Chapter 5: The Suffering Master is Myself
After school.
It’s club activity time.
Since the new semester had just begun recently.
Many new students would be visiting various clubs, including the “fandom” club like Chaoziyan.
So, Nagi, as the president of the fandom club,
was supposed to head straight to the club room after school.
However, all of this was based on the premise that Chaoziyan is a “normal” club or fandom.
Chaoziyan is a special existence among the various clubs and fandoms at Hoshikage High School.
This is related to the previous special organization SEMA division in Kawano City, which spread various urban legends and ghostly curses.
As a result, the youth of Kawano City, especially the students of this generation, had mixed feelings towards it; some were very enthusiastic, while others were quite wary.
“There’s something unclean in Chaoziyan,” “If you join Chaoziyan, you’ll be haunted by dirty things and cursed,” and so on…
Such rumors had deeply rooted in people’s minds.
So even though Chaoziyan had an extraordinarily high “pretty girl” factor, very few students applied to join.
This allowed Nagi to avoid most of the pursuers with ulterior motives.
In a certain sense, Nagi should be grateful to SEMA.
The Kawano City branch of SEMA had completed a reorganization after the pseudo-god Shirakuro incident.
At first glance, it seemed like Kawano City had returned to peace and tranquility after losing the pseudo-god Shirakuro.
In fact, it was quite the opposite.
With the disappearance of the pseudo-god Shirakuro,
combined with the residual impact of the “Artificial Divine Spirit” project,
Kawano City was now a place where fantastic monsters could emerge at any moment.
One couldn’t rely entirely on the newly restructured branch of SEMA.
So—
“Nagi, I’ve finished the thing I mentioned before~”
Rin waved goodbye to her friends and turned to Nagi, who was tidying up her things.
“Really? That’s great! This way, Chaoziyan can have some results to show for our activities.”
Nagi displayed an excited smile.
“Then let’s head to Chaoziyan together? I can’t wait to see it.”
Upon hearing this, Rin was a bit curious: “Don’t you usually go look for Kanade at this time?”
Rin asked this because normally at this time, Nagi would first go to the class where Kanade was to find him, and then the two would head to Chaoziyan together.
“Ah, about that…”
Nagi explained, “Kanade-kun is bringing people to visit Chaoziyan today, so he told me I didn’t need to specifically go find him.”
……
At the same time.
In Class 2-B, where Kanade was.
“Is that so? Yukino is visiting Chaoziyan today?” Mana learned about this from Kanade.
As Kanade’s childhood friend, she had naturally heard of his younger sister.
However, she only knew of her existence by hearsay.
Having never been to Kanade’s home,
she had never met Yukino.
“Yes, so I’ll wait for her here for a bit before going over together…” Kanade said.
“Then Mana should go first,” she suggested.
“Okay, I understand.”
Mana nodded, but soon asked, “By the way, isn’t it more appropriate for Tsukimi to go find Yukino at this time?”
Kanade awkwardly scratched his head at this suggestion.
“Going to another grade’s floor… alone… is slightly…”
His response was a bit hesitant.
Although the other side was his own sister, going to find a girl in a different grade alone was an excessively high difficulty for an introverted person like him.
Although this introvert had become slightly more outgoing recently, he still found it hard to take such overtly extroverted actions.
Mana’s crimson gaze felt sharp, piercing into him.
But in the end, she decided not to lecture Kanade.
She sighed softly and turned to head to Chaoziyan first.
Her platinum blonde hair, which had been shoulder-length, had now grown to waist-length over the past year, swaying with her steps.
Kanade watched her figure leave.
He also made his way to the corridor.
As he boredly scrolled through his phone,
a gaze shot out from the classroom, fixated on him.
It was the girl who had been watching him closely that morning.
For her, this was a good opportunity since Kanade was alone.
After all, Kanade was usually accompanied by either Nagi or Mana.
Under the pressure of these two top-tier beauties, it was hard for her to approach him.
She cleared her throat slightly to adjust her voice, hoping to sound a bit cuter.
Just as she was about to step forward to talk to Kanade,
an unexpected guest caught her eye, making her widen her eyes and stop in her tracks.
It was a girl with chestnut short hair, and from the color of her collar ribbon, it was clear she was a first-year student.
Whether it was her youthful and cute face or her slender figure, even from a girl’s perspective, one couldn’t deny she was a stunning beauty.
“Why does Tsukimi have so many cute girls around him?!”
……
“Guess who I am~”
Kanade suddenly felt someone’s hand covering his eyes from behind.
The intentionally sweet voice made him immediately guess the identity of the person behind him.
He hurriedly pulled away the hand covering his eyes and turned around.
“Don’t suddenly do that, Yukino.”
“Ah~ Oni-chan is cheating! You have to guess my identity before looking!” Yukino puffed her cheeks in mock anger.
