Case 15: The Disturbing Mansion [Part Two] (11)

After finishing the long, endless story, she might have finally remembered everything.

Yoishi Mitsurugi, or rather, Miko Hanamura muttered, “…..Right….yeah…that’s right….”

“Did you remember?”

I managed to reply with that somehow as I put up with the pain in my immobile body.

But I felt somewhat embarrassed, even though I only talked about what happened just a while ago, about what might have been the biggest occultic thing to happen in my life, I ended up talking about it all the way to when I declared her my ‘wife’. For a while, we were both silent in the darkness.

“…You, really.”

“…….Hm?”

I thought she might have been embarrassed in her own way—

“….are a fool.”

She said so in his usual tone,

“S, shut up, jerk.”

I retorted in an instant, but I felt embarrassed once more, and was unable to say anything after that.

Darkness and silence fell once more, and I noticed that the pain was slowly getting worse. I slowly wiped the sweat off my forehead while trying to hide it from Miko, and clenched my teeth to endure the pain.

Thereupon, Miko muttered something to me.

“Back then—”

“…..Eh?”

“I understood how ghosts felt. When you were delirious in the hospital room, when you had your cognition of me sealed away.”

“….A, ahh.”

“To exist there and to not be recognized—it’s an unbelievable darkness.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“….It was so dark. Pitch black darkness so awful… that it might be the most terrible darkness there is.”

“…I said I’m sorry.”

“……But.”

“……….”

“But if you hadn’t protected been in that way—you would have fallen apart. And perhaps my heart wouldn't have lasted either. In that sense…it might be something to be thankful for.”

“……….”

It was thanks to Krishna-san, and Sako. Come to think of it, Sako was…crushed underneath, huh? What about Krishna-san? I placed her a little further away from the building, but was she alright? As I thought such things, it suddenly felt like my head became misty white. I was still lying down, but I felt terribly dizzy as if had lost my sense of equilibrium.

--Damn, could this be….dehydration? Or an infection from the wounds in my legs, back or head. Dammit, the more I thought about it, the more anxious I got. In times like these, the worst thing to do would be to lose hope.

I thought that, but the only one who knew we were here was Sako, and unless Krishna-san, who was lying outside, didn’t regain consciousness safely and instantly grasp hold of the situation and call for help, then there was no hope for us. This was terrible. We finally managed to get rid of the ridiculously dangerous monster that scattered malice for so long, but our chances of survival were infinitesimally small.

“H-hey, Miko, try to smile.”

Impatient, I made that absurd request towards the other side of the darkness. And what came back to me in reply was a voice with a deep-seated reluctance, “Ehh?”

“Come on, I’m begging you.”

“Even if I were to smile in a place like this, you can't see it.”

“Well, that’s true, but—no, just try it! Smile for me. I’m scared. I'm so pathetic I can't help it, but I'm scared. If I were to be cheered up somehow…right, if I don’t see your smile, then I’m going to lose heart. Look, listen up. A smile is more precious than anything else in this world. Nothing bad happens to a person who is smiling happily. A nice smile is a present that will make everyone happy. So, please. My hopes are fading, so give me the best smile you can as a present! I’m begging you!”

In response, Miko kept silent for a while and spoke.

“………..Ah…..so that’s how it was….”

“……Eh?”

“Perhaps it was the same for ‘Gandame’.”

“…Ga, Gandame…?”

“’Gandame’ and ‘Yousen-boy’… they might have been trying to deliver us hope. Ghosts, yōkai, monsters and everything else simply existed. They simply existed—but the moment humans feared them, they might have turned into monsters.”

My impassioned speech took a strange turn, and I was about to give up.

“…..I’ll try to….smile.”

Suddenly, Miko agreed.

“…I don’t know if you’ll be happy though.”

“Ohh, really?”

“……….”

“…..Hey, did you smile already?”

“………”

“…Is it alright…if I can feel it?”

In my vague consciousness, I bumped my trembling hand against the wood here and there—and slowly reached out my hand. I reached out my arm in the direction of the voice, towards Miko’s cheeks. My fingertips touched something soft—

It happened at that moment.

Heeeeeeeey, I heard a person’s voice from somewhere.

For a moment, it was a voice so faint I thought it might have been an auditory hallucination—but, I definitely felt like I heard it.

I strained my ears,

“……Heyyyyyyyy, is anyone alive?!”

It was the voice of a man I didn’t recognize. And it was followed by the voice of a different man, “Make a voice, or even a sound! If you can make it, then do it!” I desperately twisted my head to face up, and I saw a flicker of light in between the gaps of the timber somewhere.

