Tomomi’s mouth popped open in shock. “Oh, come on! Don’t you want to know who Nihao the China is, or why we weren’t disturbed by those anthromorphs in the store?”
“I thought you came here to keep me quiet!” Yuichi sighed. Apparently she had really been hoping to tell him. “Hearing about things I don’t need to know tends to end up making trouble for me. So I really don’t want to know.”
“Huh? Really? You know enough by now that I could probably tell you everything... I mean, I assumed that’s what you’d say, so I thought up a whole spiel on the way here!”
“Not my problem,” Yuichi said.
“What? I didn’t know you were such a jerk, Sakaki! Okay, now I’m gonna tell you whether you like it or not! I’ll whisper my true identity into your ear!” Fuming, Tomomi leaned over the bed, pressing close to Yuichi.
“You stubborn idiot! I told you, I don’t want to know!” Yuichi pushed back against her.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” An enraged cry sounded out behind them. Yuichi and Tomomi turned to face it.
It was Aiko, holding a bouquet of flowers. She was also in her school uniform, apparently having come right from school as well.
“Oh, well, ahaha...” Tomomi sat down on the bed, laughing awkwardly. “O-Okay, I’m going now! We’ll be waiting for you at the restaurant!”
With that, she scurried past Aiko and left.
“Sakaki... well, I know you wouldn’t get involved in any funny business, but...” Aiko sighed.
“Hamasaki said she came to keep me quiet, but then tried to tell me all her secrets by force,” Yuichi said.
Aiko frowned. “Yeah, I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I! Did you know she was like that?”
“She’s a lot of fun to be around,” Aiko said. “She’s just a little thoughtless and hyperactive sometimes. I doubt she’ll do that to you once you’re out of the hospital.”
“I’ll be feeling better soon,” Yuichi assured her. “Don’t worry.”
Aiko walked up to Yuichi and sat down. The hospital room was very small, which meant Aiko was close enough for him to feel a little self-conscious.
“Um... I’m really sorry about all the trouble my brother caused...” Aiko bowed her head, expression humble.
“Don’t worry. I’m not bothered. How’s he doing, anyway?” Yuichi had heard Kyoya wasn’t dead, and that his vampiric regeneration was hard at work, so that was a load off of his mind.
“They locked him in the dungeon,” Aiko said.
“The dungeon? You guys have one of those at home?”
“I didn’t know either, but apparently, yeah. He’s doing some time there. The madness seems to have ended, though, so I think he might be fine now.”
Kyoya had lost nearly all of his powers. Thanks to that, the people he had enslaved were back to normal.
“Dad was really surprised by how fast you healed.” Aiko changed the subject, apparently not wanting to talk about her brother.
Yuichi wasn’t inclined to ask any more about him, either. “Well, I did sleep for six days straight.” He wasn’t completely recovered yet, but it was enough that he could resume his daily life, at least.
“Yoriko threw a fit, too,” Aiko added.
“Yori came?” Yuichi had been asleep and thus, hadn’t been aware of it.
“Every single day,” Aiko told him. “She kept mumbling about killing whoever did this. It was a little scary.”
“Yori’s pretty indiscriminate, yeah...” Maybe he should tell her to chill out about it.
“Your mother only came by once, I think,” Aiko added.
“That sounds about right for her.”
Yuichi’s mother didn’t seem to worry about him very much. Perhaps it was because he had been in the hospital so many times, she knew how tough he was by now.
“So summer break arrived while I was in the hospital, huh?” Yuichi asked. He’d been asleep, and the next thing he knew, it was summer vacation. It felt a bit like he had missed out on something.
“I’m glad you didn’t miss out on summer vacation,” Aiko said. “I hear you’re being released tomorrow.”
“Speaking of which, are Orihara and the others okay?” Yuichi asked.
“Yeah, apparently the charm disappeared right away,” Aiko said.
Fortunately (in a sense), the girls who had been charmed and imprisoned in the school didn’t remember what had happened.
There was a moment’s silence, and Aiko suddenly averted her eyes, as if suddenly remembering something. “Um... I got... pretty weird back there, huh? I told you that even though I’m a vampire, I’m not so different from a human... but I guess I’m not normal at all...” she said hesitantly. “It was like my mind went blank, but a part of me was so calm... the use of the power came to me so naturally... and it was telling me to kill my brother...” she continued, on the verge of tears.
“It was beautiful,” Yuichi said. Yuichi wondered how he should comfort her. After deciding that his first priority was to keep from hurting her, those were the words that he chose.
“Huh?” Aiko lifted her head and looked at him in utter confusion as color filled her cheeks.
“I-I mean, your wings,” Yuichi said. “The way they glittered. It was beautiful and incredible. Yeah.”
“Really? I d-don’t really remember much about it...”
“It surprised me a little,” Yuichi said, hoping to assuage her concerns. “But it’s not that big a deal, I don’t think.”
“R-Really?” Aiko sounded genuinely relieved.
