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Story V – Part 17

The man’s memories and emotions stopped being transmitted. The thing inside me laughed. The man brandished his knife and charged straight at Mayuzumi. I couldn’t move. Right when I was about to scream, the knife flew into the air. Not understanding what happened, I lifted my head.

Then I saw an unexpected sight.

Yuusuke was standing there, bat at the ready.

“Why are you helping me, Yuusuke-kun?” Mayuzumi asked. “It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t make sense to me either.”

He deflected a second knife. Yuusuke rotated his hips and aimed for the man’s head. The man shifted his body, dodging the attack. But because of the difference in reach, he couldn’t get close to Yuusuke. Behind the man, Asato cracked his neck.

“Can I ask you something too, Yuusuke?” Asato said. “Did I do something that warranted a betrayal?”

“No, nothing at all. Sorry for quitting on such short notice. But I don’t really lose much by betraying you now. Asako-san and Aki are no longer around. I don’t really care about life anymore, so I thought I’d take the side of the people I want as friends. Though if you really want a proper reason, it’s because I quite like Odagiri-san.”

After making a thoughtful face, Yuusuke smiled. “I felt kind of glad to see this naive, inexplicably stupid, foolish, and absolutely ordinary person come back to this place. That’s right. I like how he came face to face with hell once more. There’s nowhere to run to for someone who has seen hell while still alive. It’s not fair that I’m the only one left behind. I’d feel lonely.”

Yuusuke swung his bloody bat, grazing the man’s shoulder. Apparently, Yuusuke thought we were alike.

Asato shook his head slowly. “I see you still attract the weird ones, Odagiri.”

“You and I both picked him up, brother,” Mayuzumi cut in. “It’s probably in his nature to attract the odd ones. If he’s a fortune slip, he’s the easiest to draw. You don’t take a liking to anyone, yet you pulled him at random. There’s nothing to the slips themselves. There’s just a reason he’s so easy to pull.”

The corner of her lips lifted. As if mocking him, she went on. “It must have been very frustrating for you. There are easier ways to kill me, yet you pulled some strings to have my mother killed.”

“I did. But you didn’t react to it.”

It was then that it hit me. The victim that was over thirty. The dead body that caused Mayuzumi to be summoned to the main family’s residence was her mother.

She saw her own kin gutted cruelly.

Mayuzumi scoffed. “You think I’d react to that? I’m an Azaka. An Azaka by birth. I would not mourn the death of who was once my mother.”

For the first time, Asato’s eyebrows twitched.

“Please don’t provoke him,” Yuusuke said. “I beg of you.”

But Mayuzumi continued regardless. “Your methods are too roundabout, brother. Isn’t that why you went to the trouble of using that ugly man? He wants to kill me, so you’ll let him? You don’t care about what you want? Ha, you’re not fooling anyone. You’re the one who wants to kill me. The same goes for the name of Azaka. Your mother didn’t force you to it. For years, you’ve wanted to kill me, clinging to the name Azaka. Those ugly desires belong to you and you alone. That is just like you. I bet it was the same for him. You had fun? Stop lying already. You already know the truth.”

A cat-like grin appeared on Mayuzumi’s lips. It was the sneer of a beast toying with its prey.

“You didn’t want Shizuka to take him, so you took the initiative to bring them together, and then destroyed their relationship. You didn’t want anyone else to take what was yours again. Having the title of Azaka taken away from you was that traumatic. So despite choosing him randomly, you decided to break your toy once you realized someone would take it. You played with them, destroying the possibility that they would one day be fixed. But before you could completely destroy Odagiri-kun, I picked him up. First, it was the Azaka name, and now, Odagiri-kun. Once again, I took what you thought was yours. Am I right?”

Mayuzumi burst into laughter. Ruining her usual smile, she laughed with heartfelt joy, clutching her stomach.

“You locked him somewhere from away from me, and tried to get the demon out of his belly. You wanted to use it as a powerful shikigami that you could use freely. But you didn’t have to do anything while killing me. If he didn’t save me, if he didn’t believe in me, I would have died. Just like with Shizuka. You just wanted to recreate the same situation. How stupid. Utterly ridiculous. You’re a fool, brother. You are nothing but a savage with filthy desires stuffed in his heart,” she said with a condescending look.

Even when chained around her neck, she looked like a supervisor looking down on her subordinate.

