The Angel Descends from Heaven

It was early May, about four in the afternoon. Japan usually takes a weeklong vacation at that time of year, but Itsuki was busy having heated arguments with Hirugano and the rest at the anime story meetings held in the Gift Publishing building.

Wrapping that up, followed by a half-hour novel-edit session with Toki (mostly deadline negotiation), Itsuki took the elevator down to the first floor. He was a bit grumpy; the negotiations didn’t go all that well—but as he walked to the exit, he saw someone ahead of him. It was an elderly man in Japanese clothing, standing tall and straight and looking every bit like a well-preserved samurai.

Cool guy. I remember him…

This was Yoshihiro Kiso, a new author who debuted in March that Kenjiro Toki edited for. Having the same editor—and curious about what kind of light novel a man in his late sixties would decide to write out of nowhere—Itsuki had picked up and read through a copy of Tsurugi: Sword of Sengoku. Between the epic storytelling, the intense and vibrant battle scenes, and the lively cast (including Tsurugi herself, the main heroine), it really drew him in. Even ignoring the author’s age, he was truly impressed by this debut.

Still, he had never spoken with Kiso personally, so he just nodded at him as he passed by. But:

“Pardon me…are you Mr. Itsuki Hashima?”

Itsuki was surprised to hear Kiso speak up. “Oh, um, yes, I am. Have we, uh, spoken before…?” he asked gingerly.

Kiso shook his head. “No. I saw you at the awards ceremony, so I’m merely aware of you, is all.”

…Come to think of it, Itsuki did identify himself when he claimed his raffle prize, but he didn’t expect anyone to recall the name.

“My name is Yoshihiro Kiso, and I made my novel debut in March after winning a prize in the New Writers Contest. I believe you and I both share Mr. Toki as an editor?”

Kiso accentuated the polite self-intro with a deep bow, and Itsuki internally panicked a bit. No elderly person had ever approached him with this kind of reverence.

“Ah, uh, hello, my name’s Hashima. Um, I had the chance to read your novel. It was, like, really cool.”

“It is an honor to hear that from you. I am still lacking in both learning and ability, but I hope you will give me further guidance and encouragement in the future.”

“Y-yes, absolutely. Me too.”

Kiso bowed again at the completely frozen Itsuki. “Either way, I have a meeting with Mr. Toki, so…”

Just as Kiso was about to finish his sentence:

“Ahh! There you are, Grandpa!”

A young, playful-sounding voice shouted from the entrance, sounding very out of place in an office building. Kiso and Itsuki turned toward it, only to find a girl trotting up to them. She appeared to be midway through elementary school, wearing a long-sleeved kimono with a flashy green design. Her hair was a shiny light blond, and she had sapphire-like blue eyes—it was tremendously cute.

In another instant, her arms were around Kiso.

“Hee-hee!”

The virile, masculine samurai disappeared as he turned into a slightly embarrassed-looking old man.

“Nadeshiko… How did you get here?”

“I took the train!” the girl replied, eyes shining.

Kiso, still concerned, smiled a little. “Well, well, Nadeshiko, that’s pretty smart of you! Taking the train all by yourself… But I told you not to follow me around, didn’t I?”

“But I wanted to go see your publisher!”

“Mmmm…”

Then Kiso noticed Itsuki staring blankly at them.

“Oh, pardon us. This is my granddaughter. Ever since I won that prize, she’s been so excited about writers and publishers, and now I suppose she’s followed me all the way over here.”

“Y-yeah…”

The girl stepped away from Kiso, turned toward Itsuki, and bowed. “Hello! My name is Nadeshiko Kiso, and I’m in the fourth grade!”

Itsuki internally panicked again. If he wasn’t used to dealing with old men, he certainly wasn’t used to grade schoolers.

“Oh, h-hello there. My name’s Itsuki Hashima, and I’m twenty-one years old.”

The girl Nadeshiko stared right at him. “Are you a writer? Like Grandpa?”

“Y-yes, that’s right.”

