Finishing at the beginning

It took Raiko and Shizune a whole four days to clear the debris, gather all the bodies and salvage supplies. For them, it felt like forever, even though there were only twenty houses and the temple.

Of course, there were just two of them. Raiko might be strong, but she can only work in one house at a time. By the evening of the fourth day, there was only one place left to search.

The Midorikawa household.

As they slowly walked to the place, dragging the cart with them, Raiko began to feel uneasy. She has been avoiding the place ever since making her contract for a reason.

She could feel cold sweat forming on her face; she was trying her best to believe this was only a bad dream and that she would wake up from it at any time. But she knew that once she saw her family’s dead bodies, that hope would be destroyed.

Her hands were shaking as she approached, she really didn’t want to do this, but she knew it was her duty. The place was the same as when she left: a collapsed pile of wooden ruins.

Slowly, she approached the place she grew up in, the place she used to call home. Trying not to think, she began to remove the planks out of the way, when she heard Iblises voice.

“Careful Raiko, there might be more apparitions here.”

“Iblis, you've been complaining since we've seen the first one, it'll just gonna be another apparition, once we're done with it we can leave.”

“I understand your feelings, I do, but you’re taking unnecessary risks.”

“What do you do when one of yours dies?”

“Nothing, our bodies fade into particles and vanish, but their memories live on within us.”

“Then it’s no surprise you don't understand the human meaning of death.”

“It’s not that, we, I…”

Shizune grabbed Iblis by the beak and dragged him close to her as if he was an object to be relocated. She remained silent, ignoring the bird's complaints until they got away from Raiko, letting her remove the debris alone.

“For your own safety, don't insist on the topic.”

“But the longer you are here the more apparitions will gather.”

“I know, but it's important to her, and believe me, if you keep like this she'll hit you.”

Raiko started from the entrance, making a way with the hopes that there might be something of use in the kitchen. She found a shattered plank stuck against something, and even with her strength it wouldn’t give in, so she smashed it with a kick.

The sound it made was not consistent with wood being shattered, but with the sound of flesh being torn apart. Horrified, Raiko stepped back, refusing to accept what she knew she just did.

She looked down, noticing an arm sticking out, it was clearly Hayato’s. As she removed the debris to uncover her brother’s corpse she could also feel something shattering inside of her. This was no nightmare, this was reality.

Everything she lost will never come back. Even if he was already smelling bad, that wasn’t even the worst part. She was trying her hardest not to fall on her knees and cry upon her loss as she lifted the small body and carried it into the cart under Shizune’s concerned gaze.

“Are you okay?”

“What do you think?”

Her eyes had no brightness; they were the eyes of somebody who lost hope. She was doing her best to bottle up her pain in order to finish her duty. But even then, her mind was clear, she had a purpose now.

That apparition had to be tracked down and destroyed; it was the only way to make justice to the people of Aomura. And, not less important, it was the only way she could find to cope with this situation. Leaving her brother’s body behind her, she returned to the ruins, the others were probably as awful as he was.

Even after days of doing this, she couldn’t get used to the smell of rotting corpses, especially when it was coming from her own family. The next body she found was her father, who seemingly died trying to protect Raiko’s grandmother. They were so proud of her, and yet she failed them when it mattered.

“I’m sorry.”

As tears poked out of her eyes, she lifted the bodies and carried them back. Iblis was hovering around the ruins, moving back and forth around the place. He couldn’t make expressions, but maybe he was nervous?

At the same time, Shizune began to search on the kitchen’s shelves, but all she could find was, unsurprisingly, food. Looking at the ground, she noticed a piece of cloth that most likely meant another body, so she whistled to Raiko to get her attention.

Raiko nodded and silently removed the debris to uncover the newfound corpse. It was Aoi, laying stiff with a horrified expression on her face. She was supposed to take over their mother’s job and help people, but nobody was there to help her when this happened.

