novelBe Dyed in Red@??? (2)
| ← Ch.75 | Ch.77 → |
Hafuri fell silent for a moment.
"That man plotted to usurp Hyakki Yakou and began a national zombie outbreak to split the organization."
"That was only to oppose the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi and protect the world you live in."
"But...wait, how could you possibly know that?"
"The human heart is easily drawn to evil, but is also easily bound to good. If something grows even slightly distorted, you can readily accept yours and others' deaths. I know that all too well. I saw who Majina truly was ten years ago. They say people never truly change and I doubt he would have changed that easily. His actions must be strictly judged, but we cannot take away why he did it. Not even the gods in heaven can do that."
What did those words mean to Hafuri?
Majina had had his reasons for his actions. Someone in Hafuri's position would be able to figure that much out, but how many people were there who would accept Majina's reasons? Hafuri and Mei's opinions were biased as they were family. And the members of Hyakki Yakou worked for Hafuri, so their acceptance would sound like nothing more than kind words for her. But the Aburatori was looking in from outside and he had accepted Majina. Maybe not his crimes or his results, but he had accepted his humanity and what had led him there.
Then something moves past my feet.
It was the Fox, Tanuki, and Badger.
"My, my. What are you doing here? It's time for tea!"
"Hm? You aren't afraid of me?"
"A lot of the others seem to be, but we realized we had already worked with you at Goldmine Island. We already know you don't bite."
When the Fox held his front paw out as he spoke, Hafuri thought for a moment and reached out a hand.
She shook that tiny, tiny paw.
The Badger shook his head vertically as a nod.
"And we also realized you look a lot like our master's granddaughter. We hear you're helping as an individual instead of as Hyakki Yakou, so we felt there was no reason to hold back."
"Eh heh heh. So leave it all to a wet nurse Tanuki like me! This is heated barley tea, so it has no caffeine. It's perfect for young children."
"I-I am not so young I need a wet nurse!"
Hafuri blushed and raised her voice, but the Tanuki smiled and said, "Oh, dear." The Usuhiki Warashi joined in while shouting "kyah kyah" and started eating the tea cakes. She too may have been used to Hafuri after Goldmine Island and Hafuri scolded her a little when she started drinking the hot barley tea from the teacup Hafuri had reached for.
I also saw the Kura Bokko, Notabariko, and the other Usuhiki Warashi from the Goldmine Island inn gathered together.
"Wow. Being in the territory of a real Zashiki Warashi is making me nervous..."
"The red one and white one are both made by Hyakki Yakou. And then there's the half-human one."
"And I feel really overshadowed with that 'kyah kyah' girl acting like the representative of Usuhiki Warashi."
The helpful Oomukade pushed on those three girls' backs and they managed to join in.
The one-eyed Umbrella and Lantern must have decided Hafuri wasn't that scary even if her emotions were a little rocky because they came out after observing from behind a sliding screen.
"It's true she doesn't seem that different from our master."
"Nonsense! Hiro-sama is far cuter!"
That set a great wave in motion. The Keseran Pasaran, a white puffball said to bring good luck, floated over toward Hafuri and the Furutsubaki duo slowly inched closer.
It looked like things were going to be fine.
Then I heard the sound of a shifting panel overhead.
I looked up to find a square of the ceiling opening up and Marguerite the Australian Witch poked her head out.
"Jinnai Shinobu, could you hand me that duct tape? I need it."
"Yeah, Westerners rely on crowbars and duct tape about as much as a knife and fork, don't they?"
I grabbed the roll from the sunken hearth and Marguerite leaned further out. In fact, she crawled out so she hung upside down with just her feet caught on the edge of the square.
But...
"What's this, Marguerite!? It looks like you have horns, wings, and a tail!"
"Oh, these?"
"And that's one hell of a micro bikini! Man, it's something else entirely when an authentic Westerner wears one!!"
"I guess you would care about that most."
For some reason, the witch hat didn't fall off even when she was upside down. And they must have been demonic parts because the blue fabric of the skin-tight gloves and knee socks was wriggling a little.
The exasperated sounding witch traced her index finger along the underside of the micro bikini top's shoulder strap.
"I've temporarily fused with the Succubus to help the ritual go more smoothly."
"Yahoo, master!" said the Succubus's voice from somewhere."If you miss me, just call for me. Your dreamtime partner is right here!"
"Well, her master contract is connected to you, but we added in a bypass to trick the contract. Demons don't actually have physical bodies, but a Succubus is a rare exception. They have the power to construct their own body and we're using that to hide her in my womb by-..."
"Hmm. Maybe it's gravity doing it, but boobs have so much more impact when they're upside down! And other than 'that' and I guess 'that' too, there aren't many other poses that give you such a good view..."
"Are you even listening to me?"
"And did you say you messed with my demon contract? Succubus, this isn't like opening a hole in the bottom of the bucket of my soul, is it!?"
"I wouldn't screw up like that, master. It's just sharing your senses a little. Oh, and your lifespan."
"Hold up! Is there no going back on that!?"
"In some rare cases, it can fluctuate pretty wildly and end up something like a market crash."
"Now you're really scaring me!!"
I needed to calm myself down. And hadn't she mentioned something about my senses?
"Nn."
I tested it by touching my right ear and for some reason the upside down micro bikini woman gave a little jump. She pulled up her shoulder like something tickled and acted like she was holding something between her right shoulder and cheek. Yes, almost like someone had blown on her right ear.
"Oh?"
"Calm down, Jinnai Shinobu."
"Ohhhh!? That means...what does that mean? What happens to Marguerite if I touch my own chest right now? I'm not doing anything to anyone, so there couldn't be a problem, right? Because I'm not doing anything to anyone!!"
"...!!!???"
Marguerite trembled and blushed, but she squeezed her lips tightly shut to keep her voice from escaping.
Now, a question.
I had to calm down and think about this. Were my senses really linked with the blonde witch's? Or was a silly boy getting all worked up on his own while he groped his own chest? Which was it!?
I figured the odds were 50% or greater that it was a lie. After all, this information came from a Western demon and lying was pretty much their job. And not the heartwarming and kind lies. They would heartlessly laugh at you afterwards.
"No, " said the Succubus's voice."Marguerite really is trying hard not to moan right now."
"The entire point is that I can't trust you. Here's the tape."
"Kh."
The witch must have also enjoyed putting on deceptive acts because her shoulders trembled as she hesitantly took the roll of duct tape from me. Her breaths seemed strangely heated and seductive.
"Pant, pant. I thought I was prepared when I heard we would be mixing Eastern and Western, but the rules of the paranormal really do run on...well, it would be nice to call them rhymes, but it's really more like puns."
"Hm? Puns?"
"In Japanese, four sounds like death and nine sounds like suffering, so even adults will avoid those numbers. And Oni wear tiger striped loincloths because Oni are traditionally associated with the northeast, which is close to the direction associated with tigers. Power is more easily summoned by images simple enough for a child to understand, but you need to be careful because unintended associations can create new connections and allow the power to escape. It's like how gathering water is easy but maintaining pure water is hard."
"That does seem to be how it works. A lot of the legends about gaining eternal youth are based on wordplay. For example, there are apparently no religious rules behind the idea that eating soba at New Year's helps you live a long life."
"Have you seen those prayer charms for passing exams?"
"Crazy, isn't it? But don't worry. The Japanese know how silly it is. It's like a special product for an annual winter festival."
As we continued our chat(?), I heard a commotion from the living room.
Marguerite waved and ducked back into the attic, so I went to deal with the commotion.
The two red and white Zashiki Warashi were tilting their heads together in the living room.
I followed their gazes.
"How in the world did this happen?"
"Oh, papa."
"I am Shisa. The Yuki Onna is in trouble."
The Aoandon and Shisa spoke up as soon as they saw me.
As for the Yuki Onna...
"K-kyuuuuuuuuh..."
Why was she stuck on her back in the gap between the floor and the short-legged stand for the 50-inch flat screen TV?
I peeked on the other side which wasn't cleaned often and had a lot of dust. I could see the Yuki Onna's face and she looked about to pass out.
"We had to get behind the TV for the big renovation project, but she decided to climb below the TV stand because she didn't want to move it."
"And she got stuck?"
She must have struggled a lot on her own because her kimono had mostly come off of her lower body. While a kimono seemed to provide high defense, they didn't have to move much for them to become entirely useless.