Nadeshiko somehow opened her eyes even wider, smiling like a blooming flower. “Wowww! A writer! That’s great! And you’re so young, too! Neat!”

“Oh, it-it’s nothing that impressive…heh-heh-heh…”

This little girl’s sparkly eyes were making Itsuki self-conscious now.

“But what should I do with you?” Kiso asked. “I have a meeting with Mr. Toki at the moment…”

“Meeting! I wanna go to a meeting, too!”

“Sorry, you can’t… Hmm, should I point her back home? But that could be dangerous…”

Seeing Kiso worry over his grandchild like any grandfather would, Itsuki timidly made an offer.

“Um, I could watch her for you while you’re in that meeting. My place is about a five-minute walk from here.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Hashima, I wouldn’t want to cause you trouble… I think there’s a nap room in the office somewhere…but ahh, I’m sure she’ll go exploring around the building…”

“I want to go see where a writer lives!” Nadeshiko’s eyes shone as Kiso’s face grew darker.

“Well, it’s just a regular apartment, nothing that interesting…,” said Itsuki, “but I have a lot of games and manga, so I think it’d be perfect for killing time.”

“Oh, is that so…? In that case, I will take you up on that offer.”

Kiso still looked concerned. “Now, you be a good girl, Nadeshiko.”

“Okaaayy!”

“Wish I could trust you more when you say that…” Kiso smiled broadly, sighing at Nadeshiko’s energetic response. “…Thank you very much, Mr. Hashima.”

“Sure.”

“C’mon, sir, let’s go!”

Nadeshiko grabbed Itsuki’s hand… It was small and so soft. Itsuki’s lips curled up a bit at the unfamiliar feeling, even as Kiso sharply addressed him.

“Now, Mr. Hashima, if you should do anything untoward with Nadeshiko…”

“If—if I…?”

“Your head will roll.”

“M-my head…?!”

His face remained frozen in fear as Kiso studied him for a little bit.

“…I was joking.”

“…Oh. Right.”

It wasn’t remotely funny. Itsuki did not relax as Nadeshiko pulled his hand forward and started to walk.

Nadeshiko was the daughter of Yoshihiro Kiso’s second child, by the sound of it, and her father was from Sweden. She was Japanese, however, by citizenship as well as upbringing; she had never left the country before, and Japanese was her only language.

“Wow… Kind of like Kanikou, huh?”

Itsuki whispered this to himself as he listened to Nadeshiko tell him all about it on the way to his apartment.

“Kanikou?” Nadeshiko tilted her head a little in the cutest way. It made Itsuki smile again.

“Oh, I have a friend named Nayuta Kani, but her dad’s from Russia. She’s got silver hair and blue eyes.”

“Oooh, that’s like my mom and dad. They called it an international marriage! Is Kanikou a writer, too?”

“Yep.”

“Wowww… I want to meet her!”

“Well, if we have the chance…”

“Great! I can’t wait to!” Nadeshiko jumped around in delight. Itsuki’s heart was similarly jumping around in his body.

…What kind of angel is this?

He could feel his heart, torn to pieces by days of unending work terrors, instantly purify itself.

“Hello!”

At the apartment, they found Chihiro making dinner in the kitchen.

“Oh, hey there, Bro—”

“Is this your apartment, mister?!”

“It sure is.”

The sight of Nadeshiko bounding in behind Itsuki stunned Chihiro into silence.

“Oh, Chihiro, this kid is… Chihiro?”

Itsuki gave the trembling Chihiro a puzzled look.

“Itsuki… I believed in you… I know what you write, but still! You have a girlfriend! I thought you knew what you can and can’t do in real life…!”

“Chihiro, you’ve seriously got the wrong idea, don’t you?”

“…Let’s just go to the police station now, all right? I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to serve your—”

“Aha! So you think I found this blond-haired little girl on the street and tricked her into calling me mister and following me into my apartment, huh? Is that it?”

“Yes,” Chihiro replied, completely in earnest.

