Outbreak Company: Volume 11

by Ichiro Sakaki

  It was my understanding that during his captivity in Bahairam, Clara-san had been chiefly responsible for Shinichi-sama’s care. The only thing Shinichi-sama himself would tell me, though, was that he wasn’t mistreated. He had never shared with me any details, or anything specific that had happened.

  “He was in my care while he was in Bahairam,” Clara-san said, picking up a small paring knife and peeling the potatoes in a series of quick motions. “Shinichi-sama was not allowed to leave his room without Big Sister’s permission, so I was charged with seeing to his needs.”

  I didn’t say anything immediately. Did that mean she had been doing... more or less the same job as me? I didn’t know why, but the thought produced in unaccustomed ache in my chest. It was a very strange feeling.

  “Is... Is that right?” I nodded, forcing myself to start chopping again. I’d stopped without realizing it. I filled a pot with water to boil the vegetables.

  “I would start by inquiring whether he wanted food, a bath, or me.”

  “What?!” There was a clang as the pot, full of water, slipped out of my hands and struck the counter. Luckily, only a little of the water spilled over. “So... So that means... you and... you and Shinichi-sama...?”

  “We bathed together.”

  “Wha...?!”

  I was embarrassed by the scratch in my voice, so obvious in contrast to Clara-san’s toneless affect. It practically made me sound upset.

  “Together, as in... the two of you...?”

  “Yes. That is what ‘together’ means,” Clara-san said with a nod. Her face stayed expressionless... but I couldn’t help thinking I saw a hint of triumph there. I finally looked down at my hands, unable to hold her gaze. My face was reflected in the water in the pot, which was still settling. The distorted image of my features looked hideous to me, so ugly it made my chest hurt.

  Shinichi-sama bathed with Clara-san.

  No. It was more than that. She had been looking after him all the time he had been in that room, unable to leave... the two of them, all alone, every waking moment... and presumably every sleeping one, too.

  I was silent.

  “Myusel-san.”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “Myusel-san. What’s next?”

  “Huh? Oh...” Clara-san brought me back to reality. Before I knew what had happened, she had neatly peeled our potatoes. “Uh, n-next, then, cut these, please. Into large chunks.”

  “All right.”

  I took the potatoes from her and exchanged them for a basket of vegetables. These, too, she washed quickly, and soon they were on the cutting board. The frills on her headdress and apron shook in time with her cutting.

  Come to think of it, I remembered Shinichi-sama telling me he liked maids, and smiling. We had only just met. I seem to remember him exclaiming in joy when he first laid eyes on me, “IS THAT REALLY A MAID?!” I think that’s what he said.

  According to Shinichi-sama, a girl became thirty percent more attractive just by putting on a maid uniform. It seemed there were many things that could improve a girl’s looks—glasses and a tail were apparently among them—but for whatever reason, Shinichi-sama seemed quite taken with maid outfits.

  He had been so kind as to praise me on several occasions, so that I myself had become rather attached to what was in principle simply a work uniform. If it made Shinichi-sama happy, I began to think, I would wear it forever.

  But... so what did that make Clara-san at this moment? How did she look in Shinichi-sama’s eyes? Although they were hidden right now, she had several of what Shinichi-sama referred to as “moe points”—her beast ears and tail. Added to her maid outfit, wouldn’t that make her look exceptionally attractive to him?

  “Yes?” Clara-san asked again, once more tilting her head at my gaze.

  “Oh, n-nothing!” I said, shaking my head.

  A strange feeling of gloom was gathering inside me. Was it a good idea... to let Clara-san continue to wear that uniform...?

  I didn’t know exactly what was right, and what was wrong. I couldn’t articulate anything concrete, but my feelings were starting to get away from me.

  “Sigh...”

  This state of mind left me vulnerable to mistakes. I lifted the pot, which I had refilled, and put it on the fire, determined to focus on my cooking.

  While Myusel and Clara were making dinner, the rest of us gathered in the living room. Two Elvias stood in front of me and Minori-san where we sat on the sofa.

