Kei: N-…… No! No, don’t!……
The lips slowly change shape. The upper and lower teeth touching me dig in as if pushing me into the floor, then open their distance.
Kei: —
They then close to pinch the skin of my neck. I am bitten – but only lightly. It doesn’t really hurt, but…
But, the shock from the bitten surface causes all the tears stored in my eyes to overflow.
Without heed to my face being tilted upwards, the tears spill out. *poro poro*
Nozomi: Come now…… I told you it wouldn’t hurt. The poor thing’s so terrified.
Nozomi-chan speaks teasingly in a soft, coaxing voice as she separates her mouth from one side of my neck, then reaches her fingertip for the corner of my eye.
Kei: —Hya!
My eyes shut forcefully as my body tightly contracts.
I feel my tears being wiped away by an absentminded touch.
……Eh?
I hear a slightly wet sound, as if they were licked away.
Nozomi: Mn! ……I guess it has to be blood, after all.
Mikage: Nee-sama, does it taste good?
Nozomi: Tastes salty.
They’ve truly made me into their plaything.
I wonder how things wound up like this…
Should I really have done what that person told me yesterday, and forgotten everything…?
Then, at that moment…
Kei: Ah……
The dim, shapeless moonlight, spread about the room, gathers about several randomly born nuclei, where the surrounding light is sucked in, increasing their density.
Because of the thickly gathered tears in my eyes, I thought that was what I saw… but it seems that wasn’t the case.
With the point born there as the center, it sucks in the surrounding light and gathers in density.
The growing, seeping darkness of the room and, floating there, the innumerable shards of moonlight.
As the fragments reach a fixed intensity, at a single point from repose to motion, it shifts its state of being.
It is like flower petals awaiting their peak, then excitedly scattering to the wind.
Like a flock of butterflies launching into the air simultaneously—
Even in a time like this, I revel in the beauty of that spectacle.
Kei: Ahh—
Even in the midst of summer, it gives me the impression of looking up on a winter night, to see the quietly falling snow.
Before long, one of those petals falls upon Nozomi-chan’s pale arm, peeking out of its sleeve as it touches my shoulder.
Just as a snowflake melts upon touching her skin, that fragment of light breaks and fades.
But, the phenomenon doesn’t stop there.
Nozomi: —!?
Nozomi-chan, as if having touched something burning hot, draws back her hand with the force of a spring.
And Mikage-chan, perhaps also touched by a moonlight fragment, separates her hands from my face.
Having had my face tilted upward the whole time, I right my vision forward to ease my painful breathing, as I regain my freedom.
And as I do, there in the room…
…stands that person from my dreams, within a swarm of butterfly lights.
Dream girl: Step away from Kei-chan!
Gazing this way with a pair of deep, serene eyes, like lakes of lapis, she speaks.
Opposing her command, Nozomi-chan and Mikage-chan line up between us to block the way.
Nozomi: Well now, do you intend to take our prey for yourself?
Mikage: Yet again, you oppose us?
Dream girl: That’s right. I have taken form to protect Kei-chan.
Nozomi: ……Hmm… well aren’t you on the ball?
Mikage: Nee-sama. If we weaken it’s power, that seal will also…
Enveloped in a light in direct opposition to that gentle blue, they meet with their eyes and…
Nozomi: That’s true… let’s do that then, shall we?
Mikage: Yes, Nee-sama. Let us do that.
…nodded in agreement.
At their answer, that woman’s eyebrows furrow ever so slightly.
Dream girl: ……I see…
Like a bird unfolding its wings, she extends her arms straight to the side.
As she makes a wide, scything motion with her arms, the white butterflies dyed into her waving sleeves flap and swoop forth.
As if in chase, the moonlight butterflies form a swarm, and fly to where I am.
*hira hira* *hira hira* (flapping)
Marking their flight with scales of scattered light.
Much as if I were a flower, they swarm over me in one motion.
Mikage: Nee-sama, if you touch it…
Nozomi: Shut up! You don’t have to tell me that!
Scorning those butterflies, the two depart from my side.
The flitting dance of pale blue lights covers my vision.
As they come close enough to touch me, I suddenly come to a realization.