“I’d never do that!” Itsuki shouted back.

“…You really didn’t?”

“Of course not.”

Chihiro still looked pretty doubtful about it, so Itsuki gave the full explanation with some irritation in his eyes.

“…And so I’m just watching her until Mr. Kiso’s meeting is over.”

“…Oh. That’s what was going on…?”

“And you know, you treating me like a criminal honestly makes me kinda sad…”

Chihiro averted his eyes. “…I’m sorry. I dunno; I’ve just had trouble trusting people lately…”

“Oh… Did something happen?”

He honestly looked pretty down, and Itsuki began to regret ragging on him about it. Then Nadeshiko chimed in:

“Um, is this your little sister?”

“Fwehh?!” The sudden question completely threw Chihiro.

Itsuki snickered. “No, this is Chihiro. He’s my younger brother.”

“Ohhh, your brother? Excuse me!”

“Y-yeah…” Chihiro put on his best smile. “I’m a guy, so…”

“Wow! This is a writer’s room?!”

Nadeshiko’s eyes shone as she looked around the living room, just a few steps from the kitchen. Then:

“It’s totally…normal!”

“Told you,” replied Itsuki with a smile.

“But Grandpa’s room has swords—and a suit of armor and stuff!”

“…That’s…exactly what I pictured, yeah.” Itsuki took a serious moment to imagine the space.

“So which of these books is yours, mister?” Nadeshiko toddled her way toward a bookshelf.

“Oh, my books…”

But just as he reached out to grab a copy of his work, he internally gasped. Everything he wrote was in the little-sister genre—that was fine, more or less. The problem was that essentially every volume of his contained at least one illustration of a completely nude girl. Was that really something he could show off to a nine-year-old? Yoshihiro Kiso had read at least a few light novels for study purposes; he didn’t think he was the kind of narrow-minded old man who treated all sexually oriented content as smut, but that didn’t mean it was okay to show off to his granddaughter. Besides, Itsuki couldn’t bear to expose such a perfect little angel to things like that.

After some extended internal anguish:

“Uh, here, I wrote this one.”

He took Volume 1 of Ayakashi Gatari (a supernatural samurai-drama series) off the shelf and handed it to Nadeshiko. She gleefully accepted it, peering intently at the cover.

“Wa… Wata…fune…?”

“Wataru Watari. That’s my pen name,” Itsuki said, puffing his chest out and lying with gusto.

“Huh? But isn’t your name Itsuki Hashima?”

His face tensed up at the astute observation. “Well, Itsuki Hashima is my real name. I think your grandfather is using his real name to write under, but a lot of writers use pen names, too. It’s kind of like a second name you use when you’re writing.”

“Wow, really? Did you create your own pen name?”

“I sure did.”

“So why did you choose Wataru Watari, mister?”

How the hell do I know where someone else’s pen name came from?! he internally screamed. But he tried his hardest to come up with something.

“Well, Wataru Watari is kind of a poetic way to say ‘crossing the ocean.’ You see, when I’m writing, I always want my books to be loved overseas, too, by people all over the world. That’s why I went with that name.”

“Wow! That’s really cool, sir! It’s a lot of, uh, ambition!”

“Y-yeah, isn’t it?”

He forced a smile, basking in the respect of the child before him. Chihiro’s eyes, however, were much colder as he watched his brother.

“So is it all right if I call you Wataru Watari from now on, mister?”

“N-no, no, please don’t! …Just call me your big brother Itsuki.”

“All right, Big Brother Itsuki!”

“Weh-heh-heh…”

Itsuki couldn’t help but beam at Nadeshiko as Chihiro began to apply more force to his kitchen knife.

After she thumbed through Itsuki’s book (or something close to it), Nadeshiko’s curiosity turned toward his shelf of board games. She said she wanted to play something, and after considering what a schoolchild could handle, he ultimately settled on a box labeled Viva Topo!

“Ooh, mice! They’re so cute!”

