Tenshouin Yurika: noble of birth, exceptional in bearing.
As the former heiress of a great conglomerate, even now that she’d shed that halo others found so enviable, she had never once shown the disappointment or anger people might have imagined she’d display.
Her presence was forever just as striking, and at Tokiwadai, even members of rival factions, when facing this former young lady, would show heartfelt admiration and respect.
“Yurika-sama, please have lunch with me today at noon! I made a new dish with fresh British beef flown in from England…!”
The black-haired kouhai Nanahara Nadeshiko, who carried a young-lady pedigree no less than Tenshouin Yurika’s former one, seemed to have grown more and more interested in Yurika ever since those rather suggestive incidents between them last time.
Today was no different.
Even though the classroom wasn’t deserted like last time, Nadeshiko came right up to Tenshouin Yurika’s desk with her own bento box and, with a bashful blush, issued her lunch invitation.
Tenshouin Yurika: delicate of feature, placid of expression, forever radiating a chilly, heart-stopping aura.
Placid yet not cold, austere yet not haughty, Tenshouin Yurika was like a wintersweet blossoming alone in the winter snow, pure and proud-spirited, yet not impossible to reach.
This contradictory, captivating state was the biggest reason countless Tokiwadai girls yearned for and worshipped her.
“Yurika-sama! Please try the new bento I made! I learned a new recipe from our family’s chef!”
And another fanatical member of Tenshouin Yurika’s faction, whose level of clinginess wasn’t all that far behind Nadeshiko’s, a senpai with light brown short hair, one school year ahead of Tenshouin Yurika no less, Uesaka You, was also standing in front of Tenshouin Yurika’s desk, pressing tightly against Nadeshiko in an obvious attempt to squeeze her out of the way.
With a textbook Yamato-nadeshiko smile on her face, she lifted the lunchbox in her hands and issued her own invitation.
Tenshouin Yurika: kind in disposition, neither obsequious nor arrogant, able to maintain her unflappable composure before anyone, possessed of an unshakable steadiness that wouldn’t waver even if the world collapsed before her, with near-perfect aptitude in ordinary coursework.
Though she fell slightly short on the esper front, beneath Tenshouin Yurika’s transcendent air, no one would ever demand too much of her on that account.
And it was precisely because of that slight deficiency in esper power that the other girls harboring affection for her felt this Ice Queen wasn’t some unreachable snow lotus atop the Tianshan range.
“Yurika already promised to have lunch with me at the Student Council today, so the two of you can forget it, right? Yurika?”
Looking at these two young ladies blocking the space between herself and Tenshouin Yurika, who, despite shoving against each other, somehow managed to keep their uniforms neat and their movements un-crude, Shokuhou Misaki felt a few veins bulge at her temples. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Eye twitching slightly, she opened her mouth and flatly declared her claim over Tenshouin Yurika, the hottest commodity around, for today’s lunch hour, then capped it off by tossing a question at Yurika, trying to get her to play along.
Tenshouin Yurika was now mired in a situation that felt like a sheer romantic warzone.
“Um…”
Though her face showed nothing, inside, Tenshouin Yurika was about ready to flip a table.
She had no idea what was going on.
The day before yesterday, when she’d shared lunch in the classroom with Nadeshiko, no one else had invited her to eat bento.
Yesterday during outdoor sketching, several had invited her, but it was just that handful.
Yet by noon today, from what Yurika could currently gauge, the number of people in her own classroom cradling unopened bento boxes and shooting glances her way had nearly swelled to encompass the entire class.
It felt as if, ever since her family’s conglomerate went bankrupt, the girls wanting to get close to her had been multiplying by geometric leaps.
She was aware she carried no small reputation among these girls; possibly, within Tokiwadai at least, her influence outdid even the idols and stars beyond Academy City.
But being watched by so many pairs of eyes was honestly a bit unbearable.
If she didn’t know these girls weren’t the deranged sort, Tenshouin Yurika might have nearly suspected the girls here had banded together to bankrupt her family just to get close to her.
Of course, in Tenshouin Yurika’s mind, her place in these girls’ hearts was strictly limited to the “idol” tier; she didn’t let her thoughts drift anywhere deeper than that.
“Yu—ri—ha—na—?”
Watching Tenshouin Yurika keep her gaze fixed on her and the others who’d come to invite her to lunch without saying a word, Shokuhou Misaki wore a somewhat sinister smile and ground out those few syllables fiercely through clenched teeth, and as Shokuhou pronounced them, Tenshouin Yurika abruptly felt an inexplicable stab of pain shoot through her brain.
Having been roughly handled by Shokuhou’s ability so often, Tenshouin Yurika found, to her own dismay, that she’d somehow even come to slightly like this faint, prickling sensation.
Rubbing her temple, and to keep Shokuhou from constantly firing off her ability to needle her brain, Tenshouin Yurika could only nod helplessly:
“Ah, right… I did indeed make plans with Shokuhou Misaki…”
With voices full of unmistakable disappointment, Nadeshiko and Uesaka You let out simultaneous wails of grief.
Neither of them, though, suspected Tenshouin Yurika had been controlled by Shokuhou.
That Tenshouin Yurika’s Telekinesis had a somewhat bizarre mutation was an open secret; this Telekinesis had a kind of innate resistance to mind-control abilities.
Shokuhou might be able to wreck Tenshouin Yurika’s brain by going all out, but manipulating Tenshouin Yurika’s mind was simply not in the cards.
“If I could, I’d really love to just wreck that blockhead skull of hers and be done with it.”
Seeming to sense the others’ thoughts, Her Majesty the Queen Shokuhou Misaki shot an irritated glare at the people around her, then gave a rather dispirited glance at the clueless Tenshouin Yurika and said helplessly,
“Come on. I’ve got a feast ready at the Student Council office.”
At the word feast, Tenshouin Yurika nodded in satisfaction, a gesture that gave Shokuhou the urge to cry.
It seemed that in Tenshouin Yurika’s eyes, her own appeal really and truly couldn’t measure up to a good meal, as if the post-bankruptcy Tenshouin Yurika had unearthed some monstrous gluttonous side.
But the very instant Tenshouin Yurika followed Shokuhou out of the classroom, a figure suddenly stepped out from around the corner ahead and planted herself squarely in front of Shokuhou and Tenshouin Yurika.
“…”
“…”
“…”
After a long staring contest, Shokuhou and the girl before her cried out at almost the exact same moment, Misaka Mikoto shouting one name and Shokuhou Misaki the other:
“Shokuhou Misaki!!!”
“Misaka Mikoto!!!”