by Nisioisin
But it might take longer to respond if it was at a pace of one person each night, or five people every three days. And to notice, too.
The gravity of the matter…
“So how did you end up noticing in the end? You know, that this…abnormal situation was going on.”
“Which one dost thou mean? That no negativity came flowing in despite my sojourn there─or the steady disappearance of villagers until no one was left in the end?”
“Both─but I guess I meant the latter.”
“I suppose I noticed the latter, then noticed the former moments later… I would have had to notice the latter sooner or later, regardless of how thickheaded I was. Those believers who venerated me stopped coming to pay their respects entirely.”
“Ah, right…”
“Though I thought at first that they had at last exhausted whatever patience they had for my cold demeanor. I had dismissed them saying that their being spirited away was none of my concern, and that neither I nor any yokai creature had anything to do with it. I’d left them to figure it out and take care of it on their own, so I thought they had gotten fed up and discarded their belief in such an unreliable god─resulting in a drop in visitors paying their respects, but it was undeniably odd for their number to reach zero. No matter how rampantly they were being spirited away, those humans still had to eat to survive. In that case, they wouldn’t have stopped praying to me for rain─drought was naturally a far more immediate problem for those who hadn’t been spirited away. They wouldn’t have forsaken me and brought another famine upon themselves…and so I noticed.”
’Twas the logical conclusion, she said.
For some reason, I got annoyed just hearing the word “logic” come out of her mouth…
“Something─was strange.”
“…”
“And so I left my shrine and descended to the village─though strictly speaking, I was on the floor of what was once a lake so it was more like ascending─and what I found was a scene resembling the Mary Celeste.”
“Of course, that comparison wouldn’t make chronological sense.”
A deserted village.
A community with no one in it.
The villages Shinobu ruled over as a god─had turned into ghost towns.
Every man, woman, and child who followed her had disappeared.
They disappeared gradually─while she hadn’t noticed.
“How did that make you feel?”
“Hm?”
“Okay, it might be cruel to ask for your impressions of the sight…but I’m interested to know what you felt back then, when you were at your zenith and uninfluenced by me.”
The humans who venerated her had disappeared, unseen by her─but within reach.
When something she couldn’t undo happened, how did she─how did Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade take it in?
I wanted to know.
“Nothing special. I was surprised, like whoa, they’re not there.”
“…”
She hadn’t taken anything in.
She just passed on the ball.
Or just passed on it.
“Could they have all left, I thought, perhaps to find work? Then from there, I may have been outraged that they’d leave me and sneak off on their own and vowed to kill them all.”
“You’re the worst…”
She was just short-tempered.
But maybe that’s how it was… There was probably no point in blaming her, it was a different era then. I was the fool for asking the question in the first place since Shinobu simply wasn’t what she is now.
I asked, “It would be different now, right? You wouldn’t react that way if it happened today.”
“Indeed. Now, my reaction would most likely be, AAAAAAGH! THEY’RE GONNNNNE!!”
“So it would just be louder…”
She was posing, too, if you’re curious.
Give me a break. Was the only thing she learned during her time with me how to react in a stupid way?
She needed to learn some emotions.
What it means to have a human heart.
“I’d find it hard to learn such things from thee… But after that, I traveled around all the neighboring villages.”
“Uh huh.”
“I emotionally traveled around, with heart.”
“You don’t need to add any pointless descriptors. Just tell me the facts.”
“Then what I understood from this investigation was that no one remained in any of the nearby communities─though all the villages beyond a certain point were fine, as though a boundary had been drawn.”
“A boundary─so in other words, the line separating the people who believed in you from the ones who didn’t? Geographically speaking─”
“Indeed. To be more precise, I would say ’twas whether they knew of me or not. Faith had nothing to do with it─for there were those in the neighboring villages who had none in me despite knowing of my existence. They were a minority─I thought that perhaps they may have still remained, but such hopes turned out to be false.”
“Hmm… In that case.”
In that case, I said, but didn’t know what came next─it was like I felt bewildered, or that I was grasping at straws… Despite all I’d heard from her, I couldn’t grasp the essence of what she was saying. Regardless of her abilities as a storyteller, though, Shinobu was the narrator, the protagonist here, so for me, a thread still ran through it─otherwise it would have been too meandering as a tale about aberrations.
Not a tale about aberrations─but a ghost story.
