Case 15: The Disturbing Mansion [Part Two] (9)

Her short hair was messy, as if she hadn’t returned home for many days—and her blue spring dress was torn in places and dirty with mud, as if she had tumbled down a mountain.

“Umm….Krishna-san….is that you….?”

In response, the girl looked in my direction, still clutching something with her hands.

She sneered in a satisfied smile with her white, cloudy eyes. I shuddered at the sight of the thing that protruded from her lips. From those cute lips which were always preaching to me with sermons of love, now protruded a large, wriggling centipede. She bit it off with those white teeth of hers, and chewed it crunchingly.

As I watched, unable to say anything —Krishna-san slowly stood up.

She then brought her hands, still covered with the remains of centipedes and other small animals, to her large breasts and grasped them violently. She then rubbed them vigorously. It made me feel a sense of unease, as if a different personality was using Krishna-san’s arms to toy with her body. But, there was no eroticism in it. It was merely revolting; I felt disgust as if something precious was being defiled. it reminded me of a coven of witches – a sabbath that I had once seen illustrated in a book. That vulgar behavior was in no way the behavior of the Krishna-san I knew. She was so cute in all her actions that even when she had to be strict, she still lacked a sense of tension.

“What are you trying to do by moving to that person?”

Yoishi spoke coldly as she fixed her gaze on Krishna-san.

“Your place is inside me, isn’t it?”

With those words, I realized with a start.

“….Hey, it can’t be….?”

‘That’s right’, Yoishi gave a small nod.

“That person is Shiina Kurimoto, but it’s not her personality right now. The one who stands there is the one destroyed everyone precious to me: my best friend, my mother, my father, my elder sister, Leo, the detective-- The one who stands there… is the ‘Everlasting night stone’.”

Together with her words… I saw it.

Right now, in Krishna-san’s eyes, a dark light glimmered that was like the bewitching glimmer in Yoishi’s eyes in the face of the paranormal. Exposed to that dark light, countless scenes revived and connected in my mind. The countless mysteries, paranormal phenomenon which defied explanation that I had witnessed so far.

Yoishi’s eyes would begin to glitter before them. But when she saw malice in the truth, Yoishi would always vomit. She would vomit in pain, as if trying to wipe away something inside her.

Was that---

Because this thing was inside her?

Was it because this thing was wriggling in delight inside Yoishi?

The sneering laughter that sounded like a man echoed in the dimly lit storage room and corridor.

The bobbed haired, baby face, the cheeks that would be described as adorable by a hundred out of a hundred people, Krishna-san contorted those cheeks—

And made a smile that was both broken and complacent.

“It crossed over from continental Asia in the past, was called ‘Nine tails’ at times, and ‘Everlasting night stone’ at times…. It moves freely from people to people, a natural disaster of this country that destroyed countless people all over, a hidden natural disaster—the purest ‘malice’ in this world.”

Yoishi’s words coldly reverberated in the room—

The earth shook. No, my torso was shaking in the face of being overwhelmingly powerless, and my knees were already shaking to the point of collapse.

Krishna-san….no, Shiina Kurimoto-san was the most reliable person for me since I moved to Tokyo alone. Her words were harsh at times, but even they were filled with love, because she was worried about me from the bottom of her heart, and she was the person who was the furthest away from the word ‘corrupted’. She was my holy mother, just making eye contact with her was enough to relax me and give me fluffy feelings at the pit of my stomach. No matter how close I came to breaking down, this person alone would always stand firmly on the ground, support me, and return me to myself. Now, there were no traces of that to be found anywhere. In its stead was malice bare to see, and it was as if just seeing her lurching figure was enough to distort the world.

「I’ll be right back. After I’ve enjoyed this one.」

As if declaring that, Krishna-san took the rat carcass she still held in her left hand, and plunged it headfirst into her mouth.

“S--”

Stop it. I was about to shout, when—

“Yo, there you are.”

I heard an aloof voice behind me.

After a few seconds—I turned around dumbfounded, to see the thin figure of Sako Takita.

Sako slipped past me who couldn’t even move, and affectionately called out to Krishna-san.

“Kurimoto-kun, you shouldn’t eat something like that. You’ll end up getting diarrhea.”

He was not dressed in his usual blue kinagashi. On his head he wore an eboshi*. His long hair, which was always unkempt had been neatly slicked back, and he was formally dressed in a black hakama and tall wooden clogs—but his appearance conversely made me feel the urgency of the situation.

