A little time had passed since the kidnapping of Ayano Matsuki. The months slipped by, and before long, spring had come around again. I entered my second year of kindergarten, moving up from the “junior” class to the “middle” class.
Unfortunately, during the class reshuffle, Mia and I ended up in different classes.
I guess because we’d been in the Rose (バラ) class before.
…Sorry. Forget I said that.
“Today, Ayano and I made flower crowns together.”
On the bus ride home, Mia happily told me about everything that had happened during her day.
I’d been assigned to the Sumire class, while Mia was in the Yuri class. And, as it happened, Ayano was in Yuri too. I had no idea whether the class names had anything to do with it, but those two had become ridiculously close.
I was feeling a little lonely.
And then there was this—
“Mia-sama, Yoshito-sama, I’ve come to pick you up.”
On weekends, a black limousine showed up at our house roughly thirty-three percent of the time. The man who stepped out was always the same distinguished old gentleman with silver-gray hair. Our destination was the Matsuki family estate.
And then the three of us would spend the afternoon playing together until sunset.
Except we wouldn’t.
Mia and Ayano were so lovey-dovey that I was starting to wonder if Strawberry Panic! had somehow become reality. Just the other day, they had even pressed their palms together and prayed, “May the bond between us last forever.”
Okay, this is absolutely the beginning of a yuri tower, right? And one of them is the successor to the Demon Lord while the other is an evil god.
This is seriously terrifying.
Hero, please do something about this!
…
Wait. I used to be the Hero.
Hiiiiii! Sorry. I got a little carried away there.
Anyway, there was no room for me between those two, and on top of that, I had been summoned by someone else.
“Ah, you’ve come again today. Good, good.”
Matsuki Sougen. Although he had long since retired from his position as head of the family, he remained one of the most influential elders of the Matsuki clan.
Apparently, he was turning sixty-eight this year. Sougen-san lived in an annex of the Matsuki estate, a traditional Japanese-style building with tatami floors. Bamboo groves surrounded the place, and from somewhere in the distance came the hollow clack of a shishi-odoshi.
Not that it mattered, but whenever I hear shishi-odoshi, I always feel like writing it as “獅子脅し”—“lion intimidation.” Apparently, the correct spelling is “鹿威し”—“deer intimidation.”
So, all you chūnibyō sufferers out there, go ahead and invent some ridiculously cool surname that uses the kanji for “deer” but reads it as *shishi*.
Go on. Add another entry to your collection of lifelong embarrassing memories.
“.…”
Sougen-san fixes a sharp gaze on me without saying a word.
An ordinary kindergartner would probably be in tears by now. Then again, this is the same guy who was beaming with a huge smile while pulling out a chair for Phyllis.
What flashes through my mind is the memory of him crawling on all fours back a few months ago. Having seen that, I can’t bring myself to feel any sense of dignity coming from him anymore.
“Shall we play Mario Kart today, hmm?”
At last, Sougen-san muttered those words under his breath and switched on the Nintendo○ 64.
Apparently, despite his stern appearance, the old man was quite fond of video games. The problem was that he had no one to play with, which left him terribly bored. And yet, whenever his butlers or maids were around, he would insist,
“I’m only humoring the child because he keeps pestering me about playing games.”
The man had a rather complicated personality.
I’d become Sougen’s “gaming buddy” thanks to an introduction from Phyllis, but that’s a story for another time.
And so, the days passed peacefully.
I suppose I should also bring you up to speed on what happened to everyone else.
First, Phyllis.
She returned to her own base. Apparently, she owns an entire island somewhere near Britain, which she has surrounded with a magical barrier and turned into her personal territory. That’s where she spends most of her time conducting research. That said, she still comes by about once a month for my regular checkup, so it’s not like we’ve lost touch.
Next up is Shizuku Aitori.
As of this April, she’s a third-year middle school student, which means high school entrance exams are just around the corner. Apparently, she’s aiming for the senior high division of Matsuki Academy.
“If I pass, I’m moving to Matsuki City, so please, please come visit me!”
“That line is obviously a death flag for failing the exam.”
“Eeeh!? Can’t you pull some strings for me, Master? Like, say… get Sougen-sama to write me a recommendation letter…”
“No. Just study normally.”
Shizuku’s home was in the suburbs of Tokyo, which meant that under normal circumstances, telepathy couldn’t reach that far from my house. So I’d asked Phyllis for a little help, and she’d made us a special magic item. An obsidian pendant. As long as both people had one, they could communicate with each other over a distance roughly equivalent to the span of Honshu.
