From some place nearby is the ring of a wind chime. A mass of clouds darker than the indigo sky pass over the moon above.
——Wind chime? We hung one up at the mansion, but why would there be one here?
——: Good evening to you, Nie no Chi-bearing descendant of Hatou.
Passing across the darkness under the hidden moon, a girl’s voice tickles at my ear lobes.
Perhaps because light is also a type of wave, in the lull underneath the hidden moonlight, it sounds with much more raw a tone.
It really is a lovely voice, but the hairs on my arms and back stand on end, like when someone whispers suddenly into your ear.
——: Fufufufu——
Inheriting the sound from a giggle like a rolling bell, a metallic tongue is set aflutter within a golden ball.
The ring of a true bell——
Come to think of it, didn’t I learn in history class that bells line alongside mirrors as treasured ritual objects?
At any rate, it was something about it being a tool that helped Yamataikoku‘s Himiko, or some priestess-san who was almost possessed by a god.
Though the doutaku from back then didn’t have a high-pitched sound like this… if I had to be specific, those would probably sound more like a bonshou——
——Ahh, but, maybe that’s why.
Maybe that’s why this red pain is attacking me now.
The red snake from last night also seems to have been a god, so maybe, like Himiko or someone like that, I’m seeing this because of some god’s possession.
Though I’ve never had any feeling like that until now, maybe I really have some kind of psychic ability——
If the influence of this sound puts me into some kind of hypnotic trance, I can’t say I wouldn’t believe something like that.
Ahh, but… but really——
Where in the world is this ringing sound coming from?
Flinging my sight about in search of the sound’s origin… at a low darkness near to the ground…
Within the midst of that darkness, my instinct tells me that something is there.
Like a deep-sea fish wrapped in phosphorescence, a captivating object of pale white color flings itself into view.
——: Fufufufu——
The smooth curve drawn by that shape is a person’s leg, its skin exposed to the base of the thigh.
With soft looking flesh in spite of its slender form, much like the giggling voice, it belongs to a girl.
The wind carries the clouds away…
Shining faintly through the lingering tail of a cloud, the moonlight reflects off of a small golden object, wound about her right ankle.
Then, the scarlet-strapped sandals separate from the earth——
—and when lowered again, the small object upon her ankle makes a sound.
Ahh, so the ringing of bells means that this girl is coming closer?
The clouds flow away from beneath the moon, and underneath the dark blue sky, her appearance is made clear.
Girl in kimono: Fufufufufu!——
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: ……Who are you?
Apparently, she isn’t some kind of illusion that only I can see.
Girl in kimono: Nozomi.
As a boastful smile surfaces upon her face, she rings her high pitched, bell-like voice.
Naming herself with that lone word, she lets ring the bell at her ankles with a leap this way.
Nozomi: I’ve come to take you away.
Kei: To take…… me……?
Nozomi: That’s right. You are of that woman – a child of the family that accedes to the Nie no Chi.
Nozomi: Isn’t that right, Mikage?
—: Yes…… Nee-sama.
A bell rings.
Even though she didn’t move an inch, there was the sound of a bell.
From behind her, a shadow slips out *suu* and lines up alongside.
The two sleeves of her furisode, red and black.
On her left ankle, a gold bell.
Red eyes, and thinly colored hair, the ends facing outward in a mussed point style——
The two, lined up, resemble each other like a mirror reflection.
Only their expressions are different, her downcast eyebrows in contrast to the other’s pridefulness.
Ahh, they’re oni twins——
——What is this? There’s an awful pain in my head.
Nozomi: Okay, now come with us.
Kei: ……Wait, I don’t know what’s going on. Who are you two? What is the Nie no Chi? And where in the world are you going to take me?
Nozomi: Oh my——
Her eyes open round in apparent surprise.
Nozomi: You… you’ve really forgotten, haven’t you?
To say that I’ve forgotten something… must mean that it’s something I knew before I forgot it.
Like who these two girls really are——
Like the word that the girl who calls herself “Nozomi” keeps saying as she looks at me… “Nie no Chi”… exactly what it might be——
——: Nienochi?
Kei: Agh!
As my legs dazedly entangle and my body lists, I find myself supported.
Tsudzura: Kei-oneesan!
Kei: I’m okay…… I’m fine……
What in the world is this thing that keeps happening to me?
Something is tugging at my mind. If only this tugging wasn’t there, things would be at least a little bit more clear——
Nozomi & Mikage: Ahahahahahaha!
The existence of these twins in front of me puts a spur to the pain that lies dormant.
Ahh, this red pain that stirs a vertigo inside of me… might be caused by the crimson of those girls’ eyes.
