浄瑠璃T

It was my voice, but my mouth isn't open.

Gripping a large key in my tiny palm, I give an answer.

Stretching to my full height, I take the key, warmed by my body heat, and place it in the keyhole.

With a sharp metallic sound, it unlocks.

But the door doesn't open.

No matter how much strength I bring to bear, the heavy iron door doesn't budge.

Not surprising after it took so much effort from Sakuya-san, even supposing it had been left alone for ten years.

Thinking on it now, it's nothing a lone child, who hadn't even entered school, would possibly be able to open.

That's probably why mom and dad weren't so vigilant about it, but...

Scarlet in the face, I wordlessly give an impatient signal, "give me a hand," and this time, challenge the door in a twosome.

Then, after entering the shed, from inside the box, I unearth that...

I break the seal of the mirror spirit.

Two children, bearing the same face, are reflected in the mirror.

As I speak, only one of the two reflected opens her mouth.

Me, and... another... same face... same voice... like twins, almost exactly...

Twins...

Twin oni, and twin children.

Trees.

A plethora of trees.

Each tree, reaching upward, spreads its branches to its heart's content, and nearly hides away the entire sky.

Pulled along by Nozomi-chan's lily white hand, I hurry through the Chinju Forest.

............

...... I turn around.

I can see a roof lined with tiles.

Old it may be, but not grown over, the magnificent Hatou mansion lies there.

Off to the side, I see a shed.

The shed we escaped to flee here.

My dad hasn't left the shed, yet. Thinking he couldn't catch up even if he came running now, my smaller self breathes a relieved sigh.

If only he caught up to me... if only I could accept getting into trouble...

After the exchange inside the shed, my father never got mad at us again.

And of course, he never smiled, either.

I correct my facing to the front, just as Nozomi-chan pulls strongly at my hand.

Ahead of us, I see another small back, pulled along by Mikage-chan.

That's right, even then, we were together.

Me, and the twin who looks exactly alike.

Beyond there, I can only remember it in fragments.

With the insides of my head wiped clean by red eyes, I was manipulated the same way as Tsudzura-chan. And of course, that child too, was caught in Mikage-chan's stare.

And so we rip a hole in the seal...

Shining her right eye in the same way Kei-kun did just before, mom banished Nozomi-chan and Mikage-chan...

If the fissure grew large, the sealed oni god would have escaped. In order to prevent that, someone had to inherit the Hashira as the pillar of the seal...

It was Yumei-oneechan who took that role.

In order to fill the hole at the base of the Shrine Tree, someone who was precious to us went inside.

The fissure of the seal being filled, the oni god would not escape now.

But to fill a hole, you have to dig at the earth to find soil, and much the same as that gives birth to new holes...

There was a big hole opened inside of us.

In the depths of the hole where no light would shine, an oni was born.

Whether by their own volition, by suggestion, or perhaps because something filled a void and empty vessel...

In the depths of those deep eyes, will-o'-the-wisps (oni fires) flared to life.

In the face the same as mine, a red light blazed into life.

Oni lust for blood.

And first in line was a prey that cowered in fear. With soft flesh, and the Nie no Chi within, there I was.

Impact.

There was no pain.

In the place of pain, there was heat.

The world was dyed in a frightful red...

And unable to bear it, I painted over it all.

I hate rain. Wet clothes feel awful, Yumei-oneechan disappeared, and even my father wound up dead... all of those memories, everything.

I decided to gloss them over in pure white.

And so, ten years passed, and the paint, dried and brittle with age, collapses in flakes with a minor shock.

I remember.

The one who killed our father, my sibling who had the same face, voice, and the same short height.

In the pillars of the mansion a name is carved, not mine, not Yumei-oneechan, but someone else.

A person's name that made my head hurt, sealed away alongside the red world...

The name of my elder twin brother.

Without denying it, Kei-kun... Hakuka-chan speaks.

In other words, when he became an oni and distanced himself from humanity, Hakuka-chan was likewise no more... Beyond the words, he speaks thus.

Although I've already gone over this exhaustively, even if it's a boyish-sounding name, I don't think someone should go out of their way to use their twin sister's name.

As I ask with my cheeks puffed angrily, Hakuka-chan gives a slight smile.

So he answers with honest eyes that he wasn't vaingloriously swindling his twin sister out of her name on a whim.

I imagine so. There was a scene like that in a movie I saw recently, and now I'm learning mom even made a mistake in our birth registration.

Just as I am about to nod in agreement, I find myself caught on a slight detail and stop.

That detail doesn't have to do with the main topic, but a tiny, tiny little expression I heard within it.

I've been calling Kei-kun "Hakuka-chan," just like in the past.

I imagine a boy of his age wouldn't like "-chan" stuck to his name very much, much less for his own official name being a girl's.

Wiped away by the darkness, Kei-kun's words disappear.

Not just his voice, but his body, as well.

It might be different when you're in deep sleep, but waking from a dream like this, when you recognize it as a dream, hardly takes longer than the blink of an eye.

So, in all likelihood, he just left ahead of me.

From the depths of the dream, I look above.

There, just like the flickering stars of the night sky, I see many tiny lights shining down.

Facing the boundary of dream and reality, I float my consciousness to the surface.