Ch.399IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (96)

In my opinion, my face doesn’t have as sharp an impression as I thought.

I believed that both Kagami and I had the kind of appearance that could look sharp if we wanted to. Kagami naturally had somewhat narrow eyes, and while mine weren’t quite as narrow, I had inherited Kagami’s sharp eye shape to some extent.

However, Kagami had never gotten angry with me, and I think I grew up with a rather easygoing personality. So even though my eyes might be somewhat sharp, my face doesn’t really have much intensity to it. Everyone around me treats me comfortably too.

Perhaps because of that, that head’s face wasn’t scary at all when looking at just the face.

Plop.

But because of that non-threatening face, the head’s actions seemed strangely mismatched. That was a bit… how should I put it, frightening.

“Woah!”

The head jumped down from the railing, fluttering the school uniform mass “connected” below its neck.

“Eek.”

“Hieek.”

The police who happened to be hiding in that direction were startled. The head turned around at the sound, but it didn’t attack those men in police uniforms who showed no signs of aggression.

I breathed a sigh of relief seeing that.

However it had been stabbed, the slime slid down from the railing and fell to the floor with a splat. Come to think of it, something like a human head was visible inside that transparent body. Though I couldn’t tell what it was made of.

Would it die if the head was smashed?

“Woo?”

The head tilted as it looked at me. Then, the limp cloth-like material below its neck began to inflate as if being filled with air. The body that extended like an inflating human-shaped balloon soon became identical to my current body.

But that school uniform, and the plastic raincoat over it, were probably all flesh. I couldn’t understand the principle behind it at all.

Thud.

With arms spread wide, striking a pose like a gymnast’s finishing stance, that head… no, the being that resembled me, landed on the ground and smiled at me with a somewhat triumphant expression.

“Woah!”

“……”

I looked at Yuka.

Yuka was staring at the head with her mouth hanging open.

“…Hmm?”

The woman made such a sound.

When I turned my head, I saw the woman tilting hers.

Judging by the slight wrinkle between her eyebrows, this was unexpected for her.

“…What on earth happened in the meantime? Did you perhaps know about that place? Have you been going around doing something—no, that can’t be possible.”

“Candy.”

“What?”

“I just gave it some candy.”

That’s right.

If that child is my “sister” as that woman claimed.

Then it must be related to Kagami. There must be a reason why Kagami only took me and ran away.

Maybe she only saw me as human. Even I might have asked Yuka to cut it down if I hadn’t coincidentally had those thoughts.

Or I might have swung the knife myself.

“Why did you think it would follow your orders?”

I deliberately tilted my head toward the woman as I asked.

To be honest, despite the chilly weather, cold sweat was running down my back. Even though that child had joined us and killed two slime-like creatures, I still didn’t know what cards the woman was holding.

There was something invisible, and more slimes. It wouldn’t be strange if that woman had the power to control it somehow. After all, she seemed to have been trying to “use” it.

“……”

The woman was quietly looking at us, thinking about something.

Plop.

But there was one being here who had no intention of giving her time to think.

That child, who had been trembling since it knew the woman had arrived, was now moving much more aggressively, perhaps because it had regained part of its body.

More precisely, my eyes couldn’t even track its movements.

“No…!?”

Yuka reflexively raised her sword with that cry.

Another slime was taken down. And the one next to it too. By attacking precisely at the head part, that child who resembled me stopped the movement of both slimes.

And then its eyes turned toward the woman—

Once again, in the blink of an eye, the child was holding something transparent in the air. With its hair. It had been walking with its hair from the beginning.

“……”

The woman looked up at that mass of flesh.

“Woo.”

“…Ha, haha.”

The woman let out a laugh.

“Hahaha! Yes, that’s right!?”

Clutching her stomach, as if in disbelief. Even as the masses of flesh were slashing at each other’s bodies.

The body of that child with my appearance was being torn apart in various places, but the fallen pieces of flesh reattached themselves. Conversely, that invisible thing was also bleeding profusely. Since it was invisible, I couldn’t tell the situation exactly, but neither seemed to have the upper hand.

“From the beginning, from the beginning…!”

The woman’s laughter had now turned hysterical.

“…Sigh. Mr. Waitley.”

The woman said.

