Ch.42Chapter 6. Solitude (6)

Setting aside my instinctual fear, I knew I had to eliminate this creature completely if I wanted to survive.

If Ms. Mori couldn’t live, it would mean this thing had been terrorizing people in the house. And the victims were yakuza, of all people.

Terrorizing people for no reason, angering spirits and then running away? We’d have a truckload of intimidating men in suits showing up at our house tomorrow, and it wouldn’t be surprising.

Besides, if I turned my back now, it would probably lunge at me and slice my throat.

…Though it was a yokai, it was still based on a dog. It might retain those instincts.

If I stand here facing it directly, looking straight into its eyes—

The dog’s mouth opened wide and it charged at me.

Completely useless.

Well, that’s what happens with knowledge casually picked up from the internet.

I’d love to slash my enemy elegantly like Yuka does in novels, but I can’t do that. I’ve never learned how to use a sword.

So instead.

I thrust the sword forward.

This was a blade I created anew each time. Naturally, the edge would be razor-sharp.

The dog charging at me twisted its body sideways.

Good, one thing was clear. The dog was aiming for my throat. If it had been targeting my arms or legs, it would have bitten differently.

Not exactly comforting information.

I swung my sword toward the dog as it dodged sideways.

While I wasn’t exactly an expert at handling blades, a well-honed sword is threatening even when simply swung.

The tip of the blade grazed the dog’s waist.

The longer the dog ran forward, the longer the wound became. Seeing a red gash appear in seemingly empty air was far more bizarre than I’d expected.

And then—

Yelp.

With that distinctive canine whimper, the yokai frantically twisted its body sideways.

At a glance, the wound didn’t look deep. Of course, if an ordinary person received such a wound, they’d be crying in pain, but this was a yokai. Last time, the silkworm charged at me even with an arrow through its neck.

Perhaps it’s because it’s a being that only inflicts pain on others?

While thinking this, my eyes caught the fur around the wound.

While the fur elsewhere was standing straight up, the fur around its side was drooping as if soaked in rain.

“…”

Alright, I’ll remember that.

I charged toward the dog.

My rain-soaked clothes clung uncomfortably to my body, but it was bearable. The instinctual fear remained, but people fear falling yet still go bungee jumping and ride roller coasters.

And the underlying belief is: “I will not die.”

Right. I won’t die. I’ve already had my hand bitten and my heart pierced. Neither killed me.

My body doesn’t die from violence.

Woof, woof! The dog barked fiercely, then charged toward me just as I was charging at it.

I gripped the sword tightly with both hands and raised my left arm. I bent my elbow and extended my arm forward—the same posture dog trainers use when they offer their thickly-wrapped arm.

Then I slightly loosened my left hand.

How did it look to the dog?

I hoped it appeared as if I was pulling back the blade to swing it. The dog needed to not realize my intention so it would bite my arm.

Chomp.

I felt the dog’s teeth sink into my arm. It hurt terribly.

The dog instinctively planted all four feet firmly and pulled back. It seemed to want to drag me away. Weren’t dogs’ teeth specialized for tearing? It probably wanted to do the same to my body.

Its eyes, which met mine, were transparent. But they were still wet with the blood that had splattered earlier. Though it was slowly being washed away by rainwater flowing down its body, there was no particular life in those eyes. For a beast cursed to hate humans.

It resembled the dog’s head I’d seen earlier.

Just before my legs gave out and I was about to be dragged away, I swung my sword. It wasn’t anything special. But a well-honed—no, a blade created to be sharp—could easily cut flesh even with a casual swing of its tip.

“Ngh.”

The dog whimpered.

Crunch.

With my arm still in its mouth, it jerked its head sideways, and I was flung sideways as well.

“Ah…!”

The sword fell from my hand.

Truthfully, my mind wasn’t functioning at its best. Driven by the thought that I might truly die if I lost consciousness, or that I might suffer something even more terrible, I was barely holding on. My instinctual fear, desperation, and the excessive blood loss had all mixed together, making my head quite muddled.

