It went without saying, of course, but both Mia and I were still five-year-old kindergarteners. There was no way we could simply decide on our own that we were going to spend the night at a friend’s house. And yet—
“Sounds like you and Ayano-chan are really close. Just be careful not to get into any fights, all right?”
By the time we got back to the Kirasawa household, Yuko-san had already made all the preparations for our sleepover. Apparently, Matsuki family had contacted her sometime during the day.
Mia and I climbed into the limousine—by now, we were practically veterans when it came to riding around in one—and headed for the mansion in the hills.
After enjoying a delicious dinner prepared by the private chef (main course: five-cheese hamburg steak), we eventually gathered in Ayano’s room.
The group consisted of Ayano, Mia, and me. And then there was one more person who arrived a little later—
“Huh? Master, Young Madam… What are you doing here?”
A magician wrapped in bandages and wearing a long coat. It was Shizuku Aitori.
“I asked Grandpa to have her come over.”
Ayano explained.
Come to think of it, the Matsuki family had quite a bit of influence in the exorcist world, didn’t they?
“Uhm… what exactly is this gathering about…?”
Shizuku looked a little bewildered. For the record, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on either.
“Today, I thought we’d do something to thank Shizuku-oneesan for what she did during the kidnapping incident.”
Ayano smiled. It was a smile like a flower slowly opening in bloom. And yet, for some reason, it sent an inexplicable chill down my spine.
It felt like I was staring straight at a carnivorous plant. No—more like a man-eating flower.
“I heard from Yoshito-kun. You want to win the next Shohyakka, right? Don’t worry. If you just do exactly what I tell you, Shizuku-oneesan will become much, much stronger than she is now.”
Her voice was sweet and clear, like the delicate ringing of a little bell. It was the sort of voice you could listen to forever.
But inside my head, one phrase kept echoing: “The devil’s sweet whisper.” Even the syrupy way she called her “Shizuku-oneesan” sounded like the opening act of some hypnotist’s routine.
“Ayano, what exactly are you planning to do?”
I couldn’t help cutting in.
“Shizuku is an important friend of mine. If you’re planning on doing anything weird to her—”
“Oh, Yoshito-kun, you’re so overprotective.”
Ayano’s lips curled into a soft little giggle.
“Shizuku-oneesan, you’re really loved, aren’t you?”
“Eek!?”
Shizuku let out a squeak that was practically a shriek. Her face turned as red as a cherry.
“L-L-Loved!? B-But Master already has Young Madam, and, a-and—n-not that, I mean—over this past year, whenever things got hard, he always listened to me, and—”
“Okay, okay. We get it. Lovebirds, lovebirds.”
Despite being the one who had brought up the subject in the first place, Ayano brushed it aside as though she couldn’t care less.
Wow. Cold.
Meanwhile, Mia remained silent. She had a pleasant smile on her face, but somehow, I could sense something beneath it. Like that calm before the storm.
Eventually, she turned toward me.
Then, without a word, she smoothly rose to her feet—
Whoa!?
Something heavy settled against my back.
For some reason, she was leaning against me from behind. All I could feel was the slight weight of her body and its faint warmth.
“…Oniisan, your back’s hard.”
She muttered the complaint bluntly, yet made no attempt to move away.
“Heehee. Mia and Yoshito-kun are so lovey-dovey.”
Ayano watched us with an absurdly smug grin.
“Anyway, to answer your earlier question, what I’m planning to do is create a magical system that’s perfectly suited to Shizuku-oneesan. Don’t worry. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Isn’t that exactly what a villain in a story would say?
While I was still cocking my head in suspicion, Ayano had already moved on, carrying the conversation along all by herself.
“Hey, Shizuku-oneesan, that coat of yours is super stylish.”
“Ah… Th-thank you very much.”
Shizuku accepted the compliment with an almost apologetic little bow.
Judging by the way she was acting, I supposed the social hierarchy here was something like: [Heiress of the Matsuki family > Head of a tiny exorcist outfit].