Raiko punched the ground so hard the planks making up the floor shattered. She felt an unexpectedly hot sensation coming from her right hand, noticing she hurt herself while punching the floor. She simply lifted her little sister’s body with resignation.

“After all, you were the smart one, not me.”

Shizune wanted to do something to cheer Raiko up, but she couldn’t. She has seen her depressed on the prior days, but the other corpses were not from her family, she was fond of them, but not like this. Remembering how she blew up to Raiko after finding her mother’s body, she felt that she was no one to talk.

She just walked to the gap opened when Raiko made her contract, and looked for some clothes for her. They couldn’t take much so Shizune picked what she knew Raiko liked most, some winter clothes, a long blue shirt and brown pants, and a new pair of boots. In the meantime, Raiko was taking her uncle’s body outside of the ruins.

All of this time has left the girls with plenty of time to reflect on what had happened. But thinking about the stuff and experiencing them are different matters. Shizune noticed Raiko standing still in front of a pile of debris, as if an invisible force field locked her in place.

“Raiko, what’s going on?”

“Hanako.” Raiko pointed at the debris with her chin.

“Don’t worry, we’ll do it together.”

Raiko nodded and began to move the debris to uncover her cousin. Plank after plank, they didn’t find her until they reached the bottom of the room. Her body was stuck against a wall, pierced by a wooden sheet.

The impact of the view and the accumulated smell of decomposition made both of them back up, Raiko almost stumbled in the process. She wanted to throw up, she really wanted to. Shizune was no better, and ended up staining her clothes as she failed to hold it back.

Raiko watched her with sadness; she couldn’t blame her for reacting like that. She took several short breaths to regain her composure without having to take in too much odor at once, then she got back up. She closed in to the corpse and took it with her trembling hands, separating it from the wood carefully enough not to enlarge the wound.

“It should have been me.” She thought. She was supposed to protect the village, she was supposed to keep everyone safe, especially her family. She couldn’t even do that, and everyone but her paid the price for her incompetence.

Why was she the only one who survived this? It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair for them. Shizune was still there and walked out of it physically unharmed, but that fact was slipping out of her perception, it wasn’t her duty to protect the village, at least. Iblis was still moving around nervously, but Raiko ignored him, he was just being paranoid.

All that was left was her mother, near the place she was rescued from. Memories of her time under the rubble came to her mind, but she shook them off, only the dead deserved to be felt bad about, and she was not.

Her mother's body was near a wall. She died from a rock crushing her head. Somehow, she thought it was a good thing; at least she died quickly without suffering as much as the others. It wasn’t a nice thing to say, but she was desperately trying to see the light in front of this situation.

Problem was that the situation didn't want to help. Black smoke arose from the woman's body and began to take form. Speaking with the voice that used to belong to the village’s doctor…

“Daughter... my daughter...”

Raiko didn't wait for the apparition to take form. She cut it in half as it was forming. Its core quickly fell into the ground and bounced off of it, stopping at the corpse's feet.

She tried, she closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and took deep breath after deep breath, but there was no use. She couldn’t bear with this. Overwhelmed, Raiko screamed from the bottom of her lungs, she then kneeled and started hitting the sphere with her sword's guard repeatedly.

She dropped the sword; she wasn’t using it correctly anyway, and kept hitting the ground with her palms, incinerating the house and the body without moving it from its place. Her eyes weren’t focused on anything, the fire around her just felt nice and warm. At that point, she heard a voice.

“Raiko!”

Shizune rushed in to get her friend out of the flames. She didn't look physically hurt, at least she was immune to her own magic, but her spirit was a different matter. Raiko offered no resistance to be dragged out, walking behind her friend without saying a word.

Once they got out of the fire Shizune noticed that she was trembling and tears rushed through her cheeks. Shizune turned her around and hugged her without saying a thing. She didn't know what to say in the first place.

To begin with, she just didn’t understand what happened in front of her eyes. Raiko’s reaction to it made sense, but all the magic stuff around it was beyond Shizune’s understanding. As such, she decided to make use of the weird bird tagging along.

