aged Salisbury steak.

The fist-sized squishy objects were wrapped in clear plastic.

But I did not look at them.

I knew they were the “product”, but I did not look at them for the moment.

“So you took over the Package.”

“Hm, that’s not quite how I interpret it. I prefer to think of it as gathering everything I need to more efficiently kidnap children.”

“You no longer even have something you gain in exchange for the children’s lives.”

“The Aburatori was never something that saved anything. There is no meaning in the action of taking the oil. I am...yes, I am chaos. I act solely in search of human fear.”

This Package had been created by human hands and yet it had completely left their control.

It was similar to the threat of a leaked biological weapon.

This monster had risen from the level of a deadly Youkai that simply walked through the darkness and its atrocities had spread to a wider area.

“I won’t even bother asking why.”

“Oh, but that’s what I most want you to ask. I do have my own personal view on killing. Connoisseurs are always picky.”

“If I kill you it opens the way for Shinobu to live. Destiny is telling me that. So die. I won’t let you refuse.”

I stepped on the accumulated snow and thrust out the long blade that was covered with my own blood.

Meanwhile, the Aburatori merely smiled.

“Did this chance to meet me make you think you are somehow special? I am a variation on a deadly Youkai while you are a harmless Zashiki Warashi. The difference in strength is obvious, so there should be no meaning in a fight.”

“No, you know there’s meaning.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you are preparing for a fight. Those fish-cooking skewers in your hands are the symbol for killing children, aren’t they?”

“...”

He seemed to have only noticed it once I pointed it out.

His intent gaze dropped to the several dozen metal skewers spread out like a fan.

One of the worst of the deadly Youkai would have no reason to react that way to a harmless Zashiki Warashi, so this was proof enough that I was not just a harmless Zashiki Warashi.

“How strange.”

This threat taking a farmer’s shape spoke while his shoulders shook.

He was of course laughing.

“If you follow the legends back, we are both Youkai from Tohoku. One is a symbol of the mysterious attackers who kill children. The other is a symbol of all the children killed by their parents to have fewer mouths to feed. To think the two of us would meet in the same place.”

The Package no longer mattered.

This was a fight to the death between Youkai and there was no room for human intervention.

We both naturally named ourselves as if cruelly making a criminal tremble by telling them how they would be executed.

“Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi. Personal Name within the Jinnai Family: Yukari.”

“An Aburatori. A variation created in modern times when the tradition of fear has been lost.”

And as if we had agreed to it beforehand, we clashed.

Part 15

The sound of clashing metal filled the air.

Orange sparks intruded on the strange white and dark blue scenery of the full moon over the snow.

The Aburatori looked like a farmer hiding his face behind his hat and his arms and legs looked like tree branches. Every time he rotated, he scattered several dozen skewers like a shotgun. He seemed to have an unlimited supply because a few dozen more would spread out like a fan each time the old man moved his fingers.

A distance of twenty meters was nothing to that Youkai.

He would appear, kidnap, and kill without anyone knowing. The concept of distance likely did not fit well with him.

“Wonderful.”

While scattering countless skewers as if dancing, the Aburatori spoke in a voice that hurt the ears.

Orange sparks scattered and his smile seemed to grow each time the branch cutter knocked down a bullet.

“Wonderful!! A single scrape from my skewers is enough for me to take all your organs! Stepping on one of the skewers you have knocked to the ground would be fatal!! You are certain to lose your organs at some point, but your Youkai trait is allowing you to avoid that fate!!”

It did not matter what he said.

I did not need to worry about it.

I did everything I could to protect my field. I only had to fight the temptation and choose the option most removed from the one I was naturally drawn toward. Because a Zashiki Warashi was so weak, that “impossible destiny” would allow me to survive.

“Still, this is a strange twist of fate,” said the Aburatori while spinning the fan of skewers in his hand. “I could be seen as a symbol of the adults who kill children. The existence of monstrous people like that is frightening, but that very existence allows people to dispose of children without dirtying their own hands. Those wicked thoughts were what brought me into existence.”

“There is no shortage of food in this age, so you can’t justify killing by saying it’s one less mouth to feed!”

“Hah hah hah!! But they are slaughtered in dark rooms, left in the parking lot of pachinko parlors, and recently I believe they are killed even before birth when an incurable disease is detected. If anything, this age is even crueler. There’s no pressing reason for killing children, yet the act is on the rise!!”

