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V12 Story IV – Part 06

Mayuzumi and her mother vanished. Only the chocolate remained, floating in the air. The floral-patterned wrapper fell on the black ground, which was hard as colored glass.

Splat.

Black blood oozed from the wrapper. The contents had somehow transformed into soft organs. Red-black flesh protruded halfway out. Viscous blood quivered.

“Those with strong Mayuzumi blood sometimes develop a taste for human flesh. Like the head of the family who, after getting lost in the mountains while hunting demons, ate someone alive in a state of desperation. Chihana was a good example. The current Mayuzumi Azaka was originally the same. But as you know, she showed no interest in human flesh. Why was that? The progenitor in the spirit world is a creature that eats flesh. Therefore, the current Mayuzumi Azaka in the mortal world is the opposite. Her personal preferences were suppressed by the influence of the progenitor, leading her to favor substitutes. This is the result.”

The masked girl lifted her slender leg and stomped on the meat on the road. The contents splattered out, releasing a sweet scent. The contents had somehow turned back into chocolate.

“Melted chocolate resembles flesh… you thought that yourself more than once,” the masked girl said sweetly.

She bent down on her knees and dipped her fingers into the crushed wrapper. She pressed her wet fingers to the lips of her mask, spreading the dark brown substance like lipstick. I couldn’t tell whether that dark line was chocolate or blood.

“The current Mayuzumi Azaka never realized this. She thought of her preferences as her own. But her unhealthy diet started the moment she saw that melted chocolate in her childhood. Her brain, intensely stimulated by the scene, began to see it as a substitute. In other words…”

The masked woman lifted her head high and looked down at me arrogantly. Somehow, she had matured. A voluptuous figure stood against the darkness.

“Do you understand, Odagiri-kun?” she said in a soothing voice. Her mask had no clear expression, but it was undoubtedly sneering. “The current Mayuzumi Azaka is merely a reflection of the scarlet woman. A mirror image from the spirit world that shouldn’t exist in the mortal world. So, Odagiri-kun, think carefully. Would it not be natural for her to be by the progenitor’s side? Like a child returning to its mother’s womb.”

Ting.

A bell rang in response.

The masked woman fell quiet again. A heavy silence descended. Heaving a deep sigh, I clenched my left fist tightly and started walking. Uka followed, pouting in displeasure.

Step by step, I approached the masked woman, stepping firmly on the black floor. In this twisted space, a large hole could open up beneath me at any moment. But I managed to stand in front of her without incident.

Without a word, I took a cigarette from my chest pocket. I wasn’t sure if I had a lighter, but I found one after some searching. Lighting the cigarette, I took a long drag and held the smoke in my lungs for a moment. Then slowly I exhaled it into the air. The smoke diffused gently into the darkness.

Before it disappeared, it unraveled from the edges and turned into tiny, white sugar grains that scattered into the void.

Holding up the shortened cigarette, I extended my arm…

Sizzle.

…and pressed it to the masked woman’s forehead.

She didn’t react. She just stood there, motionless and silent.

Watching her ambiguous expression, which seemed both smiling and angry, I said, “The narrator in the fox mask appeared because they had a past they wanted to share. But all you’ve done so far is talk about someone else. What exactly do you want from me by talking about Mayuzumi Azaka? Just cut the bullshit. It’s getting really tedious.”

Ash slid down the mask. Suddenly, the woman’s body began to quiver. Her shoulders, covered in a red kimono, lost their shape abruptly. Darkness spilled from within like thousands of ants crawling out.

There was a sharp sound, and the mask fell beside the kimono. Nothing remained afterward.

The narrator had disappeared. But the voice continued unchanged.

“Oh dear. You’ve become quite the heartless person, Odagiri-kun. It breaks my heart.”

She was chuckling for someone who had their heart broken. The kimono gradually started to melt.

The fine fabric turned gelatinous, ultimately transforming into eerie disturbing folds of flesh that blended with the walls, painting the surroundings red. But even as the blood-stained space was completed, the woman did not reappear.

I desperately searched for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Her sweet voice alone continued to drift in the air.

