novelZashiki Warashi Yukari / The Past is a Present that Once Was (2)
| ← Ch.24 | Ch.26 → |
"Hic. Huhhh? Why'sh the world all shpinny even though I'm a Youkai?"
"Mah hah hah hah hah hah!! That's the magic power of sake! Nothing's impossible and you can forget everything unpleasant!!"
This was not right.
I wasn't even sure how much time had passed, so I tried checking the clock on the wall
What? I can't read this. It's all melty like what's-his-face's painting.
The very fact that I couldn't remember such a famous artist's name showed just how far I had fallen.
"Oh, I get it. Youkai focus more on mental laws than physical ones, so the placebo effect works extra well on us. If I think I'm getting drunk, I really will."
Come to think of it, didn't Hyakki Yakou's anti-Youkai process include research into methods of trickery that used optical illusions and incorrect assumptions?
"What? You can still think logically about this? Then you need another drink! Keep on drinking!!"
"Oh, honestly. I don't even care about being ditched by Shinobu anymore."
"Nya ha ha ha ha ha!!"
The two women laughed like idiots.
Shinobu's father, grandfather, and grandmother were there too. His grandmother merely smiled while downing sake at a rapid pace, but the men seemed unable to keep up with our excitement.
To put it more simply, they were a little disturbed by us.
And that didn't sit right with me.
I slowly stood up and approached Shinobu's father who was covered in muscles and had a fist that exceeded the upper limits of humanity.
Huh?
Don't I normally view him like the lord of fear and can't even look him in the eye?
"Hey, muscleman!! What's with that grumpy look? Drinking's supposed to be fun! Get to it!! And that ambiguous expression is banned!!"
"It's no use. He only has the grumpy look of a sunglass-wearing killing machine from the future because he's shy and don't know how to act around women☆ On our first date, I found him standing at the meeting spot with a look on his face that made me suspect he'd actually called me out for a fight."
"Come to think of it, why're you always wearing those tight shirts? Hm? You got a problem? Say it loud!! Now that Shinobu's ditched me, I'm not afraid of anything!"
"Hya hya hya hya hya hya!!"
"Gwa ha ha ha ha!!"
Ahh.
I have a feeling I'm saying a bunch of things that'll cause problems later, but I can't think straight.
Part 9
"Oh, Tengu. Have you heard about?"
"Just some rumors. But just hearing the name makes me feel sick. He definitely brings down the overall definition of. It's not often you see version that's so specialized in killing and nothing else."
"He's shown up."
"This is gonna be rough. A lot of are going to die again."
"But it's not like we can do anything about it. He exists as a that's been cut free of the simple hierarchy of power."
"The Aburatori, hm?"
Part 10
On the following morning of March 25, my palm reflexively flew to the high-pitched alarm clock and an odd chill reached my arm as it left the futon.
I-it's cold!?
And when and where did I even fall asleep last night?
The rain shutters were fully closed which blocked out the sunlight and left the area almost completely dark. That made it even harder to grasp the situation.
A female voice slipped into my ear from very close by. In fact, it was in the same futon.
"Heh heh heh. This is a married couple's bedroom, you know? You're quite aggressive to force your way in between a young couple like that."
"Ahh!?"
I suddenly grew very concerned about the gaps in my memory, but the situation did not wait for me to recover from that confusion.
"Yukari, are you in here? It's amazing! It's amazing outside!!"
"... ?"
Shinobu entered the dim room and it took me a while to realize why he was so excited.
It was his next words that clued me in.
"It's snowing! Everything's white outside!!"
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!"
I grabbed the futon with all my strength to put up my defenses.
Shinobu was the type to go running around in the yard rather than curling up in the kotatsu. If I had to oversee his playtime, I would be thrown out into the below-zero weather of an early morning blizzard.
His mother seemed to realize I was unwilling because she spoke to her excited son.
"Shinobu, if you want to play outside, make sure you eat breakfast first."
"Ugh... But look! You'll see if I open the window. It's amazing out there!!"
"Collllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllld!?"
"Collllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllld!?"
Shinobu's actions turned the entire bedroom into a giant refrigerator and the traitor kicked me out of the futon as a sacrifice.
"Shinobu, go play with the Zashiki Warashi! I'm sure you'd love making a snowman!!"
"A snowman... C'mon, Yukari!!"
"No!! Please no!! It's freezing everywhere! Just walking through the wooden hallway is hurting the bottom of my feet!! What's going to happen to me outside!?"
My desperate pleas fell on deaf ears.
The magic of the snow caused Shinobu's eyes to glitter to a disturbing degree while he dragged me into the snowy scenery while barefoot and wearing nothing but a yukata.
"B-brr! Brrrrrrr!?"
"Wow! I can't even see the ground!! Everything's white!!"
He was fully equipped with down jacket, mittens, long boots, and a wool cap, but I was receiving enough damage to give me a heart attack if I weren't a Youkai.
"Mommy said to make a snowman! She recommended it, so we have to do it!"
"I-I-I-I can't. There's no way I can grab snow with my bare hands!! My fingers will fall off. Are you sure this is made of water? It feels more like liquid nitrogen! It's so cold!"
"If you don't hurry up, the snow will cover you and you'll turn into a snowman."
Not dying is not always a good thing.
While my mind filled with what sounded like a sentence from a terminal care specialist's essay, I resigned myself to forming the snowball to become the core and then rolling it around. I don't even remember what I shouted at the time. My memories vanished for a completely different reason than the sake from the night before.
"A-ah!? Afha!! Sh-Sh-Sh-Sh-Shinobu, surely this is enough! We made a wonderful snowman, didn't we!? Please release me!!"
Fortunately, his mother arrived to tell us breakfast was ready. I loathed her for wearing a giant fur coat as she did, though. Shinobu's interest shifted to the food and I was allowed to return to the thatch-roof house.
"I-I'm freezing. My hair literally is frozen!"
"I did heat up a bath, so I suggest you take one before eating."
I wanted to tell her she should have called Shinobu in earlier if she had time to do that, but any more arguing would have left me frozen like a fish even if it didn't kill me.
But as soon as I had entered the bath and started to stick one leg in the tub, the bath's window was thrown fully open.
The bath quickly transformed into a refrigerator.
"It's amazing, Yukari! Daddy's doing something amazing!!"
"Byaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!?"
Shinobu had supposedly gone to the living room, but he had gone right out into the backyard to get in a surprise attack from outside.
He was currently pointing towards one end of the back yard again and again.
