Flinging the futon from my body, I awaken.
The moon is brighter than yesterday.
The shadow I cast on the futon is thick.
My breathing is wild. Forgetting even to wipe the sweat from my eyes, I gasp in rough breaths.
This painful breathing... did I really scream out loud?
If I did, what a pain that would be.
Kei: Ha......
Kei: Hahahaha......
At last my breath turns to a dry laugh. It is void, slightly scratchy... a terrible sounding, hateful laugh.
Kei: Ahahahahahaha!
And it raises into the air hysterically.
For removing that hateful something within me, it isn't much different from a scream.
After uncontrollably laughing for a while, I finally come to my senses.
Moving to wipe my face with my the two pale palms of my hands, I cover it and cast my eyes downward.
Kei: It's really... just a dream...
A big, deploring sigh.
Even knowing that, I'm scared.
What is it, this dream?
The things I saw in my dream yesterday were a real forest, a real house, and a big tree...
If so... if so.
That terrible, red dream I saw just now...
---: What a shame. She woke up.
Who is it!?
I raise my terrified face to the voice tinged with an air of innocence, as it teases me in my fear.
---: Ufufu... did she enjoy it, I wonder?
I peek out at the voice's owner from the gaps of the fingers covering my eyes.
A bare leg, like thin, pale porcelain, reflects the moonlight from the blue darkness, rising into view.
Wearing sandals with a red strap.
On the right ankle, a gold colored bell.
As that leg is brought forward a step---
Is that it... this bell is the sound of her getting closer.
My eyes sluggishly follow her knee, too perfect, as if she'd never fallen in her life, raising to a cleanly rounded, thin, supple thigh.
As well as my sight can comprehend, a kimono with a short hem.
Definitely a girl's leg, I think to myself.
And coming from the other end, I notice a sleeve, the length of which reaches to her knees.
To the right is dove gray and a dyed flower pattern. Left is thin scarlet. in complete opposition to that person's blue and white, an asymmetric pair of sleeves.
Even so, this kimono is...
Kei: ......Ngh.
The red pain says, "do not remember."
Am I still trapped in a dream?
No... this isn't a dream.
I know.
I gather power in my fingers, and the sensation of the nails digging into my face diverts the red pain.
The thin scarlet flower trembles, and in place of a footstep, the ringing of a bell.
Kei: ......You are...... from my dream......
The one whose singsong voice interrupted her.
---: Fufufufu...
As if paralyzed, my body is stiffened.
My mouth, my fingertips, my vision - my body unto the extremities is stopped at moving more than a tremble, and I am unable to stand from the futon.
The girl, her height shorter than my own, closes in near to me...
...stoops her body, and peeks at my face.
The crimson red extends to the edges of her eyes.
In those pupils, like lakes of blood, redder than crimson, my terrified face is reflected back at me.
Those eyes narrow with satisfaction.
The edges of her tiny lips lift ever so slightly.
With a slight impression of a cat's smile, having caught its prey.
---: Fufufufufufufu!
The musical giggling voice tickles my earlobe.
A teasing voice, like a childish demon.
Kei: Who... are you?
This room is locked.
Yet this child is inside it.
Kei: What... are you?
I don't think she's a normal child. For one, no one these days wears a kimono like that...
Kei: What---
---: Nozomi.
In a voice that doesn't lose to any bell, clear and high, she speaks.
Nozomi: I've come to take you away.
Kei: To take...... me......?
Nozomi: That's right. You are of that woman - a child of the family that accedes to the Nie no Chi.
Nozomi: Isn't that right, Mikage?
---: Yes...... Nee-sama. (TN: Big sister.)
A bell rings.
Even though she didn't move an inch, there was the sound of a bell.
From behind her, a shadow slips out *suu* and lines up alongside.
The two sleeves of her furisode, red and black. (TN: Furisode - short-sleeved kimono)
On her left ankle, a gold bell.