  Obviously there weren’t actually two of her; one of them was Amatena, dressed up to look like Elvia. I knew that perfectly well, but I couldn’t resist the impression that I was seeing double. We had hidden the most obvious differences between the two of them. In other words...

  “Well, there you have it,” Hikaru-san said proudly as he took them in. In his hand he was holding... hair spray.

  That’s right: Hikaru-san had used hair spray to turn Amatena’s silvery-white fur, ears, and tail a brown color like Elvia’s.

  “What’s this?” Amatena murmured, gazing at her newly brown tail. We hadn’t really told her the specifics; we’d just gone to work on her fur with an unfamiliar tool. Even the normally unflappable Amatena was understandably surprised.

  “It’s something from our country that lets you change the color of hair,” I said with a smile. “I don’t think you can stay here forever, but you’ll have to hide out for a bit while we figure out if you keep running or what. The easiest thing to do was to make you look like Elvia.”

  Hikaru-san added, “About this hair spray—if you shampoo yourself in the bath, it’ll come out, but it shouldn’t run if you just sweat or get a little damp. We’ll have to redo it each time you bathe, and it won’t be great for your hair, but it’s better than a total dye job.”

  “You wouldn’t want to use too strong a coloring on her tail or anything,” Minori-san said.

  “At least it’s better than paint.”

  “Sorry about that...” Elvia said, deflated.

  While she had been hiding Amatena from us, Elvia had been using paint to cover her sister’s fur. But her paints were water-soluble, so a bath—or even a good sweat—would take them right off. The sweat droplets might even wind up colored. Like Hikaru-san said, this colored hair spray was by far the better option.

  Elvia looked over at her sister, amazed. She reminded me of the doll we’d had made of Petralka, so much that I almost wanted to ask them to pantomime each other. As we sat there staring at them, though, Amatena narrowed her eyes at me. “What?”

  “I was just impressed. You two look like twins.”

  “You think...?”

  “He’s right,” Elvia said with a nod. She’d been living with us, which was to say with Japanese culture, for a while, so she was slightly less shocked than Amatena by what Japanese products could do.

  “Want to see? I’ll bring you a mirror,” I offered.

  “I have a better idea,” Hikaru-san said.

  “Huh?”

  He pulled out his phone, aimed it at Amatena, and waved with his free hand. “I’ll take a picture. Look this way! Elvia, line up next to her?”

  “Sure thing!”

  “Wh-What’s going on?” Amatena was distinctly unclear on what was happening.

  Hikaru-san snapped away. Then he called up the picture he’d just taken and held it out for the girls to see. “There. Twins, right?”

  “What’s this...? A mirror? No. Magic? But...”

  “It’s called a photograph,” I said. “This is from our world, too. You guys really do look alike, don’t you?”

  “Yes... So we do...”

  Confronted with this irrefutable proof, Amatena finally saw that she and Elvia looked almost identical. Or maybe, now that there was no difference in their fur color to distract from it, she was noticing that even the cast of their facial features was virtually the same.

  “I do foresee one problem with Amatena playing the part of Elvia,” Hikaru-san said.

>   “What’s that?” I asked.

  “They may look alike, but if they don’t act the same, this little charade won’t last.”

  “Ahh...”

  It sounded so obvious when he put it that way. Minori-san and I looked at each other. It was the same problem we’d had with the Petralka doll. Everything—expressions, gestures, tone—had to be the same, or the jig was up. For better or for worse, Elvia tended to be very expressive; the polar opposite of her withdrawn sister.

  “Things are already tense between Eldant and Bahairam,” Hikaru-san said. “Amatena has to look and feel exactly like Elvia so there’s not a hint of suspicion.”

  “Well, sure, but...”

  “And on that note,” Hikaru-san said with a clap of his hands, “I’d like to get started teaching Amatena-san to perform!”

  Amatena, startled, looked around at us as if she didn’t quite understand. But honestly, the rest of us had figured Hikaru-san might say something like that. When we had been trying to get Lauron, the girl running Petralka’s body double, to imitate the empress, Hikaru-san had been the one to instruct her in the finer points of gesture, expression, and tone. He had an excellent grasp of what to emphasize and what to suppress in order to fool other people.