"He knocked a bunch of snow from the roof and made a white mountain! It's a slide of snow!! It's so amazing!!"
Th-that damn man is our enemy.
He's an enemy of all Youkaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!
I was naked and shivering, but I soon realized Shinobu had vanished from the window and I heard footsteps circling around.
Oh, no. He's approaching the changing room!
I frantically charged into the changing room and desperately grabbed my yukata.
Before I could put it on, the boy burst into the room.
"Hurry! Hurry, Yukari!!"
"... !?"
I had managed to avoid being thrown naked into the snow, but my defenses may not have been much better.
Ten minutes later, I returned to the house while shivering like a newborn fawn.
"I-I learned something new today. Heating yourself up before being thrown into the cold makes it even worse."
That was when the doorbell rang.
No one could stop Shinobu now.
At his age, children tended to think about nothing but food when they were even remotely hungry, but the world of snow outside seemed to be stimulating his mind more than breakfast.
He dashed down the hallway and spoke loudly from the entranceway.
"Oh, it's Nagisa's grampa!"
"That's right. Are you the boy that's been corrupting my granddaughter!?"
I doubted children of that age could get up to too much trouble of that sort, but she may have tried to put on her mother's lipstick or something.
I didn't have the energy to fix my yukata and walk to the entranceway, so I just lay on the floor and listened.
"What are you here for?"
"I'm using my truck to check all the houses that probably have a hard time removing snow from their roof. I'm gathering all the young ones to help, but I suppose the Jinnai Brewery has enough young ones to handle it on their own."
"Young? So is Nagisa here?"
"I didn't want to bring her with me, but I couldn't leave her to walk through over a meter of snow with just the Saint Bernard.... Hm? Hey, old man. I'm here with some volunteers. We'll handle the roof and the road in front of the house, so have your boy look after Nagisa."
I heard leaving footsteps, so I assumed Shinobu was back to playing in the snow. I wished him well while he did so far away from me.
However, his mother soon arrived with food on a tray.
"Sorry, but can you take this to Shinobu? I'm sure he's focused on the snow now, but I don't want him to skip breakfast."
"Why me?"
"If I did it, I'd end up nagging him and telling him to eat. I don't want to ruin his fun while Nagisa-chan is here."
"And the real reason?"
"I don't want to go out in the cold. I'm going to spend all day curled up in the kotatsu."
I noticed the tray contained a few snacks on small plates in addition to Shinobu's food. I guessed they might be for Nagisa.
"If they're having a snowball fight, I doubt they'll want to eat."
"Those two wouldn't be doing that. I hear you two already made a snowman and he'll probably play house now that Nagisa-chan is here. So how about adding in some real food☆"
I borrowed a raincoat from Shinobu's grandmother and skeptically made my way outside. But to my surprise, Shinobu and Nagisa really were playing house in a snow igloo in the large yard. I doubted the two of them could make such a nice igloo, so the people gathered for snow removal had likely made it for them.
Presumably to make the house seem more realistic, the igloo had a small waterproof bath TV inside.
"A Japanese translation of 'Innocent Philosophers: 100 Questions from Children that Stumped Senators' has arrived! The most amazing part of the book is..."
However, the children were ignoring the TV.
"Welcome! Today's flounder is cheap."
"Sh-Shinobu-chan, this is our house, so we don't talk about the food like that."
Nagisa wanted an orthodox household while Shinobu kept making more unconventional adlibs. He seemed to want adventure more than stability.
Today's theme for Nagisa's outfit seemed to be a snowman because she was covered from head to toe with fluffy white wool.
"Shinobu-chan, you're the daddy, so you look after the baby. Make sure she gets to sleep so she doesn't cry in the night."
"But those peaceful days would not last long for Insect Mask who secretly protects the peace of the world. Kaboom!! It's the FBI!!"
"Run away, honey!! Wait. What did you do, Shinobu-chan!?"
Shinobu began flailing his limbs around and almost unintentionally destroyed the igloo, so interrupted with the tray of food.
"Wow. You have bread for breakfast at your house?"
"When grandma makes it, it's rice, but when mommy makes it, it's bread."
Shinobu pulled out the colorful skewers advocated by Beauty and stabbed them into the vegetables.
"Are you doing this too, Nagisa?"
"I-I am. And I'm even losing weight bit by bit."
When I thought about it, I realized that diet method only worked if you were the person who decided on the menu.
"Do you drink milk, Shinobu-chan?"
"The adults love it when I do."
The two of them got down to eating, but they also had "food" made from balled up snow next to them. Without my intervention, they might have eaten snow indefinitely. Shinobu's mother may have intentionally had me stop that.
"Eh? You're lying. There's no way you can do that. You're a porcupine fish, Nagisa!"
"I-I'm not lying. And it's a thousand needles."
They began arguing while ignoring the consideration of the adults.
It was hard to join in because the conversation jumped all over the place, but I somehow managed to grasp the general subject.
"Are you talking about fried prawns?"
Both Shinobu and Nagisa looked up at me.
"Nagisa says you can eat fried prawn tails, but there's no way you can eat that plastic-y thing."
"Y-you can eat it. You just don't at your house. You can eat fried prawns from the head to the tail."
Shinobu then tilted his head in confusion.
"But fried prawns don't have heads."
"They do to! They're prawns! How would they swim in the ocean without a head?"
"Ah ha ha. You don't know anything, Nagisa. Fried prawns don't swim in the ocean. Their fried outside would get all wet."
"Th-then where do you think they live?"
"Well... Their outside is all crispy, so..."
"It can't be on land. Their outside would get all muddy."
"The sky."
"They don't fly! Fried prawns can't fly!"
Part 11
After clearing the roofs of the Jinnai house and the neighboring house, Nagisa's grandfather and the young men with him drove to a different area. That meant saying goodbye to Nagisa.
Thanks to Shinobu's mother's love of Western food, we had fried prawns for lunch. Shinobu tried to eat the tail and took another step up the stairs to adulthood.
That's right. You can eat the tails.
I could hear an early afternoon talk show on the TV.
"Eh? My recommendation is... Oh, I know. I'll choose 'Ten-Year Money Management Techniques You Can't Afford Not to Know'. The best part about this book is-..."
"That's a business book you wrote! Don't just start advertising it like that!"
After finishing lunch, Shinobu spoke with his grandmother who was ironing the laundry.
"Look, grandma. I folded the shirt."
"Oh, how wonderful."
"I can fold pants too."
"You're so skilled with your hands, Shinobu."
