Yuka couldn’t comprehend.
How the current situation was unfolding.
She had heard the story.
She knew that Kotone was not an ordinary person and that she was a representative of some god.
Koko was the same; she also knew that using part of Koko’s body allowed Kotone to come back to life.
In this situation, she understood that this might be the best option.
However, it seemed impossible to confront an existence that could only be dealt with by a knife.
A monster connected to a world that the living should never know.
To face something like that, Yuka understood she had to become a monster of the same level.
But still, there was one thing she just couldn’t understand.
Why did it have to be Kotone?
Why did that poor girl, who had always suffered, have to be sacrificed?
Why was this world—
“————!”
A sound that grated on her ears.
A blue, glowing mass was screaming.
At least, it wasn’t the voice of Kotone that Yuka remembered.
Though it was gigantic, it was smaller than the massive tentacles that sprouted from the ground.
The tentacles squeezed the mass as if to tear apart the very existence of it.
“……”
Yuka gripped her knife tightly.
She blinked and wiped away the tears that had pooled in her eyes.
“Kotone…”
Holding Koko, who was sobbing in her arms, tightly, Yuka got to her feet. Koko awkwardly followed her lead and stood up.
Koko looked up at Yuka. Her face was a mess. Blood was smeared all over, and what could only be described as a mysterious liquid was flowing continuously from her nearly shoulder-length hair.
There were patches on her face where tears had flowed, revealing paler skin underneath.
“Koko, we can’t stay like this.”
“Uu…?”
“Kotone… Kotone did all of this for us.”
Yuka looked up at the sky.
She still didn’t know why it had to be Kotone.
But at least, she understood one reason for Kotone’s actions.
The sight that Kotone had shown when ascending to the sky.
Though the blue flames raining down wouldn’t be a major threat to Yuka, they would certainly be lethal for Koko’s body.
Koko, whose body was already weak, wouldn’t be able to withstand it.
Luckily, the mass was thrashing high up in the sky now, so flames were not raining down right above them.
But it was only a matter of time.
The flames of the dead had spread to a few corpses.
“…We have to go.”
The request Kotone had made.
She resolved not to think about what that request was.
She just had to survive here, so Kotone’s actions wouldn’t be in vain.
There would be time for mourning later.
Yuka swung her sword to the side.
With a few corpses, the tentacle was also severed.
“———!”
The tentacle let out a scream. Whether that scream was due to Yuka’s knife or because it bit into the mass, Yuka had no way to confirm.
She just needed to make a path.
She didn’t know which direction they should go, but she had to protect Koko until the end.
Koko seemed to understand Yuka’s intentions and desperately tried to widen the gap into which the tentacles were entering.
The regeneration rate was much slower than earlier.
It was a bit too much to feel joy or relief.
*
The ground was shaking as Fukuda’s motorcycle almost toppled over several times, but he barely managed to keep it upright and continued to ride.
Kiik!
But there was a limit to that as well.
After stopping the motorcycle on its side, he felt a chill run down his spine.
The ground was cracked right next to where he stood. If he had been a moment late, both of them would have fallen right into that gap.
He felt the weight pressing against his back disappear and turned to see Kagami already getting off the motorcycle.
“Kagami-san!”
“We still have to keep going.”
Had that person always been so blindly determined?
Fukuda thought while looking at her back.
To be honest, her demeanor was completely opposite from what he had seen in the shop. Her eyes were blank, as if she had no particular interest in anything.
She always replied politely when spoken to, and while she laughed at jokes, she seemed far from a devoted image.
He had seen her at the police station as well.
“Go on.”
Kagami said.
“You have a daughter too, Fukuda-san.”
“……”
Fukuda opened his mouth for a moment but then shut it.
…Certainly, following her wouldn’t be of any help.
Moreover, if he were to die here, he couldn’t completely shake off thoughts about what to do with Harumi.
