Adolescent Adam

“Pant… Pant… …Ah.”

Mutsuki had never imagined it would be this difficult to walk with his legs weak from fear. It felt like he had sat on his legs for hours on end, so he was not even sure he was really standing. He unsteadily headed home while leaning on nearby telephone poles and guardrails.

The way home normally took less than fifteen minutes, but it felt horribly long now.

(What…was that?)

His head was spinning and he felt sick. It felt like all of his blood was flowing backwards. He felt a chill yet could not stop sweating and his head was filled with nothing but heat.

He could only imagine the events in front of the train station had been a dream. First, a car had stood up and started to walk and then the fountain’s water had turned blood red. Finally, a girl had appeared out of nowhere and sliced a boy in two.

However…

“…”

He gently held his right eye.

A mirror was attached to a nearby guardrail to give a view around the corner, so he hesitantly peered into it. He saw his own face there, but his right eye was proof that those events had been all too real.

It was black. A black smooth object was located where his eyeball should have been. It looked like a nontransparent plastic panel had been placed over the eye.

And yet he knew better than anyone that he was looking at his own eye. The covered eye had no pupil, but the faint outline of the iris was there and he was able to see through that spot.

His right eye could see and his sight was much clearer than before.

He tried covering his left eye, but that only closed off a bit on the left side of his vision.

It truly had not been a dream. That scared him, so he looked down at his upper arms, legs, and inside his clothes. He found no injuries.

There were no red marks. There was no sign of any kind of burns.

“Fwah… Ah…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

The girl calling herself an angel grew wings from her back to prove her claim.

Instead of the white wings told of in legends, they were made of dull blue flames. Still, they were not actually burning and they moved in accordance with her will. They bent just like wings and wrapped around Mutsuki as he was pinned to the wall.

He screamed as the blue flames burned him, but Ange maintained a look of composure.

“Calm down. An angel’s flames are a purifying light. You shouldn’t even feel warm. I’m only getting rid of the Succubi.”

Once she mentioned it, he realized the flames were not even hot, as if they were a mere illusion. However, that was not enough to calm Mutsuki’s panic. There was no way he could relax while flames enveloped him.

Instead of burning him, the flames burned the black liquid soaking his clothes and turned it to ash. 

The liquid fell away, freeing Mutsuki’s body from the wall.

He fell into the wall fountain below him. The flames seemed to affect normal water too because it began to boil into steam, but even amid the oppressive steam, the flames showed no sign of weakening.

“How pathetic.”

The angel girl named Ange watched in obvious exasperation as he flailed around in the water.

But when he looked up in search of help, his right eye met her blue eyes.

“…”

She quickly looked away.

“Except for the Serpent’s Eye, it seems.”

She faced the side, revealing a cheek that was so flushed it was noticeable even in the light of the setting sun.

“Ange of the Double Flame, hm?”

A moment later, her face stiffened at a voice.

The voice was Lucia’s. He had supposedly been sliced in two, but he looked entirely unharmed as he sat on the hood of the sc.r.a.p metal that had been the Porsche.

“Even among the angels born from the purifying light of flames, your flames were much hotter than normal. You are the maiden born from blue flames of 2000 degrees. …Is that big thing the rumored Prominence?”

“I’m glad to hear I’m so famous.”

The girl clicked her tongue, turned around, and pointed her large sword at the boy.

Even if it was hollow except for the core of support in the center, the panel of metal was wider than she was, but she easily swung it around in one hand. It was an unbelievable sight.

The slightly damp-looking black surface was made of metal and covered in the l.u.s.ter of a black pearl. It looked just as gorgeous as the j.a.panese swords that were given as deep a shine as platinum despite being made of steel. Just looking at it was enough to feel the solemn weight of the metal inside.

“Oh, G.o.d. What a pain.”

Lucia jumped down from the hood.

He pulled out the large red scythe stabbed into the vehicle. His arms were far skinnier than Mutsuki’s, yet he not only easily lifted the giant scythe, but he tore apart the Porsche’s red body like it was made of paper.

They both seemed to possess the same mysterious and abnormal power.

“—————!!”

“—————!!”

All Mutsuki could tell was that they were enemies.

The giant sword named Prominence sliced through the air and the two of them collided.

“~~Gh…”

The ma.s.sive sword was going to strike the long scythe. The sword had more weight, so it would push the scythe back.

