安全性
She couldn't say it.
The words were there at the tip of her tongue, hanging by frayed tethers. But they wouldn't come out. She couldn't make the words come out, no matter how many times she opened and closed her mouth in fishing gapes, waiting for her voice to work when she knew that it never would. Not, at least, to say what she wanted to.
As she struggled to say something, her body quaked with cold. Before she was fully aware of what was happening, Shin had pulled her to him again. They ended up with her sitting close to him again, enclosed in his arms. He said it was to keep her warm. From the tremors that had even her lips shaking, she knew he was right.
Shin was leaning back on the elm tree with his right leg propped up. She sat right next to him, nestled by his side, her back to his chest. He had both arms wrapped around her, one around her torso and the other around her shoulders. The warmth from his body seeped into hers from how close together they were, chasing away the cold.
They were outside, in the snow, and maybe going back in the house would have been easier, but she got the feeling that neither of them really wanted to go back inside just yet. She doubted Shin was uncomfortable, considering he didn't feel the cold as she did and he spent a good portion of his time outdoors anyway. Settled this close to him, with his arms around her, she didn't feel the cold so bitingly that it chased her indoors.
Somehow, she managed to get past focusing on the red fires burning in her cheeks enough to be fairly comfortable as she looked down at the fine hairs along Shin's forearm, tracing the veins just beneath the skin with her eyes. She kept her hands curled tight in her lap, unable to trust that she wouldn't be overcome with the urge to touch his arm, to see how it felt under the pads of her fingers.
If she wasn't lying to herself, she could just barely admit that this wasn't the first time she'd had to quell this urge.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he finally said, after minutes of silence had stretched before them. "I'm not forcing you to."
She shook her head, eyelids sliding closed before she snapped them open again. Exhaustion was creeping into her body. She was tired. She wanted to sleep, but not yet. She needed to say something.
"It's not that," she mumbled. "It's – I just – I don't know how – " she pursed her lips as they twitched, frustrated with her inability to just speak. "It's all jumbled up in my head. It doesn't make sense, and then it does, and then it doesn't, and I don't know if I can trust what I see in my dreams. They're dreams, but they're – I don't know." She huffed out a sigh of irritation and muttered, "For all I know, I could just be going insane."
She trusted him, that much she knew. Still, she didn't want him to know about the voice – about Kuniumi. She didn't want anyone to know, at least until she found out exactly who, and what, Kuniumi was.
Kuniumi, and however her existence was possible, wasn't the only problem.
Some part of her still fervently hoped that the dreams of killing were just that; dreams. How else was she to explain the existence of this 'So Fu', when she didn't even know exactly what, or who, they were? How else was she supposed to explain what they did, and why they did it? How could such an invisible entity as them exist in the first place? Everything about the world had gotten to a point where nothing could hide without leaving behind any traces.
No. She wouldn't tell anyone anything until she figured it out herself. She needed to know what she was going to say before she said it. She needed some kind of proof to show for it. She would just make a fool of herself if she didn't have the answers people were surely going to ask her. Maybe they wouldn't even believe her, what with how little she knew of anything.
She didn't know anything now. She would sound delusional and paranoid if she tried.
She felt the rumble of a small laugh from where her back touched his chest, through the layers of clothes that separated them. "You don't need to explain yourself to me."
I owe it to you, and "I do." A cheerless laugh breezed past her lips as her eyes danced from one dark tree to the next in the density of the forest all around them. "I just tried to kill you."
A vague hum. "I thought we got past that?"
"How?" she asked. Half of her wanted to turn around and look at him. The other half was afraid to. "How are you supposed to get over someone trying to kill you, over trying to kill someone? How do you get past the fact that you might be a killer? It's not something you can just ignore."
"I'm not saying it's something you should ignore." Shin replied quietly. A wave of gooseflesh rose up over her arms when she felt the hair at the back of her neck stirring from his breath. "But if it was impossible to get past, I would have gone insane with guilt a long time ago. I've killed, Pai." He shifted slightly, but settled again before she could think to move away. "I killed the Kitsune who invaded and tried to annihilate my people nine years ago. I killed those Nue three months ago. In all that time between what happened with the Kitsune and when my Mask was stolen, I have been no saint."