With a smile covering her face, the old woman used the instant Shinobu wasn't looking to refold the clothing at Mach speed. She had perfected the style of praising people to help them grow.
Once the ironing was complete, Shinobu spoke up again.
"Since I finished helping, will you tell me a secret of the Jinnai family?"
"Okay, then. Did you know this house has a staircase?"
"Hm? But it's a one-story house, so it doesn't have stairs."
"But it does. There is a small door somewhere that leads to a short and narrow staircase."
Oh, is she talking about the stairs to the attic?
Shinobu went to grab a bag with a first aid kit and emergency goods inside.
He pulled out the flashlight and helmet and ran back.
"Yukari, let's go search for buried treasure!"
The story seemed to have grown inside his head, but once he was this excited, he would never take a nap until he checked.
He tightened and loosened a bundle of rope he didn't really know how to use and his mother called out to him. She was skillfully holding a tray of iced tea and cookies on one hand.
"Shiiinobuuu. Will you carry this to the Japanese living room?"
"I'm looking for the buried treasure now!!"
"You'll only get lost if you try that without a map and I won't give you a map of the house unless you help out."
"Drat, " cursed Shinobu as he took the tray.
While watching him totter down the hall, I asked his mother a question.
"Is someone visiting again?"
"Yes, and on this snowy day no less. She seems to be a friend of Hayabusa-kun's. Heh heh heh. And she's pretty high-spec if you ask me."
High-spec, you say?
I could only think of one candidate for a "high-spec" friend of Hayabusa's. Then again, there was only one human girl who would have a proper conversation with that fierce-looking boy.
As always, I grabbed a rag and wiped up the iced tea Shinobu had spilled on his way to the living room. Inside, a girl in a high school sailor uniform was sitting casually at the tea table.
Her name was Atou Minori.
Her black hair was gathered behind her head with a hairpin and her huge breasts looked terribly out of place in a school uniform. The legs extending from her miniskirt and their overly casual positioning were both quite seductive. She was wrapped in an aura that announced every bit of her body was top quality.
"Here you go. It's black tea."
"Hm? Oh, excuse me. You're Hayabusa-kun's broth-... no, nephew, aren't you? How about we play a game? With the cookies stacked up like this, we have to remove them one at a time without causing the pile to collapse."
She gave a friendly smile, but Shinobu looked troubled.
"When a guest is here, I'm not supposed to play around."
"Eh? Oh... That's certainly correct, but it kind of hurts to be treated like a complete stranger."
Incidentally, Shinobu did not get so timid around the Youkai that entered the house without permission. It seemed we really were such distant beings that he saw no need to be concerned.
Hayabusa then entered the living room with a notebook in hand.
"Sorry about the wait.... Why are you hanging your head like that?"
"The shock of a slight rejection hit me pretty hard. Can I just go home for the day?'
"What's this? Are you a complete moron or something?"
Having completed his task, Shinobu seemed to have nothing on his mind but the treasure map his mother was to give him. However, the beautiful student council president (ha) seemed interested in the helmet he wore.
"A quick question. What is that?"
"I'm exploring the attic!! The journey to the secret treasure chest is harsh and dangerous. It'll be a dangerous adventure."
"Kh. Why must everything you say stimulate my interest!?"
"Atou-san."
That quick comment was enough for Atou Minori to reluctantly sit up straight.
Meanwhile, I grabbed the curious Shinobu's hand and pulled him back to the Western living room. We received a hand-drawn map of the house and made our way to a sliding door at a corner of the hall that led nowhere.
Inside was a steep staircase that almost looked like a ladder.
"It's a staircase up."
"Yes, it is."
"Wow, Yukari! The treasure map is real!!"
"So it seems."
I followed him up the stairs to the attic.
As an attic, the ceiling was low and it was not flat like in a normal room. It followed the shape of the thatch roof and rose to an acute angle in the center.
In exchange, it extended a good ways to the sides. It was a large house, so it should have been obvious that removing the inside walls would make a large space.
It was surprisingly warm, but I guessed that was because the house's heat moved upwards.
"I-it's dark... but I won't lose! This is nothing compared to going to the bathroom at night!!"
While urging himself on, Shinobu continued further in.
He seemed not to have noticed that there were bare light bulbs hanging here and there and that he could light the area with the flip of a switch.
Darkness lurked in that space. Places like this reminded me of the organization named Hyakki Yakou that had once imprisoned me, but this place had no connection to that gloomy past.
It had originally been a large room for servants to sleep. The Jinnai house was famous for its warm reception, so I doubted it was filled with the strange kind of grudge that made spiritual something-or-others' mouths water.
"Ksshh! Kssshhhhh! 'Ingredient Choices that will Shorten Your Life' begins Thursday at seven. This week, we will be taking a thorough look at the scary parts of fish that are usually viewed as healthier than pork or beef."
"Wahh! Wh-what was that? I just heard a voice. Is someone there!?"
"Shinobu, your emergency flashlight has a radio on it. You probably hit the switch."
After my exasperated comment, I came to a sudden realization.
"Hm?"
Because the lights were off, I could catch glimpses of the house's light through the gaps in the floorboards. I peered down and saw the Japanese living room from before.
Hayabusa and Minori were speaking with the tea table and notebook between them.
"As I said before, that method would mean too many victims. A crime like organ trafficking stands out, so they'd want to keep things quiet. There must be something else we're not aware of."
"But if some shady salesman came to the closed society of an Intellectual Village, no one would fall for it. Using the TV would be the best method."
"You misunderstand. I'm not completely denying your celebrity theory. I'm trying to say there's something else on top of that. Something that would prevent anything from showing up even if the police searched the celebrity's house."
"There is one thing that caught my interest related to that."
"You mean the online store? I thought that would be the best place too."
The flashlight turned toward me.
It blinded me a bit and Shinobu's excited voice reached me.
"Look, look, Yukari! This is amazing!"
"What is it, Shinobu?"
"I found the treasure chest. And it had a backpack in it! A brand new one! This is the legendary backpack that only elementary school kids are allowed to wear!!"
His grandmother had likely set this all up before she began ironing.
But despite that heartwarming thought, I couldn't focus.
Something else tugged at my attention.
The voices coming from the small gaps in the floorboards gave me a very bad feeling.
"The celebrity advertises it on TV and the customers buy the official goods on the online store. That's the standard way of doing it."
"But if you could make a site similar enough to the official one to draw in some of those customers, they would buy a completely different product while thinking they were buying what the famous celebrity recommended."
"Also, the celebrity on TV wouldn't know the other site existed. It wouldn't have any connection to his business, so he wouldn't even know he was getting his fans caught up in a crime."
