While Miyauchi Hinata was racking his brain about what to write in today's diary—and bitterly discovering that "mildly spicy" was now his upper limit—in another part of Tokyo, the contents of the mysterious diary were already spreading, fermenting over the past day as other diary holders tried to verify its entries.
At the Shinomiya family mansion, Kaguya Shinomiya, who would soon begin attending Shuchi'in Academy, was waiting for a report from her loyal maid, Ai Hayasaka.
The night before, just as Kaguya had lain down and closed her eyes, a black diary slammed into her face out of nowhere.
She had immediately resolved to give whoever pulled such a prank a punishment they'd never forget. But her bedroom was empty. The window was locked from the inside. The door was closed. There was no one in sight. The diary had seemingly appeared out of thin air.
When she frowned and opened the diary, she found a cryptic and oddly simple message, akin to "I, Tom, give me money." Just like Utaha Kasumigaoka, she also discovered that the diary couldn't be destroyed, couldn't be discarded, and its pages had no end.
As the daughter of the Shinomiya family, Kaguya only hesitated for a minute before decisively picking up a pen and writing inside: "I am Kaguya Shinomiya. What is your purpose?"
A mysterious diary like this would terrify most people—but Kaguya had been raised to seize any opportunity that could prove useful. Even though she was born into the Shinomiya family, it had always been run under a strict patriarchal system. She had three older brothers, and being the child of a mistress, she was lucky just to be assigned a trivial company someday or avoid becoming a tool in some marriage alliance.
She had thought she'd already come to terms with her fate after more than a decade of family education.
But now, this inexplicable diary... it stirred something in her that had been dormant for a long time.
Just as she began to feel a flicker of hope, a cold mechanical message echoed in her mind: "Your accumulated reading value is insufficient. Access to the diary's functions is locked."
That sudden voice in her head made her freeze.
She cautiously asked aloud, "What is reading value?"
No answer.
She watched the words she had just written slowly vanish from the diary's pages. Biting her lip, she wrote the question again.
This time, a new response came.
She would receive 1 point of reading value each day simply by reading the diary.
In order to unlock its functions, she needed to accumulate 7 points—meaning it would take one week.
The voice hinted that reading points could be used for other things, but she didn't have access to that information yet.
"Who is Tom? Does magic exist in this world?"
She wrote those questions next—but received the same cold response: access denied.
Over the next half hour, Kaguya scribbled dozens of different questions, trying to probe the diary from every angle. Most of the responses were locked, but she still managed to piece together some rules.
The diary automatically updates each day with a new entry.
Simply reading it grants reading points.
She couldn't speak about the diary with anyone who didn't possess one; they wouldn't even perceive its existence.
Letting others see the diary required higher clearance.
"So I'm not the only one with a diary… Was it this so-called 'Tom' who gave me access? And how many others has he given it to?"
While pondering this, a new entry appeared in the diary—over a thousand words long—and shattered the worldview she'd built over her 16 years of life.
Her usual trick to calm down was to place her right hand on her left cheek. But even while doing that, the diary's contents left her thoughts spinning.
Was she one of the heroines in some kind of story? Was that why she received the diary?
Then what was her story?
But her name wasn't mentioned in the diary at all. No matter how much she analyzed, she couldn't extract any useful intelligence.
Eventually, fatigue overtook her, and she finally dozed off sometime before dawn.
The next morning, she immediately instructed Ai Hayasaka to start investigating the names mentioned in the diary:
Yukinoshita's second daughter
Kasumigaoka-senpai
Idol Hoshino Ai
Hikaru Kamiki
Kogoro Mouri
Edogawa Conan
Yūko Shionji
And of course, the diary's initial alias: Tom Marvolo Riddle
She handed the entire list to Hayasaka without hesitation.
Out of trust, she even tried casually mentioning the diary—but all she got in return was Hayasaka bringing her a cup of tea like nothing had happened.
It seemed whenever she tried to mention the diary to someone, reality itself twisted her words into something mundane.
This time it was just tea. Who knew what it might become next time?
So Kaguya gave up on testing that particular boundary any further.
Though the Shinomiya family's intelligence network was formidable, the number of people involved (and the fact that some names were incomplete or foreign) meant that it took until evening for Hayasaka to return with results.
But now, Kaguya's intel was far more complete than the rough searches Utaha Kasumigaoka had managed online.
Everyone except for Tom Riddle and five possible candidates for Kasumigaoka's identity had confirmed profiles—even Edogawa Conan.
The "Yukinoshita second daughter" clue led to only one match in all of Japan: Yukinoshita Yukino.
As for the five photos Hayasaka brought of potential Kasumigaoka candidates, Kaguya took one look and instantly singled out the most beautiful one—Utaha Kasumigaoka herself.
Clearly a high-ranking heroine. Picking the most attractive one was the safest bet.
Kasumigaoka's dossier was nearly perfect. Then she turned to Yukinoshita's file—also impeccable.
"As expected of fan-favorite heroines," she thought, "though neither of them is quite on my level."
Kaguya conveniently ignored the fact that even Yukino, whose chest was practically flat, still had a better figure than hers. She turned next to the two most heavily referenced names in the diary: Hoshino Ai and Hikaru Kamiki.
One was 15. The other, 14. Both were younger than her—yet their stories were far more chaotic.
One got pregnant out of wedlock and kept it secret from her fans. The other not only want someone's body—but their life.
Their current connection seemed to revolve around a theater troupe called Lala Lai.
Gently touching her cheek again, Kaguya thought: "Is Hoshino Ai also a diary holder?"
"Does she possess any value I can exploit?"
Though their perspectives were completely different, Kaguya and Kasumigaoka had come to the same conclusion: observe, and wait.
In fact, Kaguya felt that a Hoshino Ai with children would probably be far easier to control than one still clinging to her former fame.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, a new diary entry appeared, instantly pulling her attention away.
............
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