He's like us, a whispering touch that brushed the edges of Pai's mind, baiting her. He knows what it is to take a life. He knows the toll it takes. He carries that burden on his shoulders as well.
She remembered the Onihitokuchi, and Shin facing it down. He'd looked unbeatable as the Onihitokuchi growled at him. She knew that it wasn't alive now, and that it was Shin who had ended its life. She wondered if he had felt invisible, or vulnerable in the face of carrying out a deed that could never be turned backwards.
The Shimo Oni was a creature, an animal, a demon. But it was still a living being, and he'd killed it. He had to live with the memory of it, every day – in a way she might have to, as well.
"How?" she asked again. Her voice cracked with unspoken, barely suppressed emotion she couldn't name. The fact that he was admitting he was calling himself a killer didn't seem to make a difference to the level of trust she had in him. That was because she knew Shin, and knew that he only killed when he had to protect those under his care. He didn't enjoy it.
"What if I – what if someone killed, many times? What if they had to keep doing it? How do you survive it?"
Shin didn't say anything for a long time. She didn't say anything for a long time. They both remained quiet in their private cocoons of dark thoughts, neither realizing how the line of their thinking ran along the same track to each other.
"The stories humans create," he finally murmured, softly. "Mimic what they assume to be real life. Those stories have heroes who kill, yet are crippled by the weight of what they've done. They never forget those whose lives they've stolen. They rarely forgive themselves for taking them, not unless someone else teaches them to. Real life isn't like that."
Her eyebrows swept down, twisting into a frown. She'd thought she had an idea of where he was going as he spoke, but his last words completely threw what she thought right out the window. "What do you mean?"
"I don't remember the faces of some of those I've killed. I used to, in the beginning. I couldn't close my eyes without seeing their faces. They were around every corner I turned, every window I looked out of. But then they all started to blend together, until every time I think about what I did, it's the same face I see. I hate that I took their lives from them, but at the time I didn't have a choice. It was them or me, or my family, or the people I care about. If I went back to each and every time I killed to protect someone else, I would make the same choice again and again."
"So it's okay if you're protecting someone?" she asked, wondering if that was really what he was saying.
If that was the case, then who was she protecting? Who was she willing to kill for, over and over? Even if this So Fu held a gun to her head, she wouldn't have killed, not without good reason.
So who did they point a gun at?
She felt him shake his head behind her. "It's never okay to kill. But this isn't a world where you have the luxury of deciding that you will never hurt someone in your entire life. Sometimes that choice is made for you. What I'm saying is," the arm he had braced on his raised knee moved slightly as he shifted his footing before settling down again. "If you have to kill, you need to find a way to live with what you've done. Don't forget it, but don't let it destroy you either."
He knows you're lying.
I'm not lying.
He knows you're talking about yourself.
If he did, he would say so.
Would he?
She didn't know if he would. It was impossible to guess what Shin was thinking, or what he would say. She could watch for facial cues, listen to the tones in people's voices – but it was different with Shin. He had on a permanent poker face she'd never seen fall. His voice gave away nothing of his feelings. She didn't know which foot to step forward on with him. Left or right?
Left or right, right or left, right of right, left of left, does it matter? You will never know what he thinks. That's what makes him fun. That's what makes him like him.
Who?
She was talking to no one. The swirl of chaos that embodied Kuniumi's presence in her mind seeped away, melting into nothingness.
She sighed heavily as her eyes drooped again. She jerked herself awake, and pinched her arm so that she would remain that way. Finally, when she thought that she wouldn't collapse with exhaustion, she moved. Shin opened his arms to release her without hesitation. He watched as she shifted around so that she knelt on her knees in front of him, her hands clasped in her lap, eyes solely on his.
"Will you tell Kouta-sama?" she asked, straight to the point even as her voice wavered at the end.
He angled his head to the side. "Tell him...?"
"About this," she gestured to the forest around them, at the bag lying discarded to their right, the M4A1 Carbine a few paces to their left.
