The incident involving "Tsutsumi" being attacked came to an end not long after it started, and the Student Council, along with the Board Office, moved quickly to cover it up.
Of course, not everything could be hidden.
Word that Tsutsumi had been attacked spread throughout Tracen almost immediately. Whispers passed through hallways, rumors grew legs, and by the time classes ended, most people had already heard some version of the story.
Oguri Cap didn't bother sorting fact from fiction.
She went straight to the Student Council room, demanding answers, only to find it empty. After grabbing the first person she saw and asking a few blunt questions, she learned that her brother, and the rest of the Student Council, were in the infirmary.
So she stormed the infirmary instead.
She demanded an explanation the moment she pushed the door open, only to stop short when she realized the one lying in the bed wasn't her brother at all.
It was President Rudolf's brother.
"So…" Rudolf broke the silence, looking at Tsutsumi carefully. "You're human. And a male."
"He is a devil." Soji said flatly from the bed, bandages wrapped tightly around his injured body. "The one who will destroy this world."
"He is my brother!" Oguri snapped back immediately. "Not some devil!"
"Yes." Tsutsumi replied calmly.
Every head in the room turned toward him.
"What?"
He shrugged lightly. "If I say 'no,' you'll say I'm lying. If I say 'yes,' you'll say 'I knew it, damn you, Decade.' No matter what answer I give, the result is the same. So why waste my breath arguing?"
There was a brief pause.
No one liked the answer, but they couldn't deny the logic behind it.
After what they'd seen today, no explanation would satisfy everyone. Someone would always insist their version was the truth.
Oguri, for example. No matter what anyone said, she would stand on her brother's side.
That didn't mean Tsutsumi's answer eased the tension. If anything, it stripped away any remaining pretense and laid everything out in the open.
"Tsu…" Oguri murmured weakly, the words catching in her throat.
"Sorry, Oguri." Tsutsumi decided not to drag it out. "The moment I came into this world, the brother you grew up with and I have became one. He might be me… but I'm not him."
He paused, then continued in the same calm tone.
"So it's better if you forget about him. Sooner or later, I'll leave this world and continue traveling to other worlds."
He lifted his pink camera and snapped a picture of her.
"I don't belong here."
He knew how it sounded. Harsh. Cold, even.
But now that his identity was exposed, he saw no reason to soften it. It was better for her to accept the truth now than to wake up one day and find him gone without explanation.
Even now, he is afraid to return to that other world where he left his Mom, so that when they meet again, and she is pressed into the position of whether to end him or stand by his side, she won't side with him.
Become the enemy of humanity.
"That's not true..." Oguri said, her voice firm.
Their eyes met.
"You grew up with me. You remember the good times and the bad." She continued. "And at the same time, you existed in other worlds too. You said it yourself, the Tsutsumi of today and the Tsutsumi that I grew up with have become one."
Her voice grew steadier as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"We're siblings." She said quietly. "Nothing changes that."
She held on.
"I'm the older sister. So no matter what, I have to protect my younger brother."
Tsutsumi froze, the way Oguri said those words, her decision to accept him.
Even after he said that he didn't want her help and tried to push her away. She still willingly steps forward and welcomes him with open arms.
This... unconditional love...
It goes without saying… I'm the older brother. So I have to protect my younger sister.
Tsutsumi let out a small breath and smiled.
"It seems…" He said softly. "We really are siblings."
It reminded him of Miyu. Back then, when she tried to convince him to leave, telling him she wasn't worth saving, pushing him away as hard as she could, only for him to turn it around and make her trust him instead.
It really did come full circle.
"I guess…" Tsutsumi murmured, returning the hug slightly. "I could stay a little longer."
He hadn't expected Oguri to pull something like that on him.
"Tch! Didn't you hear that devi-" Soji started, only to be cut off when Rudolf turned sharply toward him.
"Keep talking like that," Tsutsumi said flatly, "and I'm throwing you out the window."
"You-ugh!?" Soji nearly shot up from the bed, but the sharp pain in his broken ribs and arm made him hiss before collapsing back down.
Ironically, while Tsutsumi had beaten him, most of Soji's broken bones were the result of Rudolf hugging him with far too much force afterward.
"If you don't mind," A short woman spoke up from beside Tazuna. She wore a hat with a small cat lying on top of it. "As much as I enjoy this touching scene between siblings, could you explain your situation to us? So we may support you in any way we can."
According to Azu's information gathering, this woman is the chairwoman of Central Tracen Academy, Akikawa Yayoi, around her mid-thirties, yet having the appearance of a loli.
"You're going to need to be more specific than that, Chairwoman." Tsutsumi replied plainly.
"You can just call me Akikawa-san, Oguri-kun." She smiled.
"Alright then, Chairwoman."
Everyone: "..."
Yayoi blinked once, then quickly recomposed herself.
"Anyway," she continued, choosing to ignore that entirely. "Can you at least tell us what you are? You mentioned being from another dimension, but you're also Oguri Cap's brother. How did that happen?"
The confusion was obvious.
Tsutsumi had already admitted he wasn't originally from this world, and that complicated things. Oguri, on the other hand, didn't seem bothered in the slightest.
She is simple-minded, so to her it might just be as simple as, my brother is my brother.
"Like hospital-bed said," Tsutsumi replied, nodding slightly toward Soji. "I'm Tsutsumi Ryoko. A dimension traveler."
He paused briefly.
"The one who records and retells the story of others so they won't be forgotten."
He didn't elaborate on how he did that.