“Do you really think the age desires those meaningless atrocities!?”

“What other explanation is there? This country is a cursed land with a culture of family killing at a level not often seen in the world. They have long killed their parents with the practice of ubasute and killed their children when food is scarce. But even now that they have plenty, the family killing continues. These people can still kill their family even after forgetting the reason why. That is their true essence. I have become the standard!!”

Despite the shotgun blast of skewers I moved forward.

The barrage was not as hopeless as it might look.

As long as I understood destiny, I easily knew how to break through while only deflecting two or three of them.

“On the other hand, you are the symbol of the children killed by those practices. You come from the convenient idea that the children killed by their own parents will actually bring prosperity to the family as guardian deities! I may be the attacker and you may be the victim, but we are actually quite similar. When you get down to it, we were both created by the desires of the parents who killed their children!!”

The concept of distance was meaningless. There was no such thing as close range and long range.

The Aburatori clearly believed that because he gave up his own advantage and took a step toward me.

“That is why you could not forgive someone who killed children for no reason. Did you enjoy feeling like a child’s guardian? But this will bring you no comfort. Even if you save this one child you call Shinobu, it will not revive the many children who were killed in the past to bring about the being known as the Zashiki Warashi.”

He was now in range of the branch cutter I used in place of a naginata.

By opposing destiny, I thrust forward the blade that would normally never hit.

The Aburatori audibly slipped a few centimeters to the side of the blade.

He was a step beyond me?

Even my power...no, the power over destiny that Hyakki Yakou developed wasn’t enough to reach him!?

“You can never be saved,” whispered the Aburatori from so close that I could feel his breath.

Several dozen skewers spread out like fans in both his hands.

“No one can change what has already come to an end. That applies to the children of the past and for the one you call Shinobu.”

A moment later, a downpour of over one hundred sharp pieces of metal rushed toward my stomach from only a few centimeters away.

Part 16

Ksshh!!

Kssssssshhhhhhh!!

Click...kssshhhhhhh...click....ksssshhhh!!

Part 17

It all came to an end.

The high branch cutter I used in place of a naginata was a weapon with a thick blade much like pruning shears attached to the end of a two meter shaft. It had a long reach, but it was useless when right up next to an enemy.

On the other hand, the Aburatori could use over one hundred thick skewers when using both hands. If he threw them all at close enough range for his breath to reach me, I had no way of deflecting them.

He had anticipated any attempt to evade and had scattered the skewers over a large fan shape. Moving left or right and even ducking down would leave me full of skewers.

Those skewers were the symbol of killing children, removing their organs, cooking them over a fire, and taking the oil.

A single scratch would use the logic of the child organ trafficking Package to divide my organs up and pack them in plastic, and more than one hundred of them were flying toward me. As I could not defend or evade, it was plain as day what would happen.

However, that was by the Aburatori’s logic.

I could control destiny, so I had no obligation to follow his logic.

The sound of clashing metal filled the air as all the skewers were knocked down by the branch cutter.

“What?”

historical

The Aburatori looked completely dumbfounded for a moment.

Not that I could blame him.

He had moved within a few centimeters of me and my naginata-analogue was over two meters long. It would have been impossible to knock down all the skewers unless all one hundred or so of them flew backwards.

Also, hitting five or ten of them was one thing, but to knock down all of them would require them to move as if they had been drawn in by a powerful magnet.

“Is it really that strange? It was wrong to ever start thinking about Youkai using the laws of physics.”

“Wha-...bu-... Don’t tell me... Don’t tell me you’d done it from the beginning...”

Did he think I had solved the mystery of this incident surrounding him?

Did he think I’d gotten back at him by using the traits or weakness of the Youkai used in the Package?

If he really thought that, he was far too self-conscious.

This was a story of revealing the rules controlling Youkai and using those rules to defeat them.

However, he was not the only Youkai here.

This was my field.

This was a cruel fairy tale where he would meet a tragic end unless he analyzed the traits of the Zashiki Warashi, found a weakness, and took appropriate action.

“From the beginning, I was fighting against the destiny that exists within the rules of the Zashiki Warashi. My actions were only meant to fight the destiny that would lead to Shinobu’s death. That just so happened to take the physical form of picking up a weapon, running through the village, and fighting an Aburatori.”

How I swung the branch cutter had not mattered.

How and from where the skewers had been thrown had not mattered.

As long as I had fought the destiny that would lead to Shinobu’s death, everything around me would correct itself to bring about that result.

