anwhile, at Raizen High School, Year 2 Class 4. Inside the quiet, empty classroom, a tense atmosphere that made it hard to breathe filled the air.
Itsuka Shido and Yamai Kaguya sat facing each other across a single school desk.
"Now then, tell , Kaguya, your answer."
Itsuka Shido looked at Kaguya and said seriously.
"Kuku—No problem!"
With a wicked smirk on her lips, Kaguya chuckled and answered with absolute confidence.
"Open your eyes wide and watch closely! This is the hidden latent ability of the Child of the Typhoon, the Magic Eye—Foresight! Activate!"
Saying that, Kaguya covered her left eye with one hand, and with imposing montum, waved her other hand forward, hovering it over the textbook.
Shido could see the pages of the textbook trembling slightly from the wind generated by Kaguya's hand.
Then, one second passed—
Two seconds passed—
Five seconds passed—
Ten seconds passed—
As ti ticked by, looking at the math problem in the textbook, more and more cold sweat gathered on Kaguya's forehead.
"Um... Kaguya, what exactly are you doing?"
Watching Kaguya's baffling actions, Shido couldn't help but ask.
"H-How truly strange—"
Looking down at her hands, Kaguya muttered in disbelief.
"According to the authority of Foresight, I should clearly be able to see the answer I filled in ten seconds from now!"
"As if that's possible!"
"Auu~"
Shido decisively interrupted her with a karate chop to the head, making Kaguya let out a small yelp.
"Besides, you didn't even pick up your pen to answer the question for those ten seconds, so how could you see the answer ten seconds from now?"
"Ugh..." Kaguya turned her head away awkwardly and hurriedly made up an excuse. "D-Don't sweat such trivial details, my propery! This kind of thing, the wind fairies will solve for ."
"Is that so..."
Even Shido couldn't possibly believe Kaguya's explanation. He sighed, pointed at the textbook, and continued.
"Then please continue and write down the answer to this math problem. This is just solving a basic inequality system. We just went over the thod, so if you calculate it seriously, you can definitely solve it."
"Ugh..."
Pouting in frustration, Kaguya didn't explain further. She picked up her pen and started calculating on the scratch paper.
After about forty minutes had passed, Kaguya collapsed onto the desk, looking completely burned out. Trembling, she handed the workbook to Shido.
"Shido... I finished... Take it... This is my last..."
"A-Ah!"
Stopping his own exercises and seemingly infected by Kaguya's tragic atmosphere, Shido carefully and solemnly took the workbook.
"Let see..."
Shido flipped to the answer key in the textbook to check. More than half of the answers were wrong.
"How is it?"
"This is..."
Shido hesitated for a mont. Worried that he might crush Kaguya's motivation to study, he decided to offer so encouragent.
"Not bad, you have improved a lot compared to before. If you keep going with this montum, passing the final exam won't be a problem at all. As expected of Kaguya."
"I-Is that so." Hearing Shido's answer, a hint of light returned to Kaguya's eyes, and she said proudly, "Well, this level of difficulty is just a piece of cake for . Alright—let's keep charging forward with this montum!"
Seeing Kaguya regain her enthusiasm, Shido breathed a sigh of relief.
(No, I have to do my best too.)
Looking at the obscure and difficult English vocabulary on his practice sheet, Shido couldn't help but feel a bit of a headache.
"Shido, your grammar in this sentence is wrong."
"Eh? Where?"
"This sentence."
Kaguya pointed at a translation on Shido's test paper and explained.
"Here, 'I finished yesterday' should use the past perfect tense, but you wrote it in the present perfect tense. Also, the verb suffix here should be 'en', but you wrote 'ed'."
"Ah... You're right." Shido looked at Kaguya in surprise. "Are you pretty good at English, Kaguya?"
"Of course. To be able to accurately chant spells without mistakes, this is a matter of course. In battle, a single wrong syllable can be fatal."
Feeling Shido's admiring gaze, Kaguya proudly lifted her chin.
Of course, she would absolutely never say out loud that she secretly cramd English because the "Council of Sages" (her chuunibyou friends) had pointed out her grammar mistakes when she tried to create her own original spells.
"Speaking of which, your Japanese is pretty good too, Kaguya."
"Kuku—Because writing ultimate moves in Kanji looks super cool! Like 'Four-Beast Formation', 'Void Slash', 'Overlord Aura'. If you write them in Kanji, they look incredibly cool even without ruby text."
"You're exactly right—Ahem! I-I see. Let's keep studying."
Almost falling back into his old habits, Shido hurriedly coughed twice to hide his panic.
Soon, as their studying deepened, Shido gradually understood why he and Kaguya were put in the sa group.
Kaguya had better grades in social studies, while he had better grades in sciences studies. The subjects they excelled at and struggled with were different, so they could complent each other's weaknesses while studying.
However—
"Shido, do you know how to do this question?"
"Um... Sorry. I don't know either."
Looking at the physics problem in Kaguya's hand, Shido frowned in deep thought, then shook his head.
They were students, not teachers. Even in their strong subjects, their grades were at most above average. There were many difficult points they themselves didn't fully understand, let alone being able to teach others.
"Ah... I rember the teacher talking about this question in class... but I didn't take notes."
Shido scratched his head in frustration, trying to recall the lesson in his mind.
He rembered that at the ti, Origami claid she forgot her textbook and leaned over, wanting to share his desk. Then Tohka hurriedly said she also didn't bring her textbook and squeezed in. After that, the two started arguing as usual.
Okay, he was just busy trying to break up the fight back then and didn't listen to the lesson at all.
"Notes?"
Hearing Shido's words, Kaguya seed to suddenly rember sothing. She bent down and started digging through her bag.
"Speaking of which, my cỏmade and my other half gave their notes last night. They said I could use them if I ran into difficult problems."
