Owari no Seraph – Ichinose Guren, 16-sai no Catastrophe v1c5

“Nooow then now then, from tomorrow there will finally be the start of the weekly Academic Acceleration Examinations!” The female teacher says as she writes on the blackboard.

The Academic Acceleration Examinations is in summary, “that”. It seems to be an exam where students fight their fellows directly, and decides who is superior.

Of course as a consequence of that, you cannot say that the results of it are already decided. However, points can be considerably weighted during their consideration. Having been informed of that, the rabble of the class got excited.

When they do, Shinya speaks up from where he was seated next to me.

“That's great, huh... that way those guys who don't fight seriously and would have to drop out of school can be at ease.”

Guren turns to look at Shinya,

“I feel that those who would want to take me out with one shot are getting impatient, though?”

“Haha, that's because you can't avoid that stuff. Speaking of, did you really not avoid my attacks?” Shinya asks, looking back towards Guren.

“To receive those, you have to be quite an idiot, or...”

“Trash with no true ability? For your information, I'm the latter. You're buying into my strength too much.”

“--someone who can say that about themselves is scary, or at least that's been my own experience up until now.”

“You're too cautious. Right right, you think there's a monster that can compete with you? Aren't someone that the Hiiragi House-- that Mahiru chose?”

“...”

“But, at the very least I wasn't chosen. That one thing that you are very concerned about, doesn't concern me. Am I wrong?” Guren states.

In response to that Shinya laughs.

“You know, if that really wasn't an act, it makes you incredibly negative.”

“I was born that way.”

“Haha, I wonder what exactly Mahiru liked about someone like you?” Shinya wonders to himself.

Guren looks at Shinya, then once again turns to look towards the teacher.

The teacher was still explaining the Academic Acceleration Examination.

It was a talk about how there has not been one drop-out in this class, and how according to the number of people who drop out, the teacher's grading will change, so everyone try your best.

It was then Shinya spoke, “Ah, by the way, you met with Mahiru?”

“...”

“Well, how was it? Were you able to be friendly with her?”

In that moment Guren responds to Shinya without looking at him,

“Not really.”

“Aah, there's no particular need to take my feelings into consideration. Since while I may be that girl's fiance, but I am not her lover.”

“...”

“Incidentally, tell me something. After you met up with her, she was strangely a little cross. What happened?”

It seems that after that happened, Mahiru and Shinya met up somehow. At those words, Guren smiles a little and responds.

“She was disappointed at how weak I was.”

Shinya looks at Guren with an astounded expression.

“You really are incredibly negative after all.”

“Is that so? If you don't like it, it's fine to stop talking to me?”

“Haha.” Shinya smiles with amazement.

Guren ignores it.

The female teacher is writing on the blackboard again.

“Make sure you absolutely do not lose to the people from the other classes! That is all!”

It is then the bell signalling the end of homeroom chimes.

All of the students simultaneously rise.

There are people going home. People talking to friends. People staying behind to clean the classroom. This school had no club activities. If you had the free time to do that sort of stuff, as everyone here was concerned with magic, you would go to training.

Since homeroom was over, Guren grabs his bag hanging on the side of his desk and rises.

At that, Shinya asks from his side, “Ah, shall we go home together?”

“Die.” Guren declines politely.

He looks towards the classroom exit. He knows that his two attendants are already there, stealthily concealing themselves while watching him.

He spots Sayuri.

“Ah, ah, Guren-sama!” She says while waving at him.

Shigure is at her side, “Wait a moment, as he said he'd kill us if we stood out, he's going to get angry again.”

She tries to control Sayuri as best she can. Guren bows his head.

In the end those two really do stand out after all.

“I'll lecture you later...” Guren mutters.

At that, Jujo Mito, who was in the classroom, gives them a sharp look.

“Honestly, to even bring along two women as attendants, the people of the Ichinose house are utterly craven, aren't they.”

At that, the students laugh.

Subsequently, Goshi Norito speaks up.

“It's true, it's true. Not only that, they're both beauties. For the time being, introduce me to them a little.” He says, while approaching.

The students then all look like they're not sure if they should laugh or not.

Generally speaking, in this class, Hiiragi Shinya, Jujo Mito, and Goshi Norito, who all have ability and good pedigree, are together in being ranked within the top four.

The other person ranked in the top four was called Sanguu Aoi, a girl from the Sanguu household, but she was quiet and always went straight home when class was over.

Setting that aside, the three people from distinguished powerful houses were strangely over-familiar and close with Guren, so the other students didn't know what kind of attitude was good to take at the moment.

Of course, the students from the other classes, the upperclassmen, and the teacher's attitudes, had not changed from the start, so the amount he was harassed hadn't decreased.