Originally, it had been meant as a precaution against retaliation from Makina Kaminagi and Aria El Samaria… but lately, we’d been using it for nothing more than “chitchat before bed.”
I’d spend about half an hour listening to Shizuku ramble about whatever was on her mind, encouraging her to do her best on her entrance exams, and lending an ear whenever she had some problem she wanted to talk about.
The Japanese exorcist community had finally started settling down around this time, but apparently there were still plenty of headaches to deal with.
One of the reasons was last year’s kidnapping incident.
According to the official version of what had happened—Phyllis Iris and Shizuku Aitori had rescued Ayano Matsuki from Herbert. My involvement, along with Mia’s, had been kept secret. Apparently, that was thanks to Phyllis and Sougen-san looking out for us.
Their reasoning was that,
“Getting involved with that world from such a young age will warp a child’s personality.”
And, as it turned out, the exorcist community really was a pretty rotten place.
Shizuku, who was publicly credited with helping resolve the incident, was treated as a “traitor who had outmaneuvered the other families,” and all she got in return was a flood of jealousy and resentment. Apparently, the hostility directed toward the Aitori family had actually become worse than it was before the incident.
What kind of demon-infested wasteland was the exorcist community, anyway?
It was supposed to be a profession where you drove demons away. Instead, the demons were living there. Not just living there, either. They’d practically taken up permanent residence.
“But thanks to the incident, we were able to establish connections with the Matsuki family. So when you look at the whole thing as a balance sheet, it comes out even.
“No, actually…”
Shizuku’s voice turned cheerful.
“The positives far outweigh the negatives.”
Worried about Shizuku putting on a brave face like that, I made sure to stay in frequent contact with her.
＊ ＊ ＊
The spring cherry blossoms scattered, leaving the branches covered in fresh green leaves. Summer arrived, with the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky.
My life didn’t really change all that much.
At kindergarten, I spent my days running around with Kousuke Orise, while the girls kept telling me, for some reason, that I was “so precious.”
On weekends, I headed over to the annex of the Matsuki estate and battled it out with Sougen-san over video games.
Before long, autumn arrived, and I turned five.
Ayano gave me a bright red handkerchief.
It wasn’t bloodstained, right?
When I asked her that but she answered with silence. Seriously creepy.
Mia, meanwhile, gave me a white scarf she had knitted together with Yuko-san.
Pure healing.
Yuko-san had done about ninety-five percent of the actual work, but from an older-brother perspective, it still counted as a hand-knitted scarf from my little sister.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that I survived the winter thanks to that scarf.
Individual results may vary.
And then spring came around again. Just as the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom—
“They say, ‘If you want to capture the general, shoot his horse first.’ …I originally thought of you as nothing more than a tool for getting closer to Phyllis-sama.”
Sougen-san dropped a bombshell of a confession on me.
“But lately, I’ve found that I genuinely enjoy spending time with you, hmm… I’ve come to think of you as my own grandson.”
The sixty-nine-year-old man blushed bashfully.
What the hell was this?
I really didn’t think there was much demand for conquering Grandpa.
Especially not when my Old Man already had a harem.
What was going on with my life?
“Yoshito, if you’re willing, I was thinking perhaps you could become Ayano’s betroth—”
“GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!?”
A merciless dropkick sent Sougen-san flying across the room. The culprit, of course, was not me.
“Long time no see, Yoshito.”
The person who suddenly burst into the tatami room was a beautiful silver-haired woman.
It was Phyllis Iris F. Crasia. Despite having just delivered a devastating kick, there wasn’t so much as a wrinkle in her pristine white dress.
“I have something to discuss with Sougen, so could you leave us alone for a bit?”
I had no reason to refuse.
Ahh, what a peaceful day.
As I left the annex, I could hear Sougen-san’s delighted screams echoing behind me.
…Come to think of it, I’d noticed something for just a split second. Sougen-san had actually thrown himself backward when he saw the dropkick, reducing the impact of the blow.
Maybe he was secretly some kind of martial arts master. There was definitely a setting like that lurking somewhere in his character sheet.
That was in March.
Another month passed.
It was now a night in April.
『Master, please help me…』
The nightly telepathic “chitchat before bed” had by now become a regular occurrence. Despite the fact that Shizuku’s entrance ceremony at Matsuki Academy’s senior high division was tomorrow, she sounded unusually gloomy.
I asked her what was wrong.
『There’s going to be a tournament for young exorcists soon, but because of various circumstances, I’m in a situation where I absolutely have to win…』
Oh?
『I’m terribly sorry, Master, but… could you disguise yourself as me and compete in my place?』
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
Previous ⚜ Table of Contents ⚜ Next