Then, Kaguya took out a stack of notebooks and placed them on the desk.
(As expected of Yutsuki, she really thought of everything.)
Praising her silently in his heart, Shido flipped open the notebooks.
The styles of the notes were mainly divided into two types. One was Yuzuru's notes: the content was very detailed and comprehensive, and the handwriting was elegant and neat. One look and you could tell a girl wrote it.
The other type was Yutsuki's notes: the key points and processes were written simply and easily to understand. The handwriting was slightly smudged and looked a bit rushed as if chasing speed, yet it didn't feel chaotic at all, giving a sense of fine details hidden within rough strokes.
After a quick flip through, Shido found the answer Kaguya needed in the two notebooks.
Almost an hour passed. Feeling their concentration starting to drop, Shido and Kaguya decided to put down their pens and take a short break.
Taking advantage of the break, Shido turned and asked Kaguya a question.
"By the way, Kaguya, are you okay being separated from Yuzuru? Honestly, when I first heard the group assignnts, I thought you would definitely object."
"Mhm... I am fine. Although I am a bit not used to being separated from my other half, it is not unbearable. Besides, spending ti with you isn't a bad thing. Rather—"
Hesitating for a mont, Kaguya smiled bitterly and confessed.
"I was the one who proactively asked our compatriot to put Yuzuru and in different groups."
"Eh? Why is that?"
Hearing Kaguya's words, Shido couldn't help but ask in confusion.
"...Shido, you absolutely cannot leak this."
Kaguya looked at Shido, hesitated for a mont, and then spoke.
"That day, I was called to the interrogation room by our horoom teacher. He inford that with my current level, not only will I fail the year-end trials, but in the future, I might not even be able to stand on the sa battlefront as Yuzuru."
"Battlefront... Do you an university?"
"Mhm. According to the terminology of this world, that is correct."
Kaguya nodded silently.
"Ah... That is indeed very troubling."
Hearing Kaguya's words, Shido could vaguely understand what she was worrying about.
If they went to different universities, the ti they could spend together in the future would definitely decrease significantly. For these twin sisters who were usually inseparable, this was undoubtedly a very serious problem.
But strictly speaking, Ratatoskr would definitely not allow such a possibility that could cause a Spirit's Spirit energy to backflow. Even if Kaguya's grades weren't good enough, Kotori would definitely find a way to arrange for the Yamai sisters to attend the sa university.
Of course, Shido also knew that telling Kaguya this would only provoke her disgust.
"But, I think even if that happens, Yuzuru would definitely choose the sa university as Kaguya."
"That is natural. Yuzuru and I are a community of destiny bound by our souls. We will not be separated by such trivial matters!"
After giving a highly confident reply, Kaguya then lowered her head dejectedly.
"It is just... I am a bit worried. What if Yuzuru has sothing she wants to do in the future, but gives it up because of ? Will I hold Yuzuru back?"
"Kaguya..."
Shido was a bit surprised that Kaguya was actually thinking about such a question.
But thinking about it carefully, it seed only natural. Since the ti they t, the Yamai sisters had always considered the other more important than themselves, even willing to sacrifice themselves for the other.
"Wh-What is it, Shido? Looking at with that smile like our comrade. Are you mocking ?"
"No, I was just thinking that Kaguya is really Kaguya after all."
"You really are mocking , aren't you!?"
"Sorry, sorry."
Looking at Kaguya's dissatisfied face, Shido couldn't help but feel glad in his heart that he chose to help the two of them make up back then.
"So, that's why Kaguya proactively asked to be in a different group from Yuzuru? To get used to not feeling lonely when separated from Yuzuru? Or do you want to study hard on your own and get into the sa university as her?"
"That... I don't know."
Kaguya sighed and said, sounding a bit lost.
"That makes sense. I haven't figured out my own future either, so I am not very clear on it."
Shido gave a bitter smile and said.
"But we still have a long ti until graduation. Just communicate with Yuzuru about this properly later. There is no need to rush, just think about it slowly. For now, let's focus our goals on passing the exams."
"Mhm, you're right."
Kaguya lightly patted her cheeks, regained her enthusiasm, and picked up her textbook.
"Kuku—Break ti ends here! Training ti begins! Shido, please explain the cause and effect of this problem."
"Mhm. Wait—"
Looking at the problem Kaguya handed him, Shido hurriedly flipped through the notebooks to find the corresponding explanation.
"Hm?"
Suddenly, Shido stopped flipping the pages. He realized that this notebook was completely different from the previous ones. It was densely packed with a bunch of things that looked like ultimate move nas and annotations, with corresponding pencil doodles on the side.
And not only that, at the very end of the notebook, Shido also saw so notes about "How to successfully invite the opposite sex on a date," "Highly popular date spots," and other things that completely clashed with the previous text. It looked like notes that had just been added recently.
"Blood... Vivre?"
Reading out the bright red, exaggerated large words on the cover, Shido looked deeply confused. This shouldn't be Yuzuru's or Yutsuki's notebook, right?
"Ah!!!!??"
Before Shido could react, Kaguya snatched the notebook from his hands and hid it behind her back, her face turning completely red.
"Th-That—Don't misunderstand, Shido! Th-This is just a simple mistake—"
(Ah... So that is what it is.)
Seeing Kaguya's expression that was only making it more obvious by trying to hide it, Shido roughly guessed what that notebook was.
(I'll just pretend I didn't see anything.)
Shido thought quietly in his heart. Having his own dark history exposed in front of everyone by Kotori many tis, he naturally knew how much it made soone want to die when others saw this kind of thing.
"Anyway... let's keep studying."
"Mhm... Much obliged."
From then on, Kaguya no longer tried to use chuunibyou excuses to get by and studied honestly.
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