33. Dessert After All, to Cleanse the Palate of Bitter Memories

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/35/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

A dim prison beneath the castle.
Saiji was in a cell divided off by iron bars, furnished with nothing but a moldy bed and a toilet.

“I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong.”

His eyes were wide, his cheeks were gaunt, and he had not slept at all since the previous night. He only repeated the same words.
By any measure, he had gone mad.
Even so, Saiji remained utterly convinced that he was right. He believed just as firmly that the knights under the king’s direct command—the ones who had locked him in this cell—had already been brainwashed by “them.”
That was why he refused the meals they brought him.
He was certain they contained human flesh.

“I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong. I’m not wrong.”

When the knights questioned him about why he had put poison in the food, he would not even tell them his reason.
He did nothing but repeat the same phrase, making communication all but impossible.
The only evidence left behind was the poison he had used and the small vial that had held it.
No one had ever heard of a poison capable of dissolving a body after only a small dose. An unknown poison naturally cast suspicion first upon Leia, a researcher, but she had a perfect alibi.
In other words, they still knew nothing.
The knights would probably never reach the truth.
They lacked the ability—and, more importantly, they would probably run out of time.

As Saiji sat with his knees drawn to his chest, he heard footsteps approaching.
There was more than one person, unlike the knights who delivered his meals.
But it made no difference to him who had come. He continued his chant like a prayer.
The visitors stopped in front of his cell and addressed him.

“It has been a while, Mr. Kazeoka.”

Only one of the summoned people would call him by that surname.
Yet the voice belonged neither to the surviving Sakuna nor to Toka, much less Miyako.
Wondering who else it could be, Saiji raised his head slightly and caught sight of them at the edge of his vision.
Sakuna, Toka, and … someone he did not know.
No—that face was familiar, and when he thought carefully, so was the voice.
But if she were the girl Saiji remembered, some condition should have kept her facial muscles constantly twitching. Her voice should have been hoarser. Above all, she should never have worn such a confident expression.
Then who was this? What was this person standing before him and looking down upon him?

“Oh? Have you even forgotten me? That would be terribly disappointing.”
“Chigusa Hinata…”
“Yes, correct. I am glad. I was beginning to wonder whether I had tampered with your brain so much that even your memory had blurred.”
“That’s a lie. You were supposed to be dead…”
“I was. I was summoned at the same moment I jumped to my death, you see. My body was already in pieces. But thanks to one kind person’s consideration, I came back to life—although I ceased to be human.”
“Not … human?”

Chigusa spoke brightly, as though revealing the trick behind a practical joke.

“I am a Demi-Vamp who controls shadows. A shadow is any place light does not reach. The human brain, for example, is always in shadow, and therefore I can manipulate it.”
“Manipulate the brain? You can’t mean…”
“I can make someone hear voices or see things that are not there, for instance. Does any of that sound familiar?”

Saiji opened his dry eyes even wider.
Far too much of it sounded familiar.
And now he knew who had done this to him. Yes—if Chigusa Hinata was alive, she had more than enough reason to hate him enough to want him dead.
Only then did he fully raise his head and take in the situation of Chigusa, Sakuna, and Toka standing before the cell.
He had thought it strange that Sakuna and Toka had not said a single word to him, locked in as he was.

Both girls wore red collars around their necks.
Leashes ran from those collars into Chigusa’s hands.
Neither Sakuna nor Toka looked the least bit displeased.
On the contrary, their cheeks were flushed and their eyes were moist. They waited on her in blissful, doglike devotion, as pets fawning on their owner.

“Is something the matter with Sakuna and Toka?”
“Something …? That’s…”
“Ah, you mean the collars. It is just as you see. The two of them performed dogeza, licked my feet, and apologized for what they did to me. Then they begged me, of their own accord, to make them my property.”
“Like hell they did!”

Saiji clung to the bars and shouted at Chigusa.
It was difficult to appear intimidating from inside a cell.
She merely chuckled.

“Mr. Kazeoka seems unable to accept the reality before him, Sakuna.”
“Woof!”
“Oh, that reminds me. Do you remember, Mr. Kazeoka—that cruel game from a few months ago, when you assaulted me and allowed me to speak only in a dog’s voice? How nostalgic. It occurred to me to try the same rule with Sakuna and Toka.”

Chigusa stroked Sakuna beneath the chin as she explained.
Sakuna answered with a needy, canine whimper.

What followed was a calculated display of coercive intimacy. Chigusa offered Sakuna a kiss and remained almost still, while Sakuna clung to her in desperate devotion, trembling each time she was permitted to stay that close.

“Good girl, Sakuna.”
“Wouf…”
“Wuf! Wuf!”

