"...Aah...," Shidou sighed.
He plodded along the residential street at the pace of an old man with bad knees as the sun began its journey back to the horizon. His face was haggard with exhaustion, and the hair that hung over his eyes was dull and lifeless. He was only sixteen but looked much older. And who could blame him?
"...Aah." Another sigh.
Tohka and Origami kept going at each other, and he stepped in to stop them every time. This wasn't the first of these fights. They'd been happening almost daily since Tohka transferred to Raizen High, the public school Shidou attended. If it were the bickering of two teenage girls, he wouldn't have been as anxious as he was.
"Can't they get along for five seconds...?" he grumbled, then shook his head at his own idiocy.
Until a month ago, the two girls had been literally trying to kill each other. Kotori said Origami and the rest of the AST wouldn't come for Tohka because they weren't getting a Spirit signal from her. Even so, she wasn't exactly champing at the bit to become best friends with the now-powerless Spirit.
Worst part out of all is... Lucas hasn't been to school for quite some time. He only told him that he would take a break for personal reasons but.. for more than a month is quite a odd.
"What is he up to now...? I could really need some help y'know!"
Shidou wouldn't last much longer if things kept up the way they were. He was about to sigh even longer and louder when he jerked his head up.
"...Hmm?" He felt something cold trail down his neck. "...Gah." He scowled at the sky.
At some point, it had turned leaden with clouds.
"Rain? Give me a break! The forecast said it was going to be sunny," he muttered to himself, cursing the weather forecaster, who was more miss than hit these days.
As though the sky had been waiting for that very moment, droplets started to mark out dark spots on the ground.
"Yikes..." He held his bag up over his head and trotted towards his house. The rain started to come down harder and turned into a downpour. "Oh, come on. Seriously...?"
He frowned in annoyance, cold rain seeping into his skin through his wet uniform. He started to run down the road, trying in vain to keep his uniform from getting totally soaked. Right when he was about to turn at the T-intersection, his feet stopped abruptly.
"Uh...?" It wasn't that he was simply too tired to go on or he'd decided he was fine with being wet. Something had appeared just up ahead, which he found much more interesting than beads of water falling from the sky.
Yes. A girl. A small shadow wrapped in a cute cloak. He couldn't see her face because a large hood with decorative rabbit ears hid it completely from view. Even more curiously, on her left hand was a cute rabbit puppet. This girl hopping around the deserted road, looking like she was having the time of her life.
"What...?" He stared at her, frowning as a question popped inside his head.
He wasn't curious about why she would be bouncing around in the rain without an umbrella, but why? What about her had so instantly caught his attention? Her outfit was indeed eye-catching. But that wasn't it. He couldn't describe this feeling, but it was like something was out of place, a strange, mysterious sensation.
"..."
The chill of the rain and the clamminess of his wet uniform didn't bother him anymore. His eyes were fixed on the girl dancing beneath the stormy sky.
Fwoosh! Thud!
"Huh...?" His eyes snapped open as the girl tripped.
She slammed into the ground face-first, sending droplets of water up into the air. The puppet on her left hand broke free and flew off ahead of her. She layed on the road, motionless.
"...H-hey!" He sprinted over to her and held the small body gently. He turned her over. "Y-you okay? Hey!"
Then, he saw the girl's face. She was probably about the same age as his little sister, Kotori, but her fluffy hair was blue like the ocean. Her soft lips were the color of cherry blossoms, and she was as beautiful as a doll.
"...!" Her eyelids jumped open to reveal sapphire eyes surrounded by long lashes.
"Aah, thank heavens... Are you hurt?" he asked.
All the color drained out of the girl's face, eyes darting around, and she leaped up and out of his arms. Once she had put some distance between the two of them, she shivered and sent a fearful glance his way.
"S-stay...back...please!" the girl squeaked in a frightened voice.
"Huh?" He took a step forward.