"The true criminals have no connection to the celebrity, so it doesn't matter if the police search his house. That's how the criminals are using a national broadcast for their crime."
Shinobu gave me a blank stare.
The voices had to be reaching him, but they may have sounded like news of a far off country to him.
"Hayabusa-kun, let's go back over the Youkai being used here."
"The Aburatori. It originated in the Tohoku region, but unlike other Youkai, it didn't appear until the Meiji period. That makes it a newcomer. However, its traits make it dangerous enough to overwhelm even other Youkai. Isn't that right?"
"It's a Youkai that disguises itself as a farmer and slips in with the other villagers working on the farms. However, no one has ever seen its true form. The next thing they know, it's already made its way in, kidnapped a child, pierced the child with a thick skewer for cooking fish, and roasted the child over a fire."
"Its goal is supposed to be the oil from the child's organs, but it isn't known why it kills children to take their oil."
"It's a Youkai without the lessons present in most Japanese ghost stories. The story doesn't teach you to go home before it gets dark, not to swim in the river, or anything else. The Youkai simply appears, kidnaps, and kills. This is a negative product of more modern times when the tradition of fear has been lost, but it's a problem when people start spreading fear that has no countermeasure."
I felt like my head was spinning.
I felt like I had overlooked something terrible and that I was only noticing it now that its fatal result was showing itself.
A celebrity. An online store. A Youkai that kills children. Dieting. Organ trafficking. Colorful skewers. A method of losing weight. Oil taken from the organs. Kidnapping children and removing their organs. A Youkai that performed meaningless killing. The Aburatori. A Package using that dreadful Youkai.
I turned my head with the stiff movements of a doll needing to be oiled and looked at "him".
His supposed diet had visually reduced his weight, but the real reason lay elsewhere.
With the lightness of a marionette whose strings were cut, Jinnai Shinobu collapsed to the floor.
The backpack inside the "treasure chest" rolled out.
I could not even scream.
I used my trembling hands to roll him onto his back and hesitantly touched his stomach over his clothes.
At that point, I just about passed out.
As if I was touching a thin rubber film, my slender fingertips sank down deeper and deeper.
It was as if the organs meant to be there had vanished.
Part 12
I lost track of the flow of time.
The next thing I knew, I was in Shinobu's bedroom and he was sleeping in the futon.
It was night outside and I could hear someone speaking from somewhere.
As I absentmindedly listened, I finally realized it was Jinnai Hayabusa's voice.
That was just how messed up my ability to grasp the situation was.
"The Aburatori is a Youkai that kidnaps children and takes the oil from their organs. We are pursuing an organ trafficking Package that uses that trait to steal organs without anyone knowing. More specifically, it takes organs for transplant into children ten and under."
"..."
"Organ trafficking seems like it would be naturally eliminated by tissue engineering, but young children are apparently a different story. The technology saves the healthy tissue before the illness occurs and creates new organs when necessary later. A baby born with an incurable disease can't supply any healthy tissue, so even if the diseased tissue is used to create a new organ, there's still a risk of the disease reoccurring. That's why even that wonderful new technology isn't perfect."
"..."
"And with normal transplants, they have to wait their turn on a long list. Also, extremely young children can't use adult organs. The lung or liver can be cut down to an appropriate size for transplant, but according to my upperclassman, there's a limit to that too. However, there's almost zero chance of getting an organ transplant from a brain dead child.... And even if people would be hesitant to do evil to save their own life, parents are willing to bloody their hands for their child. Some stupid bastard is taking advantage of those feelings to make some money here."
"..."
"Shinobu used the colorful skewers endorsed on that diet show, didn't he? I thought that looked dangerous, but it seems you're chosen as the Aburatori's target if you prick the inside of your mouth with them. In other words, your organs are taken. I hadn't caught on until recently. If only I'd been sure, I would have taken them from him!"
"..."
"The Aburatori is a Youkai that kills without anyone noticing, so even the children having their organs taken in the organ trafficking Package don't feel any pain. Something like an emulator makes up for what was taken. Of course, that won't last forever. If that was enough, the children waiting for their surgery could just have their organs emulated. In other words, the emulators come with a time limit. Once that arrives, Shinobu will die."
"..."
"The key to all this is of course the skewers he was using. That celebrity who was going all out advertising them on TV and the online store where they're sold are completely unrelated to all this. If we look into the other site, we'll find the people behind this Package. Once we do that..."
"I've heard enough, " I cut in quietly.
That's right. I had no interest in the answers the humans were looking into.
To sum it up, a Package that stole and sold children's organs without anyone knowing had been unleashed on this village.
The effeminate celebrity on TV had advertised a skewer diet and the criminals had created a fake version of the official site to pull in a few of the celebrity's customers.
The customers who accessed the fake site and bought the colorful skewers identical to the real ones would be sent dangerous items that contained the deadly power of the Aburatori. From there, it was a matter of probability. If some percentage of the users pricked the inside of their mouth with the skewers, they would be designated a target and have their organs secretly removed.
That was how the village's children such as Shinobu and Nagisa had been brought into it.
As the children continued their carefree daily lives, their situation had grown truly hopeless.
Also, I most likely knew who the silly human behind it was. Real life was not a mystery novel, so the most suspicious person was almost always the criminal. In that case, there was only one possible candidate I had seen recently. They knew a lot about programming and software, they were gloomy, they had plenty of complaints about Intellectual Villages, and they were unlikely to care if they got the villager's involved.
But I didn't have time to gather evidence and accuse the criminal.
Shinobu's time limit would arrive as I did so.
It could be a few hours away or only half an hour. I didn't know the specifics, but he had collapsed because the emulator was starting to give out. I doubted I had much time left and I had to end it all before he "fully realized" that his organs had been taken.
"Yukari..."
He spoke from the futon, so I smiled and lied.
"You have a cold. Playing in the snow too much really isn't a good idea."
"Nn."
I couldn't tell if that was an agreement or a wince.
"I need to tell Nagisa I'm sorry."
"?"
"Once my cold is better, I need to tell her I'm sorry that I said I couldn't eat fried prawn tails."
With that, he shut his eyes as if he had run out of strength.
Seeing it made me think quietly.
Ahh, he's really going to die.
There's no normal way to save him now.
The new backpack he had found in the attic lay next to his futon.
It would never be used even once.
It would become a symbol of the tragedy and it would collect dust because no one could bear to throw it out. No one had wanted it, but some unwanted interference had caused it all to fall apart.
