Ch.433IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (130)

When the story ended and I stood up to go home.

Yuka spoke up.

“Let’s search together.”

“Huh?”

“You said you got an answer.”

“…Is that okay?”

“Why? Do you think it’s a problem to look around without receiving a request?”

Would it be a problem?

I wasn’t sure. Actually, when it came to that sort of thing, I hadn’t really acted on my own initiative but was mostly being dragged along according to their demands.

“It won’t be a problem. It would be stranger if we ran into it while walking around and didn’t do anything about it.”

Hearing her explanation, I realized she was right.

And, above all, I was already planning to find the aswang and eliminate it in advance.

Since I hadn’t put the concept of rules in my head from the beginning, it was silly to ask about it now.

“Thanks.”

“No need for thanks.”

Yuka looked at me a bit strangely as she answered.

“If we delay our search, people will die.”

I nodded.

“So… um.”

Yuka thought for a moment before speaking.

“That, couldn’t you ask the deity that gives you power? If you ask directly, you should be able to get some kind of answer.”

“…”

I shook my head.

I had thought about it too. I actually did ask.

“What manner of being are you, to ask such a question?”

And the response I received was another question, tinged with curiosity.

‘She’ would speak as if finding it interesting that my soul resided in my body. As if it were strange that I lived, speaking and thinking this way.

Though she never said it directly, considering the questions ‘she’ asked me, that was the overall impression.

And that must be the nature of ‘her’ favor toward me.

And because of that, she doesn’t answer easily.

“Unless it’s when she wants to, she doesn’t give proper answers.”

That being is fundamentally very capricious and does as she pleases. Even if I speak to her first, she rarely answers right away.

I could easily imagine that she was watching me every time I cut my wrist, every time I made a sword with my blood.

But she doesn’t answer immediately just because I speak first. As if she has something she wants, as if there’s a moment she’s waiting for, she stays silent—and then appears to speak to me when I use my blood to wet the summoning mark on my wrist.

And it was always when I was in some danger, when I had suffered a fatal wound or was in great pain. When I was covered in blood.

Sometimes in ghost stories, yokai are said to follow certain rules, or gods are said to become angry or pleased according to certain rules, but at least ‘she’ is not like that.

Like a puppeteer improvising a story backstage, she seemed to want to manipulate my emotions and actions according to her own whims.

“So, you’re saying the deity wanted to answer today?”

“Probably so.”

In the Cthulhu mythos, most gods are set to have names that cannot be pronounced by human mouths. It’s probably a setting they included to make the story seem more realistic. If readers chant spells and foreign gods don’t appear, it would be disappointing.

But among them, it was said there were gods with pronunciations that human mouths could produce. And that it was really possible to summon such a god by chance.

This situation was probably like that.

And that must have put that being, ‘her’, in a very good mood. Since she gave me an answer to such a question.

If not, it means my tragedy is that much closer.

“…”

“You don’t seem very surprised.”

When I asked Yuka, who had fallen silent in thought, she shrugged.

“Your deity isn’t the only one like that. There are gods in old books who don’t answer even if you offer what they should want and pray. If they’re beings with emotions, it can’t be helped.”

Like soothing someone’s anger or easing their sadness. Do gods feel that way too?

There are times when no amount of apologies can calm anger, times when sincerity is doubted, and times when someone pretends not to accept just to tease the other person.

We both sighed deeply at the same time.

Koko, watching us from the side, tilted her head curiously.

*

People say that hardship makes you age quickly.

No matter what, hair color doesn’t change easily, but the body becomes frail and wrinkles increase on the face. The corners of the eyes droop and expressions become tired.

But Kagami wasn’t like that.

Kagami remained Kagami as time passed. It wasn’t just that she looked young and beautiful to my eyes. Even setting aside my subjectivity, Kagami was pretty enough to make others jealous.

I watched Kagami grow up. In fact, if I had to say, we grew up together like sisters. Kagami gave birth to me when she was too young to have a child.

“Kotone, Koko!”

Even though I had sent an email in advance saying I’d be a little late coming home from school, Kagami was somehow waiting for me at the entrance.

Her face looking at me was bright. That smiling face, even now that she was completely mature and an adult, looked almost like a child’s.

When others were in middle school or high school, Kagami would smile at me like that.

“…”

So, I worry.

The more I tell Kagami about my situation. The more entangled I become in these matters. That fact itself becomes a blade that cuts into Kagami’s heart.

“…Kotone?”

My face, smiling and waving toward Kagami, must not have been bright enough.

Kagami immediately noticed my feelings.

“Did something happen at school?”

With her hands lightly on my shoulders, Kagami asked.

From Kagami, I can never hide anything in the end.

Whatever I’m thinking, whatever I’m worried about. Kagami eventually notices everything.

Kagami, much taller than me, bent down to meet my eyes. Even when Kagami and I were both completely young, Kagami always talked to me like this.

“No, nothing happened at school.”

At my words, Kagami immediately understood what I was talking about.

Kagami closed her mouth.

She knows I don’t really like talking about such things.

She probably wants to hear it. No matter how terrible the story, she wants to hear what’s happening to her daughter.

Surely Kagami would burst into tears. She would hold me tight and not let go for a long time.

“…”

Should I speak honestly?

I want to get everything off my chest too.

But the story about that ‘deity’ is surely closely related to Kagami as well.

If she hears the story, Kagami will suffer again.

For something she didn’t even do.

I was a child born from an unwanted pregnancy. Even so, Kagami raised me doing her absolute best.

In the end, neither of us could say anything.

Kagami stood up and hugged me tightly.

It’s warm. A temperature that calms the heart.

“Woo?”

As Koko, who was beside us, tilted her head curiously, Kagami opened one arm. Koko came over and hugged both of us tightly. Kagami wrapped her hand around our backs, pulling us both firmly into her embrace.

Rather.

Rather, what if I hadn’t known anything?

What if I had lost all memories of that other world? If I had come into this world as a child who couldn’t judge anything?

…

No, because I could think this way, Kagami was able to experience less stress.

If I had been a real child who knew nothing. Surely the relationship between Kagami and me would have been strained.

…

If not that, what if I had never come to this world?

I didn’t want to think about it, but still.

Still, couldn’t Kagami’s life have been a little brighter?

That thought, which I couldn’t shake off since childhood, kept stubbornly resurfacing even now after all this time.

“Kotone.”

“…Yeah.”

“Shall we go inside soon? Let’s wash up and go to bed early tonight.”

“Yeah.”

I nodded at Kagami’s words.

We went inside.

As Kagami said, we washed up early. And then we lay down together in one room, one bed.

Kagami’s embrace was always warm.

So warm that I was afraid to step outside of it.

*

If I had told Mr. Miura directly, he would have doubted my identity once more, but it seems different when Yuka explains.

“I know the patterns in my own way. …It’s actually not very meaningful, but still, people rarely completely ignore our warnings.”

“I see.”

After I told Yuka what ‘she’ had told me about the murder case being related to the yokai, Yuka apparently passed the information along.

“Besides, I explained it in a roundabout way. That murder case, they were already paying attention to it anyway. It was a cannibalism case after all.”

I hadn’t heard that. I had only read the ‘serial murder’ articles.

Certainly, it feels like there have been more articles recently than before. Well, the fact that I could read articles about it means it had already become a famous case.

…So there was a reason that being told me.

“Don’t worry too much. We should be able to find it soon.”

“Yeah.”

Still, I could feel hope in Yuka’s words.