"Please...don't...hurt me..." She shivered like a small animal in the rain, fearful of the threat Shidou apparently presented.
"Umm..." He wasn't sure how to react until he noticed the puppet on the ground. It had slipped off her hand when she fell. He slowly bent over to pick it up and offered it to her. "Is this...yours?"
"...!" She opened her eyes wide and started to race over to him but quickly stopped again. As she carefully eyed the distance between them, the look on her face screamed she wanted her puppet back, but she was also too afraid to get too close to Shidou.
He smiled a little and inched toward her, holding it out to her.
"...!" She trembled, but at last, she seemed to understand what he intended to do, and her own feet started to move slowly in his direction.
When she was close enough, she snatched the puppet from his hand and stuffed it onto her own, making its mouth move.
"Whoa there, buddy. You really helped me out." The rabbit puppet spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice, through ventriloquism, Shidou supposed.
Cocking his head curiously to one side, Shidou looked doubtfully at the girl's face, but the rabbit kept going, as if to stop him from saying anything to the girl.
"So when you picked me up there, you ended up touching a whole lot of Yoshinon. How'd you like it? C'mon, be honest. You can tell me."
"Uh...?" he said.
"Playing dumb, huh, you lucky perv." The puppet rocked back and forth, like it was trying to show it was laughing. "Well, you did help me out there, so I'll let it slide this once."
"...Uh, okay. Sure."
"Mmkay, then. Thanks muchly," the puppet chirped, and the girl whirled around and sprinted off.
"H-hey!" he called out, but the girl didn't look back at him. She raced around the corner and out of sight.
"What was that...?" He stood still on the spot for a few seconds, dumbfounded.
"Oh!" He had been so focused on the girl, he hadn't noticed that he was drenched to the bone. Plus, he'd knelt down on the ground, so his trousers were dirty to boot. "Gah. Just my misfortune..."
"Do we have any stain remover left?" he wondered as he ran a hand through his hair. Droplets of water flew into the air. Now that he was this wet, there was no point in hurrying anymore. He aired out his grievances with a sigh and started towards his house. "Aah... I'm soaked," he grumbled.
He reached his house at last and put his key into the lock and then frowned slightly. "...Hmm?"
He grabbed the knob and pulled. Just as he'd expected, the door he knew he'd locked when he went out opened without any resistance.
"Dammit, Kotori." He sighed. "I guess she's finally back?"
She'd been so swamped with work in the aftermath of taking the Spirit Tohka into protective custody that she hadn't been home for a month.
"Honestly," he groaned, her face popping up in the back of his mind. He understood she was busy with the whole Tohka thing, but he couldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that she didn't have permission to be away from home. It seemed like she'd been going to school, at least. But as her older brother, it was his duty to say something to her.
"And-"
He swallowed hard. He had a lot of questions for her. Everything that had happened to him last month seemed impossible now, like something out of a dream. And Kotori was at the center of it all.
"..." His heart started to pound, even though he was just going to talk to his little sister. He took off his soaked shoes and socks and rolled up the hems of his trousers before stepping up into the house, leaving wet footprints in his wake.
He could hear the TV down the hallway. So Kotori was in the living room.
Shidou changed courses for the bathroom on tiptoes. He couldn't exactly talk to her in this wet state. It would be best to dry himself off and change clothes before heading into the living room.
With his schoolbag in one hand, Shidou opened the door to the changing area that led into the bathroom...and froze in place.
"-?!"
There was a girl in the changing area who should not have been there.
Long hair the color of night spilling down her back, eyes like crystals. She was so gorgeous, her presence so powerful, that the whole dictionary of words wouldn't begin to describe even a tenth of her beauty.
Tohka Yatogami was standing in front of him. Without a single thread of clothing on her body.
"T-Tohka...?" he murmured, stunned.
Her body, a work of art in and of itself, instantly caused Shidou's nerves, brain cells to vibrate, evaporate, explode. Breasts comfortably cupped in a hand, a waist that darted in below them, a soft butt. A bewitching and mysterious nude body that would no doubt push the girls of the world beyond envy.