As the thoughts in my heart scattered into a million pieces, something quietly gathered together.
I realized I had made up my mind.
Shinobu had not exactly fallen asleep. His mind was rising and falling from consciousness like when suffering from a high fever. After I watched his consciousness temporarily drift off, I spoke quietly to Hayabusa.
"You humans can continue judging the human criminal, but I'll take a different route. As a Youkai, I'll directly crush the Youkai at the center of this."
The standard process was to gradually solve the mystery, find the criminal, use the traits of the Package against them, and settle it with a battle of wits.
But I was not going to go along with that.
Against someone who existed outside the rules, there was no need to follow the rules yourself.
I would render their carefully-prepared stage useless on the most fundamental level.
I would even destroy the world if it meant saving Shinobu and the others.
"Wait. Don't tell me..."
Just once, I stroked Shinobu's forehead as he lay in the futon with his eyes shut.
I then stood up and gave what amounted to a death sentence.
"I will personally kill that piece-of-shit Youkai known as the Aburatori."
Part 13
To those who did not know the truth, it may have seemed like a useless action.
However, there was no such thing as a useless action in this world.
"..."
I left the house and entered the snow. The full moon was visible directly overhead in that strange snowy night. My hands desired a weapon and my feet took me to the shed.
Two small figures hurriedly followed me.
They were a Hitotsume-Kozou and a Nopperabou. I did not know them, but they may have met Shinobu somewhere.
"Are you going to fight the Aburatori? I understand how you feel, but this makes no sense. A Youkai in a Package is just having its power misused by the worst sort of human. The Aburatori simply has the ability to kill. It doesn't actually want to kill."
"Also, we Youkai don't die even if we're stabbed or shot. That doesn't always apply when it's Youkai vs. Youkai, but that means you're the one in danger here, Zashiki Warashi."
That didn't matter.
When I arrived at the shed, I grabbed the thick padlock on the door.
I did not need any kind of technique.
I merely needed a "chance".
I randomly stuck a wire in the keyhole and shook it left and right.
The lock readily opened, so I opened the door, looked around, and randomly reached out my hand.
"A high branch cutter, hm?"
It was a two or three meter aluminum rod with a pair of pruning shears attached to the end.
The silhouette resembled a naginata.
More importantly, it was more than enough to jab and cut with.
I bit the edge of my lip with my canine tooth, scooped up the red blood with my tongue, and pressed it on the tool's blade.
The Hitotsume-Kozou and the Nopperabou looked troubled.
"You can't fight the Aburatori just because you have the power to kill. It doesn't even matter if you have a connection to the Hyakki Yakou."
"Its true essence lies in something other than strength. It simply appears, kidnaps, and kills. In other words, no one knows where it is. That's what makes it so frightening."
Oh, that.
It was true the human police were unlikely to ever find the Aburatori no matter how long they searched. Not even cutting-edge unmanned security could stand up to the power of a Youkai that surpassed human knowledge.
But there was one exception and I had it.
"Do you know what a Zashiki Warashi has control over?"
"?"
"Destiny."
Part 14
Logic and instinct were not necessary.
I simply had to obey my inborn power.
I left the Jinnai property with the high branch cutter resting on my shoulder in place of a naginata and I ran through the snowy night illuminated by the full moon. I turned right at a fork in the road without hesitation, I continued straight at the next intersection, and I entered a very narrow farm road.
A Zashiki Warashi had control over destiny.
It was something like a formless temptation. Just as TV ads, magazine ads, internet topics, and other such things created a large wave that caused the customers to choose a product, people would slip in the direction that was easier to understand or easier to move in and they would not even realize they were doing it.
But if you understood how that temptation worked, you could move against the tide and fight it.
Normally, there was no way to come across the Aburatori just from running around randomly. That was simply how the world worked. In that case, I only needed to continue in the direction I would normally never go. I had to move in the direction that seemed most out of place and that I felt the most reluctance toward. If I moved against the flow, I would naturally head toward the most unlikely destiny.
I would meet the Aburatori who I supposedly could never meet.
And I arrived at that destiny.
"Oh? What have we here?"
The hoarse voice of an old man stopped me in one corner of the Intellectual Village.
The full moon stood out to a strange degree in the blizzard.
At first, I thought it was a scarecrow standing in the center of a snow-filled paddy with no water in it.
This was the symbol of an oddity invading a farming village.
Like it was an illusion, the entire scene seemed cut off from the rest of the world. It almost looked like something from a hanafuda card.
This place was "complete".
It was a place no one should have been able to enter.
No matter how much times had changed and no matter how much foreign culture had been imported, the Aburatori and I were surrounded by the pure scenery of "rural Japan".
No one could encroach on this territory.
It was a transient alternate world.
And its ruler, the deadly Aburatori, stood in the center of that blue scenery.
"My, my. What an adorable intruder. However, I have no interest in you even if your name labels you a 'child'. Why are you here?"
His kimono was dyed dark to hide any stains and it was tightened around his legs. I spotted leggings meant to protect his lower legs. Also, he had a broad conical hat on his head. This was the stereotypical outfit of a farmer, but the arms and legs leaving the kimono were closer to being those of a mummy than of an old man. His hat was worn too low to see his face, but I had my doubts about whether he even had eyes anymore.
The hat hiding his face had a pattern drawn on it that resembled a single large eye. The giant eye was filled with an imprudent brightness as if it were toying with people's lives.
But none of that mattered and my reply was blunt.
"I am here to kill you for Shinobu's sake."
"Ho."
He replied with a twisting of the voice that sounded like a mix of surprise and laughter.
"My, my. I had heard rumors I was being used for human crimes, but what has my power done now? You can discuss this with me. It pains me to think my power is being used to harm while I am wholly unaware. Now, how should we begin?"
"Try not to cry." My voice came out as if to cut into him."That settled it. I had thought the odds were about 50/50, but now I'm certain. Aburatori, I will kill you and I've found my reason for doing so. I am 100% certain that side of you is toying with Shinobu. You know what I mean, don't you?"
"W-wait. Please wait! It is true I may have been careless, but surely you understand as a Youkai who has grown close to humans. Humans are clever. They always manage to outdo us in cunning. No matter how careful you are, you sometimes simply cannot avoid being incorporated into a Package. I... I am a victim here too!!"
I felt I was being self-righteous.
Essentially, I was killing a stranger to protect someone I knew. That was no different from the parents of the sick children who were buying the organs. In order to save their precious child, they were willing to take another's life. That was the essence of it.
