Outbreak Company: Volume 11

by Ichiro Sakaki

  “We’ve done a bit of cleaning house in the army, though, so we’re here to bring you home.”

  “So I’ve been dancing in the palm of my older sister’s hand this entire time...” Amatena mumbled. Jijilea didn’t answer; she just smiled.

  Clara was looking from Amatena to Jijilea, expressionless; while Elvia was glaring at her oldest sister. I guess no matter what the reasons were, you couldn’t expect anyone to just go, “Oh, I see! So that’s the story! Thanks, Sis!”

  “I don’t mind telling you, it was rough,” Jijilea said, as if she didn’t even see the reactions of the other women. “Took longer than we expected, too. More people were implicated in the corruption than we thought. And we can only put so many people on the force, for security reasons. I would have loved to come get you sooner, but...”

  “I can’t believe you, Big Sis Jiji!” Elvia, finally unable to take it any longer, exploded.

  “Er...?” Jijilea just looked at her, bemused. Even Amatena seemed a little surprised. Maybe she was taken aback that Elvia seemed to be angrier about this than she was.

  “Big Sis Ama almost got arrested—hell, she almost got killed! Do you realize that? What would you have done if they’d killed her?!”

  “I knew Amatena of all people would figure a way out,” Jijilea said as though she was talking to a frightened child. “And nobody killed anybody, so what’s the big deal? I’m so lucky to have such capable little sisters.” She grinned, Elvia’s anger just rolling off her back.

  Huh... I was starting to get a pretty good picture of what kind of person Jijilea was. She might sound totally calm, even pretty nice, like she wouldn’t hurt a fly. But she was the most ruthless of them all. A classic two-faced character. I finally understood what Elvia had meant when she said “Big Sis Jiji” was the most accomplished of all her sisters. She seemed like she could claw her way to the top of any organization.

  But what did we do now? She wasn’t really our enemy... but she wasn’t really our friend, either. And she seemed like the type who would be perfectly willing to “deceive her allies in order to deceive her enemies,” and do it with a smile.

  Silently, I looked over at Minori-san to get her opinion. She seemed to be thinking the same thing I was: with a small sigh, she slid her gun back into its holster.

  At length, it was decided that Amatena and Clara would go home to Bahairam with Jijilea and her squad.

  I’d wondered how they had been able to get into the mansion without setting off the alarms, but my question was answered when they summoned their ride home. A Puppet Drake, one of the dragons with a control spike in its forehead, drifted soundlessly down from above. It was enough to make me go weak at the knees. The dragon’s belly was painted black, so that if you looked up, it would probably seem no more than a part of the night sky. Jijilea and the others had arrived on its back, deposited directly beside the mansion like a special-ops squad inserting via helicopter.

  “Thank you for all that you did for us.” Amatena, fresh from a quick rinse to return her fur to its original color, bowed to me.

  I smiled and shook my head. “I had a good time. Oh, and here.” I gave her a souvenir I’d prepared.

  She took it with surprise—a hinged wooden photo frame. It was folded up at the moment so she couldn’t see what was inside. “What’s this...?” She stared at the gift.

  “It’s called a photo frame. You can open it, if you want.”

  I’d just grabbed it from my room a moment ago.

  Slowly, Amatena unfolded the frame. Inside were two pictures. One was the photo of a very surprised Amatena that Hikaru-san had taken. The other was one I’d taken at the photo party—it was of Amatena, disguised as Elvia, but smiling hesitantly.

  Amatena’s eyes were wide. “These are...”

  “I had to get it together in a hurry. Sorry.” Pressed for time, I’d just grabbed a frame from my room. Secondhand, if you will. I’d had some pictures of Myusel and Petralka in it. The photos that were in there now, I’d printed out in a hurry. They weren’t dedicated high-quality prints; if you looked closely enough, they might not look great. But heck, for this purpose, it would probably be fine.

  Amatena gave the photos a long, hard stare—then slowly closed the frame. “It was a trying experience... but not without its joys,” she said almost in a whisper. She looked up, and just for an instant I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on her face. But then she was back to her usual expressionless self.

  Well, these things don’t change overnight. One small step, that was a good start.

