彼と彼なし
With a puzzled frown painted on her brows, she looked back at the door again, and again, saw no one there. She was sure she heard someone call her name, though.
Maybe she was just imagining it. Maybe the stress and frustration really was getting to her. She knew she could be entirely blind to that when it came to herself; she knew when other people were stressed just by looking at them, but she could never see it for herself when she was the one who was stretched thin, not until someone else pointed it out to her and she realized it like a light bulb that, Oh, I'm stressed. That's why I feel like shit.
It would have been nice if she could use that excuse to explain away the horrible reality of what that dream meant, if it really was something that happened during her three-year disappearance.
She shook her head – she didn't want to think about it. Not yet. There were more pressing matters at hand, with people's lives on the line.
People's lives, she thought, as the gravity of that thought hit her again, for the millionth time. People's lives depend on me.
It was a horrible feeling, and she hated it. She didn't want this level of responsibility.
She turned back to the window, and shrieked when she saw not only her own reflection looking back at her from the glass, but the faint and hazy image of a girl – her, that was her but not her at all – with eyes blacker than midnight and a sly smiling curling her crimson lips staring back. Her face was right next to Pai, an almost perfect twin rendition. She tipped her chin up, and Pai swallowed a choked inhale at the bloody red line cutting across the pale expanse of her throat, a mirror to the girl's smile.
She whirled around. There was no one beside her.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she slowly brought her gaze back to the window, but saw nothing there. There was no second face. She focused all her attention on listening hard to everything around her, but all she heard was the creaking wooden boards of the floors as people in the house started waking up, moving through rooms as the cold day began.
But when the voice called again, she knew she wasn't imagining things.
How come it's taking you so long? It called out petulantly.
With her heart somewhere down in her stomach and her breath shooting out in shivering gasps, she scrambled to her feet as she stared at the eyes of her frightened reflection. She took a hesitant step toward the window, eyes growing unfocused as she watched herself move warily closer, and closer. She scrambled her brains trying to think of any kind of Yori Chiisai that could possibly cross over the magic boundary of Ayashi House and somehow cause her hallucinations.
Or maybe it wasn't that – maybe it was the Amanojaku, come to knock the final nail in the coffin of all her failures that night at the warehouse. They were known for being able to influence people, especially humans, into doing things they never would. Maybe it was making her imagine things, hallucinate impossibilities where she was seeing faces in window reflections.
She stifled another shriek when her reflection warped into a nightmare.
Her face dissolved into screaming agony, black seeping into the white of her hair like oil spilling over snow, her hands raising up to scratch and claw at her eyes as her head snapped back. She could almost – not quite – hear the nerve-shattering scream that had her lifting her own hands to her ears as she stared at the reflection with her eyes wide.
It was like watching something out of a horror movie. She saw herself screaming in pain, tears of blood welling up in her darkened eyes and dripping down hollowed cheeks, before jerking to the left. Another face, the girl from before but her at the same time, seemed to tear herself out from Pai's neck, silent laughter echoed in the crazed smirk of her blood-red lips.
She blinked rapidly in shock – and between one blink and the next, she was left staring at only her own reflection. At her normal self, mirrored in glass, with white hair and terrified, blown-out brown eyes looking back at her.
Come on, a snide voice whispered, half in her head and half out. You know better than that. You know things as weak as they cannot get past a barrier built by the blood and sweat of Hengen.
She shook her head, shutting her eyes. "I – this – I'm hallucinating. It must have been that – that dream..." she swallowed, scrunching her eyes tight. "This isn't happening, this isn't real, I'm tired. This is that dream, this isn't –"
That memory.
"Dream," she whispered, and she could hear the desperation in her voice. "It was – it was a..."
But – was it? Was it really just a dream? It was too real, too close and personal. How could it have been nothing but a dream, if she could remember every detail of it when she always forgot her dreams?
She remembered how thin Kazuki's shoelaces were. She remembered that he kept a pen in the breast-pocket of his white lab coat and she remembered wondering why there was only one, when every other doctor she had ever seen always had at least three.
She remembered the precise shade of the woman's blush when she looked around to see if anyone else on the street had seen her lover, the Tanuki, kiss her. She remembered how cold the spring wind was, yet how warm the setting sun felt against her back, and the cool metal in her hands as she aimed the sights of that gun right in the centre of the woman's forehead.
Stop it!
She shook her head vehemently, nauseous in a way she was not used to as she struggled to focus her mind away from the dream-memory. She hated to think that somehow, someway, she had killed those people, maybe...maybe more.
She hated more how she relieved she felt at finally starting to remember something. The opposing emotions, the sickening relief, threw her into disarray; she didn't know what she was supposed to feel.
Because how? How could that have happened? How could she have turned into that?
