After Natsumi slammed her head into the wall and passed out, we took her back to [Fraxinus].
"Hmm. She couldn’t accept defeat, ran away, then knocked herself out by smashing her head into something... This isn’t even funny anymore."
"Ahaha, yeah."
I was looking at a graph showing Natsumi’s mental state and various other things with Itsuka-kun, the commander, and Murasame-san.
"Still, I’m glad the plan worked."
"...It did. Her mental state, mood, and favorability all escaped the worst-case scenario."
Just as Murasame-san said, Natsumi’s mind was in a much more stable state than before.
It wasn’t swinging up and down anymore. It was holding steady right around the middle.
"How weak does she have to be to get wrecked by praise like that?"
The exact moment Natsumi tried to run was after we had dressed her up and then praised her.
Taking that into account, it was clear that on top of not being able to accept defeat, she had briefly lost it from the shame of being praised.
"She probably hasn’t gotten much praise while she’s in her original form. Deep down, she wants people to acknowledge her for who she really is, but she can’t bring herself to be confident."
"Come to think of it, Natsumi said people on this side never treated her seriously in her original form."
Hearing the commander’s words, I remembered what Natsumi had said.
For some reason, she seemed to have made countless appearances in the real world.
And during all that time, whenever she tried talking to people in her true form, they mostly ignored her.
So her confidence in her original appearance had kept sinking lower and lower.
"All those experiences piled up and warped Natsumi’s values, I guess."
"...That’s complicated."
[A person’s values are the kind of thing that can change easily, and yet not change easily at all.]
[And if they were broken by other people, they’re even harder to change.]
As Marina and Maria said, values aren’t easy to change.
Sure, they can shift for trivial reasons, but that’s not always the case.
At this point, all we could do was wait for Natsumi to break out of her own shell on her own.
"...For Natsumi, the important thing isn’t whether she’s beautiful or not. The real issue is whether she can feel that someone acknowledged her while she was in her true form. It’s tied to a certain lack of affection, too."
"Why does she feel like the hardest spirit to seal...?"
Yoshino succeeded because her favorability went up after I helped her find Yoshinon.
Kaguya and Yuzuru succeeded because they repaired their relationship and, by sealing them both, allowed both of them to exist in the world.
Mayuri... well, she already said she liked me from the start.
Maria’s favorability went up because we explored emotions together, and Marina’s because I changed her doomed fate.
Miku succeeded by approaching me through cross-dressing... or maybe I should call it turning into a girl? Either way, she got close to me and I saved her from the danger of death.
But with Natsumi, none of that meant anything.
What mattered to her was confidence in her original appearance.
The problem was whether I could give her that.
"Haa..."
No matter how much we thought about it, no answer came, so everyone except Murasame-san let out a deep sigh.
Natsumi was sitting on the bed in the isolation room inside [Fraxinus], muttering to herself.
"Those guys... just keep making excuses..."
She believed her original appearance could never be beautiful, so she decided to test whether her thoughts were right with one experiment.
She pulled the blanket over herself and quietly whispered a name.
"[Haniel]"
At Natsumi’s call, a pale green light wrapped around her and changed her appearance.
What she turned into was a girl with twin red tails: Itsuka Kotori, the commander of [Fraxinus].
"I’ll prove it!"
After leaving the isolation room and muttering that to herself, Natsumi headed toward the other spirits.
The first place Kotori-Natsumi visited was the lounge where Tohka and Yoshino were.
"Tohka, Yoshino."
At her call, Tohka and Yoshino, who were drinking something, looked up.
"Oh, hello..."
"Are you resting too, Kotori?"
"I have something I want to ask."
Natsumi put both hands on her hips and pressed them as if demanding an answer from Tohka and Yoshino.
"So, what do you think? About that Natsumi girl."
"What... do you mean?"
Tohka tilted her head, not understanding the question, and Natsumi immediately insulted herself without blinking.
"That Natsumi girl. Isn’t she gross? I mean, she’s ugly and still acts all full of herself, right?"
Natsumi said it so casually that if Kotori had heard it, she would have been shocked and said she absolutely didn’t think that way.
But because Natsumi was wearing Kotori’s face, Tohka and Yoshino felt something was off and exchanged glances.
