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V7 Story III – Part 03

And so it began, the extermination plan to rid the world of the gods. The goal was to eradicate them before Shirayuki could even detect their presence.

With the total number of gods unknown, sweeping them all was a daunting task. But reducing their numbers was a start. The first step was to return to the office and get Shirayuki out before she stumbled upon any gods. Then, the hunt for them would begin.

I bolted out of the room and down the stairs. And there, I spotted Aya. She was outside, sweeping the ground with a broom under the clear sky. Her short ponytail swayed back and forth. A deformed rabbit was smiling on the chest of her apron.

“I could really go for a mushroom-filled hot pot on a day like this! Oh, if it isn’t Odagiri.”

“Y-Yeah. What’s with the singing?” I asked.

“It’s the ‘What do I want to eat today’ song. The hot pot part changes depending on the day.” Aya replied, puffing out her chest for no apparent reason.

At her feet lay a plastic bag crammed with trash and dead leaves. Autumn had passed, so it was considerably less full.

“Good timing, Odagiri. There’s something I want you to see,” Aya said, bending down to pick up the plastic bag.

Did she want to talk about how to separate garbage? Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that right now.

“Sorry, but we’re in a hurry,” I said. “Can we do this later?”

I knew that rushing wasn’t going to help, but we couldn’t afford to waste any time. Aya’s ponytail bounced up. She lifted up the plastic bag.

Something was moving among the leaves.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“Aaaaaah!”

I screamed, holding my head. Inside the bag was a god moving its legs rapidly. But its efforts were futile; it was only sliding on the plastic.

“It fell on my head earlier,” Aya said. “I picked it up, but my memory is still missing some pieces. I just can’t remember what this is.”

“I-If only you could remember,” I replied.

I clearly missed a few. Thank goodness Aya noticed it. The captive god was no longer able to escape.

I grabbed Aya’s shoulder and begged her, “Please throw it away in the trash, and don’t let it escape.”

“Huh? Is this a harmful bug or something? Harmful and black… so a cockroach?”

She was completely wrong, but I didn’t feel like correcting her. More like, I had no way to explain it.

It would only cause a massive problem if Nanami found out about it.

“S-Something like that! Well then, I’m counting on you!”

We sprinted away without clearing things up for her.

Aya cocked her head. “I see. So this is a cockroach. I’ve become a little smarter again!”

I felt really bad.

The extermination plan was going to be a long and tedious process.

---

I slowly opened the door to the office and crept inside, the watchful eyes of three people fixed on me from behind. Even Hirugao kept silent, her face grim.

I peered into the living room, and was surprised to see that Shirayuki wasn’t around. Only Mayuzumi lounged there, legs crossed, sipping hot chocolate.

“Hey there, Odagiri-kun,” she said. “Weren’t you supposed to be out with Yukihito-kun and the others? I thought you were heading straight back to your place.”

“Um, well, I had some business to attend to… Where’s Shirayuki-san?” I asked nervously.

Why was she gone? Maybe she just went out for a bit.

“She left,” Mayuzumi replied nonchalantly. “Said she reserved an inn somewhere. I suppose that’s where she’s gone. I managed to convince her not to see the fox.”

Her words brought me relief, in more ways than one. I was so glad that she managed to convince Shirayuki.

Smiling faintly, Mayuzumi dropped a square-shaped chocolate into her cup, using it as a substitute for sugar cubes. “She was also concerned about you. The reason she wanted to see the fox was to confirm his true intentions and to know the identity of that white child. But she seemed worried about the thing between you and the fox, too. She was deeply relieved when she learned about the outcome of your little reunion.”

“I see,” I murmured, feeling both joy and pain.

I placed a hand gently on my stomach. Uka let out a small sound.

Shirayuki’s kindness touched me deeply, but I knew I could never reciprocate her feelings.

“I asked you to leave the room because I didn’t want matters to get too complicated,” Mayuzumi said. “Did you want to be there with us?”

“No, it’s okay. Things would’ve heated up if I tried to explain it myself.”

“I’m glad you understand. You always get tongue-tied when it comes to talking about the fox.”

Mayuzumi lifted the cup to her lips again, her tongue darting out to savor the melting chocolate.

At that moment, I noticed three pairs of eyes peering into the living room. They had followed me.

Then it dawned on me that we were in the middle of an extermination. Since Shirayuki wasn’t around, there was no need to panic, but we still had to find the gods. Mayuzumi didn’t like the thing, so we couldn’t drag her into this.

“Excuse me, Mayu-san,” I said. “I’m looking for something, so I’m cleaning the whole place.”

“Hmm? Why are you even telling me this? You always just start cleaning on your own.”

I lowered my head and gestured with my arm, a signal to assemble. The trio emerged from their hiding places.

We swiftly dropped down to our hands and knees, Yusuke moving like a spider, Hirugao following in his wake cluelessly, and Yukihito combing the space under the furniture.

“What’s going on?” Mayuzumi was genuinely bewildered. “Why is everyone helping? What exactly are you looking for?”

We didn’t answer the question. We couldn’t.

There were no gods in the living room, so we moved to Mayuzumi’s bedroom. I gazed up at the pile of junk and sighed. We had no other choice but to carefully sift through every single thing in there.

Yukihito was buried under a heap of clothing. Hirugao cackled as she popped open a jack-in-the-box.

“Doesn’t look like there’s any here… Hmm?”

That’s when I spotted a doll, the same one that Hirugao chucked earlier.

The doll, garbed in a white dress, possessed gleaming blue eyes, reminding me of Maihime.

I picked it up. The cotton-stuffed body felt soft in my hands. Something black flashed across the delicate lace.

A shiver ran down my spine, and I turned the doll over.

The inside of the skirt was dyed a deep black.

Gods were darting around the sea of lace.

“I found them!” I yelled.

“Really?!” Yusuke raised his head, clutching a polka-dotted toy trumpet.

Hirugao snatched the plaything and blew into the pink mouthpiece with all her might.

Tooooooot.

A god jumped out of the instrument.

“Whoa!” Yusuke’s eyes bulged.

The gods lodged in the doll’s skirt also flew out. A total of about ten gods plummeted to the floor, scurrying out of the room at lightning speed.

“Odagiri-san! You brought them all the way here and didn’t even notice?!”

“There’s a lot of them, but they don’t exactly amount to much. Wait, this is bad.”

Mayuzumi was outside. Just as I was about to call her, we heard a bloodcurdling scream.

“Uwaaaaaahhhhh!”

It was a sound I had never heard before. We exchanged glances and darted to the living room, where we were greeted by an apocalyptic scene.

Mayuzumi was lying face-down on the couch, trembling.

Her arms rested on the armrest, and she had buried her face in it. I couldn’t grasp what was happening. I knew she didn’t like the god, but her reaction was far more intense than I anticipated.

Upon closer inspection, gods were perched on Mayuzumi’s back. They had pounced on her, it seemed. They strutted around on her back as if they owned it, but she didn’t budge or try to shake them off.