“Now, let’s go back, shall we? This is no place for you.”

In response, the ‘everlasting night stone’ inside Krishna-san vibrated its throat. I couldn’t clearly make out what it was saying—but it was clearly a sneering voice that rejected, disdained, and ridiculed Sako’s suggestion.

“….Hm.”

However, it seemed it had gotten through to Sako. He nodded several times and spoke.

“……..Ah, you shouldn't. Don't make a young woman use such indecent language. She is still a popular girl you see. You mustn’t make light of Krishna fans all over the country…Eh? Mmhmm, you say you’re not a fan? You’re saying everyone uses the occult as a pretext to see Kurimoto-kun’s body, and that they must be stripping her naked in their head?”

Sako spoke as if he were a proxy of a beast, and then turned my way.

“Are you like that?”

“………..Eh?”

“Well, you can’t clearly deny it as a man—but that’s not quite right.”

Sako turned to face the front once more.

“Hey, listen up, will you? Those large, large attractive breasts of Kurimoto-kun are comforting, you see. They are a symbol of her love that gently envelop everything. It's true that large breasts on a petite body can give off an unbalanced appeal, but what all men of this world instinctually crave is, the motherly love she exudes. Don’t be mistaken, not everyone in this world is a dark, malicious and perverse insect like you.”

As Sako declared that, the ‘everlasting night stone’ vibrated the back of her throat once more, but—

Sako ignored it on purpose, and quietly turned to Yoishi this time.

“Now then—let me say it once more.”

For some reason he made sure to straighten his back and politely sent those words to Yoishi.

“You did well to survive.”

Yoishi gazed back at Sako’s face without a word.

Was it my imagination, or did it feel as if her eyes were gently narrowed.

“I apologize for not being aware of your existence sooner --- Well, it is as you can see. Please forgive me.”

To Sako who bowed down, Yoishi merely muttered, “I don’t really mind.”

“…I only just realized it yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“I was told by that person.”

She pointed at me, ‘Hoho’, Sako happily swung his shoulders.

….I didn’t know what was going on. But from the way Sako was acting so relaxed—did that mean that we and Krishna-san were alright now? Yoishi said something about how it was going to be hell from now on….Does that mean it will be averted?

“Yoishi Mitsurugi-kun.”

Sako then put a friendly smile on his face and declared.

“Please allow me to declare this in advance. In the unlikely event that you become the ‘everlasting night stone’—I will kill you here.”

…………Huh?

“You may or may not have already realized, but I managed to cling to this uninteresting world and lived thus far to dispose of this trash known as the ‘everlasting night stone’. I will make it regret it so much that it curses itself for appearing in this world and for its continuing meddling with human beings —and I will tear it to pieces.”

“….I know.”

“—H, hey, hey ,hey, wait a second!”

I unconsciously butted in their conversation, when Sako simply stopped me from interrupting with his hand, and spoke.

“Now, now, please calm down, this was a talk of the worst-case scenario. There will be no casualties if we can deal with it now.”

At that moment---a piercing, sneering laughter reverberated, as if pounding the mansion. I looked to see Krishna-san…no, what was now the ‘everlasting night stone’ bending its petite body with tears in its eyes as it laughed.

“Something, is strange.”

Saying that coldly, Sako held up the three-pronged Gokosho* in his hand—and made several signs in midair. Krishna-san instantly stopped laughing as she coughed and collapsed while still bent backwards. The way she fell didn’t look safe at all, and I was reflexively about to rush over, but—

“Next, I will tear you to pieces.”

Sako cleanly cut the Kuji* with his fingertips, and began to speak words I had never heard before.

It must have been a sort of ritual prayer I had no knowledge of—

The clear, resonant Kotodama that flowed from his mouth made Krishna-san’s petite body arch backwards in a bind.

“This mansion is closed by a barrier on all four sides. I will first remove the original fox soul of the ‘everlasting night stone’. Furthermore, I will get rid of the countless deep-seated grudges that have combined--- and finally separate them, leaving only the personality situated at the highest order.”

Sako dispassionately explained after finishing his ritual prayer, and began to draw some kind of pattern at Krishna-san’s feet with unrefined salt.

However—the guffawing, sneering laughter continued.