"This isn't real," she murmured, almost listlessly, stuck as she was in the swirling confusion of her head. "This – I'm – I am hallucinating –" she winced when the voice returned.
Are you really?
"The Oni's venom must still be in my system."
It has had one whole turn of the moon to get out.
"I've not been getting enough sleep. That's it – because of what's happening, I'm not sleeping enough, I must be really stressed –"
You just woke from a nine hour slumber.
"Who says 'slumber'?" she slapped a hand over her mouth. No, no, if I don't acknowledge it, then it's not real. It isn't real.
Hm, the voice murmured. That single syllable carried in it such dangerous promise, such tangible dark malice, that Pai felt a shiver race down her spine at it. It would not do to pretend we do not exist.
Pai was barely thinking when she turned and raced to her bedroom door. She flung it open and bolted down the corridor to the bathroom, belatedly thankful that there was no one in the hall to see her mad dash.
When she got there, she lifted her gaze to stare at the mirror in front of her, staring back at herself. There was no one else there, no doubles of herself looking back at her. She gulped as she stared at her terrified face, dimly noting how large her dilated pupils looked. Like a terrified street cat, always having to be on the look-out for danger, with not a moment of rest.
Her eyebrows scrunched as her eyes burned, the corners of her lips tipping down in a wobble. What's happening to me?
Nothing answered her, this time.
She remained as she was, standing frozen like a block of ice except for her eyes that flicked from side to side, looking from one end of the mirror to the other, searching for something that didn't step out into the light. She was alone, she could see that she was alone, but she didn't feel it.
She felt like something was watching her, but she could see that nothing was.
"I'm tired," she said softly, worn-out. Hallucinations are supposed to feel real, but they're not. None of that was real.
She didn't know if it was better to know she wasn't hallucinating with what she'd seen, that it was real – or that she really had been hallucinating.
Shaking her head, she reached out and turned the tap on. Her hands shook as she cupped her hands under the running water and splashed it on her face. The shock of cold jarred her senses into full wakefulness, chasing away the last dregs of exhausted sleep that clung to her bones.
Fuck, she thought wearily. Fuck, what is this? What's happening?
She lifted her face and looked at herself in the mirror. Water clung to her eyelashes and dripped over the planes of her cheeks and down her jaw to land on the cold marble surface of the sink. Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes were – scared.
Terrified. She looked terrified.
She hated that look in her eyes. Being scared meant being weak, and she hated that most of all. It was how she felt whenever she tried to remember what happened to her before she came to Ayashi House. It was how she felt when she thought about how useless she was, trying to defend herself against the Oni after her life.
Tears sprang to her eyes unbidden, burning her as she didn't let them fall. She hated being weak. She hated it. Sometimes, she thought she even hated being human, for how susceptible it meant to anything stronger, and that was everything.
She hated it.
She closed her eyes and leaned her elbows on the surface of the sink. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to quell the tide of panic that threatened to sweep her off her feet. She couldn't let herself get lost. She needed to focus on what was important right now, and deal with that dream-memory, that hallucination, after it, later.
She needed to remember Shin's true name, because right now, that was all she could do. Focus on the one thing that could keep her going, not on what she saw in the window reflection, or that voice in her head. Hallucinations were supposed to feel real, but they weren't real. She needed to focus on finding Shin's true name first, now, and then figure out what to do about the hallucination after, later.
You will never figure it out on your own. Not in time, at least. You need us.
Pai jerked upright, eyes going wide as saucers when she saw a woman staring back at her instead of her own face in the mirror.
It was not a mirrored reflection of herself this time, but of someone else entirely. Pai's heart stilled in her chest, body freezing as though touched by the hand of an ice god. A torrent of clashing emotions waged war in her chest , so painful that she felt as though she could cry from it.
Oh – she was crying. Tears dripped down her cheeks as fear, relief, sadness, joy, sorrow, swept through, an influx crashing into her so overwhelmingly that she stumbled back a step as she stared at the woman standing in the mirror.
"Mi –" her heart ached with such fierce longing as she lifted a hand to the reflection in the mirror. "Mitti-chan."
Midori, her beautiful big sister, standing right there as if all was well with the world and she hadn't been missing for more than three years now.
Her eyes were a startlingly clear mint green, bright against the wash of her pale skin. She had a little smile playing about her lips, almost as if she was amused by her little sister's stunned reaction. As she stalked around the reflection of Pai's image in the mirror, her body moved lithely and gracefully, exactly like Pai remembered she used to.
Midori's jet black hair, that she remembered so clearly as always cut in a severe yet stylish bob just below her chin, was now long and piled up in perfect curls beneath flowering silver petals of a kanzashi that sat neatly atop her dark head, with a long river of her hair flowing down the line of her back. The long hair where it had been short made Pai double back at it. Decorated on one side of her hair is an ogi-bara, fan-shaped with silver streamers attached to the end that made jingling sounds, soft and gentle, as she moved.