However, the boy ducked down before the blade arrived, dodged the slash, and sent the force of his blow to the other end of his weapon. He sent the handle toward the girl’s torso.

“Ah.”

The high-speed exchange did not even last two full seconds. Mutsuki’s eyes caught up, but only after the girl used the momentum of her charge to jump away from the boy and avoid the scythe handle.

Mutsuki was not even given time to gasp before the exchange accelerated. When Lucia’s fingertips danced like he was waving a conductor’s baton, the pieces of black water scattered across the ground formed hands and a.s.saulted the angel.

“Didn’t you know?”

The battle was over.

“An angel’s body cannot be defiled.”

The liquid demons approaching the girl turned to ash the instant they arrived within a certain area around her.

Lucia’s eyes grew wide because the girl’s body was now surrounded by blue flames so thin they were nearly invisible. The film of fire had created an inviolable barrier around her.

“A Corona!?”

The boy’s shock created a brief opening. In that instant, Ange ran right up to the boy while protected by her burning fire.

She unleashed a full swing of her great sword.

Lucia somehow managed to catch it on his scythe, but his slender body was launched several dozen meters as if a large truck had hit him.

“Dammit… You really are strong.”

Despite his surprise, Lucia placed his feet on a building’s wall to recover. However, he did not immediately make a counterattack. The film of blue fire that had burned the black water had spread as the angel approached and had scorched the boy’s beautiful face.

His constant thin smile vanished for just a moment and his eyebrows twitched, but he soon giggled and the smile returned.

“Okay, looks like I’m poorly matched against an angel.”

He jumped to the building rooftop with smoke still rising from him.

“Heh heh♪ That’s a lovely eye, Mutsuki-kun. You can violate me more thoroughly later, okay?”

After a parting wink, he turned around and left.

“Wait! …Oh, you! Micha will be here soon, so stay put!”

That was all Ange said before pursuing the boy.

Mutsuki had no idea what to find strange anymore as the red-haired girl brushed aside gravity to jump on top of the six-story building with that ma.s.s of metal in hand.

(Should I really have run away?)

Mutsuki hurried home while hiding his right eye.

(She told me to wait for someone named Micha, but I couldn’t stay when people started gathering there. Besides, who knows if I can even trust that Ange girl.)

He made excuses for his inability to do anything but run from that bizarre situation.

But he really did think running away had been the best plan. He felt bad doing this to Ange – who was at least a winged girl who could do a few inhuman things, even if she was not actually an angel – but he wanted to return home at the moment.

(Would a doctor be able to heal my eye?)

With that absentminded thought, he tried his best to think over it all calmly even if he was only feigning calm.

(It started with…that’s right. I got that phone call before the car started to move. A woman spoke to me.)

That had been the beginning of this mysterious event.

She had told him to run away and to survive until Ange arrived.

The caller had known Ange, the girl with the sword. And at the very least, she had not seemed to want to harm him.

That made him wonder if he should not have left when Ange told him to stay, but he did not have the nerve to head back to the station now.

After the call, the Porsche had started to move. What had that been? It had been destroyed before he figured out what it was after, but it had certainly turned his way.

Then that boy named Lucia had arrived.

“…”

Mutsuki brought a hand to his mouth.

He could still feel a lingering hint of that warmth, softness, and sweet pleasure.

That boy had seemed to want to earn his favor and Mutsuki had trouble disliking him.

However, that boy had been the one to do this to his right eye. He had also fought a deadly battle with Ange, who seemed more like an ally, but before that, he had protected Mutsuki from the car monster.

(This is hopeless.)

His thoughts spun round and round in his head and he doubted he could think about anything at the moment.

There had also been that black water and those blue flames. It was all a mystery, but his first priority was visiting an eye doctor. He reached the residential district while holding his right eye again.

“Mutsuki-chan, are you only now getting home? Welcome back.”

“Oh, y-yes. Good evening.”

Given the time, he ran into a lot of neighbors.

He had no idea what would happen if they saw it, so he paid careful attention to his right eye as he pretended to be the polite son of the Fujita family he usually was.

“You’re soaking wet. Did something happen?”

“N-no, I just fell in a pond is all. I’m fine.”

Even if he hid his eye, his clothes were wet and he was covered in ashes, so he naturally gathered attention. Feeling uncomfortable, he picked up his pace toward home.

