This is not the date I wanted.

Mengyue quickly made a hushing gesture to Xixian and the others.

"—!"

Hearing this, everyone covered their mouths with their hands in tacit understanding.

"Um... Mengyue. What happened? I was playing games in the house when I suddenly received a call from Kotori saying that Shidou fainted at school... Is he okay?"

Nanashi asked in a confused voice. To be honest, she still hadn't figured out what was going on.

"Well... although the reason is still unclear, it seems to have settled down."

Meng Yue replied softly.

After hearing Meng Yue's words, everyone's worried expressions eased a little.

At this moment, the door of the room was pushed open for the third time, and this time it was Kotori and Reine who came in. Unlike Tohka and the others who had anxiety and panic written all over their faces when they just came in, Kotori's expression vaguely revealed a sense of seriousness.

"Kotori-chan."

"Ah - Sister Mengyue. I'm sorry, Shidao has caused you trouble again. Thanks to your timely handling, the situation did not develop into a bad situation."

After thanking Mengyue, Qinli glanced inside the room as if she was counting the number of people.

"Is Miku not here?"

"Ah, Miku is working on a commercial in Kansai today, but I've already contacted her and she said she's turned down the job and has chartered a helicopter. She's on her way back and will probably be back in a while."

As a secret fan of Miku, Yumezuki raised her hand to answer Kotori's question.

"That's it."

Kotori nodded in understanding, and looking at Shidou lying on the hospital bed, a hint of heartache appeared in her eyes.

"Everyone, I have something important to explain to you next."

"Questions related to Shidou?"

Origami asked, looking at Kotori's face. The others also looked puzzled.

Although everyone had received a reply from Mengyue that everything was fine, they were actually aware that Shidao's condition today was probably not just a simple cold or fever.

"Ah."

In response, Kotori nodded without denying it.

"Here we say it will disturb Shidou. Let's go to the meeting room."

Perhaps because they were worried that talking here for too long would disturb Shidou's rest, no one objected and they all stood up and prepared to leave.

"…Eh? Al?"

Just when she was about to let go of Shidou's hand and leave with everyone, Shidou's hand showed no sign of letting go. Instead, he seemed to notice Mengyue's intention and tightened his grip reluctantly.

"Um... Shidou, can you please let go of my hand?"

Feeling everyone's gazes focused on him, Mengyue couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat of embarrassment on his forehead. However, Shidao, who was in a coma, naturally did not respond to Mengyue's words.

(Well, even though I could break free with a little more force, it’s not a good idea to do this to a patient. Also, it feels kind of pitiful.)

Meng Yue looked at Qin Li with some embarrassment. Qin Li was silent for a moment, then shook her head helplessly.

"Forget it... I'm a little worried about Shidou being left here alone. Sorry, Mengyue, please look after Shidou for a while. I'll send you the details later via my phone."

"Yeah. I understand."

Meng Yue replied.

"Kotori-chan, I want to stay and take care of Shidou, too. Is that okay?"

Tohka suddenly raised her hand and spoke softly.

"Thank you, Tohka. But Shidou needs to rest at this time. It's best if you can take care of the patient alone."

Kotori smiled bitterly and declined Tohka's offer. She knew that if she nodded in agreement at this moment, others would also ask to stay.

"That's it..."

Tohka slumped her shoulders in frustration. Mengyue couldn't help but sigh helplessly and proposed to Kotori.

"How about we have a shift system, where everyone takes turns to look after Shidao. This way I can relax a little bit."

"Yeah... that's okay."

As if realizing that Mengyue was taking Tohka and the others' feelings into consideration, Kotori did not object.

"Great."

After getting Kotori's permission, Tohka immediately regained her motivation.

"But Origami definitely can't take care of Shidou alone."

"Ok!"

Kotori's additional proposal was approved by everyone except Origami, but she frowned in displeasure.

"why?"

"The reason is simple. Can you guarantee that when you are alone with Shidao, you will not take off your clothes and crawl into the sheets to warm the bed? You will not feed Shidao some strange drugs? You will not provide Shidao with some additional services that are not suitable for children?"

"..."

In response to these three consecutive questions, Tobiichi Origami, whose face was a little thinner than in the previous world, turned her eyes away without saying a word.

"call……"

After Kotori, Tohka and the others left the infirmary, Mengyue couldn't help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief and sat back in her chair.

"Really... You're already in high school... but you're still acting like a kid."

Looking at Shidao who was nervously holding her right hand, Mengyue smiled with a bit of helplessness and doting.

"It's okay. I'm right here."

She clenched her hands a little tighter and spoke in a tone as if she was singing a lullaby.

"Hey... Meng Yue..."

