"Shut up, exposition face! I"m too busy using my eyes!"
I used them.
Senpai wore a two-piece like it was only natural. It was colored white and black.
"You"re the best, Senpai!"
"R-really?"
"Yes! I could praise you forever! Should I!? Y/N!? Y! Y! Y! I really don"t have the vocabulary to describe it, but you"re the best of the bestest bests!"
A Revelation Board suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Did you just try to touch Senpai-san"s chest?"
"No, no, no, no! Wait! I"m way too far away for that! And I didn"t move at all, did I!?"
"Maybe the motion control optimization predicted you were about to do it."
"Ehhhhh!? No one told me it did that! And how could it optimize like that when I"ve never opened my own Revelation Board before!?"
As soon as I saw Shifu-senpai in her gold and white striped two-piece swimsuit, a pair of Revelation Boards shot out.
"Hold on there."
"Okay, maybe we do need to call the cops."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait! There"s something wrong with this thing! What kind of premature Revelation Board goes off after just seeing some b.o.o.bs!?"
"Sumeragi-kun, maybe try to show some, um, restraint…"
I swiftly prostrated before Senpai and pressed my forehead against the floor.
"I"m sorry! I"m sorry! It"s not that I have no restraint! It"s just that, um, a surfactant has the blood flowing so smoothly into the erectile tissue of my heart!"
"What language are you speaking?"
"C"mon, I"m just talking about how squeaky smooth the blood flows! Squeaky squeaky smooth!"
I wasn"t even sure what I was talking about anymore.
But I had to prove my innocence, so I stood up and…
"Listen, Senpai! I"ll prove I have restraint!"
I looked at Kuwajiri. She was wearing a brown one-piece swimsuit.
I looked at her. And…
"Now that the Revelation Board really didn"t appear, I feel kind of bad about doing this."
"Just shut up."
"I mean, humor-wise wouldn"t it have been funnier if it appeared?"
"I said shut up."
"Also, that swimsuit isn"t supposed to be the color of a wooden beer mug, is it?"
"Never speak again."
"Are you telling me to die?"
"That would just mean more work for me, so try to stay alive until I"m not so busy."
I felt like I had seen the dark side of society in that conversation.
Anyway, I turned back toward the others.
"See!? I"ve got plenty of restraint!"
Two Revelation Boards appeared, so I smashed them with a backhand snap and struck a pose.
The two uppercla.s.smen tilted their heads.
"I feel like this is all very rude to Kuwajiri-chan."
"That"s right, Sumeragi-kun. Despite what I said, I think this was a little rude and you should probably have one appear for Kuwajiri-san too."
I loved how Senpai could say that while aware it was a double standard!
So I turned back toward Kuwajiri and made a groping motion in empty air.
"Ready, go."
A Revelation Board appeared.
"Yay! It appeared, Kuwajiri! Happy now!?"
"Um, Senpai-san, um, uh, well, I know you meant well, but, uh, how should I put it, I think you went at that the wrong way, so maybe, uh, well, my vocabulary just keeled over and died, didn"t it, but, um, well, uh."
"Aaaaahhhh! I"m sorry, I"m sorry!"
"To be clear, Kuwajiri-chan, is a wisdom G.o.d, so she"ll talk up a storm when it"s about knowledge and wisdom, but she"s pretty bad at expressing her own opinions and feelings."
"Eh!? Really, Kuwajiri!? Then what do you think about me!? And I mean emotionally!"
"I hope you die."
"Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! That was fast!"
Hmm, mentally groaned Shifu while looking alternately between the idiot and Kuwajiri.
Then Senpai-chan must have noticed something.
"Is something wrong?"
"Not really. But I did notice a difference here."
Senpai-chan tilted her head with an "eh?" while a Revelation Board opened and vanished around her. That meant the idiot"s faith was working for her, but…
"My Revelation Board didn"t get any experience points at all."
"Oh…"
It looked like Senpai-chan had caught on. She put a hand on her chin in thought. She seemed to view this as a problem, so she must not have been trying to hog Sumeragi to herself.
And then she spoke again.
"Sumeragi-kun says a lot of silly things, but I think that"s a sign of her respect for Kuwajiri-san. The way she expresses it might be a problem, but I do hope the experience points find their way to Kuwajiri-san in some visible way."
"Really? You aren"t afraid Kuwajiri-chan will steal Sumeragi-chan"s faith from you?"
"No, because I know Sumeragi-kun"s faith is directed at me. But aside from that, I hope her respect can reach Kuwajiri-san. Kuwajiri-san might not think of herself like that, but I bet it would change how she thinks about it if it actually happened."
Raidou finished changing and considered what equipment to bring in with him. He generally kept on the belt buckle part, but what about the arm supporter? He could always wash it in the bath"s laundry.
While he tried to make up his mind, a Revelation Board opened.
"Tooruuuuuuuu!"
"Yeah? What is it, Shifu? Did you run out of haircare stuff?"
"No, no," said Shifu.