Of bad things─of the unclear─and the incomprehensible─
Just like the Darkness.
“Aye, in that case,” Shinobu continued where I left off, though I doubted it was because she’d read how confused I felt─no, perhaps she had.
Our hearts and minds were connected, after all.
“Even I understood that something was going on.”
“That’s where you were at, despite all that happened already… Just how happy-go-lucky are you?”
“I wish thou would describe that as my being a big shot─but it did seem that something was happening, and I also realized that I seemed to be the cause.”
“Hm? Wait, the cause? I don’t know if that’s exactly right. Even if you realized that you had something to do with the phenomenon, that should have been as much as you could’ve said at that point─”
“Nay, it was my experience speaking. When something happens, in most cases ’tis because of me.”
“…”
Yeah.
It was, I guessed.
Not that I could complain when I’d been getting Shinobu to help me solve these things that did happen and to take care of the aftermath.
“And aye, I noticed at last─now that I thought about it, I had stayed there for a rather long time and yet no negative energy had accumulated at all. I noticed that none had come. So if anything had caused the situation, it was that I had lived there for too long, causing that energy to do something somewhere─or so I thought, but that didn’t seem to be the case when I looked around.”
“…”
“And the fact that it didn’t─was odd.”
’Twas abnormal. An abnormal situation, Shinobu muttered, closing her eyes.
“’Twas odd that nothing supernatural had occurred─and odd that an abnormal situation obtained despite this. I suppose thou could say─it didn’t line up. I could not ignore how uneven it felt. To be honest, the fact that all of the neighboring villagers had disappeared was not as strange as the comparable fact that nothing was gathering nearby─that’s what made me feel unwell.”
“…”
“Since I felt unwell, I returned home and slept.”
“Hey.”
“Hm? Is it not best to retire and rest when ye feel unwell?”
“It is, but still!”
So when there was something that she didn’t understand, going home and sleeping made her fee
l better? What a handy constitution she had.
“Now that everyone was gone, I thought of going off somewhere. Not with a super jump this time, but by spreading my wings and gliding right off, as if I’d Doraemon’s bamboo copter on my head.”
“Again, those didn’t exist back then.”
Not that they existed now.
I wonder when they’ll be invented.
“I need not worry about the battery running out, though. Didst thou know that bamboo copters require a break every four hours if they’re to be used over an extended period?”
“I know facts that you can find in a manga in my little sisters’ room, okay? Wait, what? Don’t tell me you really flew off to another country after that. That you really went to sleep, woke up, and forgot it all─”
“But of course not─ye shouldn’t underestimate me so.”
“I don’t know, I feel like you do everything at such a big scale that it always deserves respect… That’s why I wanted to be sure.”
“Though thou art correct to say that I went to sleep, woke up, and forgot it all.”
“Big!”
Downright unfathomable, seriously!
“I jest. Even I am not so simple that I can forget everything after sleeping and waking. I awoke and still remembered. Like oops, no good, it’s turned from a short-term memory into a long-term one.”
“Well, yeah… I find the carefree attitude ever so annoying, but I suppose humans─or I guess brains─aren’t built so simply…”
“And so I plunged my hand into my head, scrambled and destroyed my brain cells, and forced myself to forget. About everything that happened in recent times.”
“You can mess with your brain like that not just to remember things but to forget them too?!”
Now that was scary!
No matter how much her body might be able to recover, the idea of picking and choosing her memories like that was almost unthinkable. Even Hanekawa, who knew everything, would be surprised to hear that. She wouldn’t be able to accept it.
“So I forgot it all and tried to go back to sleep─but then someone appeared to prevent me from doing so.”
“I’m glad they did, the way your story is going. I’d want someone to if it were me. I was wondering what to do if nobody did.”
Of course, that would have meant getting free rein over Hachikuji’s chest, and in that sense I didn’t mind, and in fact nearly wanted to recommend it, but nope, not gonna happen.
“Someone appeared… It was the enemy?”
“Nay, the one who appeared─”
Was Aberration Slayer I, Shinobu said.
016
“Awaken, god─he said, waking me up, but thou art well aware of how much difficulty I have getting up.
“’Twas not as bad since I’d merely gone back to sleep, but he seemed to lose his temper when I did not respond and stomped right into my shrine.
“The inside of a shrine is the most sacred part of any sacred ground.