The sounds grounded on Pai's frayed nerves as she stared.
Midori was wearing a brightly colourful uchikake that's ends swept along the wooden floor. The shoulder pads were stiff and had curved ends raised up to mimic the shape of silver horns. The base colour of the uchikake was bright red, with images of a great white dragon sewn into it so seamlessly that the longer Pai looked at it, the more it seemed to come alive as the fabric shifted sensuously along Midori's body.
Underneath the uchikake, she could see that Midori wore a deep black furisode, easily distinguishable by its ankle-length sleeves, the hems lined in red. There were no decorative pieces to her clothing, and neither was the furisode embroidered the way Pai was used to.
What was odd about it was how Midori wore it. The sleeves looked like they had been wrapped around in front of Midori's torso, winding around her body to keep her arms bound and completely immobilized. Even still, Midori was beautiful. Just as beautiful as Pai remembered, even more so, growing into her own as the years passed, in a way Pai didn't remember seeing.
As Midori passed under the light overhead to come to a stop beneath the window looking out towards the courtyard of Ayashi House, she caught a dull flash of something. Pai squinted, trying to make it out, and then her eyes widened the longer she stared at the black fabric – the groves in it, the way the cloth coiled into shapes that almost seemed to defy gravity, the depth of the curves, the shapes they made...
They looked like skulls. Gaping-toothed mouths opened wide in silent screams, opening and closing and screaming and crying in a way she thought she could almost hear, as if it was coming from a great distance away, grieving with a sorrow she couldn't begin to imagine.
But...there was something wrong with her. She looked like Midori, but Pai had the distinct feeling that this...wasn't her sister. Pai always felt warm, happy, safe when she was around Midori.
Now all she felt was a bone-deep chill, like there was a winter storm settled deep in her core that grew to a gale the longer she looked at the reflection in the mirror.
She drew in a sharp breath that made her throat feel like it was coated in ice. She thought she was about to scream, she didn't know why but she needed to let something out and she didn't know what it would be – but nothing ever made it out.
Her throat suddenly constricted, as if an iron fist was wrapped around her neck, crushing her windpipe. She stumbled, hands going up to her neck as she struggled to breath around the band around her neck, gasping and expanding her lungs as big as she could get them but never drawing in enough breath.
Do not...scream.
Her back hit the wall as she stumbled back. Knees weak and chest burning from lack of air, she collapsed on the cold wooden floor as her hands loosened around her neck. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. A white-hot flame torched her lungs, setting her body on fire. Her limbs shook with the effort to breathe. The walls around her were collapsing, falling in and blocking her airways.
Pai's eyes grew wider as she came to the startling, horrific realization that no matter how hard she was trying, no matter how she scrabbled at her neck and gasped and choked, she couldn't breathe. She could hear the choked sounds she made as she gasped, but even that was muted behind the thundering rush of blood to her head.
Then, just as suddenly as it came, the suffocating band around her throat disappeared.
It was coming up for air after staying underwater too long. It was drinking fresh, cold water while stuck under the unforgiving blaze of a summer sun. It was closing your eyes to sleep after an exhausting day of work.
Her heat hurt, a pulsing ache that started right at the base of her neck and spread like wildfire to the rest of her as she drew in lungfuls of air, breathing too hard and too quickly that her chest ached with it, but she couldn't stop breathing because she almost fell into oblivion without it.
When her breath was caught, her legs stretched out limply in front of her, she tipped her head back and let it thump against the wall, wincing as a spike of pain lanced through her sensitive head. Her skin was hot, as if she was about to burst up in flames. But nothing of the like happened; instead, there was only the sound of her ragged breathing filling up the quiet space of the bathroom as she took a moment to simply breathe, her mind slow as she struggled to understand what just happened.
We told you not to scream, didn't we?
Her breath caught weakly as she pushed herself to stand, leaning back on the wall as support so she didn't collapse. Her knees wobbled so much so that she was sure that she would fall any second. She glanced around herself, heart shaking in her chest as her knees quavered, but she saw no one around.
Black butterflies flitted in and out of her vision as she closed her eyes tight for a moment before opening them again. Her head pounded with a fiery headache. In a single spot on each side of her neck, pain pulsed from points where she thought the invisible hand had strangled her by pressing its fingers into her throat, cutting off all her air.
She stood there for a moment like that, breathing. The voice in her head was not a hallucination. She wasn't imagining things. The voice – however it was possible – was real.
"You –" she coughed, her throat burning just from the effort of speaking alone, and it felt like lava coating the back of her throat when she coughed. Her voice sounded like her lungs were filled with nicotine. Hard and gruff in a way that was completely unlike her.