He had his hands full with his own state, so he failed to notice something else.

“I see. Well, try not to catch cold. …Huh?”

The neighbor who had greeted him was only the first.

“Welcome back, Mutsuki-kun. …Hm?”

“Hi, Mutsuki-oniichan.! …Nn. …Fweh?”

“…!?”

One was a neighbor woman twenty years older than his mother, one was a girl the same age as Mutsumi, and one was a college girl who just so happened to be in the area.

Each of their expressions changed entirely when Mutsuki pa.s.sed them by.

They more not just surprised by his wet clothes.

They all gave him a look of intense longing.

“I’m home.”

“Took you long enough. Hey, Mutsuki! I called you a thousand times, so I know you turned off your phone!”

As soon as Mutsuki arrived home, his impertinent little sister gave him an angry greeting.

He had never appreciated the voice of a family member or the familiar sight of the house so much. His legs were still weak, so he nearly collapsed to the floor.

“We’re out of ice, so I wanted you to buy some on your way- …What is that?”

He had made it home, but he could not help but lean on the entranceway door. That was when Chiaki walked in wearing her usual rough around-the-house outfit of a camisole and jeans, but she was shocked to find her brother soaking wet and covered in ashes.

“We need ice? I’ll buy some on the way back from the eye doctor. Can you get me a towel for now?”

“S-sure. And the eye doctor? Did you hurt yours?”
 

His impertinent but kind sister started toward the bathroom, so instead of saying thanks, he gave her a smile while holding his eye.

“…Eek!?”

As soon as he looked at her, a change came over her.

She held her hands to her navel and started to tremble. She fell to her knees and arched her back behind her. Her entire body shook as if electricity was surging out from the base of her legs. That is, her crotch.

“Ah… Ah…? What…is this? What is this!?”

“Chiaki!? What is it? Eh? Wh-what is it!?”

He frantically ran over because something was clearly wrong.

But without knowing what was happening, he had no idea what to do. As he stood there in confusion, his sister’s state only grew worse.

“Kyah… aheh♡”

The healthy thighs contained inside her jeans spread on their own.

Beads of sweat visibly covered her entire body. Too much liquid to be sweat darkened her jeans around the base of her thighs.

“Help…me… Mutsuki…onii…chan…”

Chiaki turned her moist, cloudy eyes toward the boy as her shaking grew to convulsions.

Utterly confused, Mutsuki reached a hand toward her slender shoulder.

“~~~!!”

As soon as he touched her, he noticed her camisole was plastered to her chest with sweat and that the tips of those still-childish bulges were erect.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

He had lived with her for about a dozen years, but he had never heard her scream like that.

Her skinny body bent sharply backwards as if she were performing a bridge. She stuck her pelvis out so far it looked like it would break off, the bottom of her camisole slid up, and her pet.i.te navel came into view. She was his sister, yet Mutsuki found that adorable depression to be strangely alluring. He was so shocked he stopped his outstretched hand, but it was already too late.

“Hyah… Ah… Aheh…”

A sharp-smelling golden curtain spread from the depths of her trembling jeans and spilled to the floor.

He had not smelled this scent since his sister was nine and they had been tickling each other in the bath. As the liquid formed a wave, he realized what it had to be. His sister was so out of it that he grew pale, but then she finally pa.s.sed out and collapsed limply to the floor.

He was utterly dumbfounded. He had not the slightest clue what was going on.

And then…

“Kyuji… Bchu… Ahhh…”

“Eh?”

After being attacked by inhuman foes a few times already, Mutsuki quickly realized what this voice was.

The unpleasant groan was as high-pitched as fingernails on gla.s.s. A moment later, it showed itself. A black slime-like creature burst from his wet clothes.

(One of those things was still there!?)

A scorched stench hung around it, but it fell between Chiaki’s limp legs and moved itself forward. Mutsuki trembled in horror as it sent ripples through the spreading puddle and gradually grew in size.

It was absorbing the urine to grow.

After drinking it all and leaving the wooden floor perfectly clean, it moved toward Chiaki’s jeans in search of more liquid.

“S-stop!”

“Kyubi? Kyugahhhh! Agyahhhh!”

He thought his legs would give out again, but he frantically picked up his unconscious sister and ran away.