"Is it just me or have you gotten bigger, Yuki Onna!? Your size is completely off!"
"U-uuh... That lazy Youkai distorted destiny, so I ran into some old friends... Th-that got me fired up in a bad way, so my body ended up like this. That damage was like something from a tenth or twentieth year class reunion, so a child like you wouldn't understand, Jinnai Shinobu."
She was a little more sexy than usual.
It was possible she had gotten stuck because she wasn't used to the size of her body.
"What should we do, papa?"
"Um, I take it from the state of her kimono that you already tried pulling her out by the legs."
"I am Shisa. Her stomach or hips must be caught because she would not budge."
"It's my chest or butt!! I'll kill you, you summer Youkai!!"
We could rescue her right away if we moved the TV stand, but I could understand why the Yuki Onna had wanted to avoid that. That proper method would be a huge pain. We would have to unhook the TV's antenna cord, the power cord, the fiber optic wire for cable, and all the wiring for the DVR and game systems. Then we would have to move the equipment out of the way. Only then could we lift the TV stand.
So...
"Let's leave rearranging the furniture as a last resort and go with the standards first. If we get her wet with detergent or something, she might slip right on out."
"Heh. Eh heh heh. Jinnai Shinobu getting me wet!? Not bad. Yes, not bad at all! This is clearly an unnecessary detour set in place by the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi, but I don't even care!!"
That was when the perfect Youkai, a Nure Onna, showed up. She must have been tired from the work because she was wetting down her body at the sink in the kitchen adjacent to the living room.
When I explained the situation, the woman with wet hair (and see-through clothing) simply pointed to the TV stand with a troubled look.
I looked back over.
"Eh heh heh. Eh heh heh heh heh. I-if you like you could use salad dressing or a mysterious sticky liquid that falls into the 'joke goods' category. Eh heh heh heh heh..."
"Ahh... Papa, I think the TV stand is starting to freeze. The gap below is probably entirely filled with ice. Throwing water on her would just freeze her in place even more."
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
As I complained, I felt a tug on my sleeve.
Mei, the Zashiki Warashi in a white yukata, had silently approached at some point and she handed something to me.
It was a candle that had likely come from a disaster-preparedness bag.
"Ehh!? I kind of get using the fire element on the ice element, but isn't a candle getting a little too kinky!?"
"(Jump!?) Eh!? A candle!? (Fidget fidget)"
The Yuki Onna struggled without knowing what was going on, but she had no way to resist while stuck there.
Perhaps because she too belonged to the candle element (?), the Aoandon tilted her head with her forehead horn glowing with its bluish-white phosphorescence.
"Huh? You're not into that, papa? I thought for sure you'd be all for a chance to enjoy the Yuki Onna's reactions."
"Well, while I do want to sleep with as many women as possible, I can't stand seeing a girl who honestly isn't enjoying it. It's a total turn off. But if she really wants to do it, then I'm prepared to do just about anything!!"
Yukari hit me for my honesty.
And she used her fist too! Aren't girls supposed to slap you!?
"I am Shisa. So what do we do about the Yuki Onna? I feel bad for her like this."
"..."
"Hm? What is it, Jinnai Shinobu? Why are you picking me up?"
"I-it can't be..." said the Yuki Onna as she trembled on her back below the TV stand.
Yes.
"A candle might be a bit much, but rubbing a summer Youkai against her shouldn't be as bad, right?"
"W-wait, Jinnai Shinobu!! That is a fatal combination, much like dropping a popsicle on the hot asphalt!"
"Ehh? The Shisa won't work?"
"Yes, that's right. He won't work at all."
"In that case... Hey, Marguerite."
"Eh?"
"Do something about this. Witches are pretty general-purpose, so you can handle any element right? Use some kind of fire magic."
"How will that help!? If a candle was too much, why would you think fire itself would be fine!?"
"Ehhh? It's magic, so won't it just all gently melt away?"
"Let her roast you a little first if you think that!!"
As she hung upside-down from the attic with her wonderful micro bikini, Marguerite thought for a bit and held out a strange item that looked like a magnet on the tip of a red-painted plastic umbrella.
"It's cliché, but summoning a Salamander might work. I'll restrict the amount of the gathered element to keep it at the size of a chameleon."
"Hee hee hee!! What is that licking at my calf!? That isn't a dog or a cat! That's the creepy sensation of a lizard!"
"Didn't I say it was a Salamander?"
"I-isn't there...isn't there a better way of warming my body!? Oh, I know! You could wrap a string of Christmas lights around me like this and that to tie me up tight."
"And how are we supposed to tie you up when you're stuck under the TV stand?"
"I-I have a hint: how do young men and women warm each other up inside mountain cabins in the winter?"
"No, thank you. If I embraced something that's fifty below zero, I'd freeze to death. Ask me again once you're a little weaker."
"No, not the toes. Why is this animal licking between my toes so thoroughly!?"
Oh, I think it's working.
It was looking like I wouldn't need to grab the Aoandon's head and use her as a candle for the Yuki Onna. I had been worried her phosphorescence wasn't really all that hot.
"Ah, ahh, ahhhhhh... Jinnai Shinobu is attacking me with an animal. It's the animal that is tormenting me, yet Jinnai Shinobu's will is working through the animal... H-how am I supposed to process these feelings? ...I-it's too much!!"
As the weird orange-glowing lizard or chameleon played around with the Yuki Onna's calf and toes, the frozen TV stand gradually thawed. At the same time, the Yuki Onna shrunk.
Once her usual bodylines were back, she slipped right out.
We had finally rescued her.
"Sigh... That was extremely silly, but maybe we should see it as odd that we're getting trapped by these silly things at this time of crisis. The Ver. 39's curse is frightening indeed."
"I feel like we've just started to blame her for everything unpleasant."
"More importantly, papa, what do we do now?"
"?"
I tilted my head at the Aoandon's question, so my far too well developed daughter clarified.
"For the big renovation project. We can't move on until we finish behind the TV."
"..."
We all turned toward the wet Yuki Onna.
She was the perfect size now and she would be slippery too since she was absolutely soaked.
"W-w-w-w-w-wait! Please don't all push me at once! I just proved I don't fit! Ah-ahhh!! Is this more of the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi's interference!? Mgyuhhh!?"
Part 8 (Hishigami Mai)
"Anyway."
"What is it?"
We were in a certain metropolitan area and I was a little chilly with just a jacket over my tank top and hot pants. The nature-loving Sunekosuri looked a little nauseous, so I started talking to distract him.
"Why are you still working for Hyakki Yakou? You found your wife Ohatsu, so you've returned your whole family to Gisuke. I don't see any more reason to stick around."
"I thought the same thing at first, " replied the Sunekosuri in my arms."But when I started collecting my things, I felt reluctant to leave. I had finished everything I went there to do and there was nothing more of value for me to do there, but I was still hesitant. That's when I realized that, while Ohatsu and Gisuke are important, that isn't all that's important."
"Oh? So you found a new objective while working in this underground business?"
"I'm not sure. The era is going to change and Hyakki Yakou is going to run across all sorts of dangers, so they'll want as much help as they can get. I just can't bear to turn my back on Hafuri-sama and the others and leave on my own. My family is important and they need a peaceful life, but...but that isn't all. I'm not just an accessory to my family."
"Those are some dangerous words."
"I know that. If Ohatsu heard me, she'd probably bite me for real. But I can't just return to the peaceful world and abandon everyone I've fought alongside for so long. I want to remain their allies and I want to remain a part of Hyakki Yakou. I can't lie about that."
The stuffed animal changed the subject there.
"What about you, Mai-san?"
"Me? This is purely business for me. The young lady and the Ver. 40 apparently went to open a hole in Noukotsu Village, but they paid me a fair bit in advance. I'm only doing as much work as they paid for."
"Even though the Japanese yen could be utterly worthless any day now?"
"..."
Oh, I see.
You've gotten some guts, Sunekosuri.
I carried my partner over to a tour bus with tinted windows parked on the side of a metropolitan road and I knocked on the door.
The Supplier who owned the special machine claimed it would let him survive even if an asteroid hit the earth and triggered an ice age, but now he was curled up in a corner of the giant vehicle.
"Mai-san, I screwed up. If I'd known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have worked so hard to build something that could endure on earth. I would have built something that let me abandon the earth."