“By the way, uhm… Ayano-san, do you happen to have any knowledge or experience with magic yourself…?”
“Yes, I do.”
Ayano nodded casually in response to Shizuku’s question.
“The Matsuki family may not come from a line of exorcists, but I’m special.”
Well, that much was obvious. After all, she had been an evil god in her previous life. She had lost most of her former power, but when it came to magic, she was probably the most knowledgeable person in the room.
“Then, Oneesan, can I ask you something too?”
Ayano reached out with her right hand. The slender index finger lightly touched the breast pocket of Shizuku’s long coat. Embroidered across the front of the pocket was a crest depicting a Cracked Inverted Cross.
Ayano slowly traced it with the pad of her finger, rubbing gently over the embroidery.
“…!”
The breast pocket was, naturally, positioned over Shizuku’s chest.
Her body gave a small involuntary twitch. Ayano paid it no mind as she continued with her question.
“What does this inverted cross mean?”
＊ ＊ ＊
An inverted cross. I vaguely remembered looking it up on Wikipedia in my previous life, though I couldn’t recall the details anymore. It tended to be associated with Satanism, but wasn’t it actually a symbol connected to Saint Peter or someone like that?
Personally, I was tempted to give it the reading “Anti-Cross” and start imagining some occult organization straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos, but that had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand.
Some boys and girls, once they hit adolescence, are naturally drawn to designs like this. And once they get hooked, they tend to let their imaginations run wild, inventing all sorts of settings about secret societies and mysterious organizations.
I wondered if that was the case with Shizuku.
She answered,
“I just happened to see a similar design online, and I borrowed the idea. It doesn’t really have any particular meaning or anything…”
Liar. I knew that excuse all too well.
“I just happened to like the way it looked.” That was the excuse you would use when you absolutely did not want anyone digging any deeper. Like when a classmate caught sight of your anime character clear file. Or when someone happened to glance at the wallpaper on your phone—the one featuring your “waifu”.
Guh…
200 damage to my psyche.
An old wound had been ripped open in the most unexpected way. But precisely because of that, I understood how Shizuku felt. There had to be something more behind that inverted cross than mere fashion.
Something like an absurdly complicated backstory.…Or some elaborate origin story. Apparently, Ayano had come to the same conclusion.
“Oneesan, you shouldn’t lie.”
She cut straight through Shizuku’s excuse without mercy, then continued.
“This is something you need in order to become stronger. So come on, tell me. Why do you always wear a long coat? Isn’t it hot? And why do you cover one eye with a bandage? You’re not actually injured, are you? Why do you wear those fingerless gloves? And why do you wear your belt diagonally and have all those chains dangling from it? Do you think it looks cool? Huh? Come on, tell me. Huh?”
“Eeeeeeeek!”
This was psychological torture, utterly devoid of anything that could remotely be called mercy.
If Shizuku had been the kind of hopelessly committed chuunibyou who could indulge in delusions to the bitter end, she probably could have brushed off this level of interrogation without breaking a sweat. She might even have taken it as an opportunity to unveil her carefully crafted backstory.
But Shizuku hadn’t reached that level. All she could do was tremble in embarrassment, utterly incapable of answering.
“Hmmm… Looks like I’ll have to resort to the last resort.”
Despite her troubled tone, Ayano seemed to be enjoying herself.
“Shizuku-oneesan, do you know what this is?”
With that, she pulled a notebook from the bookshelf.
“…!”
The bright red color in Shizuku’s face vanished in an instant.
“No…! But I hid that inside my desk drawer…!”
“The Shizuki family’s butlers are very capable. This sort of thing is child’s play for them.”
With a smug little “hmph”, Ayano proudly puffed out her chest and opened the notebook. Then she began reading its contents aloud.
“—‘The Clan of Blood who bear the Cracked-Inverted-Cross.’ Abbreviated as ‘C∴C∴C.’ Hmm… I understand wanting all the initials to be C, but wouldn’t ‘C∴I∴C’ be more accurate? Oh, well. Let’s see…”
She continued reading.