If the world ended, he wouldn’t even see his daughter again; that thought crossed his mind—
Crash!
“Ugh!?”
The moment he tried to follow and got off the motorcycle, something fell from the sky.
It was a massive… tentacle, which could only be described that way. Of course, it was unlike any typical tentacle.
It was peppered with holes and appeared to be gushing red blood as if it had grown out of a festering wound.
That was falling towards the direction Kagami went.
“…Kagami-san!?”
He called out, but he heard no response.
Whether it was that she didn’t hear him or something else was happening, he couldn’t tell.
“……”
Fukuda looked up at the sky.
The blue mass had split lengthwise.
It had become a massive mouth biting into the tentacles. Even though it was visible from this distance, an overwhelming amount of blood and bodily fluids were visibly spilling out.
“…What the hell is this?”
Fukuda muttered in shock.
*
A blue dragon was blazing.
To Kagami’s eyes, that mass appeared as such.
It opened a gigantic mouth, and legs sprouted from the back. It swung its tail around like a whip as if it were about to strike something.
Its elongated body swayed in the sky, looking precisely like a dragon from myth.
“Ah…”
And tears flowed from Kagami’s eyes watching the scene of battle.
That was undoubtedly Kotone. Or perhaps Koko might be with her.
It might have been difficult to express that. Kagami had birthed those masses countless times. Enough to fill several refrigerators in her apartment.
She had no way of knowing if that was truly one being or many coming together as one.
As it clumped together, consciousness might also have been mashed together.
If that were the case, the one out there could not be Kotone and Koko.
“Hah, hah.”
But even while thinking that, Kagami did not stop running.
Boom!
Something fell from above.
A severed tentacle landed just beside Kagami as she dashed, shaking the ground upon impact. She stumbled but managed to keep hold of the mirror in her hand.
There were neither monsters nor anything else nearby. Monsters that had been popping up were gone. There were traces everywhere, remnants of destruction.
The ground was muddy.
Were they all dead?
That mass must have changed something. Kagami forced herself to rise from the ground.
“……”
Kagami recognized the abnormality.
If that huge tentacle fell, it would certainly be fatal for the beings below. Just as a person would crush ants, the buildings below would also collapse.
The people inside wouldn’t escape either.
But what had fallen now—
Shapes that were cut into pieces had fallen, curiously avoiding the houses.
Cars were crushed, roads cracked, and parts of buildings were damaged and crumbled.
Even so, for some reason, Kagami didn’t think that it must have resulted in human casualties.
When people survive from a situation so dire they could have died with just a step further, they tend to think that even if it were just coincidence, it was divine providence.
Was it overly presumptuous to think that this sight was that?
Kagami’s heart raced.
“————hahahahahaha!”
She heard a laugh.
Looking back up at the sky.
Was that… really her sister?
Whether her body had transformed and her voice changed, or if her sister had—become something else was uncertain.
Yet within the mad laughter, the ringing sound that had been audible since earlier had long since ceased.
Kagami started running again.
The reason her heart raced wasn’t just because she was running.
The existence known as “Goshin”—did it ever consider such creatures as humans?
In Kurosawa’s plan, people were just disposable. After all, if they died because of that power, life and death would merge, making those concepts inconsequential.
If even a human could think like that, could a being called a god be concerned about such things?
Therefore—
“Not yet… It’s Kotone.”
Kagami refused to give up.
Even if she had become something like that and couldn’t be recognized as a single entity due to being intertwined with numerous beings.
Because of Kotone’s heart.
Though she was a divine envoy descended upon this world, she understood humanity better than anyone else, and that was why this was happening.
Thus, Kagami ran.
*
“Hahahahaha!”
Hearing the laughter, the dragon seemed to become even more agitated and opened its mouth wide.
She couldn’t tell what was making that laughter, but the dead began to scream simultaneously.
Boom, boom, boom.
