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alpindale

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light-novels

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“When I asked you about ‘Zigzag,’ I thought it was weird that you had so much to say. You’d been so evasive about everything else, always insisting you didn’t understand anything.”

Telling me that “Zigzag” used the genuine article…was nothing more than another of Hime-chan’s expedients. Those strings of hers were plenty good enough. In the hands of a master weaver, any string, no matter how fragile, could mean the end of the line.

And her description of the gloves had been an expedient too, with a little half-truth mixed in. Upon consideration, there was no need to wear them around the clock. If you were using the lines for some more pedestrian purpose, it’d be possible to do it barehanded─just as long as you weren’t attempting to kill someone, yup, like right now.

Retreat…was not an option. Since there were likely already “lines” strung haphazardly all through this hallway, like a true spider’s web. Most of them were invisible to the naked eye (she must have intentionally woven in a few you could see with the ones you couldn’t), but I felt pretty confident that they were there. After confirming that we were in this building over the walkie-talkie, Hime-chan headed us off at the pass. She set this trap and lay in wait for us.

This was a zigzagging “cat’s cradle” writ large. Easier said than done, keeping track of the position and tension of every single line, fine-tuning the force of the mediating pulleys, maintaining an awareness of the things that come into contact with the lines, as well as the things that don’t, and furthermore controlling it all with the tip of a finger. Outside was one thing, but inside, where there were as many nooks and crannies as one might need to act as pulleys for the “lines”─Zigzag was indeed a peerless, and endlessly adaptable, combat technique. No wonder the four girls who tackled her hadn’t even glanced my way. And if I was wondering why Tamamo had lost her concentration and given me my opening, simply at the sound of Hime-chan’s voice─well, here was my answer. With a higher-level berserker making her entrance, Tamamo couldn’t keep her head. And now it made perfect sense that Shiogi had set her ambush in the courtyard. Good visibility was Hime-chan’s Achilles’ heel.

“Hunh, it’s all coming together…”

The moment Shiogi and I set foot on this floor, we were caught in the spider’s web.

“And you killed the Director too, didn’t you.”

“Yes,” she assented as though it was nothing. And then continued as though it was nothing: “The whole Zigzag thing aside, Master, now that you’ve figured thats out, I have to kill you.”

“Because I figured it out? Did you really think that no one would ever discover the truth?”

“I did. I hoped so. I wished its could be that way. I even prayed for it.”

“…”

“I mean, Ms. Jun is soft on her friends. So she would never suspect Hime-chan.”

Jun Aikawa’s sole blind spot.

Not “betrayal,” but “deception.”

That woman─trusts her friends implicitly.

“But that’s just a blind spot, not a weak spot,” Hime-chan said, sounding sad. “Listen…can you understands at all? Do you have any inkling of what kind of life Ms. Jun has led? A world where everyone is deceiving everyone else, where you kill the person standing next to you before deciding what kind of a person they are─that’s the kind of world she’s lived in, seeing only the filthy side of humanity, and yet she still trusts other people without a second thought. Never suspecting Hime-chan, even for a moment.”

Hime-chan seemed to be getting a little choked up, but definitely wasn’t crying. She was staring intently at me like a vigilant guard dog.

“For people like Hime-chan, that’s basically an insult. No matter how special Jun Aikawa is, she tries harder than anyone to be on equal terms with other people. That right there is the essence of being strong, I guess. Hime-chan could never be like that. I even doubted you right up till the end, Master. When you said, ‘leave it to me,’ I suspected you might be planning to sell us out.”

So when she came after me, it wasn’t out of concern. Not only that, when she came after me the first time, the time I left the Director’s office, that was just for the sake of risk avoidance. It was all lies, all false.

When she cried for me.

When she restrained me.

When she came after me.

When she saved me.

Even when she smiled for me.

She was just putting on an act, playing the role of the kind of girl I like.

“Buuut,” Hime-chan declared, “other people are unbelievable, aren’t they!”

She laughed, willy-nilly imitating her own pure smile with a forced cheerfulness. Yet it was nothing more than a twisted distortion of her mouth into a warped curve.

“They betray you at the drop of a hat, deceive you, and explain it all away. They dismiss other people without a second thought. They hit other people anytime they feel like it, despite the fact that they know it’ll hurt, precisely because they know it’ll hurt. Basically, everyone─everyone is a fake.”

