A woman stood at the street corner outside the gates of Keigunen Private Academy.
Her outfit was far too eye-catching.
It was the sort of combat suit you only ever saw in a game — and an age-restricted one, at that.
The long-sleeved top of the combat suit had been cut down until it just barely covered her chest, leaving the woman's charms on full display.
Below her shorts, leather boots climbed her slender legs, one long, one short.
The boot on her right leg rose well past the knee.
The left one looked like it only just reached the knee.
Everything else — the bulky jacket and trousers a combat suit was supposed to have — the woman had swapped out for matte black stockings.
Add a face mask and a pair of contacts with dark golden vertical pupils, and Su Yuzu thought Kujou Katora could have gone off to cosplay an Aberrant.
Still... on a Kujou Katora dressed in near-total black from head to toe, the dark red collar around her neck stood out.
Not that it clashed. But the dark red collar, and the chain that hung from it and disappeared down into her combat suit, sent the mind wandering somewhere it shouldn't.
A woman that striking, and there wasn't a single gawker on the whole street.
The terrifying pressure rolling off Kujou Katora had chilled the air until it seemed ready to frost over.
That was no exaggeration.
Kujou Katora already stood infinitely close to the brink of Falling, and when she was holding back her "anger," no one had the nerve to look straight at her.
One sweep of those crimson eyes was enough to leave a body feeling frozen through.
The young superintendent standing in front of Su Yuzu was no exception.
"S-Superintendent Kujou!?" There was a tremor in the young superintendent's voice.
She didn't understand why Lady Kujou would turn up at Keigunen Private Academy, and out of nowhere at that.
By rights, as the head of the Fourth Action Division, Lady Kujou should have been run ragged right now — the "Seat of Evil" attacking without warning, the Holy Radiance Saint Michael had left behind vanishing — stretched far too thin to be anywhere else.
But... the young superintendent looked at Su Yuzu, all smiles in front of her.
And she had a fairly good idea why.
Back at the Investigation Bureau she had already sensed the truth of it: this girl had long since taken the chain of Lady Kujou's collar into her own hand.
No matter how busy she was, if it had anything to do with the girl standing here, Lady Kujou would come.
Alarm rose in the young superintendent.
She could have been the one to slip Sister Yuzu a little information — but standing in front of Lady Kujou, that faint scrap of usefulness was gone in an instant.
Just like that, she had been cast as the irritating obstacle.
And besides... the young superintendent studied the sly little smile hiding on the girl's face.
Had she done it on purpose?
Sister Yuzu had never meant to leave Keigunen Private Academy in the first place. She had known all along that Lady Kujou would come here. She had been bluffing her, deliberately.
And that predatory act she'd put on just now had only been... The young superintendent stared at those crimson eyes, terrifying enough to leave her cold all over. It had only been a pose, staged for Lady Kujou to see.
How strange—
The young superintendent stood frozen where she was.
There was no disgust in her at all.
If anything... only a refusal to accept it.
She wanted to be someone Sister Yuzu would look at properly, too.
"The one I was waiting for is here~" Su Yuzu beamed at the young superintendent in front of her. "So, Sister Jingjing~~~"
She dragged the name out long.
"Please take good care of me from here on, Sister Jingjing."
With every word out of Su Yuzu's mouth, the temperature at the gates of Keigunen Private Academy seemed to sink lower.
She rose lightly onto her toes and turned.
The ends of Su Yuzu's hair swept up and brushed past the young superintendent's nose.
The young superintendent wanted to reach for her, but her right hand lifted only a fraction — she couldn't even find the courage to stretch it out.
Su Yuzu trotted over to stand in front of Kujou Katora.
The bitter cold that had frozen the air seemed to melt away.
The crimson eyes took in Su Yuzu, standing there so prettily and smiling up at her, and blinked.
"Mas—"
Kujou Katora looked at the finger Su Yuzu had raised and pressed to the corner of her own lips, and swallowed without thinking.
"Miss Yuzu."
Such a gentle, indulgent voice — lazy, with something of a cat wheedling to be spoiled in it.
And the woman it belonged to was Kujou Katora, hailed as The Empire's Hound, and known besides as a mad dog.
But in front of Su Yuzu, Kujou Katora's voice fell back into the orbit it was always meant to keep.
"What brings Miss Yuzu out here..."
Behind Kujou Katora, Miss Hayabusa had already started forward. She meant to ask that field-duty Miss Superintendent from the Investigation Bureau about Miss Yuzu's condition.
And at the same time... to settle the girl's nerves.
Lady Kujou might look ferocious, but she never entertained ideas or pulled little tricks on Investigation Bureau personnel outside the Fourth Action Division.
Unless... that girl really did have ideas about Miss Yuzu.
Su Yuzu watched Miss Hayabusa walk toward Lin Jingjing. She said nothing about it, only smiled up at Kujou Katora, then reached out and caught her leather-gloved hand.
"Because I felt that Raptor was already here, of course~"
Now that she had completely Tamed Kujou Katora, Su Yuzu no longer felt the dread she once had around her.
As for Kujou Katora... the moment Su Yuzu caught her hand, all the danger drained out of that crimson stare.
In one breath she went from a dangerous Raptor to a cat sprawled on its back with its belly bared, begging to be doted on.
"Feels like it's been ages since Raptor last made an entrance~"
"I really ought to give you a proper welcome." Su Yuzu sounded perfectly serious about it.
"I'm sorry!!!" Kujou Katora's head snapped down into a bow, and the chain fastened to the collar at her throat shivered with the motion.
"The Fourth Action Division has had so much going on lately..."
"It's my fault I never came to visit Master Yu— ...Miss Yuzu."
Unexpected — and yet exactly right.
Kujou Katora's first reading of Su Yuzu's words was that she had failed in her duty.
It was all her own dereliction. She hadn't come to receive Master Yuzu's affection.
And that Master Yuzu was willing to bestow a Blessing on her every single day was already the greatest indulgence she could ask for.
She... had no excuse.
Su Yuzu watched that bitter, self-flagellating repentance play out, and after a brief blank moment, she understood exactly what was happening.
The girl's lips curved up, little by little.
She lifted her hand, as if to pat Kujou Katora on the head.
Kujou Katora was a touch taller than Su Yuzu, but patting her head was still perfectly manageable.
Except Kujou Katora didn't want Su Yuzu lifting her arm that high at all.
She bent low in front of Su Yuzu.
Straining to arrange herself so that Su Yuzu need only raise her arm to pat her head the way one pats a pet.
Hands braced on her knees, Kujou Katora stared at the girl's calves, her shoulders trembling.
This... this was such Shame.
In front of so many people, out in the open, in front of... a subordinate superintendent from the Investigation Bureau, being patted on the head by Miss Yuzu like a puppy.
But... it was so good, so good, so good—
Kujou Katora felt her legs about to give out; her knees knocked together.
Compared with that hollow, flavorless Blessing.
Yes... yes, it was this kind of Shame... this Humiliation... Kujou Katora gazed dazedly at Su Yuzu's calves.
Miss Yuzu... Miss Yuzu!!!
She likes me.
The way I like dogs.
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