Case 15: The Disturbing Mansion [Part Two] (8)

I firmly made up my mind to do as I chanted the nembutsu* all night--And it was the following day.

Before I'd realized, I was sound asleep in the bed and woke up to find myself in heavenly sunshine. The chirping of the birds reverberated around me, and the branches of lush green trees peeked through the window.

Did I come to some hotel resort somewhere? I couldn’t judge the situation right away and really thought that was the case, but--

No..... No, that wasn't it.

This was the mountain retreat where a mysterious massacre occurred eleven years ago.

With a start I raised my head, and saw that Yoishi was already awake and sitting on top of her bed, fiddling with her phone.

“...Ah... Good morning.”

When I greeted her, she fleetingly glanced my way with her large eyes,

“My phone has a connection.”

She spoke.

“Well, that's what it’s supposed to do.”

“There was no connection eleven years ago.”

She stood up and pointed her phone here and there.

“Is there a problem if you have a connection?”

“……………………….”

However, without answering, Yoishi put her phone away in her pocket, and turned her white face at me.

“What are we going to do from now on?”

“Well….”

No, I had no concrete ideas in mind.

I was under the impression that just coming here would be enough to settle something. I was told by Sako that I had to complete ‘Yoishi’s story’, and I thought that must have been ‘to hear Yoishi’s true name from her own mouth’. But— after thinking about it long and hard, that doesn't really need to be in this place, does it?

Which means….huh?

Why did Sako tell me about this place?

I raised my head, looked at the mansion walls, and thought of the room that was supposed to exist beyond it. After that, I pictured downstairs which was filled with far more creepiness than the second floor.

….Could it be?

Did it mean that there was something in this mansion that could finish this case?

“Let’s go.”

I declared, and Yoishi tilted her head slightly.

“We have to search this mansion.”

Yoishi asked, ‘For what?’, and in response:

“Something important.”

Without pause, I opened the door to the room.

All that was there on the other side of the creaking door was a corridor---but it wasn’t as dark as last night.

It was already bright with the light of the sun pouring in.

The stairs creaked as Yoishi and I descended to the ground floor. It was a building with many windows, and the warm sunshine poured in through all of them. It had lost the appearance of a haunted house and was now just an old mansion. Even so, the building still felt like a ruin, full of spider webs and dust-- but, as I thought that, I spotted something on the corridor floor. It was a yellow police tape. Apparently, it had been placed in front of the door leading to the living room.

Something bitter instantly rose up inside me, as I realized that this was a murder scene, and that the victims were Yoishi’s relatives.

“Are you alright?”

I turned around and asked, and Yoishi nodded, looking paler than usual.

The living room was spacious. It was at the very least, around 32 square meters in size.

It had leather covered sofas, a fireplace, withered houseplants, and torn wallpaper.

But—

I thought once more. I didn’t know why it was, but I didn’t feel as if this was my first time in this mansion. Come to think of it, I felt that when I first looked up at this mansion from the garden last night. As if someone had said to me, “Welcome back”. I recalled that feeling now once more and shuddered.

No--- I shook my head. No matter how much I turned the drawers of my memory upside down, I had never come to this mansion before. I only felt like I had been here before because this was a typical resort construction, and they all had a similar layout.

I continued to convince myself in that way, as I scooped off the piled-up dust on the sofa with my hands.

On the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room were three cups, and the tea or whatever that had been inside had already dried up and turned light brown. The family must have been enjoying their time here together. They had no idea that a conclusion far terrible than they could have imagined awaited them….

I became strangely sentimental, maybe because I thought that it was Yoishi’s family.

I was a weakling from the start, but I thought I had endurance with regards to the dead after their funeral had been completed. Once you die, there’s no coming back. No matter how much I grieved and moaned, I could not overturn that rule of life.

That’s why, I didn’t mourn more than necessary. After all, I too would die one day. At that time, I would meet them again. And, in order to have lots to talk about when I meet them again in that world, I would live a fruitful life, that’s how I thought of it. That might have been the psychological coping mechanism I learned after the bitter separation from my mother.

But---

Something about this mansion was different.

I ended up thinking that maybe there was still something I could do about it.

Even though everyone was already dead….. and were no longer a part of this world, the vividness of the family pressed at me, a family that was not my own, but one that I could not think of as a stranger’s.

Are…they still here?

Are Yoishi’s mother, father, sister, and the policeman, still here in this mansion--?

I end up feeling like…. they entrusted me with something important that was left undone.

“….Huh?”

As I thought such things, I noticed that Yoishi was staring at something.

It was a small space above the hearth.

“What’s wrong?”

I called out to her and stood next to her---where I noticed.

It was a single photograph. A brown wooden photo frame had collapsed, and a discolored photograph lay beside it.

My heart beat out loud seeing the figures of the people in the picture.

“…..This……”

“My… family.’

“Is it alright…. if I take a look?”

“It’s fine, but—”

Yoishi added in a tone of voice that lacked emotion.

“It’s not really something pleasant.”

Hearing those words, I gulped.

Why hadn’t the police taken this picture away, even though they must have investigated the scene countless times? Come to think of it, why were all the cups I saw earlier still here? Suddenly, all sorts of questions crossed my mind, but in the end, I picked up that photograph.

It was a family photograph taken in the garden. The father, the mother, the elder sister, the younger sister, and the family dog—everyone was looking at the camera, and probably smiling in the polaroid picture. However, the moment I saw it, an intense chill ran down my back, causing me to almost let go of it.