She closed her eyes, breathing in deep, even as tears of fiery, frustrated pain slipped down her cheeks. She tried again, slower, and it was not any less painful for the effort of it. "You are not my sister."
Midori wouldn't do something like that to her, even if she could, and she couldn't have – they were both human.
She felt empty and hollow inside as that realization sunk in deep. Being hit by that blinding ray of hope that she was seeing her beloved sister again only for it to be so viciously torn away seconds later made her realize just how much she had lost. Her entire family, her old life where the rules were clear and straight lines were drawn between the world she lived in and the Ayakashi world that told her what to do to remain unnoticed.
Everything – it was all gone. She didn't know how to get it back. She didn't know if she could.
She looked at the mirror, and swallowed hard when she saw the reflection of Midori again, standing off to the right in the mirror. Without turning her head, her eyes darted to the right, but there was no woman there. She looked back at the mirror again, taking a hesitant step forward.
Midori – no, it's not Midori – pressed her lips tight together, brows scrunching in disapproval. "Even after everything she has done to you, she is who you see when you look upon us? Still, it is her you see?"
Pai tried to speak, but it felt like a red hot bar of iron was pressed against the walls of her throat. She coughed and winced at the pain, head pounding like a jackhammer was being driven into to the side of her head.
She couldn't remember ever feeling quite so terrible. Even the ordeal with the Onihitokuchi was mostly a blank haze in her head, one she didn't try to peer through too hard.
"Who –" she swallowed thickly. "What are you?"
Her answer was silence, stretching like an empty cavern before her. Pai watched a confused frown flicker lightly over Midori's black brows. She shook her head, reminding herself that this wasn't Midori. It was – could only be – an Ayakashi clothed in Midori's skin, or somehow looking into Pai's memories and appearing to her as the person she longed to see the most.
Midori – not, not my sister – cocked her head. "We...do not know. We know what we are with him, but we do not know what we are without him. You tell us – what are we?"
Pai blinked. Was this some sort of trick question?
"You...are you Ayakashi?" she asked hesitantly, praying, praying that this creature before her wasn't so fickle that it would strangle her again for whatever answer she gave .
Midori – the thing – shook her head with a rueful red smile. "So like Touka. You always say you're different, but you're not really. She didn't know how to speak silently either. She learned."
Pai frowned. "Touka? Who is that?" and 'speak silently'? Was that what she – it – was doing before, in Pai's mind?
Another shake of the head. "That does not matter. Not now – soon, but not. Now, you need to know who he is. To save him from disappearing. That's what you want, right?"
Even though the words alone told her who this woman – this Ayakashi – was talking about, she still asked, "Who?"
"Him. Daitengu. You call him Shin, now. We need to find him before he is lost, yes? He's almost gone."
She froze at Shin's name, and the ominous words that followed. Her stomach bottomed out, whether with anxiety or guilt or a horrible mixture of both, she didn't know.
"Shin – you mean his true name?" she asked quietly.
The woman looking like her sister smiled, but Pai felt the smile more than anything else, almost like it was twitching at her own lips. The hairs on her arms and nape rose.
"True name," she noted quietly. "That is what you call it? Fine. That – yes, that is what you need to find. We will tell you where it is. You're so slow, it will take you too long to find it on your own. He'll be gone by then. We won't get him back."
"Get him back?" she didn't like the sound of that. Who was this that she sounded like she was talking about retrieving a wayward pet, rather than Shin?
The smile grew, and it did nothing to allay Pai's nerves. "He'll take them both over. That is what he does – it is what he has always done, the moment Shin is caught unawares. At least we are merciful – we keep our promises. We keep you where you were born. He only knows how to break them into pieces. We need to get Shin back before he does."
Pai blinked rapidly, mind reeling in confusion. Who? Who? Who was she even talking about?
"Before who does what?" she asked, her mind reeling in confusion. "I –" she coughed again, hard, the raise of her voice in frustration scraping along her bruised throat. "I don't understand."
This was – beyond insane. How could she be speaking to Midori – no, someone parading as her sister, wearing her like clothes on mobile mannequin?
Pai knew that the supernatural world was real. She lived half in it, one leg in and the other out. She knew that the supernatural world was real better than anyone. She knew this was a world where strange things were normal, happening in a way that couldn't be explained by human means. She knew strange things happened that could only be the fault of those who dwelt in the shadows of a world that was too different and primal and old to be shared with human beings.
But this was different. This was too close, too personal. She was only half in this weird world – she still had one leg out, she was still able to be human and exist in the human world. This Ayakashi was using her sister to speak to her, perhaps in an attempt to lower her guard. This woman – thing? – was talking about Shin as if she – it? – knew him personally, and knew that if he wasn't saved from his own True Ayakashi, he wouldn't last long.
