Aura: Koga Maryuin’s Final Battle

When lunch was near, even a witch succumbed to hunger.
Her stomach was rumbling something awful, but her face was unchanging. “Magic will be converted into energy, so it poses no problem,” she said, bringing me serious concern.
The main challenge was not being seen.
No matter what she did, Ryouko’s outfit stood out in school. With that being the case, if I was with her, I’d be caught in the crossfire and struck by shame. I only accompanied her because there were few people around, and lunch was the time frame where students were most free to strut around campus. Personally speaking, I wanted to remain in the classroom as much as possible.
The cafeteria was naturally a danger zone.
However, a look at my watch told me there were ten minutes to lunch, so I chose to quickly eat and get back.
There wasn’t yet a single student in the vast cafeteria. This was our chance.
“Two tanuki soba.”
Ignoring the lunch lady’s suspicious look, I brought a plastic bowl of noodles over to Ryouko.
“Hurry and eat. We’ll get cold looks when the other students get here.”
“Energy replenishment.”
Muttering something incomprehensible, she sipped at the soba.
“Hey, the way you hold chopsticks is all over the place.”
She had both stick strangled in a firm underhand grip, like how a toddler holds a fork.
“… Some practice is required to utilize this cylindrical implement. The Researcher’s days in the Phenomenal Realm are too scarce.”
“Hah? Why implement?”
“To consume is akin to replenishing energy, a necessary process in the maintenance of a carbon-based activity body.”
“Otherworld or not, you eat to live. Don’t you think that setting’s too forceful? I’d even call it bizarre.”
“……”
I was ignored. It seemed she found retorts at her setting to be particularly irritating, and even I was ignored for those.
“Hey, you seriously can’t use chopsticks? You’re not acting?”
“In most cases, energy replenishment in our world is carried out with magic paste and…”
“Got it, got it. Watch me, you hold it like this.”
“… Unnecessary. This method accomplishes the task at hand.”
“If you keep saying that, you’ll never be able to use them. If your investigation drags on, you’ll have more opportunities to use them, so you’re better off mastering the skill.”
Why did I have to interact with my classmate as if I was her mother?
“Like this?”
“Your fingers are wrong. Here, and here… good, you’ve got it. Now you put things between them and pinch.”
Ryouko’s chopsticks failed to grasp a noodle. It fell through en route to her mouth. On her fifth attempt, “Ggnnn” she finally groaned out. It was one of those human emotions she displayed from time to time. Those terribly infantile ones.
“The length of this cylindrical implement is not rational. To adequately transmit the strength of the fingers, a far shorter version would be better for the task. This product is defective.”
“But then your hands would get dirty.”
“Without the cultural idiosyncrasy to avoid any foreign substance on the hands in any task, that explanation would lack any force of persuasion. If the need arises, a resident of the phenomenal realm may take the initiative and dirty their hands. There is no consistency in this sense of values.”
“Food can be hot. Who wants to get burned with short chopsticks?”
“Danger prevention… then the form of this implement is acceptable.”
She really was incessant.
“Aaah, no, don’t bend over it, don’t slurp like a dog. Uwah, you’re getting soup everywhere. Hey, don’t use your hands.”
It really was like I was looking after a child’s meal. When soba was supposed to be a meal one could finish in five minutes, she had taken fifteen, and still had a long way to go.
Eventually, the starving students raised a subterranean tremor advancing upon us in large numbers, but we were unable to move from the edge of the table.
Were we frowned upon? Hah, of course. What’s more, it was by all years this time.
While, “Oh, who’s that~!” “How cute~!” a portion of the older girls received a favorable opinion, as expected, “Creepy”s and “Whoah”s and “Do you know them?”s made up the majority of the whole. A single, “The boy’s cute” comment in a deep throaty voice sent a chill down my spine.
My cold sweat wouldn’t stop under the unbearable air. I opted to cast my special plan to mitigate Ryouko’s idiosyncrasies to the absolute minimum (and fast).
“Hey, seriously! We’re going to be using that in the next play, so be careful not to dirty that costume! This is a matter tied to our drama club’s good name! Lunch is valuable practice time, chop chop!”
I felt a psychological aversion to getting too much into that role, so I couldn’t help but be monotonous, or rather give a dull and intentional-sounding reading.
But how about that? Was that acting too much? I tried observing the surrounding reactions.
“So they’re drama club.”
“They must’ve put a lot into that costume.”
“Looks like the drama club’s got one up on us for the culture festival.”
“There’s still half a year to October, the girl’s got guts.”
“Our first years are going to get an earful of this.”
“He’s got a nice rump.”
What a nice, broadminded school we have!
… Though a single throaty comment did bother me.
Whatever the case, I managed to overcome. In the corner of the cafeteria, only the three crows, Kawai, Kobayashi and Nakamura looked at us and grinned.
“Ah…”
With a grasp on the situation, their stance was derisive, and while I detested the fact our class had already been divided into the highs and the lows, I realized that the highs were aware of their standing as well.
Even the closest of friends will stop getting involved with you the moment you’re a target of bullying; it’s a common occurrence. I’d experienced it before, so I knew the feeling well. A noble is unable to interact with a commoner on equal terms. Love is just as impossible.
“… Nothing I can do about it.”
I had no friends, and I was looking after some weirdo. My human relations bargaining was coming undone. What was supposed to be a carefree position was terribly heavy on my heart.