Kagami has never really liked her life that much.
That said, she’s never cursed it either. She just thought it was only natural to live like this.
Yeah. She’s never cursed it.
But she has resented it.
Being a teenager is a sensitive age.
It’s the time when you gradually become aware of your sexuality and realize you’re a woman, a time when you held dreams about the future.
Yet, she never refused to do what needed to be done. She dutifully followed the orders of her sister, who was considered the most capable of those who had inherited the Kurosawa family business.
There might not have been any physical actions, but her consciousness was there. From then on, her belly began to swell, and Kagami birthed an incomplete vessel. Again and again, over and over.
Bells, mirrors, and knives. It seemed Kosuzu wanted to break away from those traditional methods a little.
Blood and flesh. Motherhood, spirit, and body. The ritual taken from some long-lost religion in the West didn’t turn out very successful.
With each failure, it felt as if Kosuzu thought she just had bad luck. At first, Kagami, who simply followed her sister’s words, couldn’t help but have questions.
Childbirth is never an easy task, even if no real baby emerges. Years passed, and Kagami was completely worn out.
By that time, a child finally came.
A child with a proper body.
She thought this vessel was complete, but ultimately, no god came to that vessel.
It seemed Kosuzu was utterly disillusioned by that. When the vessel reached the age Kagami had first conceived, Kosuzu silently left the Kurosawa household.
That was when Kagami began to harbor doubts that what she had done might be completely meaningless.
Kosuzu spoke of needing a larger force or about becoming a religious order rather than a family, but none of her plans were ever tidied up. It was only natural. The one pushing it all forward had abandoned everything and vanished.
Kagami had to run around, trying to sort it all out somehow. She knew there were watchers on the Kurosawa family, and there were enemies as well. But the important thing was to at least hold onto whatever relationships were existing.
It wasn’t that she didn’t care at all, but that old apartment was not somewhere she could feel fond of at all.
It was evidence that years of self-sacrifice had meant nothing.
…Only then did Kagami think that she truly had bad luck.
What if she had been born into another family, a normal household, with no power at all?
Going to school in a uniform, making ordinary friends, and perhaps by now she would have married someone and built a family. Maybe she even had children.
Of course, she probably wasn’t someone like Kurosawa Kotone or Kurosawa Koko. She might have just entered elementary school.
And that child would probably be someone who could speak and think properly—
Thinking like that while lamenting her life, one day, suddenly that girl appeared before Kagami.
A girl who seemed to have skipped her childhood entirely. Kurosawa Kotone.
*
Ironically, the first thought Kagami had upon seeing Kotone rise up was, “Beautiful.”
The sight of a girl floating in mid-air without anything was somewhat unsettling. Her hair was wet and tangled, and her body seemed pressed down somewhere.
People nearby probably thought more about how desperate she looked rather than how elegant.
Around the girl, blood began to fill in. The blood flowing from her left wrist had already spread everywhere, revealing that the transparent area was, in fact, the inside of something’s mouth.
The girl, who had been struggling with something invisible, then pulled out a piece of paper from her bosom and tore it apart.
Then, the surroundings turned a vivid green.
Whether it was due to some mysterious power, or she just happened to be in such a position in the mouth of something, it was unknown, but for a moment, Kagami thought the girl was floating serenely in the air.
Just a brief moment, but seeing her surrounded by blue flames, Kagami thought.
Beautiful.
However, that thought was shattered in the next instant.
What she heard was a scream.
A horrifying scream from one girl.
Unlike when she had been ripping through her enemies surrounded by blue flames, this was the terrifying scream of someone whose body was really on fire.
The blue flames soon burned everything around the girl, and something invisible that should not have existed made its presence known to the world.
What remained was a swirling white ash and the dreadful smell of burning.
Watching everything burn brightly, there was nothing Kagami could do.
There was no way she could do anything.
“Kotone!”
After everything was over, the first to rush over was Koko.
Following Koko in a fluster, as she entered the area of the now barely recognizable charred monster, what she saw was a girl lying on the ground.
Her skin was pale as a sheet.
It was only then that Kagami realized how pale that white skin was. Even during summer, when she had returned from the beach, the girl had never tanned and had always looked sickly.
No, it felt like Kagami had never once seen the girl in good health.
Of course, until very recently, she hadn’t even considered her a person.
“…The work isn’t over yet.”
The girl said.
Blood was still flowing from her severed wrist.