"Don't tell me you aren't involved."
However, I was not going to take the life of someone "wholly uninvolved".
In other words...
"After all, you purposefully incorporated yourself into this Package because – deep down – you enjoy killing."
A brief silence fell.
It was so silent that I almost thought I could hear the snow falling in the light of the full moon.
That silence was broken only by my voice.
"There are many different kinds of Youkai. Some curse themselves for possessing a deadly power, some reach a compromise and coexist with humans despite possessing such a power, and some... some enjoy attacking humans from the bottom of their heart. You wanted to have your fill of killing children while also shoving the blame onto some humans so you could hold the position of a victim. That's why you overlooked the Package that you very well knew was being assembled. Am I wrong?"
He began to writhe.
An eerie wriggling as if of worms came over the unseen face below the hat.
The movement produced a laugh.
"Heh heh. Kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah kah!! So you saw through it! You saw all the way through it! But I didn't provide any of the material needed to reach that answer. Is that also because you're a Zashiki Warashi in charge of destiny?"
Youkai like us were the occult given form and with a mind enclosed inside.
Thus when we were used in a shikigami, magic, or a Package, a way of controlling the mind beyond simple logic was needed. That is, if you didn't pacify us, we would bare our fangs.
So before discussing the evil of the Package, one had to sometimes question whether the Youkai itself was good or evil.
"This child organ trafficking Package uses the TV and an online store. I thought it was an interesting setup, but it appears to have gone too far. I have a bad habit of prioritizing my prey over safety."
"Of course it did. This kind of thing will be discovered pretty quickly. Even some local high school students had caught on."
"No, not necessarily."
I heard a sticky sound that made me imagine a smile beyond the hat.
"The buyers of the children's organs would never speak a word. If they revealed that an organ obtained through illicit means was located inside their precious child, it would affect that child's future as well as their own. So they will never speak of it. More importantly..."
I heard what sounded like heavy objects falling into the snow around us.
"The silly human behind this had a perfect plan, but they hesitated at the last second. They said they just couldn't kill children, so they had the organs taken out as quickly as they could. I told them I would cut off the emulators to kill the children if they didn't meet their monthly quota, so as long as this criminal system exists, they will keep the prey coming to me as if on a conveyor belt. I rearranged the entire system like that."
They looked like pre-packaged Salisbury steak.
The fist-sized squishy objects were wrapped in clear plastic.
But I did not look at them.
I knew they were the "product", but I did not look at them for the moment.
"So you took over the Package."
"Hm, that's not quite how I interpret it. I prefer to think of it as gathering everything I need to more efficiently kidnap children."
"You no longer even have something you gain in exchange for the children's lives."
"The Aburatori was never something that saved anything. There is no meaning in the action of taking the oil. I am... yes, I am chaos. I act solely in search of human fear."
This Package had been created by human hands and yet it had completely left their control.
It was similar to the threat of a leaked biological weapon.
This monster had risen from the level of a deadly Youkai that simply walked through the darkness and its atrocities had spread to a wider area.
"I won't even bother asking why."
"Oh, but that's what I most want you to ask. I do have my own personal view on killing. Connoisseurs are always picky."
"If I kill you it opens the way for Shinobu to live. Destiny is telling me that. So die. I won't let you refuse."
I stepped on the accumulated snow and thrust out the long blade that was covered with my own blood.
Meanwhile, the Aburatori merely smiled.
"Did this chance to meet me make you think you are somehow special? I am a variation on a deadly Youkai while you are a harmless Zashiki Warashi. The difference in strength is obvious, so there should be no meaning in a fight."
"No, you know there's meaning."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because you are preparing for a fight. Those fish-cooking skewers in your hands are the symbol for killing children, aren't they?"
"..."
He seemed to have only noticed it once I pointed it out.
His intent gaze dropped to the several dozen metal skewers spread out like a fan.
One of the worst of the deadly Youkai would have no reason to react that way to a harmless Zashiki Warashi, so this was proof enough that I was not just a harmless Zashiki Warashi.
"How strange."
This threat taking a farmer's shape spoke while his shoulders shook.
He was of course laughing.
"If you follow the legends back, we are both Youkai from Tohoku. One is a symbol of the mysterious attackers who kill children. The other is a symbol of all the children killed by their parents to have fewer mouths to feed. To think the two of us would meet in the same place."
The Package no longer mattered.
This was a fight to the death between Youkai and there was no room for human intervention.
We both naturally named ourselves as if cruelly making a criminal tremble by telling them how they would be executed.
"Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi. Personal Name within the Jinnai Family: Yukari."
"An Aburatori. A variation created in modern times when the tradition of fear has been lost."
And as if we had agreed to it beforehand, we clashed.
Part 15
The sound of clashing metal filled the air.
Orange sparks intruded on the strange white and dark blue scenery of the full moon over the snow.
The Aburatori looked like a farmer hiding his face behind his hat and his arms and legs looked like tree branches. Every time he rotated, he scattered several dozen skewers like a shotgun. He seemed to have an unlimited supply because a few dozen more would spread out like a fan each time the old man moved his fingers.
A distance of twenty meters was nothing to that Youkai.
He would appear, kidnap, and kill without anyone knowing. The concept of distance likely did not fit well with him.
"Wonderful."
While scattering countless skewers as if dancing, the Aburatori spoke in a voice that hurt the ears.
Orange sparks scattered and his smile seemed to grow each time the branch cutter knocked down a bullet.
"Wonderful!! A single scrape from my skewers is enough for me to take all your organs! Stepping on one of the skewers you have knocked to the ground would be fatal!! You are certain to lose your organs at some point, but your Youkai trait is allowing you to avoid that fate!!"
It did not matter what he said.
I did not need to worry about it.
I did everything I could to protect my field. I only had to fight the temptation and choose the option most removed from the one I was naturally drawn toward. Because a Zashiki Warashi was so weak, that "impossible destiny" would allow me to survive.
"Still, this is a strange twist of fate, " said the Aburatori while spinning the fan of skewers in his hand."I could be seen as a symbol of the adults who kill children. The existence of monstrous people like that is frightening, but that very existence allows people to dispose of children without dirtying their own hands. Those wicked thoughts were what brought me into existence."
"There is no shortage of food in this age, so you can't justify killing by saying it's one less mouth to feed!"
"Hah hah hah!! But they are slaughtered in dark rooms, left in the parking lot of pachinko parlors, and recently I believe they are killed even before birth when an incurable disease is detected. If anything, this age is even crueler. There's no pressing reason for killing children, yet the act is on the rise!!"