Ohh, my hopes skyrocketed in an instant.

“….Over here! We’re over here! We’re alive! We’re alive!!”

I desperately raised my voice, and instantly a huge amount of dust invaded my throat, and I coughed violently.

But, there were shouts of joy right near me, “Oooohh!”, “This way!”, it felt as if the sound of several footsteps drew closer.

In my fading consciousness—the roof and lumber were being moved aside one by one. The air suddenly began to move, and thick oxygen brushed against my nostrils.

The light began to pour down on me, which must have been the flashlights of the rescue team. As I was illuminated by that light—I saw it. Just fifty centimeters or so away from me, I saw a face so beautiful and lovely that she felt out of this world.

Miko Hanamura was looking kindly at me with clear eyes that had lost their dark color.

“…Miko.”

The moment I spoke her name in embarrassment, the last piece of timber imprisoning us was removed. The rescue team clad in orange lifted it up with their thick arms.

“Are you alright? Are you conscious? Your wounds?”

I was asked in rapid succession, but I guess he knew right away.

“Lacerations on the left leg! This is terrible---Ah, large abrasions on the back and the arms …get a stretcher right away!”

--Hey, hey, don’t scare me now.

I mean, I'm going to cause my sister and the others to worry again, as I thought that, I spotted the adorable baby face beyond the rescue team. Her hair was a little disheveled, but the petite former occult site manager was looking my way with tears filled in her eyes.

“Ah, thanks.”

Foolish thought it might have been, that was all the greeting I could muster.

I then turned to look at Miko who was right below me. I was about to smile at her, to tell her that we had been saved, but-

Thereupon, I realized that Miko was slightly out of position from where I was. In her right hand, she clutched the stuffed frog as if to protect it, and in her left hand, she clutched that polaroid photograph. It seemed she had almost let go of them when the ceiling collapsed, but desperately shifted her body to take them back. No, I understood that much, but.

“…Hey, Miko, what is that?”

I asked, suddenly noticing a strange foreign object.

I stared at that strange object, and vaguely thought about its meaning.

It was—the sharp, pointed fragment of a broken pillar.

And, right now, it was growing like an object from Miko Hanamura’s chest.

“Hey…Miko….”

I asked her once more, when the rescue team pulled me out in a hurry, and shifted their attention to Miko.

“Wai…”

Wait a minute. Let me see her.

I wanted to say that, but my body ached all over, and no voice came out.

“CPR!! Hurry!!”

I heard that voice. Three members of the rescue party moved the timber, opened the hole even wider and pulled out Miko’s body. They then placed her in the stretcher meant for me, carried her to a level ground a short distance away, where the paramedics there began to perform CPR on her.

“It’s no good, Get the AED!”

Someone shouted that out loud, but an older paramedic stopped them.

With a somber look on his face, he gently shook his head and spoke.

“She—has already passed away.”

“…It must have been an instant death. Judging from the liver mortis that’s already set in, the time of death must have been around twenty-four hours ago….”

“….Inst….Twenty four hours….?”

I finally managed to let out a cry, and dragged my aching leg as I got up.

I dragged myself, and crawled towards Miko.

“Hey, there’s no need for that… doing something foolish like that….”

The rescue team were looking at me. The rescue team in orange rushed up to me. They didn’t know if they should help me, or stop me from walking, but I pushed back against them one after another, and reached Miko.

“What are you guys saying…. We were talking until just now. The two of us were trying our best not to lose against this darkness… We’ve been talking for the whole day, trying not to lose consciousness. Right?”

Before I’d realized, I was clutching the collar of the elder paramedic, when someone stopped me from behind.

“...Hey, I’m begging you, please…. Hurry up and help her! With that…with that machine right there! If you use that, then she’ll surely regain consciousness, right? She’ll be saved, right? If you can’t do it, then take her to a hospital right away! Hurry up, hey!!”

“Stop it, Nagi-kun!”

I turned around hearing that scream, to see that the tearful voice belonged to Krishna-san—

I realized that it was her who was desperately clinging to me to try and stop me.

“Ah…Krishna-san…After all, it’s strange, right? She…Miko was…until just now, telling me I was a fool, and she listened to me asking her to smile--”

I was about to say that.

I realized it for the first time.

Yoishi Mitsurugi—no, Miko Hanamura’s face, was curved in a faint smile.

To me, it was as if she desperately tried to remember and recreate the smile she had almost forgotten—

I screamed a voiceless scream, as I embraced her.