Volume 8, 4: Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi by ???(1/5)
Part 1 (3rd person)
Time will now shift back by about half a day.
The stage returns to the old Japanese-style house partway up Mt. Boseki in Bozen City.
The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata appeared before Jinnai Shinobu and Nagisa. As an aggregation of the children who had lost their lives in infanticides during famines and the like, she had shown her new face as a zombie.
Part 2
I heard a bestial growling.
I slowly, slowly turned around and saw the Zashiki Warashi in her red yukata.
She crushed the branch cutter in her fist, tossed it aside, and stared at me.
Her hair was still a glossy black and her skin looked pure enough to repel water.
The problem was her eyes.
They had the same muddy look as the zombies scattered through the city.
Those eyes clearly viewed me as her prey.
“Ah.”
That was the limit.
As soon as an instinctual tremor raced up my spine, the last bit of rationality burned away within me.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
I screamed and broke through the sliding screen to escape. I scrambled so quickly I nearly tripped, but I desperately maintained my balance and ran through the very, very large tatami-covered hall.
I heard a bursting sound directly behind me.
When I looked back, there were tears in the corners of my eyes.
She really was a wild animal. That red animal had lost all dignity as she ran after me on all fours. I felt as hopeless as someone who had run across a bear on a mountain trail. The Zashiki Warashi caught up in no time and stood up on her legs for free use of her arms.
“...!!???”
Rather than consciously dodging, my legs gave out and I fell to the tatami mats.
Nevertheless, it was effective. Something tore through the air even more intensely than a metal bat. The rectangular wooden column by the wall really did break as easily as chopsticks.
“...”
Her eyes rolled in her head to view me.
A single blow and it would all be over. I knew that, but I couldn’t stand up!!
“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
I crawled backwards while still looking the Zashiki Warashi’s way. I broke through another sliding screen to enter the wood-floored hallway. I felt something metallic behind me blocking my way. The Zashiki Warashi took two or three steps toward me and swung her fist at me like an artillery shell.
I did not have time to carefully analyze every little thing.
I simply rolled to the side to avoid the approaching blow and live even a second longer.
As soon as she missed, something collided with her. No, it captured her. It was the bear trap that had been among the hunting tools lined up in the hallway. It was basically a giant metal cage with a guillotine-style door that closed when the animal was lured inside by the bait.
The heavy cage bounced around with intense clanking sounds. As soon as the movement lessened, I finally ran toward the bear trap. It was a box with 150 cm sides. I grabbed the top and grabbed the guillotine-style door. After shaking its rails a little, I used all my strength to force it down.
Whether she had caught on or not, the Zashiki Warashi finally faced the door and shook it with both hands, but it did not look like she could break the trap.
Thankfully it had been designed for bears rather than deer or boars. As a zombie, she could break a solid column with a running start, but she may not have been able to wield all her strength inside the cramped space of the trap.
I finally let out a heavy sigh and sat on the hallway floor.
You Good-for-Nothing Youkai. Aren’t you supposed to be the Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi that protects your family’s good fortune? You really are useless. Why are you turning into the worst zombie of them all!?
When I viewed her again, it really did seem that her hair and skin had not changed like with the normal(?) zombies. Did that have to do with Youkai being immune to physical attacks?
“Shinobu-chan...”
After a short delay, Kitty Nurse Nagisa walked in with her pink knit dress, white cardigan, pinned-on hat, and tail accessory. As usual, she had a thin smile on her lips and held the thick cattle cleaver named Namagusa.
“Are you hurt?”
“No...”
Despite my answer, the situation was about as bad as it could get.
“Everyone from the cellphone shop is dead. That means we don’t have any adults with us and the dump truck isn’t any use anymore. Not to mention the Zashiki Warashi’s like this. What are we supposed to do now?”
“About that...”
Nagisa tossed something to me.
It was a perfume bottle. Namely, the one Nozaki Haru had used for the rotting smell that kept the zombies from attacking.
“I know it might be hard to use someone you know, but shouldn’t we test it out now that we have a zombie safely captured? It would be scary to see if the zombie bites or not when we’re actually in danger. Eh heh heh. We get to work together again...”
“You’re...right.”
Even if we couldn’t use the dump truck, there was nothing to be afraid of if the zombies wouldn’t target us. We could freely move around on foot then. Using that troublesome Zashiki Warashi to test Nozaki Haru’s perfume wasn’t a bad idea.
“So do we use it just like normal perfume? Let’s rub some in on the blood vessels of our wrists and neck.”
“Wait, ew!? It really does smell like rotting garbage! We’re supposed to cover ourselves in this!?”
