I Became a Spirit in Date A Live, but I Refuse to Date

After thinking it over, Lingmeng decided to tell Shido about the purple-haired girl upstairs. He had seen how powerful she was. Surely he would give up once he knew she was there.

"But..." Shido looked troubled.

"Fine. If you insist on going up, I won't stop you. But I'm coming with you."

Shido clearly had no intention of leaving, so Lingmeng had to compromise. With her there to protect him, at least he wouldn't get cut down.

"Kotori, is that okay?" Shido asked.

"Ah, whatever! If you don't go up now, the Spirit will leave. Do what you want, as long as you don't let that woman do anything reckless! You can't even handle one woman, Shido. You're hopeless!"

"I'm still your brother, hopeless or not," Shido muttered.

"Okay... I'm going up now. Lingmeng, will you come with me?"

"No problem! Let's go!"

Lingmeng smiled and flashed an OK sign, then followed Shido into the school building...

Was Shido Really That Brave?

After walking for a little over a minute, Lingmeng and Shido reached the classroom door.

Hi, hello. What's wrong? Why are you in a place like this?

Shido stood frozen at the door, endlessly rehearsing what to say when he met the Spirit.

"Why are you just standing there? Go in!" Seeing him hesitate, Lingmeng reached for the classroom door.

"Wait, Lingmeng!"

Shido tried to stop her, but it was too late. She had already opened the door, and he stumbled inside before he could stop himself.

Lingmeng followed him in. In the fourth row from the front, at the second-to-last desk by the window, a purple-haired girl in an extraordinary dress sat with one knee drawn up.

As fate would have it, she was sitting in Shido's seat.

Her eyes were half-lidded, her expression melancholy. The setting sun bathed her upper body in light. The sight was so beautiful that even Lingmeng, let alone Shido, stared for a moment.

"Hmm?" The girl seemed to notice their entrance. Her eyes widened as she looked over.

"Hi! We meet again!" Lingmeng waved to her warmly.

Unlike Lingmeng, Shido was painfully stiff.

"H-hello!" he stammered. Everything he had prepared outside the door vanished from his mind.

Whoosh!

Without a word, the girl swept a hand toward them. A black beam streaked past their cheeks.

Lingmeng avoided it with a movement too small to see. Shido, however, hadn't even reacted before a little blood appeared on his cheek.

She attacks without a word. She's pretty, but she's a bit violent, isn't she?

Lingmeng watched the purple-haired girl as if watching a show.

"Shido! Snap out of it!" Kotori's voice rang in his ear.

"Huh?" When Shido came to his senses, the girl was raising her right hand with a melancholy expression. A jet-black beam formed in her palm.

"Wait, we're not your enemies!" The words had barely left Shido's mouth when the beam shot toward him.

This is bad! Just as it was about to punch a hole through him, Lingmeng lunged and knocked him down, saving his life.

"Hey! Don't just stand there! I said I'd protect you, but that doesn't mean you can stand motionless like a dummy."

Pressed against Shido, Lingmeng spoke with an angry look on her face.

"Sorry... Um, could you get off me first?" Shido's face reddened at how close she was.

Without another word, Lingmeng stood and pulled Shido to his feet.

"Oh? That girl has pretty good reflexes. If it weren't for her, Shido, you might have a hole in you by now!"

Kotori sounded surprised that Lingmeng had saved him.

"And you wanted me to send her away!" Shido muttered into his earpiece, too quietly for Lingmeng to hear.

"Come on, don't worry about the details! Don't forget, our main job is to win over the Spirit!"

Shido turned his attention back to the Spirit and saw several more black beams forming in the purple-haired girl's hand.

"Please, wait. Neither of us means you any harm!"

"That's right. We don't have any designs on you."

As Shido and Lingmeng explained themselves, the purple-haired girl stopped preparing to fire.

"Um... may we come in?" Shido asked, starting through the doorway again.

"Hey, Shido, don't do anything rash!" Lingmeng warned as he stepped forward on his own.

"It should... be okay, right?" Shido replied uncertainly, but he kept walking.

As if to prove him wrong, the girl fired another beam past his cheek without a moment's thought. It punched straight through the wall behind him: a warning to stop.

"Idiot, Shido! What's gotten into you today? Do you really think your charm, which couldn't attract a kindergartener, will make a Spirit lower her guard?"

Shido could only keep apologizing as Kotori berated him. He had been far too naive.

"That was close!" Lingmeng said, though she was confident she could save him if the Spirit truly tried to attack.

"First, please calm down." To show he meant no harm, Shido raised both hands. He glanced back at Lingmeng, signaling her to do the same.