The black filth cried and wailed in hunger as it crawled after him. What was he supposed to do? He decided to at least get Chiaki away and ran toward the entranceway.

“Yes. Good, good.”

A ball of red fire squashed the slime flat.

“Eh?”

The filth had burst to pieces from a flame hammer strike and it then turned to ash. Nothing remained afterwards. There was not even a mark on the floor.

“Walking around town with the Serpent’s Eye opened was pretty reckless, you know? I went out of my way to meet you at the station, but you ditched me.”

That flame had burned only the black water. The color was different, but Mutsuki had seen this just a bit earlier. He turned cautiously toward the voice.

“But.”

At some point a woman had appeared in the entranceway.

“You did a good job protecting your cute little sister, so I’ll skip the lecture.”

She too had flames growing from her back.

She did not have a giant sheet of metal, but her otherworldly aura still left Mutsuki in a daze.

His eyes first stopped on the healthy color of her skin. Its brown was gentler than a black person’s, so it more closely resembled a dark tan. It was a milk tea color that could not be reproduced with dyes or at a tanning salon.

Then, he noticed her outfit. She wore a miniskirt about as short as a waistcloth and a black cutter shirt that only just barely covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. While she was also wearing boots that rose halfway up her thighs and a long coat that covered her entire body, her outfit left her cleavage, midriff, and thighs entirely exposed, so it was hardly appropriate to wear around town.

She had red, almond-shaped eyes with a double eyelid, the deep-chiseled bridge of her nose stood prominently out, and her plump lips were a shade of red paler than her skin. Overall, she had the facial features of a model. Her wavy, waist-length hair was a glistening honey blonde, which added to her charm.

She was unmistakably beautiful, but that seductive atmosphere actually made the boy wary.

“Wh-who are you?”

Suspicious, Mutsuki stood in front of his unconscious sister.

Appreciation filled the brown beauty’s face when she saw that brave brother.

But when she looked the boy in the eye, she looked just as shocked as Chiaki or the neighborhood girls and women had.

“So this I the power of the one to be the origin. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“!?”

She crouched down a little and instantly moved right in front of Mutsuki.

She had moved too quickly for him to follow with his eyes and she grabbed his cheeks before he could even gasp.

“Be closed. Humans are happiest as humans.”

“Wah!”

An itching sensation raced through his right eye, but it was much kinder than the pain from before. The boy frantically pushed her hands from his cheeks. He tried a little too hard to back away and his knees gave out. He landed on his b.u.t.t next to his sister.

“Wh-what did you just do?”

“Oh, you’re pretty cute. I like this a lot better than that snake eye♪”

The boy snapped back at her due to the responsibility of having his little sister so nearby, but the woman dodged his question with a gentle smile. She then threw some kind of key his way.

The keychain had a small hand mirror attached, so he looked into it.

“…Ah.”

His usual face was back. Everything was back to normal, right eye and all.

Noticing the tension leave his face, the woman smiled his way again. His heart skipped a beat when he looking at her again and realized how beautiful she was.

“The world has begun to move.”

She whispered to him with a meaningful alto voice.

“The world has begun to move with you at the center.”

“Eh?”

“Gather heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l and you will have everything. The entire world is revolving around you.”

That was when he realized something else.

“I’ll explain what’s going on, since I’m sure you’re frightened with all this strange stuff happening.”

He recognized the strangely cute yet mature alto voice.

It was the voice he had heard over the phone earlier.

“Would you mind going on a date with me?”

After removing both Mutsuki’s tension and caution, she gave him a playful wink.

The woman said her name was Jiyuuni Micha and Mutsuki decided to believe her for the time being.

At the very least, she was not his enemy. Or so he thought. She had told him to run away over the phone and she had defeated that slime with her fire. She had even made sure to give Chiaki a bath while the girl was still unconscious, so he decided to trust her for now.

Although it mostly came down to wanting someone to explain what was going on.

Micha dressed Chiaki and laid her on the sofa and Mutsuki left with Micha after his older sister returned home. He was riding on the back of Micha’s motorcycle. It seemed to be an off-road motorcycle because its tires were as thick as a car’s and its long frame had no extra accessories.

He quickly regretted climbing onboard.

“Waaahhhhhhh! J-J-J-J-J-Jiyuuni-san! Too fast! You’re going too fast!”

“Call me Micha. Jiyuuni is a fake name for the human world, so I’m not used to responding to it.”

