Reincarnated As Both The Villainess And Heroine...?

Fascination

"This road seems pretty safe. Why the insistence on escorting me?" I gazed around lazily at the scenery around me.

"You'll be surprised. In any case, having an extra pair of hands certainly won't hurt, incident or otherwise. There are situations where you would wish you had extra help."

So he says. Even though he was about my age too...

At the very least, Isaac was one of the most sane male leads I've met so far. His Highness was obviously unhinged. Shiro was, well, I wouldn't describe him as insane, but his desire to follow after me was oddly unsettling.

"...For example, right now."

Eh?

I immediately perked my head up,  scrutinizing the street that we were walking on in response to Isaac's words.

Isaac pulled the strap over his head, holding his sword by the scabbard with both hands. He motioned for me to halt with a quick jerk of his head, before coming to a stop himself a few steps later.

"Your sense of danger is seriously broken, young lady. Doesn't it feel strange that you were walking down an empty street for a while now?"

Now that he mentioned it...

"Despite being within the campus of the academy, the residents here aren't emerging from their homes lately. A series of assault cases, if you will. But if we're being targeted now, it seems I was mistaken in suspecting you as a potential perpetrator."

Excuse me!? How could an innocent looking girl like me—Well, now that I think about it, a child walking around with two blades on her back was really strange, wasn't it...

Wait, that wasn't the important thing here!

"What do you mean by 'we're being targeted'!?" my fried brain circuits finally processed his words fully.

"Exactly as it sounds."

The sound of metal grating against each other assaulted my ears as Isaac unsheathed his sword, entering a readying stance, "Please stand behind me. This might get messy."

The tone of his last syllabus didn't even drop, and something was flung at unnatural speeds towards us.

"Weak!" Isaac declared as his deflected the projectile cleanly.

Despite Isaac had demonstrated a masterful feat, the attacker did not seem too interested in the potential threat he posed. The glint of a sharp object revealed itself between the gaps of two unassuming structures, foretelling the appearance of our assailant.

In a moment of surprise, he...or at least, "it", did not choose Isaac as the target. The entity lunged out of its hiding spot, speeding past Isaac, and enclosing its claws around my neck.

"Crap—!"

Oi! Weren't you confident of your ability earlier!? And how were you able to deflect a stone but not halt this ugly mess!?

Seeing no road out of this but violence, I was forced to brace the impact of the claw swipe with the flat side of my scabbard. There was no time to draw the relatively long blade of mine, so I countered by simply smashing against his claw with my sheathed sword.

"What in the world is that freakish thing!?" I cried out indignantly as I scrambled away from the beast.

Was it a beast? Was it a human? It was hard to say. It certainly had a humanoid shape, but the resemblances to a human stopped there.  It was cloaked in a blood red shroud, obscuring much its body, including the face, if it even had one.