"If you're gonna go that far, wouldn't it be faster to turn yourself into an octopus alien? I thoroughly modified my own body, so I could help you out."
"Mai-san!!"
"Ah, don't cling to me with tears and snot all over your face! I was joking! Just joking!!"
I did understand why the cowardly Supplier would be so afraid of the approaching extinction of mankind, though.
The Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi issue was ground zero, but the derivative moral hazards were nothing to sneeze at either. The commotion in the TV news, newspapers, and online news was only the tip of the iceberg. It had reached those of us in the underground businesses too.
Yes.
Underground businesses dealt in money as well.
It wasn't generally known (in fact, the very existence of the businesses wasn't), but the overall circulation of black money underwent changes too. That meant bubbles could form. Just like how the value of land and classic cars could skyrocket with no connection to the actual economy.
"So how are things going for you?"
"Probably the same as for you, Mai-san. Just looking at the requests I get makes me hate my life."
"I figured as much. I've been getting more and more people approaching me without using any real middleman like they have a death wish or something."
"Eh? Eh?"
The Sunekosuri seemed to feel left behind at my feet.
But I'm super nice, so I decided to help out the pretty Youkai.
"There have been a lot more requests to kill people. And the amount they're paying keeps going up. Of course, there's no real set price for underground jobs like theft and killing. It's a world of market value and suggested value. But those have been jumping all over the place and we've entered an age where people buy a single burger with a stack of cash. Nothing good comes from giving idiots a ton of money!!"
"B-but aren't you an agent that gets unofficial orders from Hyakki Yakou!? And they're giving you jobs as casually as ordering a burger!?"
"Some want me to silence their nagging mama, some want me to attack a teammate so they can take the regular spot, and the list goes on. It's like the price is skyrocketing while the value of the job is tanking. But if I don't do anything, I bet some other assassin will show up to do it. After all, these jobs are far easier than attacking some strictly guarded VIP after investigating their transportation route and bodyguard arrangement. And they still pay plenty. Those other assassins are probably still cautious since these might be traps, but anyone can make a ton of money if they throw out their pride."
The excessively high payments were probably stopping people for the time being.
People had a weakness for what they considered a fair price. For example, who would believe a 200 yen diamond was real? Before getting into the quality of the jewel, they would be blinded by the questionable price. The excessively high payments were the same. They would assume some ulterior motive and suspect something bad would happen to them when they showed up for the job.
But anyway.
Once the moral hazard burned through that normal suspicion, there would be no stopping it.
And did those amateurs innocently making requests like some kind of king realize that a client with no backbone could more easily make money by attacking them for everything they had than by actually doing the dangerous jobs? It was possible someone was already writing up a list.
"But that's not the worst part."
"Eh? Th-there's more?"
The Sunekosuri trembled at the Supplier's deep voice.
"The worst part is that the biggest increase isn't in that kind of casual killing. Yes, yes. It's been a while, since these jobs were coming in. And I thought I'd forgotten how the dark side of society could drag an individual's heart into such awful places."
"There's a lot of another kind of job, " I nonchalantly explained."Requests from cowardly people who want to be gently killed. It's from people like politicians and presidents of major corporations. The country is still celebrating the greatest festival it will ever see, but those with real power understand that this is the end of the world. Those in control of the world have all thrown in the towel and are spending their personal fortunes on suicide. Pretty harsh, isn't it?"
"..."
The Sunekosuri didn't seem able to ask any more questions.
Or maybe he was afraid of getting any more answers.
As I wondered which it was, a call reached my satellite phone. He was persistent, I'll give him that.
I hit the button to reject the call.
"A-are you sure, Mai-san?"
"It's fine, it's fine. Don't worry." I waved my hand dismissively."It's just a VIP of the Hishigami Group asking me to kill him. I don't have time to deal with his pathetic complaining."
The Sunekosuri shook violently, but it was hardly a surprise for the Supplier.
"Oh, so they're doing that 'aboveground' too?"
"I take it that means the same thing's happening 'underground'?"
"Juunin Toiro, Meikyou Shisui, Shinshutsu Kibotsu...and well, all the elders from groups like that. Although they have to maintain appearances, so they send the request under a false name and through several intermediaries."
That was why we were visiting him.
Although the Sunekosuri didn't seem aware of it.
"So that means...?"
"Yes." The Supplier nodded."They've used some tricks to hide it from the normal routes, but a few high-ranking members of Hyakki Yakou have made requests too. They feel they can (in a way) trust you, so they want you to kill them as if putting them to sleep. How long is this going to last?"
Hmm.
If people on that level have thrown in the towel, it might just last until the end of the world.
Part 9 (Jinnai Shinobu)
The work ended up taking two to three days.
I had been worried my impatient dad and grampa would drive out all the freeloaders (or that the Ver. 39 would manipulate destiny in that way to stop us), but they somehow managed to restrain themselves.
That was partially because I persuaded them, but it also had to do with help from my Youkai-loving mom and gramma. Then again, this too was probably due to the power to manipulate destiny.
But not the Ver. 39's.
I mean Zashiki Warashi Yukari's.
The two powers were in conflict. It looked like comical Youkai getting into trouble, arguments over whether to let them stay or kick them out, and a small-scale fight to save my girlfriend, but the scales actually held the runaway credit rating agencies, the collapse of the government bond system, and a global panic covering the entire planet's population of seven billion. That was just how much power the Ver. 39 had.
I couldn't let the adorable appearance of the local events fool me.
I couldn't let my guard down around these exhausting events.
What I had to fear most wasn't a ferocious beast's giant maw that could bite through steel and it wasn't a genius criminal with a nightmarishly clever mind. It was that I couldn't even reach the actual battleground. We were going to all this effort just to stand on that same field. We were walking on and on through the labyrinth and being pressed to give up on our own.
I had to keep going until the very, very end.
I had to save my girlfriend Yukari by freeing her from her bloodstained trait and from the Ver. 39's power which would bring ruin to the world.
I couldn't let myself leave those rails. No matter what.
So...
"Jinnai Shinobu!"
The Youkai may have been able to sense it better than a human like me.
The Package was complete.
The Aoandon called out to me from the side.
Either due to her experience in Hyakki Yakou or her senses as a half-Youkai, Hafuri picked up on something and shouted a warning.
"Hurry up and use this!! A great fluctuation is appearing! At this rate, you'll have at most one chance at this!!"
I glanced at what she threw toward me and saw the kaleidoscope spinning through the air.
The Aoandon and Hafuri were unable to say more.
Or maybe my sense of time simply vanished. I heard a sharp sound. Mei, the Zashiki Warashi in a white yukata, had started glaring intently at me in a way she never had before. She had done something. She had used the Ver. 40. But for what? I already knew she wasn't our enemy, so it must have been to protect me from something.
Even if I wanted to see what it was, I couldn't even turn my head while engulfed in the field of stopped time.
The kaleidoscope flew extremely slowly through the air and I sensed some new footsteps.
A red form approached from the tea room.
It was my beloved girlfriend.
It was Yukari.
But something wasn't right. The Good-for-Nothing Youkai stood just ten meters away. She hung her head a little in her red yukata, but it no longer had a flower pattern. Instead, it had human handprints. But not adult ones. The countless eerie handprints were of small children.
And it wasn't just that she had changed into a new yukata. The handprints moved freely along the surface of the yukata as if tracing themselves along my girlfriend's seductive bodylines. It was like a projection mapping on a building wall.
"What...?"
Red was the symbol of the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi, so was this the Ver. 39 running out of control?
Once I realized that, the presence of the spinning kaleidoscope grew much larger in my mind. It was the first and last piece needed to seal away the Ver. 39's ruinous power. Grabbing it would reject its destiny. That was why this paranormal phenomena had started and why the Zashiki Warashi had transformed. With each millimeter the kaleidoscope approached my hand, she had to be leaving reality at a quadratic rate.
The Zashiki Warashi's yukata had become a sea of handprints. Her ankle-length black hair began to move. Something danced within that hair that had the luster of polished ebony. They were bones. Specifically, human skulls. These too looked like they belonged to small children. They swam freely through that sea of fine black hair like the moon reflected in a lake at night. Sometimes a skull covered her bangs, sometimes one circled behind her with the long black hair acting as a screen, and sometimes one clung to the side of her head like it was rubbing cheeks with her.
