Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Kousaka Kyousuke had shut himself in his room the entire time, emerging only for meals.
It wasn’t until today that Kirino finally caught sight of him at the breakfast table.
“Yo.
Morning.”
Kyousuke took the initiative and greeted her.
“What’s this?
The missing person has been found?”
Kirino sat down directly across from him and nibbled at her toasted bread in small bites.
“I’ve finished organizing your tutoring materials.
Starting tonight, I’ll give you problem sets to work on — two hours of training every day until winter break ends.”
Kyousuke spoke between gulps of water, washing down his food.
Kirino rolled her eyes, unwilling to engage with him.
She was already starting to regret this.
For an academic overachiever to lock himself in his room for three whole days — just how brutal were the problems he’d refined going to be?
Two hours every night wasn’t what bothered her.
What worried her was not being able to finish within those two hours.
“Don’t worry.
The problems I’ve set are absolutely doable.
And even if you don’t finish, you can stop once the two hours are up.”
As if he’d read her mind, Kyousuke directly addressed the concern she hadn’t yet voiced.
After three days of sorting through everything, he was confident he could predict ninety percent of the questions on next spring’s entrance exams.
As long as Kirino followed his tutoring plan step by step, her grades would show marked improvement soon after winter break ended and she returned to school.
“I get it.”
Hearing this, Kirino didn’t feel like bickering.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you.
Your editor called me.”
“Eh?”
Was she being pressed for manuscripts again?
Iori Setsuna had her contact information.
Kirino instinctively reached for her phone to check if she’d missed a call.
“Wait — why would she contact you?”
For once, the girl had a moment of sharpness.
No matter how you looked at it, there was no reason for anyone to reach Kousaka Kyousuke.
“I have a friend at Kadokawa.
She knows you and I are siblings.”
Kyousuke brushed it off with a casual excuse.
Kirino immediately furrowed her brow.
“Who gave you permission to go around acting like my brother?”
That was the part she fixated on?
Kyousuke was a bit surprised — he’d been worried she’d press him on how he had a friend working at Kadokawa in the first place.
“Don’t change the subject.” He waved his chopsticks, cutting off her interrogation.
“The call I got was from your new editor.
His name is Saito.
The previous one’s been replaced.
I managed to handle the manuscript deadline issue for now — we’ve agreed to submit before winter break ends.”
“Seriously?”
Kirino’s eyes lit up instantly.
Did this mean she’d never have to see that insufferable Iori Setsuna again?
She’d been feeling a bit uneasy about it.
Who knew whether that apology had been genuine?
What if the woman turned around and screwed her over again later?
She’d even been planning to ask Ayase to come with her for moral support. This story is hosted at g.com.
“It’s true.
Word is he’s a pretty reliable editor.
No professional ethics issues, and he won’t bully you just because your head’s not screwed on straight.”
“Who are you saying doesn’t have their head screwed on straight?!”
Kirino was so furious she nearly leapt onto the table, grinding her teeth.
“Pfft.”
Kyousuke couldn’t hold back a laugh, which drew Mieko’s attention from where she was tidying up in the kitchen.
The two of them quickly reined themselves in.
“You’d better apologize to me, Kousaka Kyousuke.” Kirino spoke in a lowered voice, reaching under the table to place her hand on his thigh.
“?”
Kyousuke’s expression shifted.
What was she doing?
Sibling relationships were taboo.
Sure, they weren’t blood-related, but this was the dining table.
“What are you doing…
Hsss!”
He tried to pull away, only to feel a searing pain shoot through his thigh.
Looking down, he saw the girl’s manicured nails digging relentlessly into his leg.
“I’m sorry!”
Kyousuke apologized with shameless immediacy, because from a purely physical standpoint, he was completely outmatched by this sister who had inherited their father’s monstrous strength — especially when she came equipped with ” weaponry.”
“Hmph.
You’re off the hook.”
Kousaka Kirino withdrew her hand, swept a tsundere glance over him, and stepped away from the dining table, heading back to her room.
She had real work to do today.
Now that her editor had been replaced, there was no reason to keep holding onto the manuscript.
The inking was already done.
All that remained was applying the screentones, and then it could be submitted as a finished manuscript.
The sooner she handed it in, the sooner she could put that matter to rest and start thinking about a new work.
Just as she was about to leave, Kyousuke called out to her.
“My Name is done too — the opening, at least.