The corpses exploded one by one, spraying blood everywhere. The dragon wasn’t spitting anything out, but the dead were losing their physical form from hearing an incomprehensible—something that ordinary people could not hear.
As the dead dispersed, the blood-soaked tentacles were bitten by the dragon.
Wrapping its long body around the tentacles, the dragon struggled against the forces of the other tentacles. The blue flames engulfing its body seemed to aid it.
Crack!
A loud sound, as if pulling up a rebar, echoed as the tentacles were torn apart, and dark blood gushed forth from the wound.
It was a bizarre sight, red and black mixed together flowing out. Even in the darkness of the night, the blue dragon’s flames illuminated the surroundings.
In the pale light, the monsters fought.
As the dragon opened its mouth once more, the tentacles wormed their way in. The tentacle that wrapped around its lower jaw exerted force, disregarding the pain of being bitten by the closed upper jaw.
With a horrifying sound, the dragon’s lower jaw was shattered. The tentacle was also torn off, but thud. After the tentacle fell to the ground, the revealed jaw of the dragon bent downward, hanging limply.
“———!”
The dragon’s tail was caught by a tentacle, and many of its appendages wrapped around its long body.
Kiik.
Crack.
There was a sound as if something was collapsing from within.
The dragon screamed.
Scrape.
As the tentacles constricted around its body, blades sprouted from between them.
Those thin but sharp blades pierced the dragon’s wounds, tearing them open. The sound of tearing spread far into the surroundings.
“Hahahaha!”
But the fighting opponent, seemingly enjoying the struggle, exerted even more power.
In the end, the dragon couldn’t escape. No matter how massive a being was, if it were torn apart so that no form remained, it would be unable to exert its power.
However, the dragon’s body was also thoroughly mangled.
Blades stuck out from various places.
The surface became shabby.
It looked as if it had reverted to that original mass.
The dragon seemed to soar toward the sky but then dove down again, facing downward.
It bit into one of the tentacles it had turned into rags.
What had been a blade became a hand. In a grotesque form where a human arm grew from a snake-like body, the dragon grasped the tentacle.
And began to bite into it.
The piece that was bitten entered the dragon’s mouth.
After chewing on it a few times, the dragon swallowed the chunk.
Thud.
Another tentacle fell onto the dragon’s waist, but this time, it did not try to escape. Writhing like a snake, it moved its head toward the incoming tentacle.
One of its arms grasped the tip of the tentacle.
As if refusing to be daunted by the tentacles wrapping around it, the dragon also coiled itself around the tentacle.
Chew.
And began to chew.
Combining the feast of a snake and a wolf, the dragon gnawed and swallowed the tentacle countless times.
The laughter did not cease. In fact, the more flesh the dragon devoured, the more it seemed to enjoy and laughed louder.
Thud. Thud.
Towards the serpent, endless tentacles fell, piercing downward like whips.
Perhaps due to the meat it consumed, the dragon seemed to gain even more strength, and it did not yield, repeatedly thrusting its jaw forward.
*
Gasping heavily, Koko and Yuka finally managed to emerge on the opposite side.
How many tentacles had they passed?
Their entire bodies felt like they were about to collapse from exhaustion.
It was inevitable. They had been risking their lives fighting for a long time.
Kosuzu, fighting the dragon, didn’t seem to have the luxury of time. She had been laughing loudly, but Yuka didn’t think that laughter came from a place of ease.
Since the dragon—Kotone, had bitten through numerous tentacles, Yuka sometimes had moments where she didn’t need to cut through them directly.
There had been times when it almost crushed her under the violently moving tentacles, but she survived because of her sword wielding and Koko protecting her.
The two of them walked without saying a word, clueless about where to go, aimlessly moving forward.
Stopping meant death.
That was the only thought driving Yuka forward.
And—
Was it just a coincidence?
Or was it some sort of guidance?
Having fled desperately while seeking a path—
“…Ah.”