Then I recalled that the Zashiki Warashi was an aggregation of the children killed during famines and the like.
She took the form of a sexy Youkai, but if someone like Majina of the old Hyakki Yakou broke her down into her original phenomenon, countless deaths would cling to her.
These had not attached themselves to her. They were coming out from within her.
That was why we had built the Package.
That was why I was attempting to grasp that first and last chance.
And the skulls swimming through her hair used a low, low voice to give me a simple but absolute command.
The voice seemed to come from the headphones she always had around her neck.
"Die."
It was filled with hopeless malice.
The almost childishly simplified statement was innocently sharp. That may have come from the mentality of those children killed to have one less mouth to feed.
Then the distorted sense of time came to an end.
My fingers finally touched the kaleidoscope.
I grabbed it.
"Yukari."
I called her name, but I already knew deep down that I wouldn't get an answer.
She changed again.
She passed some kind of limit.
She was now the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi. She was something meant to invite death to the world.
So I said more.
"I will bring you back. I will save you."
My senses returned.
A moment later, everything vanished.
Except for the Zashiki Warashi and me, the entire world became a tatami mat floor that stretched beyond the horizon.
It went far beyond the concept of projection mapping. My ability to verbalize it was about at its limit. Her long black hair slithered like snakes and hid more than half her face. Small decorative jewels glared at me like twisted eyeballs. Countless handprints moved across the yukata that contained her bewitching body. The entire world had been blotted out as soon as they had dripped from the bottom of the yukata like drops of water and reached the floor.
"...!!!???"
The tatami mats were bright crimson, as if soaked with fresh blood.
The heavens were pitch black, as if dyed with evil.
Flames flickered atop tall candlesticks lined up at even intervals as far as the eye could see. Those flames were the only light source. Candles were commonly seen as symbols of life or a lifespan. There was also the eerie legend about a Zashiki Warashi predicting a fire before its family declined and fell into ruin.
It was all so colorful and psychedelic. Everything grounded in reality had been erased from this world.
But I kind of understood. I had no proof, but I felt like I understood since I'd been with the Zashiki Warashi all my life.
A Zashiki Warashi manipulated destiny.
But they were not destiny itself. They were just the controller or the terminal. In other words, there was something deeper. You could call it the main unit or the server. We had been dragged up from the world we normally lived in and had reached a higher "stage" where that server lurked.
You could call it the hidden side of the world.
Or maybe it was the source code hidden behind the browser that gave it a nice understandable visual form.
It was possible I couldn't properly grasp what this place was using my five senses. It may not have actually been what I was seeing. It was just like how the ancient Greeks used a combination of animals when imagining a monster. I couldn't deny the possibility that it was just so psychedelic that the resources in my mind could only throw together some kind of montage to show me.
This was probably beyond what the human mind could comprehend.
What did this look like to the Zashiki Warashi who was always in contact with this?
But to my eyes at least, something pulsed down the surface of the candlesticks with each flicker of the flames and then slithered along the crimson tatami mats. I could not help but understand that this was causing "something" to happen in the world we knew.
Messing with that would destroy all of the emotions of the people working so hard to live day in and day out.
Then it hit me what exactly the destiny controlled by the Zashiki Warashi really was. I didn't even have to confirm it.
It came down to inevitable decline.
It was the idea that decline was inevitable for even the most prosperous person.
That concept had worked itself deeply into the Japanese psyche over a thousand years or more. Think of Dan-no-Ura, Honnouji, or Sekigahara. Even historic figures who influenced an entire era were forced to accept their own ruin as inevitable when the powerful, powerful fangs and claws of destiny reached them.
But there was nothing odd about it showing up here.
I mean, that's just what a Zashiki Warashi was. They brought prosperity when they arrived at a house and they drove the house to ruin when they left. They were truly the messengers of inevitable decline. That was a concept you couldn't remove or ignore when talking about a Zashiki Warashi.
There were beginnings and there were endings.
There was creation and there was destruction.
There was life and there was death.
There was no opposite pattern. It was inevitable, so it was only a matter of sooner or later. Whatever the speed, the gears could only turn in one direction and those gears were the true essence of a Zashiki Warashi. And as I was trying to forcibly turn those gears in the opposite direction with the kaleidoscope, the Ver. 39 seemed to speak to me.
It seemed to say I had successfully acquired your beloved and that was exactly why destruction must come to me.
It was truly awful.
The greater my success, the greater the absolute defeat that would follow.
It was the extreme form and original version of the childish idea that people had a fixed amount of luck so if something good happened, something bad was sure to follow.
Inevitable decline was a truly frightening sort of destiny. It was an unshakable malice and nothing could be more persuasive as every Japanese person understood it. Everyone assumed good luck would not last forever and often even wanted to see the successful suffer. The nail that sticks out gets hammered and we all fall equally. It was a subconscious aggregation of evil thoughts. It was a dark inheritance that no one had ever been able to throw out.
It could be the Taira clan and the Minamoto clan.
It could be Oda, Toyotomi, and Tokugawa.
Even if they had conquered Japan, that ultimate and solitary law would drag them down from the stage of history and force the end of an era onto them. In a way, it was a form of destiny that every Japanese person could picture just by closing their eyes.
But.
Even so.
That didn't matter.
I didn't care what it was. What I knew was simple but could not have been more critical. The Ver. 39 had been gently using natural shifts in destiny to interfere with us before, but it had finally decided drastic measures like this were necessary. It had brought out the handprints on her yukata and the skulls in her hair while showing off this hidden side of the world. This could not have been worse for me, but the same went for it. This dead end was also my best chance of turning this around.
And turn it around I will, Ver. 39.
I don't give a crap about inevitable decline. I won't let you turn this success into ruin. I'll turn this ruin into success. You could only settle in and leave and you could only give out and take away fortune on a whim, but I'll show you a new path.
That said, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do with the kaleidoscope.
But when I reflexively took a step toward the Zashiki Warashi, a change assaulted me.
"?"
The skulls used her headphones to howl emptily at me.
"Die." "Die!" "Fail." "Ah ha ha!!" "You're going to fail." "Are you stupid?" "Ee hee ha ha ha!!" "Why are you taking this so seriously?" "Die!" "Give up." "Everyone must die!!" "Stop." "Shut up." "You're an eyesore." "Shut up!" "The way you take this so seriously is just a pain." "Ksh." "Kssshhhh!!"
The deluge of noise lost all meaning and became a single cracked roar.
It was on the move. Faint drops of light ran through the Zashiki Warashi's long glossy black hair.
As soon as that light dripped to the red tatami mats, an infinitely expanding ripple instantly flowed to the horizon in every direction.
That was when it happened.
The way was forcefully closed. Countless translucent and glowing red sliding screens closed in from the left and right between Yukari and me. Some symbols were drawn on the surfaces, but there were too many of them to make out any individual one. I simply saw the Zashiki Warashi standing beyond that red color.
It looked like less than ten meters, but the infinite number of ultra-thin screens created an absolute wall in my way.
They were red.
They were bloodstained.
They seemed to be refusing anyone that would shake her existence, her coloration, and her essence.
"To hell with that..."
What did those screens mean and what were they really?
Why would I bother thinking about that?
"To hell with all of this!!"
I gathered speed and prepared to kick through them rather than open them.
Immediately, I felt my sense of time die once more. This second time, it finally occurred to me that it was much like the feeling of running out into the road and finding a tanker truck approaching you. It was a lot like having your life flash before your eyes. When I felt that and had the incomprehensible phenomenon surround me, I finally realized what those translucent red screens were.
Each and every one was filled with just as much "death" as a speeding tanker truck. An endless supply was lined up before my eyes as a barrier that I couldn't breach no matter how many lives I had.
Part 10 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
We had no choice but to do it.
We used the Yakata-II cruise ship's trading room to wage war with the Hishigami Group that was interfering with the satellite debris business by sending debris to the earth, including the nuclear batteries and tanks of dangerous rocket fuel. Seika-san and Madoka-chan bought up the rocket launch brokers they were trying to use while we made waves of posts on the message boards and forums people from that business used. We insisted that the Hishigami General Trading Group was doomed to fail and working with them would end badly.
There were plenty of ways to send something into space these days.
In addition to the rockets and shuttles managed by the government, there were projects by companies and universities that launched single-stage rockets from high-altitude airplanes or giant balloons that reached the stratosphere. Groups and organizations with the tech to leave the atmosphere were popping up like bamboo shoots after a rain.