“Can you explain what just happened to me, please?”

“This apparition seems to have formed from this woman's regret.” Iblis speculated. “I heard that sometimes they retain other aspects from the thoughts they formed from, such as voices.”

“So regret, that’s why it didn’t attack right away…”

“Rather it just didn’t have enough time to fully form, that spared you a lot of trouble.”

Raiko, who hasn’t moved ever since, asked them a question.

“T-That…That wasn't my mother, right?” And as they didn’t answer right away, she insisted. “Right?!”

Her tear filled eyes met with the inexpressive eyes of the magical being. She didn't even know if he could understand human grief, or if he would care about it if he did. She needed an answer to prevent her from collapsing.

“No, humans don't become apparitions after dying.”

“I see, it wasn’t mom.”

She then got back on her feet and headed to the cart, pulling it without saying anything else. It took her all the way back to the temple to recover herself, sobbing and trembling as she dragged the cart. But all of this pain was also accompanied with a feeling of relief. Now there was only one thing left to do.

As they approached the temple Shizune stayed back, she couldn’t do anything helpful either way. Raiko took the bodies of her family, starting from her siblings, whom she placed on top of the cart, and carried them inside of the ruins, carefully placing them along the other corpses.

After she was done, she immediately covered her nose and left the place with a jump, landing next to the cart with a troubled expression.

“I know we haven't bathed since all this began, but it really stinks inside there.”

“I’m honestly surprised we managed to gather most of the bodies before they did, well done Raiko.”

“It was teamwork, but let’s leave the praise for after we’re done.”

One by one, she carried her family inside of the ruins. First came her father, then her aunt and uncle, then her grandmother, and finally Hanako. Looking at them one last time, Raiko felt no pain, but resolve.

“I will make up for this failure, please be patient with me.”

Raiko got down on her knees and began to pray for the souls of Aomura. For the Voronins, who were a second family to her. For her friends who grew up with her. For her family, who took care of her up to this point.

She prayed that they could find peace on the other side, and that they could forgive her for being unable to protect them. Beside her, Shizune stared in silence, lamenting she won't see them anymore, but also conscious that she couldn't do anything about it.

“Are you not gonna pray?”

“You know I don't believe in that, don't you think a fake prayer is an insult to the memories of the dead?”

“You really don't change.” Raiko wiped the tears from her eyes with a forced smile. “Well, stay behind, time to take the last step.”

Raiko took a deep breath, took a step back to take impulse and extended both palms to make a large blaze. Wood burned faster than she expected, covering the entire building in a few minutes. With that, she felt that she had complied with her obligation.

“Speak well of us on the other side!” She said, honoring the tradition. “Farewell, everyone…” She added, in a particularly soft voice, as her transformation wore out.

Shizune showed up with a large backpack on her shoulders and a second one on her hands, which she dropped in front of Raiko.

“Feeling better now?”

“Yes, sorry for dragging you into it.”

“Well, with this we don't have anything else left to do here, it would be better for us to leave before it becomes night again.”

“What did you gather?”

“4800 neris, basic tools, kitchen and hygiene elements, medicine, ammunition and food for three weeks.”

“That's a lot of money.”

“We're going to need it; the town of Elsa is four days away from here on foot.”

“Do we have to spend all that time without a bath?”

“We should bathe on the stream outside the fields, you stink.”

Raiko was getting mad even though Shizune was right, but then, she remembered something more important to ask about.

“Don't you think we could carry more supplies on the cart?”

“It is not a good idea to carry food on a cart used to transport corpses, we'll have to make it out with this.”

With a last look at the place, the girls waved their birthplace goodbye. They had no clue about what to do next and now they didn’t have a place to go back either.

Raiko didn’t feel like that would be an immediate problem, they had to gather purifiers to fight the apparition, so they would have to head to a large city. After that, an apparition that large shouldn’t be hard to find.

No matter what, the people of Aomura will be avenged.