It didn’t seem like Botan considered her human-form shikigami or her inugami to be anything more than rumors. That much was fine, since most people thought the same. But Botan had insulted Azuha. Azuha was Hana’s first shikigami, as precious to her as her own child, and she wasn’t going to take any mockery of her lying down. Letting that slide would really get Aoi and Miyabi mad at her.
An unreadable smile floated onto Hana’s face as she approached Botan. And then she whispered:
“Hey, you like Kazura, don’t ya?”
“Wha—?!”
Botan’s face instantly turned red, as though her affection for Kazura hadn’t been incredibly obvious from their conversation a minute ago. Kikyou seemed to be well aware herself, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise for Hana to point it out, yet Botan was shivering from embarrassment.
“If you like him so much, you should just tell him. Y’know, Kikyou here managed to tell Saku…even though she got shot down on the spot.”
“Hanaaa! Why would you say that in front of that woman?!”
Kikyou cried out in agony, so that must have been the one thing she never wanted Botan to know.
Botan seemed to be brought back to her senses after seeing Kikyou scramble so much, and her pompous expression returned with a smile.
“Oh my, turned down, were you? That’s such a shame, poor thing… But perhaps it was for the best? It must have been a bother to Lord Ichinomiya to have you constantly buzzing around him. If anything, he must have been relieved to have another insect out of his sight!”
Botan dropped her gaze as a gesture of pity, but her sympathy was a bit unconvincing since her mouth was twisted into an overjoyed smile.
Kikyou had no comeback. The vein at her temple bulged as she bit her lip, looking like she might jump in to attack at any moment.
However, Hana’s goal here wasn’t to expose Kikyou’s shameful past.
“What are you talking about? Even if she got rejected, Kikyou’s still amazing for being brave enough to confess. Nobody’s got the right to make fun of that. And speaking of buzzing around someone, isn’t that just what you’re doing?”
“What did you say?”
“Would you like me to give Kazura the message in your place? About how you’re in L-O-V-E with him?”
Hana grinned, and it looked nothing less than sinister.
“Wh-wha…?”
Botan was stunned, so Hana put on the pressure.
“And after all those insults you’ve got for everyone else, it turns out you’re too scared to take the first step yourself… Who’s the poor thing around here? But not to worry, poor thing, as I’m more than happy to lend a hand.”
Hana grabbed Kikyou’s and Suzu’s hands, declared that they were going to chase after Kazura, and then they began to seriously walk away.
Botan raised her voice in a hurry.
“W-w-wait right there!”
“You can thank me later!”
“What part of this is worth thanking you over?! I-i-it’s not even like I think anything of Kazura, I’ll have you know!”
With how obviously rattled she was, her attempts at playing it off were futile.
“Oh. Well, I’ll go tell him how you said you don’t have even the slightest speck of interest in him! I’d feel bad for Kazura on the one-in-a-million chance that he made the mistake of having feelings for you.”
“Wait right there! There’s no need to tell him that, I believe!”
“Ohhh, why’s that? You just said you thought nothing of him, didn’t you? Won’t you feel bad for him if he gets his hopes up?”
“Oooh…”
“Come on, why not?”
If Saku saw Hana pressuring this girl, he’d make a crack about Hana having a rotten personality.
Even though her affection for Kazura was so obvious, Botan wouldn’t confirm or deny it, leaving her with no way to win.
“Kazura is a busy man, so I suggest you not bother him with such nonsense! And I myself have far more important business to attend to than entertaining you lot. Seiran, we’re leaving.”
In the end, Botan chose to flee, and Hana saw her off with a smug grin.
“Bye-bye!”
Hana gave a fluttery wave to Botan, who walked away briskly.
Once Botan was out of sight, Kikyou hugged Hana’s arm.
“Hana, you’re amazing. You were able to fend off that phony princess! I knew it; there’s nobody who can defeat that woman other than you!”
Kikyou’s eyes were sparkling, as though Hana was her hero.
“That’s my Hana! Nobody’s got you beat in being a scumbag!” Suzu crowed.
“Suzu, is that supposed to be a compliment?” Hana asked, unamused.
Suzu had probably intended that to be praise, but the words themselves sounded like nothing short of an insult.
“Of course it’s a compliment!”
“Well, whatever. The headache’s gone, so let’s get back to touring the stalls!” Hana cheered.