"Wha-?!" She jumped and looked over at him. "Sh-Shidou?!"
"Oh! Uh! No! It's not! ...I just-!" He didn't know what it wasn't, but the words spilled heedlessly from his mouth.
"Wh-whatever...!" she cried. "Just get out!"
"Hngh...!" He took an impossibly perfect right slap to his face and flew backward until he hit the wall. He slid down to the floor.
Bam! Not a heartbeat later, the door to the changing area banged shut.
"Ugh... Sh-she actually hit me for real...,"
Gradually, the pain on his face faded, and the nude image that ate into his brain and retinas faded. He managed to get the pounding of his heart back under control.
The door to the changing area opened a little, and Tohka's beet-red face peeked out. "...Did you see anything, Shidou?!"
He shook his head vigorously back and forth as Tohka stared him down. The truth was, he had seen something, but if he was stupid enough to come clean, he would be burned to ashes.
Hmm...," she said, perhaps satisfied with this, and opened the door the rest of the way.
Naturally, she was wearing clothes now, but she wasn't in her school uniform. Instead, she was covered in his own favorite loungewear, lent to her by Kotori, probably.
His clothes were a size too big for her, and her collarbone was peeking out of the collar, which was strangely cute. Shido wasn't exactly sure where to rest his eyes.
But this was no time to worry about that. He stabbed a finger at her. "Wh-what are you doing in my house, Tohka...?!"
"What?" She frowned, like she had no idea why he was asking her that. "Your sister didn't tell you? She said I should stay over for a while for some kind of training or something."
"T-training...?!" Now he frowned and turned his gaze down the hallway. "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!! Didn't Lucas mention he lived together with Tokisaki?! D-don't tell me she's-" He himself abruptly ended his thoughts and turned his gaze down the hallway.
He got to his feet, marched to the living room, and yanked open the door. "Kotoriiii! Explain yourself!"
"Uh?" The pigtailed child sitting on the sofa watching TV looked over her shoulder with eyes round like walnuts. "Oh, hey, Big Bro. You're home."
"Y-yeah, just got ba- There isn't time for that!"
He almost answered her like everything was normal before shaking his head furiously. "Did you bring Tohka over...? What exactly is this 'training'...?!"
"Settle down." She waved a distracted hand at him.
"How am I supposed to settle down?!" he shrieked. "Wh-why is Tohka here...? Wasn't she supposed to go home with Reine?"
"Huh? Oh, her." Kotori pointed toward the kitchen.
"Huh...?" Shidou turned his eyes in that direction and froze again.
"...I stopped by for a bit." An extremely sleepy woman was seated at the dining table separating the living room from the kitchen, dropping sugar cube after sugar cube into a steaming mug.
She was not in her usual garb of military uniform or lab coat but rather in his mother's pajamas with a towel wrapped around her neck. Her hair looked a little damp.
"R-Reine? What are you doing?"
"...Mm?" Reine appeared to sink into thought briefly. "Oh, sorry. Did I use too much sugar?"
"That's not what I meant!" he shouted in frustration. It was true that she had put in so many sugar cubes that he worried she might have diabetes in the future, but that wasn't the issue at the moment. He patted his chest to calm his racing heart. "What's going on here? Doesn't Tohka live on Fraxinus?!"
Now in the protection of Ratatoskr, Tohka lived in a separate area inside Fraxinus. Her power might have been sealed away, but she was still a Spirit. So a room on the ship had been prepared for her in a closed-off area that was strictly sealed, allowing Ratatoskr to respond immediately in case anything happened and efficiently carry out regular exams. Thus, at the end of the school day, Tohka usually returned to Fraxinus with Reine.
"...Ohhh, yeah. I guess that needs an explanation," Reine said, rubbing eyes adorned with dark bags. "...But before that."
"Before that...?"
