Ex8-3. Welcome to a Wonderful World Full of Love

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/69/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

In other words, I was a substitute for Mother in Father’s eyes.
And for Mother I was the accursed existence that had brought her relationship with Father to an end.
A child shunned by the parents who gave birth to her cannot fail to warp.
I do not intend to push all the responsibility onto them, but that they were involved in some portion of it is not something that can be denied.

“Even so, you’re the one at fault. You killed Ryotaro. You tore me and Ryotaro apart. If only you had never been born, this would never have happened!”

Bound at the limbs on the bed, she flung that at me with a face full of malice.
Even so she denied it, and refused me, Mother.
Words like sludge settled on a riverbed, ugly enough that the former me would have had her heart broken by them.
But I, who had obtained backing that called to mind a boys’ manga—love and strength and courage and companions—could only hear it as bluster.
A show of strength, to cover the agitation of being told of Father’s death and having her lips taken by her daughter.

“…What. What are you laughing at…”
“No. Only that a mother who once looked so large now looks very small.”

Rather than that I have grown, I should say I have been transformed.
An existence that was a threat is now, before me, only one frail woman.
Thinking so, I suddenly found her dearer than before.
In a human body I would have been captive only to hatred; as a Demi-Vamp I can love even a parent like this.
Wanting Mother to understand that wonder as well, I stroked her throat with a fingertip as I spoke.

“With only a little pressure of a nail, I could kill you, Mother.”
“—”

Slide a finger under the thin skin, pierce the flesh, snip an artery.
That is all the simple motion I would need to take Mother’s life.

“But I will not. I have been reborn, and I have become far kinder than I was. Kind enough to cherish even a parent who is trash like you.”
“Re…born?”
“Yes. I became a vampire.”

So saying, I lifted the corner of my mouth with a forefinger and showed her a sharply pointed fang.
Mother, who had no image of vampires except as imaginary monsters, wore a blank face.

“Are you out of your mind?”
“Whether you accept this fact or not is all the same to me, Mother. The result will not change. From now on I will use magical power to charm you. You will forget Father and come to love only me.”
“Th-that’s…”

Impossible—every human in this world decides so.
Even seeing the shadows that bind her own limbs, she will not admit the existence of an unrealistic power.
Only when she experiences it in her own person does she recognize it, and by then it is already too late.
Mother will be no exception, I suppose.
Even while we are in contact like this, my magical power is being poured into her, and her heart is being drawn little by little toward me.

“At first it is only a tiny discomfort. Being touched by me like this—do you feel something, Mother?”

When I stroked Mother’s cheek, she glared at me after a slight pause.

“…Only how disgusting it is.”
“Kuskuskus. Yes. Only. Indeed.”

She truly has not noticed, I suppose.
But the slight time lag in her reply itself indicates a change in her mind.
The Mother who rejected me by reflex is already gone.
My soul, if only a few millimeters of the surface, is already beginning to enter the inside of hers.
I will knead it, stir it, and have her gasping before long.

After that I spent several tens of minutes with my hand still on Mother’s cheek, looking at her from close range.
In the warmth at my fingertips and palm, and in the feel of skin roughened by irregular living, I felt not the slightest nostalgia.
I seem to recall hearing that children held by their mothers when small all remember their early years in that warmth.
As I thought, stories heard from others about growing up without being given affection are not to be relied on.

She had been glaring at me, but as the wordless time continued the force of her hatred waned little by little and burned lower.
What surfaced next was “anxiety.”
Toward me, whose feelings could not be read at all, Mother’s mask of bluster began to peel, and fear gradually showed on her face.
Does magical power truly exist? Is it overthinking, this sense that Ryotaro’s presence is thinning in her heart?
Such thoughts went round and round in her head; a negative spiral stirred feelings of every color and dyed them black.

Still more time passed.
Mother was frightened, her complexion a little drained of color.
I treated such a her with affection: I set cheek against cheek, and dropped kisses that were only a touch, again and again.
At first Mother had frowned at every kiss, but whether she had grown used to it or had come to find it not entirely unwelcome, the feelings that rose were no longer only ones of disgust.
As that sort of closeness was repeated, the color returned to Mother’s cheeks.
Further, passing skin-color, they even took on a faint pink—
In the palm against her skin I could feel, faintly but clearly, the rise in temperature and the blood beginning to circulate more actively.