"I managed to take Senpai-chan"s side!"
Did something make her happy? he wondered. But…
"Oh, really, really? Make sure you get along."
"That"ll be easy in the bath!"
True enough, he thought. But…
"Is something the matter?"
"No, not really."
This is about my wife after all, he thought while choosing his words carefully.
"I just learned something that makes me glad we came here."
Seeing two tall and busty girls closely interacting was an incredible thing.
"Wow…"
"Delete every last one of those Revelation Board photos you"re taking."
That did not stop me.
Shifu-senpai hugged and rubbed Senpai like she was an adorable animal.
"Eh? Eh? Um, Shifu-san? Uhh?"
"Man, Senpai-chan, you"re great! I just want to…what should I even say?"
She finally found the words.
"Let"s hang out more often, okay?"
"Ah…"
I was honestly happy to hear that, but was this really okay?
…Sumeragi-kun said she would be with me forever too…
What should I do? This doesn"t fit with my authority. So…
"Senpai-chan?"
I came back to my senses. This was not the time for that, so…
"Thank you very much. …I hope we can spend more time together too."
She"s lying, I thought.
"Senpai?"
I felt like she had just told a lie. I wasn"t sure why, but…
"Eh? What is it, Sumeragi-kun?"
That response was her usual self. I sensed no lie there.
I didn"t ask for you, Revelation Board. Really, stop that. Please. I"m trying to think.
"I"m starting to think Senpai-san set that up wrong."
"What!? How dare you try to blame Senpai for this!"
"Oh…oh, no. The optimization level really is set to max. Sorry…"
"Senpai! I"m so happy you tried to help me out with that setting!"
Anyway, Kuwajiri was glaring at me, but Senpai"s level had gone up, so maybe it was all good.
Wait, no.
There was no maybe about it between Senpai and me.
It was all good. It was all great. It was all super-duper. There was no compromise in goodness here.
I asked about it since that was the right thing to do with Senpai and me.
"Senpai…you just lied, didn"t you?"
"Well…"
"Something felt off when you said you wanted to spend more time with her."
"Ah…"
She stopped speaking. At the same time, the beer mug swimsuit raised a hand.
"What kind of G.o.d you are is a secret. If this has to do with that, I will not pursue the matter."
Oh, right. There was that. I"d kind of forgotten, but…
"Um, I"m not sure how to say it, but my authority…I guess you could say it means I should reject any close relationships."
Senpai explained.
"So I"m hesitant to get closer to people. I feel like I shouldn"t be doing it."
I more or less understood. There were a lot of death G.o.ds and debuff G.o.ds out there.
And she was probably a unique case even among those.
"I"ll a.s.sume there is no countermeasure or no precedent for your case."
The possibility of no precedent would be Kuwajiri"s decision. And if she was willing to suggest it, it was worth taking into consideration.
"Is that what you think, Kuwajiri-chan?"
"A lot of the current virtually manifested G.o.ds have fairly unique authorities, but there are generally other G.o.ds with the same sort of authority. But…Shinto Representative Omokane-senpai said Senpai-san was the most powerful. I am taking that to mean there are no others like her…and that means no precedent."
I couldn"t believe it. Most likely that low-rank G.o.ddess had more authority than she knew what to do with.
For now, I rubbed her head. And…
"You know…"
I"m on your side, okay? So…
"If everything gets to be too much to bear or you feel like you"ve caused a lot of trouble for Sumeragi-chan, you can abandon the terraforming and run away, okay?"
"Eh?"
"It"s fine, it"s fine. That"s just how it is. So…Sumeragi-chan?"
I asked a question.
"If Senpai-chan ever disappears, what would you do?"
"Well! Without my faith, I"d have nothing to live for! So I"d go find her and worship her!"
That answer earned a perfect score with extra credit. Senpai-chan couldn"t hide the uneasy expression below my hand, but…
"Are you listening?"
"Um, uh, yes, what is it?"
This is what it was.
"We"ll have all the answers once that happens, okay? We"ll know if you"re actually under enough pressure to throw it all away, we"ll know if that idiot really will chase after you, and we"ll know what you"ll do in response. There"s no point in thinking about it now since nothing"s been decided yet. But…"
But…
"You can make those decisions when the time comes. So you know what to do for now, don"t you?"
"…Yes."
Senpai-chan spoke quietly.
"I"ll do my best to make sure that doesn"t happen and that things continue as they are."
That"s right, I thought.
Shifu could help out when I was feeling anxious and wasn"t sure what to do.
"Oh, and Sumeragi-chan gets a gold star for noticing."
That"s right, I thought. Thank you, I also thought.
Sumeragi-kun would find me when I was feeling lost.
That might happen eventually, but…
"Yes."
That had not happened yet, so for now…
"Are we done with all the complicated stuff!? Can we start the super bath time now!?"
Wait, you"re switching rails a little too fast there.
Ana means "hole" and Ona is a slang abbreviation for "masturbation".