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V12 Story II – Part 02

When I opened my eyes, I saw the pale pink sky through the curtains.

Mayuzumi’s room was bathed in the bright morning light streaming through the window.

I slowly sat up. The pile of junk around me had lost its eerie quality from last night.

What had looked like a monster’s arm in the shadows turned out to be a bicycle handlebar. But it was still unnerving to think about why such a thing was in this room. The floor around me was stained with red.

Lifting my blood-soaked shirt, I saw my abdomen had been closed. Uka was calm as well. Last night’s events seemed like a bad dream, but the bloodstains remained. Sighing, I rose to my feet.

I glanced at the grandfather clock buried in the clutter. I couldn’t tell if it was accurate, but the hands showed it was past two o’clock. Apparently, I had been unconscious for more than half a day. I changed into the suit I had placed in the corner of the room. Closing my eyes, I checked my condition. I was low on blood but I could manage.

I opened the door and passed through the dim hallway towards the living room where Mayuzumi was. As usual, she was lying on the leather couch.

She was covered in flowers. Her outfit was adorned with numerous roses, and delicate flower garlands were placed on her slender ankles. She was swinging her legs boredly.

“Mayu-san, sorry about last night,” I said. “You saved me again. Thank you.”

“Hmm? What are you talking about, Odagiri-kun? I didn’t do anything. Are you losing your mind? More importantly, what were you doing until this hour? To be tardy when you slept in the office is quite remarkable.”

Her words left me confused. She should have closed my belly last night. Or perhaps, for Mayuzumi, that didn’t count as ‘doing something.’ Feeling something off, I opened my mouth, when I heard the sound of the front door opening. Footsteps approached.

I whirled around. Someone appeared in the living room. Seeing his face, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had given him a spare key earlier.

“Hello, Odagiri-san, Mayuzumi-san! I brought some afternoon snacks!” Saga Yusuke said, raising a convenience store bag cheerfully. The pain in his leg seemed to have finally subsided.

The bag in his hand was packed with steamed buns. Come to think of it, he had impulsively bought steamed buns before. Looking back and forth between Mayuzumi and me, Yusuke for some reason made a solemn face and took out a steamed bun. He started munching on it.

After finishing one, he opened his mouth with a serious expression.

“So, did you decide what to do while I was gone?”

Mayuzumi and I exchanged glances. I said nothing. Mayuzumi remained silent as well.

I hadn’t stopped Mayuzumi. She seemed to have sensed that.

She looked at Yusuke and gave an indifferent shrug.

“Yes, we’ve decided what to do. Whether we actually do it is another matter.”

Her skirt flapped as she reseated herself on the leather couch.

Then, Mayuzumi began to detail the plan I had been avoiding.

“We’re going to use the alleyway to open a portal to the spirit world,” Mayuzumi declared, crossing her legs.

Yusuke, sitting next to me, nodded gravely. At some point, Mayuzumi had picked up her parasol. She used it like a staff, studying us.

“If we use a space that’s already connected to the spirit world, we can specify the range of the portal. It’s like putting duct tape on glass and breaking only that part. If you open one randomly, you’ll get a shallow and irregular break. We were lucky to find a good spot. Otherwise, we’d have had to choose some enclosed space and transmute it. Previously, the Mayuzumi clan had set a trap that half-transformed a hallway into the world under certain conditions. That consumed a lot of resources. Now, we have no support from the clan. And backlash is inevitable.”

Mayuzumi shrugged as she looked at me. As far as I knew, there were two ways to transform the real world into the spirit world.

The first method was to create many supernatural artifacts, tipping the scales. The real world couldn’t hold many supernatural artifacts. If you made too many, the creator would be forcibly moved to the spirit world along with them. But if you stopped just before that point, you could create a space where the real world and the spirit world blended. The second method was gruesome. You could smash a naturally occurring rift by offering a sacrifice and brutally killing them. I wondered which method had created that hallway.

Ignoring my unvoiced question, Mayuzumi continued. “If we connect the specified range to the abyss, it will become a door to the deepest part of the spirit world. It’s hard to open a door from the spirit world to the real world. If we open one from this side, it will be just what the scarlet woman wants. She’s greedy and arrogant. When the door opens, she will eagerly come through. If we let Odagiri-kun’s grown demon eat her real body, I might have a chance to survive.”

