Chapter 23
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: 3.3 Bullying 4
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At this point, even my sister must have given up.
After loafing around in the student council president's office, I decided to head back to the classroom.
Whoa! It's Naibusu! He's scary today too!
He's even carrying a sword!
Why did the student council let a guy like that into the President's Guard?
On the way back to the classroom.
The kids were whispering about me as expected.
I was so used to it by now that it didn't bother me at all.
I heard he kills guys he doesn't like and rapes girls he does.
Poor Akane.
Akane must have been defiled by Naibusu too.
"Shut your traps──!!"
"Whoa!"
When I yelled a threat, they scattered like baby spiders.
No matter how free thoughts are, even I have my limits.
Don't defile Akane's purity even in your heads.
Whoa, look at him yelling just because we looked.
We have to avoid eye contact.
So vulgar!
Hmph. Think whatever you want.
And the vulgar ones aren't me—it's your filthy minds.
As I went on my way again, something tugged at my leg.
"Um, ex-excuse me."
"Huh? What?"
A tiny, trembling girl like a little rabbit was blocking my path.
"Oh? It's Satomi."
Satomi from the art club. No idea about her family name.
Actually, I don't even know if Satomi is her first or last name.
"You're small enough already—don't crouch like that. And if you stand in the middle of the hallway, you might get hurt."
I grabbed her by the scruff like a kitten and moved her to the side of the hall.
"N-Na, Nai... Naibusu..."
"Yeah?"
But for some reason, Satomi toddled closer and blocked my path again.
Whoa! Now even a girl that small?
Someone's gonna get killed again!
Somebody stop him!
Jeez. I'm not going to eat her. She's too small to be worth eating anyway.
Who do they think I am, some golden-tanned rapist? I'm a blond thug, but I haven't tanned yet.
W-what do I do? I'm too scared to speak! But I have to say it quick!
"N-Na, Naibusu..."
"Yeah? Got something to say?"
Come to think of it, Satomi had warned me about Nanami's crisis yesterday too.
Not with words, but through her mind.
It didn't seem as urgent as yesterday, but Satomi's mind felt restless this time too.
Does she have some urgent errand? Then she should just go to the bathroom.
"What's wrong, Satomi? Something happen?"
I made the gentlest expression I could and asked her.
Look at that expression! He really plans to eat her!
Someone get a teacher!
Kid! Run away quick!
Shut up.
"Th-that's, umm..."
W-what do I do? Can I tell him Kurosaki's being bullied in the girls' bathroom? Would Naibusu help? Guys can't go into the girls' bathroom, though. But yesterday Shiina seemed like Naibusu helped her, and since he's in the President's Guard, despite how he looks, he must be...
"...Hey, Satomi. Want to go to a quiet girls' bathroom and talk?"
"Ah, uh, y-yeah...?"
I firmly pressed her shoulders, subtly guiding her toward the girls' bathroom where Kurosaki—that is, Yuuki—was being bullied.
Whoa! That pervert!
What does he plan to do in the girls' bathroom?!
Someone stop him!
Do something!
Don't follow him!
I let the surrounding kids' minds flow in one ear and out the other while thinking.
Even after killing Akane, the ringleader of the bullying, and wiping out the rapist scum, it seemed that hadn't rooted out the bullying completely.
My thinking had been too shortsighted. Killing the queen ant doesn't kill all the ants.
If I was going to do it, I should have properly taken care of the surroundings too. Here I was, casually slacking off.
My gut boiled with anger.
At those still pulling pointless crap, and at my own carelessness.
"N-Nai, busu?"
How does he know? How'd Naibusu know Kurosaki's being bullied in the girls' bathroom? Yesterday he seemed to notice Shiina falling into a trap too...
"Satomi's so straightforward—everything you're thinking shows right on your face."
Eeeek──!?
Satomi's dumbfounded expression improved my mood a little.
I walked alongside Satomi, calmly pondering a solution.
What to do about Yuuki.
I couldn't just kill every girl doing the bullying.
Was there really a way to end it without spilling blood?
"Filthy scum, why're you barging into the girls' bathroom?!"
-Splash!
Kurosaki Yuuki quietly closed her eyes and accepted the bucket of water dumped on her.
She had already been doused so many times that her clothes, hair, panties, and the bandages wrapping her chest were all completely soaked.
"Pervert! What were you planning to do in the girls' bathroom?"
"Makes me sick!"
"You were peeping, right?"
"You didn't hide a camera, did you?"
"Spit it out!"
The four girls took turns attacking Yuuki.
After Akane died, the neutrals and opposition had pulled out of bullying Yuuki.
Without Akane's intense charisma, they couldn't hold the group together.
But Akane's diehard faction was different.
They competed to torment Yuuki more cruelly than the last, as if vying to see who could be the most vicious.
To claim Akane's empty throne.
"...I became a girl, so I just wanted to use the girls' bathroom."
Even so, Yuuki responded calmly.
