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V12 Story I – Part 07

A girl in black stood with a red parasol on her back.

In the darkness, she wore a vague smile. But something was off about her appearance.

Her otherwise perfect body was missing a left arm. The murky severed end was hard to see.

What happened? What had she gone through? Before I could ask, an illustration came to mind.

This was the scene depicted on Mikage’s card. It was probably an image I conjured from the ominous illustration. As proof, the faintly smiling Mayuzumi didn’t move. She just stared at me silently without saying anything.

As I gazed at her standing there, I recalled a prophecy.

“Mayuzumi Azaka is destined to be killed.”

The words I had heard countless times echoed in my ears. But I couldn’t bring myself to believe them. No matter how many times it was repeated, no matter how often I saw the scarlet woman, it all seemed like nonsense to me.

They said Mayuzumi Azaka would inevitably die. They said Mayuzumi Azaka would be brutally killed. They said… They said Mayuzumi Azaka offered no salvation. She said she had no memory of saving anyone.

Thud.

“Ugh.”

Slammed hard against something, I woke up. My whole body ached dully. I opened my eyes and looked around. City lights flickered in the distance. I was lying on hard concrete.

A cold wind brushed my cheek. I was on a rooftop. I desperately searched my memory for the moments before I lost consciousness. Mayuzumi’s face wavered vertically and disappeared. Sugita had grabbed me and hoisted me up to the roof. As an evil spirit, he had become a monster that anyone could see and that could touch the living.

I was lucky to avoid being hanged on the way to the rooftop. But perhaps that was to be expected.

After coming in contact with the scarlet woman, she likely amplified Sugita’s grudge from when he was still alive, and imprinted his subconscious with a desire to kill Mayuzumi Azaka. But it was me he took. He couldn’t tell people apart.

His cognitive abilities had deteriorated. He couldn’t adopt a new method to kill me, like strangulation.

Evil spirits sometimes simply repeat their actions from when they were alive.

“It was to make someone who didn’t want to jump, jump.”

When he was alive, he had thrown Yamashita Kazue off a rooftop.

A chill enveloped my ankle. There was no distinct feeling of flesh, but I was being pulled along. I instinctively clawed at the rooftop. My leather gloves shredded, and pain shot through my fingers. Despite my desperate attempts to hold on, Sugita ignored my physical resistance and forcibly dragged me. I looked back. He seemed to be muttering something.

Unlike Yujiro, whose throat had been crushed, Sugita’s hollow voice barely formed words.

“I… I… I… Yukiko… ooo…”

I recalled the summer incident. The first time Yamashita Yukiko’s organs fell, in the height of summer.

It was Mayuzumi who told Sugita that Kazue had killed Yukiko. She would answer any question if asked. No matter how trivial the question might be. She didn’t care what happened as a result.

She didn’t goad people. Whether someone killed or didn’t kill, or jumped from a rooftop, it was all up to them.

Despite all that, she would easily push people from behind. Not out of goodwill or affection, but simply because she wanted to witness someone jumping to their death in front of her.

She gave Yamashita Yukiko a 100-yen coin for that very reason.

Somehow, everything circled back to me. My memories blurred, bile rose in my throat, and my brain began recalling details on its own. The rooftop was where it all began for me.

I had once watched Shizuka jump off a building. Then, the fox shoved a womb inside me.

Organs fell from the rooftop, Yukiko Yamashita jumped, I got stabbed in the stomach, and Mayuzumi laughed ominously.

“I hope you die.”

“When the time comes, I will.”

Our past exchange came rushing back. Mayuzumi Azaka would be killed soon. Those words from before were now becoming a reality. Then, a thought came to me: perhaps everything was happening as it was meant to be. As proof, Mayuzumi never lamented her fate as unreasonable.

But I…

“Gah, ugh.”

Once again, I was thrown. As I hit the edge of the rooftop, my muddled thoughts vanished.

There was no fence, probably because it wasn’t meant for people to access. I desperately clung to the protruding edge. My head was enveloped in a chill. With a weight pressing down on me, my upper body hung over the side of the rooftop.