“Let’s retreat for now.”

“Where do you…!”

Yuka took a step forward upon hearing those words, but with a popping sound, the woman disappeared.

“Woah!?”

Whatever it had been fighting must have disappeared too, as the flesh mass resembling me that had been advancing forward suddenly fell flat.

After briefly flattening like a slime smacked against the floor, the child slowly regained my appearance and raised its head.

“Woo……”

It made that sound while looking in the direction where the woman had disappeared.

Unmistakably the sound of a young child.

“……”

The goosebumps subsided.

The yokai were gone now. The corpses of those slimes would probably slowly disappear too. The police officers were staggering to their feet. Their expressions were uniformly dazed.

The child resembling me slowly got up and looked in my direction.

Looking at that child, many thoughts came to mind.

In fact, I must be the same kind of being as that child. Perhaps I too was born as such a formless thing and wasn’t treated as human.

That child spoke. It seemed capable of thinking too.

I’m not sure what it had been eating to survive on that old house’s roof. But unlike me, it had lived without anyone to take care of it, probably fearing the people around here.

“…What do we do now?”

Yuka said.

For the first time since meeting Yuka, I think I heard her mutter in confusion in this kind of situation.

Yeah.

What do we do?

“Woo?”

The child, receiving the gaze of both of us, tilted its head while looking at me.

*

“Alright, I’ll call you Koko from now on.”

“Woo?”

“Koko.”

When I pointed at that child—the one I decided to call Koko from now on—it tilted its head.

“Koko?”

“Yes, you’re Koko.”

“Koko!”

“Koko.”

“Koko!”

Hmm, this seems like it might never end.

In the swaying car, I pointed at myself and said:

“Kotone.”

“Kotone!”

“Yuka.”

“Yuka!”

“……”

When I pointed at Yuka and said her name, Koko repeated Yuka’s name too. Yuka looked at us with an extremely complicated expression.

Still, Koko’s body was in school uniform. Well, what else could we do? I couldn’t show my naked body with Yuka right there.

There weren’t many people in good physical condition, but there was someone well enough to drive who agreed to take us home.

There were other refrigerators in the remaining rooms of that house. But I wasn’t sure what would happen to this child if it absorbed all those flesh masses, so we decided to leave them sealed for now.

There were residents who had poked their heads out after hearing the gunshots, but most had apparently been trembling inside their homes. According to Yuka, from the moment the slimes appeared, the surroundings had already become a “nest.”

Once you enter a nest, you become disconnected from the surroundings. That’s why in light novels, people don’t remember yokai battles that happen in broad daylight.

“…Are you really going to take that child with you?”

“……”

I thought about many things.

Is taking it with me the best option? Would it be better not to?

I couldn’t easily come to a conclusion. Kagami is at our home. I don’t know what would happen if Kagami understood that she had another daughter besides me that she had left behind.

But I couldn’t let government people take this child either. In the end, I insisted right there that I would protect this child.

Isn’t it a building owned by the Kurosawa family? I’m a Kurosawa. So this child is a Kurosawa too, I said.

I told them we’d need more time for more accurate results. It needed to be reported to higher authorities.

And for just that amount of time, I was allowed to protect it.

Yuka still had an uncomfortable expression.

But entrusting this child’s protection to Yuka would be strange in many ways too.

In the end, I headed home without coming to a proper conclusion.

“…By the way, what’s with that name?”

“…It’s just temporary.”

I could only answer Yuka’s question that way.

I definitely couldn’t say it was because its first appearance was with a huge nose, so I called it Koko.

*

“Kotone!”

Kagami, who had been waiting in front of the house, shouted as she saw the car stop and ran toward us.

It took longer than usual. How long had Kagami been waiting outside?

Kagami, who had been standing next to Dad with a shawl over her shoulders and came running with a bright smile when she saw me—

Stopped in her tracks when she saw Koko getting out behind me.

Koko looked exactly like me.

“Kotone?”

“Kotone!”

When Kagami called me, Koko repeated it once more loudly.

Kagami and Dad froze. And Koko tilted its head.

Yuka got out behind us.

In this incredibly awkward situation, I seriously contemplated what I should say.

And couldn’t think of anything at all.

Well.

I’m doomed.