"Sister, really, doesn't answer messages, doesn't pick up the phone."
Moeha pouted, complaining a little, but her eyes were full of anticipation. "She must be too busy with student council work, right? Hehe, when she sees the sweets I made, she's going to get such a surprise!"
Just as she was about to step into the school grounds.
A tall, sturdy figure blocked her path.
It was a woman in a black suit and sunglasses. On her face was a professional, flawless smile.
She was one of Seiji Fujiwara's personal bodyguards.
"Excuse me, are you Miss Moeha Fujiwara?" The female bodyguard bowed slightly, her tone respectful and polite.
"Eh?" Moeha was startled for a moment, and stepped back half a pace warily. "I am... who are you, please?"
"I am the secretary to the chairman of the student council." The bodyguard lied smoothly, without a single flaw showing on her face. "The chairman and Secretary Chika are dealing with some urgent business over at the old school building. Miss Chika specifically asked me to wait for you here."
"Really?" The wariness in Moeha's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by delight. "Sister knew I was coming?"
"Yes. Miss Chika said that if you came, I was to bring you straight over."
The bodyguard turned to one side and made a gesture of invitation, pointing toward the old school building, which was where the Third Art Preparation Room was located.
"Miss Chika is over there... providing 'special service' to the chairman."
The bodyguard placed emphasis on the words "special service," but to the innocent Moeha, it sounded like nothing more than proof that her sister worked diligently.
"Wow! Sister is so amazing! She can actually help the chairman directly!"
Moeha laughed happily, a smile as pure as spring sunshine.
"Then let's hurry! I can't wait to see Sister at work!"
Holding the lunch box in her arms, she set off with a light step, following the woman in black toward the old school building.
...
...
The last traces of the setting sun, with their suffocating blood-red color, slanted in through the high, dust-covered windows of the Third Art Preparation Room.
The room was thick with the smell of age, mingled with the expensive perfumes of the girls and... a gradually thickening odor named "shame."
Seiji Fujiwara sat in the red velvet high-backed chair at the center of the room, like a Demon King reigning over ruins, surveying with great interest the four trembling "maids" before him.
"Well then. Let the cleaning begin."
He clapped his hands lightly. In the silent room, the sound was particularly piercing.
"Kaguya."
"Yes..." Kaguya Shinomiya's voice was as faint as a mosquito's whine.
She held her arms in front of her chest, trying to hide the spring scenery that could not possibly be hidden, her eyes darting away, not daring to look at that man for even a glance.
"That window over there is too dirty." Seiji pointed at the tall window. "Go clean it."
"Yes..." Kaguya let out a sigh of relief. If it was just cleaning a window, then even though this outfit was humiliating, as long as she had her back to that man, perhaps...
But her stroke of luck was crushed mercilessly by his next sentence.
"However, the ordinary way of cleaning won't do." Seiji drew a circle in the air with his finger. "Since this is 'special service,' you have to use a special posture."
He pulled the doujinshi out from his jacket, flipped it open to a certain page, and showed it to Kaguya.
In the panel, the black-haired girl was wiping a window in an extremely humiliating posture, hands braced on the windowsill, upper body nearly pressed against the glass, hips lifted high toward the "master" behind her.
"I want you to recreate this posture exactly." Seiji's voice carried a smile that brooked no argument. "And no hands."
"...No hands?" Kaguya's head shot up, those ruby-like eyes filled with horror. "Then... then how am I supposed to wipe it?"
"With this, of course." Seiji pointed at the girl's chest pressed against the glass in the panel. "Use this."
"What..."
Kaguya's mind went blank.
This wasn't cleaning a window at all.
This was... this was...
"What? You didn't understand?" Seiji's gaze turned cold. "Or do you want me to teach you personally?"
Kaguya shivered.
She knew the consequences of resistance.
She bit her lower lip, almost biting through it. In the end, she walked toward the window with heavy steps.
She braced her hands on the windowsill, closed her eyes, and tears slid silently down her cheeks.
As though enduring the death of a thousand cuts, she pressed her body against the cold pane of glass.
"Good." Seiji nodded with satisfaction. "Maintain that rhythm. Don't stop."
Then he turned his gaze to another direction.
"Asuna."
"Yes!" Asuna jolted in fright.
The white bodysuit gave off a faint whisper of friction as she moved.
"There's too much dust on the floor." Seiji pointed at the dust-laden ground. "I want you to kneel on the floor and wipe it clean with the rag in your hands."
