Volume 1 - CH 5.6

Translator: Kell

I was staring at it.

“What… is this?”

There was a space in front of me. It looked like some sort of a screen. In a world painted all in gray, only that square region was shining brightly. The screen displayed images of the past one after another. Shizuka talking to me and Asato, back when we were still students. A blushing Shizuka hiding behind me, and Asato making fun of her. I almost laughed at how calm my tone was. Yes. I used to talk like this. The peaceful scenes continued playing. But I knew that this would soon all crumble.

I knew, because I’d already experienced it.

I don’t want to see it.

I spun around to get away from the screen, only to be met by gray darkness. I reached out my hand, and everything from my elbow down disappeared. Still, I continued onward, enveloped by a strange sensation, as if I was covered by crawlers. It felt like I had jumped into the mouth of a beast. Afraid that I was going to get eaten, I instinctively stepped back. Where was I? Where have I been brought to? I turned around. Blissful scenes were still playing.

It filled my vision.

Tsutomu-san. Tsutomu-san. Tsutomu-san. Tsutomu-san. Tsutomu-san.

I loved hearing her say my name with a lisp. I liked the way she turned red when I teased her. Patting her head as she hang her head down in embarrassment was relaxing.

From that day on, the three of us started spending time together. We ate lunch together, met up after class, and always stopped somewhere to have a chat. The library’s storeroom, in particular, was the best spot. As a librarian, Shizuka had the privelege to enter, and since there were no other students, we could linger as long as we wanted. Most of the time, we just talked about trivial matters, but there were days when we played cards. Asato was great with cards, but for some reason his was completely visible from behind. Shizuka, on the other hand, would make different faces depending on the situation. I always won, but it was either Asato or Shizuka who brought the cards.

When walking outside, Asato always held a dark-blue parasol.

“Um, Asato-san. Why do you carry that around?” Shizuka asked one day.

“Hmm? That? You gotta be more specific, or I won’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Asato… are you playing dumb? What else could she be referring to except your parasol?”

“Huh? This?”

He twirled the parasol around, and Shizuka nodded.

Asato tilted his head to the side. “Hmm, how to put it… Copying, I guess?”

“…Copying?” Shizuka said.

“Yeah, a relative.”

“W-Wait a minute,” I cut in. “You have a relative that looks like this? What kind of family do you have?”

“They look more awesome than I do, in my opinion. I look plain compared to them,” he joked, putting the fox mask over his face. “Forget about me, Shizuka-chan. You should ask Odagiri questions instead. You’re not actually interested in me a single bit, are you?”

A sharp remark.

Shizuka, turning red, shook her head in denial. “Th-That’s not true.”

“Stop picking on your underclassman,” I said.

“Oh, cut me some slack. I find this quite enjoyable.” Asato grinned.

Shizuka glanced at me and whispered, “B-But I do want to know more about you.”

Her cheeks were crimson. I felt something off. Being with Shizuka was fun. I thought she was adorable. But it was the kind of fondness you have for your little sister, not the opposite sex. My feelings for her had gone into that direction. As I rubbed Shizuka’s head, I wondered what I should do. Hanging out with them both was great. I didn’t want to destroy that.

So I put off a problem I should have solved right away.

The man in the fox mask chuckled.

It sounded like the fox itself was laughing.

I listened to the nostalgic laughter, baffled.

The scenes continued playing on the screen. I watched it, standing still. Where on earth am I? Was I having a nightmare? Yes. That had to be it. The limited physical sensations, and the lack of detail in my vision despite the realism, were all attributes of a dream.

This was probably a dream where you were forced to see images from the past.

But knowing that didn’t really help much. I still couldn’t do anything.

What do I have to do to wake up? How did I get trapped in here in the first place?

It all made no sense. This was not my field to begin with.

These incomprehensible situations were her domain.

****-san.

The moment I tried to call her name, my head ached. A feeling of disgust crept into my brain.

She ordered it.

She killed him.

I can say with certainty that she was a horrible person. She laughed at people’s misfortune and incited trouble for her own entertainment. She lived off of other people’s tragedies like they were chocolate. But I firmly believed that she would never kill someone for her own benefit.

That’s what I thought.

I had to ask her if it was true.

If it was, then there was no excuse for what she did.

I had to hear it from her.

I have to hear it from ****-san.

I have to ask ****-san.

I have to see ****-san.

