No Escape Scroll for S-Rank Surveillance

The day had started on the wrong foot for Sora.

Not only had he woken up next to a beautiful girl who claimed to be his beloved, but that same girl had also gotten him into trouble with the student council president.

Now, Sora found himself sitting on a wooden chair in the center of the Student Council office. In front of him, Airi Kuroki paced back and forth, the clicking of her heels resonating like a countdown to his doom. mochi, on the other hand, was sitting beside him, humming a tune and trying to make shapes with Sora's hair as if they were in her living room, completely unaware of the trouble they were in.

"Sora Yamamoto!" Airi shouted, stopping in front of Sora and slamming the desk with both hands. Her face was still flushed, but her blue eyes now flashed with fury. "Explain to me again, step by step and without using otaku terminology, what you mean by 'slept together'!"

Sora swallowed hard. He could feel cold sweat running down his forehead.

"This is bad, whatever answer I give her, she'll hang me upside down from the main building. My sentence is already written!"

"Well? I'm waiting for an answer," Airi said, leaning closer to intimidate him.

"W-well, the truth is..." Sora said without finishing the sentence and thought, "Fine... I have no choice but to make the truth sandwich!"

"A-Airi-san! Listen carefully," Sora began, raising one finger. "First slice: It's true that mochi showed up at my door out of nowhere last night and had nowhere to go. I couldn't leave a girl alone on the street at that hour, right?"

Airi narrowed her eyes but nodded slightly. The logic of being a gentleman always worked with her.

"The filling: Because of our old guild bond in the game, she thinks my territory is her territory. But I swear nothing happened." Sora was starting to sweat profusely.

"And the final slice: 'I'm just a student trying not to get expelled before graduation! My chastity is intact, and my record should be too!'"

There was a silence so deep that Sora could hear his own heart. mochi stopped playing with Sora's hair and looked at Airi with a challenging smile, as if waiting for the boss to unleash its first attack.

Airi sighed deeply, as if completely resigned.

"Yamamoto, I know you well enough to recognize your famous sandwich, but the flavor is highly questionable," Airi said, sitting back down elegantly. "But you're right about one thing. I can't allow a female student of this institution to stay alone at a boy's house without supervision. The rumors would destroy Shinomiya Academy's reputation... and mine as President."

Airi took an official form and began writing with furious speed.

"Therefore, I've decided your sentence. To prevent this from reaching the Director's ears and becoming an immediate expulsion, your home will be declared a 'Council-Supervised Residence Zone.'"

"A... what zone?" Sora blinked confusedly, yet he felt a new trap closing in on him.

"It means that, starting today, I will personally supervise your coexistence twenty-four hours a day," Airi declared, fixing her gaze on him. "I will move into your house in the coming days to ensure that order, morality, and decency are maintained. And don't you dare complain! It's either that, or I send an expulsion report right now."

"This has to be a joke... did she just invite herself to live with me? It seems my house is going to become a battlefield," Sora thought as he looked at Airi with resignation.

"Say no more!" Airi exclaimed as she stood up while forcefully closing her notebook. "Yamamoto, go to your classroom right now. Yamashita-san, you've been assigned to group 2-D, at the end of the hallway. You'll be separated by three classrooms. I hope that's enough to maintain the institute's decency!"

Sora let out a sigh of relief that lasted exactly three seconds.

"But President," mochi said in a voice that reflected dangerous innocence. "A healer never lets her tank move without support. If Sora runs out of HP during math class, who's going to heal him?"

"Nobody needs healing in math! This is high school, not a dungeon!" Airi shouted, pushing them out of the office.

Ten minutes later, Sora was sitting at his desk, trying to ignore the whispers of his classmates. The rumor that the asocial guy had brought a girl who looked like a model and claimed to be his wife had spread faster than a virus in a video game.

Sora tried to focus on the blackboard, but a chill ran down his spine. It was that feeling of being watched. The one you get when a video game boss has you in its sights.

