Published at 25th of March 2019 9:59 pm

Volume 5 Chapter 2 - Discarded Fox Diary Part 2

“Karin, let’s watch anime or something.”

Choosing the one that he hasn’t watched yet among the anime URD that he borrowed from Lotte, Kazuki called out to her.

“Anime…?” Karin tilted her head looking at the URD package in his hand with deep interest.

“This is an appliance that projects a story, isn’t it…? How foolish, this is just a child’s amusement.”

“Is that so, well even if you don’t watch I’m still going to watch alone.”

Kazuki set the URD into the Phantasmagoria and it projected three dimensional images. At his back, Karin kept sneaking glances this way.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

“Hayashizaki Kazuki. Oi Kazuki.” Along with the sudden voice, his shoulder was shook from behind.

“What is it, even though now is a great scene, gusu-”

Kazuki paused the images temporarily and looked back while wiping his tears.

Even though a great scene that even made him forget Karin’s existence was currently going on.

“…I can’t comprehend the action of Ivlahimopitch just now. It’s irrational.”

Karin said with a serious expression.

The one she called Ivlahimopitch was the main character of this anime [Magical Girl Ivlahimopitch].

“Ivlahimopitch, who was a female delinquent ruffian, was reformed by her master Park Chison and she accumulated training of magical taekwondo. Finally, she surpassed the strength of her master and then she proceeds forward into a destiny of various magic martial arts battles together with the enemy of her parents, the user of magical Muay Thai Pon Saklek, I wonder if it’s that kind of scene.”

“Haven’t you grasped the story well already?”

“Ivlahimopitch is supposed to be a girl that dedicated her life to fighting. Despite that, why did she suddenly neglect the enemy of her parents and head to Mourinyo’s location. This Mourinyo was an ally but parted company with her for the sake of pursuing her revenge. Currently, she is supposed to be an enemy.”

“That’s because she noticed the futility of revenge and the awakening of her love for Mourinyo, right?”

The girl who stopped the revenge realized that she was loved, not only by Mourinyo, but also the whole world and she liberated herself from the curse that bound her life. A really moving scene.

However, Karin shook her head. “I don’t get it, how irrational.”

“That’s because the thing called love is something irrational in the first place…”

“Love…what is love ?”

“Tha, that’s…I too don’t get it… Don’t ask such philosophical matters so suddenly!”

“You bastard, so you are showing something you don’t understand well yourself to me!”

“You don’t think about this kind of matter! You feel it!”

Kazuki and Karin raised their voices and quarreled, suddenly ‘BATA―N!’ the door of the room opened.

“Tell the story to me, Kazuki-oniisan! To talk about Ivlahimopitch without me participating is unforgivable desu!”

The one who came along was Lotte, who was wearing dog-modeled pajamas.

“Kazuki, what’s with this girl?”

“This living thing is Charlotte Liebenfrau…when she finds humans who share interest in anime, she will bite the prey and won’t let go until the prey had talked with her through three days and three nights. A ferocious anime lover wanwan .”

After Kazuki made that totally unthinkable introduction, Lotte “wanwan!” barked happily.

“What’s with that, scary.”

“She will be silent when you pet her head, see? Though she is going to immediately talk again after that.”

“Wanwan! Tonight let’s treat ourselves with all night anime admiration & debate! I will make newcomer-san not fall sleep too desu!!”

―When he noticed, the three were already sleeping together in a huddle.

Kazuki roused Lotte, who was supposed to go to school, out of the bed. Lotte, who was awakened from sleep, seeing Kazuki himself, who was taking a break from school murmured “Unfair desu…” while leaving the room. And then Kazuki and Karin, the two of them had breakfast with eyes that were still half-asleep.

“Karin, I noticed an incredible thing.”

“What?” Karin said with her head kept nodding off *kokukoku* from lack of sleep.

“You stink.”

Karin who was a target of monitoring…hadn’t entered the bath at all.

Now that he entered this topic, her attire too had been the Sword Division uniform all along.

“You didn’t use Extra Sense and Psychokinesis together to remove the filth from your body and clothes? I have been together with you continuously but I have done so with my body at the same time with my magic training though.”

An advanced magic user could remove the filth from their body with the power of magic. Because of that, in the occasion when they took a bath they put more importance in smell rather than washing and used things like <fragrance soap>.

“…I have never done that kind of thing.”

But it seemed Karin had always washed her body normally with soap. There was no mistake that she had never used luxury items like fragrance soap. She didn’t know the concept of washing her body with Psychokinesis.

“It can’t be helped huh, we're going to bathe.”

Even if he said that she stinks, it was not to the degree that would make him uncomfortable with being together with her.