“I would love to keep you company, but she has escaped. Though she can’t leave my womb, her powers are similar to mine. I suppose it’s her way of giving me trouble. She’s a tough one, to be sure.”

Those words made my breath seize in my throat. She was probably talking about Mayuzumi. Was she safe? I broke into a run, but Uka grabbed my hand, making me stop. My arm almost came out of its socket, and I screamed. I looked over my shoulder to see Uka staring ahead cautiously.

“This place is chaotic, transforming according to human thoughts,” the muddled voice continued. “I was hoping that if you allowed it, we could get to her together. But since you refused, I will search for her on my own. Well then, I no longer have any obligation or reason to keep you company.”

Suddenly, the voice ceased. At the same time, something red appeared high above. It floated like a camellia tossed into a whirlpool, swaying left and right in the air, before finally falling to the floor.

Plop.

A kimono caked with blood and mud wriggled, and a young woman emerged from it. She looked up at me. She had a face very similar to Mayuzumi’s, yet different from both the First and the current Azaka.

When I saw the fierce light in her eyes, I realized who she was. The scarlet woman when she was young. She stared intently at Uka, not at me. Moments later, she opened her quivering lips.

“I haven’t seen a demon grow this much,” the scarlet woman said. “A demon by nature that is still alive. It’s a rare occurrence. Even the daughter I gave birth to died without taking in a single breath.”

She was different from the woman who laughed arrogantly deep in the spirit world. The woman I knew had no sense of morals. As her only solace in eternal life, she sought Mayuzumi girls, who bore the blood of demons. They resembled demons but were not. To confirm the difference within, the scarlet woman dismembered, reassembled incorrectly, fixed, and flipped them inside out.

There was no compassion in her actions. But as I looked into the young scarlet woman’s eyes, I recalled something.

“What I seek is a demon like myself.”

“A being that can laugh endlessly while gazing at red flesh for eternity.”

Did she really just want a toy she could break? This place was too lonely to continue living in solitude.

“You wouldn’t break or go mad, would you? Won’t you come with me?” She was almost begging.

Uka tilted her head, confused. But in the next moment, her face contorted in fear. She hid behind my back, shaking her head wildly. Her hair tossed back and forth.

“No! No! Stay away! I love Papa. I love him very much!”

The woman’s face twisted hideously at Uka’s rejection. She swallowed the words rising up her throat and snapped her fingers.

Uka’s body shrank. It was like she was being compressed, returning to the size of a baby. In an instant, she entered my abdomen, as if pulled by an umbilical cord. The tear healed on its own. A chill ran throughout my body.

“Uka!” I shouted, clutching my stomach. “What did you do to her?”

“Calm down. I simply returned the demon to your belly and closed it. The current Azaka could do as much, couldn’t she? Ah, how vexing. Truly vexing, Odagiri-kun. I am genuinely in a bad mood for once. How is it that you, a mere human, are so liked by non-humans? By a cat, a dog, a fox, a lump of flesh, espers, demons. And by the inhuman Mayuzumi Azaka.”

I disagreed. The fox hated me. Not all espers liked me. Mayuzumi Azaka didn’t particularly like me either. I felt the same.

I didn’t like her selfish and arrogant nature. You could even say I hated her. She never listened to me, and I didn’t try to understand her.

I hated her from the bottom of my heart, but I never truly despised her.

“If they did like me…”

The words escaped my lips. Faces of the people I’d encountered flashed through my mind—the ones who had died, the ones who had left, the ones who had stayed. If some of them did like me…

“It’s because I wished for them to live.”

I wished for peace around me. I hoped the people I knew would be happy. It was an incredibly difficult wish, but it was the only one I held onto. Even now, that wish hadn’t changed.

If, in the end, they liked me because of that, there was nothing more gratifying.

“I see. So what of it?”

The scarlet woman regarded me with a sweet smile.

“I get it,” she said softly, gently. “Goodbye, then.”

And then, she vanished, leaving me all alone. I quickly readied myself. Holding my breath, I strained to sense my surroundings. But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

“…What?”

And so, I found myself completely alone in the deepest part of the blood-soaked spirit world.