Right before her eyes, there was a ‘person.’
At least, it looked like one.
The lower body was no longer human in form. It had been torn to shreds, unrecognizable as legs, and stuck to the ground.
Numerous tentacles sprouted from her back, connected to the massive tentacles reaching into the sky.
Around were countless corpses sprawled out languidly.
And in the center, the being itself was merely slumped down, doing nothing.
Its hair had turned completely white.
Its face and arms were lined with wrinkles.
It was no longer recognizable as Kagami’s… ‘sister.’
“……”
That—Kosuzu extended her right hand forward.
A single droplet hung from it, swaying pitifully.
It made a sound of chime, chime, but unlike before, it seemed devoid of any meaning.
Did that mean the owner of that droplet had died?
At that moment, Yuka felt her strength drain from her legs.
“Yuka!?”
If Koko hadn’t been beside her, she would have crumbled.
With Koko, Yuka slowly moved forward.
She stepped on the corpses of the dead.
Crack.
And as Yuka’s weight bore down, they turned to dust.
It looked as if they had been too long untouched, desiccated leaves crumbled apart.
Yuka walked as close to Kosuzu as she could.
Slowly, she raised her knife and brought it to Kosuzu’s neck.
Before she could even execute the meaning of ‘stab,’ Kosuzu slowly crumbled.
As if she had been merely dust from the beginning, Kosuzu fell apart too easily like leaves that had dried for far too long.
Her head dropped, and before it could touch the ground, it turned to sand.
Her neck crumbled, and her chest became dust.
Her arms fell away.
When her hand broke upon hitting the ground, the droplet simply rolled over the earth.
The multitude of dust clung slowly to the walls of the sticky, humid ground of some beast’s belly. It seemed to change color gradually, as if sand were absorbing water.
Kosuzu was already dead.
When exactly, it was unclear, but it had been before Yuka and Koko arrived here.
Why… was that so?—
—She couldn’t even think about it.
“—Hahahaha!”
A being was laughing above, as if it meant to collapse the world with just laughter.
It must be because of the ‘thing’ that Kosuzu had swallowed.
No matter how much a person transcends humanity, they could never become a god.
A human trying to devour a god would eventually find themselves engulfed by the god instead—
Why couldn’t Yuka think of such things?
“Yuka?”
Koko called for Yuka.
As Yuka tried to look towards Koko—
“—Ugh!”
She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her head and sank to one knee.
“Uwaah!?”
It seemed Koko also felt the pain.
The tentacles were slowly beginning to crumble. Starting from the place where Kosuzu had stood.
As if it had been pretending the whole time.
Her head throbbed, but Yuka managed to stand up while holding her knife somehow.
Through the tears streaming from her eyes due to the headache, she barely managed to catch Koko’s body, which was floating upwards.
Because Kotone had asked her to.
“I can’t, I can’t give up!”
Yuka shouted through her tears.
Yuka had absolutely no intention of giving up.
She lowered Koko and embraced her again.
Then she rose to her feet and began to run.
“Ugh!”
Something grabbed her foot, but Yuka swung her sword.
While frantically swinging her sword around her, she kept running.
“U, uu…!”
“Koko! Snap out of it! You can’t do this!”
Koko was reaching her hand toward the sky. Her eyes were still rolled back.
As if something was calling out to her from above.
The sky was barely visible.
She caught sight of the blazing blue dragon.
The dragon was writhing in the air.
It seemed to be in great pain.
“…Ah!”
The severed tentacles started to rise towards the sky.
Koko was becoming one of them, and Yuka clasped her arms tightly around Koko while firmly gripping her knife.
And then she pressed herself flat against the ground.
It was terrifying.
She feared what would happen next.
But she couldn’t give up.
“—Hahahaha!”
A chilling laugh echoed.
Perhaps, Kotone had been hearing that laughter until now.
As Yuka thought this, tears streamed down her face.
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