The locations of the branch cutter and the skewer could be manipulated to fit.

“You seem to be mistaken about something.”

I spun around the branch cutter.

I held it so it passed from my back and under my left arm as if making a tricky shot in pool.

“I came here to rescue Shinobu. I did not care in the slightest about you!!”

I once more thrust the blade forward at close range.

With a dull sound, the thick blade stabbed deep into the center of the Aburatori’s chest.

A Youkai would not die from being stabbed or shot, but things were different in a battle between Youkai. That blade had already been covered in my blood, so the damage would take effect.

“Gh...bh...?”

He looked down at his own chest as if seeing something very strange.

He then collapsed backwards as if widening the wound by forcibly pulling out the thick blade.

The blood that finally decided to spew out was black and seemed to indicate the nature of the Youkai.

“It’s over.”

“Yes, it is.”

I was shocked to receive a reply.

I looked over to see that the Aburatori was speaking where he lay sprawled out in the snow. It was hard to tell if the words were coming from the mouth hidden by the eye-pattern hat or the gaping hole in his chest.

“The child organ trafficking Package will fall apart with the Youkai at its core gone. To correct the unreasonable action, the stolen organs will likely return to the original children.”

This was strange.

Something was not right.

If that was all, then why was that evil Youkai smiling?

“But if that happens, what will happen to the sick children who have already received their organ transplants? Not even I know that. They may have the organ torn from them and die or they may regain the original diseased organ. The result is the same either way. They have no future. You have done nothing more than kill children to save a child.”

“.............................................................................................................................................”

I thought my breathing would stop.

After all...

“The people who tried to make money off of organ trafficking were probably trash. The parents who bought the organs knowing where they came form should probably be punished for their actions.”

He grinned.

Even after losing and sinking into death, the Aburatori savored his sadistic victory.

“But the sick children themselves did nothing wrong. Just to be clear, the number of children saved was greater than those attacked. When the organs are split up and given to individual patients, a single child can save multiple children. Meaning! You have created a situation where you kill a greater number of children to save a smaller number of children!! Heh heh heh hah hah!! Welcome to the path of killing. I hope you enjoy sinking into this unescapable mire.”

He did not beg me to therefore save him and return things to normal.

He preferred to enjoy the present situation.

No matter what I did and no matter who I tried to save, either the children whose organs had been stolen would die or the ones saved by those stolen organs would die. This Youkai had stood in the way of the clichéd goal of “saving children”, but he had waited until now to make me bear the heavy cross of letting someone die.

“...”

For a while, I stood motionless in the moonlit snow.

The makeshift weapon felt heavy in my hand.

Finally, I squeezed my hand and quietly remembered I held a weapon.

“Ha ha.”

The Aburatori laughed while a shocking amount of blood flowed from his dried chest.

“Kill me if you like, but it will change nothing. Now, choose to let the children die while resting easy that no one can see this shameful action.”

He clearly did not understand.

Say there was a Person A and a Person B and a single person had to die. That did not mean that you could not save both A and B.

Yes. If Person C saw that terrible situation and gave his own life as an additional option, that single required life could be taken while both A and B were saved.

“Do you remember that I called myself Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi?”

“What about it?”

“Do you really think the Hyakki Yakou would put together a project that would do nothing more than let them choose between the destinies currently in existence? Do you really think they are such a weak organization that they could not complete a project on that level and it would stall in the prototype phase?”

“You can’t mean...it goes beyond that? But the only phenomenon greater than what you have already demonstrated is...!!”

“I have already shown you I can modify destiny. That is, freely choose from the existing options. But this goes beyond that. Hyakki Yakou attempted and failed to create a method of creating a completely different line of destiny from nothing.”

Here, that would mean saving all the children whose organs had been taken and also saving all the children who were allowed to live by the taken organs.

The only way to allow for that clearly contradictory situation was to create a brand new destiny. The world had to be deceived into thinking two completely identical organs existed, as if they were twins.

What I had to do was simple.

It was what I always did: move my body such that I opposed the invisible temptation.

However, this was completely different from before. It was like a puny human using only their bare hands to oppose a press meant to crush cars. By any normal reckoning, I would be crushed. As if the world’s destiny were rejecting a mere individual’s circumstances, normal destiny would continue even if it meant crushing the one who desired change.

But I would force that reckless action to work.