Red eyes, and thinly colored hair, the ends facing outward as if mussed from sleeping...
The two, lined up, resemble each other like a mirror reflection.
Only their expressions are different, her downcast eyebrows in contrast to the other's pridefulness.
......Twins?
My heart skips a beat at that common word.
Kei: Hah!......
Why? How? With a word like that...
What in the world... is this pain about?
Her coming to "take me away," or "that woman," "Nie no Chi," there are all these seemingly important words coming out, so why do I stumble so at that one word...?
Nozomi: Okay, now come with us.
Kei: ......Wait, I don't know what's going on. Who are you two? What is Nie no Chi? And where in the world are you going to take me?
As I ask, completely confused, the first girl haughtily lifts her chin and lowers her cold eyes at me.
Nozomi: I am Nozomi. Didn't I say so before?
---: I am Mikage...
Nozomi: My little sister. Abandoned by our father, my pitiful little sister.
Swirling to the back of Mikage-chan, Nozomi-chan embraces her as if to crush her, inheriting her words as she speaks.
Nozomi: I hadn't a clue I had a sister, but she was so pitiful, I saved her. Isn't that right?
Mikage: Yes...... Nee-sama.
Nozomi: That aside...
With sliding movements, she releases Mikage-chan, this time casting her finger in my direction, forcefully drawing in my gaze.
Nozomi: You really did forget, didn't you?
Mikage: You don't remember even a little?
Nozomi: After all the trouble of trying to make you remember.
Mikage: You awakened in the midst.
......Eh?
That dream was their doing?
If that's so, these two know about the me I don't know.
Kei: Th- then, do you know her? With the butterflies and the blue kimono---
Nozomi & Mikage: Ahahahahahaha!
They interrupt my question with their laughing voices.
Somehow tinged with malice, an awful laughing sound.
Nozomi: Good grief, she gave us a lot of trouble, didn't she now?
Nozomi: I've no rightful idea how, but until very recently she hid your scent quite cleanly.
Nozomi: Coming here just as we thought the time was ripe, she was a plain nuisance. That woman you speak of... in the butterfly kimono.
Mikage: The present-age Onikiri-Yaku. (TN: Literally, "role of oni hunter".)
Nozomi: You've really given us a lot of trouble.
In her fluidly thinned eyes, in a reflection like blood spilt over water, a bewitching light wavers.
Nozomi: And so...
Throwing aside my hair, she slips her fingers around my throat, turns them, and squeezes forcefully.
Nozomi: Doing it here would be so vulgar, but perhaps we'll take just a little.
Nozomi-chan digs her nails in the soft portion of my throat.
My body shrivels, as if stabbed by a blade, too scared to swallow, even if I could.
Kei: T-......take... what......?
Nozomi: Your blood.
Mikage: Such special blood.
As they speak, I feel my hair being brushed aside from behind, exposing my neck muscles for a moment.
A cold shiver upon my neck.
Kei: A-aren't you making a mistake? My blood is... just regular blood, okay?
Nozomi: Is that so?
Kei: It is!
Nozomi: Fufu, you don't know, do you?
Mikage: You really don't know anything, do you?
Nozomi: Are you not a Hatou? Your bloodline is special, you know. An undeniably special blood is passed through it.
Mikage: That is the
Nie no Chi.
Kei: Nie no Chi...... (TN: Blood of Sacrifice)
Nozomi: Just as they're used in sorcery, you're aware that bloods with particular powers exist, are you not?
Mikage: The "chi" of "chikara" (power) and the "chi" of "inochi" (life)...
Nozomi: Simultaneously part of the material flesh, and of the immaterial spirit.
Mikage: Namely, extremes born of a double meaning.
Nozomi: The source of all things.
Mikage:
Tokotachi,
Satsuchi,
Kagutsuchi,
Orochi - "chi" is the
kotodama defining the nature of the gods themselves. (TN: Kotodama is litterally "word" and "spirit." Basically meaning a "power word.")