Shin paused. His eyes jumped from her, to the bag, lingering on the scrunched up note set on top of the mess of clothes inside, to the emptied gun. Then he looked back at her. "Only if you want me to."
She was surprised at that. She thought that he wouldn't waver in saying that he would tell Kouta what happened. He was Kouta's lieutenant, loyal Daitengu to the Heir. His allegiance was sworn to Kouta, and the Sojobo. The fact that he hesitated and gave her the choice warmed her.
But she wondered if he was testing her, to see if she would be the one to insist they tell Kouta what happened. She wished she could do that, but she wasn't ready to.
"I will tell him," she said firmly. "I promise I will. But I want to figure out what's happening to me before I do. I want to be able to answer any question he asks me instead of saying 'I don't know'."
Maybe she'd be able to get some tangible proof of it all, too. Not just for Kouta, but for her own sake.
The corner of Shin's lips lifted minutely. "He hates not knowing things."
"I know." Strangely enough, a half-smile that echoed his managed to make its way on her own lips. "Shii-chan threatens to give him spoilers whenever she wants him to do something."
This time, Shin laughed aloud. It wasn't a long laugh, or deep, but it was beautiful to her ears. And special, for not being heard often enough. A sense of accomplishment filled her at the sound, and she felt proud that she'd brought out the laugh all on her own.
"I've noticed. Last time, she almost spoiled the ending of some drama for him. Which one was it, again?"
"It was...um..." she squinted her eyes, trying to remember the name of the drama the Shiori said she and Kouta last watched. "I think it was a K-Drama." Her momentarily uplifted mood started to sink at the thought of Shiori. She tried to keep the smile fixed on her face, but it slipped.
From the look in Shin's eyes, he knew that she was faking it. "What's wrong?"
Everything. Everything is wrong.
She dropped her eyes to her hands. The thumb of her right hand was painted dark blue, messy, with bits of the nail polish having strayed to her cuticle. She was right handed, but because of her injury, she'd had to use her left hand before she gave up and decided to ask Shiori to help her, later on.
She saw Shin's hand, and then he tapped her chin. She looked up at him. There was a stern look in his eye. "If you lie and say nothing, I'll know."
She didn't doubt that for one second. It really was pointless trying to hide things from him.
Unable to remain seated, she pushed herself back and stood. Her legs shook, but she gritted her teeth in fierce determination to not let her physical weakness overcome her. Shin followed suit, brushing the snow that clung to his clothes off with a simple flick of his hands over the fabric. She walked to the bag and stood over it, looking down at the clothes, the blood-stained trousers.
Her stomach revolted at the sight of it, and she turned away to look at the tree they stood next to. She stretched her hand out and touched the cool, gnarled bark of the tree, fingertips brushing over the wooden ridges and minuscule cracks.
Then she turned to look at Shin, standing behind her. He didn't have his katanas with him, which was rare enough, but he had his tanto. She could see the hilt peeking from the top of his jikatabi.
All she wanted to do was duck behind the tree, away from his line of sight. But to do this, for what she needed to say, she had to do it face to face. Hiding wouldn't solve anything.
She pursed her lips, forcing her resolve to strengthen her. She found none, and in a burst of irritation at herself, said in a rush to get it out of her, "It's not safe."
He cocked his head. "What is?"
"Me," she corrected, dropping her gaze to the ground. She clasped her hands in front of her in an attempt not to pick at her fingers. "I'm – it's not safe for me to be here. I could hurt someone."
I could hurt Shiori or the kids and not even know until it was too late.
Shin froze. She could tell, even without looking, that he had tensed at her words. "I'll be there," he said without hesitation. "Just like I was tonight."
She refused to let herself run away with his words, with the reassurance in them. "What if it's at school?"
She couldn't believe, wasn't willing to believe, that he would just be on stand-by to stop her if she lost control of herself the way she had tonight. He didn't exist just for the sake of protecting her, or others from her. He was his own person. He had his own life to live that was outside of her. She wasn't selfish enough to ask that of him.
"I'll be there."
She blinked. What?
"Every day?" she asked disbelievingly.
"Every day."
