The short interval before school started ended in the usual exchange of greetings between Heita and me, much like the school broadcast that rang out punctually every day yet was never truly listened to by anyone.
If this period held any meaning, it was probably just to confirm that neither of us had been ground into the dirt by life yet—at least we could still stand and finish our sentences.
Heita was as overflowing with energy as always, the kind of person who treated “youth” like free samples handed out to passersby.
I, on the other hand, was perpetually short on energy, the type who treated “being alive” like a monthly subscription service that sent reminders to renew at the end of every billing cycle.
Standing together, the two of us always created a “light and shadow” contrast—unfortunately, I wasn’t the sort of thing that automatically brightened up just because the sun was next to me.
At most, I’d reflect a bit, then go back to being overcast.
According to the BHAO KNOCKOUT schedule, my match was set for the morning.
Even with two matches, the timing was so tight it was as if the school feared we’d develop the free will to think “Maybe I don’t actually have to compete,” and so they chained people down with the schedule.
This approach was very much in line with Blue Sea Academy: on the surface they gave you a choice, but in reality the system turned that choice into “It looks like you’re choosing, but you don’t actually have the right to not choose.”
I tried opening my mouth and taking a deep breath of the Blue Sea Academy campus air—only for the same utterly “flavorless” sensation to rush into my nostrils.
It wasn’t fresh, nor was it murky; it didn’t even qualify as “mediocre.”
It was like a daily routine with the background sound deleted, leaving only blank space that forced you to hear your own breathing.
All I could do was smile bitterly and return to a normal breathing rhythm.
Breathing in too hard would make it seem like I was actually looking forward to today, and one of the things I was best at in life was disguising “expectation” as “indifference,” so reality wouldn’t get the chance to tell me “You wish.”
Now I was walking alone toward the preliminary round candidate area for the lower-tier matches.
Heita had gone off to handle club activities after our greeting.
He didn’t have a match in the morning; his was in the afternoon, perfectly timed to not overlap with mine.
To be honest, this was a strange sort of “salvation” for me.
It wasn’t that I disliked him—I never disliked people, only situations that required me to explain myself.
Heita was the type who wore his concern on his face.
If he noticed something off about me, he’d stick to me like a pursuit skill.
His good intentions would leave me with nowhere to run.
And right now… it was rather inconvenient for me to be around him.
At that thought, my feet stopped as if tangled by cicada silk.
I stood still in the shadows at the corner of the corridor, my gaze passing through the blue square particles of the AR overlay to land on “the body that was originally supposed to be mine.”
—There was nothing worth describing with adjectives.
It was ordinary like the default avatar in a textbook, so ordinary that even “being remembered” would require an extra fee.
Through the AR adjustment interface, I could even see those completely spiritless eyes: not bright, not sharp, not even sad—just empty, as if “human emotions” had been deleted down to the minimum configuration.
Although up until now, the Night Witch’s purplish-red eyes couldn’t exactly be called sparkling either, they at least had a presence that said “Even if you don’t want to look, you’ll be drawn in anyway.”
In other words, even if that body’s mental state was in the negatives, it could still completely outclass my old face in terms of “base points.”
This is what they call “cuteness is productivity,” I couldn’t help sighing inwardly, while my male face probably only counted as “production resistance.”
“Even with a negative mental state, it’s a body that can still display a cute demeanor.”
I muttered to myself under my breath, as if making a meaningless summary for my own benefit.
A wave of powerlessness pressed down from my shoulders, making me too lazy to even finish my internal complaints properly.
If something like this had happened to any girl, she probably would have had a brief breakdown before quickly accepting reality and even starting to research “In that case, which style would suit me best?”
But the truth had landed on a “boy” named Yae Yoruichi—instead, I could neither enjoy it with a clear conscience nor reject it outright.
Should I call myself unlucky, or lucky?
Unlucky, because at least I’d gained the “cuteness” attribute that was almost impossible to obtain through effort in life.
Lucky, because I had to endure the constant tug-of-war of “Who exactly am I?”
It was like stuffing one person’s soul into another person’s skin.
You could call it rebirth or a curse; either way, it wasn’t up to me to decide.
“Yoruichi!!!!!!”
Just as my head was filled with thoughts of male, female, ethics, morality, and “Maybe I should apply for a mental health day off,” a sharp shout came flying from ahead, carrying a dangerous sense of speed.
I almost reflexively stepped to the right, as if it weren’t a voice but an incoming punch.
Immediately after, a voice that was neutral yet retained a cute quality sounded from behind my ear, laced with grievance, unreasonableness, and the innocent arrogance of “How could you not follow the script I imagined?”: “Ehh~ Why did Yoruichi dodge!?”
I turned my head and saw a blue figure shoot past me at high speed—short hair, a slightly angular face, an excessively vivid presence.
No need to guess who it was.
Chiyo Haori.
The cross-dresser who treated “battle” like breathing, “chuunibyou” like his mother tongue, and “shame” like an optional extra.
“Eh? Haori? Do you have thrusters installed on your feet?”
I was about to finish my quip when the next second I heard a dull thud.
Haori fell to the ground in a posture that very much violated Blue Sea Academy regulations, face down.
His movements were so textbook it looked like he was demonstrating “How to fall very embarrassingly without getting hurt.”
What was worse—probably due to the impact—his male trousers had slipped down a bit, revealing a flash of eye-catching pink.
The string in my brain called “rationality” snapped for a moment.