Nozomi:
That is why humans offer their blood.
Mikage: Their Nie no Chi.
Kei: Nie no Chi......
Nozomi: Blood occurs in grades, you know. And the blood you have is pure and exalted.
Mikage: Much like the
Yashiori no Sake intoxicated Nushi-sama's ancestors. (TN: Essentially a mythical sake that was brewed nearly innumerable times. Perhaps similar to ambrosia...?)
Nozomi: Incredibly thick and strong.
Mikage: Such that the blood of tens, hundreds, thousands sucked dry would not compare.
Nozomi: For gods, for oni, anything will do. Anything inhuman, upon drinking your blood, can ascend to a greater existence.
Kei: Ascend to a greater......?
Nozomi: That's right. They can gain great power.
Mikage: That is the reason it is so special.
Nozomi: That is why everyone wants it.
Mikage: And they come to fight over it.
Nozomi: This region has a strong seal over it, though, so as long as you're here, the monsters outside can't track you down.
Mikage: That is why your lineage has remained without severance until now.
Nozomi: Now, and in the past, Nie no Chi has been rare, you know. Not just anyone can hide its smell, after all.
Kei: So if... I couldn't hide it......
Nozomi: Fufu, you understand, don't you?
Nozomi: If you don't hide...
Mikage: If you don't run...
Nozomi: If you get caught by an oni, you'll be eaten up.
Nozomi & Mikage: Ufufufufufufu...
The edges of their cute lips bend in a cruel smile.
The swaying red eyes close in.
Nozomi: And so the owners of that precious blood are raised so very carefully, to garner the favor of the ones they revere.
Mikage: And the good humor of those they fear.
Nozomi: They've lived, offering you as living sacrifices. Ever since the times of antiquity.
......I had no idea.
I never imagined a blood like that, flowing from my grandmother to my father...
Ah, that dream...
That person - dad, because of a monster...
Kei: ---!?
No, no, no, it can't be!
Mom told me he died in a fire!
Kei: Hah--- hah--- hah--- hah---
Nozomi: ......Fufu, well, aren't you a strong one.
Kei: I-I'm nothing like---
Nozomi: Fine by me. I like your type better than weak girls, anyway.
Kei: ............
Nozomi: Too bad for you, I want you even more, now.
My guard is only down for a brief moment, when the hand digging into my throat suddenly pulls me back---
Striding over the futon as she covers my lower half, Nozomi-chan moves to straddle my leg and drops to a kneel.
This time my position looks down upon her, but it's not as though our standpoints have shifted.
The red eyes glancing up at me are those of a miniature predator, with her prey in front.
Her coral colored tongue reaches out, licking her lips.
I am entrapped, surrounded.
Kei: A-are you also...... a monster that sucks blood?
Nozomi: Oh my---
Her eyes open round in surprise, then swiftly narrow. Amused, elated.
Nozomi: Ufufu... did you really think I was human?
My vision softly blurs, and in Nozomi-chan's place, I fix it upon the swirling ceiling light.
From behind, Mikage-chan's two hands grasp my cheeks on both sides, and redirect my vision to face upward.
I feel Nozomi-chan's presence sidle up close.
Her breath encroaches upon my neck.
A long, cold breath, with no body heat behind it.
My skin breaks out in goose bumps.
Kei: Ha!...... S-stop i---
Congestion brings a nasal tinge to my voice. Behind my running tears, the ceiling warps.
Even though she isn't holding me down tightly... Are her fingertips sucking the strength out through my face?
Nozomi-chan places her hands upon my two paralyzed shoulders.
Nozomi: I told you, we're taking a little. Don't worry, it won't hurt...... okay?
Soft, cold lips press upon my neck, and in the next moment, the rigid sensation in the center.
Press circle once more and then check your divergence map.
Note the branching of the white line and pick the appropriate path below.
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