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V6 Story II – Part 07

After Mayuzumi closed up my belly, I started walking.

My stomach, fused with the flesh of the departed, was like a chamber of the spirit world. Once my belly was closed up, the wound healed. While the wounds disappeared, the pain still remained.

Enduring the pain, I pressed on, clinging to Mayuzumi’s hand. Without her support, I would collapse. Her pale hand was wet from the red dripping down my arm.

I felt countless eyes on us. The girls were everywhere, in the room and the hallway, observing us without moving an inch. It seemed as if their arms and legs were buried in the walls. In my eyes, most of the walls and hallway were shrouded in darkness, which made it appear like their bodies were the walls themselves.

“Make sure you don’t fall over,” Mayuzumi warned. “You don’t want to agitate them. If you do, it won’t be pleasant. They’re hungry.”

How could she even say that after stabbing me in the stomach?

I held my tongue. I could give her a piece of my mind later. I needed to conserve my energy for what lay ahead.

Mayuzumi stopped at the room where I first met Mukai. I peered closer and saw something lying in the center of the room. Something red and white.

Mayuzumi regripped the parasol in her left hand and reached for something. I heard the sound of rustling cloth and something wet being stirred. She pulled out a silver object and turned back around without a word.

I trailed after her, my hand still held in hers. I wanted to ask about what I just saw, but the weight of the girls’ gaze held me back from voicing my questions.

Mayuzumi led me outside. A cool, night breeze brushed against my skin. We moved away from light of the porch and into the garden, where the darkness grew thicker until I couldn’t see anything. Only the warmth of Mayuzumi’s hand anchored me to reality.

I couldn’t see her hand, but I knew it was there.

I forced my legs onward so I wouldn’t get left behind. It felt like if I let go of her hand, I would get lost in the darkness. I didn’t know how long we walked.

“Stop,” Mayuzumi suddenly said. “Wait here.”

There was a familiar sound. I searched my memories and realized it was the sound of a car’s trunk being opened. My fingers touched cold metal. After checking its shape, I was convinced it was a car. It probably belonged to Mukai’s son.

“Can you carry this, Odagiri-kun?”

Mayuzumi grabbed my hand once more. I took a few steps forward. My hand touched the trunk. Feeling its shape, I put my hand inside. I felt the texture of cloth beneath my fingers. I checked the shape again and again, and then lifted it cautiously.

I carried the body of the late Mukai.

The faint stench of death assaulted my senses. His body was light. I was struck with the realization that he was indeed an old man. Mayuzumi’s palm came to rest on my arm, urging me to move forward.

“It might be difficult to walk like this, but I want you to carry the body to the house,” Mayuzumi said indifferently “Once you do that, our job is done. If we leave now, they will come after us. I’m counting on you.”

I stepped into the darkness, but to my surprise, it wasn’t difficult to navigate.

White naked bodies loomed like eerie markers in the murk, girls on all fours lining up to show us the way. Their identical figures continued all the way to the house, a nightmarish sight that made my stomach turn. Mayuzumi and I pressed on.

The scent of sweet olive filled the air. Orange dotted the surroundings.

And there, amidst the falling petals, she lay waiting, watching us with quiet eyes. Mayuzumi stopped in her tracks, and I placed Mukai in front of the woman. Taking a step back, Mayuzumi removed the cloth. I could hear it falling.

The woman glanced at the contents and closed her eyes, bowing deeply to us.

It seemed like a gesture of gratitude. Shortly after, she approached Mukai’s corpse, trembling as she clung to it. I couldn’t hear her crying, but her lips moved all over his body, seeking comfort.

Mayuzumi turned around without saying a word, then took my hand. I followed her lead.

A squelch came from behind us, but we didn’t look back.

The girls remained in formation, motionless and quiet. Suddenly, they began to stir and scuttled into the house, swallowed up by the dark. One by one, their naked bodies receded into the void.

Everyone was gone.

There were only the two of us left.

---

We walked through the darkness.

There were no streetlights in the area, so I let my hand guide me forward. Mayuzumi was moving away from the house, it seemed. Clutching her hand, I followed the sound of her footsteps silently.

Neither of us said a word, until eventually Mayuzumi broke the silence.

“Killing someone won’t get you judged, but if you get killed, you can’t complain. He was right. But he didn’t realize that it applied to him as well. Ah, how foolish.”

Her words made me realize that what I saw back then was the man’s remains.

What happened to him? Who were those girls?

Overwhelmed with questions, I spoke up. “Mayu-san, who were those girls? Why… How did Mukai’s son die?”

Mayuzumi’s response was unexpected. “Do you recall what Mukai said about her… about his children?”

She gave me a completely different answer instead. Frowning, I tried to remember what the old man said. Not his adopted son, but his children. Mayuzumi must be referring to them.

“She recently gave birth.”

“The screening ended the other day, and they’re being raised inside.”

“He only raises the females,” Mayuzumi explained. “That’s what the screening is for. Mukai was trying to raise strong children in the deepest part of the house by having them devour each other. And the parent let them out. Despite being hungry, they listened to the strongest among them.”

I had observed that those girls were, in fact, the woman’s children. They looked very much alike. It answered my question, yet at the same didn’t. Mayuzumi was not giving it to me straight.

“Odagiri-kun,” she continued, “your eyes were mentally destroyed. Right now, different images are superimposed on your field of vision. It’s likely that the child inside you is projecting what she senses in the vicinity. You are practically blind. But sharing your vision partially with her creates vague images. Additionally, when you reflect on the information obtained by the child, your mind affects it, rendering things incomprehensible.”

Her sudden explanation of the nature of my visual impairment was astonishing. Indeed, the baby had its own vision. When Shiramine attacked the Minase household, I saw the world through the eyes of the child. Normally, we saw things separately, but since I was practically blind at the moment, our visions overlapped, albeit only partially.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to know right now. The girls’ figures and the man’s death raced through my mind. I wanted to know what happened in that house in a way that I could understand.

“We can talk about that some other time,” I said.

“Why did she appear so clearly in your eyes? The answer is quite simple. The baby had a keen interest in her. Furthermore, you subconsciously figured out her true nature, and your eyes expressed it as a crawling woman. That’s why you saw her as a lady. And a beautiful one at that, most likely. Fitting, I must say.”

My question and her explanation clicked. But her words sounded odd.

I swallowed, my guts turning. Sweat oozed in my palms. I saw red blood.

It must’ve felt uncomfortable, but Mayuzumi didn’t let go of my hand. In the darkness, her touch suddenly felt eerie.

“She was vital in Mukai’s corpse disposal business,” she said matter-of-factly. “You smelled smoke in the garden, didn’t you? All Mukai had to do was burn the scraps in an incinerator. He spent his whole life training that thing and lived with his greatest masterpiece.”

I finally understood. Mayuzumi was seemingly ignoring my words, but she was trying to answer my question.

She was telling me the true identity of the countless beings in that house.

“What he created has a long lifespan, intelligence, and listens to what others say. It doesn’t die even after giving birth. That aspect might be rare. The most common kind spins webs and waits for prey. But she was a roamer, frequently wandering around the house.”

Mayuzumi looked over her shoulder. Miraculously, my vision was restored. In the darkness, I saw a pale and beautiful face, red lips curved into a cruel smile.

Mayuzumi was smiling eerily. Her face dissolved back into the darkness.

“Do you get it now?”

Her smile alone remained in the blackness.

Her answer to my question reverberated through the endless night.

“They were spiders.”