“You’re going to feed a demon to a demon?” Yusuke turned to look at me. He seemed to grasp something from my tense expression. He raised one hand high.

Mayuzumi pointed at him like a teacher. “What is it, Yusuke-kun?”

“Isn’t that dangerous? I got a feeling it’s gonna be a spectacularly bad idea.”

“Indeed Even I don’t know what’ll happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t exceed its capacity.” Mayuzumi responded casually.

Silence descended. To break it, Yusuke moved one leg, tapping the floor with his toes. He was racking his brains. After a while, he raised his hand again.

“Question. Before having it eat her real body, can we weaken it or reduce the amount it has to eat? Like chopping her limbs off, or something.”

“In theory, it’s possible. The woman, having died once, had gained a distorted body and form in the spirit world. She’s not human but a demon. But as long as she has flesh, we should be able to touch and tear her apart.”

“Gotcha. I think war is about numbers, so we need as much strength as we can get. Speaking of numbers, what about getting help from creatures made of ink?”

“That’s not possible,” I said. “We received word from a Minase member. We can’t count on her help anymore.”

Yusuke fell silent. He tilted his head from left to right in confusion, then opened his mouth. He turned to me with an amused look.

“You’re kidding, right? No way. She would definitely want to come if you were in trouble. She even came to help me, so why not you?”

“She’s the head of the Minase clan. She can’t ignore the clan’s desires. Besides, I made the same decision.”

The clan would desperately try to stop Shirayuki. Shiramine’s death had left a deep wound. I couldn’t beg her to abandon the clan and help me. Even if I could, I didn’t want her to get embroiled in this mess. I wanted her to live. That was my only wish.

Yusuke scoffed. “Odagiri-san, do you know what you’re saying? She’ll be furious.”

“I know. But I won’t drag her into this. Do you want me to tell Shirayuki-san to abandon the Minase clan and fight for me, possibly dying in the process? Absolutely not.”

Yusuke fell silent once more. He started thinking. After a few seconds, he sighed and ruffled his blond hair with one hand.

Taking a deep breath, Yusuke shouted at the ceiling. “This is sooo complicated! Oh, well. It is what it is. Dragging the clan head alone sounds impossible. I doubt they’d let me through anyway. So, then.”

Yusuke cracked his neck and sprang to his feet. He waved at Mayuzumi and me, then started walking toward the hallway.

“Hey, wait a minute, Yusuke. Where are you going?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I have a place in mind, so I’m gonna try my luck. I’ll probably… definitely be back by dinner.”

“What place exactly? And which is it, probably or definitely?”

There was no answer. Leaving with a vague promise to return by dinner, he left. Only I and the silent Mayuzumi remained in the quiet room. The answer to whether or not I’d participate in the plan bubbled up in my throat. It was there already, but I hadn’t fully committed to it yet.

Feeling conflicted, I said, “Mayu-san, I—”

“Excuse me! Hello? Can I have a moment?”

I raised my head with a start. Yusuke must have forgotten to lock the door. A girl had entered the room without us noticing. She wore thick glasses and a gray long coat, giving a plain impression. Her neatly cut black hair bounced as she looked around.

“I saw the door open, so I let myself in. Is this the right place?” She inclined her head.

My brows furrowed. There was something seriously odd about this girl. She was clutching a sunflower-patterned plastic bag, out of season, to her chest, wrapped in her coat.

The bag, supported by her thin arms, sagged under its weight. It emitted a faint metallic scent. An unmistakable smell of freshly dead animals that did not suit a young girl at all.

“What can we do for you? Do you have a case for us?” I asked cautiously.

“A-A case?” The girl looked confused. “Huh? Oh, no, no, no. It’s nothing like that.”

She waved her hands in front of her face. The sunflower-patterned bag shook ominously, distorting the design. If she wasn’t here for a case, there was no reason for her to visit the office. I stayed on high alert. The girl readjusted her grip on the plastic bag, which released even more of the iron scent, and smiled.

Then, she said something completely unexpected.

“I’m here to meet the fox. Where is he?”