ent for a while.

His mind may have gone completely blank.

“Nee-chan..” said a quiet voice.

Everything was finally settling down, so the Zashiki Warashi breathed a sigh of relief and slowly turned her head. She looked to Shinobu and gently narrowed her eyes.

“It’s okay, Shinobu. You don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll settle everything for you.”

This was the end.

It was the ultimate happy end where no one had to die.

But was it really?

Wasn’t I supposed to be seeing a failed incident in the past?

The fall began with a very, very small sound.

“Ah.”

The Zashiki Warashi had forgotten. She had logically convinced the Aburatori, so she had completely forgotten.

His killing techniques worked on a level beyond his own will.

The instant she turned toward Shinobu while pinning the deadly Youkai to the ground, his arm moved against his own will.

A single skewer stabbed into the center of her body, as if tearing through her ample chest.

That deadly weapon would tear out one’s organs, skewer them, cook them over a fire, and remove the oil.

“Ahh..”

She looked surprised and her upper body slid to the side.

She crumpled weakly to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

Shinobu’s scream and my own overlapped perfectly.

The Zashiki Warashi was not a normal human. She was a collection of the children killed during famines and the like, so it was possible a skewer meant to kill a single child would not kill her. It was possible this would not entirely destroy her.

But young Shinobu did not understand Youkai or Packages, so he didn’t understand that.

I heard him crying.

He was not trying to suppress it. He opened his mouth wide and his young voice wailed like a siren. That shrill cry lingered in one’s head and was likely the last thing anyone there wanted to hear.

It sounded like an expression of unbearable despair.

I felt as if I had finally arrived at the end of this incident.

Young Shinobu, my past self, felt despair.

But not over the fear of what would happen to him. And not from the shock of seeing the Zashiki Warashi harmed. If that was enough to fill him with despair, this would have already happened when he was kidnapped by the large criminal organization.

That was not what this was.

He was not the type to cry for himself.

He believed in the Youkai Stamp. He believed all Youkai were his friends. That sloppy writing on the construction paper had said it: We’re All Friends. Until that very moment, he had not viewed any human or Youkai as higher or lower, superior or inferior to another.

But this created a definitive dividing line.

There was now a split between enemy and ally.

He found himself wanting to save the Zashiki Warashi even if it meant abandoning the Aburatori.

He found himself mentally abandoning the Aburatori, a Youkai with a personality of his own.

That despair was the true damage of this incident.

So..

Part 13

A quiet voice could be heard somewhere in the twilit mountains.

“He’s crying..”

The number of voices grew like the leaves rustling in the wind. They gained enough intensity to shake the earth, as if the entire mountain were roaring.

“He’s crying..”

Except this was not limited to the mountain. It covered the paddy fields, the farm roads, the thatch-roof house, and the orange sky. Just as a single cigarette butt could spark a vast forest fire, the entire landscape was filled with the explosive deluge of voices.

Did anyone there understand that every one of those voices belonged to an enraged Youkai?

“Shinobu-chan is crying!!!!!!!”

“Hold on,” muttered Hishigami Shikimi with her white hair spread out and her kimono hanging down. “You’ve gotta be kidding. ..This is more than just a hundred or a thousand. Is this kid outdoing the phenomenon of Hyakki Yakou with just his crying voice!?”

It sounded like a tremor in the earth.

Even an amateur like me could tell it was a passionate mob that had completely lost sight of its rationality. Were all of those Youkai going to respond to Shinobu’s cry by baring their fangs against the source?

What would happen to the Aburatori then?

“..I get it now.”

I hadn’t reached the depths of the despair just yet. This was still only the entrance.

Young Shinobu had abandoned the Aburatori to save the Zashiki Warashi.

And when he cried out, all of his friends had shown up.

He had given all of them the Youkai Stamp, making them his Friend Youkai. They were all going to bite, rip, and tear the Aburatori to pieces.

I recalled that construction paper.

Humans and Youkai had formed a smiling circle with “We’re All Friends” written at the top.

This gruesome conclusion was the exact opposite.

There was no way six-year-old Shinobu could bear to see this. It wasn’t an issue of his body. His heart would surely break. His heart would be torn to pieces and destroyed if he saw that.

“..Ah..kh..”

The collapsed Zashiki Warashi’s upper body moved a little.

The Aburatori’s attack may have damaged her bodily structure, but she was still trying to protect Shinobu who was about to be destroyed.

This had to be what she used her Ver. 39 to alter.

She used that single-use cheat code to protect his dream and to protect his heart.

Some bizarre static ran through my mind.

Dual images appeared before my eyes.

A voice from sometime in the past filled my mind.

“..Make..me..”

The voice was forced out through a throat that had been torn to shreds. It sounded like the Aburatori’s, but it contained a wet sound, like he was coughing up blood.

Even after all that, he must not have died.

His arms and legs had been torn off, his nose and ears had been ripped away, his eyes had been crushed, his teeth and tongue had been pulled out, his organs had been dragged out, his spine and pelvis had been removed, his body had been pumped full of venom and dissolved with acid, his nerves had been scorched with flames, his blood had been boiled, and his body was scattered everywhere, yet his soul had not been freed.

