Strategist Witch Shizuku – Vol 0 Chapter 3

Vol. 0 – Chapter 3

 

Looking up, there was a white ceiling. While feeling the softness of my bed on my back, I gazed at the white ceiling mindlessly. In my right hand, there was a book I had just finished reading moments ago. On the cover, the title was printed “Kokoro”

After I finished reading, I felt a peculiar sense of fatigue and rolled onto my back.

… Takahashi-sensei, who was in charge of Modern Japanese, has said that the theme of this story was egoism.

Sure enough, in the story, the teacher in the story betrays his closest friend, K, to get close to their daughter. As a result, in the end, K commits suicide, and the teacher commits suicide as well over a guilty conscience.

You could say that K was betrayed by ego. In the light of common ethics, it’s seen as an intolerable vice to betray a friend.

Yet, I still can’t see the teacher as a bad person. However… if that was the case, then even if he wasn’t a villain, would they still have an unforgivable amount of egoism?

At the conclusion of the novel, naturally, the teacher reveals his ego.

He confesses his wrongdoings and then, from the pangs from his consciousness, commits suicide. If you only look at it that way it seems as if he’s performing an act of repentance out of the integrity of his character. However, at the end, the teacher wrote this in his suicide note.

At the very least, please don’t tell the truth to the young lady who became my wife.

Even in the face of death, he still doesn’t wish for his beloved to learn of his unsightly side. . At the very end, with all his heart, he wrote down his last wish on the note.

“…… In the end, this is a story in a novel.”

He spilled his heart out, but there was no one to listen.

Yes, this is purely fiction. As a result of such an extraordinary masterpiece being written from the brush of the Natsume Sōseki, I feel an unthinkable reality, but in the end, after all, it’s a story in a novel. It’s different from reality. It has to be……….

Abruptly, I stood up. I approached the writing desk to place the novel which I had just finished reading into my bag. Ontop the desk there is a student’s-use school bag.

—’You’ll definitely like it’, I recalled Todo-san’s words

I stopped moving and stared at the two other books.

“…… What do I have to be afraid of?”

When I put “Kokoro” away, contrary to my previous words, I timidly reached my hand towards the two books.

A round wall clock hanging from the blackboard. The minute hand and hour hand overlap each other. Simultaneously, a common chime rings. It was the signal of the end of class that many students had been eagerly awaiting. —It was the beginning of lunch break.

“Haa…nn.”

In the middle of eating my bento, I reflexively yawned, allowing food that I was chewing to fall out.

“What, Shizuku. Was Kihara’s lesson that boring?”
“No no, that old man’s Buddhist prayer-like lesson just makes everyone drowsy!”

Friends seated around her started speaking in succession.

“Well, no, to tell the truth, yesterday, I stayed up late…”

I gave a wry smile and explained myself.

Yes, yesterday, in the end, I got absorbed in the books imposed by Todo-san, and by the time I realized, it was already considerably late.

“What were you doing up so late?”
“That’s obvious! She was off in her dirty delusions!”[Tomfuckery said that] “Wow, how dirty! [More Tomfuckery said] Hey don’t you dare think about Shizuku like that!”

I just returned a wry smile to the girls chatter.

As always. While eating bentos together, the women bloomed into a conversation without any hesitation…. Really, my head does hurt from the lack of sleep.

Why is that, I wonder? Even though generally speaking I don’t mind it, but instead of being able to listen along happily… today is terrible…….

Without a doubt, it must be from a lack of sleep. Therefore—.

“… Hey, Shizuku, don’t you think so too?”
“Eh! No, I don’t think so particularly….”

From my reply, Riko’s, who had asked me the question, expression changed completely. Her eyes opened wide and looked astonished.

Damn it! Why’d I respond like that?! [Insert Damnation here]

The awkward atmosphere spread. Moreover, Miho gave an sensible reply, speaking up in a loud voice.

“Wait a sec, wait a sec, “particularly…” you said, are you like Erica-sama?!”
“Hmm, have I been exposed? Well to be honest….”

I boarded Miho’s lifeboat. Fuu, then I laughed.

Thanks to her quick-wittedness, the awkward atmosphere eased up. And now, the conversation would restart harmlessly.

However, I averted my gaze from my awkwardness and overall inner-turmoil from during the chat.

At the end of my averted gaze, I was met with a different gaze. The owner of the gaze was Todo-san; she gave a suggestive smile when our eyes met.

Right after I finished eating my bento, I slipped out of class saying that I was going to the bathroom. While walking alone in the hall, I thought about our(Shizuku’s and Todo’s) conversation from a while ago.

Why did I say that? … No, that’s not an important question. What’s really important is…….

I… at that time…

“Hasegawa-san, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

While in deep thought, I heard footsteps coming from behind me.

I looked back slowly while thinking uselessly. I opened my mouth after catching a glimpse of the face of the classmate calling me from behind.

“… Yeah. Let’s talk, Todo-san.”
“Thanks. But, before that, let’s take a little walk.”

While talking, Todo-san strolled right past me without waiting for a response. She’s still as self-centered as ever. However, strangely, I didn’t think it rude or unpleasant.

We crossed the hall, and descended down the stairway. We took a break in the courtyard once we had left the school building. There was a sparse number of people here and there, but we avoided them and walked toward the end.