That meant buying up and crushing each and every one would no longer work.
The infinitely expanding possibilities defeated our limited buying ability. We had to close off those many possibilities by informing the world that they would gain nothing by working with Hishigami. That was our only chance.
And yet...
"Warning: They're doing this to help us all, so why would you try to make them sound dangerous? Do you just want attention? Are you shilling for someone?"
"Squall: And when the killer satellites detonate to bring down the debris, won't the exploded killer satellites make new debris? It's like a perpetual motion machine! It's a never-ending lottery!!"
"Kitty Lion: If you're against this, you must be one of those people getting rich off the satellite debris. Yes, yes. Pay them no heed. Better luck next time!"
...
...
...
"Damn, it's no good! We're telling the truth, but they make us out to be the bad guys. How can they rejoice at a civilian project that's going to contaminate the entire world!? Do they want to see destruction that badly!?"
"You might not be that far off the mark, " muttered Enbi."There isn't some mastermind behind this. Hishigami is becoming something of a symbol, but they aren't directly manipulating the information. This is the overall will of the internet. They're averting their gaze from the destruction as they approach the cliff. Doesn't it look like they're enjoying the aesthetics of destruction? Just like how the ancient Greek empire had its fill of all kinds of entertainment and then decayed amid corruption and degeneracy."
"I refuse to believe that, " I spat out.
It may have been true Japan was enjoying the festivities. The network and the bonds magic trick had given them plenty of money, they had bought everything they wanted, and they had nothing else to spend their money on, so they were pouring money into this nonsense.
But that wasn't all.
In Intellectual Villages, there were plenty of farmers who created those valuable vegetables. There were also plenty of living national treasures. There were craftsmen whose metalworking could not be recreated by the precision machinery in the city and performers who continued the traditions of noh and kabuki.
In fact, it didn't matter if they had special qualifications or a name everyone knew.
It could just as well be the people working hard at convenience stores or gas stations. Or the daily paper boy and the delivery service for old folks with weak backs. There were plenty of people working to keep the gears of society turning without getting involved in these festivities!
And you expect me to believe they were drowning in desire and wished for death?
Nonsense.
People were free to grow world-weary and let their hearts fester if they wanted, but I couldn't let that subsection of the rich drag everyone else down with them!
This may not have been the core of the issue and it may not have mattered to Shinobu and the Zashiki Warashi, but no matter how far removed from the center this was, people were still suffering. Then how could I allow it to continue? I had to stop it here!
Enbi must have liked how I had replied so quickly because she giggled next to me.
And she spoke.
"Then let's continue our futile struggle to the very, very end."
Once the Mystery Freak said that, I heard a confused voice from Madoka-chan.
"We have some requests coming in. Um, they're from...PSI_ver_RAIN and Anemura Kaede???"
"Finally." The twintailed demon snapped her fingers."One's an online idol whose new songs reach thirty million views within twenty four hours and the other's a regular member of the national idol group Tarot Girls 22. With them on our side, we can change the direction this is headed! We can destroy this disgusting mood of pessimism!!"
Part 11 (Hishigami Mai)
A tremendous blow hit the Supplier's modified tour bus. The entire vehicle shook. My focus shifted to the handgun hidden in the heel of my boot. The large bus weighed a dozen or so tons on its own, so it wouldn't budge from a normal vehicle collision.
That meant something just as big had hit it.
The Supplier had been driving it around, but now he gave a wide-eyed shout.
"Mai-san! A twenty ton truck is attacking! Any ideas who it might be!?"
"Oh, honestly..."
I looked out the tinted windows and a call reached my satellite phone.
I kept rejecting the calls, but he couldn't take a hint!
"Hi, Mai. It's your brother. I couldn't bear it any longer, so I came to discuss it with you directly. Could you maybe destroy the Hishigami Group we've constructed!?"
"Kyou-chan, what happened to the reasonable-obsessed brother I knew? Not even the underground businesses crash their vehicles together like a Hollywood movie in this camera-filled city!"
"Hah hah hah. Didn't I tell you? We can only obey what people consider reasonable. Look at the city around you. This is spreading without end. We're approaching a world where this kind of dangerous driving is perfectly normal."
I heard screeching tires.
But it did not come from our bus or Hishigami Kyou's truck. A few fancy Italian cars had drifted through the intersection right in front of us. It looked like the drivers were college aged if not younger. And based on the roar of the engines, they had clearly been tuned to pro racing standards. These were not cars that should be driving on public roads.
If they lost control at that speed, the sidewalks would become a sea of blood in no time, but the crowds were cheering rather than screaming. They were starting to turn their smartphone and cellphone lenses toward the cars as they uploaded photos to their blog or gave commentary on a live broadcast.
It could not have been sillier.
"What counts as reasonable is only going to get more sickening." The voice seemed to be cursing that fact."Do you know what our company is doing now? We have no choice but to be dragged down with this god-awful moral hazard!!"
The heavy masses crashed together and sometimes knocked down telephone poles and streetlights, but I was focused elsewhere.
Specifically, the roof of the truck's trailer.
The bodyguards with names like Zei and Akane wore the kunoichi-like Yozakura suits while hiding below cloaks covered in patterns that used the science of perception to divert attention away.
"This isn't good. They're going to board us, Supplier!!"
"So please do something about this!" said my brother."Isn't that your role, Mai!?"
With those words, red Zei, blue Akane, and yellow Ran lightly jumped between the two vehicles and smashed through the reinforced glass to get inside.
Youkai medicine had been used to artificially implant these monsters with Hishigami Women traits.
I ignored the storm of glass shards and took a breath to prepare myself while Zei tossed aside her cloak and spoke with no expression on her face.
"Assist us, original."
"Oh, shut up. Unlike you artificial ones, I have no obligation to help a rich man with his hobby."
"That is fine."
I had not expected that answer.
Zei jerked her chin toward the truck.
"Throwing our lives away for Kyou-sama would be our greatest joy. His meeting with Uchimaku Hayabusa should have planted the seeds of a pleasant change inside him. We cannot allow that sprout to be trampled, even by Kyou-sama himself."
"..."
I fell silent.
As a ferocious wind entered through the broken window, the Sunekosuri ran back and forth in confusion.
"What do you want me to do?"
"That truck is not meant to destroy the target by crashing into it. It is a special vehicle created to carry something."
"Hold on. You don't mean...!?"
"Ou."
Zei spoke a name.
That name meant "slaughter".
"She is a failure based on the anti-human Hishigami Enbi. If she is activated here, this city of thirty million will be destroyed. Kyou-sama's rational side is just barely holding him back now, but if the reasonableness afflicting him grows any more distorted, there will be no stopping it. We want you to cut the storage pod from the truck before that happens."
Part 12 (Jinnai Shinobu)
"..."
I still didn't know what the screens were.
But the Zashiki Warashi's Ver. 39 power to control destiny had likely done something.
It was getting in my way, keeping the kaleidoscope away, and protecting its system.
It was using the law of inevitable decline to rob me of success.
"See?" "You failed." "You've failed." "No chance of success remains." "You will die." "You will fail." "You will lose everything." "You tried to act cool." "You tried to act important." "But you only embarrassed yourself." "So watch as you lose everything." "Reach for it." "Realize you can't reach it." "Die." "Die!" "Die!!" "Ksshh!!"
The skulls displayed in the Zashiki Warashi's black hair mocked me through her headphones. They were saying I'd fallen for their trap and stepped onto the rails of ruin on my own. And they did so with a childish sort of evil.
But...
"Ha ha."
You little brats.
Do you really think you can steal my girlfriend from me?
You might as well have already given me the answer.
If the Ver. 39 was working this hard to keep me away, there had to be a good reason for that.
I didn't know how to use the kaleidoscope.
I knew nothing about occult Packages.
If it hadn't done anything, I might have wandered aimlessly until I ran out of time.
But it had pointed my compass in the right direction.
And in the most difficult direction.
Thanks for telling me I just need to get close to the Zashiki Warashi, Ver. 39!!
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
I gathered enough strength in my body to break free of the seemingly stopped time brought on by the fear of death.
It felt like the very space around me was cracking.
But then red filled my vision.
——And deep within the rising fear, "it" truly assaulted me.
