Not long ago, Gao Sijin commissioned Katakura Hayabusa to draw a gender-bent character design of the wildly popular idol Ovinia Yueta.
The character outline he provided was of an arrogant and domineering villainous prince, sporting a head of carefree purple hair and horns belonging to the Devil Clan. His appearance was burly and powerful; his intelligence, not particularly high. He possessed a faint aura of a tyrant.
Ultimately, this villainous prince was overthrown by his younger sister through sheer force. During the subsequent purge after she seized the throne, he naturally couldn’t escape calamity and was reduced to a prisoner.
Feeling that simply killing him would be letting him off too easily, and wanting him to truly experience humiliation, his sister subjected him to the harshest of punishments, using a Secret Technique from the South to turn her brother into a woman.
After the prince underwent this gender bender, his disposition changed drastically. When she put on a dress and looked into the mirror, she had only one thought — Damn, I’m gorgeous.
And so, he became she.
The prince became a maid.
Ovi Azeal became Ovinia Yueta.
Katakura Hayabusa thought it was a genuinely fascinating story.
In fact, the very night Gao Sijin gave the commission, Katakura Hayabusa began working on Prince Ovi’s character design art. Using his tablet that first day, he had already sketched out a rough draft.
However, when the next morning came, the design for Prince Ovi saved on his computer’s E drive had vanished without a trace.
He remembered it vividly; he had definitely saved it, and even specifically backed it up on a USB drive. Yet, after scouring his entire computer, he could not find any trace of the Prince Ovi design.
During school the next day, while the math teacher lectured on various formulas and theorems up front, Katakura Hayabusa tried once more, using a ballpoint pen in his notebook, to draw that villainous prince with horns on his head and flowing purple hair.
When the bell for the end of class rang, Uzuki walked into Katakura Hayabusa’s classroom. Due to her tattoos, Uzuki still hadn’t managed to make any friends. However, no one in the entire school dared to bully Uzuki, because Katakura Hayabusa would absolutely never fail the trust placed in him by his benefactor, and he had always protected Uzuki diligently.
“Yo, you’re here again, Uzuki.”
“Is Senior Katakura drawing?”
“Yeah, I promised earlier to draw a character design for Teacher Gao Sijin, but lately, strange things keep happening, hindering my work progress…”
“What kind of strange things?”
Like a curious child, Uzuki approached Katakura Hayabusa’s desk.
“It feels like… there’s some mysterious force interfering with me finishing the commission Teacher Gao Sijin gave me.”
“What exactly does that character design look like?”
“Perfect timing, I’ve just finished the rough sketch. It looks like this,” Katakura Hayabusa presented the Prince Ovi design he had drawn during math class to Uzuki. “See?”
“But, Senior Katakura…”
“If you think it’s impressive, don’t hold back on the praise.”
Katakura Hayabusa struck a smug pose.
In the realm of drawing, he possessed two hundred percent confidence.
Yet Uzuki’s face was full of hesitation:
“Senior Katakura, there’s clearly nothing on your notebook page.”
“What did you say?”
Katakura Hayabusa immediately snatched the notebook into his hands.
The rough sketch he had just drawn had vanished yet again.
If a sketch saved on a computer vanished, Katakura Hayabusa could accept that.
After all, computers are electronic products; there’s always a chance of malfunction or user error.
But he had just drawn this one, without a doubt.
And he had drawn it with a ballpoint pen. It couldn’t possibly just disappear suddenly.
“What the hell!”
Never before had he encountered such a supernatural event. He flipped through the entire notebook yet could not find any trace of Prince Ovi. It was as if depicting Prince Ovi was taboo, something the creator of this world would not accept.
Thus, whenever an attempt was made to draw him, reality itself would generate a correction.
“Senior Katakura, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Perfectly fine.”
Katakura Hayabusa narrowed his eyes slightly, a dark and gloomy smile spreading across his face.
The more something prevented him from drawing it, the more he was determined to do so.
He took out his phone and searched Google for news about Ovinia Yueta. A purple, bob-style haircut made the girl seem petite and pretty. Her singles had dominated both Chinese and Japanese music charts for nearly three months. Even the most caustic music critics claimed Ovinia possessed a magical voice.
Personality-wise, Ovinia was also a lively and cheerful girl, completely free of affectation. Her favorite food wasn’t the cliché strawberry cake—a food that made people want to vomit just hearing about it—but rather chicken leg rice. After word spread that Ovinia liked such a “common” dish, her popularity didn’t drop; instead, she gained countless new fans.
In this day and age, idols as straightforward as Ovinia were exceptionally rare.
Right then, Katakura Hayabusa found the latest news about Ovinia: she would be holding a concert at Tokyo Skytree this afternoon.
Recalling the recent string of bizarre, unsolved incidents, and hoping to better capture Ovinia’s male persona perfectly on paper, Katakura Hayabusa pondered for a moment, then stood up. He grabbed his schoolbag hanging from a hook beside the desk and his ever-present metal baseball bat.
“Senior Katakura, there’s still class later!”
Seeing Katakura Hayabusa about to leave, Uzuki immediately spoke up.
“I can’t be bothered to sit through more class. I’m going to a concert.”
Katakura Hayabusa walked out of the classroom without looking back.
Being the model, rule-abiding student in a classroom really didn’t suit his style after all.
And his black hair seemed completely mismatched with his temperament, making him look practically like a nerd.
He’d have to dye it back to blond sometime soon.
“Stop right there!”
His girlfriend, Miyo, stood in front of the school building’s entrance like a guardian door god.
“Yo, Miyo. Remember to give your little sister my regards.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to finish high school properly? What do you think you’re doing right now?”
“In a long life, there are always one or two days you just don’t want to go to school. Just let me be willful this one time.”
“You’ve already been willful how many times? This time, I’m not letting you skip class.”
“I’ll write a self-criticism later.”
Katakura Hayabusa easily dodged his girlfriend’s hand as she tried to grab him, slipping away. Immediately after, with a running start, he dashed out of the school grounds.
His girlfriend, the Discipline Committee Member, was in hot pursuit.
Unfortunately, Katakura Hayabusa easily left his girlfriend behind. He got into his Honda Odyssey, floored the accelerator, and drove towards the Skytree’s location in 1-chome, Oshiage, Sumida Ward. At the same time, he turned on the car stereo. The player emitted Ovinia’s ethereal and sweet voice, gradually soothing Katakura Hayabusa’s raging heart.
He thought about the happiest thing in the world.
Actually, for Katakura Hayabusa, the happiest thing wasn’t beating the Old Man to the ground with his fists and watching him be devoured by the Evil Spirit.
It was reuniting with Kazue, and, after taking his revenge, seeing Mother Keiko transform into a sparrow and fly away.
“What a wondrous voice.”
Hearing Ovinia’s singing with his own ears, he began to vaguely understand why she was so popular.
The heavens had bestowed the world’s finest voice upon Ovinia.