Apparently jealous of the exchange, Toka tugged at Chigusa’s sleeve, barking in a tone that sounded almost angry.

“How greedy of you to be jealous, Toka, when I doted on you so thoroughly only last night.”
“Woof!”
“That was not enough, then. Hehehe. That greed of yours is far more charming than you used to be.”

Chigusa kissed Toka in the same manner.
Saiji could not begin to understand what he was seeing.
Sakuna and Toka had once hated Chigusa so much. Those two girls, who had joined him in tormenting her, now worshiped her and even accepted her kisses.
It was only natural that Saiji concluded this, too, must be a hallucination.
But then—

“Guh!?”

A strangled cry escaped Saiji’s throat.
Agony shot through his right arm.
When he looked, its joint had bent grotesquely in a direction no arm should turn.

“Ah—I should mention that I am not manipulating anything at present. There are no hallucinations and no phantom voices. … Hm. My feet are getting a little tired.”
“Wuf!”

Hearing that, Toka dropped happily onto all fours and shifted her hips as if inviting Chigusa to sit.
Chigusa gave her head a light pat and sat on her back.
Sakuna, who had been too slow, looked up anxiously.
Taking pity on her, Chigusa removed her shoes and socks and presented her bare feet. Sakuna immediately lay on her back at Chigusa’s feet and resumed the same panting, doglike role.

“I do like a pet that understands its place.”

Smiling, Chigusa set her foot on Sakuna’s face.
Sakuna began licking it with desperate eagerness.
The ticklish sensation from her sole made Chigusa’s cheeks color faintly.

“Ah… Sakuna and Toka are both such good girls. I will have to give you both a reward later.”

Sakuna kept tending to Chigusa’s toes. Toka, bearing her weight, trembled with eager devotion. Chigusa gazed at the two of them in rapt fondness.
For Saiji, who prided himself on being “normal,” it was an intolerable sight.
And so he shouted, venting his anger at what he considered an outrage.

“Cut this crap … There’s something wrong with all of you!”
“What an amusing joke, Mr. Kazeoka. You abused a defenseless person, beat and kicked her, sexually assaulted her, and drove her to suicide without offering so much as a single apology. I would say there is far more wrong with you.”

The speed and force of Chigusa’s words made Saiji recoil.

“Still, perhaps it was only because you tormented me that I awakened to love as I have. Knowing human wrongdoing better than anyone allowed me to give up on humankind.”
“You call this love? You killed Taka and Oya!”
“You killed them. You let your delusions run wild, succumbed to paranoia, and brutally murdered the friends who were sincerely worried about you.”
“Because you controlled me!”
“I did arrange for you to see hallucinations, but I only provided the initial trigger. What you saw after that, and what result it produced, were left to you, Mr. Kazeoka.”

She had planted allied Demi-Vamps at key points to encourage his suspicions, but Saiji’s failure to trust Taka and Oya at the very end had been his own.
In short, Saiji had not trusted his friends.
Taka had genuinely considered Saiji his best friend, but Saiji had regarded Taka as little more than someone convenient to have around.
Had Saiji truly cared about his friends, he would have asked them to resist “them” alongside him. They would never have become his enemies.

“In short, Mr. Kazeoka, you were rotten at the core. That is why you killed Mr. Kawagishi and Mr. Tsuchizaki. There is no other truth.”
“Damn it … But even so, this is still your—”
“However desperately you shift the blame, the people of this kingdom will accept only one fact. You are a criminal who committed mass murder, and the townspeople are eagerly awaiting the spectacle of your imminent execution.”
“Execution…?”
“Oh, had no one told you? I believe it is tomorrow. They cannot obtain useful testimony from you anyway, and it seems they hope that executing a mass murderer will ease the public’s fear over the killings in town.”
“No … No, no, no! It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything wrong! You did this, Chigusa! Why should I have to die? That’s it—I’ll turn you over to the knights right now. Once they know who the real culprit is, they’ll prove I’m innocent!”
“How wonderfully naive, Mr. Kazeoka. Who would believe a claim such as, ‘A vampire manipulated me into committing murder, so none of it was my fault’?”

Moreover, Saiji was already seeing hallucinations and hearing voices.
Even if his story were true, his claims had no credibility whatsoever.

“Damn you, Chigusa! You’re garbage—how dare you act so superior? Just wait! This time assaulting you won’t be enough. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you while I do it!”
“How unsightly. You could never do any such thing now. All you can do is howl like an animal in its cage and crane your neck as you wait for the moment of slaughter, making it that much easier for the guillotine blade to cut.”
“Sakuna! Toka! Wake up! Are you really going to let someone like her use you like this?”