Pai didn't know what to do. This wasn't territory she knew how to traverse. She didn't know what to do.
"Your gadget. When the Chimei Yoki was talking to you – she gave you the clue to his true name."
"The – you mean Shii-chan?" she frowned. Did she mean Pai's phone when she said 'gadget'?
Mid – the woman nodded. "Yes."
Pai frowned. "How would she even know his true name?" there was no way Shiori would know it and just not say anything. Not when she was the one to see firsthand how much Pai was tearing herself up trying to figure it out, more than anyone else.
The woman gave her a severe look. It reminded her of every teacher that had looked at her like she was a stupid waste of time and space whenever she couldn't solve a math problem. "She does not. She gave you one piece of the puzzle. We have the other. It is you who must put it together and learn it."
Pai stared, unblinking. "T – tell me."
Even as she said that, she found that she didn't care if this was some Ayakashi trying to manipulate her. What mattered was that if this strange vision, this strange woman masked as Midori, could give her the answer to the question of what Shin's true name was, she was going to take that chance and hope it didn't burn her.
The – Midori – the woman gave her a simpering smile that made Pai's skin crawl. "Get it."
Pai made a step to follow through, but then she stopped. She looked at the door leading out of the bathroom, then back at the elaborately dressed version of a long-haired Midori in the mirror.
"Who are you?" she asked in a ragged whisper. "Why do you look like my sister?"
Midori's lips pulled back over her teeth, revealing unnaturally sharp canines that looked like small fangs. "We appear as those who look upon us deem fit for their eyes."
That answered nothing. "Why don't you show me your true face?"
Her grimace turned into a wicked grin. "If we show you what we truly appear as, you will be blinded. Mortals were not made to look upon us without burning to ashes."
Pai didn't understand any of what she meant, and she wanted to press more, but she shook her head and moved on. "How do I know I can – why should I believe you?"
"You haven't any reason to believe us."
She frowned at the self-assuredness, kneading her palms against her thighs in a nervous tick. "But you think I will."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You always do."
"What do you mean by that?"
She cocked her head to the side. "How long do you plan to continue wasting precious time that we could be using to help your Shin?"
Her chest squeezed tight at that. 'Your Shin'.
"How do I know this isn't a trap for him? What if you're using me to hurt him?"
She grinned. "Would we tell you if we were?"
No. No, she wouldn't.
Midori threw her head back, the silver streamers of her ogi-bira twinkling as she burst out in rancorous laughter. It was not her sister's laugh. Her sister's laugh was slightly husky, but this – this was completely different. This disconcertingly reminded her of when Konohana laughed; like jewels, crashing and splintering against the quiet murmur of a heaving river.
Her lips spread open in a wide smile as she looked back at Pai, teeth white as paper behind the red grin. "We do not want him to die. He serves no purpose to us dead."
Pai blinked at the harsh, cold words. If she was saying the truth – and trusting that in itself was a gamble – it was likely the only way Pai could trust her. If this woman, this Ayakashi, needed Shin for whatever reason, she wouldn't lead Pai to set up a trap for him that would hurt him, would she?
But how could Pai trust that it in itself wasn't a trap she was falling right into?
She scowled. "Do I have a choice?" I don't. I know I don't.
Midori smiled genially. "Of course you do. You always have."
She stalked around to stand behind her, and Pai watched through the mirror as the woman leaned in close to her. Even though she could feel the woman behind her, she couldn't see any hint of the woman from her periphery. Pai knew that she could only see the woman in the mirror, but she still felt it when the woman laced her fingers together and rested them on Pai's shoulder.
She felt the chilling cold from the hands on her shoulder, the frigid whisper of Midori's breath on the curve of her ear, stirring the hair that curled there as she spoke. "But remember; if you choose wrong, Shin will die. Then there will be nothing we can do to help you when you grieve your own bad judgement. When you cry over your own uselessness."
She looked up from staring at the porcelain of the sink, straight into the green irises of the woman's eyes that were supposed to be her sister's. she dimly noted that half of her left eye seemed to be darkening to black while the other half remained green.
She licked her dry lips. 'I don't know your name."
Midori tilted her head, and Pai felt the light, ghostlike pressure of Midori's head resting against her own. Her stomach cramped at the sensation. She glanced out from the corner of her eye and saw absolutely nothing there.
"What do you mean? We are Midori," she snarled the name, as if the thought sickened her. "Your beloved sister."
"You are not my sister."
Midori's lips twitched as she leaned back, annoyance in the shape of the sharp curve of her brow. Pai's stomach lurched, recognizing that familiar quirk of the eyebrow. She regarded Pai thoughtfully even as she unblinkingly stared right back.
