24: Enigma, Regret, Bunny Girl
Makoto began to speak haltingly.
What happened in that back alley yesterday.
◆
“Get lost! Damn it! What do you think you’re doing!?”
“Sorry. For some reason, my body won’t listen to me.”
“Don’t give me that crap! Get out of the way!!”
Makoto was grappling with Haruyoshi.
The face before him was someone he had known for a short time, but he was someone he could trust, a friend.
But now, he was standing in front of him, getting in his way.
Haruyoshi wouldn’t even tell him why, and Makoto was getting increasingly irritated.
They grabbed each other’s clothes, dug their nails in, and rolled around, not caring about getting their clothes dirty.
The stale smell of rotting garbage clung to his body, and he began to feel disgusted with everything.
“Get out of the way!!”
He kicked Haruyoshi’s stomach with all his might, and Haruyoshi coughed and stumbled backward.
“Guh, cough……!”
“You……You betrayed me! You let the Tanuki escape……!”
“hahahaha…Who knows. I don’t have a clue either…”
“Do you think you can fool me now!? Huh!?”
My Bl00d was boiling with anger, and I was yelling at the top of my lungs.
First, I had to make Haruyoshi pay. I could deal with the Tanuki later.
Makoto picked up an iron pipe and held it in the jodan stance used in kendo.
“Prepare yourself.”
“Will you be satisfied if you hit me?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Then go ahead.”
With that, Haruyoshi laughed defiantly and pointed to his head.
“If you’re prepared for the consequences.”
“Yeah…I’ll make sure you spend some time in the hospital. Grit your teeth.”
I concentrated all the anger I had into the iron pipe and was about to let it go.
Just then,
“Wait, Makoto. There’s someone there.”
“Huh!? ……….Whaaat?”
Where Haruyoshi was pointing.
A bunny girl was standing there.
Bunny ears. A revealing outfit and fishnet tights. A frilly black skirt to go with it.
At first glance, her attire seemed to blend seamlessly with the dress.
A girl. She looked to be around the same age as him.
Her golden hair fluttered in the air, and the light from her crimson eyes dominated the space. The strong preyed on the weak, and her presence alone seemed to overwhelm the hearts of the feeble.
Her facial features were more perfect than those of any beauty depicted in a painting.
Her skin was as white as snow, without a single blemish.
Her figure was as well-proportioned as that of a heroine from a shoujo manga, with slender, elongated limbs.
A flawless form, devoid of any imperfections.
It was as if something non-human had been taken on a human guise.
“W-who the hell are you…?”
As Makoto asked in a trembling voice, the girl narrowed her sharp eyes and exclaimed,
“Now, let’s start the experiment!!”
In an instant, the scenery around them resembles sheets of paper, scattering and flowing far into the distance.
The space was replaced by an expanse of white, and in the air floated a giant flask, with an eye surrounded by a triangle and a ripe, red apple.
The floor was checkered with red and blue tiles, forming a circular stage with a bottomless void beneath it.
“Huh…?”
Needless to say, Makoto questioned his own sanity as he was thrown into this overly whimsical world.
The girl was now standing atop a staircase, looking down at him. Around her, cartoonish rabbits played trumpets.
“Oh, greedy human who has forgotten love. My name is Miss Bunny Suit.”
“What…? Mi, Miss…?”
“Even so, it is deplorable that you would interfere directly after growing weary of mere observation. You have violated the rules.”
“What the hell are you talking about!?”
This woman who called herself Miss Bunny Suit.
She seemed to be speaking to Makoto, yet she also appeared to be scolding someone else. At the very least, her tone suggested that she was not talking to herself.
That’s right. What had happened to Haruyoshi?
Makoto realized that his friend was now bound by ropes, his mouth sealed with duct tape.
He writhed and groaned, unable to speak.
“Hey! What did you do to him!?”
“You ask too many questions. Are you a host on a music show? Well, I can understand that you’re confused by this sudden turn of events. Rabbits!”
At the command, the rabbits played a fanfare on their trumpets.
Makoto was gradually regaining his composure, but now he was starting to get angry.
“Who the hell are you!?”
“I am the one who carries good and evil. I am the one who knows all. I am the judge. And so on. I have a thousand titles, so interpret them however you like.”
“I don’t understand a damn thing you’re saying…”
“If you don’t understand, then accept it as it is. There is no such thing as comprehension here. Rabbits!”
At the command, the rabbits played a fanfare on their trumpets.
Her words made no sense.
Makoto must be hallucinating.
This scene was impossible.
It was not real.
Suddenly, the world vanished, and there was a rabbit playing the trumpet… I had to be on drugs.
“Ouch…”
I pinched my cheek and felt a clear, sharp pain.
I hadn’t been drugged or anything, but I still couldn’t believe this was real.
“You still think this is a dream?”
The bunny suit looked at me in disbelief.
Its rabbit ears twitched.
“Of course I do!”
“It’s understandable, given that you’re in a realm beyond human perception.”