  “Amatena, Clara, just about time to go,” Jijilea said from behind them. Amatena nodded at her, then turned back to me.

  “Well, then.”

  “Take care, Big Sis Ama,” Elvia said, her tail wagging energetically.

  “And you.”

  Come to think of it... I didn’t know exactly how long Elvia had been in Eldant as a spy, but I’ll bet it had been a long time since she’d had a chance to just spend a few quiet moments with her sister. The circumstances that brought Amatena to our house hadn’t exactly been easy—in fact, it had all been kind of a pain in the neck—but Elvia was still happy about it.

  “Come for a visit sometime,” I said.

  It would make Elvia happy.

  “I don’t think it’ll be that simple,” Amatena said with a half-smile.

  Then I turned to Clara. “Take care of yourself, Clara.”

  “I will. And you, Shinichi-sama.” She nodded to me, and I nodded back.

  Then, Clara bounded toward me. Before I could so much as wonder what was going on, she had gotten up on her tiptoes and—

  Smack!

  —planted a soft kiss right on my cheek.

  “C-Cl-Clara?!”

  I of course registered immediately that this was the second time she’d kissed me on the cheek. My hand went to the spot where she had planted the kiss. Clara looked at me, at how totally startled I was, and smiled. From a girl who so rarely showed any expression, just a simple smile was an immensely powerful thing. I felt my heart skip a beat.

  Then there was a soft tug on my sleeve, at the elbow, and I took a questioning step back. I turned to find that it was Myusel with a grip on my shirt. And for once, uncharacteristically, she looked annoyed; she leveled a reproachful stare at Clara.

  Huh? What?

  I was only getting more and more confused. But Elvia, who had watched the whole thing in amazement, shook herself out of her reverie and exclaimed, “Wh-What’re y’ doin’, Clara?!” She reached out to my cheek and began wiping at it with her palm, as if to get rid of some dirt.

  “Ah—ow! E-Elvia, that—that hurts!”

  “Just saying goodbye,” Clara said mildly.

  “I never heard of sayin’ goodbye like that!”

  I looked back and forth from one of them to the other while Elvia kept working at my cheek as if she were going to take the skin right off. Uh... pretty sure I’m headed for a snakebite here...

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Myusel, still looking upset.

  “I see you’re well down the path of the heartbreaker, Shinichi-kun,” Minori-san chirped, evidently amused.

  No—hey—heartbreaker? How can I be a heartbreaker when I’m the classic case of turned-into-a-shut-in-after-getting-shot-down-by-his-childhood-best-friend?

  “You really have no limits, do you, Shinichi-san?” Hikaru-san said, and started counting off on his fingers. “You’ve had a kiss from Clara, you’ve shoved Amatena to the ground... What else was there?”

  “No limits”?! Neither of those things was my fault! They were accidental, not deliberate, and I’m innocent, innocent, innocent! I demand a retrial! (Technical difficulties.)

  “That’s right! He’s right!” Elvia shouted. She mercifully stopped rubbing my cheek, but instead she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and stared into my face. “You pushed over Big Sis Ama in the bath, didn’t you?!”

  “How many times do we have to go over this?!
I didn’t do anything!”

  “Didn’t y’ really?” Elvia demanded, looking very menacing.

  Ahhh... Why’s she got to get so angry at me?

  To top it off, Amatena was watching us with a frown. “Seems like you’ve got it rough yourself,” she said—not to me, but to Elvia.

  Wait, now Amatena’s scoring off me?!

  Was this an attack? Was I being attacked?! What had I even done?! I was beginning to panic at the repercussions of crimes I didn’t even remember committing when...

  “Amatena, Clara,” Jijilea called from the back of the Puppet Drake. “Hate to interrupt, but I think it’s time to get going.”

  “Yes’m,” Amatena and Clara said, and got on the dragon. It flapped its huge wings, a dark form receding slowly into the night.

  Finally...

  “Hey, is it just me, or is Amatena, y’know, lost?”

  “Yeah, I got the same vibe. Like how she only smiled at Shinichi-san.”

  “Shinichi-sama, I’m expectin’ my ‘phase of the moon’ tomorrow—!”

