Part 1 The Onmyou Agency had ruled that she would enter the Onmyou Academy and study for three years as rehabilitation. To say that person's face didn't flash through her mind when she first heard of this matter...... That wasn't possible. But you couldn't actually blame her for that, since that kind of thing had happened after all. After things ended, since she couldn't help but be interested, she gathered quite a bit of information from the shadows, learning that that person's goal was to become an Onmyouji and that he had transferred in to the Onmyou Academy. Hence, once she heard of this punishment: 'We can meet again.' She secretly thought to herself that they would meet again someday. Also - fear welled up. Once she thought of that person and thought of seeing him again, various emotions interlaced inside her heart. Hate, anger. Should she still use such means to mess with him, or should she use them to tease him? ... 'Shut up.' Memories became clearer and clearer. ... 'Don't say another word.' When the memories awakened, a chill instantly spread deep in her heart. She didn't care, nor was she angry, but her mood was heavy. What exactly was wrong, was there a need to take it to heart? Even if she tried convincing herself, her feelings still didn't seem to improve. Worry, anxiety, anger. Even she herself didn't understand. Those kinds of feelings were really powerful. She had originally vowed from her heart to revive her brother, and had lived on this world just for that. She hadn't expected that her desire would be destroyed and her firm self-belief would shake with it. Precisely because she was this self-aware, her heart was lost and she couldn't stay together. Her magical energy was sealed, her title as a Divine General was confiscated, and she turned back into an ordinary girl. Suzuka was scared. He had tricked her the first time they met, and had tried to stop her with his weak strength, obstructing her plans - in the end, he had saved her life instead. He was an enemy, but he had saved her small life that had no intention of remaining in this world. In the end, only her brother and that person could face her so selflessly. How would she change after she saw him again in the Onmyou Academy? Could she still keep her original demeanor? She had long since lost her original reason for living, and entering the Onmyou Academy where he was simultaneously served to find a 'new self' for her. Suzuka felt frightened. But she had no intention at all of escaping.
For some reason, the cherry blossoms seemed to have scattered all their petals in one night. On the second day of the new term, the scene on the road from the male dorm to the academy felt lamentable to Harutora. "......I never thought that going to school would be such a gloomy matter already on the second day after school started." The joy from yesterday couldn't be seen on Harutora's face, and actually he had had a hard time sleeping all yesterday night. Moreover, he wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. "Bakatora, right now isn't the time to be gloomy, you should be even more tense than yesterday." Natsume unhappily scolded Harutora since she hadn't slept well, her tone even more tart than usual. Harutora turned his spiritless face. "......Natsume." "What?" "Those glasses are really unnatural." "This is all I can do, what else is there? I don't want to wear glasses either!" Today morning, Natsume was wearing a pair of glasses with a particularly crude frame. Late last night, she had run to a glasses store that hadn't closed yet, buying this pair of fake glasses and planning on saying that she usually wore contact lenses but had accidentally lost them to deceive others. Since she was unable to decide to cut her long hair, she could only mask herself in this area. After Harutora returned to the dorm yesterday, he had first gotten rid of the students who had come over to find out the truth of the rumors, then he had randomly greeted the new students who had moved into the dorm. Finally, he had called Natsume and Touji to gather in his room. He first detailed the entire incident of last summer, reaching a common understanding, and then he had explained the process contacting Suzuka after school had ended, clarifying the problem and developing countermeasures.
