Editing Kamisu Reina:Volume 2 Yukimi Mitsui (section)

===4===

I may have acted too carelessly.

Not only was I seen together with Fuyuki-san and when taking Kamisu-san to the back of the gym, I also disregarded the fact that Fuyuki-san is a member of the student council.

Therefore, this situation is not at all surprising. It's just that I was too occupied with Reina Kamisu and the disconcerting feeling I had.

"You think you're funny, huh?"

With these words, Sakura Kawai presses the club she is holding up against my nose. Ironically, they have taken me to the same place as I forced Fuyuki-san to confess: the back of the gym.

I am unable to oppose her; the pain from the stun gun they used on me when carrying me off has broken my will to resist.

The several students surrounding me are looking down at me with blatant hostility. Fuyuki-san is not among them. <i>So she can't stay on the side of the predators after all... looks like Yoshino isn't going to resist me anytime soon,</i> I think to myself, knowing well how awful that thought is.

"Do you really want to beat me with that thing? You do realize that you'll get yourself thrown out of school?" I counter with my remaining spirit. My rusty paper knife has long since broken, however, and can't even scratch them anymore.

"Only if I'm found out," she says with a distorted smile. "I don't think that will happen, though."

"Yeah, I see that you've made sure to have some of your subordinates keep watch. But... what if I tell someone?"

"I'll just have to prevent that, no?" she replies.

With a dirty smile, the girl standing next to Sakura Kawai produces a digital camera.

"...What are you going to do with this camera?"

"I heard your grandfather is quite the big wig in the Mitsui Group, Mitsui-senpai. Oh, but I also heard that your father was so busy gaining your grandfather's favor that he blew it with his wife and daughter of the big wig so much that he ended up moving out."

"Why do you know this...?"

"Your family is of such influence that a divorce is out of question. Don't you think that there is a market for naughty pictures of a young girl that belongs to such a remarkably influential family?"

"...Are you serious?"

"Don't you think it's a bit late for that question?" she answers coldly.

This can't be... real. I never thought something unhuman like this could occur outside of fiction. Even if there is some war with countless people dying, that doesn't directly affect me and the world I live in. The attacks that <i>I</i> am supposed to face are slander and pranks, and that alone was enough to inflict deadly damage on me...

But as a matter of fact, the bunch around me have already used a stun gun on me, and they are armed with a knife, a club and a digital camera.

Sakura Kawai scowls at me and asks, "Where is it going to be?"

"...What?"

"I asked you where you want your first blow!" she suddenly roars and kicks me in the stomach.

"Ugh..."

It hurts.

It hurts horribly.

It hurts incredibly.

This is... violence.

I always felt like I were in a small box, and I felt agonized by the people that were crammed into that box along with me. I hated that box. But in truth, I was protected by that box. Outside of it, I would have been beaten up and died in an instant.

But then where can I live in peace?

Nowhere, I'm sure. A weak person like me will be attacked and killed wherever she is.

I don't care anymore. I just don't care anymore.

"My head," I say bluntly.

"Hah?"

"That's where I want the first blow! Why don't you beat my head?"

Apparently, she took this as a provocation; Sakura Kawai became red with anger. Oh my god, she's going to club my head for real, even though she won't get away with it if I die...

And so she raised the club and—

"What are you doing there?"

—stopped on the spot.

I look at the beautiful savior of my life.

"Kamisu...san..." I mutter.

Sakura Kawai takes the club down for the time being and gives Kamisu-san a troubled look: "Reina-san?"

"I am very discomforted by this sight. There will be consequences if you beat someone with that thing."

"No, it's OK! It doesn't matter what happens to her! She's making fun of us! More importantly, she's making fun of <i>you</i>, Reina-san! That's unforgivable!" Sakura Kawai shouts with a fire-red face, only to be looked at by Kamisu-san in a calm manner.

"If you are doing all this for my sake, then I wish you to stop. I am not angry at Mitsui-san."

"That's...because you're kind, Reina-san..."

"Please <i>stop</i>," Kamisu-san repeats with a slightly stronger tone.

Sakura Kawai looks at Kamisu-san, after which she catches a glimpse of me just to return her gaze to Kamisu-san.

"......OK..." she eventually says, sulking like a scolded child.

Having heard that, her colleagues exchange glances and traipse after her as she leaves with a downhearted face.

<i>Aah, what a non-independent bunch. They should all just die.</i>

And like that, the two of us ended up in the same setup as the day before.

"Why... why did you save me? I mean, I was so impudent as to say that you're 'not human' yesterday."

That was a superfluous question.

As a proof, Kamisu-san is <u>smiling</u> as she answers it:

"Did I not promise to be on your side? Besides, to be honest, I would like to avoid that cruel stuff even if I am not human."

"Hahaha..."

Incredibly. She's perfect.

She really does not have any interest in anyone. She doesn't give a damn about my view of her.

"...By the way, does that mean that you acknowledge what I said yesterday?"

Kamisu-san smiles wordlessly in response to my question.

Ah... her smile is so beautiful.

"Not human and soulless, huh...," I unwittingly mutter.


"<u>I'm so jealous.</u>"



Kamisu-san gives me a slightly surprised glance upon hearing that mutter, "Jealous?"

"Yeah, I'm jealous. I could—do without a soul."

Suddenly, something Sakura Kawai had told me crosses my mind.

<i>"I don't know if you're jealous, but would you please stop looking at Reina-san like that?"</i>

Heh, so in the end, she was right all along.

