"Especially after seeing Mashiro's manga successfully published..." On the street, Sogo Doma was still explaining things to Utaha Kasumigaoka. "Rita regarded Mashiro as someone she could never surpass..."
"What do you mean?" Utaha Kasumigaoka asked, confused. "What do you mean, especially after Mashiro's manga was successfully published..." What she really wanted to ask was, hadn't Rita thought that way all along?
"It's simple..." Of course Sogo Doma knew what she was confused about. "Getting Mashiro to draw manga was originally a trap Rita had dug. The purpose was to make Mashiro understand that without talent, no amount of effort would help. But what Rita didn't expect was that Mashiro actually succeeded...
"So she became lost. But after that confusion passed, she still attributed Mashiro's success to talent."
"This..." Utaha Kasumigaoka was somewhat dazed. Was Rita really that awful? Although she didn't particularly like the girl, she had never thought she could be that bad...
"Of course..." Fortunately, just as she fell into confusion, Sogo Doma explained again, "Rita's original intentions weren't actually bad..."
"Hm?"
"How should I put it?" As Sogo Doma spoke, he raised an index finger. "She probably just wanted to prove that talent outweighed hard work—that without talent, even a genius like Mashiro would end up smashing her head against a wall."
"Why did she need to prove..." something like that?
"Didn't I say?" Sogo Doma picked up where she left off again. "To Rita, Mashiro had always been a genius standing above her. She probably wanted to show that it wasn't because she hadn't worked hard enough, but because Mashiro's talent was simply far greater than hers..."
"Was that necessary?"
"Perhaps because Mashiro worked too hard." Sogo Doma said meaningfully.
Utaha Kasumigaoka: "..."
What kind of logic was that? Had Sogo said the wrong word? Wasn't