She tugged her collar straight.
Su Yuzu and Unohana Chiyo left the PE department office and headed straight for the Assault Department office to find Saionji Sagara.
Su Yuzu followed behind Unohana Chiyo at an unhurried pace.
Where the Investigation Bureau's accusation was concerned, Unohana Chiyo seemed more rattled than Su Yuzu herself.
By the time the two of them reached the Assault Department office, Director Saionji had clearly been waiting a while.
The woman's expression was grave.
Clearly—
Saionji Sagara hadn't seen it coming either: that on the heels of the academic exchange launched by Imperial Capital University, Su Yuzu would suddenly find herself under indictment.
"Director." Unohana Chiyo gave her a rough account of how she had turned the Investigation Bureau away.
"No problem there," Saionji Sagara said with a light nod.
She looked at Su Yuzu.
"Any investigation that deserves our cooperation, we cooperate with."
"Any demand that's out of line, we refuse."
"Keigunen is Keigunen. Even if the Investigation Bureau's Commissioner came here in person, he doesn't get to throw his weight around without cause."
Day to day, Saionji Sagara was hard on her girls, hard on every student at Keigunen Private Academy.
But when it mattered, no one shielded her own more fiercely than she did.
"Still…" She paused, leafing through the writ in her hand. "For the Investigation Bureau to bring charges against Su Yuzu out of nowhere—someone behind them is stirring the water."
"Otherwise they'd never risk offending the Soga clan just to accuse Little Yuzu."
"I've read the bill of accusation they submitted…"
"They're charging Little Yuzu with deliberately harboring Aberrants. Suspicion of collusion with the enemy." Saionji Sagara's face turned very grim.
Unohana Chiyo's did too. She had grasped how serious this was.
Because… Little Yuzu really did seem to be 'keeping' an Aberrant.
The assassin-type artificial Aberrant designated "Zero"—the one who had once broken into Keigunen Private Academy.
"Zero?" Su Yuzu frowned.
"Sister's already processing the paperwork for Zero."
"Same as Feng Ke—"
"Zero counts as a base body for 'Aberrant experimentation.' Fully legal, fully compliant research material."
"Even now… Zero is still at the Soga clan's hospital undergoing personality testing and adaptation therapy."
Hearing that, Saionji Sagara and Unohana Chiyo both breathed a little easier.
If Soga Yura had covered both sides of the board this far in advance, there was no reason to fear the charge.
Medical corporations, laboratories that dealt in Aberrants—
Capturing Aberrants for experiments was routine work.
It was only that, under normal circumstances, an Aberrant found it far too easy to die, which made taking a live one for study a considerable nuisance.
But… only a nuisance.
As far as Saionji Sagara knew, several of the labs under "Epiphany Manufacture" held live Aberrants in captivity.
And come to think of it—weren't Feng Ke and Zero both products cooked up by certain labs under "Epiphany Manufacture" in the first place?
"If there's nothing wrong on… on Zero's end, then the Investigation Bureau's people shouldn't have anything they can do to Little Yuzu."
Saionji Sagara turned a few more pages.
"Besides the charge of harboring Aberrants, they're also claiming Little Yuzu herself has already undergone a high degree of Aberration."
"That Little Yuzu stands one step from the Abyss, and represents a considerable danger to human society as a whole."
Saionji Sagara let out a scornful little laugh.
Little Yuzu, one step from the Abyss?
What a joke.
Little Yuzu was the girl who gave her the least cause for worry of anyone.
Back then she had stood by, powerless, and watched with her own eyes as one of her students fell into the Abyss and became a sinner who might have dragged the entire Tokyo metropolitan area down into ruin.
Ever since, Saionji Sagara had cared beyond all measure about the character and the mental fiber of her girls.
She lived in dread of raising a second Abyss with her own hands. Of raising a second Throne.
Which was why she had once decided: better to train no one at all than to train the wrong one.
But—
Su Yuzu had earned her approval quickly.
The Yuzu who had stood before Kujou Katora, neither cringing nor swaggering, shielding the kouhai who had once attacked her.
The Yuzu who had let bygones be bygones with the girl from the Soga clan's Ishikawa family—and who, afterward, seemed to have grown rather close to her.
The Yuzu who would set aside armfuls of important business and carve out time specially, just to keep company with Sakai, who seemed to be coming apart mentally.
Little Yuzu might look a touch too 'partial' toward pretty girls, but… all told she was a splendid girl, warmhearted and gentle.
She had even won the acknowledgment of the Holy Relic that once belonged to Saionji herself—the "Immaculate Pure Land."
Saionji Sagara believed that even if she could misjudge a person, the "Immaculate Pure Land" would never lie.
Yuzu—
was without question a good child, one who would fight for the beauty she held to.
There was no telling what Saionji Sagara would make of it if she ever learned that Su Yuzu had, in fact, forced the "Immaculate Pure Land" to acknowledge her.
Besides—
The academy had monitors running at all times for fluctuations in Aberrant aura.
If Little Yuzu had truly set foot in the Abyss, there was no way they would have missed it.
Saionji Sagara and Unohana Chiyo both dismissed the second charge with a snort. But Su Yuzu caught the faintest whiff of something ugly in it.
She really was only a step from the Abyss.
If she felt like it, she could unfurl the "Evil Karma Throne" right here inside Keigunen Private Academy this very moment, and convert most of the student body into her own kin.
Danger and ruin did lurk inside her.
Su Yuzu wasn't about to dismiss this as coincidence, as some phantom charge the Investigation Bureau had invented to pad out the list.
She turned the girl superintendent's words over again.
"The net of heaven is vast; its mesh is wide, but nothing slips through."
"Someone has already submitted evidence to the Investigation Bureau."
What that evidence was, though—she had no idea.
And that someone… who were they?
Saionji Sagara and Unohana Chiyo simply soothed the girl, told her to rest well, and said it would be best if she didn't leave Keigunen Private Academy for a while.
Of course—
If Su Yuzu genuinely wanted to leave, the Soga clan's car was parked right at the academy gates.
Those rank-and-file superintendents from the Investigation Bureau wouldn't have the nerve to stop her, however much they wanted to.
Neither woman had taken the second charge seriously at all.
—
Tokyo metropolitan area. Inside the Commissioner's office at the [Investigation Bureau] police station.
The man tilted back in his chair stared at the desk in front of him, at the hole that had been stomped through it, and wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
And just then… ring-ring-riiing.
The antique telephone was ringing again.
The man looked at it the way one looks at oncoming trouble, hesitated a moment, then picked up.
"Yes."
"Yes, yes, yes…"
"Su Yuzu—we weren't able to bring her back to the Investigation Bureau."
"What?"
"A physical examination?"
"Measure the strength of the Aberrant aura on Su Yuzu."
"Right, right, no problem at all."
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