Editing The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Bonus4 (section)

===Part 6===

It was early afternoon.

I really didn’t want to mention where I was.

“…”

“Oh, the bed’s pretty normal. How boring. I was hoping to see one of those rotating ones.”

“————”

“But the shower room’s wall is entirely made of glass. How refreshing. You can see everything.”

My mouth formed a small triangle as I watched the excited white witch’s back.

''This was necessary to protect ourselves.

''Oh, but still!!

I considered contacting Enbi or Tsumada Mio from the 0-X Office to tell them I was okay and to ask what had happened to Sotobori and the others. Most of all, I wanted some backup…but I couldn’t. My life would be over if I called a group of civilian middle school girls to a place like this!!

“Sorry, but let me take a shower first. To be honest, I worked up quite a sweat running away from the JSDF and I’m worried about all that smoke I was running through. So now that there’s a shower right here, I just can’t restrain myself. What do you know, I’m more girly than I thought.”

“Wait! Didn’t you just say the wall is made of glass!?”

“Watch or look the other way; the choice is yours. I just can’t wait any longer.”

She really did start stripping off her dress-like outfit, so I quickly turned 180 degrees around.

But I didn’t hear the door opening and closing or the water running.

Then she embraced me from behind.

Slender arms wrapped around my neck and a soft sensation reached my back while the breath on my ear sent a tingle down my spine.

“Wait! What are you-…!?”

“You sure are careless taking your eyes off of a Hishigami Woman.”

“…”

While most likely naked, Ama gently bit at my earlobe and then continued speaking.

“Of course, my judgment of that changes entirely depending on whether it’s a sign of carelessness or trust, so I’ll wait to make that judgment until later. Good luck, young man, my heart is right ‘here’.”

I could hear her pulse as she whispered to me and then the mass of warmth left my back. This time she really did open and close the glass door to the shower room. The wall must have been quite thin because the sound of the water was not muffled at all.

Were all the Hishigami Women exhibitionists and very open about sex?

No.

It may have been that they didn’t know how to have a normal relationship, so they wanted to force a connection with the people they didn’t want to be separated from. I could see occasional hints of that with Enbi too.

Excessive energy.

Unnecessary physical contact.

It was like the inability to see the invisible bonds left them uneasy, so they wanted something physical.

How did Hishigami Ama see me?

What category was she going to file me under?

“Sorry about the wait.”

The water stopped running and I heard the door opening and closing. Assuming I could finally rest easy, I turned around and found Ama with wet hair and only wearing a towel.

“Bff!? What are you doing!?”

“Sorry, sorry. I forgot about needing a change of clothes. There was a mini-laundromat with the vending machines out front, right? Can you stop by there before taking your shower? I’m really sorry about this.”

It seemed to really be an honest mistake.

There was no use crying over spilt milk and I did understand not wanting to put on sweaty clothes after taking a bath.

But for now, I wanted information.

There was a lot I wanted to ask about again.

“I have some questions.”

“What, are you going to tie me to a chair and pretend to torture me? I do think there was rope for that sort of thing in the closet. There was also a leather outfit with belts to adjust the size if you’re into that Western-style stuff.”

“…”

“C’mon, don’t fall silent like that. Okay, I get it! I’ll take this seriously, so stop pulling out that rope!”

Hishigami Ama sighed and let her butt sink down into the bed.

“So what do you want to know?”

“Everything. From the beginning.”

“Sigh.”

The white witch scratched at her wet hair.

“You can believe me or not, but don’t start voicing your disbelief after everything I say. You can ask all your questions after I’m done. Is that okay?”

“As long as you’ll tell me what’s going on.”

“Then let me start with the basic assumptions here. The JSDF was pursuing me. They haven’t even received a request for a public security operation, so they’re doing so illegally. And I couldn’t let them capture me. That’s why I ran into the middle of that parade. I wanted to take advantage of the confusion.”

“But this is really about a clash between the Hishigami Women, right? Or are you saying they’re helping the JSDF?”

“This all started elsewhere. There’s another reason why ‘we’ are trying to kill each other.”

She crossed her legs while sitting on the bed.

“By the way, how much do you know about the Hishigami family, Favorite-kun?”

“They’re Japan’s largest corporate group and one of the largest in the world. But they’re also Enbi’s family.”

Ama smiled a little.

It was the reaction of an adult who was asked if Santa Claus really existed.

“What do you know about the Hishigami Men and Hishigami Women?”

