The student council vice president, Hitaka Shuho.

As a red-haired, red-eyed beauty, her outer appearance was already quite flashy. Plus, she had something akin to a warrior's spirit emanating from her and always accompanied President Natsuya Yoruhana as if she was the president's personal bodyguard, making her relatively popular within the school.

Actually, when Seiji met her for the first time, he almost felt as if she was a swordswoman from some video game. He didn't meet her the last time he visited the student council room, so he decided to observe her closely this time around.

Hmm… She definitely had a warrior's aura, and especially now that he knew she was one of the president's Spirit-branded Retainers, Seiji wondered if she was actually a living version of Rurouni Kens.h.i.+n from his previous life…

If possible, he wanted to ask her to try using Kens.h.i.+n's ultimate technique…

*Cough cough.* He went off on too much of a tangent.

Faced with Seiji who was obviously studying her intently, Hitaka Shuho ignored it as she was already used to such a thing.

Seiji seemed appreciative of her without showing any perverted l.u.s.t, which was acceptable. However, Hitaka noticed that his eyes seemed to be s.h.i.+ning with a strange light.

Hitaka didn't know what it was, and although she was a bit curious, as long as it wasn't enmity, she didn't really care.

"Hey, President Yoruhana." Seiji greeted Natsuya, who sat by the round table. After greeting her, he suddenly noticed two unopened luxurious-looking lunchboxes resting on the table.

"Welcome back to the student council room, Harano-kun." Natsuya smiled warmly.

"I feel bad about bothering you during lunch break." Seiji scratched his face awkwardly: "Do you two… often eat lunch here?"

"Yeah, it's nice and quiet…" Natsuya averted her gaze slightly.

"Why aren't you eating together with your friends outside?" Seiji detected something and continued asking along this line of thinking.

"Milady doesn't need useless friends." Hitaka Shuho stated coldly as she opened her mouth.

After a period of silence.

Natsuya Yoruhana sighed.

"Okay, I'll admit it… Hitaka, you don't need to clumsily cover for me any longer; it'll just make things more awkward."

"I'm not covering for you at all; there's hardly anyone that's worthy of becoming Milady's friend." Hitaka's expression showed she remained convinced of the validity of her previous statement.

Natsuya smiled wryly as she looked in Seiji's direction.

"In school, I don't have any close friends. If I wanted to, I could eat lunch together with many other students, but the atmosphere would always feel a little strange… It's not relaxing at all. Also, I… I'm not sure if I should be making friends with ordinary people. You're aware of my true ident.i.ty, so… there are restrictions I must observe."

Seiji nodded sagely.

"Your worries are that of a young mistress from a powerful family."

He didn't even know how to respond as she was unexpectedly forthright with him about her situation.

A scion who could naturally eat lunches together with commoners… this scenario wasn't realistic, albeit it wasn't impossible either…

A real scion like Natsuya Yoruhana would possess excellent etiquette and appearance, not to mention her outstanding field of vision and the virtue of her self-cultivation… In conclusion, everything about her would be far above ordinary people.

Normal people would feel unworthy just by standing beside her, and even if they worked up the courage to speak to her, it would only take a few sentences before they realized the vast distance between them. It was as if a thin membrane separated them, an insurmountable wall.

As for the reverse, even if there were some rare ones among the commoners that didn't care about Natsuya's status and were willing to continuously chat about ordinary topics with her, would a lady like Natsuya really be interested in those topics?

And as for reality… there were all sorts that would appear: sycophants, those who wanted to take advantage of her or her connections, and those wanting to capture her heart, causing her to fall in love with them. If she had been a vain scion in search of flattery, it wouldn't matter, but Natsuya would most likely feel only disgust towards such people.

Finally, even if there was someone great enough to overcome all those barriers, Natsuya Yoruhana's true ident.i.ty was still that of someone with mystical powers. She would always have… various worries when making friends with ordinary people that were ignorant of such powers.

Differences in social statuses simply weren't so easy to overcome.

Seiji mulled it over.

"Even though you just said you don't have any close friends, although it might be impolite for me to ask further, I'd still like to ask something: what's your opinion of Kazufuru Ooike?"

"Ooike-kun?" Natsuya tilted her head slightly before replying, "He's an above-average student and an excellent secretary."

"Apart from that?"