Her lips twitched. She knew what she was about to say was a low blow, but she couldn't think of anything else. Her own disbelief at her ability to hurt the one person she couldn't ever imagine hurting wrapped around herself like a cloak that was slowly choking her. It was the only thing she could think of to say, and the worst thing she could think might happen.
"What if I attack Shii-chan?" her breath sharpened just at the thought, but she stubbornly went on. "You're Daitengu. She is the princess, and betrothed to your Heir. Your first priority is always going to be to protect her – "
"I won't let anything happen to you." Shin's voice was as hard as it was firm, eyes like frozen lakes.
He stepped forward and she instinctively pulled back, but he didn't stop, and neither did she. He stalked to her until she hit the tree at her back. Shin stood so close that she could see the little flecks of black dotting the blue of his eyes.
She couldn't move. This was completely unlike what happened to the female lead in dramas, because here, right now, Shin was doing this to keep her from running away. His arms were the bars of a cage around her.
"My first priority as Daitengu is to protect the princess in all ways. What do you think will happen to her if something happens to you?" he questioned, looking at her as if he couldn't believe he had to ask it in the first place. "She needs you. It will break her if something happens to you – it almost did, when you were in the hospital."
"You're twisting it around." Her voice shook slightly. Her throat was a desert, parched. She wanted to drink water. She clenched her hands to fists at her sides, pressing them against the tree. She couldn't explain why she wanted to reach out and touch the skin of his shoulder visible through the ragged edge of his torn yukata, even if she tried to. "What if I – "
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that you deserve to be protected as well?" Shin demanded, moving just a bit closer. She caught sight of his fingers giving the slightest twitch, but he kept his arms down. The tension in his voice was strung tight like a wire close to snapping. He was like a predator in that moment, and she had fallen right into his trap.
She remembered what Shouta said about him, the night he let Shinigami out to save his people nine years ago. What I saw in him that night was a person, an Ayakashi, and an animal all in one. He moved faster than them, hit back harder, and one by one, they fell as they were cut down by a shadow they couldn't see.
He likened Shin to a tiger. She didn't think that was quite right. He was more like a black panther, lethal, hidden in the shadows so that his prey would never know what was coming for them until it was too late.
"Answer me," he said, bringing her back to the caged reality she was facing as he braced his hands on the tree on either side of her, almost as if he could see the need to run away in her eyes. "Tell me why you think you can be thrown out to the wild to survive on your own when you have a family here for you."
Pai didn't understand why she needed to die until she saw the woman come out of the bakery holding hands with a Hengen, a Tanuki with a devilish smirk on his face as he kissed her before taking a bite into his own cinnamon bun. He was her other kill. She understood then that the human had to die because she was in a relationship with an Ayakashi, an abomination that should never have been permitted.
Cradled in Kichi's arms, with her own wrapped around Kichi's neck, a pretty pink headband in her straight black hair and a beautiful smile lighting up her rosy-cheeked face, is a child of six or seven years of age. She looks exactly like Kichi, a mini-copy of the woman who is smiling as she plants a big kiss on the little girl's cheek while Nishio laughs and slings his arm around his wife's shoulders and ruffles the top of the girl's hair.
A lump of hot lava was stuck in her throat, scalding her, melting her from the inside.
How many more are there? How many more are there that I don't remember?
She closed her eyes on the memories, on Shin's burning midnight lakes. Her voice croaked like a broken recorder still being stubbornly wound up, cracking with the weight of keeping it all in. "Because I don't think I do."
Shin was silent. He didn't move an inch. She was too aware of how close he was. If she moved even a bit, just a little, her skin would meet his. Every strand of her hair that brushed over his arms on either side of her head crackled like it was standing on end, electrified. She kept herself still as a statue.
She opened her eyes when she felt the air around her cooling as Shin finally moved away, taking the warmth of his body with him. She raised her hands and rubbed them over her arms, trying to coax some measure of warmth back into them.
She looked up at Shin, but his face was closed off. There was absolutely nothing there. She found that more terrifying than she would have if he'd looked angry. At least then there would be something there, something to contend with. But with this, this utter impassiveness...it was like staring into a bottomless well that she could fall into, yet never meet its end.