  “Two different wives from among the locals? For an otaku, he really gets around.”

  “An otaku? More like a monster.”

  “...Um, Shinichi-sama... I... ahem...”

  “So I don’t have t’ hold back anymore, do I? Do I?”

  Long after our Bahairamanian visitors had disappeared into the sky, the girls (and Hikaru-san) continued to harangue me about things I didn’t realize I had done.

  It had been a day since Amatena and Clara had left. I felt a little lonely, the way you do when two people you’ve been living with suddenly move out, but partly it may just have been a hangover from the constant anxiety of hiding them.

  Of course, the only thing that had really happened was that our lives went back to normal. My day had been pretty much the way my days were before Amatena and Clara had shown up.

  “Here you are, Shinichi-sama.”

  The way Myusel brought me a snack when I was working into the night was back to normal, too. Of course, that had never really changed, even while Amatena and Clara had been here.

  “Thanks.”

  Tonight’s snack was a pair of small baked goods, sort of like croissants. Maybe the idea was that they would be easy to eat with one hand. I reached out for one without getting out of my chair. I’d been putting off a lot of work, and now I had to catch up.

  “That was a rough few days, huh?” I said, taking a sip of the tea Myusel had so thoughtfully brewed for me. “I’m sorry about that. I know you ended up with a lot of extra work and just trouble all around.”

  “Not at all,” Myusel said with a smile. That smile, too, was just like normal. But then she paused, looking a little distressed. “Oh... But... It was a little uncomfortable, lying to Her Majesty...”

  Yes, I had effectively ordered her to do it, but deceiving Her Majesty the Empress was probably something Myusel had never expected to be doing in her life. She was too sweet, and her relationship with Petralka was too good, and she probably felt pretty guilty about it.

  “Fair point...” I said, and crossed my arms. “It might get me yelled at—but I’m going to tell Petralka everything.”

  I had gone back and forth with myself, but ultimately that was my decision. It would be better to be out in front of it, to confess and apologize, than for the whole thing to come to light later. If I framed it in terms of having planted a seed of sympathy for Eldant in the middle of Bahairam’s army, they might even forgive me for it.

  “Say,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “You said talking with Clara helped you realize something. What was it?”

  “Er...” Myusel suddenly went beet red. “W-Well, uh, it was, ahem...” She looked at the ground in embarrassment—and then, as if that wasn’t enough, hugged the plate she was holding to her chest.

  Huh? What was it? Was it that embarrassing?

  “H-Hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “Oh... No... I just...” Myusel shook her head ever so slightly, not looking up. “Clara-san and I talked about you, Shinichi-sama...”

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. And she said you had your heart set on someone...”

  “What?!” This was news to me. “What the heck?!”

  “Is she wrong? I thought she ought to know...”

  Clara said that? But why...

  “...Oh.” Then I remembered. I remembered how back when I had been kidnapped by Bahairam, and I had been trying to stave off Clara, who had orders to get it on with me, I’d used that line as an excuse. She still thought it was true... and she had told Myusel.

  “When I heard that, I really didn’t like it...”

  “Huh...?”

  I wondered what that could mean.

  Wait... Wait... What’s going on...?

  Myusel just looked at the ground, red-faced, not saying anything. But I wasn’t any better. I just blushed and couldn’t speak, either.

  There was a moment of silence between us as if time had stood still. Then, finally, Myusel summoned up her courage and said, “.........U-Um... Shinichi-sama, even if... even if you are sick... I still...”

  “Sick? What?”

  “I mean, how you’ll die if you touch a woman’s skin...”

  “Buh? The heck are you talking about?” I said, but then I remembered that, too. Another excuse I had given Clara...

  Wait, so Clara told Myusel about that?! What had they been talking about?!

  “Uh-uh, no! There is no such illness! That’s just a lie I made up to keep Clara from jumping me!”

  “There... There isn’t? It is?” Myusel looked practically relieved.

  ...Okay, whoa, wait just a second.

  Why would Myusel be relieved about that?

  No, Shinichi, don’t get any funny ideas. Don’t get your hopes up. Remember how sure you were about Shouko, about your old friend, and look how that turned out! You want that to happen again—with Myusel? You’d never recover!