"The moment I stepped into this world, I became one with this world's version of me. That gave me a role here." He added calmly. "As for my power… you can call it otherworldly."
That was as far as he went. There was a beat of silence.
"So," Tazuna spoke carefully. "You were originally a female Uma Musume?"
"Nah." Tsutsumi shook his head. "I was always male. This is a birth defect. Nothing I can do about it."
The room reacted immediately. They are intrigued and troubled by it. And very unsure what to do with that information.
A male Uma Musume was a logic-breaking anomaly. It overturned every known rule about Uma Musumes, and none of them were prepared for it.
They also couldn't just ignore the implications.
A male Uma couldn't exactly continue living in the Ritto Dormitory, which was filled entirely with girls.
"Uhh… Tsutsumi," Tazuna hesitated. "I must warn you to be careful living with the other Uma Musumes."
"Oh?" Tsutsumi raised an eyebrow. "So you're not kicking me out?"
"Of course not!" Rudolf, Tazuna, and Yayoi said at the same time.
They paused, looking at each other, and seemed to come to an understanding that they all agreed on.
As the first known male Uma Musume, Tsutsumi was an undiscovered anomaly. If the more conservative elements within the URA ever learned of his existence, they might attempt to abduct him under the excuse of 'research', experiments that would seriously cross the line of basic morality and Uma Musume rights.
Letting him leave Tracen without knowing whether he could protect himself would be irresponsible.
Moving him into a separate dorm room too suddenly would raise suspicion.
But keeping a hormonal male Uma around so many female Uma Musumes also came with risks.
There was no perfect solution.
As for his claim of being a dimension traveler... Unless he demonstrated it directly, they could only take his words with caution. Not fully believing them, but not dismissing them either.
For now, Tsutsumi remained where he was. And Tracen would have to figure out what to do with him next.
"Now, hospital-bed," Tsutsumi said, glancing toward him. "Mind telling me, or everyone, about those Worms that can mimic other people?"
The attention in the room shifted immediately.
"My name is Symboli Soji." The man on the infirmary bed spoke evenly. "I was once Kamen Rider Kabuto. Until you showed up."
He turned his gaze toward Tsutsumi for a brief moment before looking back up at the ceiling.
"The creature you saw earlier is called a Worm." He continued after a pause. "They're alien lifeforms that arrived on a meteor. That meteor destroyed a district of Shibuya twenty years ago."
That much, at least, everyone recognized.
"They have the ability to perfectly mimic humans," Soji went on. "Appearance, memories, habits. They take over their target's identity and kill them in the process."
The room tensed.
Oguri instinctively tightened her grip on Tsutsumi's arm, fear flashing across her face at the idea of something copying him. She didn't know that, in reality, any Worm foolish enough to try was signing its own death sentence.
"So… that meteor actually carried something like that?" Air Groove murmured, visibly shaken.
Despite the devastation at the time, Japan had rebuilt quickly. The government cleaned up what little remained of the impact zone. Most people assumed the danger ended there.
"Hmm." Yayoi frowned slightly. "If I remember correctly, I did see a classified file labeled 'Worm' back then. I didn't think much of it at the time."
"When they first arrived," Soji continued, "the Worm attempted to mimic Uma Musume."
He paused briefly. "Those attempts failed."
"The presence of the Three Goddess' Blessing causes them unbearable pain," he explained. "It forces them back into their true forms."
That earned a few relieved looks.
"I worked with a hidden government branch tasked with dealing with them." He said, deliberately avoiding naming it. "Our job was to locate, subdue, and eliminate Worms before they could cause lasting damage."
He stopped mid-sentence.
A tired sigh escaped him as a chill ran down his spine.
"It's dangerous," he continued. "But there's no alternative. Even if Worms can't actively target Uma Musume because of the Blessing, their targets are still humans."
The room felt colder.
"If we let them run rampant, then the human race will become extinct," Soji said calmly. "They don't age. Even if Uma Musumes outlast humans, eventually you'd die out too."
The women in the room visibly stiffened at that. Only the two men remained relatively unfazed.
Soji slowly lifted his gaze.
"You've probably noticed the population in Japan has dropped significantly in the past few years." He added. "Take Tracen as an example. On my way through Tracen, there are barely any male Trainers left."
The room went silent. Not because they didn't notice. But because they did.
Most of the missing male Trainers hadn't vanished at all, they were still in Tracen's hospital, recovering from shattered pelvises.
Uma Musume were beings of intense emotion, especially when it came to affection. With their overwhelming physical strength, being "chosen" by one often ended with the unfortunate Trainer dragged somewhere private and ridden until his bones gave out.
Everyone from the Student Council and Board Office knew that was the real reason that many Trainers were hospitalized. But they really don't have much of a way to deal with it, so they can only silently accept while providing support for those poor Trainers.
Soji, however, remained blissfully unaware of the shift in atmosphere.
"Some Trainers were lucky." He continued. "Uma Musume can recognize their Trainers by scent. Worms can't copy that. Those cases were caught early."
He then turned his attention back to Tsutsumi.
"I think…" Soji said slowly. "That you being male Uma isn't a birth defect."
Tsutsumi raised an eyebrow.
"I think it's the Three Goddess' contingency plan," Soji continued. "In case humanity fell to the Worms."
"But that Worm still managed to mimic me." Tsutsumi replied, ignoring the implication entirely.
Soji let out a short, bitter chuckle.
"That's because you're Decade." He said. "You're human one moment, Uma Musume the next."
He finally lay back down on the soft bed.
"Your existence messes with the Blessing. So maybe it weakened just enough for a Worm to copy your appearance but nothing else."