'That girl,' he thought, not without a complicated mix of pride and resignation, 'is soon going to be someone else's beautiful, terrifying problem long before she ever becomes mine again.'
And it seemed there was no helping it.
The princess had infected Yuzuki; whatever the eldest Ryujin Tiamat princess was — her temperament, her wildness, her particular brand of refined chaos that existed somewhere between aristocratic discipline and gleeful demolition — a bit of it had seeped into Yuzuki across the years they had spent together, and no one could do a thing about it.
The girl had gone away with the princess and come back remade in her image, and the remaking was, Hayashi had come to accept — having tried everything and been outflanked by genetics and influence in equal measure — permanent.
He quickened his pace.