After a bright flash, I found myself somewhere other than the infinite expanse of tatami mats.
I saw nothing but gray dust for as far as the eye could see. It was a rural scene filled with every form of contaminant imaginable. In this land of the end, simply breathing in and out and simply blinking my eyes filled me with such intense pain that I thought fire was bursting from every hole in my body.
"Gblgh!! Agweh!! Glgah!!!!"
I somewhat understood.
This was the Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi.
She could control not just the current destiny, but create a brand new branch of destiny.
Those barriers.
Each and every screen contained an image of hell. It was those images that Buddhist monks drew on screens as a simple warning of what would awaited those who were excommunicated. Those screens of light had a thickness approaching on zero and they were filled with images of failed destinies, mistaken worlds, and hells.
So this was a parallel world that could have happened. It was the result of a mistaken choice on my part. For example, if I had relied on the CIA at Goldmine Island and the national suicide Package had activated, this is what would have happened to the Japanese archipelago.
The pain rushed at me all at once.
I coughed up blood, my blood vessels seemed to crawl below my skin, and I clenched my teeth.
Even so, I moved forward.
I bore the pain of an entire world and moved further forward.
——And "it" wasn't just the one.
I saw the world after the archipelago filled with zombies according to Majina's plan. The living dead grabbed at my arms and legs, bit into my flesh with teeth that reeked of decomposition, and tore me apart. Finally, I felt the fear of having my body rot from within.
I was swallowed up by that fear.
But I didn't care if my arms and legs were torn away or if my organs were dragged out.
I just had to move forward.
I had to keep going.
As I clenched my teeth and worked against the powerful headwind, I suddenly wondered what my enemy was here. I knew it wasn't the Zashiki Warashi, but it might not have been the Ver. 39 either. Countless handprints oozed out onto her yukata and skulls swam through her glossy hair. They would sometimes circle around to the back with her black hair as a screen, they would sometimes cover her bangs, and they would sometimes move the side of her face as if rubbing cheeks with her. But even they may have been a broken safety device running out of control. Inevitable decline. The hidden side of the world where forgotten destinies gathered. The fragments of the ages gathered here, from past events like Dan-no-Ura, Honnouji, and Sekighara to the "what ifs" where mistaken choices had led to ruin for any number of reasons. The entire world was swallowed and chewed to pieces, and the fragments gathered in this graveyard. Had this awful "something" been dragged toward us because the Ver. 39 had carelessly reached it and contacted it?
In that case, this fight wasn't about good or evil.
It was about putting a lid on the ruinous power pouring down on us. It was about closing the floodgates in a world of neither good nor evil.
I would do it.
I understood that. I understood it now.
It didn't matter what I was up against.
I would reach my one and only beloved Yukari no matter what!!
——"It" had a seemingly infinite number of layers.
In a world where I had failed to stop Archdemon Tselika Wien Alpha Chelydia Lumidrier who did not quite qualify as one of the seven deadly sins, I was swallowed up by such great sweetness that my entire vision grew bright red and I convulsed with blood pouring from every hole in my body.
"Gah...bah!! Khah!? Cough!!"
In a world where the Aoandon's plan had succeeded, I learned true exhaustion and weariness as I wandered endlessly through an empty rural scene where none of the Japanese remained.
"Ah, ahh, ahhhhhh...."
In a world where the worst of the deadly Youkai, the Aburatori, had taken control of time, space, and destiny, I nearly went mad from the psychedelic scene of organs hanging from the branches of every tree as far as the eye could see.
"Gyahhh!! Gyagahhh!?"
In a world where Kawabata Megumi, the old woman who had created the Aoandon in Zenmetsu Village, had succeeded with her plan, I felt the intense pain and fear of having my body thoroughly chopped to pieces by Kusanagi which precluded all defense and evasion.
"Oh, kh...! Khah!!"
In a world where Australian Witch Marguerite Steinhols had obtained the Succubus, I was continually afflicted by the dreadful sensation of having my soul rot thanks to Western magic.
"Ah, ahh..."
In a world where the Akki Rasetsu agent named Saijou successfully modified the Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake, she controlled all Youkai and filled me with the despair of having my body utterly devoured.
"..."
In a world where the coup d'etat of Hyakki Yakou had succeeded, I was overcome with the tremendous heat of all my body's protein boiling as the Illness Magic User took over the Fuuka Village hotel.
"....................."
——No matter how far I went, "it" never ended.
Worlds created by a wrong decision were slammed into me one after another.
As all the pain rushed to a single point, my body trembled so violently I thought I would bite my own tongue.
I had no idea how much time had passed.
I felt like I had been wandering for a hundred if not a thousand years.
But the true despair did not come from the pain or the fear itself.
I noticed something.
Even after all that, I noticed I had only moved forward a few centimeters.
"........................f........."
How much farther did I have to go?
How long would I have to do this before I could reach the Zashiki Warashi? In fact, who had even guaranteed that this would end after making it a certain distance? If the Zashiki Warashi...no, if the inevitable decline controlling her decided on a whim to take a step backwards, this infinite hell would grow even longer.
"He's given up." "He's given up!" "He's given up in front of his woman." "Throw him out." "Let's throw him out." "He'll break." "He'll break now!!" "Kee ha ha!!" "Yes." "You can't reach anything." "You can't reach it." "You'll just die." "Die!" "Give up." "Break already!" "Now." "Now!" "Now!!"
The white skulls swimming through her glossy black hair looked at me and mocked me through her headphones. Countless handprints crawled along the yukata that covered her ample bodylines. Her hair slithered like snakes and covered her face as jewels glared out like twisted eyeballs. This power did not hate anyone. It was not fixated on anyone. It was inevitable decline. It simply took and simply ruined. It viewed that itself as its goal, like it was appreciating some elegant aesthetic.
Could I really do something about that?
Could I overcome it?
I bit my lip, tasted blood in my mouth, and stared straight ahead.
The Zashiki Warashi was only ten meters away, but she seemed infinitely distant and would not approach me.
Could I endure this that far?
Wouldn't I crumble away into something like a lump of tar?
I would break. I would be destroyed.
If I let go, it would all fall into ruin. The world's destiny or evil spirit that was this law of inevitable decline would only give me a momentary flash of dark joy. I knew that, but I could not stop my heart from heading in that direction.
It was like a growing stomachache on the train when the next station was a long way off. It was like the rapidly growing thirst discovered the instant you stepped out of the sauna and saw the vending machine. The wall of my limit was approaching with tremendous speed. The last ten minutes I had overcome were nothing compared to the next minute I had to overcome. The strength it had taken to endure for a minute might be used up in a single second afterwards. The curve of rapid exhaustion seemed to have quadratic growth. Time itself seemed to be wearing down my fragile soul.
My very self wavered.
And even if I tried to rely on "someone else", I was trapped inside this subspace where the red tatami mats continued as far as the eye could see. The Zashiki Warashi stood before me in this alternate dimension that trapped me in dark death, symbols of ruin, and inevitable decline.
Was it hopeless?
What I sought was right in front of me and I held the kaleidoscope needed to overturn this, but I still lacked something needed to cover those ten meters. And I could never find whatever it was in this never-ending world of isolation!
But as soon as I thought that...
"I see."
I heard a voice.
I heard a definite voice in this world where I should have been alone.
"And? I hope you aren't foolish enough to add 'so I might as well give up'."
It arrived like a gust of wind that swept away the disturbing heat filling my head. Moving just a few centimeters had exhausted me to the point that I thought it would fry my brain, but now someone stood next to me.
What? Me?
He had a more solid build than me, he wore a lab coat over a suit, and he wore glasses that really didn't suit him. More importantly, his eyes were reminiscent of a thick swamp and he had some people standing next to him: Madoka, the Succubus and a short gray demon.
Wait...it can't be. Are you saying he stuffed Tselika in a machine and tamed her!?
But even though everything was wrong, I still reached a certain conclusion.
That was me.
It was Jinnai Shinobu.
I had never known that name could be defined so broadly.
"Is that anything to be surprised by? This is the singularity where the threads of destiny gather. It's the rule-breaking land where all parallel worlds are concentrated. So what's so strange about a meeting between two people who never should have met?"
I was dumbfounded, but then something else happened.
On the other side from him, I saw another new form. It was me, Jinnai Shinobu. However, this one was half my height and looked only five or six.
