Ch.172Chapter 25. Bell (5)

It feels a bit inappropriate to say this in such a situation.

To be honest, the sense of liberation was incredible.

I don’t mean that I wasn’t living freely in my normal life. In this world, I lived much more freely than in my previous life.

In high school, I attended cram school and participated in self-study sessions.

Following friends to club activities, participating in school festivals—those experiences were wonderful enough to be called precious memories.

But the liberation I’m feeling now is different from that.

“…I’ve experienced this before, but it’s not easy to get used to.”

Yuka said with an expression that suggested she was feeling a bit motion sick.

Running at a speed that no ordinary person could achieve.

That’s what I was capable of doing now.

I’m not sure exactly what rules govern it. It felt different from just “running.”

At this speed, I’d expect to create tremendous noise or cause strong winds around me, but I didn’t feel any of that.

It was like folding space itself… to run. That’s how it felt. Perhaps something similar to the teleportation techniques described in martial arts novels.

Well, that’s not important right now.

“…Haa.”

Yuka exhaled.

In front of us was an overturned truck.

We were lucky that there didn’t seem to be any cars driving nearby. Only parked cars had been crushed by the truck.

And blood was flowing from inside the truck that was lying on top of those parked cars.

There was a torn hole in the side of the truck.

I went straight to the truck and looked inside.

“Sa… save me.”

There was a survivor.

Though in a desperate state.

It was someone who should recognize my face… but whether they knew me as Koko, or whether they were even in a state to recognize anyone—

I immediately entered the truck and pulled the person out.

Their side was torn open.

I could glimpse what looked like internal organs.

Yuka immediately knelt beside them and placed her hand on the wound. While using one hand to block the wound as much as possible, she took out her phone, opened it, and with a slightly panicked expression, held it high in the air.

“…I can’t get a signal.”

Yuka said with a serious expression.

…If we leave them like this, they’ll definitely die. In fact, even if an ambulance came, I’m not sure if they could be saved. If there’s space in a nearby hospital emergency room, maybe they could survive—

I also knelt beside the person.

“What happened?”

When I calmly asked the man whose pupils were starting to dilate, he finally looked at my face properly. His eyes widened.

“You, you are?”

“…I’m not the corpse you were transporting.”

The man seemed confused.

“…I don’t know.”

The man said.

“Something… like a huge claw.”

A claw?

Is he saying it came from my corpse?

But for something like that, the surroundings were too intact. If a monster capable of destroying the world had appeared, the area couldn’t be this undamaged.

“The corpse?”

“Stolen…”

The man said that and then lost consciousness.

“He’s still alive.”

Yuka said, checking his neck. I also placed my hand on his chest and could feel his heart still beating.

“…”

There might be a first aid kit in the truck. But we didn’t have enough time for that. We were in “pursuit” right now.

In that case.

I took one of my hairs. When I broke it off with my fingernail, I felt a pain slightly sharper than when hair is normally pulled out. A little blood flowed, but it wasn’t serious enough to be a problem.

“Kotone?”

Koko, who was watching me, called my name in surprise.

I placed the hair on the man’s side wound and imagined what I wanted.

Instinctively, just like how I had acted on our way here.

The hair wriggled somewhat disgustingly and moved to burrow into the man’s side.

As it moved through both sides of the wound, the open wound began to close like a zipper being pulled up.

When both sides were tightly sealed, the bleeding lessened somewhat.

…I don’t know if this will be enough to save this man. Since the wound was already open, infection could be severe, and since this isn’t a proper surgery but just closing the external wound, I don’t know what might happen inside.

But ultimately, if we just leave him, the man will simply die.

For a very brief moment, I thought that maybe I could save this man, or even everyone in the truck.

But we might run out of time, and above all—

“…It’s quiet around here.”

“Huh?”

When I made this somewhat abrupt comment, Koko tilted her head.

Is this… Tokyo? It seems so. It’s not near the sea like where my school is, but it could at least be considered Tokyo close to Saitama.

If so, even at night like this, we should be hearing some sounds.

Sounds of people.

There should be people walking around here and there. Even in a residential area, there are people who come out at dawn for whatever reason. And if an accident like this happened, everyone in the vicinity would have heard it.

Didn’t that huge scream reach even the apartment in Saitama? So why is no one out here looking?

The electricity was working. The streetlights were on.

Even the headlights of the overturned truck were flickering.

I ran to the house right next to us. There was a window on the first floor. Although curtains were drawn, lights were on inside.

“Kotone?”

Yuka approached me.

I pressed my face as close as possible to the window and looked inside. The curtains weren’t completely drawn to the end of the window, so I could glimpse inside. I could also hear sounds from inside the window.

The sound of a TV was coming from inside.

And there was someone inside. Sitting on the sofa watching TV.

I don’t think it’s particularly strange for someone to be fixated on the TV without moving. But it’s also strange for their body to be as stiff as a statue.

