The luxurious treatment room exclusive to the Student Council.
"Good grief..."
Kaito's internal thoughts let out a gasp of wonder, like a country bumpkin who had never seen the world.
The level of luxury instantly made his newly acquired "Chief's Office," where his seat hadn't even warmed up yet, look like a thatched hut in a slum.
Complete sets of physical therapy equipment imported from Germany gleamed with a cold metallic luster, the air was filled with the expensive scent of high-quality essential oils, and even the background music consisted of pure alpha wave tones that sounded as if they could make a person ascend on the spot.
But at that moment, the atmosphere in the room was colder than a Siberian cold front, capable of freezing cracks in the soul.
"I will say it once more: I am not sick!"
The Empress, Air Groove, who had been forcibly immobilized on the massage table, had a flushed face—half from embarrassment and indignation, half from humiliation.
Her voice was as cold as an icicle, capable of piercing eardrums.
Her perfectly tailored uniform was immaculate, and every strand of her hair transmitted a strong signal: "I am extremely displeased; do not touch me or I will kill you"
"Do not think that just because you healed a few failures who only know how to sob and cry, you can lecture me" she turned her head stubbornly, looking at Kaito out of the corner of her eye.
"I am the Empress Air Groove, the strictest Head of Discipline in Tracen! I am perfectly fine! I couldn't be better!"
"(Wow, that is a textbook tsundere statement (´ ∀ ｀) )"
Wait, this isn't just tsundere; it's an "Iron Wall Defense."
But it is well known that the louder people shout "I'm fine," the bigger the problem usually is.
Kaito murmured to himself, but maintained a professional and calm expression.
Meanwhile, the client of this "mandatory treatment," Student Council President Symboli Rudolf, sat elegantly on a plush sofa on the other side of the room, sipping black tea as if she were simply supervising a routine sewer unclogging operation.
But Kaito's intuition told him that the seemingly calm gaze of Her Majesty the Emperor was actually like a high-precision radar that never left the scene.
"Seriously, the pressure is immense... It's like giving a massage to a hedgehog in front of a tiger and a lion..."
Kaito took a deep breath, washed his hands, walked slowly toward the massage table, and silently chanted in his heart: "Master-level massage technique, activate!"
His hands, gently but with an irresistible force that seemed to penetrate all defenses, pressed onto Air Groove's tense and seemingly flawless back.
"!!!"
Upon contact, Kaito's eyebrows furrowed immediately.
"This... this is... Σ(°△°|||)"
Something is wrong.
Very wrong!
Air Groove's muscles, especially the latissimus dorsi and the core muscle groups that symbolize explosive power, were in a prolonged, extremely twisted, and "uncomfortable" state, strangling each other like a pretzel.
It was a strange and pathological rigidity, formed after power fought wildly against power within her body, resulting in mutual exhaustion.
"Your body is lying"
Kaito's voice was faint, but it pierced through the cold, solidified air like a precisely driven nail.
"It desperately wants to exert force, to unleash greater power and greater speed... but your will is using even greater force to stop it firmly and desperately"
As he spoke, he used techniques as precise as a surgeon's scalpel, gently but firmly stimulating the nodules of the muscle group that were so "twisted" they almost appeared knotted.
"It is like a top-tier racing car" he said slowly, with a voice that was soft yet resonated clearly in every corner of the treatment room.
"You want to floor the accelerator and experience the thrill of soaring through the air, but at the same time, you are using your left foot to step on the brake frantically and desperately"
"Ha...!"
Air Groove, on the table, let out a muffled and uncontrollable moan.
Suddenly her whole body went stiff, as if hit by an electric current.
Kaito's words were like a sharp, poisoned key, instantly inserted into the deepest hole of her heart—the one wrapped in layers of "pride" and "strictness" that she flatly refused to admit to anyone.
But he didn't stop.
His gaze, seemingly casual but actually deeply calculating, passed over Air Groove's slightly trembling shoulder and looked toward Her Majesty the Emperor, who was "elegantly supervising" while holding her teacup.
"Generally speaking, there is only one reason that would lead a deeply proud elite athlete to enter this state of self-contradiction..."
"Here it comes! The death blow is approaching!"
A chibi figure played gongs and drums in Kaito's small internal theater.
"That is, there is always someone in front of you whom you genuinely respect and admire, and who could even be called the source of all your drive to pursue..."
He paused deliberately here, allowing the tense atmosphere to ferment.
"But at the same time, this person is a goal that makes you feel absolutely hopeless, impossible to surpass, and so dazzling, like the sun, that they burn your eyes"
"Clink—"
A faint sound of porcelain clashing.
On the sofa, Symboli Rudolf's slender hand, holding the teacup, trembled imperceptibly yet violently.
A few drops of crimson tea splashed onto her snow-white and flawless racing uniform, leaving a small, bright red mark like a bloodstain.
But she didn't notice it or look at it.
Meanwhile, on the massage table, the eternally proud "Empress," under Kaito's incomparably precise physical massage and equally precise introspective words (like a sword piercing the heart), revealed for the first time an expression on her face—previously masked by "strictness" and "strength"—that was impossible to hide: a mixture of endless resentment, pain, and deep exhaustion.
"Bingo! Killing two birds with one stone!"
Kaito knew he wasn't just treating Air Groove's body.
He was, in the presence of Her Majesty the Emperor, mercilessly dissecting the almost "pathological" and one-sided trust and pursuit hidden beneath the "great friendship" widely celebrated between the two of them.
Every word he uttered left the Empress on the table unable to refute him.
And that made Her Majesty the Emperor, sitting on the sofa, feel as if she were sitting on hot coals.
The treatment concluded.
Overwhelmed by the massive dual impact on her body and mind, Air Groove had already fallen asleep.
It was the first time she had slept so "peacefully" in nearly half a year; her lips were no longer so tightly pressed.
Kaito straightened up, wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead, and gave himself a mental thumbs-up.
He approached Rudolf, looked at Her Majesty the Emperor, who still maintained her elegant imperial posture but whose eyes were now turbulent, and spoke calmly:
"Generally, I understand her problem"
"However, relying solely on external 'treatment' only addresses the symptoms, not the root cause"
"A heart ailment requires heart medicine"
He looked directly into her emerald-green eyes and proposed an innovative solution, which could be called "table-turning therapy."
"To heal her completely, I need the cooperation of Her Majesty the Emperor... No, of Symboli Rudolf herself"
"I need you and her to set aside the identities and concerns of Emperor and Empress, and hold a match right here, on the Tracen racetrack, where everything is on the line, with no room for retreat..."
"A full-power showdown"
...
If you'd like, you can support me on Patreon.
patreon.com/NyxNightmare03