“Only a bit I’ve heard here and there. I don’t know the details.”

“I have to start from there? What a pain. I’m impressed you get along so well with Enbi and Mai when you know so little. No, maybe they can relax more because you don’t know much.”

The white witch continued while using a hand to fan her towel-covered chest.

“The Hishigami Men are a sign of static gathering. In the terms of the normal world, they perfectly fit the image of the old zaibatsu-style corporation known as the Hishigami Group. As long as it falls within the bounds of normal, average, and reasonable, they will ally with it to spread their connections and create a giant organization. From our point of view, they’re monsters who have gone insane in a ‘normal’ way.”

“The Hishigami Women tend to be referred to in a more dangerous way.”

“You should know why if you’ve seen Mai and Enbi.”

Ama laughed and crossed her legs again.

“The Hishigami Women are a sign of active parting. In other words, we create cracks in the giant organization and lead the clogged-up system to destruction. So to people who live peaceful lives thanks to that giant’s protection, we can easily look like the seeds of disaster.”

“…”

“But we aren’t good or evil. During times of chaos, the Hishigami Men gather people together into a giant system. During times of decline, the Hishigami Women destroy the rotten system to air it all out. That’s all it is. Of course, the Hishigami Men aren’t exactly going to like that,” said Ama. “The Hishigami Women’s traits, such as destroying hope or destroying finances, make sense in that context. What is needed to break apart a giant organization that stretches across all industries and employs over 200 thousand people? The Women of this age have sniffed out our own answers and mastered them. In a different age, such as when the Men’s system was the samurai clans of the Warring States period, the Women would have taken a different form. Perhaps we would have destroyed blacksmithing, salt panning, or annual taxes.”

Basically, they were experts who dragged down the entire Hishigami Group, division by division.

What would happen if someone like that was sent in to deal with an incident caused by an individual?

If this was true, it would explain why they were so extraordinary.

“Raku who Destroys Health and Arawa who Destroys Birth, huh?”

“Those apply pretty obvious damage to a corporation, especially when ‘birth’ includes ‘production’. Ones like Yume who Destroys Ethics and Shitsu who Destroys Education are a little less obvious, but their effect is huge when it reaches the surface. Those affect the skill-level and morals of the workers, after all. And the problem is far more deeply-rooted than having foreign objects mixed into the production line.”

“…”

''Yume.

''Yume who Destroys Ethics.

“What? Did the idea of destroying ethics make you think of something dirty?”

“N-no! Not really…”

“She isn’t that nice. She’ll do whatever it takes to destroy corporate ethics and morals, but it can be so inefficient.”

“I get the idea behind the Hishigami Women. Setting aside whether it’s really possible, I get the concept. So let’s get back to my first question. Why were you running from the JSDF at Ichigaya and why are the other Hishigami Women after you?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s enough background information.”

Ama toyed with her wet hair.

“Simply put, the Hishigami Men and Hishigami Women are constantly at odds. And a group led by Hishigami Yume is on the verge of a certain breakthrough.”

“A breakthrough?”

“A method of overthrowing the Hishigami Men and thus eliminating the old zaibatsu-style corporate group that supports this country. You could say it will drive 150 million people to bankruptcy in an economic collapse greater than the bubble bursting.”

I was speechless.

The bath towel witch giggled when she saw my mouth moving wordlessly.

“But I want to protest this. If that new age arrives, the Hishigami Women will naturally destroy everything. To air everything out, you see. But it isn’t time for that yet. The Hishigami Group is still necessary. Forcing its destruction would be like prying open a butterfly’s chrysalis. Yume and the others are leaving the proper path of the Hishigami Women.”

“How certain of this are you? Do they really have a way of dragging down the Hishigami Group!?”

“Not yet. But they will if they aren’t stopped.”

“How!? I’ll admit you have extraordinary power, but you’re just individuals, right? I can’t imagine there’s a way to defeat a giant corporation that’s planted its roots all around the world!”

“Hm, you need to think about Hishigami more as a family for this. You need to keep it simple, so set aside the national and world economy for the time being. If you just focus on the conflict between the Hishigami Men and Hishigami Women, it’s simple.”

“?”

I still looked puzzled, so Hishigami Ama sighed.

“Listen. I’ll dumb this down for you. The pieces on the game board only come in two colors: Hishigami Men and Hishigami Women. So what do you need to mess with if you’re going to destroy the very foundation of the board game?”

“Just tell me the answer.”

“What an impatient man. …It’s simple: just mix together the Men and Women pieces.”