Her face, even paler than usual, was as white as it was blue, and she said that.
What was she supposed to think seeing that?
As a servant of some great being outside, was she supposed to feel reverence? Should she look at her like long-past sacrificed saints?
Then the girl ran.
What could possibly drive the girl to act like that?
Why did she always rush into the most dangerous places, risking her life while appearing completely unfazed, and what made her cry out so desperately?
…If she were an ordinary person, wouldn’t she have given up long ago?
…
No, if she had given up, what would have happened to this world?
Perhaps that girl was actually fending something off. Instead of becoming a toy of some evil being that twisted the world’s logic as it wanted, she was protecting that world.
“Kagami-san!”
While thinking like that, Kagami found herself running.
Yamashita, who had barely caught up, yelled, “Live!”
The girl screamed.
It was a scream of a girl who always suffered as a toy of misfortune. A scream for wanting to escape from that pain.
The girl, who seemed to sit perfectly relaxed, as if her one-room apartment was the coziest nest in the world, had that scream. The girl, who usually looked so indifferent, saying that everything was alright, had that scream.
When Kagami got closer, the scream was cut off.
Before the girl lay the corpse of a small monkey that had already died. Around her, people were groaning, Koko was looking at the girl with a stiff expression, and the few remaining people were staring at her in a daze.
The girl, who let her arms hang down with a look of emptiness, said nothing.
That expression was like a child who had shown their diary to others by mistake, and Kagami couldn’t say a word.
The girl’s scream.
The scream of a girl who had been born as the daughter of a woman named Kagami.
The cry of a child who had suffered from the sin of being born as Kurosawa Kagami’s daughter.
*
The girl named Kurosawa Kotone was a child with many strange and suspicious qualities.
First of all, it was highly suspicious that the body, which had almost been left unattended and was basically in a vegetative state, began to move.
Wasn’t it… a vessel? It wouldn’t be surprising if the existence within it was something Kosuzu had longed for so much.
Rather, it would have been stranger to think that the existence within it wasn’t something like that.
Soon, Kagami began to think in an “even stranger” way.
The girl, Kurosawa Kotone, facing Kagami… had a completely different atmosphere than her peers, vivid girls in their teens, rich in sensitivity and talkative. She definitely didn’t come across as a transcendent being from the universe beyond.
That’s why, despite all the suspicion, it strangely became hard to doubt her.
The more they talked, the more she felt like a person.
Even the look of suspicion when she stared at Kagami absurdly felt like a human, and Kagami gradually found herself teasing her a little every time they met.
She freaked out when she accidentally released another being while raising her as a sibling.
…Ah, right. Actually, there was a moment that freaked her out even more after that.
When the girl suddenly said thank you to Kagami or obediently followed her words.
Those were strange words she had never even heard from the family she had grown up with.
“…”
That’s why Kagami was confused about what emotions she was supposed to feel now.
What kind of thoughts should she have while looking at Kotone, who lay unconscious on the hospital bed? What emotions should she feel?
It was hard to articulate the emotions she felt, so Kagami just sat silently next to the girl, keeping her mouth shut.
Still, Koko was more honest than Kagami. Koko was holding onto the collapsed Kotone, crying, screaming, and only calmed down after they arrived at the hospital.
Did she trust the doctor’s words? When she nodded at the statement that her body was fine, it seemed she did, but seeing her cling to the bedside after that, it seemed she couldn’t believe it either.
The ones who had suffered the most last night were naturally Kotone and Koko. Especially Kotone, who fought nearly spilling her own blood. She even caught fire.
But oddly enough, it was Kotone who had the fewest injuries on her body.
That’s why Kotone was also the first patient to be kicked out of the emergency room among those who were rushed in at once.
With legs squashed, arms severed, innards spilling out, and heads half-cracked in comparison, it means she’s not a priority.
After hearing that, Kagami felt another strange feeling. Strangely, it was a feeling close to anger. Fortunately, knowing Kotone would soon wake up even in this state, she didn’t show a reaction beyond that of feeling emotionally.
The families of the fallen didn’t come to the hospital.
They probably hadn’t even called for them. What had happened today was also “classified.”
The daughter of Miura, the one who seemed to be the biggest figure in the group, probably didn’t come either.
“Ugh…”
Koko, who hadn’t slept and was guarding Kotone, let out such a noise.
What should Kagami say to her?