  “Teachin’ her what?” Elvia asked, not quite grasping the situation. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the work we did with Lauron, so maybe she didn’t know exactly what was involved.

  “Teaching her to act her part, you know? Like, making her walk with a book on her head, how to drink soup without slurping. That sort of thing.”

  “That’s just teaching her to be polite, Shinichi-san, and it has nothing to do with what we’re after this time,” Hikaru-san said with calculated coldness.

  “Oh, uh, I was just giving examples, you know?”

  “I don’t think Elvia would have any problem walking around balancing a book on her head,” Minori-san said with a half-smile.

  True enough: with her athletic abilities and sense of balance, Elvia could probably run with a book on her head and not drop it. But Amatena, a fellow werewolf, probably could too.

  “Getting back to the point,” Hikaru-san said with a cough. He took in Elvia and Amatena together with a gentle smile. “I’ll need your help, Elvia-san.”

  “Uh, sure...” She looked a little anxious. She probably knew by now that nothing good ever came of Hikaru-san smiling like that.

  “Okay, let’s get started. First, Amatena-san, pretend you’re Elvia and give Shinichi-san a big hug.”

  ““.........Huh?”” Amatena and I said in perfect unison.

  “Uh, Hikaru-san, I’m not sure what you’ve got in mind, but...”

  Hikaru-san, completely ignoring me, said, “Come on, you have to pretend to be Elvia. If you can’t even do this much, they’ll find you out in no time.”

  I really didn’t think Amatena had to give me a big hug to maintain her cover. In fact, why was this even necessary?

  “...Very well.” Amatena nodded and walked toward me. She might be stubborn, but she was still a soldier. When duty called, she would answer, in spite of any personal qualms. And at this moment, Hikaru-san was effectively her drill instructor.

  No, wait! I’d like to raise an objection!

  Amatena wrapped her arms around my body, completely wooden.

  Ahh. Yes, there may have been clothes between us, but that plump chest, that bountiful chest, I could still feel it pressing against me, and I didn’t know whether it felt good or made me feel bad or... But Amatena kept pressing herself closer and closer, totally oblivious.........er, uh, Amatena-san. I think that’s a little too tight...

  We’re moving past the hug stage here...

  “Wait—that—ow! Ow ow ow!”

  No response.

  “My back! You’re gonna break my back! My spine is going, here!” I could detect a creaking from my backbone as the hug—now practically on par with a boa constrictor—continued. “Amatena—Amatena, I’m begging you!”

  “Yes, what?”

  “This isn’t a hug! It’s strangulation!”

  “A hug is simply the prelude to a choke technique, is it not?”

  “No, it—yowowow!”

  Hoo, that’s a soldier for you! They see things a little (very) differently!

  “Amatena, I’d like you to release Shinichi-san, please.” At Hikaru-san’s instructions, the hug from hell finally ended. “I would classify that as ‘not Elvia.’”

  “...Really?”

  “Really. Your turn, Elvia. Show her how it’s done.”

  “Huh? Can I?”

  “Sure. Go nuts.”

  “Uh—? Nrgh?!” I had been rubbing my back like a grandfather nursing his old bones, when I found myself bowled over by a body slam from Elvia. “Hey—!”

  “Shinichi-samaaa~~!” While I was still grimacing with pain, Elvia landed on me in a crushing hug. “Shinichi-sama Shinichi-sama Shinichi-sama!”

  She nuzzled my chest and neck happily. And as if that weren’t enough, she even started licking my face. If she had been saying “Arf” instead of “Shinichi-sama,” she would have been the very picture of a puppy greeting its master.

  My back hurt even worse now, but, well, for this sort of hug, maybe it was worth it. Plus, with the two of us pressed together, Elvia’s bountiful chest pressed just below my solar plexus, and it was somehow sort of... it was like it might or might not maybe touch my ecstasy......

  “E-Elvia, watch out, this is really—!”

  I started to squirm, hoping to pull away from her just a little bit.

  “Now that’s Elvia,” Hikaru-san said placidly, ignoring my struggles. “Give it a shot, Amatena.”