Nozomi: Fufu, you don’t know, do you?
Mikage: You really don’t know anything, do you?
Nozomi: You have a special blood that flows through your veins.
Mikage: That is the Nie no Chi.
Nozomi: Just like it’s used in sorcery, you’re aware that bloods with particular powers exist, are you not?
Mikage: The “chi” of “chikara” (TN: power) and the “chi” of “inochi” (TN: life)…
Nozomi: Simultaneously part of the material flesh, and of the immaterial spirit.
Mikage: Namely, extremes born of polar distinction.
Nozomi: The source of all things.
Mikage: Tokotachi, Satsuchi, Kagutsuchi, Orochi – “chi” is the kotodama defining the nature of the gods themselves.
Nozomi: That is why humans offer their blood.
Mikage: Their Nie no Chi.
Kei: Nie no Chi……
Nozomi: Blood occurs in grades, you know. And the blood you have is pure and exalted.
Mikage: In much the way Yashiori no Sake intoxicated Nushi-sama’s ancestor.
Nozomi: Incredibly thick and strong.
Mikage: Such that the blood of tens, hundreds, thousands sucked dry would not compare.
Nozomi: For gods, for oni, anything will do. Anything inhuman, upon drinking your blood, can ascend to a greater existence.
Kei: Ascend to a greater……?
Nozomi: That’s right. They can gain great power.
Mikage: That is the reason it is so special.
Nozomi: That is why everyone wants it.
Mikage: And they come to fight over it.
Nozomi: This region has a strong seal over it, though, so as long as you’re here, the monsters outside can’t track you down.
Mikage: That is why your lineage has remained without severance until now.
Nozomi: Now, and in the past, Nie no Chi has been rare, you know. Not just anyone can hide its smell, after all.
Kei: So if… I couldn’t hide it……
Nozomi: Fufu, you understand, don’t you?
Nozomi: If you don’t hide…
Mikage: If you don’t run…
Nozomi: If you get caught by an oni, it’ll eat you up..
Nozomi & Mikage: Ufufufufufufu…
The edges of their cute lips bend in a cruel smile.
The eyes that bear a red light, blinking in the dark, without a doubt, are proof that they are not human.
The reason Tsudzura-chan ever encountered Senba-san in the first place was the presence of oni or whatever she said was floating about the area——
That’s why, these two girls are probably oni.
Ahh… that’s right. I remember…
If they are, and if I’m the one being targeted, then just like they’re saying, I have to hide. I have to run.
If I don’t, then they’re going to drink my Nie no Chi, or whatever it is.
That’s why… I know I have to run, but——
Kei: ———
I can’t.
My legs, transfixed as if shot by the semblance of red arrows in the light of their eyes, are stuck in place as immobile as stones, and there’s nothing I can do to pull back.
What should I do… what should I do——
Regardless of what I should do, there’s nothing I can do.
But, what about Tsudzura-chan?
Kei: Ahh, that’s right—–
I can’t forget her. I have to let Tsudzura-chan escape, somehow.
It’s me who they want. That should give Tsudzura-chan a better than fair chance to get away.
And if she can just make it to Senba-san, who said it was her job to slay oni, wherever she is… then she’ll be safe.
Kei: Tsudzura-chan, run away!
Tsudzura: I will not! Kei-oneesan, you’re the one who said I can’t be alone!
Kei: But, in times like these—!
If it means we’ll both die if you stay… in that case…
If Senba-san would just come to this place, I’ll be saved too, and I’m all banbanzai for that, but I just about burst my lungs running all the way here. Expecting that much is just too optimistic.
Kei: —you have to—–
—run—— but she takes a step forward to halt my words, and makes her presence known to them by her own volition.
Kei: ……Tsudzura-chan?
Why—— I ask with my expression, and her eyes are unwavering as she responds.
Tsudzura: To say simply, Kei-oneesan, I am the inheritor of the Onikiri no Kashira! How could I possibly run away and leave a layperson like yourself in danger!?
Kei: But……
Just because someone serves as a kind of manager for people who slay oni for a living, that doesn’t mean the manager herself has the power to dispose with oni.
What’s more, Tsudzura-chan hates the Wakasugi family that serves in that position with such a passion, that it’s the reason she’s here right now——
Despite that, Tsudzura-chan doesn’t run.
Rather than running, she steps in front in an effort to guard me.
Nozomi: Oh my…… so you are the Onikiri no Kashira?
Tsudzura: It is still unofficial, however.
Nozomi: Is that so……
The oni child who called herself “Nozomi” narrows her eyes, and plants her feet as she scans Tsudzura-chan from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
Nozomi: How impressive. You mean to say at your young age that you hold the same level of power as En no Gyouja?