"...Shouldn't you change? You're dripping on the floor."
"Ah!" he cried out softly.
◇
"Hm..." Lucas stared at a small glass capsule given to him just a a few weeks ago. It's been just a few days since Tohka was successfully sealed by Shidou, so the promise from Elliot, going back a few years, was finally fulfilled. Just the other day, after the "incident", Shidou passed away and was throughoutly examined in the Fraxinus Medical Office. They took the chance to take a blood sample from him without him knowing the use for it.
That blood sample was given to Lucas by Reine the other day but for some reason Lucas sunk deep into his thoughts every time he looked at it.
"Lucas, are you still hesitating?" A voice as sweet as honey, as soft as clouds and angelic as heaven, reached his eardrums and his brain. It instantly caught his attention. He moved his head to face the source of the voice. Next to him stood a girl, one with a beauty only rivalled by Tohka. Silky black hair down to her waist, a red eye as shiny as rubies and and golden eye with hour and minute hands resembling a moving clock. Though, it is most times covered by her unusually long bangs on one side of her face.
"Kurumi..."
It was Tokisaki Kurumi, his roommate and friend. "Is something the matter?"
"Not really. But I myself can't describe why."
It's strange to say the least. There was something holding him back from drinking Shidou's blood. It's not about the taste. It's not about mismatching Bloodtype. Lucas' blood type was 0, which meant he can consume any kind of blood from anyone without having to worry about life-threatening reactions.
"Maaaan.. what is wrong with me!!??" Lucas banged his head on the wall repeatedly, and not gently either. The few hits caused his forehead to bleed and the wall to crack. Small bits of bricks and cement fell to the ground and on his feet.
"L-Lucas!!?" Kurumi cried out, and Lucas then stopped.
"...Please turn around. This might look disgusting if I consume it in front of you."
"A-alright."
Seeing someone consume literal blood isn't something ordinary. It's not considered cannibalistic by any means. It's just for a lot of people, incredibly disgusting and disturbing. It can also have severe health risks, including the risk of contracting a bloodborne illnesses. It's a route for many human diseases. But Lucas' body can't really be considered human, can it? The limitations of Lucas' body are far beyond any human. He has yet to catch any type of disease, cold or infection. He's immune to any type of poison or any damaging substances. It wouldn't even be surprising if he could survive in space.
That said, Lucas swallowed the capsule whole. Since the capsule was small and the outer layer incredibly thin, it should easily digest quickly. And it did.
"...!"
A weird, warm feeling began immersing him from within. He can't begin to describe what it was. Hell, if it can even be described in words that exist within the entirety of the human dictionary. It seemed like a signal. A signal with the purpose to tell Lucas that he had successfully copied Shidou's signature Ability. The ability to seal a Spirit.
"..." He cannot confirm this on his own just from that feeling. There was one person he knew of whom he can ask.
He closed his eyes, concentrating hard. The outside world felt like it was gone. All the quiet noises disappeared. The bird's cheeping, the footsteps, the TV, the ventilation- Everything went quiet.
Once he opened his eyes, he wasn't standing in his house anymore. He was in a weird but familiar space. Everything was void black and he was standing on nothing. There was no light source, but somehow he can still see the endless void. It was like he was playing a certain block game without fog and infinite distance but in VR.
"Why are you here?" A very familiar voice echoed in around the entirety of the void. It was the mysterious being.
"The last time I've seen you was decades ago. You've been really quiet since then."
"Ah. but you never actively wanted to meet me anyway."
"..." Although it's figure was clad in light, Lucas could somehow make out a shrug and a small grin.
"In any case, can you confirm that I have the Ability now?"
"Yes, I can confirm it. There shouldn't be any problem with sealing a Spirit just like Itsuka Shidou." It told him.
"Well then, I'll see you again in the outside world."
"Sure...."
