Hitagi Senjougahara makes a striking first impression; by reputation, that sort of fragile, beautiful girl in your class whose presence feels like absence, often sick and always distant. And that's setting aside the impression she'll definitely make on your forehead with her stapler if you go looking for a second. Hitagi is sudden danger with a polite smile, something sharp in your mouth when you least expect it. You won't even know to expect it.

Generally these two things: "your expectations" and Hitagi Senjougahara have very little to do with each other except for when the latter takes an interest in tripping you up with the former, like your hazy thought of "typical delicate girl" is an invisible wire she'll pull taut between your feet just as you're crossing into the really quite groundless land of thinking she's like anything like normal.

Any girl who openly labels herself a tsundere can only be trouble.

That thing with the stapler is just the tip of the Office Depot-built ice(school supply)berg.

Hitagi Senjougahara talks like an assassin, like a seme from a yaoi manga, a slightly unhinged philosopher, drops anime and manga references like a character from Genshiken and all delivered in the tones of a properly brought up young lady. She's well-read (liberally so which explains the references), well-bred (all death threats delivered in a modulated tone) and well-defended because as they say, the best defense is a good offense and her offense wins points for creativity and effort.

"Tsundere" is a little misleading because Hitagi traded in harisens for a stapler and shouting "Idiot!" or "Don't get me wrong..." for a more intimate form of verbal abuse, tailored to your insecurities, your secret hopes, dreams and kinks (some of which you may not even know exist much less have). Hitagi works at her verbal abuse and you can keep your rote insults in your eroges. In the space of a ten-minute conversation, from the moment she greets you with "I thought somebody had left a dead dog lying on a park bench... but it was just you" Hitagi can question your place in the evolutionary ladder, your academic performance, your purity levels, your complexes, your tendency to enjoy talking to young girls, anything is fair game if you're foolish enough to open your mouth and provide her with more ammo. Conversation, with Hitagi Senjougahara, is a battlefield, seeded with mines that could go off leaving you labeled as a wife-murdering sorocon or that could land you an offer to appear in your room naked under an apron... Verbally, she doesn't play nice, she doesn't play fair and most dauntingly at times, she doesn't play at all.

For all her outrageous declarations and verbal depredations, she can suddenly be disarmingly honest. After her initial bouts with Araragi of threat, flirtation and insults, upon gaining greater understanding of his personality and of her own feelings, Hitagi immediately confesses to him. As Hitagi herself explains, she was at first attempting to get Araragi to confess to her but once she learned that Araragi was the kind of person who would help anyone and that his encounter with her was no indication of special feelings on his end, she drops the game and declares that she loves him herself. First strike and merciless leaving no time for half-hearted hesitation, that good offense coming into play again. In theory, on paper (confessing to a guy when it turns out he didn't help you because he liked you?) it's terrifying but somehow purely Hitagi because if there is one thing to know about Hitagi in relationships it's that she's intense.

(It's the late blooming crazy virgin thing.

Or not.)

Upon confessing to Araragi, she requests that they make what kind of relationship they'll have clear and agrees to his stipulations that they be open to each other especially about the oddities they encounter. As their relationship unfolds, it's clear Hitagi is the one driving them forward though this isn't to imply that Araragi is an unwilling participant. Hitagi is fully intent on moving forward and moving forward together. Hitagi as a girlfriend has plans for the future but those aren't plans that dictate Araragi's but plans to accommodate whatever he eventually chooses to do: Hitagi off to university but sharing an apartment with Araragi so they can be together even if their career/school lives diverge. Hitagi also seems to be dictating the pace their relationship is going, from platonic nights of studying together to asking him out on their first date to bullying him into spending time with her best friend, Kanbaru Suruga and then trapping him in a car with her father to planning everything for their first date with no input from Araragi to feeling him up while he's trapped in said car with said paternal unit. This isn't just about Hitagi's inexperience and somewhat warped way of romancing via conquering invasion. This is actually to her romance via revelation. She reveals herself to him gradually, the study dates, her father and best friend, their first date chosen from a memory when her family was happy. This is Hitagi laying out all her cards, this is who I am, this is what I can do for you, this is what I have to offer. This is everything.

A reckless incursion, defenseless, a tactic only for those who've totally committed.

She's committed and she's in her own unique, semi-yandere way devoted. She's the kind of girl who when she talks about killing you, it may very well mean she loves you. To be more specific, she'd kill you to be the last person beside you when you died and woe to whoever gets in the way of that (like a different murderer). She's committed and more than a little jealous and absolutely dangerous (that yandere thing and that school supply thing and isn't it lucky that Araragi still has that vampire healing ability because ouch. eyeball). She's committed to supporting him however many times he comes back smelling like another woman. She's committed to trusting him to do the right thing and she's supportive, no questions asked, she'll take care of everything (schoolwork, alibis) while he runs off to help someone else. She's supportive enough to let him get hurt, to take care of him afterwards (admittedly by standing over his injured body and flashing him but that only makes her The Best. Girlfriend. Ever.) and neutralizing any threats he can't. She's in love with a boy like that, loved him not because he saved her. She loves him because he's the kind of person who would, who would save anyone even if it hurts him, even if it hurts her. She's in love to the point that she needs him to understand and to love what she has to offer: a starry sky, her loved ones and a damaged girl who used to be strange.