Taking the warrant from Lin Jingjing, Su Yuzu lowered her head and leafed through the Investigation Bureau's authorization.
It matched what the girl superintendent had told her.
She stood accused of involvement in multiple Aberrant attack cases and had been judged a considerable threat to society; her arrest was approved and ordered.
The warrant... there was nothing wrong with it.
The Investigation Bureau's signatures and seals didn't seem to have anything wrong with them either.
Su Yuzu obediently began to rise out of Unohana Chiyo's arms, ready to take the trip with Lin Jingjing.
Lin Jingjing wasn't a superintendent who handled arrests and detentions.
Normally the work assigned to her was field work, the sort she'd been doing during the last Aberrant attack event.
The Investigation Bureau had probably chosen to send Sister Jingjing, who had dealt with her before, as a courtesy — to her, and to the Soga clan.
And in exchange, they hoped she would extend the Investigation Bureau the same courtesy and not make a scene.
In fact—
They'd bet right.
If it had been up to Su Yuzu alone, she really would have gone along quietly with Lin Jingjing.
To Su Yuzu, the Investigation Bureau wasn't some hateful, troublesome place.
She guessed they simply wanted to work out how she had been able to command the radiant power Saint Michael left behind.
After all... during the last investigation operation.
She may have driven back the Sixth Sequence "Seat of Evil", but she had also burned through every last drop of the holy power blanketing the skies above the Tokyo metropolitan area, leaving the entire upper stratum of the Tokyo metropolitan area steeped in unease and anxiety.
That was probably what all this was about.
Su Yuzu wasn't worried that someone inside the Investigation Bureau might be trying to pull something.
The Tokyo metropolitan area, after all, did not belong to the Investigation Bureau.
"Soga."
That surname carried far more weight than anyone imagined.
But just as Su Yuzu moved to stand and follow the girl superintendent out, a hand came down on her shoulder.
At some point Unohana Chiyo had risen to her feet, and now she had Yuzu all but gathered into her arms.
Su Yuzu could feel, with perfect clarity, every graceful line of the woman behind her.
Of all the girls and older sisters Su Yuzu had ever been close to, Unohana Chiyo's figure ranked among the very finest.
Perhaps not as outrageous as Tsukiyomi Fuya's. Perhaps not as soft as the little rabbit's.
But Unohana Chiyo belonged to the "Death Squad", and her body was more supple and powerful than any ordinary body-enhancement Esper's. Being held by her was an experience entirely its own.
She rested her chin on the girl's shoulder, her left hand slipping the warrant out of Su Yuzu's fingers.
The girl superintendent watched her do it, and something in her face shifted.
Whether because she sensed things were about to go badly, or because of the sight of Unohana Chiyo curled so intimately around Su Yuzu, there was no telling.
"The Investigation Bureau...?"
After a quick scan confirmed that the warrant was indeed in order, Unohana Chiyo folded it shut.
"That's right—" The girl superintendent watched Unohana Chiyo warily.
This woman looked like the mature older-sister type, all soft grown-up smiles — but when she lifted her eyes and swept them across the girl superintendent's face, the younger woman felt as though a lion had locked its gaze on her throat.
How could that be... she was only a P.E. teacher.
Only a Second Sequence P.E. teacher.
The girl superintendent tried to talk herself down, but the cold sweat kept crawling down her back.
Only when Unohana Chiyo's gaze left her face, softening into something impossibly tender and doting as it settled on the girl in her arms, did the girl superintendent dare to breathe again.
She stared at Unohana Chiyo, at the way she held Su Yuzu.
The woman had lovely peach-blossom eyes, and she spoke slowly, every word wrapped in a warm smile.
Not the faintest trace of danger anywhere about her.
As if the dread the girl superintendent had felt a moment ago had been nothing but her own imagination.
"Do you know?" Unohana Chiyo looked at the girl superintendent.
"Even your Fourth Action Division—"
"—if they want our students to assist with an investigation, they still have to come to the door and ask politely."
She spoke slowly, and yet every word carried a strange, unshakable authority.
The other Investigation Bureau officers behind Lin Jingjing snapped to alert and came pouring into the P.E. department office.
And then—
Thud. Thud. Thud!!!
Every teacher in Keigunen Private Academy's P.E. department came hurrying over from the other offices.
They were nothing like the Fourth Action Division under Kujou Katora.
The Fourth Action Division Kujou Katora commanded was a wall of hulking, buzz-cut men in black combat suits.
Next to them, the Investigation Bureau's officers looked distinctly frail.
As for Private Keigunen's P.E. teachers, every last one of them came with the 'sickly' attribute as standard equipment.
But ranged protectively on either side of Unohana Chiyo, they made an imposing sight all the same.
Superintendents in the deep-blue uniform of the Investigation Bureau and the teachers of Private Keigunen stood facing one another.
"What do you think you're doing!!!" The girl superintendent still tried to shout them back.
"Senior Unohana Chiyo..." She looked at Unohana Chiyo. "We're only following procedure..."
"The whole process is legal and above board."
"And please, rest assured, the Investigation Bureau isn't going to do anything to Sister Soga."
"Without solid evidence, we wouldn't simply arrest Sister Yuzu."
"If Sister Yuzu truly has nothing to do with those Aberrant attack cases, nothing will come of it."
Su Yuzu had fully intended to go back with the girl superintendent.
But since Teacher Unohana looked like she'd decided to take this in hand...
...Su Yuzu settled obediently back into Unohana Chiyo's arms.
"As I said—" Unohana Chiyo's lips curved. "This is Keigunen."
Keigunen Private Academy was nothing like an ordinary academy.
It might look as though a single little cat had once been enough to turn all of Keigunen Private Academy upside down.
But the Zero of those days had already been an Aberrant verging on the Third Sequence, and between her Talent and her ability, she was a born assassin.
An ordinary Esper university would have struggled to hold Zero at all.
The students here... if they weren't geniuses, then they were rich or highborn.
Take Mihou Sakai.
Mihou Sakai's ability looked like nothing more than the utterly ordinary [Body Restoration] — but her Talent, [Perfect Execution], was enough to make her a top-tier Assault Department combatant.
And beyond Mihou Sakai there were Saotome Yukina, Lyudmila, Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi. Every one of the girls Su Yuzu had crossed paths with came from a distinguished background.
Behind them stood a miniature of the Tokyo metropolitan area's upper world.
"This place—"
"—is not somewhere the Investigation Bureau gets to run wild with one sheet of scrap paper."
"An investigation, we can assist with—"
"We'll assist where assistance is due, and you can investigate what needs investigating."
"But—"
"—you can forget about taking anyone away."
Unohana Chiyo gathered Little Yuzu up in her arms and straightened. "Back then, the Fourth Action Division couldn't take her—"
"And today... you won't be taking her either."
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