“Fine! I’ll call you Micha! But this is too fast! I’m going to fall off!”

“Then hold on more tightly. Just to be clear, you’ll definitely die if you fall off.”

He could only tremble as they moved so quickly the surrounding cars did not seem to be moving at all, but the woman did not slow down in the slightest.

In fact, she seemed to be enjoying this. When she saw him on the verge of tears, she laughed happily and squeezed the throttle even further.

“Uuh…”

He would normally have been too embarra.s.sed to grab onto a woman he had only just met, but his life was on the line here. He wrapped his arms around her narrow waist lest he be thrown off the motorcycle entirely.

The motorcycle did not have a back seat or a luggage rack and he could not have balanced on the back tire’s frame, so he was forced to share the one seat with Micha. By this point, her b.u.t.t was resting on top of his thighs.

It was embarra.s.sing, but his life really was in danger if he fell. He said “excuse me” and pressed his cheek up against her back. He felt more stable when pressing that tightly against her.

He had changed out of his soaking wet uniform, but the wind was cold and Micha’s body warmth felt nice through her white coat. The scent of the adult woman was enough to embarra.s.s him even further.

“Anyway, Mutsuki-kun.”

“Y-yes?”
 

The wind would have drowned out her voice, but their close contact let him hear her through her body.

“I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that your body isn’t that of a normal human.”

He was having trouble focusing, but she began with the exact kind of talk he had expected.

“I’m perfectly normal.”

“Even after what you did to Chiaki-chan?”

“…”

Had it really been his fault that approaching his sister had made her grow confused, p.i.s.s herself, and pa.s.s out? Pain began to fill his heart.

“Don’t worry. Although it is true that was due to your power. It was the power of the Serpent’s Eye that appeared in your right eye, but that’s sealed away right now.”

“The Serpent’s Eye?”

He recalled Lucia calling it that as well. When he thought back, he realized the black eye he had seen in the road mirror had been just like a snake’s.

“Wh-what was that? Why did that happen to my eye?”

“It was unavoidable. From the moment G.o.d designed human DNA, it was made to create a bearer of the Serpent’s Eye once every hundred or thousand years. It’s just one of G.o.d’s rules.”

He had been born with it. That was the most hopeless explanation there was.

“The Serpent’s Eye has a tremendous effect on the opposite s.e.x. In other words, women. I’m sure you can tell based on what happened to Chiaki-chan. Just looking at them is enough to do that. If you wanted to, you could conquer half the world.”

“Oh…”

“Ever since ancient times, the ones known in the human world as demons have been especially obsessed with that power. You saw them earlier, didn’t you? There was that intelligent demon named Lucia and his followers, the Succubi. If they gain your power, it’s game over for the human world.”

“Um. Wait a second.”

The boy frowned.

This was on such a large scale he was having trouble keeping up, but it all seemed a little too “out there”. It was true his right eye – the Serpent’s Eye – had caused Chiaki to faint just by looking at her, but it seemed like an exaggeration to say he could “conquer the world” with that.

The woman brushed back her blonde hair and looked back at him.

“You’re so naïve♪”

“What?”

She gave him a coquettish wink and his heart skipped a beat.

His puzzled look seemed to delight her all the more.

And then…

“Excuse me, excuse me. You on the motorcycle, please stop.”

A noisy siren suddenly started up and a voice shouted at them through a megaphone.

Mutsuki looked back and saw three police cars following them.

They were breaking the speed limit with two people on a one-person bike, so this result was hardly surprising. The boy could only sigh.

But…

“You two not wearing helmets, please slow down and pull over.”

“Um…Micha-san?”

He mentally begged her to stop, but when she faced forward again, she twisted the throttle as if this were none of her concern. She was speeding up.

Mutsuki was on the verge of tears and he squeezed his arms around her waist even more. He had only met this woman fifteen minutes ago, but he could somehow tell she intended to lose them.

“Anyway, how far did I get?”

She calmly continued her discussion as the boy buried his face in her back due to the cold and his fear. She had raised her voice because the sirens were so loud, but that was the only change.

“Oh, right. That you’re the chosen one. Anyway, destined people like that are often targeted by dangerous enemies, right?”

She let go of the handlebar with the hand not accelerating.

She drove with one hand while easily exceeding 100 kph. Mutsuki had gone pale, but she pointed back with her thumb. When he looked that way…

“Eh?”