“Is it lonely, being so alone?”

“Yes, it is,” she answered immediately. “It’s lonely─still, I’ll live my life alone. Betraying, deceiving, and explaining it all away. I’ll lives my life alone.”

“That so… Guess it is, at that.”

“If we keeps on talking I’m going to start feeling sympathetic, so it’s time to bring this to an end.”

And Hime-chan whipped her finger up. In that instant, an unpleasant chill assaulted my body. A-ha, so this was the feeling of having those “lines” coiled all around your body. It all made sense now. In other words, that sensation I felt the very first time I met her back in “Year 2, Class A” was─nothing else. Did I have one foot in the grave from that very first hello? So then I wasn’t hallucinating when I sensed that locker shake, and it also explained why my feet got all tangled up. There must’ve been invisible threads winding through that classroom.

I was dead meat.

That time, because of her wariness at our first encounter.

And now, because I’d learned too much.

“I’ll tell Ms. Jun that Master left ahead of us─or something. Okay, bye-bye. Time to say farewell, Master.”

“If you’re worried about sympathy, it’s too late for me, you know.”

The finger that was about to snap down for the final time─stopped.

“Did you…says something?”

“I guess this is the first time I’m saying it out loud. You’re…terribly similar. To a girl I destroyed when I was a kid. That girl was openhearted, always smiling, and never suspicious or angry, a real good egg, she’d forgive you for anything, and above all, she was kind enough to love me.”

“Then we’re not similar at all, are we?” Hime-chan muttered, lowering her gaze. With lowered gaze, she muttered, “Hime-chan isn’t a good girl. That’s all superficial. I’m suspicious of everyone, and I’m always annoyed, plus I’ve never once fallen in love. It’s all an act. An act, a pack of lies. I was just playing up to you. That kind of person…doesn’t really exist, do they?”

She wasn’t like her, she’d just acted like it.

Since that kind of person doesn’t really exist.

“Yeah. I thought so too. I told myself that this kind of person shouldn’t exist. Which is why─I smashed that kind of thing to bits. Goodwill is fake, and trust is counterfeit, so I ruthlessly stomped it all to pieces.”

“…”

“It was incredibly cathartic. The best feeling ever. Just thinking about it makes me feel like the sun’s come out. That must be what people mean when they talk about happiness. And…I fell straight into the jaws of regret. I’d destroyed something authentic and irreplaceable. And that girl wasn’t strong like Aikawa. Being deceived by me, the person she loved, that could only have been the end for her. And I knew it, or should have─”

Why was I waxing on about this?

About my sins.

Was it repentance? Not a chance. Atonement? Not quite.

Yeah─I was just hoping for a do-over, it was that simple.

Because even if Hime-chan coming after me out of concern was a lie, the conversation we had when she did wasn’t. Even if her words had been directed at herself instead of me.

Hime-chan had said it was all lies.

And I think that was the truth.

And yet─honestly. Honestly. Honestly, I’m telling you.

If this world were truly just as Hime-chan says it is, just as I think it is.

Then we’d be able to get by without this much suffering.

Don’t you see?

If even the way you were trembling when you protected me from Shiogi was an act─if even that was a lie, then this world holds nothing but lies. And if everything’s a lie and there’s not a shred of truth anywhere─if there’s no point of comparison, then that’s the same as saying that everything is true.

“Why did you kill the Director?”

“Is the fact that she was the Director of this academy not reason enough? Would you be more satisfied if Hime-chan had been through alls kinds of horrible experiences at her hands? If my friends had been killed? If I’d been raped? If something important had been taken from me? Would that be a thoroughly satisfying, neatly wrapped up happily-ever-after for you? Do you think I’m an idiot? That’s not how killing someone works, Master.”

I was being lectured about the meaning of murder by a teenage girl. A seventeen-year-old girl, going on about the finer points of crime, and punishment. It was an abnormal situation. So abnormal that it was hard to accept, even within the precincts of the academy known as Hang ’Em High.

“Then let me ask you a different question. Did you kill the Director because you wanted to get out of here? Or did you decide to get out of here as part of your strategy to kill the Director?”

“Both. And neither,” replied Hime-chan coldly. “I wanted to destroy this school. I wanted to pull it up by the roots, to do away with the whole place in one fell swoop so that not a single blade of grass remained, so that not a trace, not an ounce, not a hint of a shadow of a memory was left.”

