If Tsudzura-chan really is running from me out of fright… I don’t think I can bear the thought.
But still, just a little farther.
It really is just a little farther.
Look… if I can close the gap by just another half-step…
Kei: GOT——
The moment I lay a grip on her hood——
Kei: —cha!?
—I find myself pulled in a downward direction.
Maybe it’s because I grabbed her so suddenly… that my balance gave out and I’m toppling over?
Pulled along by a great force…
…I fall down.
If I fall down on top like this, I imagine Tsudzura-chan will be enough to break my fall…
The landing shock should come about now——
Strange…
…as if being pulled at from above, this strange feeling of weightlessness…
——This is the sensation of falling.
A sensation like the unease you feel in a descending elevator, only multiplied by hundreds.
Kei: Kyaa—————!!
I hear someone’s scream, falling down from above. It could be it sounds a little like mine.
I don’t have a clue however far we’ve fallen already, or however much we’ve left to fall.
This might just be a hole falling to the other side of the Earth, or it could be a single instant stretched into a thousand.
No, I don’t mean to say I want us to hurry up and hit the bottom, but——
Kei: ——!!
And at last, it comes to an end.
The greatest fortune in this for Tsudzura-chan and I was the lack of sharp rocks or hard boulders at the bottom. That, and a thickly packed carpet of fallen leaves.
*Ban! Ban! Ban!*——
While the two of us bounce, as if atop a ruined trampoline, our momentum gradually dies off.
Dying, dying, and at least, silence.
As I look up from our prone state, across the distance of about four or five meters, a round ring of pale blue light can be seen shining in.
It’s not exactly bright enough to say it’s shining, but compared to the depths of this cylindrical hole, it is intensely bright.
Though that’s not to say something’s there, shining, but that far beyond it, we can see the sky as it naturally appears.
In other words, from the boundaries of that sky above, judging by the height, we’ve fallen four or five meters.
Kei: Uuu!…… Everything in my body hurts……
It hurts, but the pain still lies in such a range that “it hurts” is the extent of it. There don’t seem to be any broken bones or mortal wounds.
Kei: *Atata!* I can’t tell if this is good luck or bad…… Tsudzura-chan, are you alive?
Tsudzura: Somehow…… I am alive.
Our positions must’ve been switched in mid fall, as now Tsudzura-chan lies on top of me.
Tsudzura: Ha~ this look to be a difficult escape by our own means. Even our combined height won’t be nearly enough to reach.
Even if Tsudzura-chan stood on my shoulders, the edges of this vertical hole seem to be out of her reach.
Tsudzura: ……Hah… this is a problem.
Kei: But, at least this way, you won’t be able to run away. I’m completely exhausted.
The strength in my body has fled fully away, leaving me in rest mode.
Tsudzura: Tahaha…… Kei-oneesan, you are as easygoing as ever, aren’t you?
Kei: You think so?
Tsudzura: If you and I remain this way without aid, it is to starvation with us, you know. Or would you like us to cannibalize each other?
Kei: I won’t, I won’t! There’s no way I’d do that!
Tsudzura: Well, before we starve enough to kill each other, dehydration symptoms are likely to end it first, I suppose.
Kei: ……Tsudzura-chan, come on! Why are you always saying things like that?
Kei: We’ll be okay, nothing to worry about. I’ll bet we won’t even have to wait long before someone comes to help.
Kei: Foxes are skilled hunting animals, right? I’m sure Obana-chan’ll come find us by following our smell or footprints or something.
Tsudzura: Even if Obana does come, do you believe that can amount to something in a situation like this?
Kei: He probably won’t be able to help us directly, but Obana-chan is really clever.
Kei: He’d go get Senba-san or Sakuya-san, and bring them here, don’t you think?
He may be small, but Obana-chan’s a fox. Especially in a mountain at night, he’d no doubt be much faster than me or Tsudzura-chan if he ran at his best speed.
The fact that he hasn’t caught up to us might mean that he’s gone to get help already.
Kei: Ah, there, speak of the devil.
I can hear the ring of a bell.
The ringing bell grows closer.
Kei: ……Wha? Did Obana-chan… have a bell or something?
Tsudzura: No, he was a wild animal, to begin with. I never wanted to bind him, either, so I never gave him a collar or anything like that.
Kei: But, I know I…… heard it…… somewhere……
That’s right, this ringing sound is——
Kei: With this ringing sound… there was this girl I heard, giggling……
——: Fufufufu… yes—— perhaps it was a giggle like this?
Kei: Yeah, yeah, Tsudzura-chan. That’s the one.
Tsudzura: Kei-oneesan! That wasn’t me!
A cloud must have hidden the moon, as the sky seeps into a dark shade, and a curtain of darkness quickly engulfs the hole.
A darkness so dense, I can’t even see Tsudzura-chan’s face as it presses against me.
Floating dazedly out of the darkness are two ember-like points of red light.
That’s right, I remember… they remind me of that red snake’s eyes from last night——
Again, the bell rings.
Although it probably won’t reach down to the bottom of this hole, in a place far higher and farther away, the wind must still be carrying the clouds.
——: Good evening to you, Nie no Chi-bearing descendant of Hatou.
This time it isn’t a real bell, but a voice sounded high as a rolling bell, resounding in the walls of the narrow hole.
Melting into the darkness, its outline lost, the dim moonlight again shines hazily down.
——: Fufufufufu!——
And there, her white skin glowing prettily in the moonlight, is a girl whose features are worthy of her lovely voice.
Her body is enwrapped in a kimono of hatohanezumi, melting into the darkness——
When she takes a graceful step forward, of the two colors devoted to each half of her kimono, the more extravagant half is brought to the front.
Against my eyes, used to the blue of dark, it is a painfully brilliant hue.
However, far more dazzling and captivating than that half of her garment is a red shine, like a bicycle reflector.
Her sinister eyes, wet with bloody red.
*Chirin* rings the bell, and the girl edges closer… I know. At last, I learn…
Ahh, this girl is a thing I should fear——
Those eyes… are the same red as the snake of last night——
Girl in kimono: Snake’s eye, eye of snake, eye of mirror—— the mirror reflects and binds the shadow——
Finalizing the rhythm with a ringing bell, her gleefully recited verse quivers the air, and my soul with it.
Tsudzura: Onee-san, you must not look at her eyes……
Tsudzura-chan’s warning is too late.
I know.
I know, yet I am unable to avert my eyes from the scarlet shining——
Let alone my eyes, I can’t even move a single finger… the only thing trembling is my soul. Even my breathing has stopped.
Girl in kimono: Prisoners whose shadows, bound, are likewise bound, unmoving.
There’s no escape. Nowhere I can run.
Girl in kimono: Now, become my sacrifice.
For the third time, the clouds smother a sky bereft of its circular light.
Again it hides, a moon I couldn’t see, even if I could look up.
All I can see in the pitch darkness is warmth borne upon shining red.
Feeling vertigo as I stare into it——
I let go of my senses.
◇Stranded – Shipwreck – 座礁・難破 – Red Ending