“What are you talking about…”
“I will personally apologize for involving you in our ‘experiments.’ Rabbits!”
From Noble mtl dot com
At the command, the rabbits blew their trumpets.
“Stop blowing those things! It’s annoying!”
“My apologies. Rabbits!”
“I said stop it! If this is real, then send us back to our world!”
Makoto’s anger had turned into fear as the incomprehensible situation continued.
There was nothing here he could reach for. All he could do was shout, but the bunny suit, the apparent mastermind, wasn’t listening.
He was filled with an overwhelming sense of fear, and his limbs began to tremble.
It was a normal reaction for a human faced with the incomprehensible.
“I have finished my business here, but this is convenient.”
The bunny suit flipped its skirt and pointed a finger at Makoto.
“Greedy human who has forgotten love. If you wish to leave this place, I have one demand. Confess your sins.”
“Confess…?”
“The mistakes you have made. The sins that cannot be excused, even if there were extenuating circumstances. Confess them here.”
“I don’t have any!”
“You refuse to admit your sins?”
“If you’re talking about what happened before… I only did it because Iroha told me to! It’s not my fault!”
“Then I cannot let you out.”
“Are you kidding me…?”
Makoto, driven by desperation, ran up the stairs.
With each step, the nearby rabbits played a single note. The notes connected, forming a melody.
The rhythm was set as if his feet were a conductor’s baton.
He finally reached the bunny suit and grabbed its thin shoulders.
“I don’t know who you are, but I don’t have time for your stupid games! I have to go beat up a raccoon!”
The bunny suit glared at him with cold eyes.
I could see a cross shape etched into its fiery red eyes. It was beautiful, like the golden seams on broken pottery, and it radiated a strange glow.
“You have no intention of confessing?”
“Of course not, you idiot!!”
“Then… for every good deed, there is a price for salvation.”
“What?”
“For evil deeds, atonement is the penalty.”
The next moment,
“Huh?”
The bunny suit had vanished from before her eyes.
No, not only that, but the world had returned to normal.
Where was this?
Dark. No, bright.
Roads appeared in her field of vision.
Building lights.
Streetlights.
A bridge pedestrian.
Traffic lights.
The night sky.
Car headlights approaching from the side.
The sound of brakes hitting eardrums.
Impact.
Pain.
A floating sensation.
Loss of consciousness.
The end, the end, the end.
When she came to, she was sleeping in a hospital bed.
Seeing her mother collapsed in tears beside her, she realized she had been in a traffic accident.
Apparently, it had really been taken.
The fingers she needed to play the guitar.
Her dream.
Her promise to her father.
The missing fingers still ached as if they were there, and she couldn’t grasp reality.
◆
…What did I just hear?
Makoto, who had calmly explained the incomprehensible, let his sightless eyes wander in the air.
“Ugh…”
“I got lectured by a bunny girl, and when I came to, I was running out into the road… Who’d believe a story like that…”
“But it’s the truth! I explained it to everyone, but they all said I was just seeing things because my consciousness was clouded from the accident, and they wouldn’t believe me!”
Makoto’s nose was red, and tears streamed from his eyes.
He held his left hand up as if to shield it, cradling the missing fingers.
“This means I’ll never be able to play the guitar again… My promise to my old man… Uwaaah…!!”
In front of his sworn enemy, Ryugo, Makoto began to sob without even trying to hide it. Even as he covered his crumpled face, tears leaked out between his fingers.
“I’m sorry… Mom…! I can’t keep my promise…!”
“Makoto…”
Honestly, it was unbearable to watch.
This man is clearly a bad person. No matter how much it’s for the sake of a dream, hurting someone is nothing but evil.
It can’t be helped if he’s thought of as reaping what he sowed.
There are probably people who will be furious with Makoto for the rest of their lives.
Ryugo himself has no intention of forgiving him for what he did to Koki.
But, even knowing that, he followed Ira and wore himself out emotionally. In order to fulfill that promise or whatever it was.
It must not have been easy.
He must be really crazy… Only someone like Ira could be fine with being hated by others.
And all that effort he put in was taken away in an instant.
I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him.
“……………………”
Ryugo made eye contact with Madoka and they had a silent conversation.
There’s nothing we can do here. Let’s leave the printout and go.
As he walked through the residential area, he recalled what Makoto had said.
“Miss Bunny Suit…?”
Apparently, this mysterious being had restrained Haruyoshi, but had she taken him away?
Even if she had, what was her purpose?
Could she be the one on the phone? Thinking back, her tone of voice does seem similar.
But, if what Makoto said was true, then she’s a supernatural being.
Could she be connected to this hypnosis app somehow?
“Maybe he’s just confused because of the accident?”
Madoka seemed to be trying to come up with her own answer to the question. It must be all very confusing to her.
“Compared to how gruesome it was, the content is too lighthearted. With the rabbit and the trumpet and all…”
“If he’s just crazy, that would be easier.”
“Hey… Raccoon-kun, look over there.”
“……Huh?”
Madoka pointed.
In the middle of the street, a bunny girl was standing there.