Night deepened. The moon had risen above the treetops. A cuckoo called outside, cry after cry, punctuated by the occasional sound of a crow beating through the leaves.
Hoshino Ei stared at herself in the mirror.
Snow-white hair, beautiful and pure, hung in soft cascades. Wine-red eyes like a lake at sunset, twin pools of still water rippling with faint light.
Delicate features. Skin like jade over ice. Yet her expression was blank as a porcelain doll behind glass. Graceful curves, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. She wore neither shoes nor socks, bare feet pressed flush against the polished floor—white on white, not a sliver of space between.
She raised her hands and looked down. Ten long, slender fingers. Skin so fair it was nearly translucent. Fine palm lines. The faintest trace of blue veins beneath.
This was her—and yet it wasn't.
This had walked out from the depths of her soul.
A shikigami. Or rather, the incarnation of her soul.
Though a soul's incarnation, it possessed a real, physical body.
It could act at extreme range. It could wield Hoshino Ei's Innate Technique, Concealment. When destroyed, it would eventually re-emerge from her soul—but each time, her soul would wither a little more.
Was it her will—her desperate longing for vivid, real life—that had awakened this power?
The Arrow lay on the table's edge. Blood dripped from it—drip, drip—while her true body rested quietly beside it. No longer stiff and yellowed as before, it brimmed with youthful vitality, as though just plucked from a living body.
Absolute despair, was it... she mused in silence.
Hoshino Ei tucked the hand into her breast and took the Arrow from the table.
She knew where Nanami Kira kept the Arrow. Using her Innate Technique, Concealment, she slipped past Stray Cat and entered his bedroom.
Sheer Heart Attack stood guard at the door, but it didn't matter. Hoshino Ei knew it prioritized the highest heat source.
She dealt with Sheer Heart Attack easily enough and stepped inside.
Sure enough, the Curtain Nanami Kira had erected had been breached. He'd apparently traded the ability to leave from within in exchange for concealment.
The Curtain's design drew from Hasegawa Kaede's techniques. Hoshino Ei had inherited Kaede's memories—replacing the Arrow was simple.
She didn't intend to take the Arrow with her. Not yet. The time wasn't right.
After tidying up, she went downstairs, followed the corridor to the freezer she'd once called home, pulled open the door, and etched row after row of tiny characters into the surface with her fingernails:
Love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you.
She thought for a moment, then scratched a second line in smaller script beneath it:
Kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you kill you.
When she was finished, Hoshino Ei cast one last look behind her, opened the front door, and stepped out through the genkan.
Moonlight fell upon her, blurring her silhouette into something hazy and indistinct.
Nothing could stop her now.
She sought out the Yu Po that had already taken over Principal Gakuganji's body—Chou Fei—and convinced him to forge her a student identity so they could move against Nanami Kira together.
Chou Fei was only too happy to oblige. It never occurred to him that he was the one being used.
Time passed quickly.
When the day came for new students to enroll, Nanami Kira stood at the lectern.
It was a beautiful day. The sky was impossibly clear, with a few wisps of cloud drifting across it, looking as if the great blazing sun might at any moment soften and melt them into cotton candy.
Hoshino Ei took several deep breaths at the classroom door and knocked:
"Good day."
"May I come in?"
"No. You're late. Go stand outside as punishment."
"Won't you let me in? It's so hot out there."
"It really is far too hot. Making a girl stand outside would be terribly harsh."
"So?"
"So it'll serve as an excellent deterrent. Off you go."
The exchange unfolded, flat and unremarkable, yet every word glowed in the morning light—precious as diamonds, gentle as an old black-and-white reel unwinding.
In the last second before she left the classroom, she turned back and smiled softly. Sunlight settled on her serene face like snow melting into light:
"Kira-sensei, my name is Hoshino Ei."
"I hope you'll remember it."
The girl in the sunlight said this to Nanami Kira.
The first time Nanami Kira killed her was at the academy, where the school was keeping him under token detention to avoid suspicion.
She'd used her Innate Technique, Concealment, to slip past the barrier.
On a summer day hot enough to melt asphalt, she cheerfully showed Nanami Kira recent photos of herself, proudly flaunting her new beauty.
Her white hair floated in the air, catching gold in the sunlight. She wore her favorite summer outfit.
On that summer day, she looked him in the eye and said:
"I like you."
Before, she hadn't known what to call the emotion leaping inside her chest. But now she understood. In that frigid morgue, through those days worse than death, she had finally understood.
Of course, she'd gotten a bit carried away after that... let her true nature slip through... licking the fork, sniffing at his scent, wanting to sleep with him... how embarrassing!
It was all Kira's fault, really. Always going out to find other hands, always so unfaithful... A girl's heart is always full of poetry—light as a summer breeze.
But in the end, Nanami Kira killed her. One press of his finger, and Hoshino Ei burst into a mist of blood.
"I must decline."
"Huh? Huh?"
"Won't you at least think about it?"
"Bye-bye."
And then she was dead. How pathetic—rejected on her very first confession. Hoshino Ei, you're so pathetic.
Her soul was shattered, impossibly weak. The agony of every inch of flesh detonated, the despair still seared into the deepest trenches of memory—yet Hoshino Ei murmured:
"So pathetic."
Kill me, and become a god. Only a god can protect his own life.
This is all I can do for you.
Thank you for picking me up that day, in the field of flowers.
Thank you for taking me to the movies. They were terrible movies... but I'd never seen one before. In Hasegawa Kaede's memories, everyone only looked at me with disgust and fear, saw me as a monster... Thank you for picking me up.
Thank you for letting me feel what human happiness is, even if it was only a bubble.
Thank you for giving me human emotions, and letting me forget—just for a little while—that I'm nothing but a tiny little curse.
The second time Nanami Kira killed her was at the Zenin Estate, when he went on a rampage. It was pouring outside.
Such a downpour—as though it meant to drown the whole world. Lightning threaded through the clouds like the end of days.
Hoshino Ei wore the same faint smile, standing at the edge of the apocalypse. Tranquil. Poised. Head tilted slightly, her three-leaf clover earring catching the light.
When Killer Queen came for her—
She gave a playful blink. Her delicate nose twitched as she breathed in the scent of Nanami Kira's soul, and she smiled, radiant:
"See you soon, my dear Kira-sensei."
Blood sprayed again.
The last time she died—this time, it wasn't Nanami Kira who did it.
Even for Hoshino Ei, being killed by the person she loved still hurt every time.
But she drove the Arrow into Nanami Kira's chest, in his most desperate and helpless moment.
Just as he had reached into the crystal coffin and picked her up when she was waiting to rot.
She whispered in his ear:
"After I'm gone, become a god."
Stronger than anyone. Greater than anyone. Braver than anyone.
So that no one could ever hurt him. So that no one could ever steal his life away.
No more worrying about the hair collecting on the pillow each morning. No more worrying that the bakery would stop stocking his favorite bread. No more worrying about fingernails growing too long.
He could drink a warm glass of milk before bed. Get a full night's sleep. Eat on schedule... Work when he wanted to work, rest when he wanted to rest, with no one to chain him down...
After she was gone—become her god.
Hoshino Ei was consumed by Jogo's flames. Every tongue of fire scorched what remained of her soul, a torment ten thousand times worse than any ordinary pyre.
Yet she smiled through the inferno. Faintly. Softly. Like a summer breeze. Like the sea of Hoshino.
"I love you, Kira."
She said, and turned to ash.