Ch.176Chapter 26. Mirror (13)

Yuka couldn’t understand.

How the current situation was unfolding.

She had heard the story.

She knew that Kotone wasn’t an ordinary person, and that she was a child who represented some deity.

The same was true for Koko, and she knew that Kotone had been able to come back to life by using part of Koko’s body.

She knew that this might be the best option in the current situation.

A being that seemed impossible to deal with using just a sword.

A monster connected to a world that the living should never know about.

Yuka understood that to face such a thing, one had no choice but to become a monster of equal measure.

But still, there was one thing she couldn’t understand.

Why did it have to be Kotone?

Why did a child who had always suffered have to sacrifice herself?

Why, in this world—

“————!”

A grating sound.

The glowing blue mass of flesh was screaming.

It wasn’t the voice of Kotone that Yuka remembered.

It was massive, but smaller than the giant mass of tentacles sprouting from the ground.

As if to tear apart that flesh that threatened its very existence, the tentacles gripped the mass tightly.

“……”

Yuka clutched her sword tightly.

She blinked away the tears that had welled up.

“Kotone…”

Holding the sobbing Koko tightly in her arms, Yuka stood up. Koko also rose to her feet, following Yuka’s lead.

Koko’s face looked up at Yuka. It was a mess. Blood was caked all over, and her hair, now almost cut to a bob, had some unknown liquid—blood or something else—continuously flowing from it.

Only the parts where tears had streamed down her face revealed patches of white skin.

“Koko, we can’t stay here.”

“Uuu…?”

“Kotone… Kotone went that far for us.”

Yuka looked up at the sky.

She still didn’t know why it had to be Kotone.

But at least, she could understand one reason why Kotone had acted that way.

The way Kotone had looked as she ascended to the sky.

The blue flames falling from above might not have been very harmful to Yuka, but they would certainly have been fatal to Koko’s body.

With her already weakened body, Koko wouldn’t have been able to withstand it.

Fortunately, that mass of flesh was now struggling high in the sky, so no fire was raining down on their heads at the moment.

But it was only a matter of time.

Fire had spread to the bodies of several of the dead.

“…We need to go.”

That request Kotone had mentioned…

She decided not to think about what that request might be.

She just needed to survive here, to ensure that Kotone’s actions weren’t in vain.

Grieving would come later.

Yuka raised her sword and slashed sideways.

Several of the dead, along with a tentacle, were cut.

“———!”

The tentacle was also screaming. Whether this scream was due to Yuka’s sword or because of the flesh-mass biting at it, Yuka had no way of knowing.

She just needed to make a path.

She didn’t know which direction to go, but she had to protect Koko until the end.

Koko seemed to finally understand Yuka’s thoughts and tried her best to widen the gap in the tentacle’s flesh for them to pass through.

The regeneration speed was much slower than before.

It was a bit overwhelming to feel joy or relief.

*

The ground continued to rumble. Because of this, Fukuda’s bike nearly tipped over several times, but he somehow managed to maintain balance and keep riding.

Screech!

But even that had its limits.

After stopping the motorcycle by turning it sideways, Fukuda felt a chill run down his spine.

The ground had split open right next to where he stood. If they had been just a little later, the two of them might have fallen right into that gap.

Feeling the weight on his back disappear, he turned around to see Kagami already dismounting from the motorcycle.

“Kagami-san!”

“We need to go further.”

Was she always this blindly determined?

Fukuda wondered as he watched her back.

To be honest, she had been the opposite at the store. Eyes that seemed to gaze into the distance, as if she had no particular interest in anything.

She always responded politely when spoken to, and would laugh when jokes were made, but she was quite far from the image of someone dedicated.

He had seen her at the police station too.

“Go,” Kagami said.

“You have a daughter too, Fukuda-san.”

“……”

Fukuda opened his mouth briefly, then closed it.

…Indeed, even if he followed further, he probably wouldn’t be of much help.

Besides, he couldn’t completely shake off thoughts about what would happen to Harumi if he died here.

The thought did cross his mind that if the world ended, he wouldn’t see his daughter either, but—

BOOM!

“Ahhh!?”

Just as he was getting off the motorcycle to follow, something fell from the sky.

It was a giant… octopus leg, for lack of a better description. Of course, it was different from a normal octopus leg.

It was densely perforated with holes. As if boils had grown and then all burst, red blood was flowing profusely.

Such a thing had fallen in the direction where Kagami had gone.

“…Kagami-san!?”

He called out, but there was no sound.

Whether she couldn’t hear or something else had happened, he didn’t know.

“……”

Fukuda looked up at the sky.

The blue mass of flesh had split vertically.

It had become a huge mouth, biting and tearing at the tentacles. Even from this distance, he could see an enormous amount of blood or bodily fluids pouring down.

“…What is all this?”

Fukuda muttered in bewilderment.

*

A dragon burning blue.

That’s how the mass of flesh appeared to Kagami’s eyes.

It became a huge mouth, then grew legs at the back. It was swinging its tail like a whip, as if trying to strike something.

Stretched long in the sky and writhing, it looked exactly like a dragon straight out of mythology.