“When we were first discovered by those two girls, you did that on purpose, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t tell me anything upfront.”

“That’s right. Since if we succeeded in escaping, we couldn’t go to the Director’s office. And I was pretty sure that was what Ms. Jun would decide to do.”

“And while we were running away, when I had you tucked under my arm, you took the campus map out of my pocket.”

“If you had a map, you wouldn’t be able to gets lost.”

“And you didn’t use Zigzag to dismember the Director because if you had, Aikawa would’ve been on to you.”

“Yup. You might be able to fool insight, but you can’t fool sight.”

“So you fooled her by using a chainsaw to dismember the body instead.”

“It’s like you were rights there in the room with me.”

“And you tricked Shiogi and company by posing as the Director on the walkie-talkie, so you could move them around like chess pieces and get them to do whatever you wanted.”

“Exactly. Though they didn’t do what I wanted, did they.”

“That leaves─well, some puzzles that need solving, but that about covers the preface. So let’s get to the real topic at hand, Hime-chan. Let’s talk about the future.”

“Huh?”

Hime-chan looked at me dubiously. A swirling maelstrom of overpoweringly negative emotions lodged in those pupils of hers. Not like I gave a shit about getting killed, not like it wasn’t a completely futile non-action, I couldn’t care less…

But I would do what I could.

That was─my job.

Everything around me goes insane. Strategies and calculations go off the rails, nothing goes as planned.

Hime-chan.

I’ll help bring your goals to nothing. I’ll help bring your determination to ruin. I’ll help bring all your hopes and dreams, your wishes, your prayers, crashing down around your ears. How does that sound?

“The future?”

“That’s what I said. It feels crappy when the future is vague, doesn’t it? Uncertain elements are a bummer…right? Everybody wants a bright future, don’t they?”

“Wh-What─”

“Either way, if you do get out of here, you’ve got nowhere to go, do you, Hime-chan? So why not come with me? My building’s pretty rundown, but there just so happens to be an empty room on the first floor right now. The rent is a stunningly affordable ten thousand yen a month. There’s no bath, but a public one is close by. I can’t say it’s a great building, but it’s a pretty fun place. The people who live there are cool. And it’s really the people who make a home a home. Take my word for it. The first person I should introduce you to is Miiko Asano, she’s a swordswoman. Miiko’s a little bit older than me, a real dignified lady, and she takes good care of me. I’m sure she’d adore you, Hime-chan.”

“Are…you─”

“On the top floor there’s an old Christian dude. I don’t know his real name, but he’s a funky old guy, he’s a rapper. He’s fun just to look at. But he’s dangerous, so don’t get too close… Then there’s a brother and sister, Moeta Ishinagi and Hoko Yamiguchi. Can’t forget those two. Moeta’s a tough customer, but his sister’s the innocent type. If she likes you, you’re golden.”

“What are you─”

“On the first floor, there’s a female college student who just moved in. She’d be your next-door neighbor, Hime-chan. She’s in her third year at Roshisha University, and her name’s Nanami Nanananami. She’s the worst, super uptight. I’d love it if your easygoing personality rubbed off on her a little.”

“What are you, talk─”

“And my room’s on the second floor, come up anytime. As far as school goes, it’s not like you’ve got anything else to do, so give it a shot. If you want to be a good kid, every day can’t actually be Sunday. You’d never find a real job with that attitude, so let’s see, I guess that’d make you a transfer student. You might have a hard time keeping up with the classes after going to this dumbass academy, but that’s where I come in. I’ll look out for you, I’ll be your tutor. Then that name might actually start to mean something.”

“─ing about─”

“And we’ll all have tons of fun─all of us, together.”

“What are you talking about!” Hime-chan finally exploded. “You’re about to get zigzagged! So all this─all this stuff you’re saying, everything you’ve been saying, I don’t wanna hear it! There─there’s no future! No future at all, not for Hime-chan!”

Being able to think about the future is proof that you still have leeway. If you really are living each day like it’s your last, you don’t have time to think about such things.

Each day, like it’s your last─you’re going to die anyway, no matter what you do, so.

“So you’re going down with the ship? A double suicide with this stupid school? That’s just childish selfishness. What am I supposed to do, caught up in some girl’s rotten emotions?”

“Did you say─girl’s, rotten?”