"Do you need to?"
"How can I listen to you when I don't even know your name?" she asked. The truth was, she only wanted to know her name so that she could stop thinking of her as Midori.
This wasn't Midori.
The green-black eyes in the mirror narrowed to slits before flaring out again. "You may call us Kuniumi."
Kuniumi? She thought, confused. "Why that name?"
Kuniumi's expression darkened, and so did the room. It was almost as if what sun was able to peek through the grey clouds overhead was being snuffed out. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to grow, and though Pai had never really been afraid of the dark, a cold touch of fear traipsed up her spine when she thought of the entire room blacking out and being unable to see anything.
Unable to see, and alone with an Ayakashi she didn't know.
"Why that name?" she parroted snidely. "Why your name? Why are you Pai? Why does anyone have a name?"
Pai had the strange feeling that Kuniumi was being rhetorically sarcastic, but also dead serious – in an uncomfortable and frightening way that made her afraid of saying the wrong thing.
"Okay," she said wearily. "Just, show me what his true name is. Then leave me alone."
It was futile, to say. From the way the corner of Kuniumi's lip kicked up a notch, she knew that they both knew that.
It – it reminded her of the times Midori used to sneak off with her friends, way past when she was supposed to be sleeping or at cram school, and would whisper to Pai, Don't tell on me, okay? Pretty please, Pai-chan? She would nod enthusiastically in response because anything her big sister did awed her to no end.
Midori was everything Pai wanted to be when she grew up; beautiful, strong, fearless and brave, and with a great sense of mischievous humour that could bring light to even the most unseemly situation. She didn't let anyone think she was shy and demure and easily malleable – she let everyone know who and what she was from the get-go, and let them decide if they wanted more.
Pai's heart weighed heavy as she stared with a blank face at the smile on Midori's face that was nothing like her sister's smile. It was both difficult and painful to force herself to remember that this wicked smile wasn't Midori's, that those green eyes weren't her sister's, that the voice that came from between those red lips of the Hengen wearing Midori's face was not her sister's voice.
"You are willing to make a deal with the devil, to save Shin, but you don't want to pay the price?"
Pai swallowed. She knew there would be a catch.
"What do you want from me?"
"You are not ready to give us what we want. When the time is right, we will call for you, and when we do, you will answer us."
"To do what?"
"The time is not right, is it?" Kuniumi replied, smiling winsomely.
"How am I supposed to know when it's right?"
"Do we have a deal?"
Pai glowered at Kuniumi, not liking what she was about to do but seeing no other choice. Given any other way Pai would have gone for it, but there was no other option left for her to pick. She didn't have a choice. Shin was running out of time.
"Yes."
Kuniumi nodded in satisfaction. "So, how much longer do you wish to waste time? The sand in the glass is petering out, and soon there will not be anything left for you to work with."
Pai finally tore her gaze from the mirror and quickly walked to the door. She slid it open and peered up and down the hallway, but nobody was there. She looked back, but she saw nothing to show that Kuniumi was ever in the bathroom with her. Pai walked out and turned right, heading back to her bedroom. She looked up and down, trying to see where Kuniumi could be, until the other spoke.
Find the message Shiori sent to you last week, when she was asking you what form of entertainment she should purchase for you while you were still bed-ridden.
Pai's steps stuttered for a moment at the voice that flowed between her ears, as if it was both in her head and out. She pursed her lips and kept walking, frowning as she spoke under her breath. "How do you know about that?"
Does it matter?
It did, but that could wait.
Pai turned to look behind her, but she still did not see Kuniumi. She was just beginning to wonder if all this was some sort of vivid hallucination she was dreaming up when she caught the glimmer of something red in the glass window set up in narrow rectangular rows set in the wall to her right. Through it, she vaguely noticed that it had stopped snowing. The house seemed calmer, and quieter, now that it had.
It made sense. For some reason, she could only see Kuniumi's reflection, never her actual, corporeal body – whatever that really looked like when she didn't look like Midori. In the bathroom she'd only seen Kuniumi through the mirror. Now she could only see her faint reflection in the window.
And before...
Pai glanced sideways to the windows. "Why did you show me those – those things?"
For a second, there was silence. Then, What things do you speak of?
Pai wasn't dense enough to miss the confusion in her words.
"Before I went to the bathroom. You showed me screaming while you tore yourself out of me." She was surprised that she was able to repeat what happened with such cold, efficient clarity. "Why did you do that?"
We did no such thing,
"Yes, you did."
That we remember. Kuniumi finished.
"What, you have memory problems?"
Are you any different?
Pai scowled, unnerved that Kuniumi knew even that about her.