Kagami didn’t know.
Originally… there should always be someone else in a place like this. Not Kagami—
“Kotone!?”
—Right, someone like that.
There are two types of people in this world.
Those who can know the secrets, whether they belong to the government or not, and those who cannot.
In the hospital now, none of the families of the patients who were only hospitalized for similar reasons could come, yet ironically, only a girl who shared no blood could visit.
…And then there were the families of that girl.
“Yuka!”
Koko suddenly jumped up and shouted.
For about ten seconds after that, Kagami felt a sense of loneliness as if she was alone in this space.
Yuka, the daughter of Yuuki, approached Koko, holding her hands tightly, earnestly asking what had happened, and taking care of Koko’s safety.
…Despite her being the one whose blood was flowing, Kagami never even thought of such a response.
When she felt that odd feeling once more, that ten seconds ended.
An extremely awkward atmosphere hovered around.
If it was Yuka from the Yuuki family, she should have pounced at Kagami the moment she saw her. Wouldn’t she interrogate her on how Kotone ended up like this or question if she had used her?
But Yuka from the Yuuki family made a furious expression for a split second, then immediately erased it.
No, rather, it felt like it had been erased.
When she looked at Kagami absentmindedly, Kagami didn’t know what to say either.
Kagami rose from her seat without a word.
Then she went outside, as if to escape from that place.
*
How annoyingly persistent, the daughter of Yuuki chased after Kagami.
“…What happened…?”
Stumbling over her words, as if unsure how to express herself, Yuka spoke, and Kagami turned to look at her.
They were outside. How on earth did she follow her?
No, the answer was simple. She probably followed Kagami the moment she came out.
“…”
Yuka’s demeanor was different from when they last met, causing Kagami to observe her for a while.
Yuka waited patiently for an answer.
“…It’s because of Satori.”
“…”
That seemed to count as quite a big revelation.
Yuka from the Yuuki family’s expression slightly twisted.
“You asked me for help, didn’t you?”
“…I did. But I didn’t force her.”
“Neither did I. I didn’t force her.”
“…I guess you said something that couldn’t be refused.”
How could she be so sure?
It was true, but…
“So, did it succeed?”
“It failed. You must have heard that.”
Right. It was a failure.
From what the survivors heard, it seemed Kosuzu had peeked into Miura’s heart. Through Satori.
Satori reacts extremely sensitively to the malice of others. To what extent? To the point of going into panic and forgetting how to restrain herself and just blurting out anything.
And that person was probably Miura.
“…If you set a person by Kosuzu, it’s best to withdraw them as quickly as possible. It might already be too late, though.”
After Kagami’s response, Yuka from the Yuuki family stayed silent for a while.
“…And.”
“And?”
Seeing Yuka as if she still had something to say, Kagami turned back. This time, she wore an expression that showed a bit of irritation, but this bold girl didn’t seem to care about that in the slightest.
“Kotone must have said something.”
Kagami was momentarily taken aback by that line and unintentionally chuckled. It seemed Yuka found that displeasing.
“Is it that you’re more interested in what that child has said, even though such a significant event has happened?”
There was another girl who came after Kotone collapsed. A senior from the same school, Hagiwara Hana.
She seemed like quite a troublesome adversary. Did she come to the hospital to say she would kill her or something? However, Hagiwara asked for Kagami’s consent, then moved toward Kotone, grasping her hand and kneeling.
And then she behaved as if she was praying to her deity. Just her actions. Kagami had no way of knowing what kind of prayer it was.
Right after that, it seemed the people on her side all withdrew. That sight seemed similar to the Yuuki Yuka standing right in front of her. According to their gods’ logic, they should throw all these people into hellfire.
“Of course, I’m curious.”
Yuka from the Yuuki family spoke confidently.
“Because she’s my friend.”
“…”
“And you’re just the same, aren’t you?”
“Just the same? How?”
“…She’s your daughter.”
“…”
Kagami tried to scoff.
But oddly enough, this time it didn’t work.
“Guess remarks like that can still come out even after observing your attitude until now.”
“Your attitude is the reason for that.”
Yuka from the Yuuki family seemed to be reaching her limit with patience and shot a glare at Kagami.
“It’s because of Kotone’s attitude.”
“What kind of attitude did my ‘daughter’ show?”
Finally managing to get that sarcastic comment out, Yuka stared at Kagami for a moment before she said.