“Make me..a villain..”

That was his earnest desire.

“Whether I am good or evil, I will still kill the same number of children. My moral alignment has no bearing on the actions I take. No matter what future awaits me, I will kill the exact same number. Nothing can add to or subtract from that number, so it makes no difference. I at least want to retrieve Jinnai Shinobu’s heart. I want him to think I deserved death. Then the guilt will not crush the child. He will be able to return to his normal life with a smile on his face..”

Was that why?

Was that why I had felt such a discrepancy between the cruel Aburatori I had seen in the “present” and the conflicted one I had seen in the “past”?

This was the true ending.

Nothing more was hidden. I had seen the whole of that awful ending.

That left me with no more reason to hold back.

If I was going to change history and save everyone for a happy ending, I had to do it here!

With the sound of bursting fireworks, the sense of watching everything through a thin panel of glass vanished.

This time, I truly felt as if I had taken a step into the past.

“Stand up.”

I immediately grabbed the confused Aburatori’s arm and forcibly pulled upwards.

“Stand up!! If you want to live!!”

There was no time. I chose the one remaining option available to me.

It could cause a time paradox, but I didn’t care. I directly faced myself from ten years ago.

“Hey, can you hear me? Hey, you brat!!”

“Eh? What?”

“Listen. I’ll fix everything here, but next time, don’t you dare give up on someone you’ve decided is your friend. Got that?”

I didn’t have time to wait for an answer.

I could feel the low rumbling approaching. It felt like the sign of a coming natural disaster, but it wasn’t. A sea of Youkai was charging toward us, filling the entire surface of the earth. They were giving into their anger to tear apart the Aburatori that had caused Shinobu to cry.

I couldn’t let them do that.

I couldn’t let the Aburatori be killed, I couldn’t let Shinobu’s heart be destroyed, I couldn’t let the Ver. 39 be used, and I couldn’t let Shinobu’s friends dirty their hands.

So with the Aburatori’s hand in my grasp, I jumped down the mountain slope..no, I jumped off the cliff.

Even if it seemed different now, I was still in something of an out-of-body experience. My physical specs were clearly beyond those of a mere high school boy. I landed partway down the jagged slope and continued down at full speed, like I was skiing.

The sea of madness changed direction and continued toward us.

“What..what are you doing!? I cannot escape those Youkai no matter what I do. I don’t know who you are, but you are only going to get yourself caught in the frenzy!!”

“Oh, is that so!? By the way, my name is Jinnai Shinobu! Nice to meet you!!”

“Wha-..eh? Jinnai..Shinobu?”

“Do you have a better idea of what’s happening now? I’m here from the present! No, I guess from your perspective I’m from the future!! You might not be able to escape no matter where you run, but their venomous fangs can’t reach you if you cross the barrier of time!! If you don’t die, my past self won’t fall into despair. I don’t have time to explain the details, but that will solve everything!!”

“No..no!! You can’t do that. If you throw me into an environment without the Zashiki Warashi’s traits and Majina’s skills, I will become an evil that continues its indiscriminate slaughter of children. I have already recalled the flavor of blood! I can’t stop myself!! So please leave me here!!”

“To hell with that!!”

I jumped from rock to rock sticking out of the slope to continue downward. I felt like a snowboarder being pursued by an avalanche. If I slowed down, that torrent of death would swallow me up.

Was this still not enough?

Once I changed history, I was supposed to be automatically returned to the present!

“I’ve been watching everything you did! I know you don’t actually see any value in death!! So I don’t want to hear you bitching now!! I’m sick of that!!”

“Arguing from a position of emotion is easy, but if you release me in your era, you will undoubtedly regret it. Can you really bear the burden of hundreds and thousands of children’s deaths!?”

“What I’m saying is that I won’t let you kill anyone!!”

“How exactly will you do that!?”

“The Kaeshigami that Hyakki Yakou was talking about!!”

We shouted back and forth while sliding down the slope.

“If you can keep from killing anyone for nine years, you lose your killing trait and become a Kaeshigami, right? Just like the vengeful spirit that nearly destroyed Kyoto was worshiped as a god, you can become a harmless Youkai!!”

“I told you I’d recalled the flavor of blood, didn’t I!? I’ve already broken free of my limiter. I can’t hold back for even a day!!”

“You don’t have to hold back.”

“What..!?”

“Didn’t I tell you I’m from the future? But unfortunately, my time travel technique only works on just the one person. If I try to carry anyone or anything back with me, they or it won’t be protected from the flow of time. Simply put, they’ll directly experience the amount of time I’m traveling through. You get what I’m saying now, don’t you? If I jump ten years into the future while holding onto you, you’ll be forced to experience ten years’ worth of time in an instant! So!! You don’t have to hold back!!”

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

“It’s true you might be a Youkai created from people’s desire for a monster that would get rid of their eyesores of children,” I said while pursued by the avalanche of death and carnage. “But doesn’t that also mean you’re absorbing the anger and hatred of those foolish parents?”