It hurts.

It really hurts.

With the silkworm, the attack had been so surreal that I didn’t feel the pain as intensely, but this was different. I could feel my left arm turning into a rag.

Especially the bandaged part of my left wrist.

The dog that had been biting me suddenly startled and let go. Thanks to that, I was flung to my left. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t gained much weight yet.

After rolling on the ground about three times, I quickly got up and looked for my sword.

The sword was a few meters to my right.

I threw myself in that direction.

“Woof woof!”

I heard the dog barking, then the sound of it charging madly toward me. It was chilling. I truly felt like prey being chased by a dog.

As I hurriedly ran toward the sword, I fell forward.

“Hey, miss!”

“Stay back!”

At least I still had the presence of mind to shout.

Hearing one of the yakuza men shout, I screamed back. Fortunately, the sound of someone running toward me stopped.

“You can’t cut it…!”

I tried to crawl toward the sword by digging my nails into the ground, but it was impossible. Of course it was. My ankle was being bitten and I was being dragged backward. And this dog was even bigger than me.

Just a couple of steps away from the sword, I was dragged backward. My nail marks remained on the wet sandy ground. And blood marks from my left arm. This is maddening.

I thought my leg would be released, but the next part bitten was my calf.

Then my left thigh, and after that, the back of my waist.

My body was briefly lifted up and then thrown down.

I forcibly turned my body. Various parts of my body were aching, but the desire to survive was much stronger.

As soon as I turned, the dog’s teeth sank into my stomach, but it didn’t last long.

The dog pulled its mouth back as if startled again. Thanks to that, my internal organs remained relatively safe. Though if this continued for a few more minutes, I’d truly be eaten alive.

“…Ah!”

Suddenly, an idea flashed through my mind.

I felt my right shoulder with my left hand.

“Kyu?”

Wait, it was still clinging to me even in this situation?

I grabbed it with my left hand.

“Hey!”

When I shouted at the dog, its eyes turned toward me.

I raised my right hand’s fingers toward its eyes, but the dog bit my hand.

Then, pressing down on my chest area with its right paw, it pulled backward as if trying to tear off my arm. I could feel my skin tearing along its fangs, and blood dripped onto my face.

Before the dog could open its mouth again, I shoved my left hand, which was holding Chii, into the dog’s mouth. I could feel this flesh tearing along the teeth too, but that wasn’t important right now.

And then, I crushed Chii tightly inside the dog’s mouth.

If bursting just one of them can make a room look like it’s been lightly painted red, what would happen if it burst in a concentrated form inside a mouth?

The dog’s eyes seemed to show exclamation marks. Its lifeless eyes suddenly widened, and both my hands were immediately released.

Both were in such a tattered state that it was hard to look at them, but they still functioned properly.

There’s a behavior dogs show when they’re in pain or have eaten something extremely unpleasant. They open their mouths wide, tense their bodies, and dry heave.

The sight of what I presumed to be my blood flowing out was quite grotesque.

While the yokai was in that groggy state, I quickly turned and ran toward the sword.

It wasn’t far, so even someone like me without exceptional stamina could easily reach it.

“…Ah.”

My body staggered a bit.

The true end of my time limit was approaching. Honestly, I’m surprised I’ve been able to stand and endure after losing so much blood. This body definitely isn’t human.

I gripped the sword and glared at the dog.

Looking at the immobile dog, I noticed something more clearly.

The blood on its back had mostly been washed away by the rain, but not on its legs.

The fur on the leg that had been cut by the sword earlier was also hanging down.

…No.

It doesn’t seem like just fur. The fur that hung down quite a bit dragged sand along with it whenever the dog moved.

And that fur looked abnormally long.

Moreover, the dog was limping on that leg. Even though the cut wasn’t that deep.

If this yokai was a curse created using a dog, its appearance would naturally follow the original dog.