These girls weren't scary at all compared to Akane.
They were just like Chihuahuas baring their teeth without knowing their place.
Naibusu would crush them without even blinking.
But Yuuki didn't want to dirty Naibusu's hands any more.
She wanted to tie it off with her own hands somehow.
"As if! You think dropping a little weight makes you a girl?"
But the girls still thought Yuuki was just pretending to be a girl.
"You're a guy anyway! Just use the boys' room!"
Yuuki wanted to, but she couldn't.
She definitely used to be a guy not long ago, but watching other guys pee standing made her feel sick now.
On top of that, if Yuuki went into a stall in the boys' bathroom, they'd peek through gaps above or below, shove cameras right in, or yell to gather other guys for a spectacle.
Yuuki chose getting drenched in the girls' bathroom over sexual harassment in the boys'.
"If you're gonna use the girls' room, get real surgery first!"
"Or should we cut it off right here?"
Yuuki's resistance was weaker than expected, so the girls grew bolder.
They even grabbed at her pants like they meant to strip her.
"Don't."
Yuuki shook off their hands with brute force.
No matter how weak she'd gotten, she wasn't about to lose a strength contest to girls.
"If you're a real girl, what's the problem with showing?"
"Bet it's still dangling there."
"Come on, show us!"
When she resisted having her pants pulled off, the girls latched onto that.
"Knew you'd pull this—we brought scissors!"
"As expected from the sewing club!"
"I said don't!"
The girls seriously tried to cut Yuuki's pants.
Yuuki roughly shoved their hands away.
And at that moment.
-Tap tap.
"Coming throu~ Drilling right through for ya~."
A tapping sound echoed, followed by a man's voice—one that had no business being in the girls' bathroom.
"What?!"
"Kyaa!"
"Naibusu!"
"Get out!"
Q. A man suddenly enters the girls' bathroom. Who is he?
If you asked the students this question, five out of ten would name Naibusu Winzer.
His utterly irrational behavior was that infamous at the academy.
"What, guys aren't allowed in?"
"Of course not!"
"Then what about Yuuki?"
Yuuki's here, so I can be too.
Pure Naibusu logic.
"We were in the middle of educating Kurosaki that she can't come in!"
"Ooh, sounds fun. Give me some of that education too."
One of the four girls stepped up to the sleazy Naibusu.
She was the closest thing to the new leader of the pack.
"Naibusu. You know how the student council handles sex crimes these days, right? A guy entering the girls' bathroom is straight-up a crime. You think being in the President's Guard means you can act however and get away with it?"
The girl stepped forward boldly, as if putting on a show for the others.
But she couldn't completely hide the deep-seated fear of Naibusu bubbling up from her mind.
Rumors were spreading through the group that Naibusu might have killed Akane based on yesterday's circumstances.
She might be next to get murdered by Naibusu.
That terror lurked deep in her chest.
And Naibusu didn't miss her mind trembling unstably.
"...Really? From where I'm standing, it looks like you're the ones sexually harassing Yuuki."
-Tap, tap, tap.
Naibusu approached her, tapping his sheathed Moonlight against his own neck.
"Hik!"
The other girls swallowed hard and backed away at Naibusu's irrational actions.
But she—the aspiring next leader of the hardliners—couldn't run.
Showing weakness and fleeing here would mean getting devoured by the girls below her.
It would be the start of a new hell for her.
"...Reika. Do you know how Akane died?"
Naibusu barely managed to recall the name of the girl in front of him.
Reika didn't run; she stood her ground. But her legs trembled like a newborn fawn's.
Naibusu took his sheathed Moonlight and pressed it firmly against Reika's lower belly.
"Hik?!"
Her body jerked.
"──You wanna get pierced too?"
A terrifying voice, as if risen straight from hell.
-Bzzz!
Along with an intense vibration transmitted to her lower belly.
*Really like a vibrator,* Naibusu thought as he interfered with Reika's mind.
He maximally amplified the fear surging within her.
"A, a, aaah...!"
Reika's eyes flew wide open in full-blown panic.
Nothing reflected in them.
And then.
-Drip, driiiip...
A sour smell perfectly suited to the location spread through the air.
The yellow liquid leaking from between Reika's legs ran down her thighs, soaking her socks and shoes before pooling on the bathroom floor.
"Aaah..."
Her legs completely gave out, and Reika plopped down into the puddle she'd made.
The silver lining—if you could call it that—was that the other girls in the group had all fled, so no one else saw.
"Hmph."
Naibusu gave Reika a single glance, then indifferently draped his uniform jacket over Yuuki's soaked hair.
"Let's go."
Yuuki, who had been blankly staring at Reika and Naibusu, finally snapped out of it.
"Time to clean up every last one."
She had sworn not to rely on Naibusu anymore.
But there was an irresistible power in his voice.
"...Yeah."
Yuuki decided to entrust everything to Naibusu and follow him.
Her heart pounded beneath the bandages pressing on her chest.