Then they looked back at Natsumi with puzzled expressions.
"Kotori, what’s wrong? That doesn’t sound like you."
"Huh?"
"U-um... Natsumi isn’t gross..."
『That’s right, that’s right!』
Yoshino and Yoshinon voiced their thoughts, and Tohka reached out to check Kotori’s forehead, wondering if she had a fever.
Flustered by their reaction, Natsumi stepped back and said, "Why are you all acting like this...? Isn’t it annoying to humor some filthy girl like that...?"
At the same time Natsumi said that, the lounge door opened.
Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Miku came in.
"Oh? What’s everyone doing gathered here?"
Hearing Kaguya’s voice from behind her, Natsumi broke into a cold sweat and looked at her.
Seeing that reaction, Kaguya frowned in confusion.
"What’s wrong, Kotori? Something feels off."
"Listen, everyone. Tohka and Yoshino are acting weird!"
This was her chance. Natsumi decided to say the same thing to them too.
"Question. What do you mean by weird?"
"They’re saying Natsumi is pretty, and that it’s not annoying to dote on her... Huh?"
The more Natsumi talked, the more suspicion crept into their expressions.
Seeing that strange reaction, Natsumi realized something was wrong.
"You’re the one saying the weird stuff."
"How strange. That doesn’t sound like Kotori at all."
"You can’t say that about Natsumi-san~"
Everyone was affirming her true self, accepting it, and praising it, and Natsumi was left completely confused.
"No way, that can’t be...! Then...!"
Her original form was ugly.
No one would ever treat her seriously in that form.
That belief of hers was being denied in an instant.
Feeling her values collapse, Natsumi hurriedly bolted out of the lounge.
"Hey, Kotori!"
Tohka called after her sudden departure, but there was no way Natsumi would stop.
Running out into the hallway, Natsumi looked like she was fleeing from something.
As she ran down the long corridor, she collided with someone.
"Eek!"
"Oof!"
For a moment Natsumi winced from the pain of the collision, then looked up and saw someone she knew well.
"Commander?"
His name was Higakieta Hai.
The man who had saved her life right before Ellen killed him, and a man with red hair even darker than the Kotori she had transformed into.
While Natsumi was still dazed by his sudden appearance, Hieta looked at Kotori-Natsumi and asked in confusion, "Commander? Did something happen? Your face looks a little sour."
"Nothing happened!"
At his comment about her face looking sour, Natsumi hurriedly fixed her expression.
Hieta brushed off her reaction without a second thought.
‘Well, the commander being weird isn’t exactly new.’
Thinking that, he decided this was as good a time as any and opened his mouth.
"Commander. I’ve been thinking, you know? Natsumi’s alone in the isolation room right now, right? I wanted to say something about that."
‘He finally showed his true colors!’
When Hieta started talking about her, Natsumi thought he was finally revealing his real nature, so she played the part of Kotori and asked what it was.
What came back nearly made her cry.
"Well, if she’s alone in the isolation room, that must be kind of lonely, right? Eating alone, playing alone. As someone who’s been alone before, I don’t think that’s very good. So how about we let Natsumi out of the isolation room? If we treat her sincerely, maybe someday she’ll open her heart to us too."
Smiling as he said it, he made Natsumi’s tears spill before she even realized it.
He was the first person to casually say kind things, to affirm her original appearance, and to try to get close to her.
Natsumi couldn’t say a word, her head hanging low.
"Huh? Commander? Are you crying? All of a sudden?"
Hieta stared at Kotori-Natsumi with the expression of someone seeing something bizarre, because her reaction had been so sudden.
"You’re really crying?"
"Shut up, idiot――!!!"
In the end, ashamed that she was crying, Natsumi shoved Hieta away and ran off.
Watching her back, Hieta scratched his head.
"Did the commander finally lose it?"
Kotori never showed tears under normal circumstances, but now she had suddenly started crying, called him an idiot, and run away.
Hieta naturally assumed Kotori had gone crazy.
As he stood there in a daze, a girl’s voice came through his intercom.
[... ]
"What!?"
One piece of news was delivered to Hieta, who was worried because he thought Kotori had gone insane.
[Natsumi has escaped from the isolation room!]
The emergency report that Natsumi had escaped from the isolation room came through from Marina.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register