The Usual Sort of Ending

It took a grand total of three days for Itsuki to finish up the full manuscript and be freed from the Lockdown.

What a wonderful world it was. What a wonderful life. Everything seemed to shine and sparkle along the well-trodden five-minute walking path Itsuki took back to his apartment.

The final part of Sisterly Combat, Volume 5 involved the protagonist Sieg taking on a powerful foe—the one he fled from earlier, out of fear for his life—and defeating it. Sieg was going into a battle he knew he had little chance of winning, even with every iota of strength he had. His mental state linked up rather well with Itsuki’s, as he fought his own powerful foe—his deadline—in the dark and cramped chamber. It resulted in a tremendous you-are-there feeling to the battle scene in the novel.

Dealing with an enemy that he couldn’t even scratch, no matter how much he attacked, Sieg (Itsuki) almost found himself falling into a pit of despair. But the thing that helped both of them rise up and grow stronger was a nice little memory from their everyday lives.

I want to see Hilde’s smile again.

I want to eat Chihiro’s cooking again.

I want to drink beer and screw around with Haruto and Miyako again.

I want to play games and go traveling with Setsuna again.

I want Ashley to call me “big brother” again.

I want to see Nayuta again.

I want Kenjiro Toki’s dick to fall off from an STD.

“I swear to all that is holy, I will return to Hilde!! I can’t afford to die—not here, of all places!!”

“I wanna go home, drink, and go to bed!! I can’t let this deadline kill me!!”

Toward the end of his tale, Itsuki shouted that aloud—just as he was depicting Sieg doing the same, baring his soul. It was the clarion call for Sieg and Itsuki’s smashing counterattack, and before long, Sieg had successfully smote the foe nobody believed he could conquer.

And once he did, Itsuki had successfully completed his manuscript—before the Real Deadline, even, something nobody believed he could make.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Back in his room for the first time in three days, Itsuki heaved a mighty sigh.

The sense of relief, exhilaration, and near-omnipotence that came after completing a volume was always a wonderful thing, no matter how often he tasted it, but this time was special. Right now, he was the most formidable warrior in the world, one who took on a deadly trial and lived to tell the tale.

“I am the strooonnnngggeeesssttt!!”

He unironically shouted the moment the front door was locked behind him, still not quite fully disengaged from Sieg mode yet. In reality, he was stinking of sweat from not bathing or changing clothes for three days, the lack of sleep gave him deep bags under his eyes, his cheeks were hollow and gaunt from living on nothing but energy drinks and the barest minimum of food, his hair was unkempt, his face starting to grow a beard, and overall he looked less the “strongest” and more like some hapless soldier fleeing from a losing battle. Luckily, no one was there to mention that to him.

Right. First, a shower. Then a nice, cold beer as I watch the anime that should’ve been recorded for me.

He tossed his bag down, took off his shoes, and—not bothering to wait for the bathroom—peeled off all the sweaty clothes he spent the last seventy-two hours in. He was just about to remove his underpants when:

“Oh, welcome back…bro………?”

The door to the living room opened, revealing Chihiro.

“Ah…”

Itsuki froze, hands ready to lower his undies. Chihiro had a key to the place, and he’d occasionally come over when Itsuki was gone for extended periods to handle the laundry and cleaning. His presence here was thus not unusual at all.

“Uh-umm, sorry,” Chihiro said, blushing and turning his back.

“N-no, I, uh… Were you cleaning?”

“Y-yeah… Mr. Toki said you’d probably be able to come home this evening, so he wanted me to get dinner ready and wait for you, so…”

Something did smell good, over in the kitchen. A covered frying pan was on one stove burner, and Itsuki could see several dishes lined up on the kotatsu table in the living room.

“…Asshole didn’t have to do that,” Itsuki muttered.

Chihiro’s disappointment was clear in his voice. “I’m sorry, was this going too far?”