“As a demonstration, Oni-chan should cover my eyes this time, to show you what a top player looks like.”
“No, no, that would mean I already know the answer, right?”
“Oni-chan is really childish~ Having such high demands for a game like this won’t help you make friends~”
“My fault!? Aren’t you the one who wanted to play, Yukino?!”
Kanade let out a deep sigh.
“So why are you acting like this?”
Having been with Yukino for so long, he knew her well.
He understood she was just trying to act cute on purpose.
“Mm? What are you talking about, Oni-chan? Yukino doesn’t understand~”
As she spoke, Yukino subtly glanced at the girl in the classroom with her peripheral vision.
“Cat who strays…” she murmured softly.
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing at all~ Oni-chan, come on and let’s go to Chaoziyan~” Yukino said as she attempted to grab Kanade’s hand.
But he dodged away.
His “Yukino radar” was buzzing, and he was sure his sister was up to no good.
“Oni-chan, are you shy?”
“That is absolutely not possible.” Kanade replied immediately.
Then the two of them chatted casually as they headed to Chaoziyan.
Leaving behind a girl filled with doubt about her life.
“Not only do I have to deal with Hoshimiya, but now there’s also Hinata, and suddenly I get an excessively cute younger sister… who the heck is Tsukimi?!”
“I can’t believe I might also have to deal with Haihara!?”
A girl was caught in the confusion of adolescence.
……
……
At Chaoziyan.
“Hello everyone, I am Tsukimi Yukino, please take care of me, seniors.”
Yukino greeted everyone with grace.
This caused a warm round of applause in welcome.
“Tsukimi… could it be you are…” the enthusiastic and extroverted Rin spoke up first.
He had heard about Kanade’s sister but was seeing her in person for the first time today.
As he expected, she was indeed a remarkable beauty.
Rin now thought that if the girls around Kanade were not beauties, that would be even weirder.
“Yes, senior, you guessed it right—” Yukino continued Rin’s words, nodding slightly and displaying a radiant smile.
“—I am Kanade-kun’s wife, and my husband has been under everyone’s care.”
Pfft.
Nagi couldn’t help but spit in her heart.
Although she had anticipated this, she didn’t expect that seeing it in person would still have such an impact.
This was how Yukino first introduced herself in the original work of “Hoshiyuki 2.”
She never expected that seeing it from a real-life perspective would create such a shock.
“That can’t be true!?” Kanade urgently jumped in to finish Yukino’s sentence.
At the same time, his eyes involuntarily drifted towards Nagi, as if observing her expression.
“Yukino is my sister!”
To prove his innocence, Kanade explained.
“Oni-chan, I didn’t expect you—” Yukino said, looking very touched: “would be willing to admit to everyone that you married your own sister.”
“Absolutely not! We are just ordinary siblings!”
“…..(stare)”
“I’m telling the truth, the stares are so piercing!!!” Kanade felt restless under Mana’s cold gaze.
“Yes, as Oni-chan said, what I just said was just a joke~” Yukino slightly bowed in apology.
“Now let me introduce myself again. My name is Tsukimi Yukino, and I am the younger sister of Oni-chan sitting over there. Please take care of me.”
“Welcome to Chaoziyan~ Yukino-chan~” Nagi finally had a chance to speak.
Next came self-introductions from the members of Chaoziyan.
After Yukino took her seat, the enthusiastic and cheerful Rin introduced her to the club’s activities.
Nagi got up to pour her a cup of tea.
“So Tsukimi—”
“Just call me Yukino~ After all, having the same surname as my brother could get confusing if you call me Tsukimi.” Yukino said with a friendly demeanor towards Rin.
“I understand. Then how about I call you Yukiko?”
“Mm-mm, then I will call you ‘Rinko’ too~”
“Sounds good~”
The two seemed to hit it off well, instantly bridging the gap between them.
This left Kanade in shock.
“So today, Yukiko came to visit Chaoziyan because she is interested in supernatural things?”
But Yukino shook her head.
“To be honest, the reason I want to join Chaoziyan isn’t really this.”
“If you’re about to say something like ‘I’m here for you’, I’ll be mad—” sensing a danger, Kanade warned in advance.
“Well~ it’s slightly related~” Yukino smiled.
“Actually, I heard that many people in school are afraid to join Chaoziyan…”
Yukino looked around.
“Though this is quite rude to say, I thought that if I could join Chaoziyan, I might be able to avoid some boys… you know.”
“Avoid? Did something happen?” Kanade curiously asked, could it be that his sister experienced some bullying—
“There have been too many boys confessing to me recently.” Yukino replied promptly.
“Ah, well…”
It seemed he was overthinking.
But Kanade couldn’t deny that, on the surface, his sister was indeed an outright beauty.
“So, Oni-chan~”
“Mm?”
“Can we date?”
Clang.
While pouring tea, Nagi accidentally tipped over the cup.
Tea spilled all over the table.