Nadeshiko smiled at the wooden mouse-shaped pieces she picked up from the box. “Cute is right,” Itsuki said, looking at her with a wide grin.

Viva Topo! is a German board game where players roll a die to move multiple mice around the game board. If a piece reaches a room with cheese in it, they earn the cheese, and the player with the most cheese points wins the game. The board has several cheese rooms, with the biggest pieces of cheese available in the room you start the farthest away from—but once a mouse enters a cheese room, they can’t move after that. This means that you want to get as many mice as you can to the faraway rooms, but a bad roll of the die may advance the cat upon your mice, knocking them out of the game.

The rules are simple, but the game isn’t at all a die-driven luck contest. The dilemma the rules present—play it safe and collect cheese from nearby rooms or risk a cat attack and set off for farther rooms—made it one of those classically “fun for kids from five to ninety-five” board games.

“Whoooaaaa, my mouse got eaten again!” Itsuki cried.

“You’re trying too hard, Big Bro!”

“Well, listen, sometimes you need to keep fighting even when you know the battle’s dangerous!”

“Really? But I feel bad for the mice who get caught…”

“…! …You’re right… You’re so thoughtful, Nadeshiko…”

The mere hint of sadness on Nadeshiko’s face made Itsuki pat her on the head with the gentleness of a kind big brother (well, more like a grandpa, really).

“Hey,” she said, laughing, “that tickles!”

While the two of them were playing, Itsuki was on the floor, legs spread, and Nadeshiko was in between them as she faced the table. It was a little unnerving when she chose to sit like that, but he didn’t speak up. Every time she moved, her sweet-smelling, shiny-blond hair tickled his face, making him happier than he could explain.

…So heaven was here all along…

Now he knew how Subaru Hasegawa and Yaichi Kuzuryu felt.

“This is the best day ever,” he earnestly whispered.

“Huh? What was that, Big Bro?”

“Wha—? Oh, nothing!”

Watching his brother’s big, stupid grin, Chihiro took his knife and chopped the head off the fish on the counter.

Just past six PM, Yoshihiro Kiso came over with Toki to pick up Nadeshiko. She promptly hugged her grandfather at the front door.

“I’m glad you’re done with work, Grandpa!”

“Yes, yes. Were you a good girl?”

“Uh-huh! I played a whole bunch with Big Bro Itsuki here!” Kiso’s eyes turned toward the regretful-looking Itsuki.

“Thank you for your help today, Mr. Hashima. I’ll be sure to repay the favor later.”

“Oh, no, you really don’t have to! In fact, I wish she could be here all the time!”

Kiso laughed at the inadvertent truth.

“…Oh! I know! Um, since you’re here, would you like to have dinner with us?!”

It was a pretty blatant attempt at hanging on to her, but Kiso gently shook his head. “No, no, we’d best be on our way. Come, Nadeshiko. Say thank you to Mr. Hashima.”

“Okay!” she said, turning toward Itsuki. The thought of this angel leaving him almost brought tears to his eyes.

“Thank you very much, Big Bro! Can I come back and play games with you again sometime?”

“Of—of course! Anytime! I’ll get in some more children’s games next time!”

“Wow, that sounds like fun! Good-bye for now, Big Bro!”

“Ohhh, good-bye… Good-bye, Nadeshiko…!”

She gave him a wave as she left with Kiso. Itsuki stood there at the front door, continually waving until they were out of sight.

“Ahhh… She’s gone… Awwww… Well, time for dinner…”

Shoulders slumped, voice bereft of its soul, Itsuki turned around to find Chihiro setting the table, clearly miffed. There was an audible clang as he banged the dish of fried fish against the table.

“…Are you angry about something, Chihiro?” Itsuki asked, puzzled.

“No!”

“…You are, aren’t you?”

“I’m not! I was just thinking that you’d fall for anyone who’ll call you Big Bro enough, wouldn’t you?!”

The sullen retort made Itsuki think for a moment.

“…You know what? You might be right.”

The deadpan response only upset Chihiro more.