Having said that, Kazuki was not a maniac; so he wanted a girl to be hygienic.

When Kazuki pulled Karin’s hand, she lost her presence of mind.

“Wait a second! I can't enter a bath alone right!?”

“You're in the middle of monitoring after all, so of course that's true but…as expected it’s embarrassing in the end.”

“Hm, hmph. I am a puppet. Such human-like emotions don’t remain inside me.”

He totally didn’t understand her need to bluff in this area.

“Is that so? Then don’t mind it. I’m going to persevere too and expose my nakedness to you. Let’s go to the bath.”

“Wait! Anyway wait a second for that!!”

“Got it, then let me give a call to Mio so that she could bring a change of swimsuit. It’s going to get hard to wash the body, but let’s enter the bath wearing swimsuits.”

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

…Gradually, it felt like he was picking a pet.

“Well, it’s not like it’s not embarrassing just because we're wearing swimsuits, isn’t it?”

Entering the changing room in turn, Kazuki and Karin changed into swimsuits alternately.

“U, useless feelings like shame do not exist in me.”

Karin was wearing a swimming race type school swimsuit on her body with the slenderness of a fist fighter. She hung her head down in embarrassment. It was a swimsuit that Mio brought and gave to him, but it was a little too big and baggy.

The bathtub of the Witch’s Manor had the space that could be enjoyed by all the dwellers of the manor together if they went for it.

“You understand how to use the shower, right? You enter the bathtub after cleaning your body first.”

“I know the shower, but what is a bathtub?”

“…So in the Hayashi house you used nothing other than the shower huh.”

“hotHAWTT! Hayashizaki Kazuki, this shower lets out hot water!?”

“You didn’t get any hot water there…basically it was just all-out abuse there…”

Though if it was just setting the water temperature, it could be controlled however they like by just using elementary Pyrokinesis.

Kazuki and Karin stood back to back in the washing area and began washing their respective bodies.

They looked completely like a family. That kind of emotion welled up, Kazuki’s chest became slightly warm.

“Then that thing called bathtub, what kind of item is it?”

Even if she asked what kind of item it is, it was just a mere bathtub. Kazuki explained with serious expression.

“Listen well, first you place the towel on your head. And then you submerge your body inside this hot water up to your shoulders, relax your whole body, then you say ‘Fuih―, it’s absolute heaven’. This is the custom so follow it absolutely.”

“Like this? …Fuih―, it’s absolute heaven. Fun, how stupid.”

Having said that and submerged herself inside the bathtub, her expression relaxed to the point that she looked like she was going to drool, her limbs became very loose. …The former assassin exposed her simpleton face in a school swimsuit appearance…

Kazuki too submerged himself together inside the spacious bathtub. According to what Kaguya-senpai said, this hot water was from some famous artificial hot spring. However Kazuki, who was raised with a poor person’s mentality, didn’t have the habit for long baths.

“Oi, are you not going to get out soon?”

“Wait!” Karin let flew an intense voice.

“Just wait a little bit…Fuih―, it’s absolute heaven.”

“You're that pleased huh?”

“What stupid things are you saying, I am a puppet. This kind of thing is by no means…fuhii―, it’s absolute heaven.”

Karin, who was warm and flaky, couldn’t help her mouth from loosening up slovenly and leaking ‘fuhii―fuhii―’ breaths.

“You're a really simple idiot, aren’t you?” Kazuki was amazed.

#####################

And then it was the third night after Karin came into Kazuki’s room.

If Karin was going to try to kill him, it was supposed to be on the first night. Having that kind of thought, Kazuki went to sleep while feeling a peace of mind.

Inside the room with its lights turned off, there was a shadow that woke up while suppressing the creaking sound of the bed to the very minimum.

That shadow―Karin was slowly creeping up unnoticed to Kazuki’s spread out futon.

The moonlight shining in from the gap of the curtain illuminated Kazuki’s sleeping face. Karin looked down on that sleeping face for a while. …It was just for ascertaining the depth of his sleep, there was no other intention.

After holding her hand in front of Kazuki’s nose and making sure there was the breathing of someone fast asleep, she crouched down near his pillow.

If she wanted to aim for his heart then she must circle the futon, but that made her hesitate. Karin decided to aim for the nape of Kazuki’s neck and held her palm aloft. If it was with the power of Shintoukei, the bone of the neck could be easily broken apart.

Humans wouldn’t die instantly from just having their neck snapped. The opponent was going to have his consciousness returned from the sleep and he was going to try to call for his comrades while his magic power prolonged his life. To prevent that event…after breaking the bone of the neck, Karin was going to twist the neck immediately and block the flow of blood to the brain. She constructed the flow of sequences inside her head.

