Chapter 12

Lingmeng thought it over and decided to tell Shido that the Purple-Haired Girl was upstairs. He had seen how powerful she was; surely he would give up once he knew.

"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 turning back, so Lingmeng had to compromise. With her protecting 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!"

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

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

"No problem! Let's go!"

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

Was Shido Really That Bold?

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 outside the classroom, running through possible opening lines for when he met the Spirit.

"Why are you just standing there? Go in!" Seeing him hesitate, Lingmeng reached for the classroom door without another thought.

"...Huh? Lingmeng, wait!"

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

Lingmeng followed him in. At the desk by the window in the second-to-last row, a Purple-Haired Girl in an extraordinary dress sat with one knee drawn up.

Perhaps it was fate: 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, stood stunned for a moment.

"—Hm?" Apparently noticing their arrival, the girl opened her eyes wide and looked their way.

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

Unlike Lingmeng, who acted perfectly at ease, Shido was stiff with nerves.

"H-hello!" Shido stammered. All the preparation he had done outside the door vanished in an instant.

Whoosh!

Without a word, the girl swept a hand toward them. A streak of black light shot past their cheeks.

Lingmeng evaded it with a movement too slight to see. Shido, however, had not even reacted before blood appeared on his cheek.

She attacked without saying a word. She's pretty, but she's a little violent, isn't she?

Lingmeng watched the Purple-Haired Girl as though watching a show.

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

"...Huh?" When Shido came to his senses, the girl had raised her right hand, a beam of pitch-black light gathering in it. She still looked melancholy.

"...Wait, we're not enemies!" Shido had barely finished speaking when the black light flew at him.

This is bad! Just as the beam was about to punch a hole through him, Lingmeng lunged from beside him and knocked him to the floor, saving his life.

"Hey! Don't just stand there! I said I'd protect you, but you don't have to stand still like a Puppet."

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

"...Sorry, but... could you get off me first?" Shido blushed at how close she was.

Lingmeng said nothing more. She got up and pulled Shido to his feet.

"Oh? That girl has pretty good reflexes! If she hadn't been there, 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 retorted through the Earphones, keeping his voice too low 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 beams of black light gathering in her hand.

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

"That's right. We're not planning anything against you."

At their words, the Purple-Haired Girl stopped preparing to fire.

"Um... can we come in?" Shido asked, starting toward the doorway again.

"Hey, Shido, don't do anything reckless!" Lingmeng warned when she saw him move forward on his own.

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

As if to refute him, the girl fired another beam past his cheek without hesitation. Its force 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 even attract a preschooler—will make the Spirit lower her guard?"

Shido could only keep apologizing as Kotori tore into him. He had been too naive.

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

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

Okay, okay, I get it! Lingmeng reluctantly raised her hands alongside him.

"Stop! You're both within my attack range. Make one wrong move, and I won't hold back!"

The Purple-Haired Girl fired a beam near Shido's feet as she threatened them. The message was clear: cross that line and die.

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

"Who are you?"

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

"Wait, Shido!"

Fraxinus's AI had automatically generated the following choices 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 us your name before asking ours?"

These were the responses Fraxinus's AI had produced based on the Spirit's current mental state.

Choices like these usually appeared only when a Spirit was extremely unsettled. Pick well, and you could win her over. Pick badly... and you were done for.

"You have five seconds to choose an answer!"

At Kotori's command, Fraxinus's crew quickly made their choices.

The results appeared on the screen. Number ③ had the most votes.

"① looks like the best choice at first, but saying that when she's suspicious of us would only make him look more suspicious. It might annoy her, too," Kannazuki said.

"...② won't work either. Even if he escapes, that'll be the end of any relationship between them," Reine said.

"Both make sense!" Kotori picked up the microphone. "Shido, repeat after me!"

"...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 us your name before asking ours... Huh?"

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

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

Holy crap. Is Shido really that bold? He actually said that to a Spirit?

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

The girl raised her right hand in displeasure, forming a ball of light. At the same time, alarms sounded inside Fraxinus...

Shido Was After Her Body

The girl's face darkened. The black ball of light shot toward where Shido had been standing and blasted a huge hole through the floor, all the way to the bottom story.

If Shido had not happened to step back a few paces, 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 could hardly believe Kotori's tone. He snapped back at her, shaken.

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

The girl remained stern, another black ball of light forming in her hand.

"Okay, okay. My name is Qian Lingmeng. I just happened to pass by."

Lingmeng sighed and introduced herself casually.

"Qian Lingmeng? And you?" The girl turned to Shido.

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

Shido answered her as nervously as Lingmeng had.

Still suspicious, the girl walked up to Lingmeng and studied her, then did the same to Shido.

"Hm?" She bent forward slightly and raised an eyebrow. "I think I've seen you two somewhere before."

"Of course. I told you we were meeting again as soon as I came in. Your memory's not very good, is it?"

Lingmeng smiled at her, confirming they had met.

"Yeah... Don't you remember? On the street, on the tenth of this month," Shido added quickly.

"Oh." The girl clapped her hands as realization dawned, then returned to her usual posture. "I remember. You're the two who said a bunch of strange things last time."

"Oh, good, you remember!" Lingmeng echoed her tone and nodded.

The girl's gaze had lost some of its hostility toward him and Lingmeng, and Shido relaxed a little.

But he had barely done so when she grabbed them both by their clothes and stared straight into their eyes.

She's cute, but she's a little rough, isn't she? Lingmeng thought as she watched the girl.

"I remember you said you didn't intend 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 lower my guard, then attack me from behind?"

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

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

Shido could only stare at Lingmeng in disbelief. But that was not what mattered most. The Purple-Haired Girl had not believed him at all when he said they were not there to kill her. She lived in a world where she could trust no one. 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 let go of their clothes.

She studied Shido's face with a puzzled look. Only after a moment did she speak.

"Is that so?"