As if he was dreaming, the sleeping Shidou responded to Yumezuki's voice and his mouth opened and closed slightly.

"Who am I to you..."

Hearing this, Meng Yue was stunned. After hesitating for a moment, she answered.

"You, like Tohka and the others, are my most important family members."

"No...no..."

Shidou denied it vaguely.

"What I want to ask is not this..."

Then, the room fell into silence.

"………………As expected, you are really too tired recently."

After a long silence, Mengyue sighed, gently ruffled Shidao's bangs, and whispered calmly.

"It's okay, so take a good rest now."

04 Method of salvation

==============================

“Darlingaaaaaaaaaaaa——!”

As the sound of running feet approached in the corridor, Miku, wearing a dance dress for a concert, rushed into the meeting room as if running, and hugged Kotori tightly in her arms.

"Mi, Miku!?"

"Are you okay, Darling? I heard from Honey that you've been restless since you got sick, so I chartered a helicopter to bring you back. Your Miku is back!"

It seemed that she did not hear Kotori's screams. Miku just hugged Kotori's delicate body and started rubbing her face.

"I say... calm down Miku..."

"Ahh, what happened to Darling? How did he become so petite...! His arms and thighs became so elastic! He looks just like Kotori-san..."

"I am myself!!"

Kotori complained loudly.

"Oh? Ms. Kotori? What are you doing? You ran into my arms without even noticing. You're such a spoiled child."

"You definitely did that on purpose! And where are your hands touching?"

Kotori broke free from Miku's arms, ignoring Miku's reluctant expression, coughed dryly, and said seriously.

"Really? Now everyone is here."

"Kotori-chan, where's Honey?"

After looking around and not seeing Meng Yue, Meijiu asked in confusion.

"If it's Sister Meng Yue, she's in the infirmary greeting Shidao now?"

"What!? In that case, I have to help take care of Darling too—"

Mijiu's eyes lit up instantly.

"I'll take care of you later, now please take a seat!"

As if she had anticipated Miku's plan, Kotori glared at Miku with a slightly resentful look and pointed at the chair in front of her, motioning her to sit down.

"Good~"

Miku said briskly and sat down obediently. Nanashi trembled instinctively and moved silently to a seat out of Miku's sight.

"Well, now we can start explaining. Lingyin, I'm counting on you."

"it is good……"

Ling Yin nodded, and after fiddling with the terminal in her hand for a while, the image appeared on the large screen in the room.

"This is... Shidou?"

Tohka muttered softly while looking at the screen.

The screen showed a full-body picture of Shidao, as well as numbers and graphs that Tohka couldn't understand.

"This is an analysis chart of Shidou's current condition. Because Fraxinus was sent back to the headquarters for transformation, it was rushed out just now. This is the operating record data of Shidou's body functions, this is the emotional fluctuation chart including stress and favorability, and this is the spiritual power fluctuation chart..."

Kotori explained while gesturing at the information on the diagram. However, she soon realized that everyone was confused by what she said, so she simply explained the situation.

Normally, there is a spiritual power channel between Shidao and the sealed spirit. Most of the spirit's spiritual power is stored in Shidao's body, but a small part of it circulates between the two. So when the spirit's emotions are in an unstable state, the spiritual power in Shidao's body will flow back to the spirit's body according to the degree, which is also the reason why the spirit can show partial spiritual equipment after being sealed.

However, this time, the passage between Shidou and the spirit suddenly became narrower, making the flow between the two extremely slow.

To use an analogy, if we think of the spiritual energy channel as a road and the spiritual energy as vehicles, Shidou's situation is like a traffic jam caused by road construction.

"In this way, the spiritual energy that was originally in a circulating state was all trapped in Shen's body, resulting in a situation similar to overheating. The abnormal physical ability that Shen showed in school was also the result of the spiritual energy having nowhere to vent."

Ling Yin slowly added explanation while operating the keyboard.

"How could this be...isn't this a very dangerous situation?"

After patting the table and standing up, Tohka asked with a pale face.

"Yes. It's not optimistic. Although it's not serious because it was discovered early. But if we continue to let it go, the spiritual power in Shidao's body is likely to go out of control. It's chilling to imagine the explosion of the spiritual power of nine people."

Kotori answered while holding a lollipop in her mouth.

"Then, how can we save Shidou?"

"Of course, that's why I called you here."

Walking in front of Tohka, Kotori touched her head to calm her down.

"Since the cause of the problem is the narrowing of the spiritual energy channel, then we just need to restore it to its original state. This way, the spiritual energy circulation will start to work again, and Shidou's condition will improve."

“I-I see!”

Tohka nodded, not quite understanding.

"But how do we expand the spiritual power channel?"

Miku placed her index finger on her chin and tilted her head in a questioning manner.