For some reason….in that photograph of the father, the mother, the elder sister, and the dog—their faces were discolored white and stretched out in the air as if twisted by an invisible force so strong that they were about to disappear. Among them, only the young girl was smiling kindly. She looked this way with her beautiful white face, and her pretty, long black hair that swayed slightly in the wind.

“……U…..umm, you sure were cute.”

“You don’t have to force yourself.”

“No, really….”

“It becomes this type of photograph when that takes your life.”

“By t…that…could you possibly mean?”

…The ‘everlasting night stone’ that Sako mentioned?

The moment I was about to mention that name, Yoishi put her finger on my lips to stop me.

“It would be better not to say that name.”

I shuddered involuntarily.

“Because it’s everywhere at all times.”

“S…say, why…why did you take the name of Yoishi? If that name itself was ominous, and if you were aware of that, then why---?”

Without answering, Yoishi silently took the photograph from my hand and carefully placed it back in its original place.

“The police abandoned it.”

“Abandoned?”

“This photograph is as you can see. But, it wasn’t abandoned because of an exposure error. This entire mansion was abandoned, and the investigation itself was abandoned.”

“W, why?”

“Because the state unofficially recognized that long ago.”

Yoishi’s cold words left me aghast.

“It exists in every age, appears at whim, and consumes humans—stealing their lives. That’s why it has been recognized as a natural disaster that possesses this country, like typhoons and earthquakes.”

“No…that’s—if it were a natural disaster, then why did you need to take that name?”

“Because—”

Yoishi stood stock still like a broken doll, and whispered.

“Because I’m the cause of all this.”

“……….What?”

“Because I was an unwanted child that was never wished for.”

“….There’s no way that’s true? There’s no way a child is unloved by their parents.”

“Thinking straightforwardly like that is a trait of yours, but—then, why does infanticide not cease in this world? What about the abuse that increases even now? And, what if… it was an unwanted pregnancy?”

………………………..

“What if….it was a life born from the violation of the mother by a complete stranger?”

“….Hey…it can’t be….”

“If that were the case, I would erase myself.”

Yoishi’s large eyes harbored a pale blue flame as she spoke.

“That’s why my face is white. Because of foreign blood. I didn’t resemble anyone in my family. I was--”

“Cursed before I was even born.”

“That’s exactly why I was chosen by that.”

I….could not utter even a single word.

But from somewhere in the mansion that was as silent as death—something echoed as a substitute.

A biological, disgusting, whipping sound.

“….It has begun.”

“…….Eh?”

“It’s already begun.”

Yoishi looked me in the eyes, and spoke in a whisper.

“It’s going to be hell from now on.”

“….What?”

“If you want to go back, this is your last chance.”

“……………”

“You’re free to do whatever you wish, but from here on, I’m not sure that I will continue to be myself. To run away from here, to forget everything, and to live a cheerful life would be without a doubt the right thing to do.”

Yoishi spoke that much forlornly, and turned away from me.

With a mechanical gait in her step, she walked straight out of the living room.

“W…. wait a minute!”

I was a step behind, and ran after her.

I caught up to Yoishi who was proceeding in the corridor, and grabbed her hand.

“I’m going as well.”

I declared, and Yoishi looked at me with lonely eyes.

I nodded strongly, and Yoishi silently looked down, and spoke.

“I’ll be relying on you from now on.”

“……Eh?”

“I know that’s completely unforgivable, but I can’t help but rely on you.”

“No……”

I spoke flustered.

“I don’t mind if you rely on me, you know? Well, although, I might be quite unreliable, but…”

In response, Yoishi bit her lips in irritation---

“Please, forgive me.”

She whispered that.

I stopped moving, not knowing what she meant—when Yoishi looked up at me and gazed at me. That white, unworldly, beautiful face declared as if melting into the darkness of this world.

“No matter what happens, no matter what you see… stay as you are. Stay as Nagito Yamada. Continue to stay that way--- that might be our only chance to win at the very last moment.”

It was an expression Yoishi Mitsurugi had shown me for the first time.

The girl who had never asked me for a single favor up until now, who had gleefully moved forward no matter what paranormal events she faced, the young girl who was acted coolly like a grand witch from antiquity even when faced with reality that would make you want to avert your eyes, showed me for the first time--- a sorrowful expression.

Please, forgive me.

She declared once more in a hoarse voice, and abruptly turned heel with a knock of her leather shoes.

After that, she didn’t look back, as she continued into the darkness.

I fell behind for a moment—before following her.

The mansion corridor which had not been ventilated for a long time, creaked strangely, perhaps due to the humidity.

It wouldn’t be strange if the floors collapsed at any given moment, and that instability was the same sensation I had whenever my legs froze from the sign of the world beyond.

The very back of the corridor.

The closer I got to the inconspicuous wooden door, the louder the whipping sound became.

“T...this sound.”

I was about to ask what it was, but I couldn’t say the words. Being the weakling that I was, my legs had already begun to tremble, and the root of my teeth didn’t connect.

Yoishi made it that far without hesitation, placed her hand on the sliding door, and with a single breath, threw it open.

It was a storage room around 10 sqm in size.

There was a mop, a place for a large vacuum cleaner, a toolbox, an unused chair and such.

And, in the center, I saw a familiar childish face.

“—K…”

I was at a loss for words.

“…..Kri…shna-san?”