As the conversation fell silent, Yuichi thought back on what had happened. From what he could see, Aiko’s potential far outstripped Kyoya’s. The strongest person in that room on that day had been Aiko.
The world’s strongest little sister, huh?
Yuichi felt like maybe he knew where Kyoya’s resentment had come from. Perhaps he had caught a glimpse of her power once before.
Now that Aiko was feeling better, her manner turned teasing. “Hey, you were really mad then, weren’t you? Because you thought he might kill me.”
“Well...” Yuichi really had been. He’d been so enraged, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. If Aiko hadn’t stepped in, he probably would have killed Kyoya. “It just bothered me to see a brother try to hurt his little sister.” He averted his eyes from hers.
“What the heck?” Aiko puffed out her cheek in dissatisfaction.
“Well, it’s okay,” she continued after a moment. “You kind of have an obsession with little sisters.”
“Huh? What makes you say that?” Yuichi looked back at Aiko, her wording unexpected and slightly startling.
Aiko smiled. “Thanks for stopping my brother.”
Yuichi averted his eyes again, shyly. “Oh, b-by the way. You sucked my blood, Noro. Will I be okay?” He was quick to change the subject.
“Huh? You don’t think...” Aiko asked in concern.
“No, I’m not having any symptoms, as far as I know,” Yuichi said. “I was just wondering if I might become a vampire too, or something like that.”
“I don’t know... b-but if it happens, I’ll take responsibility!”
“I don’t think that’s something you take responsibility for, Noro. ...I know. Why don’t we test to see if I’m enslaved?”
“What do you mean?” Aiko tilted her head.
“You know. If I’m your thrall, I have to do what you tell me, right? So order me to do something totally unreasonable. If I can refuse you, I’m fine. Probably.”
After a moment’s thought, Aiko made up her mind, and began to give an order. “O-Okay. Something unreasonable... th-then why don’t you give me a ki—”
“Is this flirting? Are you flirting?!” Before Aiko could finish, Mutsuko barged into the hospital room. “Hey, why do they even call it flirting, anyhow?”
“W-We weren’t flirting!” Aiko responded in irritation.
Kanako, Natsuki, and Yoriko filed in behind Mutsuko.
&nb
sp; “Hey, that’s too many people. You can visit one at a time!” Aiko protested.
The small room suddenly felt much, much smaller.
“Huh? But today’s the day we’re supposed to choose our training camp location! You couldn’t come, so we came to you!” Mutsuko declared.
“You want to run the club from here?” Yuichi asked tiredly. Having Yoriko there, on top of the usual members, tilted the gender balance even further to the female side.
“Then let’s decide where to go for summer training camp! Vacation starts tomorrow, so we need to start preparations today!” Mutsuko cried.
“I’m still in recovery. Can’t you tell?” Yuichi complained.
“I see. Then we’ll let you choose! Then there’s no issue, right? Just pick the option that best jives with how you feel! Oh, and no ‘just stay at school,’ got that?”
Yuichi thought back on the candidates they had named previously before. A summer house by the sea, a junkyard, the isekai elevator, a foreign country, the “Unmarked Land,” and the Mayoiga. “Okay. By process of elimination, it’s gotta be the summer house!” There was nothing else to choose.
“Junkyard...” “Isekai...” Natsuki and Kanako murmured dejectedly.
“I’m not going to either of those!” Yuichi yelled at the despondent pair.
“Big Brother, I’ll be going, too,” Yoriko said.
“Huh? Why are you going, Yori?” Yuichi turned to his little sister. She sounded like she meant it.
“Because it’s not a school thing, right? So I can come!” In the end, Mutsuko had never bothered to ask the school for permission, so it was going to be more a group outing than a sanctioned club activity.
“Then Noro’s family’s summer house it is!” Mutsuko proclaimed.
And thus, Yuichi’s summer vacation began.
Epilogue 2: A Very Suspicious Person
It was late at night. Takashi Jonouchi was wandering the city.
He couldn’t forget.
He had been wandering this way ever since Natsuki Takeuchi had blown him off just before finals.
During his wandering, he had met a vampire named Eriko Kamiya. She had changed his life. He’d become a vampire, gained the ability to take beast form... and then the next thing he knew, it was all gone.
Anthromorphs were vampires’ retainers, and that power was gifted to them by their vampiric master. Takeshi assumed that Eriko had been killed; now, he had lost that power.
He should have left it all behind and returned to his daily life... and yet, he continued to wander the city at night.
Takashi couldn’t forget the ecstasy that had enveloped him when he’d felt the beast’s power coursing through his veins. Compared to the might of the beast, his human body felt so frail.
He felt exposed; naked.
And so Takashi continued wandering.
Perhaps, he hoped — a fleeting hope — that another vampire would find him and restore that power to him.
Perhaps it was in vain.
Perhaps it was all futile.
How long had he been doing this, now?
“Why the long face? It’s sad to see a proud anthromorph reduced to this.”