"Do you really think the age desires those meaningless atrocities!?"
"What other explanation is there? This country is a cursed land with a culture of family killing at a level not often seen in the world. They have long killed their parents with the practice of ubasute and killed their children when food is scarce. But even now that they have plenty, the family killing continues. These people can still kill their family even after forgetting the reason why. That is their true essence. I have become the standard!!"
Despite the shotgun blast of skewers I moved forward.
The barrage was not as hopeless as it might look.
As long as I understood destiny, I easily knew how to break through while only deflecting two or three of them.
"On the other hand, you are the symbol of the children killed by those practices. You come from the convenient idea that the children killed by their own parents will actually bring prosperity to the family as guardian deities! I may be the attacker and you may be the victim, but we are actually quite similar. When you get down to it, we were both created by the desires of the parents who killed their children!!"
The concept of distance was meaningless. There was no such thing as close range and long range.
The Aburatori clearly believed that because he gave up his own advantage and took a step toward me.
"That is why you could not forgive someone who killed children for no reason. Did you enjoy feeling like a child's guardian? But this will bring you no comfort. Even if you save this one child you call Shinobu, it will not revive the many children who were killed in the past to bring about the being known as the Zashiki Warashi."
He was now in range of the branch cutter I used in place of a naginata.
By opposing destiny, I thrust forward the blade that would normally never hit.
The Aburatori audibly slipped a few centimeters to the side of the blade.
He was a step beyond me?
Even my power... no, the power over destiny that Hyakki Yakou developed wasn't enough to reach him!?
"You can never be saved, " whispered the Aburatori from so close that I could feel his breath.
Several dozen skewers spread out like fans in both his hands.
"No one can change what has already come to an end. That applies to the children of the past and for the one you call Shinobu."
A moment later, a downpour of over one hundred sharp pieces of metal rushed toward my stomach from only a few centimeters away.
Part 16
Ksshh!!
Kssssssshhhhhhh!!
Click... kssshhhhhhh... click.... ksssshhhh!!
Part 17
It all came to an end.
The high branch cutter I used in place of a naginata was a weapon with a thick blade much like pruning shears attached to the end of a two meter shaft. It had a long reach, but it was useless when right up next to an enemy.
On the other hand, the Aburatori could use over one hundred thick skewers when using both hands. If he threw them all at close enough range for his breath to reach me, I had no way of deflecting them.
He had anticipated any attempt to evade and had scattered the skewers over a large fan shape. Moving left or right and even ducking down would leave me full of skewers.
Those skewers were the symbol of killing children, removing their organs, cooking them over a fire, and taking the oil.
A single scratch would use the logic of the child organ trafficking Package to divide my organs up and pack them in plastic, and more than one hundred of them were flying toward me. As I could not defend or evade, it was plain as day what would happen.
However, that was by the Aburatori's logic.
I could control destiny, so I had no obligation to follow his logic.
The sound of clashing metal filled the air as all the skewers were knocked down by the branch cutter.
"What?"
The Aburatori looked completely dumbfounded for a moment.
Not that I could blame him.
He had moved within a few centimeters of me and my naginata-analogue was over two meters long. It would have been impossible to knock down all the skewers unless all one hundred or so of them flew backwards.
Also, hitting five or ten of them was one thing, but to knock down all of them would require them to move as if they had been drawn in by a powerful magnet.
"Is it really that strange? It was wrong to ever start thinking about Youkai using the laws of physics."
"Wha-... bu-... Don't tell me... Don't tell me you'd done it from the beginning..."
Did he think I had solved the mystery of this incident surrounding him?
Did he think I'd gotten back at him by using the traits or weakness of the Youkai used in the Package?
If he really thought that, he was far too self-conscious.
This was a story of revealing the rules controlling Youkai and using those rules to defeat them.
However, he was not the only Youkai here.
This was my field.
This was a cruel fairy tale where he would meet a tragic end unless he analyzed the traits of the Zashiki Warashi, found a weakness, and took appropriate action.
"From the beginning, I was fighting against the destiny that exists within the rules of the Zashiki Warashi. My actions were only meant to fight the destiny that would lead to Shinobu's death. That just so happened to take the physical form of picking up a weapon, running through the village, and fighting an Aburatori."
How I swung the branch cutter had not mattered.
How and from where the skewers had been thrown had not mattered.
As long as I had fought the destiny that would lead to Shinobu's death, everything around me would correct itself to bring about that result.
The locations of the branch cutter and the skewer could be manipulated to fit.
"You seem to be mistaken about something."
I spun around the branch cutter.
I held it so it passed from my back and under my left arm as if making a tricky shot in pool.
"I came here to rescue Shinobu. I did not care in the slightest about you!!"
I once more thrust the blade forward at close range.
With a dull sound, the thick blade stabbed deep into the center of the Aburatori's chest.
A Youkai would not die from being stabbed or shot, but things were different in a battle between Youkai. That blade had already been covered in my blood, so the damage would take effect.
"Gh... bh... ?"
He looked down at his own chest as if seeing something very strange.
He then collapsed backwards as if widening the wound by forcibly pulling out the thick blade.
The blood that finally decided to spew out was black and seemed to indicate the nature of the Youkai.
"It's over."
"Yes, it is."
I was shocked to receive a reply.
I looked over to see that the Aburatori was speaking where he lay sprawled out in the snow. It was hard to tell if the words were coming from the mouth hidden by the eye-pattern hat or the gaping hole in his chest.
"The child organ trafficking Package will fall apart with the Youkai at its core gone. To correct the unreasonable action, the stolen organs will likely return to the original children."
This was strange.
Something was not right.
If that was all, then why was that evil Youkai smiling?
"But if that happens, what will happen to the sick children who have already received their organ transplants? Not even I know that. They may have the organ torn from them and die or they may regain the original diseased organ. The result is the same either way. They have no future. You have done nothing more than kill children to save a child."
"............................................................................................................................................."
I thought my breathing would stop.
After all...
"The people who tried to make money off of organ trafficking were probably trash. The parents who bought the organs knowing where they came form should probably be punished for their actions."
He grinned.
Even after losing and sinking into death, the Aburatori savored his sadistic victory.
"But the sick children themselves did nothing wrong. Just to be clear, the number of children saved was greater than those attacked. When the organs are split up and given to individual patients, a single child can save multiple children. Meaning! You have created a situation where you kill a greater number of children to save a smaller number of children!! Heh heh heh hah hah!! Welcome to the path of killing. I hope you enjoy sinking into this unescapable mire."