And that dog wasn’t a breed with such long fur.

I looked at the dog’s back again.

Fur standing up toward the sky.

But thinking about it again, it wasn’t like a cat’s fur that stands out in all directions when startled.

The fur was standing “upward.” Straight up.

“…”

The dog, having finished dry heaving, glared at me again.

I could feel blood flowing from my left arm. The wound that Kuro-Guras had opened to connect me to himself wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Let’s try it.

The dog charged at me.

I swung my left arm, splattering blood on the dog.

The dog tightly closed its mouth and turned its head sideways, but it didn’t stop.

Thanks to that, blood got on its back. The fur was standing up, up, high into the sky. Some blood even formed droplets high above the dog.

Aha. I see.

So that’s how it’s “controlled.”

Well, if the target of a curse is mixed with those who shouldn’t be cursed, the one casting the curse would have a dilemma.

I raised my sword.

And as the dog charged at me, I swung the sword above the dog’s head.

Snap, snap.

I could feel something like threads breaking as they touched the sword.

Instantly, the dog’s head drooped down. It wasn’t completely immobile, but at least the parts that had been “connected” to where my sword had swept.

Its jaw dropped, and the dog’s heavy body fell on top of me.

But at least it didn’t bite me.

The dog somehow managed to get up, but it frantically swung its head around as if confused by its inability to move it.

…If I had called Yuka, she would have known this dog’s name and how to defeat it.

But I don’t regret not calling her.

A moan that emerges when a person’s mouth is tightly closed came from the dog, though in a canine version. It sounded like a whimper, or as if it was forcibly trying to bark—a pitiful sound.

I swung my sword a few more times. Not at the dog, but beside it, especially around its legs.

One side of the dog’s body fell sideways.

I once saw it on an animal entertainment program. A dog whose nerves had died, making it unable to use its legs. This dog looked exactly like that.

I lifted the ear part of the dog’s head, which was still trying to move on top of me, and said:

“Can the person across hear me?”

The dog’s movement stopped for a moment.

“You’ve got some nerve. Thinking of messing with people in a place like this.”

After saying that, I let go. The dog whimpered, but with both left legs paralyzed, it couldn’t straighten its body properly.

I pushed away the heavy dog and stood up.

What I had to do next was simple.

I walked around the dog, slashing at the air.

Snap, snap, the sound of breaking continued. Each time, the dog became more immobile.

After cutting all the threads, even the one at the tail, it truly looked like a dog that was alive only because it couldn’t die. A dog completely paralyzed, only able to make whimpering sounds.

“…”

Of course, its appearance was very different from the “puppy” I knew. Even compared to large dogs. The body part was closer to a hairy human.

At least it was fortunate that it was invisible. I could only roughly tell its silhouette from my blood on it.

I took the sword and placed it where the heart would be.

Aiming between the ribs, I pressed down with all my might, then twisted it up and down.

The dog stretched out both legs, trembled, and then died.

“…Haah…”

Relief washed over me. At the same time, a sense of exhaustion hit.

My already dizzy head, judging that the situation was now safe, quickly shut down my brain.

Like a building manager lowering the circuit breaker, sensation disappeared stage by stage from the extremities of my body, until only the feeling of coldness remained.

If I’m feeling cold on a summer night like this, I must really be soaked through.

As I collapsed sideways, I heard people rushing over from far away.

…Well, I probably won’t die.

If I lose consciousness now and wake up, I’ll probably be in a hospital again, and whether it’s the hospital or the people there, they’ll tell me not to go to school tomorrow.

…I wonder if my attendance record will be okay?

Maybe since Yuka doesn’t know about the situation, there’s no need to force myself to rest.

…At the same time, I also had a slight thought that I might really die at this rate.

I don’t want to die yet.

*

Kotone Kurosawa.

Like surnames in any country, this “Kurosawa” probably had no special meaning, just like foreign names like “Baker” or “Hunter.” It certainly wasn’t meant to represent “that person’s individuality.”