“I love you, Mother. I love you very much.” Continue reading →

Ex8-2. The Day My Father Died

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/68/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Mochizuki-kun. Long time no see.”

In a night park lit only thinly by a few streetlamps, there were two figures, a boy and a girl.
The girl smiled at the large, long-limbed boy who had just arrived—Kosuke Mochizuki—with a familiar expression.
Kosuke, for his part, looked surprised at the sight of her.

“No way… Is that really you, Akizora? The one who went missing?”

Sakuna Akizora.
That was the name of the girl who, several months earlier, had gone missing along with several classmates.
A group disappearance, or perhaps a kidnapping—the news of them had stirred the public, but so few leads emerged that the uproar subsided with the mystery still intact.
The investigation continued, but personnel had been diverted to the recent mass murders, and it was not progressing properly.
By now, only a few occult enthusiasts whispered urban-legend rumors among themselves; aside from close friends and family, most people had lost interest in the case.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I look like someone else? From any angle I’m obviously me.”

Such a girl had suddenly appeared.
A message had arrived on Kosuke’s phone about twenty minutes earlier.
Why a message using Sakuna’s name would reach him, when they had not been particularly close.
His first suspicion was a prank, but if they had his contact, it was probably a summons from a classmate.
Some guy friend had sent it as a joke, no doubt, and he would have to go yell at them—so he had left the house.
That the person herself would be there had never entered his imagination.

“Um… I felt like you were prettier than the last time I saw you.”
“Ahaha. Don’t tell me you’re hitting on me? I can’t say I don’t get it. Being called to a park all of a sudden at night—a healthy guy would get his hopes up.”

He was not hitting on her.
She was certainly the Sakuna he knew, and yet something felt different from before.
Was it winter? Was it night? Or had his own expectations put a correction on the way he looked at her?
With her standing there, hands clasped behind her back, swinging her feet, Kosuke somehow could not speak well for nervousness.

“Well, we weren’t that close to begin with, so being called out of nowhere is awkward, yeah. Anyway, let’s get to the point.”
“A-ah…”
“There’s something I want to show you, Mochizuki-kun. Will you come with me?”
“Got it.”

Kosuke followed as Sakuna led him, walking behind her.
They went deeper into the park, left the path, and entered a grove of mixed trees.
The leaf mold of piled fallen leaves made poor footing; even so Sakuna went lightly, and Kosuke followed, losing his balance now and then.

“Sakuna-chan.”
“Oh, Toka. Weren’t you supposed to wait?”

Along the way through the woods, another girl appeared.
Toka Sato. She, too, was one of the classmates who had vanished with Sakuna.

“Sato as well… Where have you two been all this time.”

Kosuke spoke to Toka, but she gave him only a glance and at once looked away, uninterested.
They had had even less to do with each other than he had with Sakuna, so it was only natural, but the near-ignore still wounded him, alone.

“I got lonely waiting by myself.”
“It wasn’t even that long. Toka, you really are a baby.”
“Yeah… I can’t manage unless Sakuna or Lady Chigusa is nearby. I got changed that way.”

So saying, Toka brought her face close to Sakuna’s.
Sakuna closed her eyes as a matter of course and accepted the kiss.

The two of them did not stop at a greeting. They lingered, as if they had forgotten anyone else was there.

“Ha…? Wh-hey, you two, what are you…”

Kosuke could only stare, dumbfounded, at the girls’ sudden display.
Sakuna and Toka had been close, it was true, but they had not been like that.
Or had they closed the distance while they were missing?
Even so—it was not something to do in front of another person.

Sakuna chided her, and Toka looked downcast.
Even so she did not quite let go of Sakuna.

“Nn… You’re too worked up. After we’re done with business, later. All right?”
“U… Got it.”

Still drooping, Toka moved away from Sakuna.
Sakuna put on a face that was, at least, apologetic, and bowed her head to Kosuke.

“Sorry for making you wait. Come on, let’s go. There’s someone waiting.”
“…Yeah.” Continue reading →

Ex7. Lovers Who Cannibalize Each Other

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/66/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

A few days after the Shirogane sisters had fallen, Ellis and Miyako occupied a room in a certain hotel.