Who’s En no Gyouja?—— except this is totally not the time to be asking that, but I can at least tell that it’s a presence with enough power to put the oni on her guard.
But… no way… you mean Tsudzura-chan…?
…as the hawk child who learned to hide her talons, could have kept this power hidden the whole time?
The kind of power that could chase these twin oni off without a second thought——
If that is true, I can understand her standing in front to guard me, and watch the events unfold without much worry, so I’d welcome such a development with open arms, but…
Tsudzura: Huh? I have no such power to speak of, myself……
The answer returned by Tsudzura-chan makes my swelling hope shrivel away into nothing.
There’s no way exposing such a truth could be of any benefit to us right now, though she could have an ulterior motive to further hide her power and put the two of them off guard.
Or could it be that… faced with an unexpected reaction, she blurted out the truth without thinking?
Whatever intention by which she said it, as Nozomi-chan recoils from the answer, her widened eyes narrowing suspiciously, and she drops her eyes to Tsudzura-chan’s feet.
Nozomi: But if that one’s at her beck and call, that means……
Kei: Ah——
When I chase her lowered gaze, there, dyed blue in the moonlight, is a fur coat of unsullied white.
They say white foxes are messengers of the gods, but Obana-chan is probably exactly that.
Tsudzura: They seem to be afraid of Obana, don’t they?
Kei: It does look that way. He got rid of that red snake for me yesterday, too, but……
Kei: Tsudzura-chan, as the unofficial Onikiri no Kashira, is there anything you might know about that?
Tsudzura: The most feared of white foxes would be the Great Fox Beast, Hakumenkinmoukyuubi—— but, that is only the face.
No doubt… if he had golden hair, he’d be a kinko, rather than a byakko.
Kei: So, he’s really just a regular oinari-san?
Maybe because I’m an avid lover of rice and Japanese food, the goddess Inari could have come to save me as an oinari-san or something?
Tsudzura: Not that I understand the specifics, but for the time being, let us leave this to Obana.
Kei: Yeah……
They do say “the less they bark, the stronger they bite,” and Obana-chan has always been completely silent.
That would be why I didn’t realize Obana-chan had come when he did, but——
Obana-chan stands the hairs of his back on end, and stands silently against the twin oni.
After I feel something of higher temperature than the summer night air, the sweaty back of Tsudzura-chan brushes into my chest.
Pressed in this way for several seconds, following in the way it pushes, I also begin to back away, little by little.
Under the full pressure of their stares, Obana-chan roots Nozomi-chan and Mikage-chan in place, diverting their attention away from us.
“If you’re gonna run, then now’s the time”—— I suppose is what he’s saying.
However, with the critical intensity of their stares, this situation teeters on an ever more precarious balance.
If I just gave my hands a single clap, Nozomi-chan, her sister, and Obana-chan would probably burst into motion as fast as a gunshot.
Keeping such stimuli under strict suppression, we keep the battlefield at a standstill.
The two of us are already stepping on thin ice. I can’t let myself make some kind of idiotic fuss.
Even if, as their glaring suggests, their power is on an even match, it’s still two twins against the lone Obana-chan.
There’s no doubt that one is going to keep him busy, while the other comes running this way.
And the two of us are weak creatures, with no fangs or claws with which to take the enemy, nor a fur coat to protect our bodies.
That is why Tsudzura-chan and I, scraping the soles of our shoes to the dirt, are putting some distance between us before that happens.
Daruma-san has fallen down——!
Making sure the oni don’t catch on to our movements…
Carefully, carefully——
And even though I’m being so incredibly careful…
…because of my misstep, we are discovered.
Nozomi: Mikage, pin him down——!
Mikage: Yes, Nee-sama.
After taking notice of our attempt to run away, Nozomi-chan leaves her sister to keep Obana-chan at bay, and begins blurring her shape into an illusory form.
*zowari*——
At the moment the hairs on my back stand on end…
…Obana-chan kicks the ground and jumps this way.
It’s so fast, I can’t follow it with my eyes, but the light of his glittering eyes draws a red trail through the night darkness.
At the end of that line, the red light scatters into sparks.
Nozomi: ——!?
As her exposed neck is rubbed by the tail of Obana-chan, who had leapt upon her shoulder, Nozomi-chan swallows a scream and rears upright.
Nozomi: You little!… what the!?……
Evading her swatting hand with a swift movement, Obana-chan moves to sink the fangs of his open mouth into her body.
Facing the fox at her shoulder, Nozomi-chan thrusts out her palm.
*yurari* A mist-like red light rising from her body freezes, morphs into a red snake and strikes at him.
