The bullied one is the cause,
And the bully is effective.
✦ ✦ ✦
What does the word “strength” really mean? If, like the standard for happiness and unhappiness, strength and weakness can only be evaluated relatively, then rejecting everything outside of oneself would be defined as strength, while accepting everything prior to oneself would be defined as weakness. Or maybe not, but in making any kind of judgment, one requires both a unit of measurement and a standard by which to measure.
Does it simply refer to bodily strength? Or an outsized presence? Does it mean physical solidity, or does it indicate mental obduracy? Simply because someone is always overbearing and cocky doesn’t mean they’re the strongest. Handling everything flawlessly, excelling at any and all skills, that alone isn’t enough to put you on top of the heap. Even mastering a single ability just makes you a genius, it doesn’t mean you can have whatever you want, or eradicate everything you don’t. Neither invincibility nor peerlessness alone constitutes a definition of “strongest.” And words like honor and glory are in fact its antonyms. So how can you possibly determine that someone is the strongest? If you take this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, you’ll end up at a more or less self-contradictory argument.
But if I were to present this train of reasoning to her, I’m sure she’d flash her usual nihilistic smile and say─
“I’m the strongest, and because I’m the strongest I don’t need a reason.”
“Thing is…”
Aikawa slowly spread her arms, showing off her bright-red outfit, and looked at me and Hime-chan. That cynical smile was still plastered on her face.
“I couldn’t bear to wear anything but this for the climax. Black just wouldn’t have worked for the big finish. Ugh, I hadda go all the way back to the Cobra, and it ate up a lot more time than I expected. Sorry I’m late, Iitan.”
Hime-chan was shaking uncontrollably. Her whole body was heaving. As if she couldn’t wrap her mind around it: Why is Aikawa there, or rather, Why isn’t Aikawa here, with me?
“It doesn’t makes a difference… Buying time with his silver tongue is the nonsense user’s favorite trick, after all, isn’t it, Ms. Aikawa?”
“I’ve told you not to call me by my last name… Only my ‘enemies’ do that. So─” Aikawa’s smile didn’t slip as she fixed her gaze on Hime-chan. “Which’re you gonna call me?”
“Ah, uh─”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, anyway?”
“Ah…”
“I asked you what the hell you’re doing. Well?”
“Then─”
Still trembling.
“Then this is the end? Just like that?”
Shaking like a leaf.
“Why─”
Her quavering voice filled with all the emotion she could muster.
“─am I such a screw-up?” she shouted in a heartbreaking voice so small that it seemed like it might vanish altogether. “Where did I go wrong? Huh?” she asked, not of Aikawa, but of me. “I thought so hard about it… I considered it from every angle, and I was sure it’d go smoothly. Did Hime-chan─do something wrong?”
“…Hime-chan.”
“Seriously, am I really this much of a screw-up?”
“The hell’s that got to do with it?” Aikawa cut in. “Remember what I said about getting ‘caught in your own web’─you’ve been overthinking this to death, you and Iitan both. Not to mention that little lady lying on the ground there. Man, this hallway is drenched in blood. Dammit─don’t you assholes have anything better to do? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re both under the impression that everything can be explained logically, aren’cha?” Aikawa scratched her head in frustration, like she was genuinely baffled. Then, heaving a sigh so long that it seemed to last for an eternity and for an instant, she started yelling, “Logic is nothing more than one plus one equals two. And theory just means zero plus zero equals zero. If you wanna see some neat, clean logic, go read a first-grade math textbook or something. Relying on that kind of infantile shit, clinging to it, bowing down to it─are you really both such drooling idiots?!”
She wasn’t smiling anymore─she was pissed.
Insanely pissed. Violently furious.
“I’m such a screw-up, this is the end… Listen to you, shamelessly mewling like a whipped dog! Makes me red in the face just listening to you! You think I need to be any redder, you idiot?! Huh?? You think as long as you survive, that counts as a job well done? As long as no one finds out the truth, it’s a full success? You think you get to decide when it starts and ends? Bullshit! You moron, this idiotic farce could never have succeeded! You wanna hop on the bandwagon with all these traumatized little brats and their boo-hoo-hooing? I’ll give you something to cry about!”
“W-Wah…”
Weeping profusely, Hime-chan retreated a step, as if blown back by the force of Aikawa’s words. The unpleasant sensation of those “lines” being wrapped around my body was gone. No time to worry about holding me captive in the face of Jun Aikawa─and keeping a hostage would only be counterproductive against her anyway. Hime-chan probably knew this all too well. Which is exactly why she’d wanted to keep Aikawa on her side.
Or─maybe that wasn’t why?
That was part of it, but Hime-chan was simply…
“This ain’t funny─I’m not the slightest bit amused! If you’re going to make an enemy of me, at least give me a little chuckle! Everyone averts their eyes from what they should really be doing, squandering every little thing they’ve got, making excuses, lying, sidestepping─creeping around like servile little worms! Shape up! It couldn’t be simpler, just don’t slack off! Why can’t you guys get it together?! Straighten out already!”
That’s just it…
That’s the one thing we can’t do.
Both Hime-chan, and me.
But now Aikawa had gotten up a head of steam, and she couldn’t keep her anger in check.