“…She said she was reconciling with you.”
“…”
And that statement was enough to leave Kagami speechless.
“She said little by little, she was reconciling.”
“…That child.”
“Yeah, that child. She said it directly to me.”
Yuka from the Yuuki family continued.
“So, you should tell me. If you were also reconciling little by little, you must feel something for Kotone. Just like Kotone…”
Kagami nearly opened her mouth, then clenched her jaw.
If she had opened her mouth now, she would have been left with a blank stare for a while.
“What happened with Satori? Koko was crying and couldn’t even explain properly.”
“…”
“You could tell me, at least. You should at least have better conversational skills than that poor child.”
After staring at Yuka from the Yuuki family for a while, Kagami finally said.
“…She said she wanted to live.”
That was all she said.
“She touched Satori’s body to save her. And Satori uttered those words. She wanted to live. She didn’t want to suffer. She asked for someone to help.”
That was what Satori cried out.
But it was in the voice of Kotone. That was how it must have sounded because it was Kotone’s innermost thought.
“…Kotone.”
Kagami honestly hoped Yuka would suffer a little. To be frank, she found her a bit bothersome. It didn’t strike her fancy to always show a hostile expression whenever there was a such situation.
But Yuka didn’t do that.
Furrowing her brow, Yuka sank into thought for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and sighed.
“That girl.”
And she said that.
“If that’s what she was thinking, she should have told me earlier.”
She still had that regretful expression.
But at the same time, it was also a somewhat refreshing look.
“Alright. So, that means there’s something you’re hiding.”
Yuka from the Yuuki family opened her eyes and looked at Kagami.
“Then all you have to do is help her.”
“No, good luck with that.”
Kagami replied like that.
“No.”
But oddly enough, Yuka from the Yuuki family flatly rejected her words.
“…What is it that you’re saying no to?”
“That’s not how you go about things. Is it because you believe in some strange religion? You don’t know how to treat a person.”
It sounded like an outright provocation, which made Kagami feel more bemused than angry.
“At times like these, you say ‘please’. You tell them to do it. Honestly, you think you can’t do that.”
“…On what basis do you say that?”
But in fact, it was Kagami’s side that sounded defensive. After saying it, she felt it immediately.
How frustratingly so, Yuka from the Yuuki family looked up at Kagami with confidence.
“Do you know? I don’t want to admit it, but you resemble your daughter.”
Kagami blinked in disbelief.
There was no way to react to such a line. She had never been trained on how to respond to it.
“And I’ve been watching Kotone’s subtle changes in expression for quite a while. So I get it.”
Yuka stepped one foot closer.
Kagami took a step back.
“Frustrating, isn’t it? You don’t like seeing Kotone like that, do you? More than anything, seeing your expression so grim because you heard that kind of sound.”
Yuka from the Yuuki family spoke boldly, as if declaring something.
“That’s why, alright. It didn’t sound like much of a request, but I’ll grant your request.”
“…”
“Therefore, don’t think of running away. Just like Kotone didn’t break in front of you. …I’m not saying you’re a good mom, but you can’t let Kotone’s efforts go to waste, can you?”
Knowing nothing at all.
That thought came to her mind.
Yuka from the Yuuki family wouldn’t even realize that all of that was an act. To her, the relationship between Kagami and Kotone was that of an abusive mother and a daughter being abused,
—No, perhaps that was exactly the essence of the situation.
A girl who stood all alone in an empty house.
A girl who had to go to school and adapt to society, not knowing what anyone should be doing.
A girl who almost went through horrific events— No, had gone through them, and in the process of being hospitalized so many times, her blood-mixed family had yet to visit even once.
And next to that girl, there was another girl who had tiredly tried to stay by her side and to the best of her ability help her.
…For those who didn’t know Kurosawa Kotone, who do you think would be one of Kagami or Yuka?
“Your past cannot be erased. To be honest, I still can’t trust you. I’d much rather keep you at a distance. But.”
Yuka said.
“…If Kotone has chosen to forgive you, I have no right to stop it. I will try to be a source of strength by her side. Because we’re friends. Therefore, if you have even the slightest awareness of being a ‘mother’, do at least act like one. Otherwise, it would be too pitiful for Kotone.”
Then, turning her back,
“I’ll go to the hospital room. After that, whether you follow or not, that’s up to you.”
She said that and left on her way.
Kagami stared blankly at the back of that girl for a long time.
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