コドク

I pat my hand to my chest, and swallow the words I wanted to say.

Breathing those swallowed words out slowly with a sigh, I fill my lungs with a new breath of air and speak.

Like the thinned, pale blue of the night's darkness, I try to make this heavy burden at least a little lighter.

As if it were nothing special, something by no means out of the ordinary, Tsudzura-chan answers.

No... there is no "as if" in that sentiment------

Being alone to the point that no one comes to interfere with you... is perfectly ordinary to her...

...hardened as she was, waging her right to survive in a contest until she became the last Wakasugi...

If you're going to hurt someone else... if you can't live on without hurting someone else------

If that's how it is, then it's best to live by yourself.

I haven't experienced that myself, so I can't say high and mightily that I'm capable of understanding, but I have enough imagination to at least picture what that's like.

And it would be... really------

But------

After running away from Wakasugi, and truly becoming alone, she then spent these last few days with me, an individual who knows nothing about that situation------

Could it be, even then, that Tsudzura-chan was still thinking, "I want to be alone"?

Tsudzura-chan doesn't answer.

Wanting her answer, I ask again.

Tsudzura-chan doesn't give an answer.

Though she doesn't give one, I can tell she's hesitating.

That's why... I'm sure... that that's her answer.

You don't have to be as strong as a god... as long as you can uproot your hesitation and give me the answer you want to give------

She'd probably never see it if I avert my eyes.

That's why I'm going to look straight and silent into her eyes.

I can't.

I know I need to look straight at her, so why is my vision wavering like this?

I know I need to look straight at her------

The weak threshold of my tear ducts is so pathetic... and the moment I think that, my vision wavers even further.

I can't hold it in anymore.

It's unclear which happened first, as all the tears built up behind my tightly clenched face begin to pour out...

*Houh*------ thus with a short breath, Tsudzura-chan's eyes fall.

When I look up at Tsudzura-chan's face, it looks unexpectedly refreshed------

My eyes must be playing tricks on me.

Even further distrustful of my eyes after hearing this clear and focused proclamation, I raise my wrists to wipe at their corners.

My freshly wiped eyes glimpse Tsudzura-chan, beaming with that same smile as always------

She's smiling, and yet------

The wind blows, and again the moon hides itself behind the clouds.

A girl's voice sounds in the darkness.

It's the voice of a very pretty girl, but in the middle of a mountain like this, it is too far out of place------

After a giggling voice reminiscent of a rolling bell, a true bell's ring succeeds it.

Ahh... this bell... this voice------

---in the midst of my dreams, comes in tandem with that red pain------

Within the blue-engulfed core of darkness, two red lights begin to shine.

As if blazing through a portal of puddled blood, an ominous, wet, scarlet shine.

Ahh, this light------

---it isn't the vestige of that red pain------

A suppressed giggle, and the ring of a bell.

A girl appears, accompanied by those sounds.

Her height seems to be halfway between Tsudzura-chan and I.

Allowing her lily white legs to expose themselves prominently, the short-hemmed, long-sleeved kimono divides its colors into two halves of red and black.

Neither a yukata, nor is it a normal Japanese garment, that kimono is remarkably different from any of the type you would normally see------

The way it's folded... hidarimae, the sign that identifies the dead.

Tsudzura-chan plants her feet and shows her guard clearly.

In a place like this, at a time like this, it's strange for a small girl to appear, no matter how you look at it, however...

...those sinister, ember-bearing irises show that it's because of this time and place that her appearing here isn't strange at all.

Straining to suppress the red pain that pierces into the depths of my eyes, I ask:

There's little point in asking, as I already know.

Is she the reason Senba-san came to this place, and bumped into Tsudzura-chan randomly?

In lieu of her answer, a ringing bell.

Slowly, she's bringing herself closer to us.

------No, I already know.

That giggling voice, that bell's ring, they're what awakened me from my dream last night.

The sounds that became precursors to that red snake's appearance.

That's why... I know without even asking.

The edges of her lips raise into a curve.

That is her answer.

The affirming sign.

Sounding the bell with one last step, she stops with a number of paces left between us.

---be true, I try to continue, but the girl heads off my words, directing a question to the darkness behind her.

An answer comes from the darkness.

From that darkness, I hear the ring of a bell.

As if the unseen bell had bound her into a true shape, from the darkness behind that girl bleeds out one more, a shadow with her exact likeness.

Sounding the ring of her bell, the girl who called the other "Nee-sama" lines beside her to the right.

To be bound in the simple word, "sisters," the two of them are far too alike.

Red eyes, and thinly colored hair, the ends facing outward in a mussed point style------

Wrapped upon her bare left leg is the kind of bell as of a cat's collar, letting itself ring with each step she takes------

The two sleeves of her furisode, red and black------

The only difference is that their adornments are opposite as mirror reflections of one another.

Except, their expressions are different, her downcast eyebrows in contrast to the other's pridefulness.

Ahh, two twin oni------

------What is this? My head is in terrible pain.

In my sight, as it blinks painfully in and out, the two scarlet gazes turn my way, and the two of them give their names.

This crimson... this pain... could it be from the red light resting in their eyes?

I gasp for breath at a suffocating vertigo.

As my legs dazedly entangle and my body lists, I find myself supported.