Ellis sat cross-legged on the bed, peering with frank curiosity at the device Chigusa had given her—a thing called a “smartphone.”
Miyako sat in a chair, watching the news on television with an air of boredom.
The story, of course, was the continuing murders.
The scale had grown too large to call them murders any longer, and every station, day after day, ran little else.
Talk had even begun that the police could no longer cope, and that the Self-Defense Forces might be called out.
Not that it would matter who came. The two of them had no intention of stopping.

“Hey, Miyako. There’s something I wanna ask about Sister.”
“Did something happen with Chii-chan?”

Miyako set her mug of green tea on the table and twisted in her chair toward Ellis.
Ellis, apparently tired of fiddling with the phone, tossed it onto the bed.

“She’s off seeing her parents right now, yeah? I grew up in the Discard District, so I barely remember mine and never really brought it up. But I was wondering if Sister had some kind of problem with hers.”

The reason only Ellis and Miyako were there was that Chigusa had gone to reunite with her parents.
At first both of them had said they would come along; she had turned them down, gently.
This was a tangle she had to erase herself, she had said.
Her expression had clouded in a way that was rare for her.
Miyako answered Ellis’s question by leaning back in her chair and letting out a long sigh.

“I didn’t see it firsthand, so I don’t know the details. Chii-chan was abandoned by her mother at eight and raised by her father after that. But that father was mentally unstable, and apparently he used to hit her a lot.”
“Trash. We should kill him.”
“Same opinion. But Chii-chan says she wants to settle it herself, so I think that choice ought to be respected.”

Respecting Chigusa’s will.
Ellis understood that well enough. Even so, she could not forgive the existence of a man who had hurt her beloved Sister.

She spoke with a sulky look.

“Father or not, he’s still a guy, right? The Sister we know now would probably just think, ‘Who cares.’”
“Well, Chii-chan became a vampire by a different path than we did. The way she changed is probably different too.”
“So Sister can kill men without mercy because that’s the kind of person she was to begin with?”
“I don’t think all of it was what Chii-chan wanted. But I do think she was treated badly enough that swearing to wipe them out is more than justified.”

Miyako had witnessed a certain portion of that with her own eyes.
Whenever she remembered it, she remembered as well that she had failed to stop it—that she had, if anything, been complicit—and her chest grew tight.
Seeing her frown, Ellis hurriedly changed the subject.

“S-so, um. How are your parents doing, Miyako?”
“Haven’t seen them in a long time. We kept in touch, at least. I wonder how they are. They must have heard I went missing. I hope they haven’t gotten so depressed they made themselves sick.”
“Then shouldn’t you go see them soon?”
“Mm, but I’d have to kill my dad, and then I’d have to make my mom fall, right? That sounds like more of a hassle than you’d think… Ah, but once I start remembering, I do want to make Mom fall. She’s getting on a bit, but she looks like she’d feel good to hold.”

Imagining herself holding her own mother, Miyako’s cheeks colored faintly.
Guiding the woman who had given birth to her toward the heights of pleasure had, by now, become a proper way of returning the favor.

“I don’t really remember falling anyone that much older than me…”
“It’s pretty good. Their desire’s strong, so they go along with it eagerly. Once you teach the body once, they’ll open up on their own even if the charm hasn’t finished.”
“Huh. Better than someone who’s weirdly hung up on being untouched and fights you the whole time, maybe. I’ll nibble a little next time.”

The Demi-Vamps were steadily expanding their influence even now.
Ellis and Miyako took part in that quiet invasion as a matter of course; making a woman fall simply because they had spotted her on the street was an everyday affair.
Ellis had said “next time,” but the thing would likely be done by tomorrow.
Women’s wariness had increased, though, and it was no longer as easy as it had once been to lure someone into an alley.
Lately they more often used their shadows to unlock a door, forced their way into a house, and poured in magical power by force.
Ellis rather liked the forcefulness, for what it was worth.

“Nn…” Continue reading →

Ex6-5. Iconoclasm

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/65/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Even after the monitor went dark, it took several hours for Shuri to settle.
Her father was dead. “Settle” meant only that she could hold a conversation again.
The whole time, Chigusa stayed beside her and comforted her without a single complaint.