She wondered what would happen if she let herself fall.
"She risked her life to protect you. To save you." His face was blank as a clean slate, but she could hear the undercurrent of something dark in his voice. He folded his arms across his chest. "Are you going to throw that away?"
Her lips parted in surprise. She didn't think he would go there. "That's not fair."
A single eyebrow lifted in a deadpan expression. She realized the astounding hypocrisy of her words and looked away, shame colouring her cheeks. He was just doing to her what she'd done to him.
He is guilt-ing you.
She knew it. Should I let him?
The question isn't should you let him. It is 'will you' let him save you?
Save me? Pai looked at him. Can he save me?
Can he?
Should he?
Should he?
"Even if I stay," she finally said, measuring her words, slowing them down. "It doesn't change the fact that I could be a danger to everyone here."
"Even if you're dangerous," he returned. "It doesn't change the fact that I'll be there."
"What if I hurt Shii-chan?"
"You won't."
"I almost killed you," she exclaimed, gesturing at his torn yukata. "I had a gun, I was shooting at you!"
He gave her a flat look. "It will take a lot more than that to kill me."
She floundered, lost for words, mouth opening and closing like a fish struggling out of water. She didn't know how she was supposed to respond to his confidence that was more quiet and sure than arrogant and cocky. He was right, but that didn't change what she'd tried to do to him. It didn't change the fact that she had almost killed him – or at least tried very hard to.
He will have something for everything you throw at him, Kuniumi hummed.
That's not fair.
Life's not fair. Get used to it.
She focused her attention on Shin again. He was watching her intently, and she shook her head slightly to clear her thoughts of Kuniumi. If she wasn't going to tell him that there was someone else in her head, she had better learn how to talk to Kuniumi without letting on that she was listening to a voice in her head.
She wondered if she looked as crazy as she felt when she was paying more attention to Kuniumi than she was to the world outside of her head.
"What if something like this happens again?" she questioned.
"Like I said," he replied, steady and completely sure of himself. "I'll be there."
She wanted to believe him. She really did. But she was too scared of what it would mean if she did.
I can't make him promise that.
You can.
I can't.
You can, but you won't. Because even after everything we have been through together, Pai, she didn't know how she knew that Kuniumi was smiling. Even after all that, you are still a good person. You try. You won't make him promise something he might not be able to keep.
He's making the promise himself.
That is his choice. If he does so, then it means he thinks he will be able to keep it.
Will he?
Kuniumi paused for a beat. Then, He will. This one will.
"I can...can I trust that?" she stammered. "Will you stop me if I try to hurt someone?"
"I promise I will."
"You'll do anything you have to?" she pressed. "Even if you have to – "
"Don't say it." He cut her off abruptly. His eyes were hardened diamond flecks, jaw clenched so tight that she was worried he'd snap it. "Don't."
"You don't know what I'm going to say."
"I do."
"What?"
Shin inclined his head slightly. "I won't hurt you. It won't come to that. I won't let it."
His gaze sharpened, and he looked away from her, out to the forest. She watched him scan the area around them for a long minute, eyes staying on each and every visible tree and shrub around them for a beat before moving on. She turned to look at the forest as well, searching for anything out of the ordinary. She didn't see anything wrong.
But then again, she wasn't like him. She didn't have his superhuman senses.
"We should get back inside," he said, still looking. Then he glanced at her from the corner of his eye before he turned and faced her directly, folding his arms across his chest. "Don't be hasty. Think about what I've said. That someone," from the way he said the word, she knew with utter certainty that he knew she'd been talking about herself. "Should at least try to keep going, even if it's hard, even if they're scared. They shouldn't be one of those who give up."
"What if it's too much?" she asked, shoulders slumping in dejection. "What if I'm not as strong as you?"
Shin's lips lifted in a sharp grin that she thought suited him, yet didn't look entirely like his own. "Then be known for making it where others fell."
Kuniumi laughed snidely, the sound bouncing off the walls of her mind. Which one will you be, Bibari? The villain who turned into a broken hero, or the hero who broke and couldn't piece themselves back to a fragmented whole?