“N-no,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just a figure of speech! I just mean, like, first he throws me in that jail cell, then he arranges this so I’ll like him again… He’s such a conniving bastard like that! But you’re fine! I really appreciate it when you cook for me!”

“Oh, good,” Chihiro replied with a smile as he turned back around, only to blush all over again. “Um, just go take a shower, okay? Dinner’ll be ready in a little bit.”

“Y-yeah, sure.”

Having one’s brother see you almost naked isn’t that big of a deal, but given how ashamed Chihiro acted over it, Itsuki couldn’t help but feel awkward himself. He picked up the shirt and pants he had thrown on the floor and headed for the bathroom.

After taking a hot shower and shaving his beard off, Itsuki finally felt alive once more.

He was now fully clothed and in the living room, Chihiro waiting for him there by the kotatsu. On the table were some paella, fried shrimp, spring rolls, karaage chicken, seafood salad, and a whole bunch of Itsuki’s other favorites.

“…Wow,” an admiring Itsuki said.

“I kind of made too much,” Chihiro bashfully replied.

“Nah, you’re fine. Haruto and Kanikou are bound to show up sooner or later, so it’ll work out,” her brother said as he fished a cold beer from the fridge.

The beer was an Edelweiss Weissbier Snowfresh, a clean-tasting light beer from Austria that wasn’t too bitter—right now, he wanted something refreshing he could chug, not a deep, high-ABV beer that was better off being savored longer. Opening the cap and pouring the hazy, slightly wheat-colored beer into a glass, he could smell the Alpine herbs waft up in glorious fashion.

“Ooh, that smells good,” Chihiro commented.

“Yeah, right?” Itsuki replied, a flood of emotions erupting as the glass filled up.

“Great job, me!!”

“Yeah, great job,” came Chihiro’s follow-up.

Itsuki took in a mouthful. The invigorating taste and refreshing aroma were perfect after climbing out of hell the way he did, and now it spread across his entire mouth, filling him with an indescribable sort of happiness.

“Phaaaah…”

The herbs were still on his tongue as he jabbed a fork into a shrimp in the salad, lettuce and all. The seasoned, savory shrimp matched perfectly with the acidity of the aurora sauce, working well with the beer to boot. This was followed by the fried shrimp and paella—packed with the salt and oil his body was craving, and fulfilling those needs from the bottom of his heart.

“This is great… The shrimp’s so good…”

It was the first decent human meal in three days, and it was shrimp, his favorite. The sheer overwhelming emotion almost brought him to tears. And the sight of him so intently eating all of this made Chihiro watch happily as well.

After stuffing himself, Itsuki went right off to sleep, his three-day encounter with hell finally taking its toll on him. He slept straight until well into the next afternoon, before a call from Haruto finally woke him up.

“Hey, good work. Now that you’re out of hell, let’s go have a cherry-blossom viewing party today!”

“Huhh?”

“Cherry blossoms, man! We’ll go out and hang out under the trees and eat and drink and stuff.”

“I…I wanna do that…,” he groggily replied.

“Yeah! I’ll head over there around three. I already reached out to Nayu and Miyako and Chihiro about it. See you then.”

“Mmh…”

After he spent the next hour or so lying spaced out in bed, Chihiro showed up to put last night’s leftovers in boxes and make some rice balls and sandwiches.

“Hey, bro, you better get ready to go soon, all right? Why don’t you go take a shower?”

“Hrmhhh… Ngahh…”

Just as his consciousness was starting to get it together, the doorbell rang—not Haruto and the gang, but a package deliveryman. Inside were several bottles of Japanese sake. Why sake…? Itsuki thought as he checked the sender. It was a name he sort of, but kind of not really, remembered. It was only when he traced his memory back to Ashley’s visit ten or so days ago that he realized it was from the town he volunteered to pay part of his taxes to, as part of the hometown-tax system. They had already sent his thank-you sake.

“…Well, a promise is a promise…” Itsuki sighed. “Chihiro?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you make something that’ll work well with sake, too? Like…”

He tried to come up with an example, but he drank beer so much more often than sake that he didn’t really know what foods were best for it.