Anthromorph? Takashi looked up as he heard the word.
At some point he had come out in a suburb. An expensive car was stopped in the road beside him. A voice addressed him from the back seat.
“Yuri Konishi...” he murmured.
She was a girl his age; they had met several times in their parents’ society parties.
She had blonde hair done up in an intricate style, and an imperious gaze. She was the type of girl you never forgot once you met her once.
“What’s an anthromorph?” he asked her.
“If you want to play dumb, you’ve picked the wrong person,” she said. “We’re the ones who had to clean up after you, after all. Attacking a Chinese restaurant... what a moronic thing to do.”
Natsuki Takeuchi... He remembered. Natsuki Takeuchi had been in that Chinese restaurant for some reason. And before he could figure out what was going on, she had torn his body to ribbons.
He had lost his power immediately afterward; the vampire had probably been defeated by one of Natsuki’s allies.
Yuri got out of her car. “Come with me. I shall teach you the true power of the anthromorph.” She offered Takashi her hand.
“What are you talking about? I thought an anthromorph had no power without a vampire... Wait, do you have a vampiric master, too?” Takashi’s eyes glittered with hope at the thought.
“What nonsense are you spouting? The vampires and the anthromorphs have no direct connection. Watch. I have never had my blood drained by a vampire, yet I can do this freely!” Yuri pointed to her head proudly.
Takashi’s eyes opened wide. She had cat ears.
“You’ve been taken in by the vampires’ folklore, which means we’ll have to deprogram you,” she told him. “But I think we can handle that well enough. Consider yourself in good hands.”
“...What will happen if I go with you?” he asked slowly.
“The Noro household has lost a great deal of influence due to their breaking an important agreement recently. This is our chance to liberate ourselves from the vampires’ ridiculous insistence that they’re our masters! To make this possible, we need every anthromorph we can get. Those who have transformed before will be especially important. Now, come with me!”
Yuri had been holding her hand out to him all this time. Takashi now felt no hesitation about taking it.
If it meant regaining the power of the anthromorph, he didn’t care who it came from. To Takeshi, who had convinced himself of that, taking her hand was the easiest thing in the world.
Afterword
Hello.
I’ve been pulling all-nighters to meet the volume 2 deadline. So while I have my reservations, at least I can relax knowing it worked out.
Apparently, it was recently discovered that sleep is a way for the brain to expel waste. In other words, they proved what we already knew, that it’s not good to go without sleep. Who was it who insisted that no one had ever died from lack of sleep? But even if you don’t die, it can really cause your mind to wander, right? Therefore, I want to sleep. Let me sleep!
This is an old story. Once, there was a martial artist who used to suffer sleep paralysis.
He was able to break out of it through his own power — I don’t know how — but then he heard a voice say to him, “Don’t think this is over!”
I tell that story to make people laugh, but about half of the people I tell it to find it scary.
That story was on my mind because I was recently allowed to meet someone related to that martial artist. I was able to ask him what happened after the sleep paralysis incident.
“Nothing in particular,” he told me. So maybe it was just a case of sour grapes.
As for why I was meeting a martial artist, it’s because of a lack of material.
A long time ago, I used to dabble in the martial arts. (Um, I’m not good at all, so please don’t try to challenge me!) So the ones I met were my senpais, or masters, or partners of the time.
But when I asked them, “You taught me this move, didn’t you?” they would say “Wait, did I?” It was very sad, and I was left no better off than before.
Lately, I’ve been so sluggish, and it’s going to make me fat. I really need to do something about that.
Now for the apologies.
To my editor, I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.
To my illustrator, An2A, I’m pretty sure the only reason the first volume sold was because of your illustrations. Thank you for providing even more wonderful illustrations.
And thank you to everyone else who helped. It was hard going, but I managed to write it all out. I also hope to write more, so please enjoy that when it comes out.
In the next volume, Yuichi was going to refuse to go on the training camp. But then I got people asking me if the training camp wou
ld involve swimsuits on the beach. So it might still become that kind of story, or it might not.
Tsuyoshi Fujitaka
Please hold off on opinions and thoughts... just send fan letters to...
151-0052 3-15-8 Yoyogi, Shibuya Ward, Tokyo Hobby Japan, Inc. HJ Bunko Editorial Department Tsuyoshi Fujitaka/An2A
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Copyright
My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World: The Half-Baked Vampire vs. The Strongest Little Sister?!
by Tsuyoshi Fujitaka
Translated by Elizabeth Ellis
Edited by Emily Sorensen
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 Tsuyoshi Fujitaka
Illustrations Copyright © 2013 An2A
Cover illustration by An2A
All rights reserved.
Original Japanese edition published in 2013 by Hobby Japan
This English edition is published by arrangement with Hobby Japan, Tokyo
English translation © 2017 J-Novel Club LLC
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: February 2017
The Half-Baked Vampire vs. The Strongest Little Sister?! Page 16