言霊の継承

Her tiny hands jolt his body, demanding. Entreating him to wake up and be her friend like always, she pulls at his powerlessly fallen tail.

But, Obana-chan is... no longer...

Flowing down either cheek and blending underneath, then, unable to bear their own weight, the teardrops fall, bleeding down into Obana-chan's mouth.

As if those tears served to call his life forth------

Obana-chan's ears, and nose, tremble ever so faintly.

Watching that scene with dire interest, Nozomi-chan knits her brows, deriding the fox's persistence as she readies her stance.

I can guess that if Obana-chan wakes up and moves around, she'll probably try to finish him off with that power that appears as a red snake.

Such an attack would no doubt involve Tsudzura-chan as well, as she holds Obana-chan cradled in her arms.

I have to stop at least that from happening------

Yet, my strength still fails to enter my limbs, and no matter how urgent my will to stand, it remains undone as will alone.

I have to hurry. If I don't hurry, Tsudzura-chan might end up the same as Obana-chan------

But, my worries end as needless fears.

Obana-chan's mouth, its kotodama sealed, flaps as if to speak, yet closes, still mute, to the very end------

This time, he doesn't move at all.

As she watches it happen, Nozomi-chan laughs.

It gleefully escalates into a cackle.

She is innocent, and in her innocence, cruel.

That is why, without hesitation, as if it's to be expected, she moves on to hurt me as well.

Her gleeful laughing voice circles behind me.

As I sit, collapsed in place, Nozomi-chan's hand mounts my shoulder.

Just as I become aware of the weight of her hand there, her face thrusts forward from above my shoulder, and peeks into mine.

Our eyes have met.

Eyes that shine as wet and red as a lake of blood reflect my face, and the light of the moon.

Her faintly chilled, thin fingers, slip from my shoulder to my neck, and part away the hairs pasted there with sweat.

Her breath encroaches upon my exposed neck------

Her tapered teeth pierce its flesh.

From the opened hole, my life begins to flow out.

The escaped life is swallowed down, and absorbed into Nozomi-chan's body. That exchange of flowing power------

---is reflected in Tsudzura-chan's empty-looking eyes.

Hung under the moonlight and dyed a pale blue, Tsudzura-chan's face has lost not only its color, but its expression as well.

In much the same way as Obana-chan, as if her soul were missing------

That empty shell that was once Tsudzura-chan lifts his corpse into the air.

Showing interest in those proceedings, her lips separate from my neck, and I regain a small measure of my freedom.

A dark blaze is winding a spiral into Tsudzura-chan's eyes. As if my blood had become the coals of a fire, it is a wet, dark, crimson light.

Showing no reaction to the screaming bent of my voice, with eyes like holes dropping straight to the abyss, her appearance as she turns them to Obana-chan is almost like------

It gives me a feeling as it that abyss is taking Obana-chan inside it.

It gives me a feeling as if the hellfire within there might swallow his corpse, and consume it.

With no words with which to chase after her, I can do nothing but watch as she takes that path to its end.

Nozomi-chan and her sister, as well, merely fix their eyes upon that ghastly event.

The pale blue moonlight and six eyes watch, motionless, as Tsudzura-chan, with the austere air of ceremony, lifts above in offering the remains of what was once a god------

---buries her face in the still warm... and soft-looking white belly------

And much the same as Nozomi-chan just did with me------

With all her might, sinks her teeth down inside it.

As I watch, red dyes into white.

A red that shines wetly beneath the moonlight.

As if in an effort to satisfy the void opened inside of her, Tsudzura-chan takes that red thing and swallows it down.

Could it be that the shock of losing Obana-chan has deranged her mind?

---No, I can tell that isn't the reason why.

With each second after she took that inside herself, I can see the hellfires in Tsudzura-chan's eyes growing yet more dark a red, and shining with yet a greater clarity.

The twin oni stand prepared, their expressions made stern.

I can understand why.

If it's true, as they say, that Obana-chan was an oni god who could use kotodama------

If it's true, as they say, that power dwells within blood------

Ordered thus by the older oni, at the same time as the younger oni lets rise a red cloud of light from her body, Tsudzura-chan lifts her face.

Peeking from the edges of her mouth, wet with blood, are the long fangs that pierce flesh------

Shining more feral than the moon, are eyes grown thick with the aspect of a beast------

Already, they are not those of a human being------

With the superhuman movements of an oni, Tsudzura-chan leaps back.

With a jump several meters high, she is raised to the tree branches high overhead, and flinging herself with their elastic reaction, slammed to the earth at an even greater speed.

And then, within the center of the falling tree leaves, as if possessed of a fox's spirit------

With perhaps the same sharp call Obana-chan would have made were his kotodama unsealed, she lets fly a single word.

The air quivers with a static vibe.