[A certain one hit kill in this age of magic] ―for the sake of achieving that, the required knowledge had been engraved inside Karin.

For the sake of this moment.

―’You are a puppet but this technique is the only thing you can be proud of’, that was what Hayashi Shizuka said. Those words were everything for her.

Karin perceived the wavelength of Kazuki’s defensive magic power with her palm. Defensive magic power that was the product of the subconscious kept protecting the whole body of the magician thinly even while in the middle of sleep.

Magic power kept flowing without pause at all. This flow was not a simple phenomena, it possessed warping *gunya gunya* and a complex mysterious wavelength. It was a complexity that was as if expressing the chaos of a human’s heart itself. There were no two humans existing that possessed the same wavelength of magic power.

Karin, who had accumulated training, perceived that wavelength of magic power. She crashed that wavelength with the exact opposite wavelength of magic power, achieving counterbalance for just an instant. This technique was without doubt the <Ki of Yin and Yang>.

With the magic power counterbalanced, that instant he became defenseless, she punched him with Shintoukei. It was difficult to succeed in the middle of a real battle, but…it was child’s play when he slept.

Now that his magic power was read thoroughly, clashed with the exact opposite magic power, and then―that instant. Like a snake aiming for its prey, Kazuki’s one arm raised like a snake head and grabbed Karin’s wrist as if snapping at the prey’s neck.

“!?” With her dominant arm sealed in the nick of time with the strength of a thousand, Karin floated an expression of terror.

“You're awake!?”

“No, I was asleep, without a doubt. But the highest summit of an Iai swordsman is [continuous battle preparation].”

Immediately clearing away his sleepiness with Mind UnityTrance, Kazuki opened his eyes in a snap.

He was having a peace of mind from looking at Karin’s situation but―it was not to the degree that made him undo his <War Preparation Ki>.

“In the first place, if you wake Leme up, things like surprise attacks won’t come true though.”

Furthermore, Leme materialized with a pop beside Kazuki.

“…Well, I don’t have any plans to pamper you until that much though―”

Leaving only those words behind, Leme’s figure disappeared with a pop again.

“If you kill me and bring that achievement back…are you thinking something like that?”

While asking, Kazuki became aware of the depressed tone of his own voice. Kazuki was disappointed.

“…I didn't think of anything like that. I don’t know the place I can go back to with my achievement. Because I don’t even know where Shizuka is right now.”

“Then why?”

“If it keeps like this, then I will be changed. …Shizuka said that the world is a scary place. I am more scared of living not following what Shizuka said, even more than dying. …It’s supposed to be like that.”

Karin’s arm desperately struggled. However, Kazuki was not going to let go of that arm.

Karin became scared of the feelings that she had never known until now.

“Shizuka was only trying to use you. …The world without a doubt is a happier place.”

It was an obvious fact that should even be said to be the significance of living. However, Karin was scared even of that fact.

“I’m not wishing for anything like happiness! I’ll kill you…and I’ll get killed too!! It’s fine already with that…!!”

“Don’t abandon yourself!”

{But…with your current strength you cannot kill that boy though.}

In the middle of the arguing two people, a voice appeared―it was not a voice. Reverberating directly inside the head of Kazuki and Karin, it was a telepathic voice. It was a voice that he remembered hearing before. But, it couldn’t possibly be…that voice was impossible.

{Wrong, it’s possible, you know? Karin, if you want to kill that fellow, it’s fine to use my power.}

“This voice is, <Dakki>!”

Behind Karin whose hand was gripped by Kazuki, a dim avatar was floating.

Karin’s contracted Diva, Dakki…!

But even though Karin and Dakki’s contact was supposed to be sealed by the Limiter…!

{Wrong, boy. Fufufu. The name of the current me is not Dakki. Know this. What is known as Diva is the state of things that are altered by the human hearts, that illusion.}

Altering the state of Divas―like how Baal became Beelzebub.

During the change of history, civilization, there existed Divas that possessed several faces.

The stigmata was shining on Karin’s body. It changed into a totally different shine compared to when he fought her in the final!

{Right now, my name is, the fox of hundred faces, golden fur nine tails <Tamamo no Mae>! Things like a Limiter that identified the stigmata of Dakki, is already useless!!}

The faint shadow that was floating behind Karin gradually linked into a clear contour of beautiful woman. Golden hair, golden tail, beautiful face accompanied with sharpness as it was. The clothes that wrapped her body transformed from a Chinese-style into the motif of Japanese clothes.