Then, just like Lucas entered this void, he again closed his eyes and concentrated. Just seconds later, the sounds of birds, the wind, and footsteps returned. He opened his eyes to see himself in the living room with Kurumi sitting on sofa.
The situation was the same as it started.
"How much time has passed, Kurumi?" He asked a strange question.
"Hm? I mean, you only closed your eyes for a second or two..?"
"....I see." Lucas understood a little more of his abilities now. It seemed that time inside the empty void went by slower than the outside world. He has been there for a few minutes, roughly five, which then translates to around a second in the real world. But it's practically useless since his real body still remains in the real world.
But aside all that, he now has the ability to seal a Spirit.
"Well then.."
"-?!"
In a blink of an eye, Lucas appeared infront of Kurumi, pressing his hands into the cushions next to her and moving his face closer to Kurumi's.
"L-Lucas..?" Her cheeks painted red when Lucas suddenly eliminated the distance between them. Even if they lived for quite some time together, Lucas' face was never this close to her before. Her heart tightened hard. It became heart to breathe and everything she could do right now is to close her eyes.
Lucas used his left hand to gently hold Kurumi's chin and slightly split apart her pink, soft, twitching lips.
At that moment, Kurumi knew what Lucas was up to. Lucas aswell, opened his lips and moved them close, even closer.
He could feel her breath, how her lungs gushed air in and out of her lungs. He was extremely close to her lips, extremely close to sealing Kurumi. However, just before Lucas' lips came in contact with Kurumi's-
"..huh..?" Kurumi waited with her eyes closed for it to happen but it never did. She slightly opened one eye lid to see what Lucas was up to, but he wasn't infront of her anymore. Both her eyes opened and she could see what was going on.
Lucas was laying head first on the sofa just across the table in the middle. His head was visibly steaming. Though only slightly, she saw how his face was beet-red all over.
"I really can't do it..." Lucas said but it was a little hard to understand because he spoke into a pillow.
"Lucas..." Kurumi mumbled to herself. She touched her lips, thinking about how it would've felt like. How it feels to kiss someone. She didn't have anything against it. After all, she does have feelings for Lucas. And it's probably the same on the other side. The seal would've probably be successful if their lips connected. But there was something Kurumi had to get off her chest. If it were a normal kiss, she wouldn't have any problems, but since he now has the ability to seal her at any time with a kiss-
"I... don't want you to seal my powers... not yet at least. "
"Huh..?" Lucas instantly got up into a regular sitting position. "Why?" He repeated in his head. He wished he didn't hear that. Especially not from Kurumi.
"Why?"
"There's... still something I have to do with my Spirit Power. It's still of use and as you have probably already seen, Tohka-san can't use her powers anymore."
"..."
It did make sense. There was still so much information about the Spirits which is still uncovered. With her almost endless amounts of clones, she can easily pile up information and solve this puzzle of spacequakes and Spirits. Losing her powers right now would be a waste. And there shouldn't be any problem of keeping it right now. She isn't directly targeted by the AST, and even if she was, she is far stronger than them. Additionally, there's Lucas who will always protect her no matter what.
Lucas quickly understood and just smiled at her. "I understand. I'll postpone the sealing for when you want to get sealed. I won't force you."
◇
"...So? What exactly is going on here?"
Now in fresh, dry clothes, Shidou turned his eyes on Kotori and Reine, who were sitting across from him in his little sister's room on the second floor of the Itsuka house. He would have preferred to continue the conversation in the living room, but they would be talking about some things Tohka was better off not hearing, so they'd taken the discussion upstairs. Tohka, meanwhile, was engrossed in a rerun of some anime in the living room.
"Mmkay." Kotori poked her cheek with a finger. "Tohka's going to be living here for a while-as of today!" She puffed her chest out, an innocent smile on her face.
"And I've been trying to ask you whyyyyyy!" Shidou shouted.
"...Mm, well, calm down, Shintaro," Reine said in a gentle voice.
Just as he'd feared or maybe expected, she still had his name wrong.