“You really think someone like you can become an Azaka?”

Silence filled the room. Asato’s face was completely frozen. I stared at his face, speechless. I wondered if Mayuzumi’s words were true or not. Asato’s mouth curving into a gentle arc gave me the answer.

A look of complete stillness. Like the fox mask.

“Kill her,” he whispered.

He spun his parasol. It tipped forward, then fell backwards the next moment. And like a puppet with a broken string, Yuusuke fell forward. His eyes widened as he was dragged by something invisible.

The ugly man brandished his knife and rushed at Mayuzumi.

Even in the face of her own death, she was still smiling.

“I see you will never change, Mayu-san,” I mumbled, lifting my body up.

Suddenly my belly pulsated, and something heavy fell out. My stomach felt lighter. Something wet squirmed on the floor.

Something was born.

And my vision darkened.

---

I stared vacantly at the screen in front of me. After fainting, I ended up back in the dream I was having. Most of the screen was broken and emitting smoke, probably because the spell had been broken. The gray cage that had imprisoned me was crumbling. Images of the past flashed on the screen occasionally. Shizuka and Asato appeared and then disappeared. Right beside it, on the screen displaying the man’s daydreams, the present was showing. The fog that had been hanging over the man’s mind must have cleared. The screen showed the man’s vision, and in the flashing footage, Mayuzumi was smiling. Then I noticed.

There was someone sitting in front of the screen.

A naked child was clapping its hands. It seemed to be happy, laughing innocently. Watching the broken screen, it laughed when it showed Shizuka and me. Little hands touched the screen with glee.

I heard the sound of flesh sticking together.

Their newly-developed hands were wet with blood and amniotic fluid.

“Mama,” it said a high-pitched voice. Small hands touched the screen again and again. “Papa.” The child laughed.

Then I noticed my belly felt strangely light. I looked down and saw a big hole in my stomach. I could see my bowels, but no blood was coming out.

“He wanted to take it out while keeping you alive. Put it another way, it’ll probably be bad if you died after giving birth.”

Mayuzumi’s words came back to me. Asato probably did something to me so that I wouldn’t die even if the demon came out. I was grateful for not feeling any pain, but seeing my insides made me feel sick. The child was clapping its hands still. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stared at it. Then, the child turned around.

Its mouth curved into a smile.

The child looked like Shizuka.

Its red eyes were burning like will o’ wisps.

“Papa.”

It was a girl. Tiny hands reached out. I felt sick, repulsed.

Did I give birth to this monster?

“Papa,” the child said.

Stay away. Don’t come near me.

Before I could start streaming, I noticed something. Its face had Shizuka’s features.

While its black eyes resembled mine.

“Your child.”

I remembered what Asato said.

“…Is this child mine?”

“Papa…”

The child started crying. I just watched it blankly. Then I walked towards it and lifted it up. I was afraid that something terrible would happen, but contrary to my expectations, nothing did. As I picked up the heavy child, it began squealing and laughing. A strange pressure ran through my body. It was a similar sensation to when I laid eyes on Mayuzumi with her red parasol.

This child is a monster.

It’s not human.

I could tell just by holding it in my hands.

It grabbed my hair. I looked at the screen beside me. The man was running towards Mayuzumi. Her collared neck came closer and closer. The knife’s blade glinted off her eyes. The image moved slowly but surely.

My hair was pulled once more.

The child was staring at me, looking at me expectantly. Something ran down my spine. It was fear, and realization.

The kid recognized me as its parent.

“…Hey.”

I realized that the child didn’t have a name. I thought about it for a moment.

“Your name’s Uka. How about it?”

It was my first time coming up with a girl’s name, but she liked it. Relieved, I continued on. I laughed at myself, and for what I was about to do. But my mind was already made up. I remembered the moment I took Mayuzumi’s hand. My instinct to live drove me to make that choice.

Even now, it was still the same.

I’m not sure if this is the right way, but…

“Uka?”

“Hmm…?”

I breathed in and out.

And I admitted that the monster was unmistakably my own child.

“If you can… would you help your father?”

The child smiled.

The screen shattered.

The glass boundary broke, and color came to the world. My vision tumbled, separating itself from the man’s. His face was now right in front of me. The child opened its mouth wide. Flesh pounded, and teeth that were just beginning to grow peeked from within.

Then the child devoured the man.