But looking at this girl, or her mother, or the religion that family had believed in for generations, somehow that surname gained credibility.

As if it was a name deliberately created to represent this family.

Kurosawa (黒沢). Black marsh.

A deep, deep marsh where nothing can be seen when looking into it, as if something lurking at its bottom might be looking back up.

Ryohei Yamashita held a pen between his fingers like a cigarette, staring intently at Kotone Kurosawa lying in the hospital bed.

Of course, what she had created overnight wasn’t a black marsh but a red one (赤沢). But even if a marsh is red, if it’s deep enough, all you see is black, isn’t it?

Most of the wounds on the girl’s body had disappeared without a trace during the drive to the hospital.

Only the red blood on the back seat where she had lain served as evidence that she had lost that much blood.

The hospital staff firmly believed that the girl named Kotone Kurosawa had vomited blood. Or perhaps had a hemorrhage. Anyway, there were no wounds on her body, but she had lost a lot of blood, and her condition was severe anemia, too serious to be described merely as “urgent.”

“Is that… a failure, boss…?”

One of his subordinates, who had been blankly staring after the girl as she was carried into the hospital, muttered.

The hospital staff looked at Ryohei with expressions suggesting they might call the police at any moment, but fortunately, no one reported anything.

After all, this was a hospital they frequently used.

Ryohei patted the subordinate’s shoulder a couple of times and said:

“I’ll watch over her. You go check on Miho’s condition.”

He had already confirmed before coming.

Though her body was soaked in blood, the near-death look she had worn for the past few days had largely disappeared. Her gaunt face wouldn’t return immediately, but she wasn’t going to die, so with proper health management, she would soon regain her strength.

The subordinates bowed, turned around, got in the car, and left. Yamashita Ryohei entered the hospital—leading to the present.

A failure.

Kagami had definitely said that.

She even said that Ryohei’s ex-wife—Kagami’s sister—would be much more useful. That was just last year.

“…”

Though Ryohei hadn’t heard the details about that side.

“Phew.”

With a long exhale, he opened his phone.

Sorry to the girl, but he had many questions for Kagami.

*

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Kagami.

“What time is it?”

“Why? Afraid you’ll be late for school?”

That comment made me feel relieved that my condition had recovered reasonably well.

“I don’t want to be late again.”

Kagami looked at the clock on the hospital wall.

Six in the morning.

Still plenty of time. I only needed to be at school by eight-thirty.

When I tried to get up, Kagami gently pushed my shoulder back down.

“Calm down. This isn’t Saitama. You can walk to school from here, so you can stay for another hour or two.”

Ah, I see.

If they moved me to a hospital, they would naturally have taken me to one nearby.

I relaxed a bit.

“Did Yamashita call you?”

“Yes, Mr. Yamashita called me.”

“…Do you know who sent that dog?”

“I’ve known all along.”

“It wasn’t you, was it?”

“I’m not stupid enough to throw away my biggest source of income. My sister is that stupid, though.”

“…”

I took a moment to digest that statement.

“Your sister is Mr. Yamashita’s ex-wife?”

“Well… yes.”

“…”

“You know what? Every religion has a predetermined fate.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when sects split due to different interpretations of doctrine. Mr. Yamashita’s ex-wife is indeed my sister. And… Mr. Yamashita chose our sect. Naturally, the two separated. But it seems my sister still has plenty of lingering feelings for Mr. Yamashita.”

“…”

I stared at Kagami for a while before speaking.

“Could you have resolved it?”

“In our entire sect, you’re the only one who possesses a sword that can cut yokai.”

Ah, right.

I heard those aren’t easy to make.

I sighed deeply.

“Well, we were looking for a solution. Though it seems Mr. Yamashita doesn’t fully trust our sect.”

“…”

“Aren’t you going to ask more?”

“No, I don’t want to get any deeper into this.”

