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V13 Story II – Part 10

“Is the dog feeling sick, Mommy? No, it’s feeling hungry, my child.”^[1]

Words from the past flashed in my mind. I swallowed hard. A starving beast was dangerous. Uka growled warily inside me. Clutching the basket tight, I pushed my legs to move faster. Asato was already on the veranda. He turned to look past behind me, squinting.

I could feel the child moving again. Every step I took crushed flowers underfoot, but they sprang back instantly. The flowers here had forgotten how to die. If I were caught, I wouldn’t even be able to die properly. Fighting the pain in my gut, I sprinted across what felt like an endless distance.

Asato was waiting by the open sliding door. The look on his face saying, “What are you doing?” infuriated me. My slow pace was this thing’s fault. I heaved the basket with all my strength and flung it inside, hair and all. It narrowly missed Asato as it hurtled through the air. He turned around. Entrails spilled out onto the tatami mats, but at least I didn’t drop them along the way. I tossed the bag slung over my elbow and dove headfirst into the room.

I rolled across the tatami and turned just in time to see the white child leap after me, her drool glistening like threads in the air. Her wild, unhinged expression looked nothing like a human’s. Our gazes met. Her hungry eyes bore into me with a hint of delight.

Bam!

Asato slammed the sliding door shut, blocking her nose just inches away.

The white child collided with the door, smearing it with red streaks that could’ve been juice from crushed flowers. She slid down, landing on the veranda. Immediately, she tried to claw her way through the screen. But the door didn’t move. It stayed completely still despite the noise.

It felt like we were in different worlds, separated by the thin paper screen.

“This is the nest of a different curse,” Asato said. “It’s not easy to enter someone else’s body.”

I glanced around and realized something was off. The room was bare—no baskets, no signs of anything I’d expected. The organs and hair I’d tossed earlier were scattered across the tatami. As I grabbed the bag nearby, I noticed a dark shadow cast over the organs. Fearfully, I lifted my head, and my breath caught.

A dark blue parasol lay open on the tatami. Its surface was pristine. It wasn’t the one Asato had dropped.

The navy parasol materialized without warning. Unflinching, Asato pulled the eyeball from his chest pocket and tossed it like a casual pitch. It rolled and settled against the pile of organs. Next, he flung a pair of lips, which fluttered like a butterfly before landing in the stomach acid. Finally, he threw the left leg; it spun once and landed squarely on the tatami mat.

“It was torn apart, stitched together wrong, fixed the right way, turned inside out, and eventually fell apart again. But it hadn’t been long since it first entered the spirit world. Time holds no meaning here, but unlike the others, it managed to keep its form. It found an open door, slipped out of hell, and built this chaotic nest.”

Apart from Asato’s resonant voice, there was no other sound. The noise produced by the child bumping into the shoji had also ceased. The dark blue parasol gleamed in the oppressive silence.

“It’s forgotten not only its own death, but also the shape of its body. It tried to reconstruct its room as a hiding place, but it built several rooms, one for each severed body part. With no memory of anything beyond its own room, it scavenged fragments from its surroundings, haphazardly piecing them together. The flowers joined in, creating this hellscape. This endless loop we’re stuck in is just a reflection of its confusion.”

Asato nudged the parasol with his toe, almost mockingly. Beneath it lay a disjointed assembly of body parts—an eyeball, lips, hair—but nowhere near enough to make up a whole person. Still, there were at least parts from head to toe. The source of the curse that created this space had forgotten how many pieces made up its own body.

Asato flashed a wicked smile. “As you wish, I will remind you what you used to look like. Remember how your body was split into upper and lower halves when you were carried out,” he said melodiously.

After a momentary silence, the organs twitched violently. Flesh shrank as if seared on a hot skillet, then relaxed. Stimulated, the heart convulsed, spraying blood, while hair coiled around the lips, as if devouring them. As I watched this grotesque frenzy, a memory surfaced: I knew of someone toyed, mutilated, and lost in the spirit world. She was a member of the Mayuzumi clan.

“Asato! Let me handle this! Sit back and cover your eyes!”