“You… you used to be human, didn’t you…”

It had been so long since anyone had spoken that Chigusa needed a few seconds to realize the words were for her.

“… Yes. That’s right.”
“Why? How can you do something this cruel?”

Chigusa tilted her head. “Hate?”

“One man died. What about that is cruel?”

She did not need to say it at this late date, but she meant it.
A man dying was a smaller matter than kicking a stone at the roadside.

“…!? You—you—!”

Shuri sat up hard from the floor and seized Chigusa by the chest.
Resistance would have been easy. Chigusa did nothing, and took the anger.

“He’s dead! My father! Precious family, bound by blood! And that isn’t cruel!? Don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me!”
“I’m sorry. I truly don’t understand.”
“That’s why you’re a monster!”
“Fufu. So I was a monster even before this body. Ah. I see. That’s why—no one would accept me. That reason. That logic.”

For the first time, Shuri felt she was seeing Chigusa’s bare face.
A dry laugh, self-mocking, as if she had given up on everything.
Empty—Shuri understood, without being told, that there had been nothing in that life.

“Shuri. Never mind human or Demi-Vamp… why do you think it’s sad, just because a father died?”
“Are you… serious?”
“Yes. I am. Is a father that valuable? He’s only one man among men. Well—in my case I don’t really understand mothers either.”

There Shuri realized her anger had been spinning in empty air.
The person who had made this mad world had not known a family’s “true love.”

“… Haha… hahaha, ahahaha! I see. That’s it. You were just talking as if you knew, when you didn’t!”

Chigusa suddenly looked pitiable and small.
This was, in short, spite on a grand scale.
What she had never been able to have overflowed in the world; she could not accept that, so she would break it—so Shuri concluded.

“There’s no love in the world you make. Love you can’t feel unless you join bodies isn’t love!”
“What is a child born of her parents’ sex saying?”
“That isn’t the result. They joined because they loved each other. They didn’t love each other because they joined! It’s ridiculous, you talking about a world full of love when you don’t even know that!”
“I see. Perhaps people who were blessed with others can’t understand. But—I don’t think so.”

Chigusa’s calm did not break.
She was not performing. She did not care that Shuri denied her.
She did not deny that loving families existed.
The Lengland house, for example, who had become Demi-Vamps in the other world.
They had loved one another even before they stopped being human, and they had not carried hidden friction like the Shiroganes.
Even so, they were far closer now than they had been then.
Parent and child, and that child’s child: three of them, and they were spreading happiness by bearing still more children.

“There are families who couldn’t love, and families who held distorted affection, and those people will be saved by becoming Demi-Vamps. Like Senri.”
“Senri has not been saved!”
“Well, you can ask her later. And even if there were a family that already loved one another, they can obtain still more happiness by becoming Demi-Vamps.”
“Even if it costs a father?”

Remembering how her beloved father had died, tears rose in Shuri’s eyes.

“Yes. Even subtracting that, it’s a plus. Overwhelmingly.”

Even seeing the tears, Chigusa answered with a smile.

“There’s nothing that surpasses life!”
“I agree. I want to treat everyone’s lives as valuable. That’s why I got angry when my companions were hurt, isn’t it?”
“That’s—”

Shuri started to argue and stopped.
It was probably useless.
If the values themselves never met, more debate was waste.
Monster or human had nothing to do with it. At the root, she and Chigusa thought differently.
The value of life, too.
To Chigusa, men were not recognized as beings that possessed life at all.
Death was not tragedy. Killing was not crime. Of course.
She might even think she had cleansed the world of filth—that it was justice.

“I don’t think we can understand each other with words. But I’ll say this. You’re wrong.”
“You’ll come to think it’s right soon enough.”
“I won’t become like Senri.”
“Is that so. Then why not assert it in front of her? Ellis, Senri, you can come in. We aren’t particularly occupied.”

Chigusa called toward the entrance. The door opened, and one girl appeared.

“Senri…”
“Yoo-hoo, Sis. You doing okay?” Continue reading →

Ex6-4. Sister Complex

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/64/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

When Chigusa’s mouth left her, Shuri fell back on the bed, her chest rising and falling hard.
What she had been given was a sensation she had never known in her life, one that could only be called abnormal.
Her heart refused. Her body would not.
That, more than anything, was humiliating. She hid her wet eyes with her arm and clenched her teeth with all her strength.