“Is that so?”

Kagami smiled.

“Well, I’m glad you resolved it properly. If we had stepped in, people might have died. It was that powerful a curse.”

“Kodoku?”

“Inugami.”

Kagami said.

“It’s a yokai with a long history of malice. If you had called me first, I could have given you some clues.”

“…It’s fine.”

She would have definitely rushed over.

Looking again, I noticed Kagami’s attire was a bit different from usual.

She wore the same dress as when I first met her, with a thin yellow cardigan over it. Looking at her like this, she didn’t give the impression of working at a bar. Well, for people who work in such places, this outfit is probably like their work clothes. It’s the same as what office workers wear comfortably at home.

“I didn’t want to be treated like a bad person even at the hospital.”

Hmm… is that so?

Well, medical professionals might report it as child abuse. If I came in bleeding profusely with Kagami in tow, they might think I was beaten by my mother.

“So, what now? I want to be discharged.”

“The hospital would advise against it… but if that’s what you want, let’s do that.”

Kagami said.

“Rather than going straight to school, how about stopping by the Yamashita house first?”

“The Yamashita house?”

“You have a friend there, right? I heard she was anxious all night and barely fell asleep. If you suddenly disappeared and then met at school, wouldn’t you end up having strange conversations there?”

“…”

That’s true.

“I’ll bring you a set of school uniforms. Consider it included in the resolution fee for this incident.”

When I stared at Kagami, she stood up and said:

“I have competition, you know? After creating an existence, I can’t just hand it over for a mere 20,000 yen per case.”

No, that’s not the issue.

…

Well, I’ll accept it this time.

The casual clothes I was wearing are completely tattered anyway.

Having one more set of any clothes would be good.

*

And so, after a somewhat hasty discharge, I ended up having a meal at the Yamashita house.

“…”

“…”

I didn’t expect to be eating breakfast.

Well, normally I’d be on my way to school at this time.

Having a meal at seven-fifteen—there are definitely advantages to living in the heart of Tokyo.

“Did you succeed yesterday?”

Yamashita asked.

I nodded.

Mr. Yamashita, concerned about my comfort, had prepared a small room where just the two of us could eat.

Well, it’s better than dining among yakuza, but if you asked if I was completely comfortable, the answer would definitely be no.

Thinking about what Yamashita went through yesterday… well, she wasn’t hurt, but the mental impact must have been quite significant.

“Who are you, exactly?”

Fortunately, I had prepared an answer for this question in advance.

“A shrine maiden.”

“…A shrine maiden?”

“Yes. A shrine maiden. Of my family.”

“…”

Yamashita looked at me in astonishment.

“Do you think that thing yesterday was some kind of curse?”

“I took measures in my own way. That’s why Ms. Mori got better. So whether it was a real curse or not doesn’t matter, I think.”

“…I see.”

Yamashita seemed to understand somewhat.

By the way, I heard the yakuza men had cleaned the corridor all night. And for parts that seemed impossible to clean, they temporarily replaced them with doors from other rooms to hide the damage, planning to buy and install new doors while Yamashita was at school today.

The room that had turned into a sea of blood was temporarily “sealed for ritualistic purposes” as an excuse.

“Thank you. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I felt I should say that.”

“I’m not even sure if it was thanks to me that she got better.”

I evaded like that.

Later, when I need an excuse, I could say I fought with my mom because I don’t believe in such things, and that’s why we have a bad relationship.

“I had a brief conversation with Miho this morning.”

I listened without saying anything.

“It’s still hard for me to accept that Dad and Miho are getting married, but I’m going to stop running away from home.”

What should I say in response?

“You made a good decision”? Honestly, that sounds too preachy. I had no intention of lecturing my friends.

“Still, come visit sometimes.”

Instead, I said that.

Yamashita chuckled. And as if trying to hide that smile, she lowered her head deeply.

After that, we finished our meal in silence.

Then we went to school together.