They might be asleep, but.

I knocked on the window.

“Excuse me!”

The person didn’t react.

I knocked harder, making the window rattle as if it might break.

“Look over here!”

But still there was no reaction.

“…”

“Did they lose consciousness?”

Yuka said, but I didn’t think that was the case.

If that were true, the situation would already be unfolding much more seriously. If people driving had lost consciousness, there would have been accidents.

But it’s quiet. Too quiet.

I looked at the next house. A family was sitting at the dining table. They were all smiling, but they weren’t moving, as if they had become mannequins. In the house next to that, an elderly couple lived, and both of them were sitting motionless on the sofa, just watching TV.

As if time had stopped.

“…Let’s go.”

When I said this, Yuka nodded with a serious expression.

I don’t understand why that person in the truck could talk to us when everyone else seems frozen.

I can make a guess. Perhaps it’s because they were touched by the being that stabbed them. The entity that attacked the truck couldn’t have been an ordinary beast.

Or maybe my corpse had some effect.

I took Yuka and Koko’s hands.

And I ran following the trail.

*

Time is freezing.

That was the sensation I felt.

I didn’t feel it properly at the place where the truck was, but the closer we got to our destination, the more I felt it.

It was different from the chills I felt in my previous body.

It was more… like it was linked to a more fundamental fear.

“…Everything has stopped.”

All the people in the places we passed were frozen in place.

It’s hard to describe it as just actions being stopped. The appearance of someone who froze mid-step isn’t something that can be maintained by force.

Fluttering neckties, flowing hair. All of those things were frozen.

It seemed like the laws of physics themselves were affected, but also not. The streetlights remained on, and TVs in places like stores continued to play.

Is what’s connected to some external cause important? Electricity flowing, communications coming in… things like that.

Or it might be “space as perceived by individuals.” It gave the impression that everyone’s time had stopped.

As we ran like that, the place where we finally stopped was a wide plaza.

It’s not as wide as a school playground. It’s one of those fairly large parks you sometimes find in cities.

“…”

In the center of it, a girl was lying down.

And there was someone embracing that corpse.

Yuka inhaled.

There were people collapsed around.

Were they people who tried to stop that person?

Most of them were wearing the same uniforms as the people who came to capture us. I couldn’t tell if they were police or military, but knives and guns were scattered all over the ground.

And.

“…”

Yuka stepped forward without hesitation and picked up one of the knives lying on the ground.

It was the “Nameless” that those people had taken.

“This is what happens when you try to wield it recklessly.”

Yuka said with a voice mixed with a sigh.

As Yuka said, beneath it lay the person who had been holding the sword. Unlike the person in the truck who was still alive, this person was definitely dead.

There was a hole in their stomach. Did they die without even getting a chance to swing the sword?

“This sword is still in the process of being made.”

Yuka shook the sword. The blood that had been on it splashed to the side, and the blade gleamed as moonlight reflected off it.

“The name of a weapon is only given at the end, you know.”

Feeling my gaze, Yuka smiled and said.

Even in this situation, isn’t she scared?

…No.

I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath.

No, she’s definitely scared. Yuka said so herself.

She said she didn’t want to die. She said she’d rather play than swing a sword.

Yet she can smile like that because Yuka also knows that this is something no one else can do.

The “Nameless” gleamed in Yuka’s hand.

A sword that has been steeped in yokai blood for hundreds of years, but is not yet complete.

I see. This was a story I hadn’t read in the original work. I had thought there might be some foreshadowing about that name.

“In the end, is it meant to cut even a god?”

I said jokingly.

Isn’t that a common story in light novels?

Yuka shrugged her shoulders.

“Maybe the process of being made is its purpose in itself?”

That could be.

“Well.”

Yuka said, turning her gaze.

“…If that’s the case, it wouldn’t be bad to complete it by cutting something at the end. I can still use it even after it’s completed.”

And she turned toward the being in the center of the plaza.

A crunching sound could be heard.

It was an eerie sound that gave me goosebumps just hearing it, but seeing the “sight” made it even worse.

The body of “Kotone Kurosawa” was in pieces.

And large tentacles were crushing that body and stuffing it into a mouth.

“…Is that the right way to use it?”

When I asked, its head lifted.

Amidst all the flesh and tentacles sat the form of an ordinary person.

Very similar to Kagami— Ah, yes, seeing it like this, I understand why it’s not the “same person” as Kagami.

The face with its makeup removed had more wrinkles than Kagami. Assuming the two aren’t many years apart in age, it’s a face that looks prematurely aged.

Did she do something with her body?

…Well, she must have done something. Even now, all sorts of flesh connected to that body are writhing.

Crunch.

Whether or not Kosuzu’s face was turned toward me, the tentacles were chewing my corpse.

It was a disgusting sight.

Even to me, who had seen someone being eaten, it was a disgusting sight.

“…Because there’s no other way than this.”

Kosuzu’s mouth moved.