As soon as I noticed this alternate version of myself, I sensed a great presence behind him.
I didn't have it in me to look back, but I more or less knew what was there.
There had to be Jinnai Shinobus as far as the eye could see. Some might have failed in something and some might have succeeded in something. In the past or the future, they had each taken a different path than me. And altogether, we created a group of nearly infinite number to face those hellish parallel worlds.
"Each individual ruin is an individual death. If the combined failures of the individual named Jinnai Shinobu are the strongest barrier against this personal hostility, then we only need to negate each and every one. To put it another way, each world can only kill one of us."
"...Yeah."
"Simple, isn't it? It has to be. At least compared to the suffering of losing your beloved before your very eyes."
"Yeah!! I know that much!! I know the Jinnai Shinobu standing here...the Jinnai Shinobu that made it this far has to be one hell of a lucky guy!!"
We didn't need a cue.
Our thoughts were united.
"So I'll go for even the cruelest of options. Lend me your strength, Jinnai Shinobu!! I'll show you the gentle conclusion of the Jinnai Shinobu who can call her Yukari!!!!!"
Part 13 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
"PSI_ver_RAIN: If you actually think about it, this doesn't really make sense, does it? A group that wants to ban speculation on debris is going to send that debris down so people can collect it. Aren't they just admitting it's valuable? Won't the speculation just heat up more the more they do that?"
"Anemura email protected: Um, and is it really safe to have satellites falling down to earth? It would have to hurt if a piece fell on you, and even if that requires the same bad luck as getting hit by lightning, that would still mean some definite victims every year. Can anyone who knows more about it tell me the details?"
Those short posts changed everything.
The stagnant water began to flow.
"It doesn't look like a perfect solution, though, " said Madoka-chan in her sailor uniform."Those Hishigami people have set up a donation site. They're trying to raise as much money from supporters as they can to fund a launch as soon as possible! Even if the other companies are reluctant, this will let them buy a free pass with the power of money!"
"It's all over once they reach a certain amount of money. They'll be able to keep going no matter how much opposition there is."
"Like we'll let them do that."
"And how do you plan to fight them?" asked Mishima-san.
I gave a succinct answer.
"Fundraising on the borderless internet is actually a gray zone. If they're suspected of illegally transferring money, they'll have trouble finding supporters. We just have to hit them with suspicion. If people think they'll be complicit in something illegal if they take part, the donations will stop. Even if the police aren't functioning, the brand-name of the guardians of the law should still be effective!"
"Detective, don't tell me you're planning to post under your real name in this freely expanding internet society. The winds may have begun to change, but stir up people's animosity and they'll dig up all the data on you they can find!!"
"I've already asked civilian middle school girls to do the same thing."
I smiled a little and looked to the two posts from the girls who had helped out.
"The adults can't get cold feet now. These people are trying to send nuclear batteries and dangerous rocket fuel tumbling down to earth, so stopping them comes first!!"
Part 14 (Hishigami Mai)
Things had gotten bad.
The large bus and truck were still crashing into each other. Plus, the back of the truck contained Ou, a failure who would slaughter at least thirty million people. I needed to cut away that container to eliminate the possibility of her waking, but the problem wasn't the 80 kph car chase. It was all the eyes of Tokyo.
Working for an underground organization could be tricky.
So...
"Zei, Akane, Ran. Which one of you is the most useless?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Don't glare at me like that. And don't start grabbing at each other either! Okay, I'll be borrowing one of those camouflage cloaks that use the science of perception to trick the human brain and program analyses. I don't care what happens to you afterwards. You can grab at each other's hair to settle things amongst yourselves once and for all if you like. The weakest one who loses the game of musical chairs can stay here!!"
"Wait, Mai-san. A fight between women scares me even more than an asteroid! This is going to be absolute carnage!!"
The cowardly man's cries didn't matter.
I pulled the cloak over my head, picked up the Sunekosuri, and jumped out the broken window and onto the truck.
"U-u-um! Why did you throw me out here too!?"
"Stop it, partner. Did you think you could get out of this without playing a role?☆"
We stood on the joint connecting the front of the truck to the container on the back. The heavy metal connector was accompanied by a mess of cables to send signals to the rear wheel breaks and such. No, there were too many of them for just that, so they may have been related to Ou's storage tank.
Anyway, I just had to remove the cut-away safety lock and pull the lever, but...
"It's completely broken!? And there are marks from a gas burner being used!!"
"How can he say he loves being reasonable? He's completely insane."
If Ou awoke, thirty million people would die. That was certain. Plus, it was unknown how far the carnage would spread beyond that. And that of course meant he would die first there in the driver's seat. But anyway...
"So what do we do, Mai-san? Oh, you have a gun hidden in the heel of your boot, don't you?"
"That small caliber handgun can't break such a thick metal connector. And that's too much effort. I'll just break it with my bare hands."
"Waaah! You're as much of a monster as ever!!"
Although I had remade myself to deal with Youkai and not things like this, so I didn't recommend doing these things that would break my own body.
Then an irritated voice reached me over the satellite phone.
"Mai, are you ready? I would really rather not use Ou as a bargaining chip!!"
"Shut up, you stupid brother!! Do you know how messed up things have to have gotten for me to be the straight man!? And I can hear you grinning while you say you'd rather not use her, you unreasonable bastard!!"
"Yes, yes. So you still have that kind sort of reasonableness. I'm jealous. Yes, so very jealous."
He was hopeless He was completely self-absorbed.
There was no real reason to waste effort chatting with him.
I grabbed the metal connector with both hands and it produced an odd creaking sound. I prepared to pull it out, but...oh, dear. That wasn't good at all. My shoulders and back were creaking too. I was going to have to replace all of my arteries and muscles afterwards and probably check over my entire skeleton too. For a normal person, it was like swapping out everything but the brain and heart!
But my efforts weren't wasted.
The joint was like a mechanical dinosaur's backbone, but it was definitely beginning to change shape.
Just a bit further...
"Hishigami Mai!!"
Red Zei shouted to me from the bus where she was grappling with the others like her.
A moment later, something ran down my spine.
"!?"
As soon as I swung my head to the side, the container's thick wall was broken through from within. A wet and swollen translucent hand that almost seemed made of liquid pierced straight through the spot my face had just been in. It was not a fist or stabbing fingers. The hand simply grabbed at empty air. It was shaped like a child's small hand.
But I could tell what that stinging sensation was.
It was death, it was slaughter, it was Ou. If that touched me, it was all over. No defense or knowledge would help. This had nothing to do with the methods or efficiency of killing. It was death on the fundamental level of one's soul or core.
The flabbily swollen arm pulled back.
A pair of eerily glowing eyes pierced through me from the darkness within the hole.
If the hand had been pulled back, it would be coming again.
Just like an arrow fired from a drawn bowstring, the next attack was coming.
How much of the original Hishigami Enbi did this reproduce? 20%? 30%? Even with the Youkai medicine, I doubted it was even half the original. And this was what she could do? Sister, just how much of a genius are you!?
Sweat poured from my entire body, but I couldn't stop working now.
Once the steel egg cracked open, she would be freed.
At this point, she could still be contained.
So...
"Oh, ohh."
To be honest, Mai-chan probably didn't really need to go along with all this.
Thirty million people would die? So what?
Japan would be destroyed? What did I care?
I could always leave Tokyo, flee Japan, and pull out a beach chair and parasol to enjoy the final paradise on the other side of the globe. A Hishigami Woman could pull off that kind of unfair method.
But even so...
This wasn't about the Hishigami Women and it wasn't about business or the rules of our underground industry. I recalled what the Sunekosuri had said. His wife Ohatsu and son Gisuke were important, but that wasn't all. He wasn't just an accessory to his family and he had gone to Hyakki Yakou of his own free will.
Yes.
This must have been something that I personally wanted to do.
"Oh, ohh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
Part 15 (Jinnai Shinobu)
All the Jinnai Shinobus moved at once. They charged toward the "things" that were thinner than the thinnest paper and would hit you with an apocalyptic level of pain, fear, and despair when you broke through them.
With each Jinnai Shinobu's sacrifice, one layer was broken and we moved forward.
One after another, the parallel world barriers were breached and we continued on.
Every mistake was accounted for and every wrong decision was accepted.
No.
That wasn't quite right.
It was true that most of the Jinnai Shinobus had not made it this far.
But they had had their own endings.