“Well, yes. It’s supposed to make us unappetizing to the zombies.”
The swarm of zombies was gone and we had captured the Zashiki Warashi alive.
With no immediate threat, we may have grown a little lax. Out of self-interest, we were happier that we had survived than we were worried about the deaths of people we knew. As we celebrated, we rubbed in the harsh smell that stung at our eyes.
“Ugh... Did Nozaki really smell like this?”
“She was surrounded by the zombies already, so who knows how she smelled.”
After our preparations were complete, we turned toward the Zashiki Warashi inside the metal cage.
I just hoped she had grown a little more docile.
“Shinobu-chan...”
“What?”
“It looks to me like she’s still rattling the cage like crazy. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to bite us.”
“Huh!? What’s going on!?”
Nozaki Haru had used this to move freely through the zombies like a clownfish among sea anemone. Nagisa and I had sprayed the perfume on ourselves, but it wasn’t working. The red yukata Youkai still had a lock on us.
“Was it more than just the perfume?”
“You mean like it has to be mixed with something else?”
If so, there was nothing we could do. We hadn’t noticed anything else in her cloth pouch. It was possible we’d find some other bottle or sheet if we checked through her gruesome remains, but that wouldn’t tell us what we were supposed to mix together or at what ratio. It was unlikely to simply be 1:1. It was the same as picking up an ATM card when you didn’t know the PIN.
“So all we did was cover ourselves in this rotting stench?”
I threw the perfume bottle away in irritation.
We finally had no ideas left. The bear trap had small wheels and handles attached to safely transport the live bear, but walking through the mountain with that heavy cage would be too dangerous. It wasn’t as bad as the flat urban area, but we already knew there were zombies wandering around here as well.
Things would have been a lot easier using the dump truck out front, but I didn’t even have a driver’s license for a motorcycle, not to mention a car. Trying to drive would be reckless enough under normal circumstances, but this was a large truck on a narrow, winding mountain road while it was snowing. The odds were pretty good that would end up with us falling right off a cliff.
“Shinobu-chan.”
“What?”
“Let’s take a short break. I want to eat while we have the chance. This is a normal house, so the contents of the fridge should be fine. Don’t worry. I know how to win over my husband’s stomach. Tee hee...”
“Eat? After seeing all that?”
“All what?”
Nagisa nonchalantly made her way to the kitchen. All alone, I faced the Zashiki Warashi through the cage. The Good-for-Nothing Youkai seemed to have learned she could not damage the bear trap no matter how much she pushed or pulled, so she started gnawing at its bars.
“Stop it, you idiot. Honestly, how could this happen?”
“Gau.”
“Don’t you gau me. I’ll put a collar on you and keep you as a pet.”
Meanwhile, Nagisa returned. She held a few cans of food, bottles of water, sweet breads, and packaged ham and kamaboko. By this point, I no longer cared that I was in someone else’s home.
Reds and blacks covered the next room over and my clothes were covered in the stench of rotting garbage. My unease about the future weighed down on me. I was barely hungry, but I still nibbled at the edge of a ham slice. The single slice seemed to last forever. I eventually couldn’t stand it anymore and threw the remaining half of the slice to the Zashiki Warashi in the cage.
She sniffed curiously at the ham, tried to bite at it while on all fours, had trouble, and finally used her fingers to bring it to her mouth. However, she seemed to be playing with it more than eating it. She sucked at the ham, bit at it, and spat it out once she was bored.
“Looks like it isn’t just meat they want.”
“Is what they’re doing even ‘eating’? It may be similar to how a baby puts everything that interests them in their mouth. It’s just that the zombies pull at and bite at everything so strongly. Oh, dear. I’m talking with Shinobu-chan about babies...”
Nagisa sat in the hallway with her legs to the side and elegantly ate some stolen sweet bread. She seemed to be perfectly hungry and acting entirely normal for her.
After washing it down with some water from one of the bottles, she said more.
“Anyway, Shinobu-chan.”
“Yeah?”
It was a casual suggestion.
However, I had forgotten something important. We had just walked through a hellish world filled with zombies and this was Nagisa I was talking to.
“How should we dispose of that Zashiki Warashi?”
..........................................................................................................................................................................................
I had been wrong.
I had been mistaken. A chilly draft instantly blew away the gentle warmth surrounding me. Dry reality erased the warm illusion. This was no time to be relaxing. I didn’t have time to be taking a break. There were still a ton of problems to deal with and Nagisa was as much a threat as the zombies!!
“Wait, wait! Nagisa...what are you talking about?”
“Come on.”
She sounded perfectly casual.