“..?”

“You were created by gathering up all of those negative emotions. So if you weren’t here, where would those feelings be directed? Wouldn’t they be sent toward those parents’ children in the form of abuse?”

In other words..

“If you could evolve into something that could endlessly absorb parents’ hatred yet control it without going on a rampage of your own, wouldn’t that make you a guardian deity of children? You’d just be absorbing parents’ desire to abuse their children. You’d be calming those feelings before the abuse actually happened.”

A Kaeshigami was something feared by everyone but revered as necessary by everyone.

“In my time, there’s a monster called the Aoandon.”

I recalled the essence of that ultimate enemy.

“She’s a Youkai artificially created from an intentionally twisted version of the Hyakumonogatari. We were unwittingly a part of that plan by being made to kill each other in a place called Zenmetsu Village. Ha ha. Now that I think about it, she’s kind of like our child. I didn’t realize it until I saw that construction paper ten years in the past here.”

I couldn’t laugh at anyone.

Not even at those selfish adults whose negative thoughts had formed the Aburatori.

“So.”

I would redo it all here. I would take it all back.

I would save him and work with him!

“Could you lend me a hand? It would take a great power to defeat the Aoandon, but it would take an even greater power to save her. Please help me save my child. And to do that, please become a Kaeshigami that protects the children. You’re the only one I can ask, so will you do this?”

The Aburatori reflected on my words for a while.

Without worrying about the horde of Youkai approaching to take his life, the Youkai pondered the meaning of the words directed his way.

And finally..

“Very well. I have no reason to turn down your suggestion!!”

This time, we held our hands even more tightly.

Immediately afterwards, the sound of bursting fireworks surrounded us.

After an especially loud noise, our bodies vanished from the past.

In the Gap Between Timelines 2

Did the concepts of time and space even exist here?

I didn’t know the details, but I could perceive myself and the Aburatori as distinct individuals.

It was strange to have “time” to think while traveling through time, but that blessed the two of us with a chance to share our information.

“This Aoandon sounds like quite the unusual Youkai. To be honest, I do not think my power alone will be enough.”

“Agreed. She brings together one hundred ghost stories and can extract the individual parts to create brand new ghost stories. We can never defeat her in number of paranormal powers. A normal Youkai with just the one paranormal power wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Then..”

“But the Aoandon herself can’t use that power to its fullest. She has someone with her for paranormal support, so she probably has something like a Package embedded inside her. If that’s removed, she’ll lose control of her power. Simply put, she’ll return to being a normal Youkai like all the others in the Youkai encyclopedias.”

“The core embedded inside the body of a Youkai..of your child.”

“With a Youkai that removes children’s organs, we might have a chance. Of course, we’ll only have the one chance.”

I was probably the only one that knew why the Aoandon was so crazy. It was possible not even the Aoandon herself knew.

She had been born during the madness at Zenmetsu Village.

Just like the Aburatori was a collection of the feelings of parents who disliked their children, the Aoandon had been born by absorbing all of the gruesome madness the people at Zenmetsu Village had caused.

She had apparently been released into the outside world afterwards, but that had not changed the “directionality” given to her by her birth.

She could freely search through sea of data, but she would naturally gather only the dark and the grotesque.

She had seen only the negative and hopeless aspects of this country.

She had absorbed all that and transformed into something with an even more solidified existence.

It was most likely my responsibility for not letting her see anything that made her not want to destroy this country. We had all been desperate to survive at Zenmetsu Village and we had repeated that hellish scenario dozens or even hundreds of times. That was a mistake on my part.

A failure of a parent had created a monster.

So I alone could not abandon her.

I didn’t have the power to save the world or to save the country. I might not even have had the power to save the village. But whether a parent saved their child wasn’t determined by their power.

“If you traveled into the past, will we return at the exact moment the time travel was activated?”

“No, that was after everything was over. It felt like we had already used all of the methods we hadn’t wanted to use. So it would be best to return a little before that. I don’t know if it will work or not, but I know what moment I want to return to..”

“What do you mean?”

“When do you think the enemy will have their guard down the most?” I asked back. “I think it’s when they’ve used their greatest trump card and allowed the thread of tension to go slack. They might just be in a good enough mood to lower their guard. If we aim for that moment and break through the wall of time for a surprise attack..”

“We can reach the Aoandon?”

“We have to start with the first step. If we don’t pull this off, the rest isn’t going to work.”

And this method would mean we could avoid using up the Ver. 39 which could only be used once. Her power was hers. It wasn’t to be used for humans by humans.

I wouldn’t let this end just by obeying Hyakki Yakou. I wouldn’t let the Zashiki Warashi be used as a tool.

So I would settle this my way. I would take responsibility.

I’ve seen everything, Aoandon.

I might only have an empty argument from emotion and it might not change my physical strength any, but I’ve remembered the most important thing.

So now it’s your turn.

Wait for me, baby.

I’m going to scold you, discipline you, and then save you.

Notes

1. ↑ Kanai Anzen = Household Safety. Mubyou Sokusai = Good Health.