In Ratatoskr's underground facility, Itsuka Kotori sat alone in a room, reading the docunts in her hands with a thoughtful expression.
It was no wonder. Although many thrilling and dangerous incidents had occurred due to contact with Spirits, that incident last ti ranked among the top, whether in terms of danger level, scale, or bizarre factors.
The inverted Spirit Devil that Origami transford into; the alteration of history caused by Tokisaki Kurumi's Angel Zafkiel; and the culprit behind turning humans into Spirits—Phantom.
Although the specific reasons behind them were still sowhat unbelievable to Kotori herself, with Shido and Yutsuki, two people who leaped over from the "original history" as evidence, she could only half-believingly take this intel as a premise for deduction.
"Even so... we haven't grasped any intel that could be considered catching the enemy's tail."
Sighing tiredly, Kotori leaned back against her chair and muttered helplessly to herself.
Phantom's entire body was covered by mosaic, and her voice sounded chanically altered. Whether it was herself, Miku, or even Yutsuki-nee, although they had all seen her, they completely couldn't see through her true identity.
If there was a single breakthrough point, it was five years ago, during the battle between Origami and Phantom, when Phantom's static barrier was broken, revealing the silhouette of a young woman.
But considering the situation Origami described at the ti, this appearance was very likely just another disguise.
Sigh—Just as Kotori was feeling a headache over Phantom's true identity, a knock ca from the door.
"Who is it?"
"...It's ."
A sluggish voice slowly ca from the door. Kotori imdiately knew the person was Reine.
"Co in."
As her voice fell, the door was pushed open. Kotori saw her best friend and capable assistant—Murasa Reine—walk into the room with her usual heavy dark circles.
"Is there sothing you need, Reine?"
"...Mhm, I wanted to contact you through the terminal, but I heard you ca here..."
"Well, I had so things I wanted to look up, so I ca over. I've calculated my attendance days, so it's no problem."
Brushing off her skipping class so lightly. If Shido and Yutsuki-nee knew, a lecture would probably be unavoidable.
Casually having this thought, Kotori scratched her cheek and looked at Reine.
"So, what's up?"
"...Mhm, I found sothing concerning."
"Sothing concerning?"
"This..."
To answer Kotori's confusion, Reine silently handed the terminal in her hand to Kotori.
"Isn't this everyone's spirit wave value chart?"
Seeing the various graphs displayed on the screen, Kotori was a bit surprised.
The spirit wave value chart is, in a sense, equivalent to an emotional fluctuation chart. Because a Spirit's Spirit power is easily affected by their emotions, the Fraxinus must constantly monitor the Spirits' spirit waves and emotions to handle unexpected situations as soon as possible.
Flipping through the pages one by one, although so people's spirit waves occasionally fluctuated due to so accidents, thanks to Shido taking them out on dates, they had gradually stabilized recently.
"Yutsuki-nee is way too stable."
Quickly skimming past her own data, which she knew well, and Tobiichi Origami's bizarre data where all values were off the charts, when Kotori flipped to Ryougi Yutsuki's spirit wave chart, a bitter smile appeared on her face for so reason.
If everyone else's values were ocean surfaces with varying degrees of waves, then Ryougi Yutsuki's was a lake surface as smooth as a mirror.
Starting from a value that couldn't be called low, but couldn't be called particularly high either, a straight horizontal line extended all the way to the latest date. Although to Kotori, this only showed Yutsuki's steadiness and maturity, making her feel reassured. But if her brother saw this, he might receive a significant ntal blow.
Even counting the records from the previous worldline, the number of tis Yutsuki truly experienced a Spirit power backflow was only two tis.
(A tough road ahead... Onii-chan.)
Shaking her head with a bit of teasing, Kotori adjusted her mood.
"Aren't everyone's data very stable? Where's the problem, Reine?"
Kotori asked in confusion.
"Here..."
Reine reached out and scrolled the screen to the end of the page, opening a value chart Kotori had absolutely no impression of ever seeing.
"—!"
Kotori's pupils violently shrank.
On the screen, a line suddenly shot upwards with a terrifying trend recently, drawing a cliff with a massive drop.
_____________________
For the first and second periods in the morning, Classes 2-4 and 2-3 alternately had Modern Japanese and Math. And the third period was a joint PE class for both classes.
