Chapter 455: Chiemi’s Self Preservation Plan

Kouhei immediately rushed over to Ruri the moment Sakurako explained the situation to him, because whatever had happened to Kozue was clearly serious enough that they could not afford to waste any more time than they already had. The urgency in Sakurako’s explanation had been enough to make him realize that they were already running dangerously close to the deadline they were facing, so standing around and discussing things for too long was simply not an option anymore.

"Tatsugami-san!" Kouhei called out urgently as he approached Ruri. "Please, we need your help!"

Kouhei was now asking Ruri directly for assistance, holding the cake right in front of her face as though the dessert itself was somehow the key to solving their entire problem. Considering everything they had gone through just to prepare that cake, Kouhei had been expecting at least some kind of reaction from her, even if it was only a slight change in expression.

For some reason, however, Ruri did not shake, flinch, or even move.

She did not make the slightest attempt to acknowledge him and simply continued staring at the wall in front of her. Her expression remained almost completely unchanged, and after a few seconds, Kouhei began to wonder whether she had even heard him at all.

It was almost as though none of his pleas could reach her.

’Did I fail?!’ Kouhei thought, looking down at the cake in his hand with growing uncertainty.

Maybe something had gone wrong somewhere along the way.

Perhaps the cake was not presentable enough.

Or perhaps, after all the trouble they had gone through to make it, Ruri simply did not care about cake in the first place.

That last possibility was especially unpleasant to consider.

"Chiemi lied to us," Hina suddenly said.

"What?" Kouhei asked, immediately turning toward her. "But why would she do that?"

Kouhei genuinely had absolutely no idea why Chiemi would have lied to them about something like this. They were already dealing with an urgent situation involving Kozue, and Chiemi should have understood better than anyone that wasting their time was the last thing they needed right now.

Still, considering that Kouhei had only recently become acquainted with Chiemi, he could hardly claim that he knew enough about her personality to predict what she would or would not do.

He had no idea what kind of person Chiemi truly was.

That alone made it difficult for him to completely dismiss Hina’s suspicion.

In fact, the more Kouhei thought about it, the more he realized that trusting Chiemi’s words without questioning them had ultimately been his own mistake. He had simply accepted the information she gave him because they needed a solution quickly, and because he had assumed that someone who claimed to know what was going to happen would have a pretty good reason for telling them what to do.

Apparently, that assumption had come back to bite him.

"I didn’t lie," Chiemi suddenly said.

Kouhei’s expression immediately changed.

He turned around and found Chiemi standing there as though she had been waiting for exactly this moment to appear.

She had seemingly come out of nowhere, almost as if she had already known exactly how everything was going to play out and had simply been waiting for the right opportunity to reveal herself.

Chiemi calmly walked toward Kouhei, looking completely unbothered by the situation.

"Well, I lied about the part where Ruri likes cake," Chiemi admitted.

She said it so casually that Kouhei almost wondered whether he had heard her correctly.

"I was the one who likes it," she continued.

Before Kouhei could respond, Chiemi simply reached out and took the cake from his hands.

She then took a bite using the spoon and tasted it without showing even the slightest hint of embarrassment about what she had just admitted. After swallowing, she smiled as though she had just received confirmation that the cake had turned out exactly as she wanted.

Kouhei stared at her.

Hina stared at her.

Ruri was still staring at the wall.

"But it wasn’t entirely a lie that you should make a cake in order to convince Ruri either," Chiemi explained. "Out of everyone in the Yuka Faction, I was the only person who could do it."

That explanation caused Kouhei to pause.

So, technically, Chiemi had lied.

However, she had not completely lied.

That distinction was becoming rather important.

"You could have convinced her much earlier, but you made us go through all that trouble instead...?" Hina asked.

Her voice was calm, but the expression on her face was anything but calm.

Hina was glaring at Chiemi with such intense irritation that it looked like she was trying to drill a hole straight through her.

Chiemi, however, seemed completely unfazed.

She simply looked at Kouhei.

Kouhei was similarly annoyed with her.

Actually, "annoyed" was probably putting it lightly.

Chiemi had essentially wasted a significant amount of their time when time was precisely what they could not afford to waste. They were already racing against the clock to save Kozue, and instead of giving them the information they actually needed, Chiemi had sent them running around looking for ingredients and preparing a cake.

Kouhei could not exactly blame Hina for being angry.

If anything, he was surprised Hina had remained as composed as she had.

The entire situation was frustrating enough that Kouhei had to take a moment to keep himself from saying something unnecessarily harsh.

Kouhei was beginning to wonder whether Chiemi had any concept of how expensive everyone’s patience was.

Still, despite all of that, Kouhei did not say anything.

The reason was simple.

If Chiemi was telling the truth, then she had not completely wasted their time after all.

The cake had apparently still been necessary.

It was just that the reason they had believed it was necessary had been different from the actual reason.

That distinction meant Kouhei could not simply accuse her of completely misleading them.

"Hina-san..." Kouhei quietly said.

Hina was standing beside him and looked like she was about one more comment away from completely exploding.

Kouhei glanced at her and gave her a subtle look.

He was silently telling her not to act rashly.

Hina understood immediately.

She still looked angry, and judging from her expression, that anger was not going anywhere anytime soon, but she seemed to recognize that this was not the moment to start a fight with Chiemi.

Kouhei then turned his attention back toward Chiemi.

For several seconds, he simply looked at her.

Then, without saying anything else, he bowed his head.

Considering his position as the leader of a faction, this was not necessarily something he should have been expected to do. Chiemi was the one who had deliberately given them misleading information, after all, and Kouhei was the one who had been forced to deal with the consequences.

Even so, he did it anyway.

He did it because of his member.

He did it because Kozue’s situation mattered more to him than his pride.

"Please, help me," Kouhei said sincerely.

Chiemi’s expression changed.

She looked genuinely surprised by his response.

Even though Chiemi possessed the ability to see the future, it seemed that there were still certain things she could not properly predict. Seeing future events and understanding the heart of another person were apparently two very different things.

She might have been able to foresee what Kouhei would do under certain circumstances, but apparently, she had not expected him to lower his head and sincerely ask for help despite everything she had just put him through.

For someone who was supposed to know the future, Chiemi looked surprisingly caught off guard.

After a short silence, Chiemi looked toward Ruri.

"Ruri, help them," she said.

"Eh...? Why do I have to do it?" Ruri asked, sounding as though she had absolutely no desire to get involved.

Her reluctant tone was almost comical after the seriousness of everything that had just happened, especially because Ruri had spent most of the situation staring at the wall as though the rest of the room did not exist.

"I told you, didn’t I?" Chiemi replied. "It’s so that we can prevent it."

"Guh..." Ruri muttered, looking considerably more irritated now.

Ruri finally stood up from where she had been sitting.

"Let’s go, then, and lead me to where I need to go," Ruri said.

Kouhei nodded.

Hina moved alongside him, and together, the two of them began leading Ruri toward the place where Kozue was.

Before they completely disappeared down the hallway, however, Kouhei stopped for just a moment and glanced back toward Chiemi.

Chiemi was still standing where she had been.

She simply smiled at him.

Kouhei could not help wondering whether Chiemi was always like this.

"I am sorry, but..." Chiemi began.

Her voice remained calm as she looked directly at Kouhei.

"In order for me to survive the Prophecy, I need to stay as close to you as possible."

At the end of the day, Chiemi was thinking about self-preservation more than anything else.

She wanted to survive.

That was the most important thing to her.