Su Yuzu used to hate the surname "Soga."
If she hadn't been Soga Yuzu.
If Soga Yura hadn't been Soga Yura.
She and her Sister would probably have had a happy family, a past without so many hard, tangled turns.
But—
Right here, right now, Su Yuzu had to admit it.
She was, beyond any doubt, a beneficiary of everything the name "Soga" brought with it.
Outside the window, the day was bright.
Warm sunlight poured through the wooden door of the PE department office, stretching the young superintendent's shadow long, very long.
And at the far end of that shadow, the woman holding Su Yuzu in her arms spoke — slow, warm, soft, and yet every word rang out hard and clear.
Lin Jingjing understood exactly what Unohana Chiyo meant.
She was no hot-blooded idiot brimming with justice.
Though there had been a time when she wished she were.
At the police academy she had already learned how cold and how warm the world could be, already learned how people really worked.
She knew there were people you could afford to cross, and people you couldn't.
"Soga—"
"Private Keigunen—"
Those were about the last people in the world anyone could afford to cross.
From the day they were born, they seemed to stand under a spotlight.
Next to them, the brightest light she had ever stood in was probably less dazzling than their shadows.
For an ordinary superintendent like her — no backing, no connections, and unwilling to trade on her looks to climb higher — running her field assignments honestly was about the most she could manage.
All she had to do was carry Unohana Chiyo's answer back with her.
Judging from her superior's reaction when he'd handed down the assignment, he had expected from the very beginning that Keigunen Private Academy wouldn't give anyone up so easily.
But—
The young superintendent couldn't quite swallow it.
She looked at Su Yuzu, sheltered in Unohana Chiyo's arms, who gave her a small, careful wink.
No, she really couldn't swallow it.
"She was all set to come with me a minute ago."
"Ms. Unohana—"
"I hope you understand. Whether Miss Yuzu comes back to the Investigation Bureau with us isn't something you—"
"—nor Keigunen Private Academy, gets to settle with a single word."
"Superintendent Lin—" Unohana Chiyo read the credentials hanging at the young superintendent's chest, just as unafraid. "I hope you understand something too."
"Keigunen Private Academy…"
"…is not a place where you can walk off with someone on the strength of one sheet of paper."
The young superintendent bit her lip.
She took in the look in Unohana Chiyo's eyes, and the PE department teachers ranged on either side of Unohana Chiyo and Su Yuzu.
And these were only the PE department teachers.
The genuinely troublesome ones — the Assault Department teachers — hadn't even arrived yet.
But the young superintendent had no doubt that the moment a conflict broke out here, those Assault Department teachers would come tearing over in seconds.
This was not the place for a fight.
The young superintendent thought back to how obediently Su Yuzu had been ready to come along at the start, dumped the entire blame on Unohana Chiyo, and at the same time kicked herself — why hadn't she taken her people straight to Su Yuzu's dormitory and simply waited there?
From the way Unohana Chiyo was standing her ground, the young superintendent knew there was no chance of taking anyone in today.
She pulled out her police-issue phone and called her superior right there in front of Unohana Chiyo.
Only… for some reason.
The signal on her superior's end sounded bad, and his voice sounded thin, almost hollow.
Inside an office at the Investigation Bureau police station—
Cold sweat kept beading on the forehead of a slightly heavyset middle-aged man.
In front of him stood a young woman in an outfit that drew the eye — revealing would be the polite word for it — with one foot planted on his desk.
The heel of her Sharp High Heels had already punched down into the mahogany tabletop.
Her right hand braced on her knee, she leafed through stack after stack of documents.
By rights, even being threatened like this should have been a treat for the eyes.
But the man had no intention of lifting his head even for a glance. If he slipped and saw something he wasn't supposed to see, his eyeballs would probably be carved out while he was still breathing.
"Aiya…"
"My little ancestor…"
"Lady Kujou!"
"Superintendent Kujou!!!"
"You know how it is. Arresting Miss Soga? Even if you handed me ten times the nerve, I'd never dare do that on my own."
"That came down from above."
"Somebody's playing a game against the Soga clan."
"Somebody?" Kujou Katora passed the thick dossier back to Ji behind her without looking and studied the cringing man in front of her.
To be precise—
He was her superior.
The Director of the Tokyo metropolitan area Investigation Bureau, the Chief Superintendent who stood above Kujou Katora.
The man shut his mouth.
A low, rolling breath came out of the shadows of the room — the sound of a beast.
Head down, not daring to look at Kujou Katora, the man suddenly saw a pair of crimson beast's eyes open between his own knees.
The Hound of Blood.
His face crumpled, and he tried to raise his head and look somewhere else.
But his gaze had barely lifted before the edge of his vision caught the young woman's skintight black bodystocking and the collar fastened around her throat. Never mind—
He lowered his head like a good boy and settled in for a staring contest with the snarling beast.
Some things… he really, truly could not say.
Right then the retro telephone on the desk began to ring, shrill and insistent.
Kujou Katora looked at her superior and jerked her chin at it. "Answer it."
The man picked up with a face like a funeral.
And then… he nearly laughed out loud.
"Keigunen Private Academy wants to keep Miss Soga by force?"
"That's wonder—"
"Ahem, ahem, I mean—"
"That is truly terrible." He risked a careful glance up at Kujou Katora, terrified of catching sight of scenery he had no business seeing.
Thankfully—
Kujou Katora made a habit of wearing a one-piece skintight black bodystocking under that outrageously revealing combat suit.
It looked lewd as anything, but in practice it made it very hard to actually see the scenery he shouldn't.
"If Keigunen Private Academy wants to keep her, then let them keep her."
Feeling perhaps that this sounded a little short on authority, he hesitated, then added, "Until the case is completely closed…"
"…Miss Soga is simply not permitted to leave Keigunen Private Academy."
"Such a demanding mission — I'm entrusting it to you, Superintendent Lin."
"I have great faith in you!"
"Superintendent Lin."
On the other end of the line, the young superintendent hung up, sullen.
"Well?" Unohana Chiyo looked at Superintendent Lin.
"The Director says…"
"Miss Soga doesn't have to come to the police station."
"But during this period, Miss Yuzu is forbidden to leave Keigunen Private Academy without permission."
"I'll be keeping an eye on Miss Soga!"
Su Yuzu shrugged, unbothered. She hardly ever went out anyway.
The young superintendent gathered her people to go.
Before she left, something seemed to occur to her. Once everyone else had filed out of the PE department office, she hesitated, turned back, and looked at Su Yuzu.
"Heaven's net is wide, and nothing slips through…"
"Someone has already submitted evidence to the Investigation Bureau. You won't get away."
Unohana Chiyo watched the young superintendent leave, then looked down at the girl in her arms with a long, quiet gaze. She had no idea how many romantic debts Little Yuzu had run up out there in the world.
That last hesitant look on the young superintendent's face, and those words that sounded like a threat but were really a tip-off…
What an ill-fated tangle.
Inside an office at the Investigation Bureau police station—
The slightly plump middle-aged man mopped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. Quaking, he glanced down at the Hound of Blood sitting beneath his crotch, then looked up at the woman in front of him. "Well?"
"Superintendent Kujou."
"Handled this way… does it meet with your satisfaction?"
What he hadn't expected was the look on the young superintendent's face — she didn't seem anywhere near as pleased as he'd assumed she would be.
"Keeping watch over… Yuzu?"
"Why wasn't that assignment given to me?"
A drop of cold sweat slid down the man's forehead.
"I'm done for."
"Miscalculated again."
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