Krishna-san, having collapsed on the ground, still had a painful smile contorted as the tears streamed down her face. It was if she were witnessing something truly foolish—as if there was a mistake in front of her eyes which only she had realized—she merely convulsed with laughter as she pointed at Sako.

“It must be painful.”

Sako on the other hand, showed pity.

“But there's not the slightest chance I'd want to help you.”

At that moment, Krishna-san’s eyes distorted more fiendishly than I had never seen before.

As if in reply— Sako’s pale face muttered in a whisper that horrified me as I watched.

“—You, devoured my mother.”

“………………”

“And you devoured my father. However, failing to devour me was a lethal mistake on your part.”

“Kokoko.”

The ‘everlasting night stone’ let out a strange, trembling voice.

It appeared as if it were somewhat perplexed.

It looked perplexed as if it had devoured so much it couldn't remember ---And , I saw Sako’s eyebrows furrow slightly in response. It was the first time I saw the emotion of anger emanate from Sako.

As soon as the pattern was finished, Krishna-san’s body crumpled even further into the ground as if it was crushed by gravity. This time, she indeed sounded as if she was in pain. But—even though it might have been the ‘everlasting night stone’ inside, it still appeared as Krishna-san. I couldn't stand it any longer, and at some point, I slowly drew closer, when—

“You’ll get devoured.”

Sako’s words stopped my movements with a jerk.

Sako swept his hakama as he sat in the seiza position, and with his eyes half-closed, began a sonorous ritual prayer once more.

It was as if to tighten the air to make invisible signs, and rearrange the sounds of the world as if to make a hidden rhyme.

It made Krishna-san’s collapsed body writhe in pain and bounce up and down as if it were billowing.

--Amazing.

I didn’t quite know what was happening, but it was overwhelming, I thought.

--Just a little more… with just a little bit more, would things really turn out alright?

My heart began to throb with anticipation, even though I knew I shouldn’t feel safe just yet.

But—at that moment.

I suddenly noticed Yoishi, who had been silent all this time.

Yoishi’s cold gaze, her unresponsiveness after having coexisted together with the ‘everlasting night stone’ in her body since that incident eleven years ago, made me feel a terrible premonition. I then recalled Sako’s words.

….Huh…just now, Sako said that this building was inside a barrier. Could it be that the so-called ‘everlasting night stone’ that was now possessing Krishna-san, would after being severed from her, simply return to Yoishi once more who was inside the barrier? Or was the pattern Sako drew just now at Krishna-san’s feet a new, different barrier altogether?

“Well, you see.”

As he continued making the signs with his fingers, Sako answered with his back still turned toward me, as if he had sensed my concern.

“In the unlikely chance the ‘everlasting night stone’ that detaches from Kurimoto-kun breaks this barrier and possesses you, I will kill you. If it possesses Yoishi-kun, I will kill her. If I fail to sever it, I will kill Kurimoto-kun. I would be deemed a murderer according to this country, but that is of no concern to me. The only way to teach it the concept of ‘death’ is to let it experience it while it is bound to some kind of body. Having said that, you all might be a bit reluctant—well do forgive me for that.”

….H, hey, you can’t be serious.

“But—you see. Don’t you think it strange?”

As I was dismayed, Sako declared to me amused.

“Why do you believe Yoishi-kun didn’t die even though eleven years have passed since that incident?”

“…………..Eh?”

“Why do you believe she used illogical methods to save you at times?”

“…………”

“That is because—”

Sako’s mouth twisted into a happy smile, and he spoke.

“The ‘everlasting night stone’ failed in its incarnation long ago.”

“……………………….”

“Eleven years ago, in this mansion, under a devilish plan, the heart of a child it believed it had completely destroyed was protected by a certain accident.”

“…….Accident? What do you mean accident?”

But without answering my question, Sako continued to speak.

“Call it an accident, inevitability, or you could even call it a miracle--- at any rate, it set up several atrocities to crush the young girl’s heart and create a hollow vessel, but it failed. But—this gives birth to a question. There was no need at all for Yoishi Mitsurugi-kun to be the only body the ‘everlasting night stone’ incarnated itself in.”

“………Eh?”

