Chapter 6: When It Rains, It Pours

Sayuri sensed a smell that was sweet, yet somehow smoky.
Wrapped in that scent, her thoughts slowly began to return.

Remaining in a posture like crouching in midair, she covered her face with both hands.
“I’m… Sayuri… Sayuri…”
She murmured it over and over, as if telling herself.

What had happened while she had been gazing vacantly began to surface in her mind, little by little.

—Luring with a sweet scent, throwing questions, and stealing one’s thoughts.
Then, once the victim could no longer move, a supernatural being would calmly prey upon them.
Surely, that girl must have been that kind of being.

Even so—what had that hand that reached out from the necklace been?

Sayuri looked toward where the girl had been.
There, not a single trace remained anymore.

—Did it protect me, I wonder?

“…Ah…”

The moment she looked at her own arm, a sound slipped from her without thinking.

Here and there, it looked as if pieces had been torn away.
Rather than flesh, it was “existence itself” that had vanished.

Panicking, she checked below her feet.
Both legs were gone, from around the shins downward.
There were several other places as well where her outline had grown indistinct.

—If I had stayed close just a little longer, I might have been vanished along with it.

The monk who had helped me when I was being chased by that black haze in the forest.
…Had that really been “helping” me?

That was just—
the removal of something that held malice.
This time as well, surely, it was only the removal of a supernatural being that had tried to eat me.
If I had held malice myself—

Once, she gently closed her eyes, and then looked up at the sky.

“Ah, come on! It was one of my favorites!”

Spreading her arms and legs in midair, she shouted—
and then laughed out loud.
She had gone through something frightening and something dangerous, but somehow none of it mattered anymore—
Sayuri remained alone in the air for a while, continuing to laugh with her voice raised.