After Itsuka-kun’s route with Tobiichi ended, a very peaceful stretch of days passed.
"Get away from him! Tobiichi Origami!"
"No. I’m in love with Shido for real now."
"Y-you two..."
No, maybe it wasn’t exactly peaceful.
Anyway, I thought things were finally going back to normal everyday life, but then one problem popped up.
It was a day not long after Tobiichi’s route had ended.
While I was asleep, I heard someone calling me.
"Hai-kun~"
"Mm..."
"Honestly, Hai-kun, you really are something~"
"Who... is it..."
For some reason I was absurdly sleepy today, so without opening my eyes I tried to think about who the owner of that sultry voice could be.
'No one, really...'
No matter how I thought about it, there was no one around who called me Hai-kun.
So, to confirm who it was, I rubbed my sleepy eyes and sat up.
Squish!
"...Huh?"
When I propped myself up to get out of bed, I felt something soft.
"Eek~ If you wanted to do that, Hai-kun, you could’ve just said so."
"......"
Hearing that again, I slowly turned my head like a broken machine at the very familiar voice.
Black lingerie so sheer you could see through it, and long green hair that fell all the way to her hips.
And the generous chest my hand was on was, to anyone’s eyes, unmistakably Natsumi in female form.
"Do you want to?"
"Kyaaaaaa――!!!"
Setting aside why Natsumi was here, I was so shocked that I’d touched her chest, even in a transformed state, that I toppled backward.
Bang!
My head slammed into the wall, sending a huge tremor through the room.
Pffft!
Smoke rose from my body, and my appearance changed.
"H-huh...?"
Clack!
"What happened!"
At the loud noise, the green-haired person beside me panicked, and the yellow-haired person opened the door in surprise.
"N-Natsumi!? Why are you in Hai’s room looking like that...!"
"That’s not the important part! Look at that!"
The green-haired person pointed at me.
Then the yellow-haired person’s eyes turned toward me, and her expression changed in a ridiculous way.
"W-whaaaaat――!?"
"What, what is it!"
When the yellow-haired person screamed, others came running too.
And when they saw me, they all made the exact same face as the yellow-haired person.
What a weird bunch of people.
But more importantly, where am I?
The reason Natsumi panicked, Mayuri was shocked, and everyone else reacted similarly after Hieta slammed his head into the wall was simple.
"U-um... big sisters? Where am I...?"
Hieta had gotten younger.
And not just that—his memory had apparently regressed all the way back to childhood, since he seemed to have no idea who the people in the spirit mansion were.
"Big sisters...?"
Hieta tilted his head, genuinely not knowing where he was, and that only made him even cuter.
"Guhk!"
"Kyaa!"
"Cough!"
And that cuteness proceeded to shoot straight through the hearts of several women.
Those bright, sparkling blue eyes, so different from Hieta’s usual ones, and that soft skin made even softer by becoming a child.
All of it was terrible for the hearts of the women who liked Hieta.
"W-what are we supposed to do...?"
"For now! Let’s go to [Fraxinus]! We’ll get him checked there!"
When Kaguya said that while looking at Hieta, the others nodded in agreement.
Since Hieta’s physical condition might be abnormal, they needed to find out why he’d gotten younger and what state he was in.
"M-mom and dad, where did they go...?"
But Hieta’s memory had regressed too, so he believed his parents were still alive.
With his parents nowhere to be seen and only strangers around him, he started to tear up and look for them.
"M-mom... Dad...!"
"N-now, now! Your parents will come tonight! Until then, we’ll play with you for a little while!"
Just before Hieta started crying, Mayuri lied to distract him.
"R-really...?"
"Of course! For now, why don’t we go somewhere with the big sisters?"
"O-okay..."
And thankfully, Mayuri’s lie worked on Hieta, who had become an innocent child, and he temporarily stopped crying.
Seeing that, the group let out relieved sighs and headed for [Fraxinus].
"Th-that’s Hieta...?"
"He really does look like him..."
Inside [Fraxinus], Shido and Kotori, who had been told that Hieta had gotten younger, carefully examined the shrunken Hieta.
He looked exactly like Hieta in every way, so they had no choice but to believe it.
『Wahahaha! Hai-kun! Look at this!』
"Wow! The rabbit doll can talk!"