As always, Goshi's face is frivolous as he drew close.

“Hey, Ichinose. Are you going out with one of two from your house or something?” He asks, and Guren turns to look at Goshi.

“What's this, I thought you wouldn't want to go out with one of the people from the filthy Ichinose house?”

“Beauties are different.”

“What kind of logic is that.”

“It's fine, so tell me. Those two, are like “that” right? Attendants who directly handle you? Which is to say, they do “that”? They even attend to you at night?”

In that moment Mito's face goes red and she raises her voice indignantly.

“Wait a minute, Goshi, you vulgar man! Will you not stop that indecent talk in the classroom?!”

Additionally, Sayuri also pipes up from outside the classroom,

“T-that's right! Guren-sama has yet to make a move on me!” She shouts with an angry face.

“...”

At that moment, the class falls silent.

Goshi's face becomes heated. Mito looks at me like she just saw some outrageous beast.

And Shinya, while smiling like he'd enjoying himself, speaks up.

“Hey, Guren. This conversation we're having right now, is it okay for Mahiru to know about it?”

Guren, who looks like he's had enough of this, just sighs and walks out of class.

“Haah... I'm going home already.”

From behind him, Goshi says, “Oi, Ichinose. Your social standing of being Ichinose is pretty sly. Let me join in and be buds that play around with the ladies, too.”, and is ignored.

Guren exits the classroom.

Shigure looks up at him, “Um, I will lecture Sayuri...”

“Naturally.” Guren responds.

“Eh? Eh?” Sayuri says with a face that doesn't understand and eyes swirling. Guren ignores it and tries to head home.

However, as soon as Guren exits the classroom into the corridor, he realizes it won't be that easy.

It is right after he reaches the other end of the corridor, that he understands that there's a strong bloodthirstiness aimed right at him.

“...”

However, Guren pretends he does not notice that thirst.

He continues on with the act that he is weak, has no power, and is an idiot.

Of course, his attendants had noticed. Sayuri and Shigure both were products of training to protect Guren, the big guns.

Which is why they both would react to that thirst for blood.

However, “Don't move. I can benefit from this,” Guren quietly orders them.

“Eh? But,” Shigure, who was on my right, raises her voice and protests hotly.

But it was too late, someone's foot collides with the right side of Guren's head.

“Guh!”

He drops, and clumsily falls to the ground. He rolls. Then he glances up while holding his head, looking at what kicked him. Doing so, he sees there is one man with a number of followers.

He has brown hair, and narrow eyes like a snake. His lips are pierced. He looks down on me like I am an idiot, and speaks.

“Ah, sorry sorry. My foot slipped.”

His followers laugh at that moment.

“You bastard!” Shigure yells angrily, and launches forward. Her fists were raised to hit the pierced man.

This would be where Guren should control her, however one of the supporters behind the pierced man, a girl student, seizes Shigure's fists.

Shigure is a little astonished. Of course she was. After all, her movements were rather quick just then.

Even so, that female student was able to stop her. Furthermore, she even speaks,

“Wait, do you even understand exactly what you are doing? This person here is Hiiragi Seishirou?”

Somehow it seems that this pierced man carries the name of Hiiragi. In this school, he was a human with such a high class pedigree that it would be fine to call him God.

The female student continues, “To even raise a fist to this Seishirou-sama, means certain death...”

Seishirou interrupts her.

“It's fine, Yumi. After all, for the idiots of the Ichinose, you need to speak straightforwardly. And you have to strike them to break them, like the animals they are.” He says, raising his hand.

Shigure reacts to that, and tries to swat away Seishirou's hand. However,

“Haha, you're slow, little woman.”

Seishirou's fist is faster. Which is to say, this guy's movement was that much overwhelmingly faster than Shigure's.

“Shit--” Guren exclaims, standing up to try and stop that Seishirou's fist. However at that moment, his fist had already stopped.

The reason for this is that someone has grabbed onto Seishirou's arm. Looking over, the one who had stopped it was Shinya, who had just exited the classroom. Just like that, Shinya speaks,

“Seishirou-sama... if you raise your hand in this place, to a weak woman from the Ichinose House, there will be gossip and you will hurt the family name.”

Seishirou glares at Shinya.

“Yeah? Who asked for the opinion of a bastard who has the social standing of being adopted.”

“... my apologies. However,”

“No 'however' about it.”

Seishirou raises his hand, and just like that, he swings it once again. His fist hits Shinya's face.

Shinya doesn't try to protect himself. He lets out a thick sound, and blood drips from Shinya's lips.

Seishirou laughs at that.

“Haha, that was a good call. After all, someone like you can't win against me.”