All right, all right, I get it! Lingmeng reluctantly raised her hands beside him.

"Stop! You're both within range. If either of you makes a wrong move, don't blame me for what happens!"

The purple-haired girl called out the warning and fired a beam at Shido's feet, as if drawing a line neither of them had better cross.

After studying Shido and Lingmeng for a while, she asked warily,

"Who are you?"

"Uh, I'm—" Shido began, but Kotori cut him off.

"Wait, Shido!"

The Fraxinus AI had automatically generated the following options in response to the girl's question:

1. "My name is Shido Itsuka, and I'm here to save you!"

2. "I'm just a passerby. Please don't kill me."

3. "Shouldn't you give your own name before asking someone else's?"

The Fraxinus AI had generated these possible responses based on the Spirit's current mental state.

Options like these usually appeared only when a Spirit was extremely distressed. Choose well, and you could win her over. Choose poorly... and you were done for.

"You have five seconds to pick an answer!" Kotori ordered.

The Fraxinus crew made their choices, and the results appeared on the screen. Option three received the most votes.

"Option one looks best at first glance, but saying that when she's suspicious would only make him seem more suspicious. It might annoy her, too," Kannazuki said.

"Option two won't work either. Even if he escapes, their relationship ends there," Reine said.

"Both good points!" Kotori picked up the microphone. "Shido, say exactly what I tell you!"

"Okay."

Under the girl's sharp gaze, Shido felt awkward and panicked.

"I'm asking you again. Who are you two?"

"Shouldn't you give your own name before asking someone else's... Huh?"

Only after repeating Kotori's words did Shido realize something was wrong.

Lingmeng, who had been standing quietly beside him, was just as dumbfounded by his sudden reply.

"What the hell? Is Shido really that brave? He actually said that to a Spirit?"

"Why... why did you make me say that?"

The girl raised her right hand in displeasure, and a ball of light formed above it. At the same time, alarms sounded throughout the Fraxinus...

Shido Had His Eye on Her Body

The girl's displeasure was plain on her face. The black orb shot into the spot where Shido had been standing, blasting a huge hole through the floor all the way down to the building's lowest level.

If Shido hadn't happened to take a few instinctive steps back, he might have ended up like the floor.

"Huh? That's strange."

"What's strange is you! Are you trying to murder your brother?" Shido snapped, agitated by the disbelief in Kotori's voice.

"One last chance. If you don't answer, I'll consider you my enemies."

The girl remained stern. Another black orb appeared in her hand.

"Okay, okay. My name is Qian Lingmeng. I was just passing through," Lingmeng said with a sigh, introducing herself casually.

"Qian Lingmeng? And you?" The girl looked at Shido.

"M-my name is Shido Itsuka. I'm a student here, and I don't want to fight you."

Faced with the girl's demand, Shido answered as nervously as Lingmeng had.

The girl still looked doubtful. She walked up to Lingmeng and studied her, then did the same to Shido.

"Hmm?" She bent forward slightly and raised an eyebrow. "I feel like I've seen you two somewhere before."

"Of course! Didn't I say 'we meet again' when I came in? You've forgotten already?"

Lingmeng smiled at her, confirming that they had met.

"Right... Do you remember? The tenth of this month. On the street," Shido added quickly.

"Oh." The girl clapped her hands as realization dawned, then returned to her former stance. "I remember now. You're the two who said all those strange things last time."

"There you go!" Lingmeng nodded, mimicking the girl's tone.

Seeing less hostility in the girl's gaze, Shido felt some of his tension ease.

But just as he began to relax, the girl grabbed both his and Lingmeng's clothes and lifted them, staring straight into their eyes.

She's cute, but she's rather rough, isn't she? Lingmeng thought as she watched her.

"I remember you saying you weren't going to kill me. Hmph! Do you think I'd fall for such an obvious lie? Tell me! What are you really after? Are you planning to wait until I let my guard down, then attack me from behind?"

"Oh, I wasn't lying at all. Look at us—we're unarmed. How could we possibly beat you? I swear, if I'm lying, Shido will turn into a girl!"

"Hey, why am I the one who suffers if you break your oath?"

Shido gave Lingmeng a helpless look, but that wasn't what mattered most. The purple-haired girl didn't believe him when he said they weren't there to kill her.

She lived in a world where she couldn't trust anyone. A painful ache gripped his heart.

"Humans..." Shido spoke without thinking. "Not every human wants to kill you."

The girl's eyes widened, and she released her grip on both of them.

She stared at Shido's face in puzzlement for a moment before speaking.

"Is that so?"