At that very moment, a soft knock came to the door.

I tensed and focused on the handgun in my pocket, but Hishigami Ama cheerfully stepped down from the bed.

“It’s fine. She’s on our side.”

She unlocked and opened the door in nothing but a towel to reveal a woman with long hair. The sexy woman wore the kind of hakama worn by female students and university graduates during the Meiji period. I could see some resemblance to Mai and Enbi, but she looked far gentler.

She carried a large box elegantly wrapped in cloth. I guessed it was a large lunchbox.

I wondered if it was a late lunch, but the digital display on the bedside stereo said it was already evening and nearly night. It was hard to tell without a window, but we had apparently been speaking for quite a while.

“Honestly, why aren’t you wearing any clothes? Oh, dear. You have a gentleman with you!? Then that towel is truly inappropriate!”

Ama introduced the gentle woman who covered her mouth with a hand to express shock.

“She’s a Hishigami Woman just like me. She’s ‘Kuji who Destroys Trust’.”

“I-I see.”

“She used to be a Hishigami Man, but she had a sex change done and has forcefully joined our ranks.”

“Bff!?”

I spat out the contents of my mouth and Ama seemed to enjoy my reaction.

“Are you familiar with the Youkai known as a Mermaid? How they’re depicted in Japanese legends changed quite a bit as time passed. At first, they were a lot like a giant salamander, but they eventually became a fish with a human head. And by the end of the Edo period, they had become the familiar image of a beautiful girl with a fish tail for a lower body. She incorporated that change into her surgery. Of course, if it can turn a giant salamander into a beautiful girl, it can do just about anything. …And if it was originally a giant salamander, there had to be less noticeable changes to the lower body in addition to the obvious ones on the upper body.”

Meanwhile, Hishigami Kuji started blushing.

“I can’t believe you, I can’t believe you. Why would you out me like that in front of a gentleman who isn’t prepared to accept it like normal? And about my lower body too!? I can’t believe you, I can’t believe you, I can’t believe you!!”

It looked like she was comically hitting her sister with her clenched fists, but I could hear dull crushing and breaking sounds coming from Ama. Did she have something hidden in the sleeves of that Japanese clothing? Was it like hitting someone with a bag full of bottles and cans? Or like a morning star!?

“U-ugh. Can you forgive me yet, Kuji? I haven’t actually altered my body like Mai, so I’ll die like normal if you keep hitting me like that… Although being killed by an ally does seem like a Hishigami Woman way to die.”

“Ah!? I’m so very sorry. How could I behave so inappropriately in front of a gentleman!?”

Someone nearly died in their noncompliant little skit, but they seemed to have gotten back on track.

“What was it you were about to say before? It was something about mixing up the Hishigami Men and the Hishigami Women. What does that have to do with Hishigami Yume’s plan?”

“We have living proof right here you can go from the Men to Women.”

“Oh, honestly.”

Hakama-wearing Kuji puffed out her cheeks and Ama held her hands out to stop her. She looked fairly desperate to stop her.

“So couldn’t it go the other way? In other words, change from a Hishigami Woman into a Hishigami Man.”

“…”

“If that worked, they could freely enter the Hishigami Group and contaminate it from within. And if they even managed to obtain the ability to form static gatherings, it would give birth to an unprecedented sort of Hishigami. This wouldn’t be a single-generation mutation either. They could eternally create more of themselves to stably increase the numbers of Hishigami Women. This threat goes beyond ‘Ama who Destroys Hope’ or ‘Yume who Destroys Ethics’. In the worst case, it could create the worst possible Hishigami Woman who surpasses even Enbi or Ou. In fact, it might not even be contained to a single individual.”

It didn’t sound real.

It wasn’t grounded.

But what if it was possible?

What would happen to Tokyo if a hundred or a thousand versions of Hishigami Ama or Hishigami Yume attacked as a group?

If they snuck into a corporation of 200 thousand and began sabotaging it, would it stand any chance of recovering?

“We have to stop Yume’s group no matter what,” concluded Hishigami Ama. “And that means protecting Kuji who would act as their sample. I’m the only one that knew where she was, but the foolish Ministry of Defense went in for the attack. I couldn’t let this fall apart from such a simple mistake. …Now, let’s get to the real problem. The JSDF is too hardheaded to be any use. And from the look of things, the police can’t restrain the other Hishigami Women. What’s left? An American base or a submarine? But the CIA scares me for a different reason. So where are we supposed to set our goal?”