『How is it~? Amazing, right~? Amazing, right~?』
"Yeah! Yeah!"
Hieta played with Yoshino and Yoshinon, and his mood level had stabilized quite a bit.
Shido scratched his cheek, relieved, remembering how Hieta had nearly started crying again during the first physical exam after coming to [Fraxinus], with his mood swinging all over the place.
"So, Reine. Did you find anything out?"
"...Yeah. Roughly."
Murasame Reine, [Fraxinus]’s analyst, explained why Hieta had gotten younger.
"...Probably, when he slammed his head into the wall because of Natsumi, something went wrong during the regeneration process."
"What kind of problem?"
"...Normally, Hiki’s spiritual power—or soul, as he calls it—would regenerate his body, but at that exact moment, Natsumi’s spiritual power flowed in."
"So that changed his body?"
"...Right. Natsumi’s spiritual power forced Hiki’s appearance into a younger state, and because it wasn’t a normal regeneration, he ended up with temporary amnesia."
"Sigh..."
In the end, all the blame came back to Natsumi.
If she hadn’t snuck into Hai’s bedroom and shown up dressed like that, he wouldn’t have slammed his head into the wall and ended up like this.
So when Kotori let out a deep sigh and glared at Natsumi, Natsumi broke into a cold sweat and looked away.
"N-no, I was just trying to wake him up energetically..."
"You woke him up so energetically he got younger!"
"W-well, yes, but..."
As Kotori snapped at Natsumi, angry that she’d suddenly been saddled with taking care of a child, someone tugged on her sleeve.
"Hm? What now..."
"D-don’t fight..."
The younger Hieta was tugging on Kotori’s sleeve as he said that.
With those bright, worried eyes, even Kotori in her black-ribbon mode had no choice but to back down.
Meanwhile, there was another person who had sneaked onto [Fraxinus].
"Kyaa!!! Darling’s younger self!!!"
"Miku!?"
It was none other than Izayoi Miku.
For reasons unknown, Miku had slipped through all of [Fraxinus]’s security systems, sneaked in, and hugged the younger Hieta tightly to shower him with affection.
"So cuteeeee!!!"
"U-uh, ahh...!"
Hieta, trapped in Miku’s embrace, could barely breathe because of her huge chest.
But Miku, apparently unaware of his distress, just called him adorable and hugged him even tighter, only stopping after Kotori knocked her out with a chop to the back of the neck.
"Sigh... How did Miku get here again?"
"Why is Miku here?"
"Marina? You’re awake now?"
Marina, who usually slept in [Fraxinus]’s server room, woke up and nodded with a sleepy face.
Then, the moment she saw Hieta shaking the unconscious Miku, her jaw dropped.
"Wh-who is that...?"
"Oh, it’s a younger Hiki."
"J-just a moment! Maria! Wake up!"
"Mm... what is it, Marina? Waking me this early in the morning..."
"Hai got younger!"
"What do you mean..."
Maria, who had also just woken up, looked at Hieta and then gaped, muttering something under her breath.
"A younger Hai... so cute. I want to hug him tight and feel how soft he is. Ah, but I don’t have a body, do I? Then I should hurry and create one..."
"Maria! Snap out of it! What are you even saying!"
"...Ah! S-sorry. The moment I saw younger Hai, I lost my reason."
"This is a disaster."
Watching Maria act strangely, Kotori pressed her temples and searched for some way to solve the situation.
But there was no such way.
There was no one here who could smack Hieta’s head hard enough to make him regenerate again, and even if they used Natsumi’s angel to turn him back into an adult, his memory would still remain childlike.
Realizing there was no way to break out of this situation, Kotori collapsed into despair and sat down heavily.
"Seriously, what are we supposed to do...?"
"...There is one way."
"What is it!?"
Just then, Reine said she’d found a method, and Kotori jumped to her feet to ask what it was.
Reine paused for a moment, then gave the one and only way to set Hieta back to normal.
"...It’ll wear off tomorrow. So all we have to do is keep Hiki from getting mentally unstable by staying with him and playing with him until then."
"If it’s going to wear off tomorrow anyway, that’s a relief. Fine, let’s do this."
Hearing that they only had to endure one day, Kotori’s face brightened.
"Let’s begin our [childcare]!"
And so the plan to take care of the younger Hieta began.
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