“The Serpent’s Eye is this world’s one and only perfect power. If you gouged it out and encased it in gla.s.s, it would become the most valuable jewel imaginable. Everyone who knows about it wants to get their hands on it. Whether they’re a demon…or a human.”

When Mutsuki saw the rightmost police car she pointed at, he grew even paler.

“There are two main groups after you. One is the demons I mentioned before. And…”

There was no one inside it.

The driver’s seat and pa.s.senger seat were both empty and the steering wheel was moving on its own.

“These are the bigger problem. They’re called the Springloaded. They’re the servants of a human group who want the Serpent’s Eye. That group is named FeTUS.”

“Micha-san!”

The freezing boy screamed as the motorcycle accelerated even further.

He was afraid of their pursuers, but he was even more afraid of the red light at the intersection they would reach in another three seconds at this speed. Even if they were trying to escape, this was far too fast for a public road.

“~~!”

However…

“That’s lucky. I think we can get away now.”

The woman charged right into the intersection at 130 kph even as people used the crosswalk.

She swerved left and right so sharply her knees nearly sc.r.a.ped the ground and just barely avoided hitting any of the pedestrians or cars. She kept it up all the way to the other side of the intersection.

Mutsuki had seen videos of people slipping through the paper-thin gaps between the bullets filling the screen on a shooting game, but he had never imagined he would experience it in person. He was still trembling even after they made it through.

He heard screeching brakes and then an especially loud collision.

The police cars with actual policemen in them had of course stopped, but the unmanned one known as a Springloaded had been destroyed when a truck T-boned it from the side.

However, they did not have time to relax. In fact, it was only after that destruction that the boy realized how frightening his pursuers were.

As if removing a disguise, the police car writhed and transformed. The frame shrank down, abandoning any s.p.a.ce for pa.s.sengers and creating a longer form. Claws burst out to form legs.

Just like the Porsche had with his cellphone, the police car swallowed up the parts of the damaged truck.

“Their Lithography sure has gotten fast,” complained Micha. “Honestly, they get more dangerous by the day.”

If the Porsche had been an inchworm, then this was a giant metal gra.s.shopper with the large vehicle’s cylinders as the back legs. After eating another machine to grow and complete its transformation, it jumped over the chaotic intersection.

It was still pursuing the trembling boy.

“Not to worry. We’re here to protect you.”

Micha calmly turned around despite their speed.

“We’re angels.”

She winked at him.

They were approaching the entrance to a vehicles-only road, so she turned that way at the last second. With a snap, the end of the accelerator grip seemed to break off. It turned out to be cover and some kind of b.u.t.ton was revealed below.

Mutsuki wanted to complain that this was not a manga, but he still gathered all of his strength in the arms around her waist because he had a good guess what was coming next.

And a moment later…

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”

They were moving too fast for him to hear his own scream, so how fast was that converted to kph?

At any rate, after being attacked by a mysterious boy, being pursued by machine monsters, and all the other strange events, this was the most frightening moment of the day. Still, they did manage to escape their pursuers.

“Anyway.”

Despite all the running away, Micha brought him to an apartment building in the same town.

It was about a half hour walk from his home. He had been forced to hold on for dear life for over an hour, but it seemed that was mostly because she had wanted to go touring. While trying to hide the few tears he had shed, he followed Micha inside.

“It’s pretty messy since I’ve only just moved in, but try to ignore it, okay?”

“Okay…”

Mutsuki lived in a house, so entering a high-rise apartment building made him nervous. He was taken to the top floor and then to one of the rooms overlooking the town at a frightening height.

“You were right about it being messy.”

That was his first impression.

He removed his shoes in the entranceway which was filled with so many boots and sandals it would have been difficult to find a matching set. He was impressed by the automatic lights and automatically locking door, but he was more focused on finding anywhere to step in a hallway filled with laundry and flyers. Luckily, Micha paved the way by kicking stuff out of the way.

“Are you good at housework, Mutsuki-kun? Y’know, like cleaning.”

“Cleaning? I do it a lot, if that’s what you mean.”

“Great♪”

“?”

They moved further inside.

Needless to say, the rest was a disaster too. The dining and living rooms were almost fifty square meters in all, but there was still nowhere to step.

Cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked were piled up, yet beer cans were stacked in a pyramid on the table like building blocks. There were far too many empty cans for her to have really just moved in, but there were far too many boxes still needing unpacking for her to have actually lived here longer.

“…”

He had not even known her for two whole hours, but he felt he had a pretty good grasp on her character.

And…

“Hm?”

He noticed something on the couch.

They were clothes far too small for Micha to wear. They looked like they might be for a child, but they had caught his eye because they were neatly folded up amid the otherwise messy room.

He naturally approached them and found a shirt and spats he had seen somewhere before.

“Where did she get off to? Hey, are you back!?”

Micha kicked more things out of her way and searched for someone by opening all the doors leading from the living room.

And…

“Ange! Are you here nor not?”

“Yes, yes. I’m here. Just a second!”

Someone replied from the door in the dining room next to the one leading to the kitchen.

“Oh, you’re in there? Were you taking a shower?”

Steam escaped the door, but Micha did not hesitate to walk over and open it.

“…What?”

She did indeed reveal a girl who had apparently been taking a shower.

The girl had just started tying back the red hair that was long enough to cover her b.u.t.t. She had her hand around the wet hair and a rubber hairband in her mouth.

“…”

She slowly turned toward Mutsuki.

Mutsuki looked straight at her.

Except for the towel draped over her neck, she was completely naked. The girl’s defenseless body was on full display.

She stood there in her birthday suit with nothing hidden: her armpits, her collarbones, the indentation of her navel, her surprisingly feminine chest given her otherwise childish build, and…“down there”.

It was a beautiful body. Her unblemished skin was pure white. Her long arms and legs were slender. Her waist was so skinny it seemed to have been carved down and her smooth hips were the exact opposite. Her bust bulged out only a modest amount. Other than her short height, she had the slender build of a model.

He knew it was rude, but Mutsuki gulped, sending his still-thin Adam’s apple up and down.

The girl froze in place as well.

“I’ll introduce her properly this time. This is Ange. She works with me.”

The hairband fell from her mouth.

“Gnyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!”

“Wah, wah, wah! I-I’m sorry!!”

She screamed so loudly it had to have reached the first floor and Mutsuki frantically turned around.

But he moved too quickly. His quick about-face caused him to slip on a magazine lying on the floor and to trip quite spectacularly.

His head hit the couch and everything on it poured down onto him.

“Nfh.”

Something caught on his face as it fell.

It was the shirt and spats from before. These were the clothes the girl had worn by the station. It could not have been long since she had removed them because he could still feel some faint body heat in them.

And once he removed the spats, something round spilled out from them.

“…?”

It was somewhat damp and the rubber in it had pulled it into a ball.

He spread it out to find a triangular object that smelled of sweat.

They were a pair of pink panties.

“From now on, we’ll be protecting you from any and all danger.”

Beyond the panties, he could see Ange charging at him after putting on the bath towel.

“What! Do you think! You’re doing! With my panties! You pervert!”

“Gfh! Gyah! I’m…I’m sorry!”

“So don’t worry, Mutsuki-kun. Ange’s power is top cla.s.s even for an angel. So whether FeTUS or the demons attack, she’ll be protecting you 24/7.”

Ange climbed on top of the boy she was meant to protect and started beating him, Mutsuki desperately tried to protect himself with the hands holding the panties, and Micha smiled as she spoke.

“You pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert pervert!!”

“Ow! Ahhhh, I’m sorryyyyy! Micha-san! Help me, Micha-san!”

“Good, good♪ I’m glad to see you’re already friends.”

She continued to smile.

“Now, after cleaning up real quick, let’s have a welcoming party for our new roommate.”

Ange’s fist finally stopped.

“What?”

“Room…mate?”
 

This was news to Mutsuki as well.

“Ehhhhhhhh!? I have to live with him!?”

Mutsuki was slow to react thanks to the beating he had taken, so Ange alone stood up and shouted in protest.

“Of course. You wouldn’t be much of a bodyguard otherwise.”
 

“I refuse to live with a pervert like-…”

Mutsuki had apparently stepped on the edge of the towel during their scuffle, so when the girl tried to argue with Micha, the only thing hiding her bare skin fell away.

“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!”

The top cla.s.s angel girl’s adorable b.u.t.t was right in front of his eyes.

And a moment later, a low kick filled with reliable strength reached his jaw.