But Chihiro apparently did. “Oh, sure. Let’s see what I’ve got here… Well, I know squid, octopus, and clams go well with sake… Eggs and mentaiko roe do nicely, I think… Oh, and I think cream cheese does, too.”

“Wow, you know a lot,” a surprised Itsuki noted.

“Yeah, well, my dad likes sake a lot, so sometimes I whip up stuff for him.”

“Oh yeah…?”

The conversation went no further, as Itsuki headed for the bathroom to wash up.

It was a bit past three.

Itsuki and his friends were at a nearby park. This was a small one, with a few mid-sized cherry trees dotting the otherwise sparse landscape. It was originally meant as a public evacuation point following an earthquake or other disaster, not as a fun playground, so there wasn’t much equipment to play with and zero children were nearby, despite it being the middle of spring break. There was a much larger park, one noted for the cherry blossoms around this time of year, about a fifteen-minute walk away, so nobody bothered to picnic here during the season. Beyond Itsuki’s group, there were a couple guys in business suits taking a break with a smoke—probably salesmen making the rounds.

Why did they choose this park? Chiefly, it was because none of them had a great interest in cherry-blossom hunting; as long as there was food and booze, anyplace worked. With that frame of mind, there was no need to travel to some faraway park and jockey with a million other people for ground space.

Spreading out a plastic mat under what was more or less the most majestic-looking tree in the park, the group opened up the boxes. They were Itsuki and Chihiro, Haruto, Miyako, and Ashley Ono. Itsuki was the one who invited Ashley—he called her to say the sake had arrived, and as they spoke, he mentioned they would be having a picnic shortly. This was greeted with a very pointed response—“Hmmm, some cherry blossoms…hmmmm…”—and when Itsuki offered her to come along, she immediately accepted.

“Hee-hee-hee… We meet again, Haruto.”

“We… We sure do…?”

Haruto was already sweating at Ashley’s unfathomable laughter. He gave Itsuki a resentful look.

“Hee-hee… You don’t need to put your guard up so much. Let’s just let bygones be bygones and have some fun drinking here, hmm?”

Ashley sounded just romantic enough that Miyako and Chihiro both looked at them with interest.

“Can you stop talking like there was ever anything between the two of us, please?! Our only connection was that I had you do my taxes for me last year! There’s no ‘bygones’ to let go of!” Haruto was already blushing deeply.

Ashley simply snickered, clearly enjoying this.

“Ugh,” he sighed as he opened up the cooler he brought along. It contained beer, of course. “Let’s go with this one first, maybe?” he said, pulling out a Bink Bloesem. The label had some cherry blossoms on it, along with a cartoon honeybee carrying a pear, and indeed, it used both honey and pear syrup for a luxurious, springlike taste. It featured a nice balance between the touch of sweetness and the refreshing bitterness, and at around 7 percent alcohol by volume, it packed a decent punch as well. The perfect Belgian beer, in other words, for a little cherry-blossom viewing party.

Haruto poured out some Bloesem into paper cups for himself, Itsuki, and Miyako. Nayuta picked up a can of root beer, and Chihiro poured some sake into Ashley’s red lacquered cup (which she apparently brought along herself) before filling his own paper cup with hot tea from a thermos.

Once everyone had their drinks, Haruto spoke up.

“Okay, Itsuki, you give us a toast.”

“Huh? Why me? You’re the one who set this up.”

“I’ll do it!” Nayuta exclaimed as Itsuki demurred.

“…Sure, whatever.”

“All right. Well, here’s to me and Itsuki’s upcoming marriage—”

“Shut up!” Itsuki cut her off, face red. “Um, all right, here’s to me finally getting that stupid manuscript done. Cheers!”

“““““Cheers!”””””

They all shouted in unison, taking at least a few glances at the cherry blossoms they were supposedly there for as they partook in the food and drink to their hearts’ content.