He did not beg me to therefore save him and return things to normal.
He preferred to enjoy the present situation.
No matter what I did and no matter who I tried to save, either the children whose organs had been stolen would die or the ones saved by those stolen organs would die. This Youkai had stood in the way of the clichéd goal of "saving children", but he had waited until now to make me bear the heavy cross of letting someone die.
"..."
For a while, I stood motionless in the moonlit snow.
The makeshift weapon felt heavy in my hand.
Finally, I squeezed my hand and quietly remembered I held a weapon.
"Ha ha."
The Aburatori laughed while a shocking amount of blood flowed from his dried chest.
"Kill me if you like, but it will change nothing. Now, choose to let the children die while resting easy that no one can see this shameful action."
He clearly did not understand.
Say there was a Person A and a Person B and a single person had to die. That did not mean that you could not save both A and B.
Yes. If Person C saw that terrible situation and gave his own life as an additional option, that single required life could be taken while both A and B were saved.
"Do you remember that I called myself Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi?"
"What about it?"
"Do you really think the Hyakki Yakou would put together a project that would do nothing more than let them choose between the destinies currently in existence? Do you really think they are such a weak organization that they could not complete a project on that level and it would stall in the prototype phase?"
"You can't mean... it goes beyond that? But the only phenomenon greater than what you have already demonstrated is... !!"
"I have already shown you I can modify destiny. That is, freely choose from the existing options. But this goes beyond that. Hyakki Yakou attempted and failed to create a method of creating a completely different line of destiny from nothing."
Here, that would mean saving all the children whose organs had been taken and also saving all the children who were allowed to live by the taken organs.
The only way to allow for that clearly contradictory situation was to create a brand new destiny. The world had to be deceived into thinking two completely identical organs existed, as if they were twins.
What I had to do was simple.
It was what I always did: move my body such that I opposed the invisible temptation.
However, this was completely different from before. It was like a puny human using only their bare hands to oppose a press meant to crush cars. By any normal reckoning, I would be crushed. As if the world's destiny were rejecting a mere individual's circumstances, normal destiny would continue even if it meant crushing the one who desired change.
But I would force that reckless action to work.
A creaking sound filled the air as I kneeled on the spot. I held the branch cutter in both hands and pressed its tip against my stomach.
I did not know what meaning the action held.
It likely had no real meaning in a physical sense.
But the overwhelming pain as if crushing each of my fingers and compressing my backbone reminded me of the destiny I had to fight. I became aware of the very thin foreign feeling passing from the top of my head to the end of my butt. It had been placed inside me. This was a product of Hyakki Yakou's insane ideas and reliable techniques. The theory had never been completed, but I forced it to work regardless. As a result, a sensation of long, thin wires twisted within me.
Ahh.
It's going to break.
I naturally knew that.
No matter the result, I was going to lose everything as a Zashiki Warashi. Like an automaton with its gears messed with, I would no longer function as a Youkai.
"Why do you go this far?"
I suddenly heard a hoarse voice.
It came from the Youkai that still ruled the area despite having lost.
"It is only a finite human life. No matter how many you kill, more appear like bamboo shoots after a rain until they cover the surface of the earth! There are more efficient methods for an eternal Youkai. Even if someone dies this generation, you only have to choose a favorite from the next generation. And yet you..."
"You would probably never understand even if you did live an eternity, " I spat out at him."That's why you don't even cut it as a ghost story. You don't give any lesson such as don't lie or treat your parents right. You can't bring anything beyond useless cruelty and scorn."
For an instant – truly just an instant – I heard the Aburatori's face bend behind the hat.
But I did not continue watching.
I had something to take care of that was much more important than that failure of a Youkai.
I thrust the thick blade into my own stomach.
The thin wire-like foreign feeling running through the center of my body shattered like glass.
Part 18
And that was how I lost everything.
The following day, the snow had completely stopped. The large yard beyond the veranda was still covered in white and it glittered wondrously as the soft spring sun hit it.
I was lazy by nature. On a cold day like this, I would feel like founding an independent nation inside the kotatsu, but I sat on the veranda on this day.
My internal structure as a Zashiki Warashi had completely failed.
Not even I knew what effect it would have on me. Not even visiting a specialist in spiritual medicine was likely to help. Not even your average underground business could handle a Youkai that had the essence of Hyakki Yakou stuffed into her and then had it take severe damage.
Even just losing my power related to fortune or destiny would hurt.
It was possible this would affect my ability to maintain my body that was not bound by the laws of physics.
I could be destroyed or I could eternally suffer without any way to be destroyed. The fear of such things could cause my mind to fall apart. This was the fear of not knowing what would happen. Just because I was fine one day did not mean I would be the next. I would have to live while praying as if crossing an old suspension bridge.
I did not know how long I would be able to continue seeing this scene, so I committed it to memory as if burning it into my mind.
It was a ritual.
But then a clattering of dishes interrupted my peaceful and pessimistic ritual. I looked over and saw Shinobu carrying his breakfast tray with as dangerous a grip as ever.
"Yukari, you can't eat alone, so let's eat together."
The same sentiment as before softened my cheeks.
Shinobu, Nagisa, the other children whose organs had been taken, and even the sick children who had undergone illegal surgeries had all been forcibly saved.
This result was the one bright side of the situation.
It seemed Hayabusa had found the silly human behind it, so none of the evil remained.
I hesitantly stood up from the veranda to move into the altar room where my breakfast was ready. I did not know how much strength I could use, so I would need to thoroughly test my upper limits at some point. For the moment, the lack of any pain was the most disturbing and frightening part. Rather than making me think I was fine, it made me think I was in a state similar to losing my sense of pain from damaging the spine.
"Hurry, Yukari. The food'll get cold."
"Wait, Shinobu. Walk more slowly."
"Hm? What is it? Is there some food you don't like? You're supposed to eat everything, but don't worry! If it's too bad, I'll save you."
His innocent words made me smile quietly.
That's right.
"Perhaps you really will save me someday."
Part 19
In the present, the evening was filled with the stuffy heat of late summer. A high school boy had his hair dyed blonde, had his legs impolitely crossed, held a popsicle in his mouth, and looked in annoyance at a few envelopes that appeared to contain love letters. A Zashiki Warashi gave a heavy sigh as she looked at him.
"Shinobu, I am really disappointed."
"Wait a second. Where the hell did that come from?"
Notes
1. ↑ Warashi means child.
2. ↑ Japanese for porcupinefish literally means "a thousand needles".
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