“Pride is a hindrance, isn’t it. I think that is one of the reasons people cannot be happy. If you would only accept it, it would be easier.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Chigusa stroked Shuri’s cheek with a fingertip.

“… I will not become what you want.”

Shuri glared at her.
Her will to fight had not yet gone.
She was still overwhelmingly at a disadvantage. She was thinking of killing Chigusa if a gap opened. Chigusa had allowed for that much.

“You already understand that you cannot win. Where does the strength to keep resisting come from?”
“You wouldn’t know… I have something I have to protect!”
“Ahaha. A line out of a boys’ manga. The world is not so simply divided into good and evil. I already told you why I resorted to force.”

Chigusa pinned her down and, with her shadows, stripped the clothes from her in an instant.
Shuri found herself in lace underthings the vampires had likely prepared. Training had left her abdomen and limbs as tight as an athlete’s.
Chigusa, similarly dressed, looked her over. Shuri grimaced.

“My companions were hurt. What I ought to protect was hurt. Therefore I punish. What about that is evil?”
“A murdering monster wouldn’t understand an explanation.”
“And a vampire-killer would?”

Shuri turned her face away.
Talk would only run parallel. All Chigusa could do, she said, was teach Shuri’s body what a Demi-Vamp was.
Shuri called it wrong—between women, like this.
“You get used to it,” Chigusa whispered. “Used. To. It.”

What followed was not a fight. Chigusa used her shadows and her mouth to force sensation into a body that had only ever been trained to endure pain. Shuri’s pride held; her voice did not. She had never been taught this. Compared with Senri, who lived on the internet, she had neither knowledge nor experience.

When their eyes met at close range, Shuri’s body would not move.
For an instant she thought, unforgivably, that the red eyes were beautiful, and her face burned.
“To drive a girl this dear into a fight for her life. There are some inhuman people in the world.”

The gentleness of the voice undid her caution for a second. That was enough.
Chigusa kissed her. The rest of the night was a lesson in what a human body could be made to feel, and Shuri, still insisting she would not fall, lost consciousness with the Mark moved to her throat.

Continue reading →

Ex6-3. The Game Begins

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/63/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“Yes… yes, please do that. Yes, for now—though I think it’s only a matter of time until we’re found.”

While they waited for the train at the station, Shuri was on the phone the whole time with the main house.
Even Senri beside her could faintly hear a thick male voice.

“I understand, but at present protecting my sister is all I can manage… Dispatch someone here? From the branch family? But are they all right on that side?”

The sight of family bowing and scraping to a superior was not something one wanted to watch.
Still less when the person on the other end was so high-handed.
Her sister was working this hard to protect her—how could they scold her in a situation like this.
They were just sitting somewhere safe looking important anyway, Senri thought venomously, warming her hands on a hot lemon tea she had bought at the station.

“I intend to do everything I can. Yes, what they’ll try next is a complete unknown, so depending on the case even the main house’s location might be—!? I-I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless remark. Yes, I pray for your safety. That’s all.”

At the end Shuri spoke with her head bowed, and hung up.
Then she looked at the screen and let out a long breath.
White vapor drifted through the dim station concourse.

“Good work, Sis.”
“Ahaha… it’s a strange thing, getting tired just from talking. I really can’t stand people who look down on you unconditionally.”
“Nobody likes that. They shouldn’t come after us. The vampires should just go to the main house.”
“If they overheard that it would be a disaster.”
“You think they’re bugging us?”
“They might. Well, I agree with you, Senri.”

They were speaking ill of people who had been spoken of ill enough already, but there were reasons they deserved it.
While thinking it was not very admirable, they spent the ten minutes until the train arrived warming to complaints about the main house.
Perhaps because of that, the fear from when they had left the house had eased, enough that it even felt a little like a trip.
But that was only because they had not actually seen a vampire yet, and it did not feel real.
It was better than wearing themselves down.
They ought to laugh while they still could. In a cornered situation, it was not only the body that was ground away. The heart was no exception.