“…”

Perhaps everything progressed too quickly.

Kosuzu must have had her own plans. But they must have gone seriously awry in the middle.

If she had been a being who could do something by eating me, she would have tried to kill me somehow when she saw me in Kyoto. I was in a weakened state then, so she might have succeeded. Who knows. She might have been able to prepare a gun or something.

I didn’t read the novel to the end.

I didn’t even read until the character Kotone Kurosawa appeared in the novel.

But I don’t think that character suddenly appeared in one volume and completely resolved all the plot threads.

There might have been foreshadowing throughout the novel that I didn’t notice.

There must have been a point where all of it converged.

“…I want to ask you something.”

I said to Kosuzu.

Of course, while saying this, I was actively looking around. When and how to rush in. How to attack effectively.

It seemed like it might be possible right now.

But looking at the people collapsed all around, it definitely wouldn’t be easy.

“Why did you… create me?”

“…”

Kosuzu couldn’t answer.

“If not me, if a different being had entered here, what were you planning to do?”

Kosuzu, who had been staring at me without saying anything, swung her tentacles as I approached closer.

The ground was deeply gouged. It wasn’t just that a hole was created; the cement was broken and flew upward. I jumped back to avoid the fragments.

“You should have been a bridgehead.”

Kosuzu glared at me and said.

“You should have been a bridgehead to connect all of us.”

“…”

She’s talking to me, right?

And she’s blaming me for not being that.

“But, you, in the end, were just a child.”

So I’m a failure.

Whether I had awakened or not, in the end, a failure.

Yes, I understand.

In the end, what Kosuzu wanted was— not Nirlas himself.

No, ultimately she wanted to use Nirlas, but before that, she wanted to create someone who would “connect the world and that being.”

What was she planning to do after that?

She would have used that child, who was practically an idiot, as she wished. Somehow forcing knowledge into them, causing pain, and persuading them.

…The original Kotone Kurosawa, who wasn’t even born in this world, would have gradually broken down.

She might have suffered all the acts that Kagami suffered. Each piece of knowledge she had might have been completely distorted.

And such a Kotone would have been at the same school as the protagonist.

Quietly, gradually breaking down from the inside. Without anyone knowing.

Without Mako to take care of her, without Fukuda or Yuu to play with her. Without even thinking of joining a club.

“…It probably would have failed. Even if things had gone according to your plan.”

I answered.

Yes. I didn’t see it through to the end.

But I do know how Hyakki Yagyō ended.

Many people died. They managed to stop it somehow, but there couldn’t have been zero victims.

When such an incident occurred in the middle of Tokyo, the government began to move openly, and that volume ended.

Did Kosuzu survive then? What about Kagami?

…Perhaps all the characters who could control “Kotone” died at that time?

So an event that would cause the end of the world occurred, and the protagonist and heroine magnificently prevented it—that might have been the content of the original work.

Well, since I didn’t read it myself, I don’t know.

Now I regret it a little.

I should have read it to the end. Not for knowledge to use in this world. Just because it seemed interesting.

It’s too bad that I didn’t get to see the ending of one of the many novels that made my childhood enjoyable.

“Still, I understand why I’m here. And about my abilities too.”

When I said this, Kosuzu stared at me.

Crunch, crunch.

For some reason, Nirlas wasn’t resisting. Kotone Kurosawa’s corpse was turning into chunks of meat and entering Kosuzu.

“The most necessary thing to break what’s already determined is ‘chaos,’ right?”

I recalled what Kuro had said.

I thought about what had happened because of my presence here.

That’s… yes.

The original development was completely twisted, relationships between characters changed fundamentally, and in some sense, even the position of the “protagonist” changed.

The space and time that should have been the center of the drama changed.

Looking at it now, and if someone who knows the original story were to see it, that could truly be called “chaos.”

From the perspective of that distant one, so wise that they know nothing, always sleeping in ignorance, it might be so.

Nothing can be confirmed. Nothing can be certain. These are thoughts that someone who has read everything in advance couldn’t have.

“…Kotone?”

Yuka and Koko rarely called my name at the same time.

Slowly, I felt my feet leaving the ground.

If I can truly be called “chaos,” then yes.

…I should be able to ignore the original rules to some extent.

Well, all beings here are like that anyway.

“I still don’t really understand what you’re trying to do.”

How she plans to break the boundary between the afterlife and this world.

Why she needs Nirlas’s power to break it. Well, not describing all of that was the charm of the Cthulhu Mythos.

“But if you succeed, we definitely won’t be able to live the lives we want.”

What I want is similar to what Yuka wants.

Just to live normally and happily in an ordinary world.

I do long for the extraordinary. But that extraordinary is enough as an occasional seasoning. The most important thing is the sparkling ordinary life.

“So, just like you, I’m going to do my best.”

Kosuzu’s tentacles moved.

I moved too.

Koko and Yuka probably moved as well.