Puppetmaster

The world revolves around me.

My name is Sakagami Kagura. I’m incredibly cute, unbelievably intelligent, and my manners are utterly flawless. No diamond in the world could compare to my illustrious beauty. You could say that I simply put the rest of the world to shame with both brains and beauty.

Regrettably, someone such as myself is beset by troubles at every turn, just as a ill-fated protagonist of a story might be. My tendency to attract such misfortune is perhaps my one and only flaw. Mournfully, I sigh, raising my chin slightly so as to better catch the illumination of the streetlights. Even sighing, I must look simply exquisite.

Then, I give the stuffed rabbit in my arms a squeeze and focus my gaze on the two individuals in front of me, the source of my most recent plight. One is a black-haired young woman, the kind that would be idiotic enough to walk the streets this time of night. The other is a quite literally wolf-faced man. Naturally, he has her cornered. A werewolf and his prey.

My duty is to exterminate such horrific, inhuman creatures before they can wreak havoc on human society — using puppets such as this little fellow here…

Winner of the 7th Shogakukan Light Novel Grand Prize.