Tsudzura-chan has already said she would take on an awful burden. I can't let myself saddle her with yet another.

I've still not really grasped the situation, but I'm sure I remember... she said "Hatou."

That's right, I'm the one being targeted, here... I have to let Tsudzura-chan escape.

After all, she said to me that she would live strongly... I need her to run away.

Fortunately, it seems that they're hardly aware of her existence.

Tsudzura-chan, run away!------ except, as if to dam my words, Tsudzura-chan doesn't back away, but instead advances a step forward and brings herself to their notice.

Maybe she really never was in their notice, the girl's eyes widening as if she noticed her for the first time.

Tsudzura-chan doesn't answer.

She doesn't answer.

Most likely irritated at being twice ignored, amidst her hot-tempered visage, the color of displeasure becomes more dense.

Third chance------

They say even Buddha gives only three chances. There's no way an oni would give a fourth.

It seems she lost her temper------ the bell wound upon her right ankle demands an answer as she gives her leg a stomp.

Even then, neither flustered nor afraid, with a grand, imposing voice, Tsudzura-chan suddenly------

---speaks a proclamation into the empty air.

Just as I think I'd heard a quiet response, a white face surfaces from the darkness behind me.

As she approaches us, in this mountain cloaked in the curtain of night, the beautiful and precise gait of her steps is unchanged from when I first met her at the station platform.

However, the atmosphere hovering about her is nowhere near the same as then.

The blue shine in the back of her right pupil, as it pierces the evening dark, is enough to make me feel more afraid than even the twin oni before my eyes.

It was no joke... that this is a person who really does slay oni with that golden blade she holds in her hands------

...And having shown no distress at the sudden attack, and having given an order to that oni slayer, that Tsudzura-chan truly is the successor to Wakasugi, raised in the world where oni dwell------

...That there is a world that I, who aside from having lost every living relative, am an average girl in every respect, have no relation to------

Now I feel, more than ever, the reality of it all.

With still no faltering in her steps, Senba-san comes close, and passes between me and Tsudzura-chan.

Moving in passing, Tsudzura-chan gives the order.

Advancing in front of us only by the length of the blade she holds, Senba-san draws the katana from its sheath and takes a stance.

Saying nothing more, Tsudzura-chan turns on her heels and faces her unguarded back in the oni's direction.

Giving it a moment of thought, she reaches her delicate fingertips to her lips, and blinks her wetly shining eyes------

The number of red, blinking lights increases from four to five.

Added to her pair of eyes is one more, a flame as bright red as a hoozuki fruit flickers atop her palm.

The fluttering swing of her long sleeve and Uzuki's movement are nearly at the same time.

The oni fire flies for Tsudzura-chan's back, and chased by a piercing blue gaze, is soon caught in the falling chop of a readied blade.

Blooming in an instant as would a firecracker, the will-o'-the-wisp disperses into fragments of light.

Allowing no pause for the light to fade into the darkness, Senba-san follows the blade through in a mowing swipe as she leaps.

The moonlight glancing off its edge draws a tail as might a falling star, its trail set straight for the oni's head------

Not only that, its orbiting flight sets it on a path to send two heads flying in one stroke.

In a backward leap so light that the twin oni might well be weightless, they retreat. The only sound on their landing is the ring of a bell.

The distance between me and the oni has widened only by the length of Senba-san's step.

The echo of it is swallowed away in a breath by the soft darkness, leaving an instant of peace and silence.

The first to break that stillness are Senba-san's lips, twirling words spun of steel.

Senba-san must be a person whose ability is worthy of that grand introduction.

As the twin oni begin to concentrate their awareness on her every movement, I cease to feel the piercing sting of their red needle-like stares on my skin.

And, naturally, their attention has been diverted from she who the girl had acknowledged as her master, Tsudzura-chan------

Already seeming to have lost interest in the melee between Senba-san and the oni twins, Tsudzura-chan begins to walk, her back turned this way.

Just as she proclaimed before, could it be she's returning to the Wakasugi house, to make preparations to formally succeed the family head?

Bearing a weight painfully heavy, but not apparent to my eyes, her back grows farther away.

If she bears the weight and walks forward, perhaps that pain will turn to strength in the end.

That is why, unable to call out after her, I can do nothing but see her off as her tiny back grows ever smaller.

I can do nothing but watch, as the distance we'd closed between us by living together these past few days lengthens, step by step.

Because there's nothing I can do to lighten that burden of hers------

Because this is what I wanted------

I can hear sounds from behind me.

A bell's ring that shakes the air------

And the tail wind of the sword that cleaves it------

Ahh... what is this?

I get the feeling... that I've heard sounds like these somewhere far in the past.

I turn around.

I see red eyes, shining bright and round like mirrors.

------I get the feeling that, somewhere------

I see a blade shining blue by the light of the moon, reflected.

------I've seen a scene like this before------

As I listen to these sounds, I feel a pain in my head.

As I watch this scene go on, I feel a pain in my head.

My heart begins to rage, its speed blazing as if in flame.

------I feel sick.

Red fragments of memory flow through my veins.

Red, slashing pain shocks at the insides of my head.

Red maelstroms of vertigo begin to swallow my senses.

Red.

Red------

Red-colored------

Red, transient light------

By the time I come to, the morning sunrise has begun to dye the world.