——To overcome the worst case scenario of Japan being sold off, one had made a contract with Archdemon Tselika, made an enemy of the world, and finally been reunited with the Zashiki Warashi who waited on that contaminated archipelago.
——One had left the small world of Japan with Madoka and spent his time engaging in financial battles with demonic investors who seemed to embody the seven deadly sins.
——One had gained the direct fighting strength of the Yuki Onna, defeated and neutralized extremely deadly Youkai like the Shuten-Douji and the Nine-Tailed Fox, and used them as Shikigami.
——After the death of Nagisa's beloved dog had driven her insane, one had stuck with her to the end, managed to regain her sanity, and used nothing but human power to face the nationwide Youkai controller constructed by Akki Rasetsu.
——One joined forces with Marguerite and the Succubus and managed to rescue the other soul that had been hidden in her womb.
——One had stopped the Aoandon's rampage by teaching her of kindness back in Zenmetsu Village, had taken up the sword Kusanagi, and had fought alongside his "daughter" in the battle over the three Imperial Regalia.
——When Majina had completely stolen Hyakki Yakou away from Hafuri, one had used his Youkai-attracting trait and swore to the sobbing girl that he would create a new Hyakki Yakou that would never hurt her.
——One had built a time travel Package around the Aburatori, used it to prevent the Hyakki Yakou coup d'etat in advance, and truly protected a certain family.
——One had gone the widow route, fallen for Ver. 40 Mei rather than Ver. 39 Yukari, and retrieved her heart with a device that provided salvation.
——One had successfully seduced both Mei, who did not age, and Hafuri, who had grown up, and thought he had won the legendary oyakodon...right up until Majina's ghost came back from the depths of hell during the Bon festival and punched him.
——One, one, one, one...
They may have been different from here, but that didn't mean they were failures. Those were the results of the decisions they had made, but I had mistakenly seen them as obstacles and viewed them as hells. That had pissed them all off. They were insisting that they would take care of and look after their own worlds.
So I just had to look at my own world.
I had to look beyond all those other worlds.
I had to look to the Zashiki Warashi!!
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
I ran once more with the kaleidoscope in hand.
"No." "This wasn't supposed to happen." "Break." "How can you still stand!?" "No." "Wait." "Stay back." "Stay away!" "I'll crush you." "We'll crush all of you." "I'll crush every last possibility!" "We don't need those bright things." "I don't want to see them." "Because." "It wasn't..." "It wasn't enough to save us!!"
The children's skulls displayed in the Zashiki Warashi's black hair used the headphones to threaten us. The handprints moved about her yukata with none of their previous confidence. The twisted eyeball jewels rolled around inside the sea of hair covering her face. It was filled with impatience, anxiety, and rage. But that hostility sent out by the inevitable decline told me everything I needed to know. The end was near. I...we...Jinnai Shinobu was on the right path!
The many Jinnai Shinobus caught up. They passed me by. They smiled as they moved ahead and were burned by those many ruined parallel worlds and by their true hellfire that lay beyond different decisions that, to me, looked mistaken.
So the fear faded.
My sense of rivalry overcame it.
Even if we were all Jinnai Shinobu and even if we all wished to save the Zashiki Warashi, she was mine.
I wasn't going to let any other Jinnai Shinobu touch her!! I wasn't going to let them save her in my place! Even if none of those other conclusions were any better or worse, I was the one that had chosen this and made it this far! So how could I let them take the best part? I was the only one that got to take that Good-for-Nothing Nee-chan in my arms and call her Yukari!! Let me have that much pride, you idiots!!
I clenched my teeth.
I raced desperately forward and reached out my hand.
I broke through all the screens and all the red-dyed images of hell.
I raced across the countless battlefields.
And at the very last moment, I thought I felt a push on my back. I didn't have time to look back, but I had a feeling someone was smiling there. Another Jinnai Shinobu who had made a different decision and couldn't reach this point was leaving something with me.
He was telling me to make my dream come true, to not let her cry, and to put the biggest smile on her face.
Then that seemingly endless distance shrank to nothing.
I held the Zashiki Warashi in the red yukata tightly in my arms.
She was as limp as a doll.
The small skulls and handprints wriggled across her.
No one had told me what to do with the kaleidoscope.
I didn't know how Youkai worked, I didn't know the details of the Package, and I didn't know what kind of techniques or tools supported them.
But the destiny of inevitable decline had wanted to reject that salvation. The skulls in her hair, handprints on her yukata, and jewel eyeballs in her serpentine hair had most wanted to keep me from approaching her. It had put all sorts of obstacles in my way to keep me from doing that. It was like throwing a detective with brilliant deductive skills onto a battlefield with shells flying everywhere or throwing a veteran martial artist into a gag space. Having me fight out of my element had acted as a barrier.
That was what the infinite parallel worlds had been.
They had been nothing more than distractions to get me to lose sight of my goal.
So I just had to stay focused. I just had to look to the Zashiki Warashi and seek what I wanted in the very beginning. It didn't matter if it was out of place, inappropriate, or embarrassing. That kind of self-restraint was nothing more than interference from the destiny of inevitable decline. When I was trying to continue forward like normal, the magnetism and attraction of the situation would guide me off track.
I couldn't let it affect me or sweep me away. I had to stay true to myself.
It didn't matter how pathetic or silly it was.
This had to be the one and only correct answer in this world that was scattered with as many options as there were stars in the sky. I had to trust in myself after my decisions led me this far!! I didn't have the power to save the world, but I had managed to choose the one path that the million other Jinnai Shinobus hadn't been able to. So I needed to be proud of that! It was something I could truly be proud of!!!!
Further strength entered the arms that held the Zashiki Warashi.
I felt her pulse.
The countless handprints didn't matter and the white skulls had fallen silent.
I focused on her face as she looked unsteadily up at me.
We weren't enemies.
She wasn't a threat I had to defeat.
I couldn't forget that.
Yukari was my girlfriend.
And when I was with her, I just had to do what I most wanted to do.
With that alone in mind, I gently placed my lips on hers.
It was like a switch had been thrown.
I heard a deafening sound and the never-ending world of red tatami mats was immediately blown away.
The handprints on her yukata, the skulls in her hair, the serpentine hair, the jewel eyeballs, the inevitable decline, and everything else were gone.
The unpleasant noise from her headphones had grown silent too.
Part 16 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
I gulped with the Mystery Freak and the others as we viewed the screens in the cruise ship's trading room. We focused on the message boards that had grown quiet, as if the previous commotion had never happened.
"Does this mean...?"
Part 17 (Hishigami Mai)
In a certain metropolitan area, I watched the container roll away after it broke through the chain link fence of an industrial complex. I wiped the sweat from my brow while clinging to the rest of the truck with the Sunekosuri. That monster was only sleeping and I doubted that would be enough to kill her, but...
"...It's over for now?"
Part 18 (Jinnai Shinobu)
I kissed the Zashiki Warashi.
What purpose did that serve?
Perhaps it was important that the creator of the kaleidoscope made physical contact with the Zashiki Warashi it was targeting.
I didn't need to know the answer. It had worked and that was all that mattered.
Her full body weight leaned against me.
The next thing I knew, we were inside the familiar tea room of the thatch-roof house. We were surrounded by the Umbrella, Lantern, Tanuki, Fox, and plenty of other Youkai and the Zashiki Warashi seemed embarrassed having so many creatures around her. I could feel her squirming in my arms.
We were back.
We had faced inevitable decline in the graveyard of the world built by the remains of the countless destroyed eras that lay beyond an endless labyrinth of "what ifs".
But we had escaped that terminal of intersecting destinies and returned to our normal life.
"Shinobu, this is a little embarrassing."
"Ha ha. Sorry, sorry."
"And I thought something tasted rusty, but you have a cut on your lip."
She brought her finger to my lip and looked at what got on her finger.
"See? You have all this white blood on there."
When I heard those words, I pulled her close again and pressed her head to my chest.
"Sorry..."
I had messed with her head.
And I hadn't wanted her to see the look on my face when I accepted that fact.
"What is it, Shinobu?"
That considerate question could almost be called innocent.
But I was unable to answer her and simply held her tighter in my arms.
Then I bit my lip again and said more in my heart.
Even if it meant dirtying my hands, I just couldn't accept a future without you.
| ← Ch. 75 | Ch. 77 → |