By that voice of hers, not only the air, but the tree leaves dancing within it, quiver excitedly------

And if such a thing were possible, like the ring of a tuning fork leading its pairs in chorus, all the leaves of the mountain begin to quiver.

All of the mountain gives heed to Tsudzura-chan's single-worded command, as a chorus of seemingly infinite sound builds up, becoming a wave that shakes the heavens, and in a span of time I can't quantify, sets blowing a strong wind.

That wind is mixed with drops of rain.

The moon continues yet to shine clearly, with no clouds to hide it.

In spite of that, a slanting rain is falling. The fox bride's rain is falling.

Those girls are unnatural beings that use deceptive forms.

And just as pain can dispel illusions, just as a strong light can fade and erase the image of a magic lantern, a phenomenon that exists in concrete form will weaken the powers of the abstract.

The wind disturbs sound, and the rain disturbs light, negating the effect of their spells------ perhaps even negating their existence, itself.

As the shape she created in her own image is grated away, Nozomi-chan grits her teeth and takes a leap back.

The truly mysterious part is, the wind and rain was only confined to an area a few meters wide, and seeking a more favorable climate, the two oni take an evasive jump.

Facing them as they move, Tsudzura-chan utters yet another word.

This time, it is the earth that quakes.

Ignoring gravity to lift into the air, much like the beans thrown in a ritual to force oni from the home, the airborne pebbles give a pursuing strike.

The pursued oni throw up a multitude of sheets of light as a shield, and finally manage to protect themselves from the barrage.

Even to a layperson, the difference of their power is so overwhelmingly obvious......

...that I leak out a sentence barely louder than a sigh.

Ken and kon------

Those are the well-known onomatopoeia for a fox's cry.

Meanwhile, they are used in the phrase, "ken kon itteki," a phrase used to indicate that one is waging their future in a grave challenge.

The ken and kon refer to an odd or even situation in psychology... in other words, a single-match, all or nothing gamble------

But at their base, they appear in a divination technique that divides all natural phenomena of the world into Hakke - in which they are two of the eight, or so I was told by my classmate, Orin-san...

...that ken and kon are the words that represent "heaven" and "earth."

...which means that Tsudzura-chan------

...can use that kotodama to change the weather...

...and that kotodama to shake the earth.

An oni god, who by uttering a single word, can manipulate either heaven or earth------

Inheriting the sealed power of that oni god by virtue of his blood, Tsudzura-chan uses his power.

It's unclear exactly how much of a god's power can be inherited in a human being, but Tsudzura-chan is certainly not your ordinary vessel.

She is a prodigy who had to hone her genius to survive her status in a family that serves as chief of the Onikiribe... whatever you call the organization of people who battle with oni.

Though if she actually was a normal person, we wouldn't have wound up in this situation------

As a result, in an attempt to rid herself of a pest, Nozomi-chan wound up opening Pandora's box.

As to be expected of twin sisters, there's no need for any further discussion. As phantoms who hold no corporeal forms, they're able to make a quick getaway.

In the same way as they appeared, sounding a ring of their bells, they fade into the night darkness.

We've been saved------

Although my waist had already given out, and had been sitting in place the whole time, this time I feel the strength has fully left my body.

During this time, in front of me...

Tsudzura-chan is standing, her eyes still dyed in an inhuman color.

Still saying nothing, Tsudzura-chan faces me and reaches out her hand.

Could she be keeping silent to avoid using a kotodama carelessly?------

No.

Right now, in Tsudzura-chan's eyes, that shine so typical of her - not as it appears on the surface, but more like the shine of her intellect - is nowhere to be found.

On the other hand, they're also different from the curt, yet somehow kind look of Obana-chan's round eyes.

Since a while ago, all to be found there is in the flicker of a stupor, a primeval flame that has regressed to the boundaries of instinct alone.

The way she used kotodama with all her might before must have been some kind of defensive instinct, a response intended only to repulse an aggressor.

And after her use of such a great amount of power, the desire I can read within those flames is------

-----*zokuri*

In spite of this midsummer night, my body is wracked by a shudder.

Tsudzura-chan is hungry.

Right now, she is the same as an oni, and just like those girls, she must be hungering for my blood.

A long-nailed hand reaches out for me.

Her fingertips touch me.

They slide across my skin.

Wondering from where she would best drink blood, she traces my body in search.

The areas covered by clothes are passed by------

My hair too, naturally. And though my cheek may be ever so slightly abundant in flesh, she slips quickly past...

It is at the neck, its flesh thin and soft, yet bearing beneath it the carotid artery that carries blood with great force, where her fingers touch and come to a stop.

Forcefully lifting the chin that serves to protect it, Tsudzura-chan brings her face close to my exposed neck.

Sensitive to the point of excess, my skin can feel acutely the air brushing its hairs, the presence of heat closing in...

My heart beats as fast as it is possibly able, and her lips gather close to the blood vessels that grow all the more assertive by its pounding.

Her warm, moistened breath encroaches.