Aura: Koga Maryuin’s Final Battle

My phone rang that night.
It was quite rare for my cellular phone to get a call. I was still somewhat perplexed on how to answer it. The number displayed wasn’t one that I knew. An unregistered one.
“Hello?”
‘It’s Dorisen.’
It was Dorisen.
“Why do you know my number?”
I didn’t remember giving it to him.
‘Yeah, yours truly, Dorisen-sensei used his connections to look into it. It’s urgent, after all.’
So even Dorisen sticks another sensei to the end of that. Hmm, I’m learning so much.
“Urgent?”
‘The police placed a call to the school. They said Satou and Satou were running around town.’
“The police are amazing!”
In less than the span of the day, they even had me identified.
‘You think? Any good boy in blue should be familiar with the local uniforms, and if they managed to narrow down the suspect pool to a first-year male leading around a weirdo, I’m sure they could pin you down quite easily.’
Boy in blue, he says.
“Umm, I haven’t committed any crime.”
‘Ah, yeah, well, you’re free to do whatever you want after you graduate, but,’ free to do what, exactly? ‘there won’t be any further measures taken this time, so rest at ease. It’s just, I’d like something done about Ladies’ Satou operating freely in town.’
Was he implying he wanted me to do something about it? After hanging up, I thought over it carefully. But no matter how I thought, I couldn’t find any good ideas. Searching for something that didn’t exist is a difficult task indeed. The Dragon Terminal, for instance.

“Satoouuuuuuu!” “Yesssssss…”
“Menssssssssss!” “Yesssssss…”
“You dirty little…!” “I can explain…”
As for what the stream of conversations referred to, that would be the illustration of teachers enraged by Ryouko’s conduct or rather creepduct, as I put my best efforts towards soothing them. By the way, mens was my nickname. While it was a double plural, I was doing the work of ten people or more, so that wasn’t strange.
Without rest, Ryouko continued coming to school every day.
She disrupted any and all classes she attended. Teachers flew into rage one after the next, until it came to pass that she was disregarded while in class. It did seem that Dorisen and the other teachers had come to the decision.
During break times, she would stick fast to me, even attempting to drag me into town should the opportunity present itself. My experience in town had become a nightmare, become a trauma that remained behind in my heart. The city is hell.
Then did that mean I was fine being openly scorned at school? Well, not in the slightest.
But time is a cruel mistress.
Just by operating as a set with Ryouko for a week, I was stuck with the label of ‘Creepette’s Boyfriend’. While I did think Creepette was the perfect term to describe Ryouko, the problem was the boyfriend portion. I was so unwilling it reached the realm of insulting.
I mean yeah, I wanted a girlfriend. But I didn’t need one enlisted in the dream soldier battalion. I’m not even acting tough. Each time I was force fed a dream soldier’s Avant Garde setting, goosebumps would rise on my arm. You can’t fall in love with someone you have a physiological revulsion towards, can you?
There was one more surprise to take note of.
Ryouko, that girl, she was surprisingly popular with the upperclassmen. Hard to believe, right?
Her favor with the third year girls was especially abnormal, and they would often call out to her, pat her head, touch her costume, and give her candy. At times like those, her silent, expressionless character wouldn’t crumble, and without saying thanks, she acted in a way that shouldn’t be endearing in any way shape or form. That was the best part, apparently.
… I don’t get it, the world of big sisters.
Considering how girls of her own age found her creepy, it made me wonder where that gap came from. Perhaps rather than age, because she was from a different generation, even if it was painful to look at, they could treat it like someone else’s problem.
I was also a side recipient of their favor.
“Mr. Boyfriend, you better look after her.” “You can’t do pervy stuff with her yet.” “In exchange, I’ll push my chest against you a bit, how about that.” “If anything’s bothering you, you can talk to me, okay?” When surrounded and adhered to a flock of large mammaries, my memory grew terribly fragmented. The sheer bliss was blowing time itself away. While I was well aware I was being treated as a pet, as someone treated like a gross insect by all the decent girls from my own class… what do you want from me?
In the complicated and mysterious situation surrounding us, Dorisen was also full of mystery. That authority and manipulation skill was abnormal from a single young teacher.
There were times when I thought he must have some dirt on the other teachers, but there weren’t any teachers who seemed to dislike him. He had his fervent supporters. When it came to Ryouko’s mental state, his lack of delicacy made him painfully powerless, but he was reliable on other fronts.
The backing of a teacher and the third year girls was quite a blessing to we, the ostracized few. It imparted the courage to come to school every day.
But there also exist allies one wouldn’t feel blessed to have. Numerically speaking, over fifteen of them, without question the largest power within class 1-A. The scary part was that… for them… it wasn’t Ryouko—
But me they had taken to.