We don't like not remembering. It bothers us. Not remembering what we did means we don't remember what was done to us. Pai stopped at her door and looked at the window behind her, but she saw nothing. Do you remember what happened to us? What they did?
"I don't know what you're talking about." She didn't know what Kuniumi was talking about, but some part of her had a bad feeling that she really did – only, she didn't remember why.
You will. We'll paint them red when you do. Together.
Pai stilled with her hand on the door, ready to pull it open. Her heart was in her throat, eyes wide as she stared unseeingly at her hand. There was a small speck of red dotted on the knobby little bone of her wrist. A red spot that was her blood.
Red.
Let's paint it red, Pai, she remembered. Let's paint them all red.
"You..." her tongue flicked out as she licked her dry lips. "It was you. You were in my dream."
Dream? Kuniumi repeated. That was no dream. It was a memory. You are remembering, but too slow.
"A memory? Of what?"
Of what do you think? She asked snidely. What else could you be remembering, what else could you have forgotten?
"How the – how do you know so much about me?"
The confusion in the woman was evident even before Kuniumi spoke again. It bothered Pai that she could feel that so instinctively. What did it mean? Why did it feel like she was so attuned to the every thought and emotion of this unknown, strange woman, yet she couldn't actually discern anything?
We know many things. Kuniumi replied. So, so many things. Sometimes we know too much. Sometimes we do not know enough.
At the same moment, a Morinji-no-kama rattled its way down towards her. The tea kettle was black, with a crack running down its side. Its lid made loud clattering noises as it hurtled down the corridor, frantically wobbling on its short legs. A second later, she heard running footsteps and looked up just in time to see Mizutani sprinting down the hall.
She was chasing after the Morinji-no-kama. The Tsukumogami was headed straight for Pai, as if it was running away, bobbing desperately from side to side as it used its practically immobile legs to run.
It – it was a strange sight.
"Pai-chan!" Mizutani exclaimed when she saw her. "Get that damned Morinji-no-kama! Catch it before it gets away!"
On reflex to the harried tone in Mizutani's voice, she swooped down and snatched the wooden handle of the tea kettle. The action almost knocked her out, darkness washing across her vision as her head whirled with dizziness. She managed to not collapse, gritting her teeth and almost biting her lip hard enough to draw blood in the process.
From the lid there was a gurgling sound. Steam started to rise from the nose of the Morinji-no-kama. Pai kept it at arm's length, easily sensing the Tsukumogami's vexation at being caught. She knew that if she touched the pot, she'd be burned.
"Mizutani-san?" she asked nervously as she finally made it to her. Pai carefully handed the Morinji-no-kama over to Mizutani, who aimed such a glare to it that Pai was surprised that crack didn't grow bigger. "What is going on?"
"This...this little..." Mizutani sighed in defeat as she struggled to contain the temptation of using strong expletives to describe the errant tea kettle. "This damn Morinji-no-kama decided that, because it got hurt yesterday and didn't get mended right away, it's unwanted and refuses to be used to make tea."
"Its pride...was hurt?" she asked hesitantly. She almost smiled at the thought, but the smile withered away when she felt a little nudge in her mind that she was undoubtedly sure was Kuniumi.
Mizutani rolled her eyes, thankfully not noticing anything amiss. "Can you believe it? And Obaasan's the one who wants the tea. I do not ever want to be the one who doesn't get Obaasan's tea to her in time, ever again."
"That is a very good course of action." Pai replied, remembering how murderously irritable Obaasan got when Mizutani had made tea for her but forgotten to actually take it to Obaasan. Needless to say, Haru and Ryu weren't the only ones who received mighty cracks to the head with Obaasan's cane every now and then. Even Kouta hadn't escaped her cane. "How come you did not use another until this one could be fixed?"
"There wasn't any time," Mizutani said. "The men drank quite a lot of that tea Kanou-san prepared for them for – today's Torimaku." A worm of guilt wiggled in Pai's stomach when Mizutani hesitated. "So they're all in need of some proper washing. This was the only one left."
"It probably does not know how Obaasan gets when she does not get her tea." She said, nodding at the Morinji-no-kama that was currently expelling much steam from its nose.
"Damn right. Oi, d'you want me to put you in front of Obaasan and you see how she gets when she's mad?" Mizutani grumbled at it darkly. The lid bumped as it lifted up from its spot on the kettle, then settled back again and remained silent. She nodded satisfactorily at the Tsukumogami, then frowned as she looked back up at Pai. "Hey, are you okay? You sound funny."
Pai just managed to stop herself from coughing in a reflexive response to make herself sound less husky. That would just make everything worse. Her throat still ached from her almost being strangled to death. She nodded instead, flexing the muscles in her throat as she tried to make herself sound as normal as possible, making her voice come out airier than normal. She almost sounded normal when she spoke.