"Nothing else." Natsuya lightly skipped over anything else she thought of Kazufuru.

Seiji felt it was impossible for her to be incognizant of that guy's true feelings towards her. In fact, she was probably crystal-clear about it. If that was all she had to say about him, it meant…

Ooike-san, you're not even at the level of a "nice person" in her heart!!

Even Seiji felt a twinge of pity for that guy.

Well, forget about it; it had nothing to do with him.

In actuality, Seiji could've kept asking why she was studying here if she couldn't make any appropriate friends. However, he wisely avoided this question as he believed she had her own reasons; it might even end up being a minefield question!

Seiji decided to get to the main topic at hand.

"Actually, I received some information yesterday…"

He informed her of what he learned from the Juumonji group while skipping over the details of how exactly they invited him.

Natsuya Yoruhana and Hitaka Shuho silently listened to his tale.

"I didn't expect that the local mafia would have such backbone." Natsuya sighed before continuing, "Normally speaking, people like them would avoid this topic when they discover that even the police are keeping silent."

"As I expected—it has something to do with Yin Yang Masters, right?"

"Indeed." Natsuya acknowledged his a.s.sumption with a nod before she fell silent, evidently in midst of considering something.

Seiji patiently waited for her.

"The enemy is making arrangements for a large spell formation."

Natsuya finally looked back at Seiji and spoke up again.

"Arrangements for a spell formation?"

"Yes, my opponent… It's almost certain that it's my opponent who's about to challenge me to a duel who's making these arrangements. That mysterious drug is probably something used for absorbing ordinary people's spiritual energy… Although I don't know what that drug is specifically, from its description and the reactions of its users, that's probably what it's for. Gathering a large amount of spiritual energy for a ma.s.sive spell is one type of preparation that a Yin Yang Master will do before a duel. In order to prevent a ma.s.sive outcry, the ordinary people that have spiritual energy stolen from them won't die… nor will there be any severe aftereffects, but they'll still be permanently weakened." Natsuya sighed.

"Actually, I've already had Hitaka attempt some countermeasures, but they haven't been working well."

"Milady…" Hitaka seemed downcast: "My apologies, I was useless."

"I said it already, Hitaka—it's not your fault." Natsuya furrowed her brows as she looked meaningfully at her good friend: "If only my spells were more powerful, you would've been able to stop the enemy's Spirit-branded Retainers."

"It's because I'm not fast enough! Every time, I'm always just a little late…" Hitaka chewed on her lips, expressing her discontentment.

Seiji blinked in realization.

"So, these incidents… Those corpses were all because of the enemy's Spirit-branded Retainers?"

"Yes, the enemy is ordering their Spirit-branded Retainers to make use of those hoodlums to peddle the spiritual energy absorption drugs. As a precaution, they also cursed those hoodlums so that if there was any risk of them being discovered, or if they broke some restriction that was imposed on them, the curse would activate and kill them. I attempted to use spells to locate the enemy's retainers, but every time we were always just a minute too late, so Hitaka was unable to catch them."

Natsuya lowered her head.

"I know… I'm not good enough as a Yin Yang Master."

"No, Milady is excellent!" Hitaka wore an unhappy expression: "If it wasn't for me…"

"Don't say anything more, Hitaka—my strength is insufficient. That's an indisputable fact."

Natsuya Yoruhana raised her head again as her expression turned serious.

"I need to… work harder!"

Seiji could only look on in silence.

"Haruta-kun, tell that mafia group to cease attempting to investigate this affair, and advise them to avoid it entirely," Natsuya cautioned in a grave tone.

"The enemy will continue to use his or her Spirit-branded Retainers to do what they've been doing, and I'll try my utmost to prevent it. This is a duel between Yin Yang Masters—ordinary people shouldn't get involved."

"If they interfere… they'll be eliminated by the enemy's retainers, right?" Seiji clutched his arms.

"That's right—since it's allowed by our own rules for Yin Yang Masters to get rid of anyone that may discover their ident.i.ty, the enemy's Spirit-branded Retainers will kill any interfering parties without hesitation," Natsuya stated. "Presently… we can't even find out the ident.i.ty of the enemy's Spirit-branded Retainers, much less order around whoever this enemy Yin Yang Master is. All I know is that the spirit that this retainer's bonded with is most likely one of the strongest among the spirits with ice powers—Snow Girl!"