Aura: Koga Maryuin’s Final Battle

“I’ll be taking that credit back.”
“Ichirou’s thought process is incomprehensible. It must be interpreted as a resident of the phenomenal realm’s characteristic to jump to conclusions.”
“You’re the one jumping around, smashing down my hopes just after I decided to give you a chance.”
Ryouko and I stood in an empty hallway. After school? I wish. Classes were going on. The other students were all studying. Only Ryouko and I stood in the hall with no objective.
“Why did it come to this?”
While I struggled to accept my circumstance, she calmly dealt the finishing blow.
“It is evident. The Researcher caused a dispute with the teacher in charge of fourth period.”
“That’s right. If you’re not serious about this, then get out, he said.”
While Dorisen’s authority got us across third period, it didn’t work on the fourth teacher. “I can’t make an exception for Dorisen-kun’s class alone!” the educator put his displeasure on show, taking an obstinate stand against teaching anyone in that getup. Well, that was the natural reaction.
“As the Researcher has no emotion corresponding with the term ‘serious’, she followed his advice and left the classroom,” Ryouko’s voice carried not the slightest hint of guilt. “No problems to report.”
“Huge problems, dear Ryouko.” I informed her with a thug face brimming with hostility. “When you’re the one who was kicked out, why do I have to go with you?”
She looked at me dubiously.
“If The Researcher and Ichirou are to search for the Dragon Terminal, is this not the appropriate situation? If the students must stay in the classrooms, we have a secured a far greater degree of freedom.”
“I just want to attend class.”
“But the one who petitioned to exclude teachers from concealment protocol was Ichirou. This event came forth as a direct result, so it should have been foreseeable to you.”
“Now wait right there. He didn’t tell me to leave. I’m here because you dragged me along on the way out.”
“……?”
The tilted her head as if, to the depths of her heart, she didn’t understand.
“… Whatever. I was an idiot to expect anything. I’ll join your search for now.”
I couldn’t shake off the feeling I was getting in with the wrong crowd.
“Oh, is this the place?”
Ryouko had led me to a location half a stairway up from the third-floor landing. The stairwell that led to the roof. One might call it a penthouse. That would technically make it the fourth floor, but if you didn’t actually walk out to the roof, it was little more than a small shed where dust-colored colored traffic cones were stacked on top of one another.
As it was for many schools, our roof barred unsupervised entry, so people rarely went there. From what I’d heard, over the course of the school’s history, the garbage that cost a pretty penny to get rid of was usually just left hanging on the roof. Desks, chairs, and the like, there were a few hundred of them.
“The door is locked. It won’t open.”
“The place is off limits. For suicide prevention.”
“Negative, there is a mistake in that information.”
“Is something there?”
“Beyond this door, exceedingly high-level Genius Loci have been detected. That indicates this is a place suited for the construction of a temple.”
“Again with the incomprehensible babble… a temple? You want to pray to some god?”
“The Central Assembly holds no concept of religion. For a matter of convenience, a temple is deemed necessary as a location to borrow the power of specific high-order intelligences to exercise them in spellcraft.”
What a needlessly detailed setting. If you put in too much, it’ll be a real pain cleaning up inconsistencies.
“So you’re saying the roof’s one of them?”
With a terribly serious face (though that was the only expression she ever made), she nodded.
“But if it’s off limits, there’s nothing you can do about it. Either put up with it or think up some other setting.”
“As this space is unnecessary for regular duties, it will bring no hindrance to the mission. However, once the mission is over, it may prove necessary to return to the other world.”
So it was a place she definitely wanted to check up on sometime later.
“… But if you go out without permission, the teachers will be angry. We don’t have the key regardless.”
“No problem.”
After she operated her staff, the sound of a released spring proceeded a metal ear cleaner-looking item shooting out of the tip.
“What’s that?”
“Magical Lockpick.”
“Hey!”
I caught the scent of crime. No, that’s all I could smell.
“By using this pick to apply tension on the inner cylinder and pouring in magic, it is possible to bypass this lock.”
“Where’s the magic!? That’s a criminal technique! Nope, no way, confiscated!”
I collected the evidence.
“it is an essential piece of equipment, especially in residential districts…”
“Wah, if you start picking there, it won’t end with a laugh! Do you really not get it? Even if you’re playing around, if someone catches you, you’re ruined. We live under the fear of the media, you hear!”
“Bystanders are unable to perceive the researcher, so that premise is meaningless. Requesting return.”
“I’ll be keeping this for now.”
“……”
Despite her poker face, she exuded quite a displeased aura.
“I’ll be the one troubled if you get taken in… try to understand.”
I’ll admit, as a kid, I always wanted to equip my bike and such with all sorts of cool gadgets. But this girl had crossed the line.
Once again, I was left thinking. There’s something wrong with Satou Ryouko.