“Itsuki,” Nayuta said, “do you want to come to my place after this?”

“No.”

“Aww… But it was a lot nicer than I thought, though, living within walking distance of you. Maybe I should keep living in that hotel after they’re done renovating my place… And you’re invited to stay over again too, Myaa.”

“F-forget it! You’ll just do something weird to me again…”

“Something weird?”

“It—it’s none of your business, Itsuki!”

“Well, me and Myaa got totally naked and—”

“Ahhhh! No no no no! No way!”

“What’re you people even doing…?”

It was an odd group of people—novelists, a college student, a high schooler, and a tax accountant. Apart from Itsuki and Haruto, none of them knew Ashley, and Chihiro was seeing Haruto and Miyako for only the second time. But the scene was still oddly friendly. And what’s more:

“…Looks like you’re having fun.”

Itsuki’s editor, Kenjiro Toki, had just strolled into the park.

“Gehhh?! I—I already gave you my manuscript! I’m a free man!”

“Yeah… Yeah, you sure did. That’s why I got a little gift for you… See? Some lobster.”

Itsuki’s eyes grew larger at the sight of three Japanese spiny lobsters, all char-grilled to perfection.

“L-lobster?! How?!”

“I had a Spanish restaurant near the office cook ’em up for me.”

“Wowwwww! Kenkennnnn!!”

“Don’t hug me, you weirdo. You drunk already?”

“I’m sorry I called you an asshole and wished for your dick to fall off and stuff! I’ll follow you wherever you go, Kenken!”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t… Work’s finally settled down for me, too, so I figured I’d join in. These things cost a bunch, you know.”

After tossing Itsuki into the Lockdown for three days to make him finish the text, Toki had been groveling to the illustrator, the designer, the proofreader, the editor in chief and sales department, and everyone else involved with getting Sisterly Combat into print so he could make the schedule work out. The ordeal was no less painful than the one Itsuki went through.

Grabbing a paper cup of beer from Haruto, Toki set right to drinking. The apparent fatigue from all the work he did made him drunk almost immediately—which, naturally, meant it was time to harangue Itsuki again.

“L-l-like, like, I know you can do it if you try, so why don’cha try f’m the start f’r a change, huh, Itsuki?”

“Huhhh? Sh-shut up, you asshole! I—I can’t try until you—you drive me into a c’rner ’n’ stuff!”

“Yeh? Okay, I’ll set up the sh-sh-schedule so yer in the corner fromma start!”

“Whaaa?! Shudda hell up, I’m gonna kill ya, ya sex maniac!”

With Itsuki just as inebriated as his editor, they were both having pronunciation issues as they argued. Ashley, sake cup in hand, watched on admiringly.

“Hee-hee… Being an editor certainly seems like a tough job…”

I hope she’s fine, Chihiro thought as he poured Ashley another cup. The sight of someone as young-looking as her drinking was a tad alarming.

“I really like these snacks you made, too. These thingies with the cream cheese inside the squid, especially… Magnificent.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“…Did you make these, by the way? The snacks and this other food?”

“Um, yeah, pretty much…”

Ashley gave the nodding Chihiro an admiring look. “Hmm… Impressive, given how young you are… Do you think you’d like to work part-time for me, maybe? My door’s always open for youngsters good in the kitchen.”

“Huh?! B-but I can’t really do anything besides cook…”

“That’s good enough for me, truly. If you want, though, I could help you study bookkeeping?”

“Oh…?”

The most Chihiro could do now was organize Itsuki’s receipts by month. But with a professional accountant providing instruction, maybe there were ways to help Itsuki more than ever before.

“…I’ll have to think about it.”

Chihiro gave an earnest reply.

As Itsuki and the gang were enjoying themselves at the park, ace illustrator Setsuna Ena was paying a visit to Itsuki’s apartment.

Nobody answered the door.

“Huh. Is he out?”

