The victory at the Grand Prix was a double-edged sword. Ectiqa's status ascended to a legendary tier. The Ectiqa Alliance forums were a constant, rolling party. New threads dissecting the impossible craftsmanship of the Amaterasu costume appeared hourly. Fan art, tribute videos, and essays flooded the digital space, all celebrating the community's chosen queen. Kenji even started a poll titled, "Is Ectiqa a Goddess or a SUPER Goddess?" which, I had to admit, was a valid and important question.
At home, however, the victory had created a new, terrifying reality. The forbidden line we had drawn was gone, washed away in the emotional chaos of that final night. Rina was no longer just teasing; she was actively, relentlessly campaigning for a position that was supposed to be impossible. The hugs were longer, the jokes were sharper, and the air in our small apartment was thick with a tension you could cut with a butter knife.
But the real battlefront, I soon discovered, was not the privacy of our home. It was the public, unforgiving arena of our high school.
It was lunchtime on a perfectly normal Tuesday. The sun was warm, and the schoolyard buzzed with the lazy energy of the afternoon. Kenji was passionately explaining the strategic importance of a new character banner in his favorite gacha game, and I was using all my mental energy to nod along while thinking about what to cook for dinner. Rina sat next to me, a little closer than necessary, her leg pressed against mine, occasionally trying to steal a piece of chicken from my bento. It was, for all intents and purposes, our new normal.
Then, a shadow fell over our table.
"Rui-kun!" A voice like poisoned honey, dripping with a feigned, saccharine delight, sliced through the peaceful atmosphere. "I was hoping I'd run into you! Imagine my luck!"
I looked up, and my stomach immediately performed a series of unpleasant flips. It was Haruka Ito, flanked by her usual two lackeys. She was smiling, but it was the dazzling, predatory expression of a shark that had just spotted a particularly plump seal.
"Oh," I said, my voice flat and devoid of any welcome. "It's you."
Kenji, who had been mid-sentence, sputtered and nearly inhaled a mouthful of rice. "H-Hime-Hime?!" he stammered, his eyes going wide with the star-struck reverence only a true fanboy could muster.
Rina, who had been leaning comfortably against my shoulder, went completely still. Her entire body went rigid, as if an electric current had passed through her. I could feel a sudden, intense drop in temperature emanating from her side of the table. A dangerous, arctic chill began to form.
Haruka, a master of social warfare, acted as if Kenji and Rina were nothing more than decorative garden gnomes. Her entire universe had condensed, and I was the unfortunate sun it now orbited. She leaned forward, bracing a hand on our table, giving me a perfect view of her manufactured sincerity.
"I just wanted to say again how incredibly impressed I was with you at the Grand Prix," she purred, her voice pitched just loud enough for the surrounding tables to overhear. "The way you stood up for Ectiqa-sama was just so… chivalrous. So masculine. It's rare to see that kind of fierce loyalty these days. She's a very lucky girl to have a man like you in her corner."
"He is not a 'man in her corner'," Rina said, her voice dangerously quiet and low. The piece of egg roll she held in her chopsticks was now being compressed with a force that threatened to turn it into a black hole. "He is her official handler. It is a strictly professional relationship."
Haruka finally deigned to acknowledge Rina's existence, her eyes scanning her rival with a look of dismissive contempt. "Oh, hello, Hinamata-san. I barely saw you there. You have a way of just blending into the background." She turned her dazzling smile back to me, ignoring the murderous aura now radiating from my sister. "But I think it's more than professional. Don't you? It takes real passion to be that dedicated. A passion that I, as a fellow artist, understand completely."
She leaned in even closer, her perfume invading my personal space. "You know," she continued, "the Ectiqa Alliance is planning a huge project to celebrate her win. A fanbook. As a fellow top-tier supporter, I've been asked to be on the planning committee. Maybe you and I could… collaborate. We could share our insights. I'm sure we have a lot in common."
It was a masterful move. She was flirting with me, establishing herself as my equal in the fandom, and completely negating Rina's importance all at once.
"That's a fantastic idea!" Kenji piped up, still blissfully unaware of the undercurrents of pure, unadulterated hatred swirling around the table. "Rui knows everything about Ectiqa! He'd be an invaluable asset!"
"No," Rina said, her voice now as sharp and cold as a shard of ice. "He wouldn't be. He is far too busy."
"Is he?" Haruka asked, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me, a direct challenge. "Are you busy, Rui-kun? Too busy to properly honor the goddess we both admire so deeply?"
I felt like a wildebeest trapped between a lioness and a crocodile. "I- I have homework," I stammered, the lamest, most pathetic excuse known to man.
Haruka just laughed, a light, tinkling sound that grated on my every nerve. "You're so cute when you're flustered. Well, my offer stands. Think about it." She gave me one last, smoldering look that was clearly meant to set my blood on fire but only made me feel deeply uncomfortable. "I'll be seeing you around, Rui-kun."
She turned and sashayed away, her friends trailing in her wake. Kenji stared after her, his mouth hanging open. "Dude! Did you see that?! She was practically asking you out on a date! She called you Rui-kun! Hime-Hime knows your name!"
I wasn't listening. I was looking at Rina. She was methodically crushing the remainder of her lunch into an unrecognizable pulp with her chopsticks, her knuckles white. She didn't say a single word.
The rest of the school day passed in a tense, frigid silence. The moment we got home and the front door clicked shut, the volcano erupted.
"What was that?" Rina demanded, throwing her bag to the floor with a loud thud.
"What was what? I didn't do anything!" I said, immediately on the defensive.
"You just sat there! You just sat there and let her drape herself all over you! In front of me! In front of the entire school!" she yelled, her voice cracking with a furious, jealous energy.
"She wasn't draping herself on me! She was just talking! She's a psycho, Rina, what was I supposed to do? I don't care about her!"
"But she cares about you!" Rina retorted, her eyes blazing. "And she's doing it to get to me! She knows you're my weakness, and she's going to use you to destroy me! You know that, right?"
"That's ridiculous! You're just being paranoid!"
"Am I?!" she cried, her voice full of a desperate, painful truth. She rushed forward, grabbing the front of my shirt in her fists, her face just inches from mine. "She is my mortal enemy, Rui! And she wants the one thing- the only thing- in the entire world that I can't stand to lose. She wants you." Her voice dropped to a low, possessive whisper that sent a shiver down my spine. "You are not allowed to be her friend. You are not allowed to talk to her. You belong to me. Do you understand?"
I stared down into her furious, beautiful, terrifying face. The lines between sister, idol, and something far more complicated had blurred to the point of nonexistence. This wasn't just a rivalry anymore. This was war. And Haruka had just nominated me to be the battlefield.