It sounded like an ordinary order.
But before Asuna could let out her breath, that devil continued:
"However, I will only allow you to use your knees and elbows on the floor. And as you crawl, you have to trace out... this pattern on the floor with the rag."
He flipped to another page of the doujinshi.
The image on that page was a complex magic circle with a suggestive design.
This not only required her to maintain that humiliating crawling posture for a long time, but to precisely control her body in the process. Her body's curves would be completely exposed, the lines of muscle drawn taut from exertion, the skin flushed red with shame...
"Begin."
Asuna drew a deep breath, forcing back the tears in her eyes, and knelt down.
The hard, cold floor pressed against her knees, but compared to the humiliation in her heart, the pain was nothing at all.
Like a white crawling creature, she dragged herself across the dust-covered floor.
"Hayasaka."
"Yes."
"Go over there. Wipe down that David statue."
"Yes."
"Chika."
At last, his gaze fell on the pink-haired girl who had been trembling all along, all but curled up into a ball.
Chika Fujiwara felt as though her heart was about to stop beating.
She knew that, as that man's "newest favorite," and the character with the most "scenes" in the doujinshi, what awaited her would absolutely be the most terrifying order.
"Come here." Seiji crooked a finger at her.
Trembling, Chika shuffled step by step before him.
"Put these on."
Seiji tossed her a pair of cat ears and a fluffy tail.
With shaking hands, Chika put the cat ears on her head, and then... tied the tail onto the belt at her waist.
"Meow..." On reflex, she made the cry that suited this costume, her voice cracking with sobs.
"Good girl." Seiji reached out and stroked her head as though stroking a real little kitten. "Now, I want you to treat these plaster busts... as if they were me."
He pointed at a half-bust beside them.
"Lick the dust off it. With your tongue."
"Wh... what?!"
Chika's eyes went wide as she stared at him in disbelief.
"You can't do it?" Seiji turned to the final page of the doujinshi.
The page depicted Chika herself, face flushed, eyes dazed, tongue extended, licking a statue of a man.
"You see, the you in the picture seems to enjoy it." Seiji smiled and held the doujinshi out to her. "I want you to recreate that expression exactly. Your line is..."
He pointed at the speech bubble in the panel.
"'Yes, Master. It is this kitten's honor to be allowed to clean for you.'"
"...I can't say that..." Chika shook her head desperately, tears bursting forth like a broken dam. "Please... Mr. Seiji... not this one... please..."
"You can't say it?"
The smile vanished from Seiji's face.
He reached out suddenly and gripped Chika's chin, forcing her to lift her face and look at him.
"Chika."
"Why did your father sell you to me?"
"For the future of the Fujiwara family!"
"If you can't even do this much, then what value do you have? Won't your father's 'sacrifice' have been for nothing?"
His words were like a poison-coated dagger, plunging viciously into Chika's heart.
That's right...
I was sold.
It was for the family...
If I don't obey... Father will be disappointed... the family will be finished...
The crushing weight of those shackles utterly broke her.
The light in Chika Fujiwara's eyes was completely extinguished.
"I... I understand..."
Like a broken doll, she slowly knelt down and crawled toward the cold plaster bust.
...
At this very moment.
Outside the door of the Third Art Preparation Room.
The bodyguard in the black suit, leading Moeha Fujiwara with her innocent, sun-bright smile, was standing at the doorway.
"We've arrived, Miss Moeha." The bodyguard came to a stop and bowed slightly. "Miss Chika is just inside."
"Thank you!"
Moeha thanked her sweetly, and then, unable to wait any longer, was about to push open the door.
"Ah, that's right." The bodyguard suddenly seemed to remember something, and reached out to press down on the door handle. "The soundproofing inside isn't very good. So as not to disturb the chairman's work, we'd better... go in quietly."
"Mm! I know!" Moeha quickly covered her mouth, nodded vigorously, and made a shushing gesture.
She was going to give her sister a big surprise!
...
She pressed down on the handle.
The door wasn't locked.
It was like a gaping maw, waiting for its prey to step inside.
As the gap widened bit by bit, the scene inside the room gradually appeared before Moeha's eyes.
First into her view came the dim light, and the dancing dust.
And then...
She saw it.
She saw Kaguya Shinomiya, who was always so elegant and noble, like a white swan, pressed against the window with her clothing barely covering her, twisting her body in a shameless posture.
"!?"
Moeha's pupils contracted sharply.