“Shut up, Odagiri. I know what you’re thinking. But who do you think killed her? Don’t dump your sentimental nonsense on me. I’m sick and tired of your self-righteous attitude. This is my moment. I don’t particularly care about her, but I do have some questions I’d like to ask.”

Ignoring my protests, Asato went on, “If you’ve got something to say, then speak. Wake up. What do you have to say to the person you’ve repeatedly wished to become Mayuzumi Azaka?”

The organs shivered, then began to fuse, grotesquely devouring one another. The eyeball sank into the heart, a stomach sprouted from the left leg, and lips clamped onto intestines. Suddenly, the disgusting fusion stopped.

Then, the stomach began to absorb the tatami. It was pulled in from one end of the esophagus, undulating softly as it vanished into the stomach. When it was expelled, it had transformed into a different organ.

The organs multiplied uncontrollably, like cancer cells, discarding parts deemed unnecessary. Hearts doubled and vanished. Gills sprouted only to melt away. The twisted parody of human evolution ended with gray brain cells encased in a skull. The upper and lower halves, built separately, began pulling together, intestines knitting the pieces. The wounds closed.

When the bizarre transformation ended, a woman lay sprawled on the tatami. Slowly, like a frightened animal, she rose. The navy blue parasol rested on her shoulder. Her stern face gently tilted, long black hair spilling over pale, gaunt cheeks. Hollow eyes stared at Asato. Her thin lips parted, and a thin line of drool ran down her mouth.

“You…”

“Yes, it’s me. Long time no see, Mother.”

Wearing a serene smile, Asato looked down at the woman he had killed.

The former Mayuzumi Azaka—Asato’s mother—shuddered under his piercing gaze.

“Yes, that’s right, Mother. It’s me—your son, the person you forced to become Mayuzumi Azaka. The one who killed you.”

Asato’s introduction was bold, devoid of any shame. The former Mayuzumi Azaka just shivered. I wasn’t sure if she heard or not. She hugged herself tightly as if cold, squashing her sunken breasts. She looked at Asato and shook her head, her face twisted in terror.

“You’ve grown so much… b-but are you really… you?” she murmured incoherently. “Mayuzumi Azaka… scarlet woman… sacrifice…? I-I never thought… not this… not a toy… please, just kill me… please, end it…”

“Calm down, Mother. There’s no reason to be confused. You’re already dead. The scarlet woman discarded you. She’s got her eyes on a new toy, one much better than you ever were. You’re no longer needed.”

“No… longer… needed? What? I escaped? Can I? You? Really? Hmm?”

“Yes, you can vanish now, and no one would care. You’ve always overestimated your worth, dancing like a clown, suffering alone.”

The woman abruptly stopped her delirious mumbling. She tilted her head, and a strand of black hair fell on the bridge of her nose. She stared at Asato with foggy eyes.

“This is a problem,” Asato sighed, his tone laced with amusement and exasperation. “Unlike my sister, I don’t have the means to make her disappear. If she stays like this, what are we supposed to do? You could just wish her away, but I know you. You’re too much of a hypocrite to do it, aren’t you?”

“Asato… do you really feel nothing at all?”

“Feel what?” Asato cocked his head.

I remembered when we first learned about the previous Azaka’s tragic fate on the island. Asato had shown no reaction then. But now, after seeing her torn-apart body, it was easier to imagine what she had gone through. And yet, Asato’s smile remained. Even before the utterly broken, he continued to sneer.

I knew a little bit of Asato’s past, but it still felt like an icy blade pierced my chest. The sight before me was unbearably painful.

“She’s… She’s still your mother,” I said.

“And she’s the woman I killed—the first person whose blood stained my hands. An animal who forced her obsessions with Mayuzumi Azaka onto me, twisting my life beyond recognition.”

Asato reached for the parasol on her shoulder. She didn’t move. He lifted it and rested it on his own shoulder. The dark blue parasol was just an imitation. Carrying it was nothing more than copying the real Mayuzumi Azaka.

After this pointless gesture, Asato turned to me with a cock of his head. “What do you know, Odagiri?” He sounded genuinely curious.

Nothing. I knew that much.