That these butterfly lights, these flower petals, closely resemble that great tree’s blossoming—
Remembering Nozomi-chan’s reaction before, just as they are about to touch me, I close my eyes without thinking… There is no pain or heat, and of course, it isn’t cold, either.
Like a zephyr only strong enough to tease the hairs on my skin, a slightly ticklish sensation.
Kei: Ah……
When I open my eyes, the edges of my body shine with a faint, rising phosphorescence.
Kei: ……What’s this?
Dream girl: Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t hurt, right?
Dream girl: It’s a spell, so those children can’t touch you until the light fades.
Kei: ……They can’t touch…?
Dream girl: That’s right.
Nozomi: You…… how dare you……
As I look at the two, I see Nozomi-chan’s cute face terribly warped, glaring my way.
She grasps at one of her arms with the opposite hand, and underneath her grasp, her body is transparent.
It was the place where the moonlight fragment fell before.
Kei: ……Eh!? How!?
Dream girl: Because she and I are like phantoms, lacking in physical forms.
She says, with downcast eyes.
Dream girl: Because, much like the image painted by a magic lantern, we are fated to fade away before a stronger light.
Like that time last night when she told me to forget… with those eyes that make my breath catch…
Kei: …………
Dream girl: Here, Kei-chan. Come to me.
Kei: ……O-okay.
With these legs that were buried in the futon the whole time, I stand, part the gap between Nozomi-chan and Mikage-chan, and head to where she is.
Just as she said, those two probably can’t touch me. Even as they affix me with those baleful glares, they quietly pull away, and open the path.
Dream girl: Hurry. It won’t hold for very long.
Quickening my feet as I was told, in my haste, my foot catches on the hem of my yukata, sending my body swimming forward.
Kei: Ah!
Dream girl: It’s all right.
As she pulls me into an embrace, she exudes the same faint, sweet scent as in the dream.
That scent… is the very same as those white blossoms in the great mountain tree.
Ahh—
—those pieces that were thrown, scattered in my head, dance and return to their rightful places, and I slowly come to see the picture they draw.
If we lived in such a large mansion, and it was the only house around, then the Hatou family must have worshipped the Ohashirasama.
Although I can’t tell whether this town lost the proper festival when my father died ten years ago… or if it was before that, but…
But with our special blood, the blood that makes us a target for monsters, the reason a family like mine continued to my generation must be… because someone was protecting us.
Surely, that was…
…without a doubt…
…the person here that’s protecting me now.
This person, who appears in the company of butterflies, and white flowers with the same scent as that sacred tree.
Kei: ……Are you… the Ohashirasama?
Without denying or confirming, she gives me a distant smile.
Dream girl: I am Yumei.
The lips expressing that vague, faint smile, move to spin those beautiful sounds into a word.
Kei: Yumei……
As if soaking into a part of me that’s missing, a reverberant name.
Kei: Yumei-san……?
Yumei: That’s right, Kei-chan.
Then, putting a stern expression on her gentle face, she faces Nozomi-chan’s group and speaks.
Yumei: Go away. If you don’t want to disappear for good…
Much like her words, the undulating light around us moves into a threatening formation.
Nozomi: …………
Mikage: Nee-sama, I believe we should retreat for now.
Nozomi: ……Retreat and do what!?
Mikage: Let us build our power. Because we are still weak…
Nozomi: ……Okay, then…… even if it isn’t special, it will bolster our spirit in its own way…
Mikage: Yes, Nee-sama.
Nozomi: Let’s do that, then. We only came to her for the fleeting allure…
Nozomi: She was never that important, anyway.
That attitude of hers, as she narrows her eyes mischievously, makes something in me snap. “Never that important”? She’s making a fool of me.
And I was really terrified, too.
Nozomi: Although it’s so annoying to leave with a beating, it would be much more foolish to sustain wounds over trivial play.
Uuu, the one who got a beating here was me, you know!
Even though they say my blood is special, on the food chain here, I was the one being eaten. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to pay them back for it, but—
—no, wait a minute.
Dropping my glance, I see my hands are still coated in that phosphorescence.
…………
I wonder what would happen if I touched them with these hands?
That first fallen light petal seemed to give Nozomi-chan a good smart, but……
| 触ってやろう | 大人しくしていよう |
| Touch the hell out of them. | I’ll be a good girl. |