"It's not Shintaro, it's Shidou," he corrected.
"...Oh, right. I'll fix that. Sorry, Shin."
"..."
Nothing had been fixed. She had just shortened her nickname for him. He could only assume she was doing it on purpose.But he didn't have time to follow up on the issue of his name now.
"...Broadly speaking, there are two reasons," Reine began in a quiet voice. "It's for Tohka's aftercare."
"Aftercare...?" he repeated after her.
"...Shin. Remember you sealed Tohka's power with a kiss last month?"
"...Uh-huh..." He dropped his gaze as he felt the kiss all over again on his lips. His face reddened.
"Ooh, my big brother's turning red!" Kotori squealed, sounding like she was having the time of her life. "How adorable."
"Sh-shut up!" He looked away.
"...Well, that was great and all, but there's one problem... Now you've got this invisible Path running between you and Tohka."
"A Path?" He frowned. "What does that mean?"
"...Put simply, when Tohka's mental state becomes unstable, the Spirit power sealed in your body could potentially flow back into her."
"Wha-?" He felt a shiver run up his spine.
Tohka's sealed Spirit powers flowing back into her? Did that mean she would be regaining the power to rip apart heaven and earth again?
Just thinking about it made his hair stand on end.
"...As you also know, Tohka's living in a separate area of Fraxinus right now," Reine continued, ignoring or unaware of Shidou's confusion. "We're constantly monitoring her mental state. When she's on Fraxinus, her stress levels are dramatically higher than when she's at school."
"Th-they are?"
"...Mm-hmm. And she doesn't seem to like the testing twice a day much, either. Her stress levels are still within acceptable limits, but I can't really say it would be smart to let her be like this. And so...." She put a finger to her chin. "Her test results have stabilized, and it's getting to be time we moved her living quarters off Fraxinus."
"Uh-huh... Is that right?"
"...Mm-hmm. All of which is to say that until we can build a special housing unit for Spirits, Tohka will be living here."
"Wait. Hang on." He pressed a hand to his forehead.
"...Something wrong?"
"Wh-why does it have to be our house...?" he asked. "I mean, doesn't Lucas have a ton of space?"
"...Well, to put it simply, Tohka's most stable when she's with you," Reine told him. "Even if Lucas has the capacity to welcome a new person, that wouldn't help her mental stability either. You're the only human being to have earned her trust so far. Kotori and I see her relatively frequently, but she still doesn't trust us. We want to try and see how Tohka does in a place where she's a bit more stable."
"...Ngh...," Shidou groaned, sweat beading on his forehead.
When she said it like that, he couldn't help but feel that this was the only sensible move. And-well, the fact that Tohka trusted him... He didn't exactly hate that, either. "That's it?" He asked, sounding like he's already at his limit.
"Not really." Reine replied and Shidou's heart sank even deeper. "It's for your training."
He gasped. Tohka had said the same thing before he'd changed out of his wet clothes. Training. He didn't have particularly good memories associated with that word. "Right, Tohka said that, too... But what's the use in training now?"
"...Hmm? And why wouldn't you continue?"
"Why? ...I mean, her Spirit power's been sealed away..."
Reine shook-or rather wobbled-her head from side to side. "Who said Tohka was the only one?"
"Huh? So... What do you...?"
"...I'm sure you can piece it together," she said. "Tohka's not the only catastrophic creature causing spacequakes. From the start, we have been talking about Spirits, not a Spirit. At the present stage, several others have been confirmed."
"Wha-?!" He felt something tug at his heart.
It was true that Tohka wasn't the only Spirit. Tohka was the only Spirit he knew. Lucas knew, including Tohka, three in total, with an exception of the Spirits whom Kurumi killed years ago. Those Spirits are Tokisaki Kurumi, Honjou Nia, Kyouno Natsumi and of course Yatogami Tohka. (Her last name was given to her not too long ago).
"We want you to continue talking to the Spirits. So you have to train."