"Phew... So cold~~"
Standing on the field with howling cold winds, Yutsuki hugged her arms, shivering.
"Surprise. Is Yutsuki sensitive to the cold?"
Yuzuru asked curiously.
"Well, if I had to say, I'm just not used to it. Without using Spirit power to fend off the cold, I misjudged how much to wear. Ugh—If I knew, I would have put on an extra layer when changing clothes."
Yutsuki explained with a bitter smile. Perhaps out of habit, afraid of running into other female students changing in the locker room, Yutsuki changed her clothes before everyone else arrived and went to the field. When she realized she wasn't wearing enough and looked back at the locker room already full of girls, she decisively gave up.
"Kuku, what a disgraceful posture, my comrade. Cowering from this bit of cold, the na of the Maiden of Lightning will weep."
"Hmph! That's right, it's nice that Children of the Typhoon don't catch colds~"
Looking at Kaguya scolding her with a smug look, Yutsuki rolled her eyes in annoyance.
Soon, the PE teacher arrived at the field, separated the boys and girls into groups, and started class.
By the way, the content of today's PE class was physical fitness testing. Yutsuki could hear Shido's lively bad friend Tonomachi yelling towards the girls' side about showing off his manly charm in this test, although Yutsuki thought it was pretty hopeless.
_______________
"Ryougi-san, 2.6 ters!"
"Phew..."
Hearing her classmate report the number, Yutsuki sighed in relief.
"That's amazing, Ryougi-san. Your grip strength and handball throw too, you're stronger than most of the boys. Are you interested in joining a sports club?"
"Thank you, sensei. But I have no such plans."
Yutsuki smiled and politely declined the teacher's invitation.
(This should be fine.)
For Spirits possessing superhuman constitutions, passing a physical fitness test is a piece of cake. The real problem is not outputting overly exaggerated numbers that draw attention, and keeping the results within the realm of ordinary human common sense.
Just to be safe, Yutsuki also checked on the others' situations. Kaguya and Yuzuru were their usual selves, competing over "who gets closer to 2.5 ters." Although Tohka exerted a bit too much force and jumped 2.9 ters, it was barely within acceptable limits.
And then, seemingly to provoke Tohka, Origami jumped 2.91 ters.
Ah, let correct that, not seemingly, Origami was provoking Tohka.
"Know when to stop, you two."
Comforting the bickering Origami and Tohka with a bitter smile, seeing there was still so ti before the next test, Yutsuki cast her gaze towards the boys' side.
Unlike over here, the progress on the boys' side was a bit slow; they had only reached the handball throw test. It seed the grip strength dynamoter suffered tal fatigue and soone broke it, so replacing it took quite a bit of ti.
"Oh, it's Shido's turn to throw."
Tohka's voice instantly drew everyone's attention. Yutsuki saw Shido staggering towards the throwing position like a drunkard.
Seeing this, Yutsuki felt a trace of unease.
"Tohka, is Shido okay? He looks physically unwell."
"Ugh... he went to the infirmary earlier, and the teacher said there was no problem."
Tohka answered. But seeing the scene before her, her tone also sounded sowhat unconfident.
"As expected, he's unwell. We must carry him back to the infirmary imdiately. With a princess carry!"
Origami said with a bit of excitent. Just as Yutsuki was about to retort, suddenly—
The shot put thrown from Shido's hand, like a ballistic missile shot from a silo, drew a straight trajectory in the air with a shrill sound of tearing wind. Then it broke through the clouds and disappeared into the horizon.
"..."
For an instant, the entire field was dead silent.
Perhaps because it burned and shattered from intense friction with the atmosphere, the remnants of the shot put could still be seen leaving a trail of smoke and dust in the sky. After an unknown amount of ti, Yutsuki heard soone say jokingly, "Look... an airplane."
"—!"
Yutsuki was the first to snap out of it. Realizing the situation was bad, without hesitation, she moved. With a speed close to teleportation, bringing a gust of wind and kicking up dust, she arrived by Shido's side.
"Eh? Ryougi-san, why are you here?"
"Sensei, Itsuka-kun seems to be feeling unwell."
Ignoring the surprised expressions of everyone else, Yutsuki pointed to the shot put rolling not far away and proposed calmly.
