Chapter 147: Rejected and Despised

At night, outside the teaching building, Julie and Kiriko were taking care of Tachibana Tomoe. After a flurry of frantic activity, they finally finished bandaging her wounds. During the process, both of them noticed that sometimes the bleeding would stop even before they could treat the wounds, and the injuries were not considered too severe.

"What is going on? Was that miserable scream just now made by Tachibana?" Torasaki Aoi and Kokonoe Toru, who had rushed over from elsewhere, asked upon seeing Tachibana, who had numerous injuries and remained unconscious.

"Well, it seems she was attacked by an unidentified outsider. Teacher Tsukimi and Yechen have already gone after them together, and we have no idea how they are doing right now," Kiriko and Julie said, pointing behind the teaching building, having no intention of continuing their Blazewpn combat under the present circumstances.

"Huh? Shiki and Tachibana Kanade seem to be bringing Hotaka Miyabi along," Julie said, noticing three figures approaching from a distance.

"Everyone, you must be careful of Teacher Tsukimi!" Hotaka Miyabi ran over in a rush, disregarding her newly healed wounds. "Just now, it was Teacher Tsukimi who suddenly attacked me and Tachibana."

"How could that be? A Blazewpn cannot harm the human body..." Kokonoe Toru and Torasaki Aoi said in disbelief. The fact that a Blazewpn could not injure a human body had been verified through their numerous battles; otherwise, countless people they had defeated would have ended up in the emergency room.

"Not necessarily. Such a coincidence—that it can destroy walls and the ground yet never harm a human—is completely unreasonable. Besides, Saeko and Shiina also said that a Blazewpn can indeed injure the human body. As long as one uses a Blazewpn with murderous intent, it is capable of hurting people," Shiki and Tachibana Kanade said without surprise, reminded by Busujima Saeko and Shiina, who had arrived at Koryo Academy a year earlier, that a Blazewpn could inflict physical harm.

"But why would Teacher Tsukimi do such a thing? No, now is not the time to think about this. Didn't you just say that Yechen went inside with Teacher Tsukimi? Doesn't that mean he is in great danger right now?" Kokonoe Toru instantly snapped back to reality and, alongside Torasaki Aoi, attempted to charge into the teaching building to help Yechen.

Having witnessed the power of Busujima Saeko and Shiina, they understood just how vast the gap was between different ranks. Although Yechen was stronger than both of them, no matter how strong he was, he could not possibly surpass a teacher of a higher rank. Driven by this thought, both of them wanted to rush over and help as quickly as possible.

"Boom—!" Before the two could enter the teaching building, a loud explosion suddenly erupted from the wall of the second-floor corridor. Debris and dust blasted outward instantly, leaving a massive hole in the wall. Looking up, they saw two figures flying out of the hole one after another.

One of them was a girl wearing a maid outfit and a pair of rabbit ears. Her maid outfit was already stained with a bit of dust. Wielding her Blazewpn sword in mid-air, she spun around and slashed downward with immense force. Yechen, pursuing her from behind, ducked his head as the blade grazed past his hair. Twisting the scabbard—which still had its protective sword bag on—in his hand, he struck Tsukimi Rito directly in the stomach.

Struck once more, Tsukimi Rito's body plummeted rapidly. She drove her Blazewpn sword into the ground to steady herself, clutching her stomach with one hand. The painful expression on her face showed that the blow had hurt her severely. Despite this, Tsukimi Rito maintained her cute tone and said, "Not bad at all. Yechen, you're one of the very few people who have ever driven Teacher Tsukimi into such a pathetic state."

After their initial shock, Kokonoe Toru and Torasaki Aoi immediately closed in on Tsukimi Rito. Kokonoe raised his heavy shield, swinging it down like a weapon with crushing force. The next second, however, Tsukimi Rito vanished right before his eyes. Just as he began to doubt whether his eyes were playing tricks on him, Kokonoe heard his friend shout from nearby, "Watch out! Above!"

Looking up, Kokonoe saw Tsukimi Rito diving down from overhead, her colossal Blazewpn sword carrying immense momentum as it slashed down fiercely. Faced with Tsukimi Rito's swift and unhesitating movements, Kokonoe Toru only had time to raise the arm bearing his Blazewpn shield, and a cascade of sparks erupted where the sword collided with the shield.

Enduring the terrifying force of the blade, Kokonoe's body was pressed lower and lower until Tsukimi Rito suddenly delivered a kick that sent him flying. Spinning around, she swung her sword horizontally to deflect Torasaki Aoi's supporting attack. With a ferocious expression and utter disdain, she sneered, "Even if I took a slight hit from Yechen just now, I'm still not someone the likes of you can defeat."

"Teacher Tsukimi, why are you doing this?" As a safe distance opened up between them, Kokonoe Toru finally found the opportunity to ask the question.

"Why, you ask? I simply accepted a job to kill some freshmen with potential and talent, though I didn't expect to almost capsize in a small pond. Well, enough idle chatter—let me kill you right now! That blow Yechen landed earlier really hurt me quite a bit!" Wielding her Blazewpn sword, she ran a few steps toward Yechen and brought the blade down fiercely, targeting him directly. Seeing this, Torasaki Aoi and Kokonoe Toru swarmed in to surround her once more.

However, Tsukimi Rito's true target was not Yechen. Deliberately slowing her pace slightly until the people behind her were about to catch up, she suddenly halted her movement and used the momentum of her swinging blade to spin around. Her sword sliced through the air with destructive force, slashing down toward Torasaki Aoi.

The wind pressure, fierce enough to nearly harm a human body, threw the surrounding airflow into chaos. A dull, heavy roar echoed across the ground. Failing to react in time, Torasaki Aoi was sent crashing violently into the ground under the impact of Tsukimi Rito's sword, lying there rigidly without a bounce.

"What a pity. My target from the very beginning was you, after all. One is an 'Ability' user, and the other is also a special case—among the three of you, you were clearly the easiest one to deal with," Tsukimi Rito said in a cheerful tone, bringing her Blazewpn sword crashing down to shatter the Blazewpn that had not yet dissipated beside Torasaki Aoi.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!" The instant her Blazewpn was shattered, Torasaki Aoi, who was already heavily injured and incapacitated, let out a scream of excruciating agony. Tsukimi Rito wagged her finger and said, "Just a little reminder: if a Blazewpn is destroyed, the owner suffers soul damage and instantly loses the ability to fight. Of course, given that the soul itself is damaged, getting just this result is already quite fortunate."

"A-Hu!" Seeing his close friend reduced to such a state drove Kokonoe Toru to the verge of losing his sanity from rage. Directing his fury at Yechen, he roared, "We worked so hard to come help you, and are you just going to stand there and do nothing?!"

"If you want me to help, then get out of the way!" Yechen grabbed Kokonoe Toru—who had been standing in front of him in a defensive stance with one arm outstretched to block him ever since Tsukimi Rito's attack began—and hurled him aside.

"Oh my, 'Ability' boy, I never knew you were actually on my side. Could it be that you've fallen for Teacher Tsukimi? But Teacher Tsukimi is going to kill you, you know. Acting like this puts Teacher Tsukimi in a very difficult position! Why don't you just die?"

"Am I being rejected here...?"