“I hate you! Go away!!” Azusa glared and yelled at Seto.
“What a feisty one.”
“Shut up. I said go home!!”
“Oh, I’m so scared,” Seto giggled.
Azusa’s mother, watching, sighed and mumbled, “Azusa won’t be able to escape now.”
“Now? If it was decided on Jurai, he can’t escape anyway, can he?” his father asked.
“Seto-sama wouldn’t make unilateral decisions. It probably depended on Azusa himself. But now…”
“But now?” Kazuki asked.
“Whatever Seto-sama likes, she will have. She’ll ensure that it will be his idea to go to Jurai.”
“She likes Azusa? He yelled at her. Isn’t she angry at him?”
“She’s so enjoying it. Seto-sama loves that kind of thing.”
Just as she said, Seto came to see Azusa whenever her time allowed, and it was not to persuade him, but to watch Azusa pout. And Azusa would see her laughing and pout even more. There were even signs Seto was making him angry on purpose. If there was a parents’ day at school, she would appear and claim to be his parent; she would sit by his bedside and stare at him while he slept. She would try to join him in the bath, steal his snacks, tickle him, kiss him, and chase him around. She was basically a bully.
“Oh, Seto-sama…there are certain pleasures I can enjoy as a mother. Please don’t take them away from me.”
“Be quiet,” Seto responded, “go make your next child. Azusa-chan is mine now.”
Her harassment, or affections if you like, accelerated, causing Azusa’s face to spend more and more time pouting. But being annoyed by something was the flip side of caring deeply about it. The young boy did not realize that Seto’s influence on him was growing ever greater.
Then, one day, there was a large-scale pirate attack on the colony where Azusa lived. The colony functioned as a plant to recover resources from the asteroid belt, which the pirates came to raid. Due to the nature of the colony, it was equipped with plenty of firepower, but these pirates attacked with even greater. Despite their disadvantage, the colony army led by Azusa’s parents put up a good fight but were unable to turn the tide or stop the invasion of the colony.
Azusa, ten years old at the time, was fighting the pirates separately from the colony self-defense force. The pirates were attacking the locations where ordinary citizens were taking shelter, making the force focus on the front while the pirates deployed a pincer attack from behind. Azusa actually decided to face them by himself. His parents were fighting outside the colony with the pirate fleet and could not be depended on for help.
He may have been ten years old, but his mother, a former Juraian Royal, had given Azusa elementary fighting lessons, and he was fending off the pirates. The opponents had underestimated him, and fortunately, all the time spent being chased by Seto became useful in combat. However, the pirates broke through the defenses, and Azusa was isolated completely. He did not give up until the very end, but a ten-year-old boy could do nothing against main-force units executing a pincer attack.
“How could this one brat have toyed with us like that?” Once caught, Azusa was treated harshly. At the time, fear of death was not on his mind as all he felt was remorse that he was unable to protect the colony. If he had had more strength, he would not have let these people have their way. If he had had more strength, he would have protected everyone. Regret hurt more than the physical pain. He would never allow himself to whimper. And this attitude ended up rubbing the pirates the wrong way.
“Obnoxious brat…” Several pirates drew their guns from their holsters. The god of death put his scythe to Azusa’s neck.
“This young man must not be sullied by your filthy hands,” stated Kamiki Seto, suddenly transporting in front of the pirates surrounding Azusa. With an elegance that seemed unreal in combat, she walked closer to Azusa.
“Wh-what are you doing here? Run away, old bat.”
“Are you worried about me?” Seto laughed happily at being called an old bat. The pirates surrounded the beautiful woman with lewd eyes. It was obvious what their intentions were. Some of them even reached for their waistbands. However, the pirates had ignored one thing: her clothes were that of the Jurai Imperial Family.
“Old bat, run!” Azusa yelled, and a pirate kicked him. Being light, he rolled a couple times and groaned with pain and chagrin.
“I told you not to touch him with those filthy hands.” Seto’s attitude changed. Azusa felt the powerful aura around her and got goosebumps, along with a feeling of ecstatic pleasure.
One of the pirates, reached for her bosom with a vulgar laugh. In that instant, all of them were sent flying as if there were an explosion. A split second later, the pirates close by were mowed down. At the same time, there were flashes of explosions in the sky, and the transceiver relayed screams to the pirates in front of them.
“Sails of light…that’s a Juraian ship!”
“Surrender,” Seto quietly stated to the several hundred pirates around her. Her words were intimidating, but none of the pirates seemed to have noticed.
“What could you possibly do by yourself?”
“Heh, if we could capture a Juraian Royal…” They all pointed their guns at Seto.
“…! Are they all idiots?!”
Azusa, feeling Seto’s aura, stiffened with fear. He was the only one here who had realized the monster within her.
Seto chuckled softly. To the pirates, it looked like she had vanished into thin air. Even Azusa only saw a faint shimmer. He did not know exactly what had happened, but a few minutes later, she had knocked those hundreds of pirates unconscious. In the midst of the pile, Seto stood unruffled with nary a hair out of place, looking serenely at Azusa. “Well done.”
She seemed different from usual. Azusa shivered at her powerful beauty and ferocity. It was not fear, but his Juraian blood was seething. Tears welled in his eyes. He was beyond excited that she had done exactly what he had wanted to do. “I want to be strong, too…strong enough to protect Mom and everyone else.”
“If that’s what you truly think, come with me.” Seto extended her hand toward him. There was that same intimidation. An ordinary man would scarcely be able to stand, much less look her in the eyes, but Azusa faced it, and desperately gripped the extended hand. It meant he agreed to go to Jurai. Just as his mother had said, Seto had made Azusa go to Jurai willingly, and it was his idea to do so.
The pirate fleet had only its engines destroyed by Mikagami (Seto’s Royal Ship)—unless they tried to hide behind or attack unarmored ships, upon which they were mercilessly destroyed. Mikagami, with its Light Hawk Wings, easily overpowered the pirate battleships. The difference was overwhelming. The pirates within the colony were all arrested by the Galaxy Police, and the battle was over. The colony won.