Kei: Uzuki-san, wait a moment! Sorry Sakuya-san, please take care of things, here!
Sakuya: Wait a-- Kei!?
Kei: Please take care of Yumei-san!
Sakuya: "Take care of her?" Are you......
Injecting my will into my defiant legs, I leap from the room at the highest speed ever in my life.
Of course I'm worried about Yumei-san, but seeing how Uzuki-san likewise came to save me, then was chased out as if banished, made me worry.
Kei: Uzuki-san, wait up!
Uzuki: This is still the middle of night. Shouting so loudly will cause trouble for the other guests.
After turning at the corner down the hall, I finally manage to catch her.
With Uduzki-san's quiet tone echoing this far, one can only imagine the range of my idiotic shouting.
Kei: ~~~!?
Managing to venture a guess, I creep my feet forward to her side.
Ah, I thought it wouldn't be so loud, and I'm not even wearing slippers.
Uzuki: ......It seems no one's waking up.
Kei: Uuu, I'm sorry......
Uzuki: There's no point in you apologizing to me.
Kei: But, that aside, I still need to apologize......
Uzuki: "That aside"?
Kei: You saved my life and it wound up like that...... And I still haven't thanked you......
Uzuki: You came all the way out here for something like that?
Kei: "Something like that"? But it's really important. Mom said so, too.
Uzuki: Yes, I suppose. Living with care for graciousness is a great virtue.
Uzuki: However...
She raises the katana in her hand, interrupting my words.
Uzuki: You waged your life after it'd just been spared. Yumei-san, was it? That woman in the butterfly kimono... she's important to you, right?
Uzuki: And I tried to kill her. And though mostly bluffing, I pointed this blade at you.
"Should you really be thanking someone like me?" Yes, that's what she's saying. As if Uzuki-san had been my enemy.
Kei: Umm, I don't understand, really, but......
Kei: Can't I just say, "this is this and that is that"? Well, maybe I can't.
Uzuki: ............
With a gaze of disbelief, she stares intently at my face.
Kei: After we managed to get to know each other, I can't bear parting after a fight like that. Although I couldn't give up on Yumei-san, either......
Uzuki: That's what you're thinking?
Kei: Yeah, pretty much......
Uzuki: Then I should warn you. Chasing two hares - though I won't say you're going that far - doing that will only cause you suffering.
Kei: Eh!?
Uzuki: If you involve yourself with oni, you shouldn't get close to me. I also put distance between myself and such people.
Kei: ......So, it's no good, even if I apologize?
Uzuki: Apologies or anything, the way oni are...
Kei: What do you mean?
Uzuki: Far more prevalent than oni who are born that way... are people who become that way.
Kei: People who...... people become......?
Uzuki: Yes, humans become oni.
Uzuki: Just like a shougi piece changes into another piece after entering enemy lines, humans will turn around when steeped in their own deeds...
Kei: They become inhuman... an oni?
Uzuki: The greatest majority of the oni I killed were like that.
Saying that, she smiles, with no joy in her eyes.
Uzuki: It has happened many times. I'm used to it... being hated by the family or friends of people who've become oni.
She's smiling.
A very sad way of smiling.
Uzuki: If I'd gone and killed her, you wouldn't have come like this, right?
Uzuki: The closer you get to me, the more pain you'll experience if I kill an oni close to you. It's not rare for faces I know to be mixed into the ones involved.
Kei: But still......
Uzuki: And the closer you are to oni, the greater the danger to your life. I am an Onikiri who will kill even humans to fulfill my duty.
Kei: But still!!
With reason being unable to stop Uzuki-san's words, I interrupt her with emotion.
Kei: You let Yumei-san go, didn't you!? You told me to do what I want, right!? In that case---
Uzuki: I really do kill them. I've done so in the past.
Kei: ......Oni?
Uzuki: Human beings.
The feelings to which I cling are returned with rigid eyes that send shivers down my spine.
Uzuki: If she becomes an oni that brings harm to humanity, no matter what, I will kill her. In those words, there is no lie.
Uzuki: Also, if any of your family or friends become oni, I will unconditionally cut them down. Understand? Without question.
Uzuki: Because you are a kind person, without finding fault in other people, you will know only pain in that.
Kei: But---
Kei: But, that's just a matter of "if," right!?
Uzuki: There's a possibility. Everyone houses an oni in their soul. And once something happens, no matter how much you regret it, it's too late.
Kei: But that's... that's why you...
Though I don't know if I should be asking this.
Kei: You don't want to involve yourself with anyone?
Uzuki: Before I am myself, I am the Onikiri-Yaku of the Senba Clan.
...She said it.
When I first saw Uzuki-san, I embraced her air of separation from the ordinary, and thought it was beautiful.
Now, that beauty just seems tragic.
Kei: If that's it, Uzuki-san... Why did you talk with me?
Uzuki: Because not doing so would be unnatural. Because I thought our connection would be limited to today and tomorrow. Because I thought your existence was of no relation to my duty...
Uzuki: But I quickly realized that was a mistake. Involving myself this much, knowing that, was truly foolish of me, in fact.
Uzuki: Kei-san, you are a friend of Sakuya-san, and an existence approached by Yumei-san; you yourself carry a fate of connection with oni.
Uzuki: After we part here, now, someday our fates will likely overlap again. And when that time comes, we'll probably be facing each other.
Uzuki: So, let us sever that thread of connection, here and now.
The blade edge passes a hair's breadth from my neck, and the delayed burst of wind freezes my body.
Only unto a single strand of my tousled hair did the blade make contact, and that strand falls slowly to the floor.
Returning the katana to its sheath, Uzuki-san disappears down the end of the hall, without turning back.
And so, in that place, I am left alone.
Continue...