This fellow…was she transforming from a Diva of Chinese Mythology into a Diva of Japanese Mythology!?

Kazuki leaped out from the futon, his hand grasping his beloved katana <Doufuu> that was waiting at the side.

{Come Karin, let’s kill this boy together!}

“I can kill Hayashizaki Kazuki…I can, Hayashizaki Kazuki will…?”

{What’s wrong Karin? Don’t tell me…[I can’t kill him anyway] you are already half giving up like that and yet you are still trying to kill him, that’s so, right?}

Asked like that, Karin twitched as if in fright and her line of sight wandered around.

“I, I am…even if I use your Summoning Magic, I can’t win against that guy at all…”

{That might be so huh. But―it’s going to be different if you assimilate with me. Materialization, if you chant your magic with a speed that far surpasses even Contract Summoning, there is no reason that you can lose in a one-on-one fight. That’s right…if you yield your everything to me, you can kill that boy in this place!}

“Yielding my body, to you…?”

{That’s right. You planned to kill that guy and get killed anyway, right? But that…surely it’s scary, isn’t it? Living too is scary, dying too is scary…then offer everything to me…!}

A voice so sweet that even a chill ran through, Tamamo no Mae whispered. {Inside my pitch black womb, you would have no need to fear anything anymore. That is without a doubt the most comfortable choice…}

“Stop!” Kazuki yelled. Throwing away oneself―that was something that must not be done the most!

“Karin! Don’t run from this world!! This world is not a scary place!! Because the meals are delicious, because anime is interesting, because you can go to bed after entering a warm bath…everything is something ordinary you can find anywhere!! There is no meaning at all in running away!!”

Karin whose gaze was sucked in by Tamamo no Mae looked at Kazuki as if she had just woken up.

The eyes of Karin at that time were…what Mibu Akira expressed as [lonely], those kind of eyes.

That was why, Kazuki resolved himself to reach out his hand.

Just like the hand offered to me from Tou-san, from Kaguya-senpai.

“If you're not alone, there is nothing you need to fear!!”

“If I’m not alone…”

“I'm right here!!”

{Don’t lend him your ear. Close your eyes. Shut yourself. Believe in me!}

“Believe in me! Running away is useless!!”

“I, I’m…” From both of Karin’s eyes, tears were spilling out in droves.

“…I don’t want to kill. Ac, actually, I don’t want to kill Kazuki…”

Karin fell onto her knees at that spot with a slump.

Hanging her head like a withering flower, drops of tear *drip drip* were spilling out onto the floor.

“…Karin.” Kazuki let go of Doufuu. Ignoring Tamamo no Mae, he hugged Karin.

Rather than regarding her as a woman, it felt like he was embracing a child.

“Scary…it’s scary. Hayashizaki Kazuki…living by myself is…”

Karin pressed her crying face into Kazuki’s chest, she was talking while her shoulders were heaving with sobs many times.

“It’s okay, the place Karin is currently in now is not a dark scary world. I’m right here.”

“Fu. Fuffuffu…”

Suddenly, Tamamo no Mae leak out a laughing voice. Kazuki reacted to the voice and looked back, then he glared at the avatar.

Towards Kazuki, who was on guard whether she was planning to do anything else, Tamamo no Mae grinned…and smiled.

{Fufufu…o Devil King of Solomon's 72 Pillars, Lemegeton. Tamamo no Mae and that contractor, Katsura Karin are surrendering under your banner. It’s fine to add this one to the lowest seat of the 72 Pillars.}

“…Eh?”

{Hayashizaki Kazuki. Don’t you dare forget the proclamation that you made in the presence of I…a Diva. I’m entrusting Karin to you.}

Kazuki who was taken aback with surprise, slow by one beat, he finally comprehend the thinking of this Diva.

“Were you…pushing Karin’s back forward? You're planning to betray the Chinese Mythology?”

Karin, who was cornered until she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, she made Karin be true to her own feelings…?

{In the first place I don’t belong under any Mythology. I went along with Joka, but it has also been established in the Mythology about how I betrayed Joka. Surely because of that Shizuka had arranged to use and discard Karin. But how dull it is if it ends like that, I too, and also Karin’s life.}

Tamamo no Mae stared at Karin with an unexpected gentle smiling face. And then when she looked back on Kazuki again, her gaze had a different quality compared to when she was staring at Karin. Only her mouth was grinning…and it warped showing a terrifying smile.

{I won’t let you off if you slight my Karin.}

“Hayashizaki Kazuki…” Karin too stared at Kazuki as if clinging onto him.

Katsura Karin―41

He had a feeling that somehow, he had burdened himself with something terrific.

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