"Yes, I am fine. I just woke up. I sound like a man when I wake up."
Mizutani laughed, and the sound eased the quaking of her heart. Maybe she would just let it go, and not ask any more questions.
Pai was lucky. She didn't. Mizutani was in a hurry, and she waved as she turned and started walking away. "See you later, Pai-chan – I need to get Obaasan her tea, then fix this little guy's wounded pride."
She lifted her hand and gave a little wave before she allowed her mood to completely sour again. She opened her bedroom door, stepped in, and shut it again. Her room was exactly as she had left it – bed messy, window tightly shut, pillow overturned to hide the blood decorating its front. She'd need to do something about that, wash it off, preferably when no one was there to see it and ask questions. How long did she have before the blood really set into the sheets? Or was blood something she could wash out at any time? Did it stick?
She didn't know how she knew that she'd need to wash it out with cold water, and not hot.
Ignoring that thought, she dragged in a deep albeit trembling breath before crossing the room to her closet. She pulled it open and grabbed her phone from where it lay on the door shelf before closing it again. Pai tapped it impatiently against her thigh as she sat down cross-legged and waited for it to switch on.
She swallowed as she looked around the room, and felt a strange mixture of relief and annoyance when she caught the red and green in the window. "What am I looking for?"
There was a rustle of clothes somewhere to her left before Kuniumi spoke. Look for Shin's name.
She shook her head as the phone finally flicked on completely and went to her messages. She scrolled up through all the messages she had shared with Shiori since that day.
We will tell you something else, as well. It feels nice today. Kuniumi idly added in a contemplative voice. What Kouta plans to accomplish will not work.
She glanced up, surprised. "What? Why?"
Its purpose is to bring death to those trapped inside it. Torimaku is the Daitengu's last line of defence, she said, echoing Haru's own words. It is not meant to save. It is meant to kill. They are going against that basic function by trying to use it to save your Daitengu.
She tried very hard not to focus on those last two words, and to ignore the little jump her heart made at them. Your Daitengu. Shin wasn't hers.
"Are you saying that the Torimaku will not work at all?"
There would be a slim chance of it working, if it were not Shin be at the centre of it. Find his true name, and you will understand what we mean, perhaps.
She looked back down at her phone, her thumb moving faster and faster up and down the screen as her eyes snapped to and from each message. She was scared, now, even more so than she had been before. She was scared by Kuniumi's words. If she was telling the truth and the Torimaku failed to work on Shin...she didn't even want to think of what ways this could go wrong.
The Daitengu and Kouta had made it clear that the only reason they were going to try it to begin with was because it was the only thing they could think of to stop Shin long enough for them to help him. They didn't have any other options, and if this failed...
As Daitengu, Shin is strong. His Mask barely keeps him in check, but at least it does. His Makashi is strong too, but in another way – find his true name. Kuniumi pressed.
"I'm looking." She snapped. Finally, she came to an abrupt stop when she found the message.
He will be drawn to the Torimaku because they are twisting it to something opposite of what his Makashi is, Kuniumi murmured as Pai read the message. It offends him.
Her eyes widened and her brows drew low as she stared at the glowing screen. She remembered how she'd felt when she saw the character for Shin's name, how distinctly uncomfortable it had made her feel to look at it, as though it were a bad omen, a portend for worse things to come. She'd let it slide then, shaking it off as just part of the paranoia she had developed ever since she'd been kidnapped by the Onihitokuchi.
She shouldn't have ignored it. She shouldn't have ignored so blatant a clue, because Shin's name wasn't written the way most – all, really – men with that name did. She remembered finding that odd, the first time she'd seen it many months ago. Now she knew why it was so.
死ん
Shi.
Death.
In a single moment of clarity, like a flash of lightning had just struck her, she realized two things at almost the exact same instant.
One; she understood what Kuniumi meant when she told her the Torimaku was never going to work on Shin. The basic function of a Torimaku was to kill. Like Haru said, it was their last line of defence. In such instances they would not be merciful – using a Torimaku meant reverting back to the one primal instinct of living beings that ruled above all else – survival.
"If a fight were to ever get to the point where we need to pull all our Abilities together to survive," Daichi had told her later that day. "We wouldn't allow those attacking us to remain alive."
Kouta and the Daitengu were going to try turning the tables and use it to save instead. That was playing right into the hands of Shin's Makashi. She didn't know how she knew it, she didn't know if it was Kuniumi influencing her to come to the realization and if it was really true or not, but if she didn't stop them from trying to initiate one on Shin, then all seven Daitengu, and Kouta included, would die.
Shin would be the only one left standing. He would kill them all.
Two; she knew his true name.
☯
A/N: credit for picture above goes to @volmok on Instagram for allowing me to use this beautiful picture he made.