Well, so be it. Without a cell phone, Setsuna had no way of contacting someone before he stopped by. If the other people were out or busy, there wasn’t much to do but give up.

“Ah, well,” he indifferently muttered as he left the apartment building.

Toki was swimming in a river of alcohol, and given the tension surrounding the springtime event, Itsuki, Miyako, and Haruto were all going at a pretty fast clip themselves. It wasn’t too long before the beer cooler was almost completely exhausted.

“I’m gonna go to my brother’s place to pick up some beer and Pocari.” Chihiro stood up.

“I’ll join you!” Nayuta volunteered, but Chihiro shook his head.

“No, I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Really? Mmm, well, it’s getting dark, so watch out for molesters.”

“I—I’ll be fine! I’m… I’m a guy, so…” Chihiro seemed a bit unnerved.

Away from Itsuki’s apartment, Setsuna was wandering around, looking for someplace to eat dinner. There were many restaurants near the rail station, but he decided to deliberately check out some of the more deserted areas.

“It’d be nice if there was some hidden gem around here…”

As his eyes darted around his surroundings, he passed by a fetching young woman in a hoodie. She wasn’t dressed in anything fancy, but that served to emphasize her well-formed features.

“Whoa, pretty cute,” Setsuna said as he turned around. “!!”

The woman’s rear was like being struck by lightning.

As his pen name (which literally meant “jiggly butt”) implied, Setsuna was a huge fan of people’s asses. He liked drawing them, and he liked looking at them, too. It didn’t matter if they were 2-D, 3-D, young, old, male, female; he believed the ass was the most beautiful part of the human body.

He may have had a natural gift for drawing asses, one that he was lucky enough to earn great appreciation for, but he also had a singular genius for spotting asses as well. Whether covered by undies or pants, Setsuna could feel the inner beauty of the ass that lay beneath—the sheer power of the ass.

“Beautiful ass, beautiful heart” was his motto. That was part of the reason he liked Itsuki, even—the power of his ass was fantastic.

As such an uncommonly talented ass artist, Setsuna Ena’s supernatural ass scouter was sounding the alarm. This girl’s ass was a once-per-century, maybe once-per-millennium level of beauty.

He had to see it. He had to see that girl’s ass!

Doing so, he felt, would change his entire viewpoint of the world. He was sure it’d help him advance his illustrations one level further. As an artist, as an ass lover, and as a man, he simply had to witness her ass for himself!

“Uh, hey, wait a second!!”

“…?” The woman turned around, eyebrows raised in suspicion. “Hmm? Do you mean me?”

“Yeah! Yeah, you!”

“…What is it?” the girl asked, staring at Setsuna as his breathing turned ragged.

No, he thought. Don’t look at me; turn around. He stared at her intently, his ass-gazing eyes yearning to be quenched.

“Could I look at your ass for a second?”

“Huh…?”

The girl stared blankly at him.

“Your ass! Your butt! I want you to show me your rear end!”

“Wh-what are you talking about?!”

“Please! Please, this is all I want in life! Please show me your ass!”

“N-no thank you! Stop acting so weird!”

“I’m not acting weird! I’m being totally serious!”

“Well, I’m not gonna show you, all right?!”

The girl ran off, terror in her face.

“W-wait a second! I’ll do anything for you!”

“Stay away from me, you pervert!”

“But, but your aaassssssssssssssss!!”

Setsuna’s hands, stretched out to their far limits, grabbed the woman around her pants.

Zzzzzip—

Down came the pants, revealing a pair of simple white undergarments. No! No, this cloth doesn’t matter!

“O-one more…”

Turning toward the pleading Setsuna, the woman stared him down.

“Nn…”

Her expression was bright red now, racked with shame and anger.

“Knock it the hell off!!”

“Arahghhh?!”

The high kick unleashed by the supple legs attached to the once-in-a-millennium ass landed a clean hit on Setsuna’s face, sending his body flying as it knocked him out.

“Oh, man, I swear…,” Chihiro mumbled, voice almost breaking into tears.