  “You want me to do that...?”

  “Uh-huh. We need you and Elvia to be indistinguishable.”

  There was a moment of what seemed to be reluctance on Amatena’s part, but her expression was neutral again, and following Hikaru-san’s instructions, she glommed onto me.

  Oof. My mistake, trying to sit up. It exposed my back. Since Elvia was still hanging onto the front of me, Amatena came at me at an angle from behind, wrapping herself around me.

  Oooohhhh...!

  Now the meat in a beast girl sandwich, I was starting to sweat. Elvia and Amatena both had generous chests, and both of them were wearing tube tops—basically underwear. Like, shoulders out there, collarbones out there, midriffs out there, we’re talking practically naked. And I hadn’t been expecting this, so I was just wearing one thin shirt. It was the only thing defending my rationality from assault.

  Ahh, but those soft boobs, the boobs, they came from in front and behind, from in front and behind, and so even so I so...!

  Crap, uh-oh, oh no! This was getting dangerous. I could end up losing my dignity—specifically, the dignity between my legs!

  “Okay! Now stay right up close to him and start nuzzling his face and head!” Hikaru-san ordered, clearly having fun. The two girls obeyed him immediately.

  Noooo you can’t, stoooorrrffff!!

  “Dammit Hikaru-san, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you!”

  “Who, me?” he said innocently, and looked off into the distance. But I spotted his lip and cheek trembling. “I’m just trying to teach a person to act.”

  “Why, you—! Arrgh! Minori-san!”

  Yes, Minori-san! Minori-san would save me! She—

  “Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san said, looking down at my hand outstretched desperately for help. “Lucky you. A beast girl harem! ☆”

  “Some bodyguaaaaaard!”

  Even she was obviously amused by this. Giving me a big thumbs up, she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  “...Wait, Minori-san, no pictures! You too, Hikaru-san! Argh, Elvia, not there! Nooooo?!”

  ...And so it went.

  I wasn’t finally released until a good ten or fifteen minutes later, after Hikaru-san had had his fill of making me a dog toy.

  After dinner and a bath, I sat down at my computer in my roo
m to sort out the photography seminar I was going to do at school. I wasn’t even sure yet if I was going to run it as a special course outside of our normal classes, or somehow add it to the general curriculum. Since not all the students had a 3TS or a digital camera, making everyone sit through the class would be kind of pointless.

  So how to approach this?

  As I was thinking over my options, I heard a knock at the door. It was probably Myusel with my evening snack. A glance at the clock on my computer, though, showed she was a little earlier than usual.

  I got up and opened the door, and found myself confronted with... not Myusel, as I’d expected.

  “Amatena? What’s up?”

  Instead, it was Amatena, who was wearing Elvia’s clothes. She must have just come from the bath, because her hair was back to its normal white color. It wasn’t like we were expecting any visitors at this hour, so it was probably fine.

  “There’s something we must discuss. Are you available now?”

  “Er, yeah, I guess, but...”

  I motioned her into my room and sat down in my chair. Amatena, though, didn’t take the other chair I pointed to; she stood in front of me and bowed her head.

  “Wh-What’s wrong?”

  “You have my thanks for hiding me.” Her tone was indifferent, but her words were unmistakable.

  “Aw, don’t worry about it. C’mon, stop bowing. It really isn’t a big deal. Not to mention, it’s a little early to relax. You aren’t the most convincing Elvia in the world.”

  Incidentally, Hikaru-san might have started his so-called training by teasing me, but he did settle down and give Amatena some genuine advice on how to act like Elvia. Even so, the stiff, precise Amatena found it difficult to behave quite like her sister. It wasn’t something she was going to pick up in an evening. For the time being, we decided that when there were visitors, we would hide Amatena in her room, where she would try to stay away from the windows.

  “I guess it would be hard to act like Elvia no matter how good an actress you were,” I said. “Seeing as she doesn’t even know how to lie.” I smiled a little.

  “That is certainly true.” I was surprised to hear Amatena sigh. “She gives herself away at every turn, to say nothing of every word. Everything shows on her face. That’s the worst thing about her.”