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The volume opens not with action, but with conversation. Hotaru and Kagaribi sit across from each other in a sealed vault room. There are no gadgets, no hidden allies—just two sisters who speak in a language of lies.
Kagaribi reveals that she left the family not out of betrayal, but out of survival. She offers Hotaru a deal: join the Yayoi Group and abandon the "pathetic life of a street swindler." In exchange, she will reveal the truth about their mother’s death.
What makes this chapter brilliant is the pacing. Author Ren Suzumi (who has cited Liar Game and Death Note as influences) dedicates nearly 40 pages to pure dialogue. Every sentence is a feint. Every pause, a weapon. By the end of the chapter, the reader, like Hotaru, cannot tell if Kagaribi is a savior or a predator.
The English translation by the Nibley sisters is superb. Japanese honorifics are preserved where necessary (“Nezu-san” carries weight), but idioms are smartly localized. When Hotaru says, “I’m not a fox. I’m the whole henhouse,” it lands perfectly. The one critique? A few of the hacking terms feel slightly dated (a reference to “tapping fiber optics” instead of more modern exploits), but given the series’ timeline is deliberately ambiguous, it’s forgivable.
Volume 4 leans harder into philosophy than any previous entry. Hotaru has used dozens of aliases: Yuki, Rin, Mei, even a male persona named “Haru.” But now, she’s forgetting which one is real. There’s a recurring motif of masks—literally, she buys a cheap fox mask from a ¥100 shop and wears it during her most vulnerable moments.
The subtitle of this volume (in the Japanese edition) is “Uso no Naka no Shinjitsu”—“Truth Within the Lie.” The central question isn’t whether Hotaru can swindle her enemies. It’s whether she can stop swindling herself.
A brilliant side plot involves Hotaru trying to apologize to a victim from Volume 1—a elderly bookstore owner she conned out of a rare first edition. When she tracks him down, he doesn’t remember her. Or does he? The ambiguity is agonizing. This is not a redemption arc. It’s a reckoning.
