It hurts…
Yukina curled up on the soft mats, both hands bound in front of her, tears falling one after another.
She desperately tried to control that useless tail, but the more she tried to hide it, the harder it trembled.
Coincidence.
Everything was just coincidence.
She had only learned after transmigrating two months ago that the original owner of this body belonged to the… succubus race.
This was not anything particularly rare.
Under the game’s world view, succubi were not a scarce species.
Yukina was simply one of them.
Because it was the first time she had possessed a tail as an organ, Yukina was completely unskilled at controlling it.
She was always knocking things over behind her in daily life, or even getting it caught in doors.
That was why she had specially gone to a convenience store to buy a “tail storage device” designed for the demon race, rolled the tail up, and hidden it behind her.
She never expected that of all times, it would be forcibly yanked out now.
Everything was coincidence.
But a coincidence like this, when seen through Mashiro’s eyes, was probably not coincidence at all.
“So that’s how it is. Everything makes sense now.”
Mashiro tightly gripped the storage device in her hand and looked down at her from above.
Her long silver hair covered half her face. Those dark eyes flickered between the strands.
Her thin lips slowly curved into a hollow arc.
“You’re a succubus. That kind of filthy creature that feeds on the emotions of others and specializes in toying with people’s hearts.”
She reached out, pinched Yukina’s chin, and forced her to raise her head.
“That’s why the Family sent you to approach me, planning to extract more information from my mouth, isn’t that right?”
“No… it’s not…”
Yukina shook her head desperately.
Tears slid down her cheeks and soaked Mashiro’s fingers.
But Mashiro was not looking at her.
Those eyes were fixed on her face, yet the gaze passed straight through her and landed somewhere much farther away.
“…You’re the same as her.”
Mashiro’s voice suddenly became very light.
“That woman was the same. She gave me hope, made me believe someone would finally stay by my side… and then destroyed it with her own hands.”
Yukina knew who she was talking about.
Mashiro’s mother.
The woman who had left her when she was still a child.
“You treated me so well. You cooked for me, talked with me, helped me when I was sad… I thought, I thought this time…”
Mashiro’s voice choked.
But it only choked for an instant.
In the next second, the crack missing from her heart was filled by even more intense emotion.
“You were only toying with my feelings.”
Her thumb roughly wiped away the tear tracks on Yukina’s face, the motion so harsh it seemed she was scraping off something that offended her eyes.
“Stop crying.”
The voice was hoarse and ice-cold.
“Even a succubus’s tears are tools used to beguile prey, aren’t they?”
The influence of the Blood Moon Disease was intensifying.
The blackness in her pupils grew denser and denser.
Her breathing became rapid and heavy.
Fine beads of sweat seeped from her forehead. The defenses of reason were collapsing inch by inch.
Thirst.
An unsuppressible thirst.
Mashiro’s gaze involuntarily shifted downward and landed on Yukina’s exposed neck.
The skin, damp with sweat, glowed with a faint watery sheen under the light.
The slender blood vessel at the side of her neck pulsed lightly with her rapid breathing—once, twice—like some silent invitation.
The bound hands made her posture appear fragile and helpless.
Beneath the torn-open collar, her collarbones looked so delicate they might shatter at a single touch.
Mashiro’s throat rolled once.
She knew she should not do this.
But her body was already beyond her control.
“…Since you’re a succubus.”
Her voice had become abnormally hoarse, carrying a certain tremor of struggling between reason and instinct.
“Then what I’m about to do next shouldn’t count as anything special to you.”
She leaned down.
One hand forcibly tore open Yukina’s collar. The buttons of the school uniform popped off.
Delicate skin and a pale pink shoulder strap were exposed to the air.
The other hand seized Yukina’s cheek.
The pad of her finger sank into the soft flesh of her cheek, forcing her jaw open and fully exposing that white, slender neck.
“Don’t…”
Broken sobs leaked out from between the pinched cheeks and fingers—muffled, damp, carrying a fine tremor.
At some point the black demon tail had wrapped itself around Mashiro’s wrist.
It was not attacking.
It was trying to stop all of this. But the force was far too light, so light it could not even support a single leaf.
Mashiro did not hear it.
She could no longer hear anything.
The world had shrunk down to only that faint pulsing sound beneath the skin.
Once.
Twice.
It was a pulse.
It was the sound of blood flowing.
It was the warmth she craved.
Her lips touched the skin.
Beneath the soft lips, she could clearly feel the beating of the blood vessel and the fine trembling.