“There are probably a great many beautiful boys and girls in this world who have had a sorrowful upbringing, who excel at a spiritual disposition. The ‘everlasting night stone’ is pure malice boiled down to its essence, and its actions are always shaped by calculated malice, and if it failed once, it would spread malice elsewhere once more. Its behavioral pattern is, if anything, almost refreshing. Despite that, on this occasion, it possessed ‘Yoishi Mitsurugi’ for eleven long years. Why do you think that is?”

I looked at Yoishi.

I looked at her pale, extremely well proportioned, calm face once more.

“That is because she dared to take the name of 『Yoishi』herself.”

“…………Ah.”

“’Names’ in this world hold the meaning of ‘place’. Despite failing to incarnate, the reason it clung to Yoishi was because she christened herself as 『Yoishi』, and stitched it into her own body to prevent it from escaping anywhere.”

Why did Yoishi need to use that name?

When I asked her that just a while ago—Yoishi answered that it was because she was the cause of all this. Because she was a life born from the violation of her mother by a complete stranger, and that was exactly why she was cursed before she was even born.

But…that wasn’t the only reason.

“It is true that it is far safer for everyone to know where the everlasting night stone is than not to know where it is.”

Sako spoke sadly.

“The young girl who willingly became the den for the ‘everlasting night stone’ was under the custody of the state for that very reason. She was implanted with a GPS tracker in her body, and was kept under surveillance twenty four hours a day: not allowed to die, and placed in a condition where she couldn’t have been said to be alive either.”

I recalled the face of that tall Noh-faced man.

Since I first met him, he kept referring to Yoishi as ‘that’— was that what he meant?

Did he only see her as a box of calamity that could not be opened?

“Y…you’ve gotta be kidding me….”

I looked at Yoishi in response to Sako’s words, who was listening with a vacant expression, and I shouted out loud unable to bear it anymore.

“That…that’s, absolutely wrong!”

“It’s not wrong. Everything has fallen into place in a very rational way, and a state of equilibrium has finally been achieved.”

“No… that’s completely wrong….what about her being left in a state of uncertainty where she’s nether dead or alive? Did a bunch of adults who should have known better not think of Yoishi’s feelings at all?”

“And by thinking---what would they achieve?”

At that moment, Yoishi’s whisper reached my ears.

“Could anyone do anything? No, there’s nothing that could be done. That’s why I decided not to feel anything. What I saw, the words I was exposed to, my changing environment — I decided to accept none of it, and just let it wash over me.”

“…That’s…”

I recalled her slender back, she walked alone as if she carried a heavy burden all by herself.

I recalled the way she lived her life, her head hung down with a stooped back, as she tried not to make eye contact with anyone.

I recalled the way she stood still in the depths of eternal darkness all by herself, as her eyes coldly gazed at the paranormal of this world.

“At that time, at that age, under those circumstances--”

Sako spoke as he looked at Yoishi, narrowing his narrow eyes even further.

“It was a terrifyingly excellent decision to make. It would have been impossible for me to do the same. How painful must that have been?”

Suddenly, I realized Yoishi was gripping something tightly.

It was the stuffed frog Yoishi treasured as if it were a good luck charm.

Sako too, looked down towards the stuffed animal, and suddenly smiled. Then, for some reason, he looked at me, and this time, put on a smile of a wicked disposition.

“Well, thanks to several accidents—the life of a man who disgracefully ran away has also been rewarded.”

It was the moment he declared that.

--Snap, Crack, I heard the sound of something splitting open here and there in the mansion.

I looked up, and it soon turned into a sound like a sharp, cracking sound of a dead tree snapping off—

And it felt, as if it changed to a high-pitched laugh.

As I thought about the thing I heard just now, and the meaning behind it, I shifted my gaze back at Sako in a daze.

……..Eh?

I saw scarlet at the center of Sako’s pale face. Before I realized, a streak of blood was trickling down Sako’s tall nose. Sako must have also noticed it, as he wiped the nosebleed with a vacant expression. However, the nosebleed that was trickling from Sako’s right nostril had now begun to trickle from his left nostril as well. The gooey blood started trickled down.

“….Hey, Sako….”

No, it wasn’t just through both nostrils. From his ears, his mouth, his eyes….at some point, blood had begun to drip through the holes in his hair follicles to the point where his entire hair was black and wet. Blood gushed from every orifice of his body without stopping, wetting his whole skin.

“Ah….”

Sako’s fingers were trembling and unable to form seals. Ony mere words of delirium were emitted from his lips that were poor in complexion.