"Eh?"
Hearing Yutsuki's words, the classmates froze. They rubbed their eyes, looked at the shot put on the ground, then looked at the still clearly visible trail in the sky, looking utterly disbelief.
"Didn't Itsuka-kun just throw the ball into the atmosphere?"
"What are you guys talking about? Itsuka-kun didn't even throw it one ter, okay? He's definitely feeling unwell."
Yutsuki answered in a matter of fact tone.
"Ugh... Th-That's true! How could Itsuka-kun throw the ball that far? Thinking about it with common sense, it's impossible."
"Y-Yeah. It must have been kids playing with fireworks nearby, and an airplane just happened to leave a trail in the sky. All these coincidences combined made us misunderstand."
"That's right, that's right! It must be like that. Sotis what you see isn't necessarily true."
"What the heck! Scared for a second."
Due to Yutsuki's overly calm attitude, everyone began to believe that the scene just now was rely a hallucination.
However, the truth was, the ball at Shido's feet right now was one Yutsuki secretly brought over from her side while everyone's attention was still focused on the sky. If soone were to count the balls right now, they would quickly notice the problem.
But even if they noticed, probably no one would doubt Yutsuki's words.
After all, compared to an unrealistic truth, sotis people are more willing to believe a lie that fits common sense.
"Sensei, I think it's best to let Itsuka-kun leave early to rest."
"Mhm... Indeed."
Seeing Shido currently seed unable to even stand steadily, the PE teacher nodded in agreent to Yutsuki's proposal.
"Itsuka, you can go ho early today. You can take the fitness test next ti."
Getting the teacher's permission, Yutsuki sighed in relief. Turning to Shido, she said.
"Shido, you heard the teacher. Let's go ho early today."
"I'm... I'm fine. Yutsuki... don't worry..."
However, Shido himself didn't seem to understand the situation. Shaking his head, he answered with slurred speech.
Hearing this, Yutsuki frowned in slight anger.
"Shido, now isn't the ti to act tough. The longer you stay here, the worse the problem might get. Hurry up and go back to Ratatoskr to find Kotori..."
"Don't worry. Even though I look like this... I, I have grown too..."
Like a drunkard, Shido didn't take Yutsuki's advice to heart at all.
"I can still... Hah—"
Then, perhaps because his nose was irritated by the dust Yutsuki kicked up when she dashed over, Shido looked uncomfortable and tilted his head back.
"—!"
Instantly, an intense alarm rang loudly in her heart. Without hesitation, Yutsuki moved her head aside.
"—Choo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Almost at the exact sa ti, Shido sneezed. A violent hurricane roared right past Yutsuki's ear, blowing the students behind her several ters away.
"Holy shit... I was almost killed by a sneeze."
This was no joke. Feeling the amount of Spirit power contained in that sneeze just now, Yutsuki clearly understood the severity of the problem.
Sweeping her right foot forward with lightning speed, Shido, whose footing was already unsteady, was naturally tripped directly by Yutsuki's kick.
"...Yutsuki?"
"Sorry, just go to sleep for now, Shido."
Imdiately after, Shido only felt a heavy blow to the back of his neck, and his consciousness gradually sank into darkness.
"Wh-What a huge gust of wind!"
"What just happened?"
"Divine punishnt?"
"Damn it, if only the girls were wearing skirts!"
Such chaotic discussions ca from the surroundings. However, Yutsuki didn't pay much attention. After signaling to Tohka and Origami with her eyes, she picked up the unconscious Shido and said to the teacher:
"Sensei, Itsuka-kun seems to have fainted from a high fever. Just to be safe, I'll take him ho."
"Eh, Ryougi-san, you an?"
The PE teacher asked in confusion.
"I need to leave early too. Please decide on the reason yourself, Sensei. If not, marking as skipping class this ti is fine too."
After saying that, Yutsuki winked playfully. Carrying Shido in a princess carry, amidst the envious, jealous, and hateful screams of the girls (directed at Shido), she left the field.
And as for the boys' side—
"...Why? Even though Ryougi-san is a beautiful girl, why do I have the illusion that I've fallen for a guy?"
"""Mhm."""
Accompanied by Tonomachi stating his thoughts with a sowhat disgustingly shy expression, all the male compatriots present nodded in unison.
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