"...Y-you have to be kidding-," he cried out, planting his hands on his knees.
"But.. this time, you won't be the only one sealing Spirits."
"Huh?" Shidou raised his head again. If he remembered correctly, they told him, he is the only one who has to ability to seal a Spirit.
"It's a little complicated even to me, but simply put, Lucas can also seal Spirits now." Reine told him, and continued. "He copied your ability.. or something like that." She said, unsure.
"Th-that's great isn't it?!" Shidou jumped up from his seat. "He's a way better candidate for this type of mission! After all, I'm vulnerable, I'm only human, not Superhuman."
"Hmm?" Kotori said, breaking her silence. At some point, the ribbons that tied her hair up into two bundles had changed from white to black.
"-" He'd seen this before. She was in commander mode now.
"You don't want to seal Spirits, Shidou?" she asked, seeming very grown-up all of a sudden, in contrast to her childish attitude earlier. "You're saying you don't want to date the Spirits and make them fall for you anymore?"
"O-of course not!" he cried.
"Huh." Kotori leaned back slightly and lifted her chin. "So then, that's the end of that, I guess."
"Uh...?"
"We sit back and watch quietly at Lucas fail and die by the hands of a powerful Spirit, as the world is ripped apart. Or we patiently wait for a miracle and for the Spirits to be killed by the AST... It'll be one or the other, I suppose."
"...Urp."
At this, he was at a loss for words. It wasn't that he had forgotten. But his heart ached when she spoke that truth out loud.
"There are two persons in this world with the ability to seal a Spirit's power," Kotori said. "And you're saying you don't want to do it and leave everything to Lucas. So that's the end of the discussion then, isn't it?"
"...Wh-what...the...?!" He groaned in agony. Without his knowledge, he'd been pressured with such a heavy responsibility, and the weight of it was making his shoulders hurt. To get to the heart of that, he needed to confirm a few things himself.
".....Kotori."
"What is it?" she replied leisurely, perhaps having guessed more or less what his question would be.
"Tell me: What exactly is Ratatoskr? When did you join this group? And what is this power of mine?"
This was what he'd been wanting to ask this entire time, questions he hadn't been able to get answers to, given Kotori's long absence from the house.
She sighed, pulled one of her beloved Chupa Chups from her pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. "Right. This is the perfect opportunity. I guess I could give you the overview." She leaned back against the large cushion behind her.
"Ratatoskr was formed by a group of sympathizers. Well, if I had to say, it's like a kind of nature conservancy. Of course, its existence is not made public."
"Nature conservancy... Huh." Although this didn't quite click for him, he was reluctant to interrupt her. He waited for her to continue.
"Yes. And as to the reason for the formation of Ratatoskr, the biggest objective, that's to protect the Spirits and give them a happy life. Although some of the Rounds, the top executive group, have the perverted desire to make the Spirits' powers their own and do all kinds of things with it."
"Huh...? Your objective isn't to avoid the spacequakes?"
"Oh, well, of course, there's that, too." She waved a dismissive hand. "But that's secondary at best. If that was our only goal, we'd be no different from the AST."
"Ngh, well, I guess. So then...how and when did you end up commanding this organization? I had no idea."
He hadn't intended to accuse her of hiding things, but her keeping such an important secret, something that was life-and-death in the worst-case scenario, annoyed him a little as the older brother.
Perhaps guessing at this mental state of his, Kotori sniffed at him. "I was appointed the commander of Ratatoskr's combat unit around five years ago."
"Five years ago, huh...? Wait. What?!" Shidou did some math and jerked his head up. "D-don't be ridiculous. Five years ago...you were still only eight!"
No matter how unusual the organization was, it was not a sane state of affairs to put a third-grade girl in the position of commanding it. "Well, for a few years, it was more like training," she replied. "It's just recently that I've actually taken command."
"N-no, that's not the issue here. What is a little girl-?"
"Well, what can I say? Ratatoskr recognized my superior intellect."