“…..H…Hey, Sako………!”

I supported Sako’s body, which was on the verge of collapse. Sako’s body, which was violently shaking and about to fall, felt as light as air. And his white clothes were dyed deep red as if they had been crimson from the start.

“……..H, hey Sako! Stay with me!!”

“….Hu…..”

Those faint words that escaped Sako’s lips reached my ears.

“…….Humans…… can ne…ver…..win…..”

What the hell are you saying….?

I was about to say that, but that grumble did not become my voice.

Sako gazed at me, and a faint smile appeared on his pale face, as he continued to speak with the utmost effort.

“…They just… do… lose...... Don’t...... even think...of winning….”

Are you complaining now of all times?

His abrupt proclamation of defeat made the pit of my stomach churn.

However, it was not so much that I was disgusted with him – but rather, it a feeling of regret for Sako who had hunted down the ‘everlasting night stone’ to this point. And, at the same time, I didn’t know what the meaning of simply spouting such words here. Did he already assess victory or defeat? Or was there some other meaning behind them?

“Hey, Sako!!”

Without knowing what to do, I foolishly kept screaming at Sako.

“…There’s… no chance you will win …. Who, or what…. Are you going to win against…?”

Sako tried to scratch at midair with no strength in his fingers.

I realized that his fingertips were aimed at Yoishi—

And, the moment I noticed Yoishi Mitsurugi coldly fixated at Sako who was lying there covered in blood – Sako coughed a spurt of blood from his mouth, and his strength quietly disappeared in my arms.

“……..There’s no way—right?”

I looked at Sako’s face, who was stock still with his eyes slightly open—

And then, I turned to Yoishi.

“…..Y, Yoishi, do something! What should we do about Sako?”

She silently glimpsed at Sako’s immobile body,

“You can’t incarnate in me by destroying this person.”

Yoishi spun her words towards midair.

“Showing me people dying… doesn’t make me feel anything anymore.”

In response, the mansion creaked once more. Crrrreeeak

That strange sound—made Yoishi’s eyes slightly widen.

As if she had realized something, she suddenly turned to look in my direction.

The old mansion was creaking.

The timber was chafing together, and it sounded like someone’s sneering laughter.

That’s right--- right now, someone was sneering somewhere.

In a loud shrill laugh, as if everything was going according to plan.

And I-- was merely standing in a daze in a world that was rapidly changing.

No, Sako’s words repeatedly swirled in my head, and I kept thinking about their meaning in a daze.

『The ‘everlasting night stone’ I had known of was an existence that was the complete antithesis of the word ‘fool’.』

『It is terrifyingly intelligent; all of its actions are calculated and borne purely from malice.』

『Its actions are always shaped by calculated malice.』

『If it failed once, it would spread malice elsewhere once more.』

…..Say.

If---that’s right, it was a question of ‘if’.

The fact that I met Yoishi Mitsurugi one year ago in that family restaurant.

The fact that I alone coincidentally happened to run into ‘Yoishi’ by accident after the ‘Ikaigabuchi’ offline meeting.

If, that wasn’t an accident….what would happen?

No, what if everything began long before that, the day I lost my mother? What if Yoishi becoming involved in the resolution, and even how Krishna-san linked it by saying, ‘From its start, it never had any malice’, was not an accident….?

Having met Yoishi, and feeling a debt of gratitude towards her—

Didn’t I end up feeling romance for ghosts? I became attracted to the scenery of the world beyond, and began to excitedly venture into the spirt world, and jumped into the flames of darkness with glee, like a moth that knows that it is not a place a living person can deal with, but jumps into the flames and gets burned. And, before I’d realized, that continued to chip away at the thread of my spirit, gradually thinning my connection to this world and leading me straight to hell. Meeting Krishna-san, meeting Sako, and even meeting Takamura--- What if all those encounters were calculated by someone else, and they transformed the unknown realm of the occult into something fascinating one step before I rejected it? And what if it that was something that foolishly made me think that I could, or rather, that I had to save the young girl known as Yoishi Mitsurugi?

In the world that was being painted pitch black—I pictured her lonely face.

『Next time, if we meet again-- I’ll become your friend.』

『if you intend to associate with this person any longer, I won’t show you mercy.』

『That person probably won’t betray me to a fearsome degree.』

Eleven years ago, the ‘everlasting night stone’ failed to destroy Yoishi’s heart, Sako said that it had been stitched to Yoishi because she took the name of ‘Yoishi’ herself. But that wasn’t it--- not at all.

