Kira pinched his fingers together. His thumb hovered at the brink—
"Don't be hasty. I came to negotiate with you, sensei."
Hoshino Ei waved her hand dismissively. Her bright eyes blinked, as though harboring a deep lake of emotion beneath the surface.
"I don't mean you any harm. I'm not Hasegawa Kaede."
"There's no hatred between us. Only love."
"Then what were all those words scrawled inside my fridge?"
"You think I'm a remnant of that soul? Look at my name."
Name... Hoshino Ei... Ei (英)?
The soul possesses Three Hún: first, the Heavenly Soul; second, the Earthly Soul; third, the Life Soul. It possesses Seven Pò: first, Tianchong; second, Linghui; third, Qi; fourth, Li; fifth, Zhongshu; sixth, Jing; seventh—Ei (英).
"The Desire Pò?"
"I'm not the Desire Pò exactly, but I inherited its nature."
A strange flush crept across Hoshino Ei's face.
She licked Kira's knife and fork, greedily sucking in the lingering scent, her legs pressing together.
"I love you, sensei."
"Just as you love me—I want to tear you apart, the same way you love me, the same way you love me... mmm, ah... this is love!"
"Kira-kun, you love me too, don't you? Back when I was still just a hand, before I ended up in the fridge, we were so in love, so in love!"
"But why..."
Hoshino Ei tilted her head. Her red pupils were deep as wine, rippling with faint light—hollow and empty.
"Why did you start loving someone else's hand? I can smell that revolting scent on yours. Takada, right? That bitch. It was her, wasn't it..."
"Do you know how cold it was inside that refrigerator? Why, why, why why why?"
"Cold—so unbearably cold. My heart was a dead wasteland—so cold, so cold... you're a cruel man, Kira-sensei."
"Cold, cold, cold, cold. You never talked to me again. You never shared dinner with me again. You cursed at me..."
"'Sit in there and think about what you've done'—that's what you said to me that day, wasn't it? What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?"
Something glistened in her eyes—bright as glass, clear as crystal.
"Because every single day, I'm rotting and stinking. Every single day, I'm decaying. You're a heartless man. You'd throw me away without a second thought—toss me out like garbage. No, I won't let you, I won't, I won't!"
Perhaps the sun was too brutal, evaporating the tears from the corners of her eyes. Along with them, every last trace of emotion vanished from her gaze.
Only the hollow red remained. Dead and still.
"That day, you went to the school with Fushiguro, didn't you? I could smell that youthful scent on you. I bet you went to look at other girls' hands..."
Hoshino Ei shoved the knife and fork back into her mouth and bit down—hard. Metal crunched against teeth. Blood ran down her chin, but she didn't seem to notice, chewing and chewing.
"You told me we were 'breaking up.' So that night, I left. I was afraid of being abandoned—afraid, afraid, afraid!"
She let go. The fork clattered to the floor with a bright, clean sound.
"Kira-kun, you really are a heartless man."
"Kira-kun, my darling Kira-kun—I understand you better than anyone. Every thought, every wish. I love you so, so much... no, no—I need to possess everything about you. That's love. Isn't that what you taught me, sensei? That's love!"
She tilted her head, a vacant smile stretching across her face.
"But I really do love you love you love you love you love you. I keep thinking—maybe the reason you despise me is because you have hands and feet and I don't. If I cut you apart—cut off your hands, your head, every last organ—until you're just like me..."
"Would you stop leaving me then? I'm so terrible, I'm sorry, forgive me—but who told you to be a bad boy? I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm sorry, forgive me... I'll give you all my love, forgive me, Kira-kun. Forgive me for today's sins—tomorrow I'll give you even more love~"
Kira finally understood what he'd done wrong.
From the very moment of Hoshino Ei's birth—back when her consciousness was still a hazy, newborn thing—he had kept the hand at his side constantly, treating it with the tenderness reserved for a lover.
He loved her. She loved him. This was common sense, beyond question.
She would never ask herself why she loved Nanami Kira. Nobody asks why they need to drink water. It was fate, written at the moment of her creation.
Factor in the nature of the Desire Pò, and—
Hoshino Ei tilted her head, eyes cold and resolute.
"Kira-kun, I want to fuck you."
"I must respectfully decline."
"Huh?"
"Think it over?"
"Goodbye."
Kira pressed the detonator.
The girl before him offered a helpless smile, then burst into a mist of blood.
Her parting words still lingered in the air:
"Since you want a quiet life so badly, I'll destroy it for you. I'll tear apart everything you have with my own hands, reshape every last inch of you, every sliver of skin... wouldn't that be bliss?"
"The Arrow is at your home, darling."