  I tried to bring myself down from the bizarre high I was suddenly experiencing.

  Explode, you damn real! Explode, you damn real! Explode, you damn real! Explode, you damn real!

  (This was very important, so I repeated it four times!)

  There I was, heart pounding, when—

  “Shinichi-sama!”

  The door flew open so hard I thought it would fly off its hinges.

  “Yipes!”

  “Eek!”

  Myusel and I both exclaimed. And in came...

  “E-Elvia?” Yes, it was Elvia standing in the doorway. And she had some sort of cup in one hand. “Wh-What’s going on?”

  “I brought y’ a late-night snack!” she said, all but running over to me.

  “Th-Thanks. But Myusel already brought me a—”

  Elvia didn’t seem to be listening. She stopped square in front of me.

  I looked at her, confused. Was she going to hand it to me? I saw a cup, but I didn’t really see any snack. I reached out to take the drink...

  “Yah!” Elvia shouted at the top of her lungs, and dumped the stuff in the cup all over me.

  “Eeyikes! What in the heck...?!” I exclaimed. The contents of the cup now covered me from head to toe, and they had a familiar, slightly burnt smell.

  “O-O-Oh no, and after Cerise was so nice as to give me some of her tail, I went and spilled Shinichi-sama’s snack all over him!! Oopsie!”

  “You sound like you’re reading from a script! Wait—you used Cerise’s tail this time?!” Were lizardman-tail stamina drinks just normal in this world?! “And you spilled it on me on purpose, didn’t you?!” Late-night snack, my foot! It was pretty obvious this was deliberate! But why would she do such a thing?! “Ugh, I’m soaked in it...”

  Just like before, the gooey liquid was stuck in my hair, and it wasn’t fun. With apologies to Cerise, I would have to go wash this right out...

  “Huh—?!”

  I ha
d a bad feeling. Almost a premonition.

  “You sure are! You’re all dirty, right?! Let’s get you in the bath!”

  Before I could object, Elvia had a grip on my arm and was dragging me out of my chair. I fell right on the ground, but she kept pulling.

  “Wait—Elvia?!”

  As we sped down the hallway, I twisted to get a look at her. Her cheeks were bright red, and her eyes seemed a little out of focus—and was it just me, or was her breathing harsh? Like she was really excited... about... something...

  Uh-oh. Was that what was happening?!

  I remembered something she had said just after Amatena and the others had left.

  “I can’t believe you got in the bath with Big Sis Ama, but not with me! It’s so unfair! That’s cheating! You’re the worst!”

  “I told you, that was an accident!” I flailed and struggled, but a contest between a former shut-in and a werewolf in the grip of the moon was no contest at all. Elvia was making a beeline for the bath... “Elvia, wait—Elvia?!”

  “I’m not waiting another minute!” she snorted.

  Was she about to eat me up?! I mean, in more ways than one?! And when Myusel and the others found out what had happened—ahhh?! Not only was I about to pop my duck, but I might as well have been on public display! I would be traumatized for life!

  “Sh—Shinichi-sama!” Myusel, frozen by Elvia’s sudden appearance, finally came to her senses, poking her head out of the room after us. But she didn’t have any better idea what to do than I did, and could only watch us go.

  My desperate scream rent the late-night silence of our mansion:

  “Heeeeeeelllllllllpppp meeeeeeeee!!”

  （つづく）

  To be continued...

  Afterword

  Hullo, light novelist Sakaki here, bringing you Volume 11 of Outbreak Company: The Power of Moe.

  ........................Oh, uh, believe me, my dear readers, I know. I know what you’re thinking.

  Didn’t he say the next volume would be a short story collection in the last volume? And yet here we are, with a perfectly normal long-form story. That’s, well, uh, yes, I did go back on my word (?). Yes.

  Truth be told, I plotted out what I expected would be three short stories, but with two of them, when I started writing, I found I had almost as much material as a regular novel......... and, well, this is the result. I’m sorry. The fact that I’ve been a pro novelist for more than ten years now and still can’t tell whether a plot will turn out to be a short story or a long one... Trust me, I’m embarrassed.