But I couldn’t remember who she was.

Where did ***-san go?

Suddenly, my chest felt hot. A burning pain, as if I was holding fire. My vision changed.

I heard a small sound.

Crimson blood splattered and fell to the floor. I saw a girl in a gothic lolita outfit sitting on a chair with cabriole legs. In the cramped, decrepit room, her figure looked like a bizarre work of art. Wrapped around her thin neck was a black collar, connected by a chain to a stake hammered into the floor. The chain was short; if the girl moved even a little, she would be strangled. But she didn’t seem bothered.

She bit into a piece of chocolate with a bored look in her eyes.

Blood splattered close to her. The instant I wondered what it was, my vision switched. Right in front of the girl, an ugly man was swinging a knife at a woman he had pinned down. The woman didn’t let out a single shriek. Her outsretched legs bobbed soundlessly up and down. The man thrust his arm into the woman’s stomach. A puddle of blood spread on the cracked floor as he pulled out innards and threw them aside.

What the hell is this?

I was stunned. The bizarre scene continued.

“You really don’t get scared, huh?” a carefree voice suddenly said. “How can you eat chocolate in this situation? Doesn’t it make you queasy?”

“Odagiri-kun said the same thing,” the girl replied. “Is it blood or organs? Melted chocolate may look like flesh, but personally I don’t see the resemblance.”

Who was she? How did she know my name? Questions sprang up one after another. But when I tried to think of them, my brain became foggy.

The girl slowly ran her tongue over the chocolate wet with saliva.

“Chocolate and human flesh don’t taste the same,” she added.

My perspective switched around the room constantly. The man looked up, breathing heavily. He wiped his sweat furiously and stared at the girl. His gaze was filled with fervent desire, but the girl’s expression remained the same.

“Anyway, how long are you going to keep doing this?” she asked wearily.

The boy beside her shrugged. Fumbling with a bottle of water, he frowned.

“It’s not like I want to do this either,” he said. “One of my biggest goals in life is to live like a gentleman. But I don’t have much of a choice. This is a type of magic spell.”

“A magic spell?”

“Apparently, by ripping open the bellies of women dressed like you, your fate is cemented. Fate branches into many directions, but you can narrow it to a single point by letting similar-looking substitutes meet the same fate over and over again. That’s what Asato-san said. It’s a type of curse, apparently.”

The girl furrowed her brow. Shrugging, she said, “How ludicrous. Why do something so risky that has almost no benefit? You can just rip my belly right here and now.”

“Well, yeah. To be honest, this is just bait to make it seem like that.”

“Bait?”

“You scatter different kind of meat so the dog doesn’t touch the finest meat.”

The boy jerked his chin to the man relentlessly ripping open the woman’s belly. Thick fingers crushed bowels wet with blood and fat. Covered in intestinal contents, the man looked up.

He turned to the girl with a big smile on his face. The girl snorted and crossed her legs.

“There’s a perfect day to kill you,” the boy said. “Until then, you must be carefully preserved. That was Asato-san’s orders.”

“How foolish. I’m tired of this boring spectacle. It’s beyond repulsive.”

“Nothing much I can do, really. It won’t be long, so please be patient.”

He turned his gaze to the window. Asato. What on earth was Asato trying to do? The boy didn’t answer my question. Outside the broken glass window was a cherry tree branch starting to bloom.

“The day you die is the day the cherry blossoms bloom out of season. The day you inherited that name. It’s not that long from now, so please be patient.”

The boy gave a serene smile, then pointed at the corpse.

“Anyway, shouldn’t you at least show pity or pray for her? They’re practically dying in your stead.”

“I’ll pass. Or do you think screaming and being distraught will reduce the number of casualties? In that case, I might consider it. I’m bored anyway. It should provide for a good distraction.”

The boy shifted his gaze to the man licking a knife. “I guess it’s a little too late for pity,” he said, watching the body with quiet eyes. He looked at the girl and smiled. “You didn’t shed a single tear when your mother was killed.”

The girl responded with a grin.

Disappointment crept into my heart, and the world began to shake.

The man dragged the corpse to the wall and propped it against the wall like a doll. He placed a red parasol next to it. The wall was already lined with three corpses of similar appearance. The row of bodies clothed in black dresses closely resembled the chained girl. As I watched the scene, my vision became cloudy. As if diving into water, everything faded.

The sound of heavy rain pounded my ears.