Realizing that nothing he said would move Chigusa, Saiji called out instead to Sakuna, who was still licking her feet, and to Toka, who was flushed and sweating.
It was, of course, pointless.
His words did not reach their ears.
Now that they had become Demi-Vamps, a human male was no more significant to them than a stone lying on the ground.
If anything, Chigusa was being kind merely by holding a conversation with him.

“Come to think of it, Sakuna and Toka were close to you, weren’t they, Mr. Kazeoka? Let us ask for their comments. What do you think of Mr. Kazeoka’s execution?”

Kind Chigusa posed the question to Sakuna and Toka on Saiji’s behalf.
Naturally, their answer was—

“Wuf!”
“Woof!”

Nothing more than those barks.

“They say they do not care, Mr. Kazeoka.”
“N-no … Nooooo!”

Having lost even his final hope, Saiji collapsed with one hand still gripping the bars and began to wail.
The sight filled Chigusa with an indescribable sense of superiority.
She found it interesting that she, too, possessed such a vulgar emotion, but she also thought it was not a bad thing.
It was human, perhaps, but also a necessary part of releasing the negative memories within her.
Saiji Kataoka was no longer a threat to Chigusa.
The boy who had toyed with her and hurt her so many times was now a pitiful creature who could do nothing but grovel and moan before her.
His companions Taka and Oya had died by his hand, while Sakuna and Toka had achieved mutual understanding and come to love one another.
If even this was possible, Chigusa felt certain that every part of her plan would succeed.
Having reached an understanding with those she had hated most, she could regard the world—every human being in existence—as already loved equally.

She had accomplished what she came here to do.
At that instant, Saiji became worthless to her.
There was no longer any need even to exchange words with him.

“Shall we return to our room?”

Chigusa wiped Sakuna’s saliva from her feet with her shadows and stood up from using Toka as a seat.
Of course the two girls looked dissatisfied, but—

“I still have to give both of you your reward.”

Their smiles returned at once.
They rose, and Chigusa led them out of the prison by their leashes, still crawling on all fours.
Saiji remained behind, unable to stand for some time.

 

◇◇◇

 

The following day, Saiji’s execution took place before an enormous crowd.
Even in this world, a guillotine execution was a grand event with the atmosphere of a festival.
Saiji was secured to the platform while a female soldier standing beside him read out his crimes.
The list included not only the murders of Taka, Oya, and the soldiers, but also the inexplicable killings throughout the town.
Saiji, who had scarcely left the castle, could not possibly have committed those murders. The authorities exploited his status as a visitor from another world, however, and forced through the explanation that he had “done it somehow with magic.”

“They … They did it. I’m not guilty…”

He muttered those words until the moment of execution, but of course no one listened.
The people were jubilant at the prospect of executing the mysterious killer who had plunged the town into terror.
Not one of them knew the truth.
They did not know that every charge apart from the murders in the castle was false, or that the true killers were the monstrous Demi-Vamps hidden throughout the town.
Nor did they know that the Demi-Vamps’ infiltration had already reached an irreversible stage. Even the female soldiers standing beside the guillotine were no longer human.
They knew nothing.
Before long, the men would surely die and the women would become monsters, all without ever learning the truth.

“I have to … save them. It’ll be over … Everyone will be finished…”

His warning was correct. By this point, humanity should have brought all its power to bear and eradicated the Demi-Vamps.
But once again, his words reached no one.
The soldier raised her sword and swung it down at the rope holding the guillotine blade.

“I’m—”

The blade mercilessly severed Saiji’s neck.
His head rolled across the stage, mouth open and tears still on his face.
Blood poured thickly from the wound, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

 

◇◇◇

 

After Saiji and the others were summoned, their disappearance became major news in their original world—Japan.
Six students and one teacher had vanished abruptly from a classroom.
Reports and rumors circulated through the media and online: five of the students had serious behavioral problems, and Chigusa had suffered horrific bullying.
With the exception of Chigusa’s parents, all their relatives searched desperately and pleaded for even the smallest eyewitness report.

No one knew.
All the male students were dead.
No one knew.
All the female students had ceased to be human.

Yes, no one knew.
Because they had vanished into another world, there was no way anyone could know.
The case would eventually fade from memory. After seven years, they would be legally declared missing and treated as dead.
Without their families at their deathbeds.
Their bodies discarded like garbage.
Their souls wandering through an unknown world.

“It suits all of you perfectly.”

Chigusa murmured as she gazed into empty space.
For a moment, she thought she saw three souls drifting there, their faces twisted in anguish—and she smiled, gentle and happy.