“Or so I’d said, stating that none shall enter outside of an emergency─a decision made, of course, to maintain my pleasant lifestyle.
“Though ’twas by happenstance, they treated me as a god.
“’Twould not be seemly for them to see me lazing around…but now he saw me at last.
“What insolence, I yelled, trying at least to act appropriately divine, but it must not have had much of an effect after he’d seen my nearly naked body lying face-down on the floor─he didn’t seem very surprised, either.
“’Twas as though this was not the time for such things.
“In fact─if anyone was surprised, ’twas I.
“Because he was alone─a man who always used to bring a massive retinue with him as if he were showing off his favorite medals and decorations.
“I was surprised to see such a man acting on his own. I was sincerely surprised─to the point that I snapped wide-awake. Ye may think I was too surprised, but listen, that’s truly how unusual it was.
“Well, ’twas not as though that entire throng would enter my shrine, so perhaps he entered alone after making them wait outside─perhaps I could have speculated so, but the chances of that, too, seemed slim. If that is what he required, he would have sent in one of his underlings.
“Thou might say he was a man who hated being alone─did he always need attention, ye say? Hm. He was quite a different type of man than thee in the sense that he enjoyed mixing with people. Then again, ’tis not as though thou art alone by choice…
“But that kind of man was acting alone.
“Surprised, I asked, ‘What happened?’─by this point, I had fumbled about in my brain and erased my memories, so I realized not at all what had happened to the neighboring villages.
“In fact, I was astounded to hear of the calamity he then spoke of─but then even I began to recall it as he spoke. His words caused my brain cells to regenerate in that shape.
“How I criticized myself, saying, Ah, how could I forget such an important thing? I did a great deal of reflecting.
“’Tis a lie, of course… My only feelings were, Oh dear, what an unpleasant memory. Perhaps I’ll forget it by the time I wake up if I go to sleep─I suppose my thoughts were repeating all over again in a cycle.
“I certainly wasn’t going back to sleep yet again with Aberration Slayer I there─not to mention that he’d brought me new information.
“It concerned his underlings─the reason why he hadn’t dragged them along behind him as he always did.
“Well, ’tis exactly as ye predict.
“In fact, ’tis exactly as I just said.
“They too─were gone.
“Gone─disappeared.
“Off to somewhere.
“He said they’d disappeared just as the villagers had─to start from the beginning, it seems that the group of experts noticed the communities being empty quite some time before me.
“And they properly investigated it, unlike me─what an admirable bunch, not going home and sleeping. Nay, I jest not. I admire those who work, even I respect that.
“Thou, too, must feel a sense of admiration looking at worker ants and worker bees, ’tis no different from that─though that is as far as my praise can go, as it ended with them vanishing without exception.
“It sounded as though they too disappeared gradually, not all fifty-or-so at once─and Aberration Slayer I noticed at some point that he was alone.
“Unlike me, he must have felt quite menaced─or perhaps more frightened than menaced. That lover of crowds must have come to me alone not out of any sense of duty but out of a feeling of fear. He had grown desperate.
“But whatever his reasoning, it did not really matter. He was ultimately moved to action, making him admirable all the same.
“Far more praiseworthy than I.
“And for my part─I, with my divine affectation, naturally decided to hear him out before solemnly offering to investigate the matter. Not that there was any point in trying to act like a god in front of a single person… And ’twas not as if Aberration Slayer I was a follower of mine.
“’Twas habit.
“While I’d already traveled ’round the neighboring villages and understood the situation, the premise was that I’d forgotten─explaining it to him would reveal that I’d fiddled with my brain─so I traveled the villages again, this time with Aberration Slayer I─over the course of two full days.
“’Twas like locking a door I’d already latched─there were no changes, of course. The populace who’d been ‘spirited away’ had not all reappeared out of the blue.
“And so─no one was there.
“Well, unlike me, a monster who only ate, Aberration Slayer I was, at the end of the day, an expert. Rather than haphazardly search here and there, he verified the situation from this angle and that─but he came up empty.
“I castigated him, saying that he truly craved company. But he was more than a man who merely acted important, dragging his flunkies around with hi
m everywhere─not a man who was useless on his own.
“I, more than anyone else, had seen him in such a light.
“I saw him in a bit of a new one, and admired him.
“To describe it as I once did with thee─perhaps I grew fond of him. For the way he searched for the disappeared villagers, his disappeared men─aye.