“Sure!”
“All right!”
Suzu and Kikyou gladly agreed, and Kiriya nodded, too.
Hana and her friends continued touring the food stalls, until suddenly, Kikyou glanced around and asked Hana a question.
“Hana, did you not bring your shikigami with you? I recall you saying you were looking forward to having them along…”
“Ah, them. They came, yeah. They’re just doing their own thing, but I’m sure they’re all having fun. Well, ‘fun’ might not be the word I’d use for Aoi…”
Hana had a concerned look on her face, the cause of which was Aoi.
Saku was planning to check up on the festival, and Tsubaki started begging him to let her go on a date the moment she heard. As a result, Saku casually said what would prove to be a death sentence for Aoi: “Do whatever.”
Tsubaki was ecstatic, but Aoi rejected it as strongly as he could.
Aoi had every intention of sticking with Hana, but when they reached the school, it turned out that Tsubaki was already lying in wait. When he took one look at those eyes of a hunter who’d found her prey, he gave up and proceeded to scurry away like a rodent. They were probably still at their cat-and-mouse chase somewhere around the school. Or, no, he might have gotten caught and taken on a lovey-dovey date…by force.
Because Tsubaki wasn’t Hana’s shikigami, Hana couldn’t order her to stop, so there was nothing she could do except pity Aoi’s poor soul. She wondered if she should suggest that he just give up and accept her.
Her other shikigami—Azuha, Miyabi, and Arashi—were all exploring the festival together. That is to say, Hana’s prioritization of food didn’t quite align with the interests of her shikigami, who didn’t eat. Hana really did want to stay together, but she let them do as they wished.
The one thing Hana wanted the most out of this school festival was the chance to let her shikigami take part. Azuha was widely known as Hana’s shikigami, so Hana could bring her out for company on the average school day, but she couldn’t have her human-form shikigami, Aoi and Miyabi, walk with her in plain sight. However, their cover had been blown ever since the attack on the school, so Hana wouldn’t have had any problem walking with them fully materialized. Then again, not every single student had seen Aoi and Miyabi for themselves, so it probably would’ve shocked anyone making their first acquaintance, but they at least knew the shikigami existed. That went for Arashi the inugami as well.
A few days before the school festival began, the newspaper club asked if they could run an article on the team’s shikigami for the Campus Cup and offered a dorayaki as a bribe. Hana asked Azuha, Aoi, Miyabi, and Arashi for their opinions, and they weren’t opposed, so she accepted the newspaper club’s offer. She didn’t have to do much; the club was just going to capture photos of her shikigami and ask them a few questions.
Shikigami didn’t show up on regular cameras, but the camera that the newspaper club had was apparently a specially made talisman that allowed them to take photos of shikigami, which was news to Hana. Though now that they’d mentioned it, Hana thought back to the battle between Nozomu and Kiriya, where the photos for the article had shikigami visible plain as day.
The paper that ran the interview was later distributed around the school, so people who hadn’t seen her other shikigami until then got to see what they looked like. Hana was hesitant to thank the newspaper club for anything, but her shikigami could now walk around on their own without anyone finding it odd. Hana had been worrying for a while now that she’d kept Aoi and Miyabi cooped up too much.
Still, the only people who weren’t going to be surprised by Aoi, Miyabi, and Arashi were people from Campus One. Sure, rumors were going around at the other campuses: that despite Hazuki being famous even among the other schools for having Hiiragi, a human-form shikigami, it was Hana, her shadow of a sister, who was famous in a bad way, who was actually incredibly strong and had two human-forms and an inugami as her shikigami. But because she attended a different campus, nobody could confirm it, so just about everyone considered it to be nothing more than a rumor.
The way Botan had sneered at her earlier demonstrated that pretty clearly. Even a wealthy daughter belonging to one of the five clans, someone who had the resources to gather all the information she wished, simply scoffed at the idea, so it was no surprise there were so few students who believed.
“I bet a bunch of students from the other campuses are gonna be shocked to see human-form shikigami and an inugami strolling around the school, though.”
Hana could imagine it easily.
“Yes, you might be right. A human-form shikigami is surprising enough, but an inugami? There are hardly any practitioners who can tame a deity.”
Kikyou reiterated the obvious.
“Though in Arashi’s case, there was kinda no way around it. If it were any deity other than him, I could’ve been torn to shreds on the spot.”