Using the momentum of a jumping kick from her shoulder, he lands a strike upon the red snake with his claws——
Jumping even higher on the rebound, he touches down within the center of the four of us.
Kei: ———
Such a remarkable ability to move, like a falling star I can’t catch with my eyes, that I unknowingly breathe out a sigh of wonder.
With this, I can understand the wariness the oni twins display toward him. His abilities are amazing, measuring far beyond that of a typical fox.
Mikage: *kusu kusu kusu*——
Watching that display in attentive silence, Mikage-chan let’s out a gleeful giggle.
However weak it may look, the snake still has no trouble holding its form together, and with a wave as if to tell it their business is finished, she banishes it into a shapeless mist of power.
Mikage: Nee-sama, it would appear the seal remains unbroken.
Nozomi: Well now, is that so? In that case, there’s nothing to worry about, is there? As long as the seal of En no Gyouja remains unbroken…
Mikage: As long as the Kotodama, the source of his curses, remain bound——
Nozomi: As the sentry of Nushi-sama from the other side, no matter how fearsome an oni god he might have been, this makes him no different from a fox, does it not?
Mikage: It does.
Obana-chan is no typical fox. I’ve been long since convinced of that.
But the ability of his that had them on guard were not the movements that surpassed wild animals…
Kotodama——
I’ve read or heard or at least learned somewhere that it is a profoundly mysterious power of spirit residing in words.
They say those words are sealed inside Obana-chan.
And thinking back, I’ve never heard him let out any kind of voice or cry… not even once.
And if his true form is that of an oni who can use kotodama, it makes sense that he can understand our language.
Kotodama——
That is Obana-chan’s true power.
Speaking of which, in the word for “word,” “kotoba,” the “ba” character is the kanji for “leaf,” and I know it’s derived from the more ancient version, “koto no ha,” but——
When foxes shape-shift and bewitch people, they tend to use konoha, tree leaves, as a tool or for flair, don’t they?
Nozomi: If that’s how it is, I can leave him to you, right?
Mikage: Yes.
Much in the way a picture drawn on paper will disappear when turned at a right angle——
With the ring of a bell, Nozomi-chan’s form disappears into the shadows.
The echo of that ringing builds itself over and over in my head, gaining in height with wave upon wave, and alongside a headache, sounds an alarm bell.
This place is dangerous. I can’t stay here. This is no time to hesitate——
Let’s run away.
I don’t know where Nozomi-chan disappeared off to, but if we’re gonna run away, then it would best be now, while Mikage-chan is the only one here.
For now, we have to run with all our might… to wherever we’ll find Senba-san, the person who said she came here to slay oni.
It’ll be all right.
If I just run without paying heed to the road, like the time we came here, they’ll lose us in the forest before they can say “ah!” When you turn and run, you’re only showing your back for a second.
And if it’s just Mikage-chan, Obana-chan should be able to keep her busy.
Okay!——
Taking Tsudzura-chan’s hand in mine, I turn my body in an about-face.
Tsudzura: Onee-san!?
It would just be a waste of time to answer the voice from behind me, so I run.
Hurry, hurry, hurry——
As one might expect when it’s a matter of life and death, it’s not so shabby a starting dash, at least for me.
The forest steadily closes in.
A bit further… just a bit further——
With just a bit further until we can bound into the forest——
I find myself caught on something.
Kei: Kahaugh!——
The momentum of my highest speed comes back at me in full. I’m jostled back and forth until I stop.
Tsudzura: Kei-oneesan, are you all right!?
Kei: Somehow……
Maybe the tree branches grew so dense, they covered the road in a net? It’s not like I collided into a solid trunk, so I wasn’t damaged or anything, but——
With a light pain resembling a shocking numbness, my body wilts under a strange fatigue.
Kei: Eh……What… is this……
In the space in front of my eyes, there’s nothing I could have run into. My body leans itself, supported, into a space with nothing in it.
As I strain my eyes, I get the impression that I see something invisible.
Like the kind you often see in movies, a net of infra-red rays that sound an alarm when you touch them… like a security system——
Like an unseen thread of power, it is wound in a pattern in the space between trees. The path of escape for both of us has been closed off by a crimson spider’s web.
Kei: A barrier……?
Nozomi: Yes——
A bell rings to the side of my ear.
Nozomi: Hee hee…… fufufu——
The spider has come for her captured prey.
Having kept herself in hiding until this moment, Nozomi-chan shows herself.
Under the prediction that I would run this way, she set out a net and lay in wait.
Sounding the ring of a bell, a white hand reaches out.
My legs and arms, still wound about in wiry tangles, have lost any strength they once had, and won’t obey what I ask of them.