Yukina’s skin carried a sweet scent, like a fully ripe peach, mixed with tears, sweat, and a certain clear, sweet fragrance that belonged only to her.
After greedily inhaling it, Mashiro’s lips slowly parted.
Her fangs pressed against that thin layer of skin.
If she just bit down—
She could end this tormenting thirst.
She could fill the burning hole inside her body.
She could—
“Don’t… give up… on yourself…”
A weak, broken sob seeped out from between the fingers.
The voice was so light it was like a single feather.
Yet that single feather settled precisely on the line between reason and loss of control.
Mashiro’s movements froze.
…
Why.
Why, even at this moment, was this girl still worrying about her.
It shouldn’t be like this.
She should have been terrified that her lies had been exposed, then clumsily knelt down and begged for forgiveness, like a dog crawling on the ground, praying for a chance at survival.
But why hadn’t she done that.
She was still worrying about me.
Even at the brink of death, she was still worrying about me.
Just like… she always had.
Fragments of memory flashed through Mashiro’s mind.
Two months ago, when she was being bullied by Yumiko—the Yukina who stood restlessly at the edge of the crowd, wanting to speak yet holding back.
The first time she barged into this shack—the Yukina who trembled in the corner from fear, yet said nothing and refused to leave.
The first time she mustered the courage and spoke to her in a voice that trembled badly—the Yukina who was so nervous she could barely get the words out.
The first time she held out a bento, uneasy because of her clumsy cooking, and rambled a pile of self-deprecating words—the Yukina.
The first time she nearly fell off the chair in surprise at a casual word of thanks, then shyly scratched her head—the Yukina.
The first time she deliberately fell in order to protect her, her slender body curled up inside the restroom, clearly terrified yet still deciding to step forward—the Yukina.
And just earlier, the Yukina whose cheeks flushed bright red from her confession, eyes sparkling.
…
What is going on.
What am I doing?
In this rotten world, she is the only person who has ever been kind to me.
And I… why did I make her cry?
“…!”
In that instant, those dark pupils contracted violently.
The turbid blackness receded like a tide, revealing the terrified soul of a seventeen-year-old girl underneath.
Mashiro regained her consciousness.
She jerked backward as if burned by fire, released Yukina, and lost her balance, falling into a sitting position on the mats.
She looked down at her own hands. The lingering warmth of body heat and tears still remained on them.
She raised her head and saw Yukina.
Like a bird that had been shattered.
Both hands, wrapped in the white ribbon, were curled against her chest.
The skin of her wrists already bore red marks from the friction.
The collar had been torn crooked, exposing large stretches of collarbone and shoulder.
Red fingerprints still remained on her face.
Her cheeks were covered in tear tracks, and the tears were still falling without pause.
That black demon tail had curled into a tight ball and pressed tightly against her knees.
She had done this.
All of it.
“Ah…”
Mashiro let out a nearly soundless throat noise.
She wanted to say something.
She wanted to apologize.
She wanted to reach out and untie that ribbon. She wanted to wipe the tears from her face.
But she did not dare.
She no longer dared to touch Yukina.
Fear exploded inside her chest—not because of the Blood Moon Disease, but because of a pure and cruel reality… she had hurt Yukina.
She had even nearly killed her.
Such a gentle girl.
Such a fragile girl who had always been trying so hard to help her.
And she had, with her own hands—
The three words “I’m sorry” stuck in her throat and refused to come out no matter what.
Mashiro staggered to her feet.
She turned around.
She rushed toward the door.
She did not dare look back.
She was afraid she would do something irreversible again.
The door was yanked open and then slammed shut with force.
Hurried footsteps stumbled away into the distance, growing fainter and fainter, until they finally disappeared at the end.
Only the door that had been slammed open and then slowly swung back remained, along with the complete mess inside the room.
The columns of dust still rotated quietly in the light.
Yukina lay on the mats, listening to those footsteps grow more and more distant until she could no longer hear them.
She wanted to say something, but her throat felt as if it had been blocked by something.
She could not shout anything out.
Only that tail, in the now-quiet room, slowly uncurled.
The little heart-shaped tip trembled once in the direction of the door, as if trying to chase after something that was already gone.
Outside the window, clouds covered the sun. The light inside the room gradually dimmed.
It seemed as if it was going to rain.
Inside the shack, only the occasional broken sobs remained, along with the lingering scent of roses mixed with tears that refused to disperse.