“Ah…”

And tears flowed from Kagami’s eyes as she watched the battle.

That is… surely Kotone. Or perhaps Koko is with her too.

It might be difficult to express it that way. After all, Kagami had given birth to many of those flesh masses. Enough to fill several refrigerators in her apartment.

Whether it was truly one being, or many combined into one, there was no way to know.

Perhaps as they merged, their consciousness also became blurred.

If so, what’s there couldn’t be Kotone and Koko.

“Haa, haa.”

But even thinking this, Kagami didn’t stop moving.

THUD!

Something fell from above.

It was a severed tentacle. It fell beside the path Kagami was running on, and the impact shook the ground. Kagami stumbled and fell, but she didn’t let go of the mirror in her hand.

There were no monsters or anything around. At some point, the monsters that had been appearing were gone. There were traces, though. Traces as if something had burst everywhere.

The ground was slimy.

Are they all dead?

Something changed when that mass of flesh arrived. She forced herself to get up.

“……”

Kagami realized the unnaturalness.

If that huge tentacle fell, it would naturally be fatal to beings below. Like a person stepping on ants, buildings and houses below would collapse too.

People inside would not be spared either.

But what had fallen—

The severed pieces had strangely avoided the residential areas.

Cars were crushed, roads were broken. Parts of buildings were damaged and collapsed.

Yet, Kagami somehow felt that no one had died because of it.

When people survive situations where one more step would have meant death, even if it’s just coincidence, they often think it was divine protection.

Is it too much to think that about this scene now?

Kagami’s heart beat rapidly.

“————Hahahahahahaha!”

Laughter echoed.

She looked up at the sky again.

Is the opponent… really her sister?

Whether her voice changed as her body transformed, or whether her sister had become something else entirely, she couldn’t tell.

But amidst the maniacal laughter, the bell sound that had been heard earlier had long since stopped.

Kagami started running again.

The reason her heart was racing wasn’t just because she was running.

Would a foreign deity consider human beings in its actions?

In Kurosawa’s plan, people were expendable. After all, if people died because of that power, when life and death became one, the concept itself wouldn’t matter.

If even a fellow human thought that way, would a deity care about such things?

Therefore—

“Still… it’s Kotone.”

Kagami couldn’t give up.

Even if her form had changed like that, even if she had merged with countless beings and could no longer be recognized as a single entity.

Because Kotone’s heart was there.

Because Kotone, while being a messenger of a deity descended upon this world, was someone who could empathize with people more than anyone else, this was happening.

That’s why Kagami ran.

*

“Hahahahahahaha!”

When the laughter was heard, the dragon seemed to become even more enraged, opening its mouth wide.

It was unclear ‘what’ was making the laughing sound, but all the dead attached to the tentacles screamed at once.

Pop, pop, pop.

The dead burst one by one, and blood splattered everywhere. The dragon hadn’t spat anything out, but the dead, hearing some incomprehensible sound—a sound ordinary people couldn’t hear—all lost their form in this world.

With the dead gone and the tentacles covered in blood, the dragon bit into them.

With its long body, it coiled around the tentacle in reverse, withstanding the force of other tentacles trying to tear its body away. Its blue burning body seemed to be helping.

CRUNCH!

With a sound like pulling out iron bars, the tentacle was torn sideways, and black blood gushed out.

The sight of red and black mixing and pouring down was bizarre. Even in the dark night, the blue dragon’s flames illuminated the surroundings.

The monsters fought in the pale light.

When the dragon opened its mouth again, a tentacle dove into the gap. The tentacle, wrapping around the lower jaw, applied force, not caring that it was being torn by the closed upper jaw.

With a terrible sound, the dragon’s lower jaw broke. The tentacle was also torn off, but after it fell to the ground with a thud, the dragon’s jaw was seen hanging loosely, bent downward.

“———!”

The dragon’s tail was caught by a tentacle, and numerous tentacles wrapped around its long body from above.

Creak.

Crack.

The sound of something collapsing from within was heard.

The dragon screamed.

Slash.

Blades sprouted between the tentacles wrapping its body.

Those thin but sharp razor-like blades tore through the penetrated areas. The sound of tearing spread far around.

“Hahahahahahaha!”

But the opponent seemed to find even this amusing, applying more force.

In the end, the dragon was able to break free. No matter how massive a being was, if it was torn to the point where its form no longer remained, it would lose its strength.

But the dragon’s body was just as tattered.

Blades sticking out everywhere.

A surface that had become like rags.

It looked as if it had returned to that initial mass of flesh.

The dragon seemed to retreat to the sky, then lowered its head and fell again.

And it bit one of the tentacles it had reduced to rags.

What had been razor blades became hands. In a grotesque form with human arms sprouting from a snake-like elongated body, the dragon grabbed the tentacle.

And bit into it.

A large chunk of flesh entered the dragon’s mouth.

After chewing it a few times, the dragon swallowed the flesh.

Thud.

Another tentacle fell on the dragon’s waist, but this time, the dragon didn’t try to escape and instead rolled its body like a snake, moving its head towards the tentacle.

One arm grabbed the end of that tentacle.

As if not to be outdone by the tentacle wrapping around its body, the dragon also wrapped its body around the tentacle.