Wasn’t the ‘everlasting night stone’ patiently waiting for someone to appear for eleven years?

Could the occult loving university student: Nagito Yamada, possibly be—

An existence created only for the girl whose heart failed to be crushed, to grow in her the heart to ‘Trust people’ once more?

……..A………………

“ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I realized that thundering scream was my own.

Someone who Yoishi trusted.

Someone who Yoishi acknowledged as a ‘friend’.

Then, one after the other, it would sow the seeds that would lead to that someone and Yoishi deepening their connection, and when they mutually acknowledged each other as ‘war comrades’, it would destroy that someone.

Possessing Krishna-san, destroying Sako—was it all to destroy Nagito Yamada into smithereens in front of Yoishi? After she barely escaped being crushed eleven years ago, it planned to crush the faintest hope budding in her heart in the most ruthless way imaginable – and would finally be able to incarnate Yoishi’s body at long last?

A fear pierced through my entire being, as if I faced the thing that killed me in a past life—and I, pissed myself disgracefully.

“……Hey…. scared?”

At that moment—

A familiar voice like a ringing bell reached my ears.

--Everything… is in reverse.

Next to me, the young girl who had lost her emotions sneered.

With long black hair that gently waved, a monster was there with a pale face and dark colored eyes.

The scenery I once saw,

The ghost stories I had once read.

Among them must have been illusions in my mind created by fear.

Before I realized, there was a staircase behind me. On the landing of the staircase was a middle-aged man in a gray, worn suit, staring at me with a hollow expression. Under the bed was a woman with a white face, and a bluish-white hand that sprouted from the dark mud wall. An old woman with clouded white eyes was leaning against my back, and countless white faces floated in the sky. Sinister words scrawled in an old book pointed to a graveyard that spread out all over, while a corpse that stood on the sea was connected to a pair of high heels placed behind a guard rail left by a woman laughing in the mountains. A broken doll turns into a wriggling thing at the water’s edge, the wheelchair of an abandoned hospital squeaks and squeals as it swirls and disappears into the sky, and the shiny thing in the tornado is an alien vehicle.

You don’t know what I’m talking about? Well neither do I. I was merely describing what I saw with my eyes, as my brain felt it. Aa—Ahh, that’s right. My mind must have been on the verge of breaking down. My head must have exceeded its allowed tolerance of fear. Up until now, Krishna-san solved most things for me. More dangerous things were somehow managed by Sako. And Yoishi vaguely dealt with things I didn’t quite understand. But, those were all events on a rail laid by an ancient entity acting through malice, and I was, according to expectation, according to plan, completely afraid, and with my collapse, Yoishi too would collapse, auspiciously allowing Yoishi to transform into the ‘everlasting night stone’. The cackling and sneering black haired young girl next to me was that.

Which meant that, everything was already---

Over---

--When.

….No.

….Wait a minute…..

If Yoishi was already broken, and ended up turning into the ‘everlasting night stone’….then... What of me who was thinking right now? Did being broken mean only this much? Were these the last few normal thoughts that remined in my illogical self-consciousness? I didn’t know, but what were these thoughts that I was still thinking and feeling anyway?

Those vague doubts—

Changed the scenery in an instant.

They continued to clear away the darkness, and slowly returned my vision back to the original world.

I was still standing still in the storage room, and in front of me was Krishna-san who lay collapsed, and a bloodstained Sako. And next to me was Yoishi, dumbfounded, her empty gaze wandering at midair. There was no sign of the ‘everlasting night stone’ anywhere in the dim, dark and cramped room.

“…..Yoishi.”

I reached out my wobbly hand, gripped her hand, and spoke.

“….C, can you walk?”

Yoishi looked at me in a daze, and shook her head thereafter.

“….Come on, just walk. Let’s get out of here… let’s go outside, and call for help. If we call for an ambulance, Sako might still be--”

“—It’s impossible.”

Yoishi spoke with an expression that was clear, and heartrendingly painful.

At that moment, I noticed it.

Next to Yoishi, a white haze hung over.