Slender and delicately outstretched fingertips touch at the skin of my neck.
Kei: Hyi!——
In the moment my body cringes at her cold touch…
…Obana-chan kicks the earth and jumps this way.
Mikage: Nee-sama——
At Mikage-chan’s voice, her red eyes are averted from me, as her graceful hand reaches through the air——
—and catches Obana-chan in its grasp.
If she keeps the barrier pinned at her back, she can impose a limit on Obana-chan’s unhindered movements.
And when such a movement is merely fast, it probably doesn’t pose much trouble to her.
Obana-chan may be a beast fox with abnormal abilities, but Nozomi-chan is an inhuman oni.
Kei: Tsudzura-chan! Obana-chan is—!
The white hand has grabbed a tight hold on his neck. There’s no way that wouldn’t be painful.
Obana-chan flails his four limbs about, twists his body, and struggles with all his might to bite at the hand binding him.
But because he’s being grasped at the neck, his grinding, chomping fangs will never reach.
However, the weapons at a beast’s disposal are not fangs alone.
Nozomi: ——!?
Obana-chan’s claws drag across the arm she holds grasped about his neck, marring it with red stripes.
The number of red lines running straight and horizontal solidify in growing height with each passing second, widen out in the path of gravity and become a single sheet of red.
Apparently the sisters’ bodies are merely fleeting forms of flesh, but it would seem that blood flows in them as it would in a real one.
It looks like it would hurt—— but it still amounts to nothing more than a mark of meager resistance… nothing that would ever become a fatal wound——
Sure enough, Nozomi-chan’s knitted brow exposes it as nothing beyond unpleasant, and makes no move to let go.
Rather, her fingers grind inward with many times more force than before, digging themselves deeply into the base of his throat.
*gaga*!——
A mute scream, nothing more than the sound of escaped air.
The blood coughed out from Obana-chan’s mouth flies to the corner of her closely lowered lips.
Nozomi: ……Fufu!
A pink-colored tongue slips out of her lips, and licks away at Obana-chan’s blood.
Nozomi: Quit loitering about, you pest! I have no taste for the bestial blood…
Even as she proclaims thus, her monstrously wet eyes narrow in satisfaction.
In a blatant clash with a smile that may even seem gentle, her arm, and fingers, dig ever deeper down into his throat.
And then, the violently flailing limbs of Obana-chan’s body… quake with one big twitch——
Nozomi: Will you behave for us, now?
—and make a horrible sound.
Kei: Eh……
Nozomi: Fufufu!
Laughing all the while, Nozomi-chan tosses the thing in her hand to the ground.
That’s right—— already, it is nothing more than a thing.
The cast off shell of a soul that never move again. When a living thing ceases to live, it becomes nothing more than a thing.
Even if it leaves behind the dignity of a fragment of life, in the end, it is merely a thing.
Much as they call it “organic matter,” it is no different from the raw materials of carpentry surrounding us now——
For that reason, it already is nothing more than a thing.
And because it is a thing, much in the same way as a broken toy, it is also tossed away with playful laughter.
Pounded fast into the earth, Obana-chan doesn’t move.
Nozomi: Ahahahahahaha!
Cruel as can be in all its innocence, her laughter echoes through the trees, and——
Kei: Ah…… no……!
—I becomes conscious of it at last.
The fact that Obana-chan has died.
Kei: Obana-chan——!?
Someone precious passes away.
It is a terribly sorrowful thing, a feeling of being hurled into an ocean so cold as to freeze my soul——
But, someone like me is still fine…
My emotions are moved more than enough, but it still was a fellowship no more than a few days old.
And while I think it’s wrong to compare it, I just recently lost the most precious person to me in the world… if you compare it to the hole that was opened then…
But—— what about Tsudzura-chan?
To someone like her, who grew distrustful of humans by the circumstances of her home, Obana-chan was a fellow traveler she could open her heart to, close enough to have shared all the joys and sorrows ever since she ran away.
Nozomi: Oh dear——
The reason she would show such surprised interest is probably, because she didn’t think Tsudzura-chan, captured in her barrier the same as I, would be able to move at all in her current state.
Tsudzura: Obanaaa~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!
What forces its way through the spider web-like curse… might be an explosion of emotion, or perhaps her hidden power as Onikiri no Kashira made manifest.
The crimson spider’s web bursts into pieces and disperses into a mist.
Having lost my bindings, I collapse in the spot where I was held.
With powerless steps, Tsudzura-chan nears close to Obana-chan’s prone body, and falls to her knees at his side.
Tsudzura: Hic…… uweaaah…… obanaaa……
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