That day, when I entered the classroom, they immediately closed in.
“Oh, Hewley! According to the latest message from Zeusheim, they,”
“… Move, Suzuki Osamu.”
As I pushed him aside and attempted to make for my desk, he formed an astonished face.
“The name is Kira. Suzuki I am not.”
There it is, Kira. The man in question would insist that was the true him (his real name, even).
“Have you forgotten, Hewley!? The Dark Holy Swordmen Zwei Bander that only we of the odd-eye fairy tribe born in the Multiverse of Zeusheim can become. Serving directly under the heavenly palace, only twelve of which can exist in the world, a proud and noble—”
“Shut it, one hundred percent mongoloid.”
Nothing happens if you cut one down, Suzuki was only the beginning. My classmates came up one after another.
“Satou! The time has come to speak of the great secret of the Akasha Fragments!”
“Satou, to think you were a pagan knight… but friend or not, if you are my foe, I, Armored Quake Soldier Igknight will strike you down!”
“Even if you are a practitioner of the Tosotsu Ittou Style, you can’t defeat me, the successor to the Oda Style Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven’s blade.”
“Satou-kun, it throbs. Not enough blood. Please share your blood with me.”
“Just leave me alone!”
I brushed past the twisted concoctions. The next woman immediately stood before me.
“Kukukuh.”
The basis behind a dream soldier’s delusional explosion lay in entrapment and false invitation. First, you put on a show, and if someone gets wrapped up on it, you fiercely force your original setting down their throat. That’s why ignoring them is highly effective.
Despite that, it did seems there was one immoral soul who would go as far as to destroy the pattern to speak of their world. Upon being ignored, she changed strategy and swiftly spewed it out.
“Ah, Satou-kun, I’m sorry. I have multiple personality order, I’m sorry. That was personality number one seven two, Cathy, but you’re really better off not getting her angry…”
There’s something wrong.
“Okay, then can you keep her away from me?”
There’s something wrong with each and every student in this class!
“Guh!” Just by passing next to him, a certain boy suppressed one eye in pain.
“What the heck is this, this prana of darkness!? D-don’t tell me… Satou… he was the prince of darkness!?”
Ignore. Ignore.
“Satou-kun?” a female voice called over.
“You don’t have to worry about our class. I’ll… protect them. Even if it costs me my life…”
“How about you take a seat?”
“Fufufu, Satou, what splendid weather we have today,” Holding a rose in his mouth, a man small but wide called over. “How about some fencing after school? What do you think?”
“I think you should take a page out of the flower’s book, and wither away.”
I ran into a girl. It was Mori, who was renowned for walking around with her eyes closed. She was also a harsh one.
“Ah, I’m sorry… this smell is Satou-kun? I’m sorry, I can’t see, so… but my sense of smell has increased to compensate so I can differentiate who I’m talking to, fufu.”
Mori had perfect 20/20 vision in both eyes, you got that? She just thought girls who couldn’t see were all the rage so she was just playing the part.
After ignoring her, I managed to reach my desk. Every morning lately, I’d be forced to deal with multiple people before I sat down. Thanks to that, my opportunities to exchange greetings with Kobato-san had gone down. That was the hardest thing to endure.
While I had finally reached my seat for the day, the frenzy had yet to stop.
They would cry out to save me, to defeat me, to join forces with me, to warn me.
“Kuh, the fay’s arm is…! Who is it, the holder of such immense spiritual power! (←Apparently me)”
“To think there was someone who could pierce through my Maya Illusionism (←Apparently me)”
“Three months until the dark dakshina activates. Will I be able to find that person (←Apparently me) before then?”
I was surrounded with settings thrown at me left and right.
“Scatter.”
Words weren’t enough to make them falter. To start with, they didn’t have the power to listen to what other people had to say. They merely excreted their own thoughtless words. They crowded up to throw that excrement at me. Do people have a name for goosebumps that rise without you realizing it?
By the way, when Ryouko arrived, they would briskly retreat. My theory was that as a dream soldier, she outranked the lot of them. Just as a woman might hesitate to stand next to a peerless beauty, a dream soldier would avoid become compared to a higher-end product. That also meant she was the most painful person in class. And when it came to who was in the most pain in our class, that would be yours truly. Pathetic, right?
I’m looking for some empathy here.
“Ephesosmea is a fearsome foe. Even with all twelve knights together.”
“The Akashic record has already ceased to exist. It was shattered and scattered. What I’m trying to say is,”
“She was the greatest scientist under the earth, a genius no doubt… she’s the one who drew the blueprint for my armor.”
“If you call yourself a samurai,”
“Blood,”
“Number one zero eight five, Eddy is a pro in intelligence gathering and,”
“In an organization called the Krishna secret society,”
Before the fierce surging waves, all I could do was keep up an indifferent resistance.
“Scatter, you bunch of bull.”