There were four mists there, as if they enveloped Yoishi. And in my retinas, they gradually formed some kind of shape—and stood silently as if encompassing Yoishi. I quickly understood that it was people for some reason. And, I had an intuition that I knew these people. It felt as if I had once, somewhere, watched over them as if they were my real family…but, ahh, I knew it, I’ve started to collapse again. I realized that fact somewhere in my consciousness, but I still couldn’t do anything to stop it.

That was because—

I could now see a gentlemanly gray-haired man next to Yoishi. Next to him, I saw was a cheerful woman, a tomboyish girl with a smile on her face, and a cute brown dog at her feet. As they gradually took form, my vision gradually blurred. And those words spontaneously came from my mouth.

--I’m sorry……

I felt an overwhelming regret and fell to my knees on the spot. If I had only—if I had only been a little bit smarter. If I could have done something a little better. The feeling of cursing myself for my helplessness continued to well up inside me. I wiped away the tears that overflowed, and raised my head—

“……………”

I saw what looked like a straw rope fastened around the man’s neck. Looking closely at the mother, I saw that her body was dismembered. The girl had a knife still stuck at the base of her throat, and the small dog’s stomach was split open, its entrails fallen out. Yet despite that, the four hazy figures that had taken form remained standing, as if they enveloped Yoishi.

…..Are…. they ghosts?

At last, was I-- seeing the ghosts I had once longed to see so much?

And I realized what an unbelievably sad thing they were. Ghosts were in no way a thing to be feared. They were not something terrifying. They were completely and utterly heartbreaking things. Unable to be seen, unable to speak, they are just there. And, just seeing Yoishi Mitsurugi at ease surrounded by those ghosts evoked a pain that was enough to split my heart into two.

As the tears flowed without end from my eyes--my right elbow suddenly tinged in pain. And that ache seemed to ache in and out as it grew more painful. It became an unbearable pain, and I finally realized that it was a furious rebuke. It felt as if I heard Karasu-san’s voice right by my ear.

“….Don’t….give up yet… Think…”

I wiped away my tears, and at the same time I gritted my teeth, frantically encouraged my brain.

In the boundary between reality and fiction, between this world and the world beyond, I still mobilized my full consciousness to think.

The reason I came here…The meaning of why Sako made me come here.

Wasn’t I yet to find out why that was?

Think, think. Think until your mind is scorched, me. Sako said, 『‘Names’ in this world hold the meaning of ‘place’』, and Krishna-san had said, 『To wear the W in witch, would ultimately mean to forget who you are』. Which meant that regaining one’s original name was supposed to erase the worn ‘W’—no, was it the other way around….? That’s right….When she christened herself as ‘Yoishi Mitsurugi’ and bound the ‘everlasting night stone’, wasn’t she herself was bound at the same time?

Didn’t she end up defined as a dweller of this world and the world beyond?

“So that means I need to find her real name after all--”

In my cloudy consciousness, I told Yoishi, “Stay there”, and ran out.

I mustered all my remaining strength, ran through the corridor, and jumped into the living room.

It was possible—that Yoishi’s true name was written down on something in this mansion.

I went to the kitchen and turned over the cups. For example, I thought that there would be cups for each of the family members, and a young Yoishi would have her name inscribed on that—but there was nothing there. ‘All that remains is’, I turned to face the hearth. On top of it was the polaroid photograph taken of the family. It was creepy that the other family members who died had their faces warped white somehow, but I slowly drew close to that photograph.

In old family photographs, there would be stuff like dates and names of the people in the photo written on the back. That was how it was for my family. So maybe this one was the same. That must have been the reason why Sako made me come all the way here. I’m sure Yoishi’s true name is there. It had to be. I would find that, and tell it to her; She, who ended up losing her place in the boundary between this world and the world beyond. I would declare to her with all my strength that she was a dweller of this world.

I placed my hand on the photograph, suppressing my throbbing heartbeat and rushing emotions.

But, as I was about to slowly lift it up—

I suddenly felt weak.

What if it wasn’t here…..? No, no, it had to be here.

After all, if it wasn’t here… then there would be nowhere else to search in this mansion. Believe it….it, must be there.

I took a deep breath.

And the moment I flipped over the photograph.

*Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek**Kek*… The mansion rang.

The sneering laughter of a manly voice coldly pierced me, and flooded inside me.

Reflected in my eyes, there was nothing in the back of the photograph.

I couldn’t even see a stain in the blank space that had turned yellow—

And the world dyed in darkness in an instant.