Editing CubexCursedxCurious:Volume2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

As soon as dinner was finished, Fear started yelling: "Haruaki, bath time! We have to go to bed earlier tonight!" and rushed out of the living room. There was a noisy racket one should not hear from bathroom. Soon after, the noise died down, replaced by the sound of a series of wet footsteps.

"Hey, the shampoo is used up&mdash;!"

"Woah! ...Couldn't you at least have dried yourself before coming out?"

Wrapped in a bath towel, Fear made her appearance. Her slender arms, pale shoulders and wet hair were all dripping with water. Haruaki was sipping tea after dinner when the awakening of memories from a few days ago caused him to blush slightly. Nevertheless, Fear did not pay any attention to him&mdash;

"I'm in a hurry to sleep so I'm preparing for bedtime with high speed! I must be well-rested and energetic for tomorrow!"

"Somehow it seems like you'll end up more tired from all this tension? Don't you find it counter productive... Oh well whatever."

The incident happened in the next instant. Perhaps it was an inevitable outcome. Indeed, the way Fear had her towel wrapped around her was definitely inadequately secured&mdash;

It slipped down. Or rather, it loosened.

"...Oh?"

"Uh!"

As the towel's knot loosened before Haruaki's eyes, the world seemed to move in slow motion. The area of Fear's exposed skin gradually increased as he watched. Pulled by gravity, the top of the towel originally located below her collarbone instantly descended down to her snow-white chest&mdash;from between the edges of the loosened towel, glimpses were offered of a moist orifice, the navel&mdash;as the lower edge of the towel gradually spread out, the smooth curves of her inner thigh came clearly into view&mdash;then everything&mdash;

"Special Move&mdash;Immorality Blocker (Visual Variant)!"

"Owwwwwwwwwww! Wait a minute, Konoha, my eyes are going to be gouged out!"

Konoha, who had been sitting beside him enjoying her tea, instantly blocked Haruaki's gaze with fearsome god-like speed. Fortunately, this prevented him from seeing anything fatal. But her movements were so forceful that it made Haruaki wonder if she might imbue her hands with a sword's sharpness at any point, so it was quite scary. Listening, Haruaki could hear the sound of Fear frantically tightening her bath towel.

"Oooh, haha... Mmm. Finally a good deed from the Cow Tits."

"Thank you for the compliment. By the way, you should be able to find the replacement shampoo underneath the sink, Fear."

"Oh really!? You should have told me earlier!"

Fear hurried back to the bathroom. Only then was the visual obstruction removed from Haruaki's view. As he rubbed his stinging eyes, he could not help but ask Konoha:

"I'm just curious... Is there a olfactory variant?"

Smiling while presenting him the back of her hand, Konoha shoved two fingers upwards. His spine shivering, Haruaki resolved to forget all about this.

"...Anyway, where was our discussion before we were interrupted?"

"Yes&mdash;about after school, what happened after you two parted ways with me... In the end, you didn't find anything out in the streets, right?"

Right. Calming their thoughts, the two of them continued pooling their information.

"Yes. But I don't think it was completely fruitless."

"How so?"

"I can't say for certain, but there didn't seem to be anyone fainting on the streets, nor was there any sound of ambulances... That doll really stuck to her word and did not cause trouble outside."

"I see, confirming this point is comforting despite the overall crisis. However&mdash;"

As if piercing the bottom of the cup with her gaze, Konoha narrowed her eyes.

"Indeed, if that doll was not lying then she'll 'be back to absorb life force in this school again.' We need to come up with a plan."

"I agree, but I still don't understand why she's doing this."

"Her curse can't possibly be as specific as 'can only absorb the life force of students wearing the Taishyuu High School uniform"... There's no point in pondering any further what cannot be understood. The issue at hand is what we should do tomorrow."

By their estimates, Sovereignty was not going to intrude into the classrooms during lessons. Instead, she should be targeting times like the lunch break when students moved about alone.

"In that case, skipping a day of classes would be kind of meaningless. At least, that's what I'd like to think."

"Skipping classes would be asking to get scolded for sure. Besides, we already skipped the afternoon periods today."

Right&mdash;as Haruaki nodded in agreement, he recalled Kirika's gaze when he had happened to run into her in the classroom to get his bag&mdash;truly like a class representative, she glared severely at him for inappropriate behavior. At the time, Haruaki had swiftly escaped from the classroom together with Fear, but if they were to skip class again, retribution surely awaited them like some sort of vengeful ghost. Truly too frightening. Haruaki did not want to imagine the consequences.

"Then how about we patrol during break times outside of class?"

"Yes. Of course, I'll help too... Ah, correction. Starting tomorrow, I will try taking walks around the school during break times as a way to relieve stress. Perhaps I might end up running into someone suspicious!"

Konoha grinned mischievously, eliciting a wry smile from Haruaki.

"Not helping Fear deliberately, is that right... Because that girl is really stubborn."

"That's the way she is from the start so it's nothing surprising. She's enthusiastic to help others because she's really eager to lift her curse. In any case, I will respect her wish for a few days."

"As expected of someone who's been through the same path, you're really understanding. Next... We should find Zenon-san in the morning to report to her and request her assistance. For this time and age, our school's security happens to be quite lax, like a sieve... That said, I'm not going so far as to ask her for armed guards stationed within one meter around the school perimeter."

"If it's too conspicuous, alerting the masses would be a big problem too... Oh yeah, let me brew some more tea?"

"No thanks, I'm planning on retiring early for the night, so you don't have to&mdash;"

"Don't be modest. Besides, I still have more to say."

Saying that, Konoha went to the kitchen to replenish the boiling water. When she returned to the living, there was a smile on her face for some reason.

"Well then, Haruaki-kun."

"W-What is it?"

Haruaki instinctively shrank back. His intuition alerted him that Konoha's smiling appearance presented some sort of danger.

"I had some free time earlier so I asked Fear about the details of what happened during the day. Namely, how you forgot about me completely and shared juice with those girls to enjoy yourselves."

"Umm... I-I already apologized to you about that, right? Haven't I?"

"Because there are still a lot of details to be cleared up. Let's see? When Shiraho's uniform was drenched by the water cooler, you kept staring? When descending the stairs, you were eyeing for an opportunity to get intimate with her? Furthermore, you were very concerned about her skirt fluttering in the wind, with constant furtive glances. As soon as an opportunity presented itself, you seized it to embrace Shiraho in excitement&mdash;how utterly terrible and unacceptable, do you not agree? Completely indecent."

"Wait a minute, some of that is clearly fabricated!"

"I don't want to hear your excuses. How should I say this? Shiraho is at fault too. Too airheaded, too careless. And seriously, boys are just unbelievable, always staring lewdly at girls at the slightest opportunity..."

That's only possible when girls present the opportunities, right? &mdash;Though Haruaki reflexively felt like objecting, he was aware that the earlier claims were true to some extent so he could not protest with a clear conscience. In that case, there was only one solution.

"Ha... Hahaha! Oh my that's really true, I can't believe someone could be that airheaded! It's really troubling, so I'd better get to bed soon! So, goodnight!"

Just as he was about to get up, Konoha grabbed his wrist, preventing him from standing.

"Stay, I still have lots to ask! Haruaki-kun, do you prefer airheaded girls? How do you really feel about her vulnerable lack of awareness? So does that kind of size turn out to be perfectly suited to your tastes?"

...What kind of size did she mean?