“...”

“Because you can make that call, you were chosen by Father to be Mahiru's partner. Be sure to keep that in mind.”

“...yes.”

“Also, since you're in the same class, tell me. These rats that come from the Ichinose house, are they strong? Though I know I'll win the second round of the Academic Acceleration Examination...”

In other words, that's how it is. That's why Seishirou came here. He came to see how strong Guren was before the examination.

And thus, Shinya responds, “... at first, I also thought that he may have some power... in any case, I suspected that if it was the candidate for the next Ichinose House Head, they may hold a degree of power.”

“Hm.”

Accordingly, Shinya looks down on me. His eyes are cruel and cold.

“I bought into it too much. Even when it seemed like his girl attendants were going to be hit... even when his friends seemed like they were going to be hit, he's trash that can't even move. In the end, he's a person from a second-rate fallen house.” He says, outrageously.

Seishirou laughs.

“Haha, what's this. So he's like that after all. It seems that people from the Ichinose house are always trash, huh. While I heard that even when his father attended this school, he trembled while walking in the corners of corridors... so you're the same, huh.”

At that, Seishirou's followers laugh once more.

Furthermore, the people from class had come into the corridor and were laughing at Guren. It may be due to how Shinya's attitude had changed, with how he was finally against Guren, so they now understood what kind of treatment was fine to give Guren.

Seishirou turns on his heel.

“Aah, whatever. This is boring. If they're weak, my desire to mess with them is also gone. Let's go.”

All the same, the students laugh. They laugh at the statement of how weak and incompetent the Ichinose are.

Nonetheless, Goshi, who had also entered the corridor, looks down on me with piteous eyes,

“My oh my, you really have become trash. As expected, someone who can't protect women is no good.”

Or so he said. Furthermore,

“You gave then utterly no resistance, and were called those kind of things, are you not at all frustrated?” Jujo Mito asks with an angry face.

Even so, Guren replies in a troubled way, “...when I left home, I was told not to defy the Hiiragi house...”

“In that case, would you die if they asked you to die!” For some reason, she begins shouting. And being in that state, dissatisfied with appearing angry, Mito leaves.

Guren vaguely watches her go, then stands. The students around him also begin to leave now that the strife is over.

Except one.

Only Shinya stayed behind, and looks towards me, before speaking.

“Somehow, you really are a boring guy, you know.”

“...”

“How disappointing, even though I had hopes for you.”

“...don't just expect things from people.”

“Yeah, you're right. It was my bad, for expecting anything from actual trash without any power.”

“...”

“Well whatever. Don't speak to me a second...”

Guren interrupts him at that, “You were the one who spoke to me.”

Shinya looks at Guren with cold eyes, and speaks.

“Yeah, you're right. Then, not just me, but don't approach Mahiru either.”

“...”

“You don't have the qualifications to do so. The point is, people who have no resolution or no power should not have come to this school. People who have nothing they've worked hard at... shouldn't have come to the school Mahiru is in.”

Essentially he's saying that someone who hasn't tried hard at anything has no right to stand in front of Mahiru, Guren thinks.

“No, or is it that making a move is the very thing the Hyakuya Church is aiming for? They'll make the relationship between the Ichinose and Hiiragi bad, and in the meantime reap the benefits, or something.”

In any case, it was imperative that he move cautiously.

With that said,

“Guren-sama! Sorry for making you wait~!”

Shigure and Sayuri both exited the supermarket with hands full with shopping bags. Guren unfolds his arms and gets his ass off the guardrail. Then, he turns his eyes to the bags his attendents are holding.

“What exactly are you planning, buying that much?”

“Wellll, today had a lot of bad things happen, so I thought that we should have a party with barbeque curry and yakisoba.” Sayuri replies happily.

“How much do you plan to eat?”

“It is all food Sayuri likes, isn't it. Of course, I have thought to make food Guren-sama would want to eat. Right, Sayuri?” Shigure says from next to Sayuri.

“Yes! Guren-sama, what would you like?”

“Whatever's fine.”

“--you always say that, it's so troubling~. Anyway, since tomorrow the Academic Acceleration Examinations are starting, you need to eat properly and built up your strength.”

She says that, but after having that conversation about the Hyakuya Church, Guren couldn't care less about the Academic Acceleration Examinations. Because in ten days time, a war might begin between the comrades of a large magical organization.

With an excited face, Sayuri forcefully presses Guren, “Come, come come, what would you like?”

Since it seemed like it would just go on longer if he didn't answer, Guren reluctantly replies.

“Then, I'll go with curry.”

“Indian curry? European curry?”

That night, it was all Guren kept thinking about on his own.

Chapter end