At the same time, her gaze fixed on the center of the room.
Fixed on the figure of her most-beloved... sister.
Her sister wore that bell-collared pink outfit so exposed it was nearly nothing.
Kneeling on the floor.
And above her sister, the man seated in the chair was watching her mockingly, a doujinshi in his hand, comparing something.
"...Chika, the expression is off."
The man's voice carried clearly into Moeha's ears.
"You need to enjoy it a little more... just like in this picture."
"Again. Say your line again."
Then.
Moeha heard it.
She heard her sister Chika, in a tone full of humiliation and trembling, yet bearing a strange obedience, say the words that would shatter her worldview.
"...Yes... Master..."
"...It is this kitten's... honor... to be allowed to clean for you..."
A small click.
The lunch box in Moeha's hand slipped from her fingers, which had lost all sensation, and fell to the ground.
The carefully made Strawberry Daifuku rolled out, the dust of the corridor coating them.
That faint sound, in the silent room, was like a thunderclap.
Chika Fujiwara's body went rigid.
She turned her head reflexively.
Looked toward the door.
Their eyes met.
In that instant, time seemed to stop.
Chika saw her little sister.
That face which had been full of sunshine and smiles was now draining of color, becoming as pale as paper.
In those large eyes, which had once shone with adoration, there was now only...
An incomprehensible terror.
Despair.
And... the strangeness of looking at a monster.
"Moe... Moeha...?"
Chika's voice was trembling so much it was nearly inaudible.
She wanted to stand up. She wanted to cover her little sister's eyes. She wanted to shout out, "This isn't real," "You saw wrong."
But she couldn't move.
That shameful outfit. That bell-collar around her neck. And that "tail," still at this moment pinned beneath that man's foot...
All of it was silently roaring out a single fact:
This is real.
This is reality.
The perfect older sister you worship is, in truth, only...
Only a man's plaything.
"Ah..."
Moeha's lips trembled.
She looked at this creature in front of her that called itself "sister."
That wasn't her sister.
That couldn't possibly be her sister.
This thing in front of her... with its tongue out, speaking obscene words...
Who on earth was it?
In that moment.
The string in Moeha Fujiwara's mind, named "yearning," snapped.
But she did not scream.
She did not even cry.
When a person suffers a massive shock beyond the limits of cognition, the brain initiates a self-protective mechanism. Complete dissociation.
She simply stared, dazed, at the Strawberry Daifuku on the ground.
She had spent a whole afternoon making them.
She had chosen the largest, reddest strawberries.
She had used the sweetest red bean paste.
They had been for her sister.
For that... perfect sister.
But... where had her sister gone?
Here, there was only... a "kitten."
"Miss Moeha?"
The bodyguard behind her, pretending to have just noticed something was wrong, asked with concern. "Is something the matter? Aren't you going in?"
Moeha gave no response.
Like a walking corpse with its soul extracted, she stiffly turned around.
Her eyes were hollow, unfocused.
She did not look at the bodyguard. She did not look back into the room.
She moved her legs and walked mechanically forward.
One step. Two steps.
Leaving this room.
Leaving this corridor.
Leaving this school building.
Leaving this... world full of monsters.
Even after her figure disappeared completely at the end of the corridor, the room remained in dead silence.
Chika Fujiwara was still in that pose of looking back, kneeling on the floor, motionless.
The last sliver of light in her eyes was extinguished along with the disappearance of her little sister's figure.
She had seen it.
She had seen the look in her little sister's eyes when she walked away.
It was not disgust. It was not contempt.
It was... "nothingness."
As though looking at a patch of empty air, a pile of garbage, a... thing that did not exist.
In that moment, Chika knew that she had killed her little sister.
The innocent, cheerful Moeha Fujiwara, who had always clung to her calling her "sister," was dead.
Killed, by her own hand, this shameless older sister.
"What a... wonderful expression."
Seiji Fujiwara's voice broke the silence.
He stood up and walked over in front of Chika, looking down from above at this girl who had completely collapsed.
"How was it, Chika?"
"Showing your true self in front of the little sister who worshipped you most. How does it feel?"
Chika gave no answer.
She slowly lowered her head until her forehead touched the cold floor.
Her body was no longer trembling.
Her tears no longer flowed.
A deep, profound darkness was swallowing her soul.
Since... I have destroyed her.
Since... I am already a monster.
Then, the human being known as "Chika Fujiwara" has no need to exist any longer.
What remained was only... this shell, called "kitten."
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