Chomp.

And it chewed the tentacle.

Like a combination of a snake and wolf’s predation, the dragon chewed and swallowed the tentacle several times.

The laughter didn’t stop. In fact, the more flesh the dragon swallowed, the louder the laughter became, as if enjoying it.

Thud. Thud.

Towards the snake, endlessly sprouting tentacles crashed down like whips.

Perhaps due to eating the flesh, the snake seemed to have gained more strength, meeting the tentacles with its jaws again and again.

*

Breathing heavily, Koko and Yuka finally managed to emerge on the other side.

How many tentacles had they passed through?

Their entire bodies felt exhausted to the point of collapse.

It couldn’t be helped. They had been fighting for their lives for a long time.

Kosuzu, fighting the dragon, seemed to have no respite. She had been laughing loudly enough to burst eardrums, but Yuka didn’t think it was laughter from leisure.

Thanks to the dragon—Kotone—biting and tearing the tentacles from above, there were times when Yuka didn’t need to cut them herself.

A few times, they almost got crushed by violently moving tentacles, but they survived because Yuka swung her sword and Koko blocked.

The two walked aimlessly, without saying a word, not knowing where to go.

If they stopped, they would die.

That thought alone kept Yuka moving.

And—

Was it a coincidence?

Or was it some kind of guidance?

They had just been trying to find a path and escape, but—

“…Ah.”

In front of them was a ‘person’.

At least, it looked like a person.

The lower half was no longer in human form. The legs were so finely split and stuck to the ground that they were barely visible.

Numerous tentacles sprouting from the back were connected to the giant tentacles rising high into the sky.

Around were many dead, their bodies hanging limply.

And the central figure itself was just hanging there, doing nothing.

The hair had turned white.

The face and arms were wrinkled.

It no longer looked like Kagami’s ‘sister’.

“……”

That being—Kosuzu—had her right hand extended forward.

A bell hung there, swinging pitifully.

It made a tinkling sound, but unlike before, it seemed to have no meaning.

Did it mean the owner of the bell had died?

Yuka almost lost strength in her legs for a moment.

“Yuka!?”

If Koko hadn’t been beside her, she might have.

Yuka slowly moved forward with Koko.

The bodies of the dead were stepped on.

Crunch.

And unable to bear Yuka’s weight, they simply turned to dust.

They looked as if they had dried up and withered from the passage of too much time.

Yuka walked as close as she could to Kosuzu.

And slowly, she raised her sword and placed it against Kosuzu’s neck.

Before she could even perform the action of ‘stabbing’, Kosuzu slowly crumbled.

As if she had been made of dust from the beginning, Kosuzu crumbled too easily, like an overly dried leaf.

Her head fell off, turning to sand before it hit the ground.

Her neck collapsed, her chest turned to powder.

Her arms fell off.

When her hand shattered upon hitting the floor, the bell simply rolled on the ground.

All that dust, like the inside of some creature’s stomach, stuck to the sticky and damp floor and walls, slowly changing color. Like sand absorbing water.

Kosuzu was already dead.

Exactly when, it was impossible to know, but before Yuka and Koko arrived here.

Why—

—There was no need to think about it.

“—Hahahahahahaha!”

Above, a being laughing as if it wanted to bring down the world with just its laughter.

It must be because of ‘that’ which Kosuzu had swallowed.

No matter how much a human transcends humanity, they cannot become a deity.

A human who tries to swallow a deity will, in the end, be swallowed by the deity—

Why hadn’t Yuka thought of this?

“Yuka?”

Koko called out to Yuka.

Yuka was about to look towards Koko when—

“—Ugh!”

She suddenly felt pain in her head and dropped to one knee.

“Wuah!?”

Koko seemed to feel the same pain.

The tentacles were slowly collapsing. Starting from where Kosuzu had been.

As if they had been deliberately maintaining that form until now.

Despite the splitting headache, Yuka managed to stand up with her sword.

Even as tears streamed down her face from the pain, she barely caught Koko’s body as it rose into the air, her eyes rolled back.

Because Kotone had asked.

“There’s no way I can give up!”

Yuka cried out through her tears.

Yuka had no intention of giving up.

She put Koko down and held her in her arms again.

Then she got up and ran.

“Ugh!”

Something grabbed her foot, but Yuka swung her sword.

She continued running, swinging her sword wildly around her.

“U, uuu…”

“Koko! Stay conscious! You can’t do that!”

Koko was reaching her hand towards the sky. Her eyes were still rolled back.

As if something in the sky was calling her.

Finally, the sky came into view.

The blue burning dragon was visible.

The dragon was writhing in the air.

As if in great pain.

“…Ah!”

The broken tentacles began to rise towards the sky.

Koko was also being lifted, so Yuka, tightly gripping her sword, wrapped her arms around Koko and held her close.

And she pressed herself flat against the ground.

She was scared.

Scared of what would happen next.

But she couldn’t give up.

“—Hahahahahahaha!”

The laughter echoed.

It was a chilling laugh.

Perhaps Kotone had been hearing this laughter all along.

Yuka thought this as tears streamed down her face.