So it happened after all. A weird criminal, on the way to Itsuki’s house. His hair was dyed in a pretty stand-out color, and he was around the same age as Chihiro. He strode right up, demanded to see some ass pronto, and even got all physically grabby. Lucky thing the full-strength kick landed where it did.

But is he all right…?

Chihiro tapped at the man, lying prone against the wall. He groaned a little bit in response. At least he wasn’t dead, then.

Was that him flirting with me, or…?

“Flirting” didn’t quite sound like the right word for it, but whatever.

Leaving the man behind, Chihiro hurried over to Itsuki’s apartment, grabbing some beer and sports drinks and stuffing them into a recyclable shopping bag. The beer was soon back at the park, delivered via a longer, roundabout path so there was no chance of running into that weirdo again.

Itsuki said hello first, looking a bit worried, as Toki sprawled out next to him.

“Hey, did something happen?”

“N-no, nothing. Just kind of took the long way.”

There was no way Chihiro could tell the truth.

The picnic continued for the rest of the afternoon, until the sun finally said its final good-bye. The beer reinforcements were fully drunk, and the mountains of food had been eaten up. The cherry blossoms, lit up dimly by the nearby streetlights, were fairly elegant, and Ashley was nursing her final cup.

“Hee-hee… I hope we can all do this again next year,” she said, sighing her captivating little sigh.

“…Yeah…,” Itsuki vaguely replied, his voice heavy as he reflected over the words.

Miyako, Nayuta, and Chihiro eyed him with confusion.

“Ha-ha! You’re making this sound like a conversation branch in a video game.” Haruto intervened, laughing even as there was a bit of gloom to his face.

Ashley gave him a lonely smile. “Well, who can say how a writer’s life will turn out?”

“…Yeah, true.”

She had provided tax services for a large number of writers up to now, getting to gauge each of their financial situations. She knew full well how unstable a novelist’s life could be. Nayuta and Haruto hit it big with their respective debut titles; Itsuki was lucky enough to build a decent fan base and decent earnings not too long after he started, but they were by far the happiest examples.

Three other authors had made their debut alongside Itsuki and Haruto in the new writers contest they placed in. Two of them had had their debut novel, their follow-up, and their third novel sell below expectations, driving them into frustration and retirement. The other one had a debut series that sold fairly decently, but fell into a slump once the second title launched; currently, that particular writer was working part-time while polishing up an outline for a new series with his editor.

It was a pretty common thing to see with any publisher—new authors talking about how they’ll all work hard to succeed together at one award ceremony, only to be completely absent at next year’s event. And it didn’t just happen to rookies, either. Authors could suddenly lose all ability to write; they could fall into despair after having one too many series canceled; the stress could break them down; or physical illness or injury could affect their lives. There were lots of ways they could fall out of the business.

Even with the three success stories here, they could likely keep up the current status quo for maybe a few years. Beyond that, no one could say. An author’s shelf life could often be just as fleeting as the blossoms that fly away, only to bloom again next year.

“Yeah, well, I know I’m all right!”

Itsuki flashed a brazen smile as he tried to break the solemn tone the conversation took.

“The new Sisterly Combat volume coming out next month is my greatest masterpiece yet. And if I’m capable of writing a masterpiece like that, I just know the future’s comin’ up roses for me!”

Haruto and Ashley smiled at the sentiment.

“Hee-hee… It better be, for my sake. If I lose a customer, that’s a little bit less money I’m making, after all. So hang in there…big brother.”

“Yes, ma’am! I’ll work myself to the bone for my little sister!” He huffed with enthusiasm.

Chihiro looked on, a bit peeved, as the picnic wrapped up. They all helped cart the trash off as they went their separate ways.

All who remained under the cherry tree was Kenjiro Toki, snoring loudly. He would have to go to work the next morning covered in grass, dirt, and petal stains, but this happened all the time with editors so his boss didn’t yell at him about it.