A creaking sound filled the air as I kneeled on the spot. I held the branch cutter in both hands and pressed its tip against my stomach.

I did not know what meaning the action held.

It likely had no real meaning in a physical sense.

But the overwhelming pain as if crushing each of my fingers and compressing my backbone reminded me of the destiny I had to fight. I became aware of the very thin foreign feeling passing from the top of my head to the end of my butt. It had been placed inside me. This was a product of Hyakki Yakou’s insane ideas and reliable techniques. The theory had never been completed, but I forced it to work regardless. As a result, a sensation of long, thin wires twisted within me.

Ahh.

It’s going to break.

I naturally knew that.

No matter the result, I was going to lose everything as a Zashiki Warashi. Like an automaton with its gears messed with, I would no longer function as a Youkai.

“Why do you go this far?”

I suddenly heard a hoarse voice.

It came from the Youkai that still ruled the area despite having lost.

“It is only a finite human life. No matter how many you kill, more appear like bamboo shoots after a rain until they cover the surface of the earth! There are more efficient methods for an eternal Youkai. Even if someone dies this generation, you only have to choose a favorite from the next generation. And yet you...”

“You would probably never understand even if you did live an eternity,” I spat out at him. “That’s why you don’t even cut it as a ghost story. You don’t give any lesson such as don’t lie or treat your parents right. You can’t bring anything beyond useless cruelty and scorn.”

For an instant – truly just an instant – I heard the Aburatori’s face bend behind the hat.

But I did not continue watching.

I had something to take care of that was much more important than that failure of a Youkai.

I thrust the thick blade into my own stomach.

The thin wire-like foreign feeling running through the center of my body shattered like glass.

Part 18

And that was how I lost everything.

The following day, the snow had completely stopped. The large yard beyond the veranda was still covered in white and it glittered wondrously as the soft spring sun hit it.

I was lazy by nature. On a cold day like this, I would feel like founding an independent nation inside the kotatsu, but I sat on the veranda on this day.

My internal structure as a Zashiki Warashi had completely failed.

Not even I knew what effect it would have on me. Not even visiting a specialist in spiritual medicine was likely to help. Not even your average underground business could handle a Youkai that had the essence of Hyakki Yakou stuffed into her and then had it take severe damage.

Even just losing my power related to fortune or destiny would hurt.

It was possible this would affect my ability to maintain my body that was not bound by the laws of physics.

I could be destroyed or I could eternally suffer without any way to be destroyed. The fear of such things could cause my mind to fall apart. This was the fear of not knowing what would happen. Just because I was fine one day did not mean I would be the next. I would have to live while praying as if crossing an old suspension bridge.

I did not know how long I would be able to continue seeing this scene, so I committed it to memory as if burning it into my mind.

It was a ritual.

But then a clattering of dishes interrupted my peaceful and pessimistic ritual. I looked over and saw Shinobu carrying his breakfast tray with as dangerous a grip as ever.

“Yukari, you can’t eat alone, so let’s eat together.”

The same sentiment as before softened my cheeks.

Shinobu, Nagisa, the other children whose organs had been taken, and even the sick children who had undergone illegal surgeries had all been forcibly saved.

This result was the one bright side of the situation.

It seemed Hayabusa had found the silly human behind it, so none of the evil remained.

I hesitantly stood up from the veranda to move into the altar room where my breakfast was ready. I did not know how much strength I could use, so I would need to thoroughly test my upper limits at some point. For the moment, the lack of any pain was the most disturbing and frightening part. Rather than making me think I was fine, it made me think I was in a state similar to losing my sense of pain from damaging the spine.

“Hurry, Yukari. The food’ll get cold.”

“Wait, Shinobu. Walk more slowly.”

“Hm? What is it? Is there some food you don’t like? You’re supposed to eat everything, but don’t worry! If it’s too bad, I’ll save you.”

His innocent words made me smile quietly.

That’s right.

“Perhaps you really will save me someday.”

Part 19

In the present, the evening was filled with the stuffy heat of late summer. A high school boy had his hair dyed blonde, had his legs impolitely crossed, held a popsicle in his mouth, and looked in annoyance at a few envelopes that appeared to contain love letters. A Zashiki Warashi gave a heavy sigh as she looked at him.

“Shinobu, I am really disappointed.”

“Wait a second. Where the hell did that come from?”

Notes

1. ↑ Warashi means child.

2. ↑ Japanese for porcupinefish literally means “a thousand needles”.