Continue reading →

Ex6-2. Hide-and-Seek Doesn’t Suit Me

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/62/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

At midnight, Shuri came home from meeting the victim, looking thoroughly worn down.
The meeting had apparently been far away.
She unlocked the door in a sluggish way, took the knob, and slipped inside.

“Welcome home, Sis.”

The one who greeted Shuri was her younger sister, Senri.
Seeing her smile with her teeth showing, Shuri very nearly cried, to her own surprise.
That was how heavy the day’s events had been.

“I’m hooome!”
“Whoa!?”

As she said it, Shuri collapsed into a hug against her sister.
Senri, who had little strength, nearly went over, but managed to catch her and hold her ground.
“Geez, you’re hopeless, Sis,” she laughed.
But their mother, who should have gone with her, was not there.

“Huh? Where’s Mom?”
“Nn… she’s gone to report to headquarters. She told me there was nothing more I could do, so I should go home.”

Perhaps embarrassed after all, Shuri pulled away from Senri with her cheeks flushed.
Fatigue still sat heavy on her face.
Seeing her sister like that, Senri asked with worry.

“How was it? The woman, I mean. The victim.”
“…”

There was no answer.
Something had happened, but she seemed not to want Senri to hear it if she could help it.
Shuri took off her shoes and went up into the house still carrying her heavy bag and coat.
When Senri took the luggage of her own accord, Shuri said a small “Thanks.”
That said, Senri was already involved, if only indirectly.
Keeping silent would be against decency—Shuri let out a sigh, then began to speak.

“I’ll say this first: it wasn’t Mom and I who met her. We had a stand-in speak with her, and we listened to the whole conversation.”
“You never know what she’d do. I think that’s better.”
“Yes. Well, it was wasted effort in the end. First the conclusion: the woman was already no longer human.”
“…?”

She said it so matter-of-factly that Senri could not even manage a proper shock.

“Th-then she really had become a vampire? And she showed herself in front of you like it was nothing!?”
“That’s about the size of it. Precisely speaking, she called herself a Demi-Vamp, not a vampire.”
“She called herself…”

Senri could not quite grasp the situation.
An enemy who might as well have been a natural predator, possessing the power of exorcism, was right in front of her—why would a vampire name herself?
They kept talking as they moved to the living room.
Dinner Senri had made was laid out on the table.
Their mother and Shuri had often been out late before, so despite appearances Senri could cook reasonably well.

“She was so shamelessly open about everything that Mom and I were both stunned. I’d heard vampires were weak to light, but she sat in a bright restaurant looking perfectly fine.”
“Maybe that’s because of the ‘Demi’ part?”
“We didn’t ask that far, but probably. She’d become a Demi-Vamp, and that much stronger against light.”
“But half would mean her power is half too, right?”
“I wish it had been…”

Shuri sank deep into a dining chair, let out a long breath, and reached for the TV remote.
A news program came on.
A male reporter with a grave face was gripping a microphone in front of some family restaurant.
The interior was draped in vinyl sheeting, so they could not see inside, but it was clear that an abnormal atmosphere hung over the surroundings.

“That was the place. Where we talked with the victim.”
“Ehh!? But something’s happening there, isn’t it?”
“—Even after the conversation had settled, we couldn’t believe what she’d said. From our eyes she was certainly an unsettling presence, but only in a subtle way. We couldn’t say for certain she wasn’t human.”

Yes: even if she had not named herself, they had the “eyes.” They should have been able to tell at a glance that she was not human.
But perhaps because she was a Demi-Vamp, neither Shuri nor their mother could be sure the woman in front of them was a monster until they saw what came next.

“So she ran out of patience with us for not believing, I suppose. She said it herself. ‘Then I’ll show you my power.’”

Senri swallowed hard.
A tension far stronger than when she had listened to Saya filled the room.

“To tell the truth, I didn’t see anything. Right before it happened, Mom grabbed me on instinct and blocked my view. But I heard the sounds. The women’s screams in the restaurant—and the sound of blood scattering and striking the floor.”
“People… died?”
“Mom said a black whirl appeared all of a sudden and went into every man in the restaurant. Right after that, the heads of the men who had taken in the shadows all burst.”