They had discussed almost until dawn, but no clever tricks had showed up. "The opponent's very perceptive, and since she's already focused on Harutora, all we can do right now is pray that she doesn't remember Natsume's appearance." Touji spoke while holding back a yawn. Natsume inadvertently lowered her head, muttering: "......It's all Harutora's fault for being too impulsive." After saying this, she hurriedly pushed up the glasses slipping off her nose. "To think you would run out to find the 'Child Prodigy' before discussing it first...... And you even went by yourself!" "Didn't I apologize many times for that matter yesterday?" Harutora, who was being scolded again for yesterday, spoke back, his expression bitter. When they had discussed in his room yesterday, Natsume had actually been angriest about Harutora running out to find Suzuka. Harutora believed that never minding how things ended up turning out, contacting Suzuka hadn't been a poor judgment at the time...... "On the other hand, if I didn't run out to find that person, we still wouldn't understand whether she had noticed your true identity, isn't that right?" "You didn't need to go find her, I also knew that she still hadn't seen through my identity yet." "Maybe, but you don't have any definite proof. Right now we know the reason that she entered the Onmyou Academy, and we also know that her magical energy has been sealed. There's a big difference between knowing and not knowing those things, right, Touji?" "That information is certainly not a small gain." Touji also gave him that much certainty. "Natsume camouflaged her aura...... But the opponent's one of the Twelve Divine Generals, and they might run into each other often afterwards, so it's really doubtful whether the camouflage can succeed." Normally, male and female human auras were different. Though the differences between individuals were large, males were mostly yang aura and females were mostly yin aura. When Natsume was pretending to be a male, she used magic that turned her original aura into yang aura. When contracting with servant shikigami and defensive shikigami - especially when contracting with strong independent shikigami, males usually chose a shikigami with yin aura because they carried yang aura. Since females carried yin aura, they normally chose shikigami with yang aura, though of course there were exceptions to this. When it was determined that she would be the next head to succeed the Tsuchimikado family, she simultaneously inherited the Tsuchimikado guardian dragon - Hokuto. Dragon auras belonged to yin, conflicting with Natsume who had been born a female. Natsume had deliberately contracted with the dragon to let her original yin aura and the dragon's yin aura mix, creating a male aura - yang aura. This was quite an original magic, the work of Natsume's father, and Natsume herself was unable to cast it. This was an important reason why her male facade hadn't yet been seen through by people around her - the practitioners who could see aura. After gaining Touji's approval, "See! Touji thinks so too!" Harutora called out, going over the material he had explained yesterday again. "Especially since I cleared up a lot of things after talking with that girl again. Her ability's outstanding, but in the end she's a little girl. She's indeed cunning, and she's extremely perceptive like Touji said, but she's definitely not an unredeemably bad person." the words Ohtomo had said yesterday still lingered in Harutora's heart, and the convincing power of that remark could be seen. Once he thought of the similarity between Suzuka and the past Natsume, he couldn't help but put force into his words. "Though she's troublesome, I'm still not completely helpless when it comes to dealing with her. Of course, I don't actually have any way to be certain, but I'll deal with her for now." Harutora tried convincing Natsume, speaking more and more animatedly, thinking that Natsume who had a similar experience could definitely understand his way of thinking. His focus on the problem had been blurred - More accurately, Harutora hadn't noticed that he 'hadn't clearly understood where the problem was'. Not only was Natsume unimpressed by Harutora's enthusiasm, her whole body slightly trembled instead as she angrily glared at Harutora. Was her almost tearful expression a mistaken impression? Touji half-closed his eyes, shaking his head as if saying 'You're really a Bakatora'. "......Why......" "Huh?" "......Why do you always stand up for her?" "What? I'm not standing up for her, though?" "......Come to think of it, you were like this last summer as well. You didn't care about my warnings and you were still confident that you could convince her......" Natsume glared firmly at the confused Harutora, her tone angry for some reason. "Last summer...... What weird things have you been talking about since just now?" Harutora asked back, completely baffled. Natsume's gaze glanced down, no longer staring intently into Harutora's eyes, and swept over Harutora's lips. She tightened her lips, snapping in a low voice, "......Enough!" - her voice sounded like it was a bit depressed - and walked ahead on her own, her black hair whipping around. Cherry blossoms swirled in the gentle breeze. Harutora wasn't actually angry, just confused, casting a pleading glance towards Touji. Touji shook his bandanna-bound head, showing a difficult expression. "......It seems like that brat is Natsume's Achilles Heel." "Wh, What does that mean?" Harutora's face sank, and his good friend didn't say anything else, just helplessly shrugging his shoulders. "Anyway, we can't let her see Natsume, so it's up to you to be the 'Child Prodigy's opponent...... Though we're just trying to trick her, do your best." "I know that." "Right now it's enough just to do that." Touji spoke, patting Harutora's back. "Today, let's first think of a way to avoid letting Suzuka and Natsume meet, and as for what to do later - we'll think about it when the time comes." Touji - whose expression was encouraging for some reason - smiled at Harutora. The cherry blossoms danced in the wind, soundlessly falling on the perplexed shikigami's head.
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