the crepe skin between her teeth and didn't dare move.
She watched Kujou Iruka's long lashes draw closer and closer, watched those deep blue eyes whose predatory edge hadn't dulled in the slightest, even after the color had changed.
Plop—
The crepe skin finally gave way under the strain.
The crepe dropped neatly into Kujou Iruka's hand.
Su Yuzu watched Kujou Iruka brace a hand on the table and rise slowly to her feet, and felt as though she had already arrived in hell.
"You lost—"
"—my adorable... Miss Yuzu."
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