Did Sugita press down on Kazue’s head like this, hesitating? It was fortunate I wasn’t immediately thrown off, but death was inevitable at this rate. He had ultimately dropped her.

Knowing it was futile, I still strained my arms. With each breath, sticky sweat and saliva fell to the bottom of the building. My rough breathing sounded like it belonged to someone else. I looked down at the alleyway, and my eyes widened.

Amid the flowers was an unusual red. It looked like a particularly large and vibrant flower, but it was Mayuzumi’s red parasol. A person in black stood beneath it. Standing in a sea of red, she looked like a drop of ink in a pool of blood.

Mayuzumi watched me in my perilous situation as if she was gazing up at the stars.

An unfounded suspicion filled my mind. Did she want to witness another person jumping off a building?

I knew that it was nothing but paranoia born from fear, but I couldn’t definitively deny it. Mayuzumi Azaka was arrogant, cruel, and selfish. She was an awful creature, and a heartless person.

Her thoughts were beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. Trusting her was a mistake.

Still, I…

“Why do you look so calm, Mayu-san?!” I shouted.

There was no way my words could reach someone like her. Nevertheless, I yelled at her, half-desperately.

Like I always did. Back in the office, where I had thrown countless insults at her.

“I’ve had enough already! It’s your fault I got dragged into this in the first place! You always stay quiet while I’m dying! Can’t you be worried just this once?!”

“…da…kun…”

I thought Mayuzumi said something.

“What?! I can’t hear you!” I shouted back at her.

To my surprise, I managed to make out her lazy voice.

Mayuzumi put her hand to her mouth, “What am I supposed to do?” she shouted back irritably.

She was likely wearing a frown. Her small shoulders rose and sank as she sighed. Then, she looked up at me.

“Besides, even if I did nothing, you won’t die anyway, will you?”

My hair was grabbed, and my head yanked back. My belly arched.

Papa? Are you okay?

With searing pain and a rush of blood, Uka emerged from my belly.

My stomach tore open on its own, spilling my insides onto the floor.

The baby that crawled out of my abdomen transformed in midair.

The changes were more glaring than before. Her short limbs squirmed like lumps of clay stretching, and her flesh expanded with a disturbing noise. Her spine arched at an unnatural angle, and she doubled in height. Her breasts swelled like ripe fruit. Black hair covered her back. The grotesque, rapid growth defied the laws of nature.

Moments later, Uka’s transformation was complete. A girl of about fourteen crawled on the rooftop and rose to her feet. Her soft soles slapped against the concrete.

She crouched down with fluid grace. Without a second thought, she reached out her bloody and amniotic fluid-covered hand towards me and smiled.

“Papa, are you okay? Are you okay? I came to help you.”

Her words were clear and purposeful, unlike anything I’d heard from her before. I took her pale hand, stunned. But my legs wouldn’t move, likely due to the excruciating pain in my abdomen and the loss of blood. Uka tilted her head. Then, with extraordinary strength, she pulled me up. I didn’t even have time to scream. I stood on trembling legs, nearly vomiting from the pain. Smiling, Uka let go of my hand and turned around.

With her black hair flowing, she narrowed her eyes. Sugita, who had jumped back from Uka, stood a short distance away. Staring at him, Uka let out a low, animalistic growl.

“Don’t hurt Papa. Papa is mine. Papa is mine. Mine, mine…”

Sugita stared fixedly at Uka. He turned his neck, which was tightly bound by a towel.

The twisted skin split, and black blood seeped into the towel. His bulging eyes quivered, and something oozed from the gap between his eyeball and eye socket. Blood-mixed tears fell. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Sugita was crying. Staring intently at Uka, he shed large tears, one after another.

His split lips parted. From the abyss of his throat, he squeezed out a hollow voice.

“Y-Yukiko, Yukiko, you’re here…”

“What…?”

My eyes whipped back to Uka. Indeed, her skin was fair, and her hair was long and black. Judging by parts alone, she resembled Yukiko more than Kotori. Since I killed Kotori, Sugita had likely lost the idolized figure he clung to.