A Late Bloomer's Powerful Restart ~My Second Life Starts at a Prestigious School Where the Gender Ratio Is Totally Off, and for Some Reason, All These Talented Girls Get Attached to Me...!?~

Chapter 22.2: Actually an Amazing Person?

Still, I wanted to do something for Misaka… Was that just my ego?

Well, I understood Kagurazaka’s point too. Maybe this wasn’t the kind of topic her upbeat personality enjoyed. I’d go along with her here.

“Sorry… Hey, hand me the fork… Oi, don’t shove it!”

“No way! As punishment, you have to open wide and say ahh~ quietly.”

“Nmmph.”

“See? Sweet, right?”

It really was sweet… The moment it was pushed in, a soft, fluffy sponge-like texture spread through my mouth.

Even for feeding someone, the financier was bigger than my mouth, so about two-thirds of it was left sticking out.

“…Just let me eat it normally. It was good, though.”

“Then savor it more next time~”

She handed me the fork with a little-devil smile.

She wasn’t as pushy as Sasa, but Kagurazaka also had a habit of getting close.

Of course, she did the same with other guys and girls, so there was no need to get the wrong idea.

I pulled the fork out of the financier on the plate, picked up the rest with my hand, and tasted the remaining half.

“…Thanks for the food. Kagurazaka, you’d be better off as a patissier than a scholar.”

“Thanks… I’ll dock points for the shamelessness of trying to butter me up, but I’ll let it pass.”

I hadn’t expected her to see through me that much, but she was visibly in a good mood.

Even if she figured it out, if this cleared up the fact that I’d been eating her sweets carelessly, it was a cheap price.

“If you’re thinking of taking Misaka-chan’s side… you should probably stop? The only connection you had with her before was when she poured cold water on things.”

I thought she’d avoid the topic, but Kagurazaka brought it back up herself.

A final bit of well-meaning advice, I guess.

“I wouldn’t do it without some good plan.”

“So if there was a good plan, you’d move?”

“Who knows.”

Man, she really had sharp instincts in weird places.

But she was right.

I had to stop these rumors before they noticed anything extra.

However… there was only one method I could think of.

—If Shika said just one word, this problem would probably be solved easily… or so it should be.

I still hadn’t taken action, but I had always wanted to get closer to her anyway.

It felt like the consequences of putting it off were finally catching up, and it left a bad taste.

I was tormented by the feeling of powerlessness, like I couldn’t do anything.

If only there was at least some kind of opportunity to talk to her—

“Changing the subject, actually today… before I came here, I spotted Nanamiya-san.”

As if my wish had reached her, Shika’s name came up.

“Huh…? Outside the school grounds?”

“Yup. She had her hood up, but I recognized the texture of the hair spilling out right away! That glossy silver hair—it had to be Nanamiya-san.”

How can you identify someone by the gloss of their hair!?

Sure, hair contains DNA, but doesn’t texture have nothing to do with it?

It’s not like Shika has especially curly hair or anything.

“When you study fashion, you end up noticing all kinds of things~! Well, since I have no money, I can only look, though.”

Kagurazaka said that while giving off a sense of loneliness.

But she seemed confident in her deduction… so her eyes must be really sharp.

This girl… wasn’t she actually an amazing person? Her basic specs felt pretty high.

So far, aside from her family situation and grades, I couldn’t see any flaws.

Maybe Kurumi had spotted that potential early on.

I couldn’t quite recall Kagurazaka’s name from my memories, but with talent like this, it wouldn’t be strange if I had been involved with her in the previous life too.

“So… where exactly did you see Nanamiya? If she was sneaking around, she probably had some purpose.”

“Well, Tsukimi was curious too. But in that direction, there’s pretty much nothing student-friendly except a game store… but a young lady playing games? No way.”

“…Yeah.”

I remembered the face of a certain young lady who had gotten hooked on games and stayed up late.

No, no… I shouldn’t lump Sasa and Shika together.

“But if it really was Nanamiya-san… wouldn’t this be a chance to get some leverage? Just in case Tsukimi’s part-time job gets exposed, maybe I should tail her next time I spot her~”

“You’d probably just get threatened back and silenced with power.”

“Tch… Yeah, good point.”

She seemed to give up quietly there, acting like a regular small-time citizen after all.

Still, somehow… wasn’t her way of thinking getting a little poisoned by Kurumi?

“Well, they say don’t mess with gods and you won’t get cursed. So Taiki, if you spot her instead of Tsukimi, check it out for me.”

“Hey, did you tell me just to drag me into this!?”

“Eh~? The Misaka-chan talk was so dark, I just wanted to lighten the mood!”

She stuck out her tongue to play it off.

Well, she probably wasn’t serious and was just trying to change the atmosphere in her own way.

But this had been the biggest gain so far.

Putting aside Kagurazaka’s insight, silver hair wasn’t that common.

If she was outside the school grounds, that actually raised the chances it really was Shika.