"This makes no sense!" he cried.
"Say what you want, but it won't change the facts. Be a good boy and believe what your little sister tells you. Do you think arguing makes you look smart or something?" Her words and manner were almost entirely different from the cute Kotori he knew.
Sweat ran down his cheeks. "Is this dual personality of yours also Ratatoskr's fault?"
She snorted. "Rude and simplistic. Think a little harder before you speak. First of all, this-"
"This?"
"..." She looked up at him with a somehow mysterious expression before shaking her head as if to brush off his outburst. "None of that matters. An incident five years ago became a turning point for the organization."
"Hey, don't dodge the-"
Kotori cut him off by snapping her Chupa Chups stick at him. "We discovered a boy who could seal the Spirit powers with a kiss. This led to Ratatoskr shifting to a policy of actively protecting the Spirits."
"Wh-?" He furrowed his brow, dumbfounded. "Y-you're saying that was...me?"
"Yes." She nodded and put her lollipop back into her mouth.
"H-hang on a second here." His head was in complete chaos. He'd been given too much information at once, and he couldn't process it all. "Why do I have this power in the first place?"
"Dunno." She shrugged.
"Uh? W-wait, what?"
"I seriously don't know. You can take the power from a Spirit with a kiss and seal it in a stable state in your own body. All we know is that you've got this ability. At least, I don't know why you have a power like that."
"S-so then, how did you find out I could do this?! Five years ago! What happened exactly?!" He pulled his hair frantically with both hands.
"..." She glanced down, averting her eyes, her face colored with unexpected grief. It housed an expression steeped in deep emotion. As if recalling some painful memory. As if regretting an irreversible mistake. His heart flipped over in his chest.
"K-Kotori...?"
"Uh. Um." She jumped slightly. "Right, they checked you out with, uh, Ratatoskr's measurement device. And that's how they found out. It was the same for me," she told him in an evasive manner, far from the decisiveness of her commander mode.
For some reason, he felt like he couldn't press her any further.
"A-anyway." She cleared her throat and snapped out a finger at him. "What you need to know right now is that you have the power to do something about the Spirits. That's it! So I'm going to need you to make a choice. About whether you'll seduce the Spirits for us or not. Or you're letting Lucas have all the work."
Shidou pursed his lips. It was such a mean-spirited question.
He let out a long sigh and picked at his hair. "Let me think about it a bit."
"Well, that'll be fine for now." Kotori snorted before turning her gaze on Reine sitting next to her. "Okay then, Reine. Make the preparations."
"...Preparations? For what?" Shidou got a bad feeling as he listened to their disquieting conversation.
"What? Tohka's room, of course," Kotori replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "She'll be using the guest room upstairs."
"H-hang on a sec! I said I'd think it over!"
"Mm-hmm. So don't pay us any mind. You go and think on it long and hard."
"How am I supposed to do that?!" he shouted.
"So loud." She plugged her ears, looking exasperated. "Either way, our only choice is to have Tohka stay here until the special housing unit's ready. And it'll be too late to start training once you've made your decision."
"You say that, but...I don't know how an adolescent boy and girl can live under the same roof!" he cried, blushing beet red.
She laughed. "If we thought you were capable of having some passionate love affair, we wouldn't have had to put in all this work. Also, Lucas and Kurumi have been living together for quite some time, and they're not adults."
"Hngh...!" It made him sad that he couldn't argue that. "That's still no excuse...!"
He heard a door opening behind him- the entrance to Kotori's bedroom. His shoulders jumped up as he looked back.
Tohka was giving him an uneasy look from the hallway. He didn't know how long she'd been standing there.
"...Shidou... Am I not allowed to be here...?"
"...Urp." He felt something catch in his throat at the sight of her sad eyes, the ends of her eyebrows tugged down. If there was a person alive who could say no in the face of this, he would like to meet them. He sighed long and hard. "...F-fine...!"
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