Do you want to look at it here, or somewhere else?”
Taking advantage of Mieko’s focus being elsewhere as she cleaned the kitchen, Kyousuke winked at Kirino.
Their side work was, after all, a secret between the two of them.
If their mother overheard, it would be basically the same as their father finding out.
“Just come to my room later.”
So he’d actually produced something?
This guy really knew how to waste his energy.
Kirino gave him an odd look, left those words behind, and headed upstairs first.
An amateur’s rough draft — she’d only need a single glance.
It wouldn’t take much time, and there was no need to drag him all the way to the studio.
That was what she thought, anyway.
…..
Inside the pink room, brother and sister sat facing each other on the floor.
Kyousuke placed a thick notebook in front of Kirino.
She flipped through it casually, finding roughly a hundred pages of content.
“Pretty impressive.
You did all this in three days?”
Kirino couldn’t hide her astonishment.
That should keep you drawing for a while.
I estimate the full series at around a hundred and forty chapters.
I can finish the rest within a month after winter break ends.”
The hundred and forty chapters Kyousuke mentioned was a relatively precise figure he’d arrived at after adapting the anime version.
It covered all the main storyline content from the “Clow Card Arc” and its continuation, the “Sakura Card Arc,” from the TV version of Cardcaptor Sakura.
If he’d followed the original manga, the content could probably have been trimmed down to seventy, but he felt that would be a little too sparse and decided to go with his own vision.
“A hundred and forty chapters?
Who’s talking big now?”
Watching Kyousuke speak with such conviction, Kirino couldn’t stop herself from curling her lip.
What was with this blind confidence that practically demanded to be argued with?
As if he’d already decided this work was guaranteed to be a hit — had he not even considered the possibility of it getting axed, or failing to make it past an editor’s eyes in the first place?
Whether something had what it took to be a manga was usually clear by the first chapter, wasn’t it?
Sulking and thoroughly unwilling to give him the satisfaction, Kirino flipped to the first page of the notebook.
The moment her eyes landed on it, she froze — and then burst out laughing, clutching her stomach.
“What on earth is this supposed to be?
It’s so crooked and twisted.
You’ve actually made me laugh.”
Kyousuke could only smile sadly.
He’d done his best, but that was the limit of his ability — just barely enough to let someone make out what he was trying to convey.
“It’s a rough draft.
There’s no need to obsess over the art quality, is there?
Just make do with it.
The actual original art is your responsibility anyway, isn’t it?”
“You say that like you’re so confident.
Fine, let me take a look, but don’t blame me if my critique is too harsh.
I am a best-selling manga artist, after all.”
Kirino gave a delicate snort, wrinkling her pert little nose.
She turned her attention to the story itself.
The tale of Cardcaptor Sakura began with a dream of the protagonist, Kinomoto Sakura.
‘A work aimed at a female audience?
This guy really does have some weird tastes.’
Kirino shot Kyousuke a glare, then continued reading.
Kinomoto Sakura dreamed she was standing atop Tokyo Tower, countless cards fluttering around her.
When she woke in the morning, she rushed to catch up with her brother Touya so they could walk to school together — all so she could see her beloved Tsukishiro Yukito.
“A classic opening, then.
An ordinary protagonist awakens special powers and begins an adventure, is that it?”
The plot across the first few pages was relatively subdued, but as far as Kirino could tell, there weren’t any glaring flaws — though Kyousuke’s abysmal art did keep pulling her out of the story.
She endured and read on.
In the notebook, the scene shifted to after school.
Sakura heard noises coming from the study in the basement.
Gathering her courage, she went down to investigate and discovered a book radiating a golden glow.
She opened it and found a single card stored inside, marked with English lettering beneath it.
Just like the Sakura drawn in the notebook, Kirino, upon reaching this scene, instinctively read the name of the first card aloud.
“The Windy?”
She turned to the next page of the notebook.
In the scene, a powerful gust of wind swept through.
By the time Sakura regained her senses, all the other cards in the book had scattered far and wide, leaving only the “Windy” card in her hand.
Immediately after, in the next segment, an “indescribable” creature appeared — it called itself the guardian of the magic book: Beast of the Seal, Cerberus.
At this, Kirino inhaled sharply, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing her face.
She glanced over at Kyousuke, who was on the verge of dozing off beside her.
“He…
might not just be messing around after all.”