“‘Although they call themselves a clan, they are not actually related by blood. One is admitted into the C∴C∴C through their will and their ability.’”
She paused.
“Wow.”
Ahh. Could this be one of those hot-pot monstrosities born from the uncontrollable creative urges of adolescence?
In other words… a black-history notebook.
“Ahem. ‘Magic is something that twists the laws of nature, but at the same time, it is also the work of God. Therefore, those who wield magic can be said to be both blasphemous and faithful beings. The very icon that embodies this contradiction is the “Cracked Inverted Cross.”’”
Fair is foul, and foul is fair. I vaguely remembered reading a line like that in some classic work. But people with that uniquely fourteen-year-old sensibility sure do love lining up contradictory concepts side by side.
I used to be the same way.
“‘The C∴C∴C is what is commonly known as a secret society, and its members remain shrouded in darkness. Listed below are its ten executives—the “Fictional Crifa Round Table.”’”
An underground organization that never revealed itself to the public, ruled over by numbered elites of extraordinary power. It was such a textbook cliché that it physically hurt.
And, more importantly—
Reading the notebook aloud right in front of Shizuku herself was downright cruel.
What the hell was Ayano trying to accomplish?
As I tilted my head in confusion,
“Shizuku-oneesan, don’t you think it would be wonderful if everything written here were actually true?”
Ayano asked the question in that gentle voice. Her tone was soft, her face serene—like a benevolent Buddha lowering a strand of spider silk down from heaven.
“No, I shouldn’t say ‘if it were true.’It is true. The C∴C∴C really exists, and everything written in this notebook is the absolute truth.”
—And that was when I finally understood what Ayano was after.
Do you know the basics of brainwashing? First, you crush the target’s self-esteem, creating a blank space inside their mind. Then, into that empty space, you implant a new set of values with sweet, comforting words.
“So the magic written here isn’t just something Shizuku-oneesan made up, either. You can actually use all of it. Every last spell. —Isn’t that right, Yoshito-kun?”
Wait.
Why was she suddenly dragging me into this?
“The truth is, Yoshito-kun is actually one of the members of the Fictional Crifa Round Table. He’s Number Five in the hierarchy—the [Merciful Killing Machine-Chesed Adyeshach.] And apparently, he’s going to demonstrate one of the C∴C∴C’s spells for us right now.”
Ayano handed me the notebook.
The pages were filled with such gloriously cringeworthy names as “Eternal Frostland of the Undying—Eternal Blizzard—Force of the Distant World” and “The Gravekeeper Wails Before His Own Death—Death Burst—Diabolic.”
And, as if that weren’t bad enough, each spell came with its own unique signature pose.
Huh? I’m actually supposed to do this?
『If you want to make Shizuku-chan stronger, this is the quickest way to do it. Just play along, okay? 』
As if to pile on the pressure, Ayano sent that message straight into my mind via telepathy.
When it comes to magic, three elements are essential: Imagination. Excitement. Reality. You expand your imagination, raise your own excitement, and convince yourself that you are capable of making the phenomenon happen. If you can do that, then, fundamentally, there isn’t a phenomenon in the world you can’t bring about.
The reason Shizuku had never been able to properly wield her magical power was, in broad terms, that Western-style magic simply didn’t suit her.
It didn’t stimulate her imagination.
It didn’t get her fired up.
Maybe she just couldn’t make herself believe it was real. And that was why Ayano was trying to give her a “magical system perfectly suited to Shizuku herself.”
The C∴C∴C. It had originally been created by Shizuku herself, after all. So in terms of compatibility, it couldn’t possibly be a better fit.
…Probably.
The one thing I couldn’t accept was the fact that I’d somehow been dragged into her delusions too.
Seriously, what the hell was a“Merciful Killing Machine-Chesed Adyeshach” supposed to be?
…Damn it, that actually looks pretty good.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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