That night, the living room of Hibiki’s tower apartment was wrapped in a strange tension.

“Fuaaah… I’m full and I’m getting sleepy.”

Yawning, Hibiki stood up.

“I’m going to bed, so I’ll leave the rest to you two. Make sure you finish rewriting the plot by morning, okay?”

“Hey, are you seriously dumping everything on us?”

“A director’s job is to judge things. Creating the raw material is the job of the people on site. Well then, good night.”

Hibiki shut the bedroom door with a click and made her elegant exit.

Left behind were just me and the screenwriter, Fumizuki Mashiro.

“…”

Silence fell over the spacious living room.

Mashiro sat perched on the edge of the sofa, clutching her laptop on her knees.

Her body was trembling like a newborn lamb.

“U-um… p-pleased to work with you…”

“…You don’t need to be that scared. I’m not going to eat you.”

When I sighed and poured her some coffee, she let out a shrill “Hii!” and her hand rattled the saucer as she took the cup.

It was understandable.

For a cultured person like her, being alone with a rough-looking thug like me was probably a disaster on the level of a major accident in this world.

“For now, try writing it. The ‘villain’s line’ I mentioned at the meeting earlier.”

“Y-yes… I-I’ll do my best…”

With a desperate expression, Mashiro began hammering at the keyboard.

Clack clack clack… THUNK!

* * *

A few minutes later.

“I-I’m done! This is my best attempt at a ‘threatening line’!”

She showed me the screen.

Written there was this.

Villain: “Please wait! If you come any closer, I’ll pinch your cheek! It’ll hurt, you know!”

“…”

I buried my face in my hands.

I felt dizzy.

“…Miss Fumizuki.”

“Y-yes!”

“Villains don’t say things like ‘pinch.’ This isn’t an elementary school fight.”

“Eeeh!? B-but, anything more violent than that… maybe calling them ‘idiot’?”

“No. It needs that sense of urgency that comes with a fight to the death.”

I deleted the text on the screen and looked at her.

“Listen. Forget about ‘aesthetics’ for now. I’m going to drill my hometown’s knowledge into you.”

* * *

And so began the late-night ‘True-Record Yakuza Terminology Course.’

“First, ‘I’m sorry.’ What is that?”

“U-um… ‘I sincerely apologize’?”

“No. It’s ‘please forgive me with just one finger.’”

“O-one finger!?”

Mashiro turned pale, but I continued regardless.

“Next. ‘Don’t look at me.’”

“‘Please avert your gaze’?”

“Too soft. It’s ‘what’re you staring at, want me to gouge your eyes out?’”

“G-gouge them out… physically?”

“Next. ‘Please return the money.’”

“‘It’s past the deadline on the IOU!’”

“It’s ‘hand it over nice and neat, or you wanna sell your organs?’”

Tears welled up in Mashiro’s eyes, but she desperately kept taking notes.

Her hands were shaking, but it seemed something inside her as a writer was being stimulated.

“Words alone won’t get it across. Alright, I’ll demonstrate.”

“A-a demonstration?”

“I’ll threaten you, so you try responding while fully becoming the villain.”

I stood up and looked down at Mashiro.

I flipped the switch.

Furrowing my brow, I let my voice sink into a murky darkness.

“…Hey, missy. You’ve got some nerve. Do you know whose turf you’re walking on?”

Faced with the aura I was giving off, Mashiro sucked in a breath.

“Ah, u…”

“Your voice is too small! Speak from your gut! If they look down on you, you die!”

“Y-yes! …U-um, ‘Th-this land is mine!’”

“Wrong! It’s ‘who the hell do you think you’re talking to, I’ll sink you!’ Again!”

* * *

The Spartan training continued.

At first, Mashiro cowered with cries of “Hii!” and “I’m sorry!”, but as she continued to be bathed in my verbal abuse and killing intent, her ‘defensive instinct’ and ‘writer’s soul’ began to produce a strange chemical reaction.

Two in the morning.

The air in the living room changed.

Clackclackclackclackclackclack!!

The sound of the keyboard became as fierce as machine-gun fire.

“…Miss Fumizuki?”

“…Hehe. Aha.”

Mashiro was laughing.

Her braids were disheveled and her eyes behind her glasses gleamed ominously.

She was completely absorbed in the screen, muttering to herself.

“Pinch… no, too sweet…. Peel the nails… no, more pain… more despair… Make them cut off a finger, then use it as a drinking snack… yes, this is it…”

…I might have awakened something truly monstrous.

The once-pure white canvas was rapidly being dyed pitch-black, yet vividly red.

Pulling back a little, I poured her another cup of coffee.

* * *

Chirp, chirp….

By the time the sky outside the window was beginning to lighten.

“Fwaa… I slept well. So? How’s it going?”

Hibiki woke up looking refreshed.

What she saw was a screenwriter grinning vacantly at a monitor with bloodshot eyes.

“…Mashiro? Are you okay?”

“Director… it’s finished…”

Mashiro slowly turned around.

Her face was haggard, but her eyes held a manic sense of accomplishment.

She handed Hibiki a thick stack of printed plot pages.

“These are my… new ‘children’…”

Hibiki took the stack and began reading.

Her initially sleepy expression changed, page by page, into shock and then into delight.

Not a trace remained of yesterday’s ‘aesthetic romance.’

Profanity that skirted the edge of broadcast censorship.

Betrayal, torture and a hopeless downfall.

A raw, visceral violence noir so vivid it felt like the smell of blood might waft up from the pages.

“Amazing… t-this is the best…”

Hibiki said in a trembling voice.

“Mashiro, I never imagined such pitch-black talent was sleeping inside you! Like a withered, rotting flower, blooming in a poisonous splendor!”

“Thank you… hehe, hehehe…”

Mashiro wore a hollow smile and crawled over toward me.

Then she grabbed the hem of my pants tightly.

“…Master.”

“Huh, master?”

“Please teach me… Next, the proper etiquette of ‘concrete encasing,’ and the beautiful way to hold a chaka (gun)… please instruct me…”

She had completely crossed over to ‘that side.’

I forced a stiff smile and looked to Hibiki for help, but she was throwing a fist pump and shouting, “We’re going to get a masterpiece!” and wasn’t looking.

And so, the screenwriter who had once been a pure literature girl transformed overnight into an ‘honorless screenwriter.’

The ‘forced march’ for the film ‘Roses and Bullets’ was just around the corner.