My mouth spoke before my brain could catch up: “Pink… pink?”
Haori reacted as if struck by lightning.
He instantly covered his rear with both hands and let out a strange cry: “Uweh!”
The sound was neither masculine nor feminine, more like a small animal whose secret had been exposed—its wail carried shame, and within that shame was a stubbornness that said “Even if you saw it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“S-sorry, Haori—I didn’t mean to see it! It was just an accident, an accident!”
I quickly distanced myself, speaking so fast it was like reciting a self-defense template of “I didn’t cheat but I can’t explain it clearly either.”
Haori looked like he was about to get angry, his mouth opening halfway, but then he suddenly fell silent, as if some strange logic had finished loading in his brain.
Then, without even pulling up his pants, he stood up quite openly and casually patted down his clothes, as if declaring “I’m going to face the world like this today.”
“Hey, hey, hey, are you an idiot?! Pull up your pants already!”
I covered my eyes with one hand while peeking through my fingers with the other.
Humans really are creatures of contradiction: the mouth says no, but the body is honest.
Haori, however, felt no shame at all.
Instead, he puffed out his chest and declared earnestly: “Don’t worry, there’s no one else around right now—everyone’s either at the cultural festival or over at the arena!”
He said it so righteously, as if “no one saw” was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.
I nearly laughed from sheer exasperation: “What about me! I’m right here! Are you treating me like air?”
Haori blinked, as if suddenly realizing I counted as a “person,” then delivered an even more headache-inducing follow-up in an even more troublesome tone: “Yoruichi, you’re a boy, so it’s fine if you see, right?”
I immediately labeled him in my mind as a “complete idiot,” bolding and underlining it for emphasis.
To be able to cross-dress to this degree was a kind of professional dedication in itself.
In the end—after ten full minutes of my “etiquette education” and “basic human common sense popularization”—Haori finally straightened his clothes and stood obediently beside me like a blue feline that had just been tamed.
He first unleashed a barrage of complaints about me ditching our promise to continue working at the maid café.
The complaints came like machine-gun fire, sliding from “Why didn’t you come see me?” all the way to “Do you not even consider me a friend?” with strange emotional highlights in between like “I worked so hard practicing my maid duties.”
My head ached from listening, yet I found it hard to truly get angry because Haori’s expression was too sincere—sincere to the point that it seemed like he was defending some childish rule with his very life: If you promised me something, you can’t just run away easily.
Once he finally paused to catch his breath, I let out the words I’d prepared, trying to keep my tone as flat as usual.
If I was too gentle, it would seem like I was depending on him too, and I wasn’t used to admitting such things.
“Alright, Haori… Although I have a lot I want to say too, my match is coming up very soon. I need to head to the candidate area and wait.”
I paused for a moment, but added silently in my heart: He’s a bit of an idiot, but I really can’t bring myself to push this guy away harshly.
I originally hated trouble because of my rotten personality, but now trouble was wrapping around me like a ball of yarn, and surprisingly… I didn’t hate it that much.
Perhaps that was a good thing too.
At least it meant I hadn’t completely broken yet.
“Wait, Yoruichi.”
Haori reached out to stop me, grinning as he leaned his face in close.
The proximity immediately triggered a sense of crisis in me: Did this guy forget what personal space means?
“I have the combat data on your next opponent!”
He announced it like he was presenting a treasure, as if he’d pulled out a ticket to victory.
“Combat data?”
I frowned.
As a battle maniac, it wasn’t strange for Haori to be happy about fights, but “combat data” was the kind of thing that should be kept as a trump card—like the final Joker—never revealed until the critical moment.
A battle where the opponent didn’t hold your trump cards was what counted as “truly fair.”
“Yup!”
Haori looked as delighted as if he’d won the lottery.
“I heard the student council is selling this kind of information! Your data, Yoruichi, was listed at a high price of 10,000 points. A lot of people are rushing to buy it!”
He spoke so lightly, completely unaware of what this sentence meant to me: my skills, my forms, my weaknesses, even the “identity risk” I’d worked so hard to hide—all potentially being sold publicly as merchandise.
My throat tightened.
In an instant, countless scenes flashed through my mind—being watched, being exposed, being mocked, being driven out of the academy—all condensing into one simple question.
“Haori, can you explain the details to me? What exactly is going on?”
I tried to sound calm, but my fingertips had unconsciously clenched tight.
Haori just blinked, as if announcing some “common knowledge everyone knows”: “It’s President Mayne. She personally started this information sales event.”
Xieyi Mayne…
What exactly was she planning?
To heat up the cultural festival?
To create hype for the BHAO KNOCKOUT?
I stood there, feeling an invisible wind sweep across my back, as if someone had gently nudged the chessboard in the shadows while I was the chess piece.
Haori was still grinning beside me, waiting for my reaction like a cat that had no idea the thing it was carrying in its mouth was a grenade.
I lifted my head and looked toward the direction of the candidate area.
The path was clearly familiar, yet at this moment it suddenly felt much longer.
“…Let’s go,” I said softly, unsure whether I was speaking to Haori or to myself.
“First to the candidate area. I don’t want to lose in a place like this for such ridiculous reasons.”
Haori immediately perked up energetically and followed, treating the pre-battle tension like fuel.
In my heart, I silently added: If even Blue Sea Academy can sell fairness, then what I have to deal with next might not just be my opponent, but the rules themselves.
As for Mayne—what exactly did that strange woman want to see?
Only she herself probably knew the answer to that.