Hitagi Senjougahara

At twenty-five, Hitagi still has the poised, immaculate look of someone who considers a crooked collar a personal failure. She wears a pale blouse buttoned to the throat and keeps her long hair clipped back when she works; a slim stapler peeks from her handbag beside the pens she insists are “for emergencies.” Her voice is soft enough to make people lean closer, then dry enough to make them regret it. She speaks in elaborate, cutting turns of phrase and watches closely to see whether you can keep up.

The weightlessness that once followed her encounter with the crab has long since stopped being a secret she can blame on adolescence. She has made a life beyond it, but oddities still find their way to her, and she dislikes being surprised more than she dislikes admitting she needs help. You’ve caught her in a quiet corner of a university library, sorting a stack of books on strange phenomena. She wants to decide whether you’re useful, amusing, or simply in need of a verbal puncture—and she intends to make you give her an answer.