Slowly, Sora turned his head toward the window facing the hallway.
There, pressed against the glass, was the upper half of mochi face. Her eyes shone with terrifying intensity as she held a small sign that read: "HP: 100% - You can do it, Darling!"

Sora signaled for her to leave, but mochi simply pulled out another sign: "Motivation buff activated," followed by a heart drawn with red marker.

Suddenly, a much taller shadow appeared behind mochi. It was Airi, who grabbed her by the collar of her uniform like a naughty kitten.

Airi's voice couldn't be heard through the glass, but Sora could understand her. "Yamashita! Back to your classroom!"

Airi looked at Sora through the window. She said nothing, but she made a disapproving expression, reminding him that she was watching him too.

"This is hell," Sora whispered, burying his face in his book. "I have a stalker cleric at the window and the president in the hallway. If anyone has a teleportation scroll, use it on me right now!"

The rest of the morning wasn't any better. Sora discovered that having an obsessed cleric was equivalent to having a stalker glued to your back.

During History class, while the teacher talked about the Meiji era, Sora felt a light tap on the door's glass window. Looking over, he saw mochi crawling through the hallway, using a hallway planter as camouflage.

"Does mochi really think that because she put a leaf on her head, no one will notice a 5'2" beauty crawling in front of the Student Council room?"

Sora ignored the thumbs up she threw him before being dragged again by the collar of her shirt by Airi, who seemed to be playing cat and mouse throughout the entire building.

Even when Sora asked permission to go to the bathroom, the nightmare didn't end. Upon leaving the classroom, he found a note stuck to the mirror: "I've cleared the area of enemies. Your mana bar will recover 10% faster. I'll wait for you at the guild, Darling! — Mochi."

"How did she get in here?!" Sora whispered, looking terrified at the ventilation ducts that seemed to be making an almost eerie noise.

Finally, the lunch bell rang. Sora didn't wait for his classmates to approach him for questioning. He grabbed his melon bread and ran toward the emergency stairs, quickly climbing the steps until the fresh outside air hit his face.

The rooftop of Shinomiya Academy was miraculously empty.

Sora walked to the safety fence and let out a sigh that seemed to carry away all the morning's stress. He rested his arms on the railing and looked toward the horizon, where the city buildings rose under the midday sun.

"Finally..." Sora murmured, taking a bite of his bread. "Silence and tranquility. No HP signs, no Presidents, and no marriage rumors. Just me, my melon bread, and..."

"...And a beautiful view to share with the party, right, Sora?"

There, in front of the access door, was the most surreal scene of his morning and possibly his life. Airi Kuroki stood firm, with an expression showing extreme exhaustion.
In her right hand, she firmly held the back of mochi's uniform collar, who hung in the air with her legs tucked and arms relaxed, looking exactly like a kitten caught being mischievous.

mochi didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, she was giving Sora a smile that outshone the sunlight, with a slight blush on her cheeks.

"I knew you'd come here," Airi said, adjusting her ribbon with her free hand while keeping mochi hanging. "It's the most predictable place for someone trying to flee their responsibilities. I've had to chase this girl for three floors; she tried to climb the exterior pipes to get here before you."

"I told you his mana was dropping, President! It was a support emergency!" mochi exclaimed, swinging her feet in the air enthusiastically. "Sora, the rooftop is the perfect place for a confession event or an interlude scene, don't you think? Put me down, put me down! I have a special food item for him!"

Sora looked at the sky, searching for a sign, an airplane, or perhaps a viewer watching him from afar to tell him this was all a hidden camera prank. But there was nothing. He was cornered at the highest point of the school amidst chaos and cuteness.

"Girls..." Sora said with a broken voice, dropping his shoulders. "I just wanted to eat in peace."

Airi finally released mochi, who landed on her feet with feline grace and ran to cling to Sora's arm before Airi could say anything else.

"There is no peace for the guilty, Yamamoto," Airi declared, approaching the railing and looking at the horizon. "As your childhood friend and President, my duty is to take care of you and all the students of this institution. You understand that, right?"