Chapter 62: Qualified

“Then… why was my sister injured back then?”

Yukina asked softly.

“About that… I’m not sure either. By the time I was transferred to Seikyo City, your sister was already a qualified Agent, though she wasn’t as formidable as she is now.”

Seeing that Ephnel hadn’t returned yet, Nishizaki Yuuki was happy to chat with Yukina.

She cleared her mind and fell into reminiscence.

“The first time your sister left an impression on me was actually because of her appearance. You know, she’s the type that makes it hard to look away.”

Nishizaki Yuuki said this with a straight face, but Yukina was taken aback, her face turning slightly red.

“Then I came to know about her. I would intentionally or unintentionally pay attention to her at work, and that’s when I discovered that your sister’s compatibility with ‘Ephnel’ was shockingly high. She has the highest compatibility of any Agent I’ve seen to date. And from what I know, she was also quite seriously injured at the time. If she were in her normal state, she probably could have done even better.”

Nishizaki Yuuki said with admiration.

Ephnel’s ability to go from a stumbling beginner Agent to the independent Chief Agent she was today in less than two years was inseparable from her extremely high compatibility.

“Ah, sorry, I’ve gotten a bit off-topic. I just suddenly thought of old times…”

Nishizaki Yuuki shook her head, but Yukina didn’t show any displeasure.

On the contrary, she looked quite excited.

“It’s-it’s okay. Actually, I also really want to know what my sister was like before…”

Just then, the office door was suddenly pushed open.

Yukina covered her mouth like a startled little rabbit.

Ephnel walked in from behind the door, but unlike when she left, the current Ephnel was like a frost-bitten eggplant.

“Yukina, we might have to go to the United Airport. Your aunt and uncle are back…”

…

Yukina supported Hanasou Kotone to the front of the elevator.

Ephnel was talking to Nishizaki Yuuki by the side of the corridor.

The numbers on the LCD panel jumped from 1 as the elevator slowly ascended.

Yukina glanced around.

The sound of Ephnel and Nishizaki Yuuki’s conversation came from around the corner.

“…Regarding the judgment of Yukina’s condition… the conclusions inferred from the data alone are far from the facts we’ve seen, and are too arbitrary. To reach a convincing result, more experiments and theoretical support are still needed. The help I can provide this time is very limited.”

“No, thank you very much for your help this time, Yuuki.”

“I didn’t help with much. By the way, this is for you.”

Yukina curiously peeked out and saw Nishizaki Yuuki handing a document to Ephnel.

Nishizaki Yuuki was nearly twenty centimeters taller than Ephnel.

Wearing a white lab coat made her look even more slender.

Standing next to Ephnel, the height-challenged Ephnel looked like a delicate middle school child.

Although neither of them cared, this scene was very subtle in Yukina’s eyes.

Watching the medical and research staff occasionally pass by, a strange image suddenly flashed through Yukina’s mind.

—Ephnel in a pink and white nurse’s uniform, graceful and elegant, with a slit on the side of her thigh that went straight up to almost her waist, exposing her snow-white skin, and that slender ribbon that, with a gentle tug, would cause the delicate bud to completely lose its defenses.

Yukina’s face grew slightly hot, and she quickly pulled her neck back.

On the other side, Ephnel was unaware of her image in Yukina’s mind.

She was discussing Yukina’s situation with Nishizaki Yuuki.

“These are Yukina’s examination reports. I have to give these to you before you leave. And… please listen to me.”

Ephnel reached out to take them, silently pursing her lips, her brow furrowed.

Nishizaki Yuuki skillfully took out a cigarette and lit it.

“I checked the test file you left behind in the database and made a preliminary comparison with Yukina’s. The result is—a high degree of consistency.”

After a pause, she continued.

“Obviously, this is not due to blood relation or coincidence, but because you are both Accommodators with sufficiently high compatibility. But the difference is, you, Ephnel, are only compatible with ‘Ephnel,’ while Yukina has a remarkably outstanding level of compatibility with any kind of Beacon. Of course, her compatibility with all Beacons is not completely the same, there are differences. The highest one is not inferior to yours in comparison. On this basis, I also retrieved other data from the archives for comparison, and the final result was no different.”

In other words, Yukina’s compatibility level for individual Beacons also varied.

Ephnel briefly flipped through the documents in her hand, many of which had notes written by Nishizaki Yuuki.

“My original understanding of an Absolute Accommodator was that it was a special case with a significantly high level of compatibility.”

Like an ideal master key, one key that can open all locks.

“The organization’s researchers initially thought so too.”

“But that’s obviously not the case, is it?”

Nishizaki Yuuki smiled.

“Later, I also discovered an undeniable contradiction here.”

“What?”

“—If I’m not mistaken, before you became ‘Ephnel,’ Yukina was the only candidate, right?”

“You could say that.”

Ephnel did not deny it.

One of the important reasons she became “Ephnel” was to take Yukina’s place.

That was a fact.

“Then do you remember the test records in Yukina’s file? Which Beacon did Yukina have the highest compatibility with at that time?”

“‘Ephnel’.”

Ephnel answered quickly.

Yukina had been selected as an Agent candidate precisely because she was deemed to have extremely high compatibility with “Ephnel.”

Ephnel remembered it clearly.

“But my test results this time show that ‘Fifina’ is the highest, and ‘Ephnel’ is about seventeen percent lower in comparison.”

“Hm?”

Seeing Ephnel’s incredulous expression, Nishizaki Yuuki continued.

“You know that the compatibility level is a characteristic that accompanies a person throughout their life and will never change easily.”

Rather, compatibility was like a gene, something one was born with.

It was an indicator that determined from birth whether a person had the potential to become an Agent.

Ephnel wanted to say something but hesitated.

Of course, “compatibility does not change”—as far as humanity knew up to this point, that was indeed the case.

But there was undoubtedly one exception here—Ephnel herself.

Even though her ID card stated her gender as male, if there was anyone who had actually confirmed her male body, it would only be the delivery nurse and her biological parents.

She could find reasons to fool anyone else.

…