I was jealous.

I envied Reina Kamisu for not being hurt by anyone's words.

"I can't recover from this blow."

I'm done for. Sakura Kawai may have been stopped, but that only means that all that negative energy has not been vented; I will continue to bathe in her and her group's resentment, hurting myself, taking damage, driven into a corner.

It's June right now; that means that there's more than half a year until graduation. All the while until then, I will continue to be attacked, and once I've graduated, I may be released from them but new attackers will appear in their places. The attacks themselves won't stop—the person executing them will simply change.

Now and forever—as long as I am who I am—I will keep throwing myself into the spears others have thrown at someone else, getting hurt in the process, and attacking them myself until they really aim their spears at no one else but me.

This is how I'm done for.

If <i>that</i> is what makes me human, if <i>that</i> means that I have a soul—

—then I can well do without this... rotten soul.

"I want... I want to become like you, Kamisu-san."

That's an honest wish of mine, and in response to that heartfelt mutter, Reina Kamisu—


"Do you want me to give you a hand?"


—<u>laughed</u>.


"Huh...?"

"Oh, <u>erasing your soul</u> is not all that hard, really!"

That's not it. I wasn't surprised by her offer.

Did Reina Kamisu just... <u>laugh</u>?

She was always smiling; not because she seemed delighted or amused or anything like that, however, but because smiling is her neutral expression.

I think this is the first time I've seen her expressing real emotion.

The way she laughed was of course beautiful too. Beautiful indeed... but something about it struck me as incongruous, unbalanced, and filled me with disgust. Although I can't put my finger on what that is.

However, I decide to forget my misgivings for now and ask her about her offer instead.

"It's easy to erase one's soul...?"

"Yes, it is easy to do what you would define as 'erasing one's soul.' You just have to drop all your interest in others, and that can be done easily."

"That's... absurd."

However, Kamisu-san does absolutely not look like she's joking. And—she looks like she could do that any moment.

"But do you not agree that if, for the sake of argument, you lost all your five senses, you would not even be able to take an interest in others, since you could not feel anything?"

"Well, yeah, but I think that's a really grotesque example..."

"Yes, but <u>I am still right, no</u>?" she <u>laughs</u> and continues:


"I will help you get there!"




After that, Kamisu-san took me to an empty music room. Apparently, she was entrusted with the keys because she practiced the piano every day there—a feat that only someone as esteemed as she can accomplish.

In the end, she disappeared somewhere, saying, "Concentrate on your surroundings."

While getting sinister looks from Beethoven and his composer colleagues, I ponder about the meaning of her words. <i>Concentrate?</i> What on earth is she scheming? There's no way a "human" could do something like erasing someone's soul...

Or do you want to tell me that Reina Kamisu is unhuman for real and not just metaphorically?

Yesterday she evaded the argument, but I got the impression that today she was kind of admitting that she does not care about others. And she "laughed."

What is the meaning of this... what is the meaning <u>of her revealing her true face only to me</u>? Isn't there perhaps—a really grave meaning behind all this?

<i>Why... why am I here, all alone?</i>

Because Kamisu-san took me here, of course.

Hey... What if the thing I discovered was something that Reina Kamisu wanted to keep secret <i>no matter what</i>? What if she was perfectly aware of the reason for my looks when she came over to my place? What if she only pretended to be my ally in order to observe me? What if she was deliberately controlling Sakura Kawai and the others with a certain goal in mind? What is she's really not human?

If all that is true, then—


—<u>she's going to erase my soul.</u>


I feel like Beethoven and Mozart and Händel and Kosaku Yamada are laughing at me. Do their pictures perhaps have a soul, considering that their eyeballs are said to move in every list of school wonders? Maybe they are hurt whenever we call them "scary" or insult their haircuts, and avenge themselves by moving their eyes?

Please, don't look at me. I'm much, much easier hurt than you guys, since I still have a body.

Perhaps Reina Kamisu is controlling them in order to take my soul somewhere? Maybe. I feel it wouldn't be impossible to her.


All of a sudden—I heard several screams outside.


Curious as to what is going on, I look out of the window. I should have acted with more care; because then I would have easily noticed that Kamisu-san's order to <i>concentrate on my surroundings</i> was referring to nothing else but those screams. I was acting exactly as she wanted me to, digging my own grave.

I opened the window.


And then—<u>my soul was erased.</u>


"—Haha..."

I see now.

So that was your plan.


"Hahaha..."

Reina Kamisu tore my soul out of my body and took it with her.

That must have been her goal at this school; and she is going to continue collecting others' souls to return to her real form.

<i>Right?</i> I ask the person before my eyes.


—She responds with an upside down smile.


Others, others, others, others, others, others, others, others, others.

Hey all of you, is there a reason why you exist? Do your words bear any meaning when you are all destined to be harvested by Reina Kamisu? Of course not. Your lives have no meaning at all. You, too, are crammed in little boxes where you hurt others and get hurt by others. Your Reina Kamisu's subordinates, her servants, her slaves. We're all of no import whatsoever. Meaningless humans.

There's no reason why I should listen to what other worthless people say.

Reina Kamisu is right in every possible way. Only her own words are of substance, and that's why everyone around her was meaningless to her.

Yeah, that's right.

That's the truth.

Right?


And there she goes—there she falls.


"HAHAHAHAHA!"

Plomp. And as the screams grew even louder—


—I lost all my feelings for good.