“And, why’d you call me out, Todo-san?”

When I asked Todo-san, she stopped walking.

“Well, it wasn’t for doing anything particularly special, although…. You might say other words, Hasegawa-san, that I wanted to talk with you a little… something like that?”
“Haa….”

Todo-san tilted her hand while putting her hand on her chin. Now I want her to stop making questions. I guess I can only give a half-hearted reply.

“Well, Hasegawa-san… yeah? Hasegawa…-san…. At any rate, are you okay with Shizuku? There’s a big difference between three and six characters.”
“…… Yeah, that’s fine.”

Saying that, Todo-san tilted her head again a second time. She had sleek, bright colored hair. However, I stopped thinking about it when she tilted her head back, and opened her mouth.

「……………………」
“[Insert BS Here]. If you speak up, you can talk about what you wanted now….”
“…………”

[Don’t even know what this shit is trying to say honestly]. I worried very little about other people’s problems. This person had a knack for being largely social…. No, now that I think about it, this person didn’t particularly socialize with other people.

As if going back to square one, Todo-san stared directly at me, then spoke again.

“That’s right, how many questions do you have? Shizuku, what on Earth were you reflecting on during the middle of eating; what were you thinking?”
“… What? … That’s…….”

That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering myself. I was unintentionally at a loss for words. But, I have to respond with something….

“At that time……… err, actually, I don’t know.”

I attempted to give a somewhat suitable answer, but, at that time, she gave a knowing smile. I felt that it would be asinine to try and change it up now, and spoke my inner-thoughts honestly.

“… I don’t know?”

Todo-san nodded her head understandingly, than began to ask a set of questions.

“Well, Shizuku. Yesterday, did you read ‘Ningen Shikkaku’?”

The question came out of nowhere with no context behind it, [Wtf does the day after tomorrow have to do with yesterday Shizuku?]. What the heck is this woman asking?

“… I read it, why?”
“I see, you read it already? How did it make you feel?”

How did I feel? To me, ‘Ningen Shikkaku’ was…. I reflected back upon the contents of ‘Ningen Shikkaku’.

Dazai Osamu’s masterpiece, ‘Ningen Shikkaku’. It’s a novel which begins with the extremely impressive sentence, “I have lived a very shameful life.”

What causes Oba Yozo to be ashamed at the beginning of the story? There are various things, but there’s one thing that doesn’t compare normally to the rest, and therefore, people wouldn’t understand it and would come to fear it. As a result, he jests around about the different thing being that he takes care of himself by…… taking care of himself?

“…… Todo-san, are you trying to say that I’m like Oba Yozo in that I’m hiding my true self by lying and saying that I’m taking care of myself?”

I subconsciously spoke out. However, Todo-san didn’t even seem to mind the voice, on the contrary, she displayed a smile. It was as if she was saying “Well done.”

“… Supposing that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re misunderstanding something Todo-san.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”

For a short amount of time, we stared at each other in silence. It was Todo-san who broke the silence first.

“… You know, I used to be a lady(ojousama) a long time ago.”
“Is that so?”

O… jou… sama? I reflexively looked toward her bright hair, and then at the uniform she was wearing. Instead of getting angry with my rude looking, Todo-san conversely began to clutch her stomach and laugh.

I stared in amazement, seeing Todo-san like this for the first time(ever). Shortly thereafter, she spoke up while laughing.

“… Puu… Kuku, is that so? I don’t look like a lady at all, right…? Fufu.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just shut up. Todo-san, without a care, continued to speak to me.

“I’m a prideful, lady of a yet so-called high-class family. However, it was severely disciplined. In public, I was asked to act like a lady. … While continuously listening to this demand, something dark inside me began to accumulate, and at some point, I just couldn’t stand it any longer…”

Something dark accumulated? Didn’t I also feel something like that the other day? If it was like dark haze….

“As I stopped being a lady, and lived how I wanted, a lot of the dark things that had gathered inside me disappeared. I embraced that wonderful feeling of liberation….”

As if remembering the sense of freedom she felt from that time, Todo-san wore a bright expression.

“… But it didn’t disappear entirely. Of course, even if I change, it’s not as if my surroundings will. In a there are certain boundaries which remain unfelled, such as common sense, or ethics…. I couldn’t live freely in the truest sense of the word. … I had no choice but to give it up until recently….”

Todo-san turned away from me, taking one and two steps slowly. It was as if she was a member of a theatrical group, reciting lines….

“… There was a utopia for me. This place had a much less matured society than here, thus, their ethics were weak, and everyone was honest and faithful to their desires. Truthfully, I had been going alone. However….”

Todo-san turned back to me. Her skirt lightly swayed, her bright hair waved, and, she revealed a charming and lustrous smile.

“—Without a doubt, Shizuku, you’d love it.”

I couldn’t hide my perplexity from her words. After, I had no idea what she really meant. No, it’s not that I didn’t understand, it’s more like talking about things things such utopias and so on are insane. At any rate, if I had to guess, I’d say she was caught up in and being misled by some suspicious-sounding religion.

That’s the reason I’m in opposition to her words. I’m extremely certain. And yet, what is this? I feel instinctively attracted to her words, and above all else, her smile.

Just like when I had read ‘Kokoro’ for the first time….

And, on that very same day, Todo Akane disappeared from school.