—And so the tragedy now on the news had taken place.
Eighteen dead, all instant. Their heads had been blown away so thoroughly that identification was difficult, and the smell of blood hung over the area around the scene.
With this, humans would finally notice.
That this whole series of crimes was not the work of human hands.

“Looking back, they had never tried to hide their crimes. The men who were killed sometimes had their limbs torn off, sometimes were stuck on park poles like objects, as if the corpses were being used to play.”
“So there was no need to hide?”
“They have that much confidence in their power, I suppose.”
“…Sis, can you beat something like that?”

At Senri’s question, Shuri silently shook her head. Continue reading →

Ex6-1. The Exorcist Sister and the Incompetent Little Sister

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/61/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

In a dim room, the clatter of a keyboard went on without pause.
The girl responsible wore a shapeless red padded coat and sat hunched, locked in a staring contest with three monitors in a row.
Her long black hair was a tangle. Thick black-framed glasses sat on her nose. Now and then a little laugh slipped out of her: “Nihihi.”

“When everybody moves just the way I want, yeah, that’s fun. Nih.”

She was still muttering that unsettling aside when a knock sounded at the door.
Almost in the same instant, without waiting for an answer, someone walked in.
The girl, who had been in such a good mood, let out an obvious “Haaah,” and glared at her sister, who was trespassing as usual.

“Sis… how many times do I have to tell you there’s no point knocking if you come in at the same time?”
“Oh, what does it matter? We’re sisters.”
“Ever heard of courtesy even among intimates?”
“Other houses are other houses. Ours is ours. So? How’s it going, Senri?”

The older sister—Shuri—ignored her younger sister Senri Shirogane’s protest as if it were nothing and asked with shameless composure.
She had come to Senri unusually meek, saying she had a favor to ask. Senri had agreed, and this was the result.
Out in the world, Shuri passed for a bright, kind person of character. Senri would have stated, without hesitation, that this was not the case.

“Tyrant, aren’t you. How did our sister even grow up like this.”
“Never mind that—just tell me! Are the vampire rumors actually spreading?”
“They are. I used every board and every social network, wrote copy that would bite depending on the venue, and posted at the right moment! A stunt like that would be impossible without a brain like mine.”

Ordinary methods would never make anyone believe the nonsense that a string of mass murders was the work of vampires.
Not even as rumor or urban legend.
But if you impersonated a crowd and flooded every channel in a short span, a few people would start to believe.
Then you deepened their conviction and turned them into new sources of spread.
By repeating that, Senri had succeeded, on her own, in circulating the vampire rumor.

“Yes, yes, very impressive. And you’ve covered your tracks?”

Shuri, who was hopeless with machines, had no idea what was impressive and let it slide.
Senri, of course, pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.

“Praise me more. It was a lot of work, you know?”
“You’re so capable. There, there.”

As she said it, Shuri ruffled Senri’s hair in a teasing way.
The hand was batted away at once.

“People with no knowledge always look down on advanced technique. Honestly. Anyway, I’m routing it through overseas servers so it won’t lead back. But do we even need to go that far? Even if you’re right and the culprit this time is a vampire, I’ve never heard of a vampire who uses the net.”
“Just in case. So you don’t get pulled into danger, Senri.”
“Sis…”

Senri was moved, in spite of herself, that her sister worried about her.
The feeling did not last.

“If you’re that worried, maybe you just shouldn’t have used me in the first place?”
“…”

The pointed remark silenced Shuri.
She seemed to think for a moment, and then—

“……Fufufu.”

She began to laugh, slowly and on purpose.

“Fufufu. Fufu. Fufufufufu.”

She kept up the theatrical laughter, patted Senri’s back a few times, and walked out of the room.
Apparently she had found nothing to say and was trying to paper it over.

“Fufufufufu…”

The laugh receded down the hall.
Watching her sister’s retreating back, Senri clutched her head and let out a long breath.
Shuri’s high-handed behavior was nothing new. No one understood better than Senri that getting angry was a waste.
There was nothing to do but give up.

“Well, it’s not like I’m not having fun, so whatever.”

She said it, and resumed her staring contest with the displays.
Later, when she started to leave the room for the bathroom, a bottle of juice was waiting outside the door.
Shuri’s idea of thanks, apparently.
“I’m cheap, getting happy over just this,” Senri thought, with a wry smile.

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