She faced the cage with a thin smile and an unreadable emotion in her eyes.
“We haven’t heard anything about the zombies recovering. Why would it be any different for a Youkai?”
“...!!”
“So what are you going to do? Spend the rest of your life raising that Youkai in that cage? If you ever grew a little careless and got bitten, you could start a brand new zombie outbreak. It’s true the Youkai herself suggests there’s more to the spread than just biting, but it’s still dangerous. ...Besides, we don’t even know what the zombies eat. It looks like she won’t eat ham and we don’t know if humans are their food or just something else they put in their mouths out of curiosity like a baby. ...Hee hee. A baby. But what are you going to do after taking her back? Wait for her to wither away?”
Nagisa was as carefree as someone reading down a list in their notes, but those same words were wearing down my very soul.
“And the bear trap itself will deteriorate. You would eventually have to transfer her to a new cage, but you might have to face a full-power zombie when you do. Can you really force her into a new cage on your own?”
I get what you’re saying.
I do. I really do.
But that’s not it, Nagisa. This isn’t about whether I understand or not! I mean...dispose of her? Take her home? Why are we even talking about this!?
She’s been with me since I was born...no, maybe even before I was born.
She’s always been with me.
I felt something scratching at my chest. It was some bandages.
That’s right. That Good-for-Nothing actually treated my wound this morning. Is it so wrong to think that will never end!?
“Shinobu-chan.”
“...No.”
“Shinobu-chan.”
“No!! B-besides, not even you can kill a Youkai, right? No physical attack will work on them. So even with that huge cattle cleaver...”
“True.”
She admitted that almost too readily.
And then she said it.
“We also don’t even know if it’s possible to actually kill a zombie. We’ve been chopping them up until they stop moving, but we can’t prove they’re really dead. And this one is based on a Youkai, so I definitely don’t want to let her out of there. ...I’m not taking this lightly. But if we can’t kill her, we just have to find a method that doesn’t require killing her.”
“What are you-...?”
“I said how to ‘dispose of’ her, didn’t I? We could bury the entire cage in the dirt or pour cement over the top. If we were on the coast, we might have been able to borrow a boat and chuck her into the ocean. Even if we can’t kill her, there are plenty of ways of keeping her from moving. While she’s in the cage, she can’t move her arms and legs and she can’t bite anyone, so there’s nothing she can do. Isn’t that right, Shinobu-chan? And however they settle all this, I’m guessing they’ll make some reclaimed land somewhere for it. They’ll probably officially call it a cemetery or memorial park or something.”
“...!?”
historical
What the hell!?
What the hell are you talking about!? Reclaimed land? Calling it a cemetery? That won’t solve anything. This isn’t about not dirtying our hands because we’re not directly killing her! The zombie won’t die that way. Whether in concrete or the bottom of the ocean, the Zashiki Warashi will be buried alive there! Will it be for centuries? Millennia? How long would she have to continue suffocating!?
“She’s different...”
“How?”
“She’s the Zashiki Warashi!! We can’t just decide what happens to her like that!!”
“Perhaps not.”
Nagisa remained calm.
I didn’t feel like a single crack had opened in her heart. It felt like my fingers were sinking into a damp sponge.
“But Shinobu-chan, can you really say that when you’re the one putting her in a cage? Youkai may not have any rights, but is raising her as you see fit really the right thing to do? Can you really look me in the eye and proudly tell me that?”
“...”
“Would you keep doing that for decades? For centuries? Would you ask your children and grandchildren to look after her? Hee hee. Shinobu-chan’s children... But would that really make that Youkai happy?”
I was certain Nagisa was right about this.
I couldn’t rebut anything she was saying.
But that still wasn’t it.
We can’t just decide to keep her because it’s right or decide to bury her because keeping her wouldn’t be right! This Good-for-Nothing Youkai is too important to decide like that!!
“Shinobu-chan.”
Nagisa spoke gently and softly as if trying to get a small child to listen to her.
“I understand how you feel, Shinobu-chan.”
“How could...how could you possibly know how I feel!?”
“Do you remember the St. Bernard I used to have?”
My shoulders gave a start.
Just like the Zashiki Warashi and me, that had been Nagisa’s partner since before she was born. And when that dog had grown old and lived a life of suffering, who was it that had taken its life?
“No one wants to say goodbye. We don’t want to think about the end. But sometimes you have to. ...Not being able to control your own life is painful. When people are telling you they’re suffering and that all life comes to an end, it’s irresponsible to refuse to listen. Shinobu-chan, do you think that Youkai is happy right now? Do you really believe that?”
Stop it.
“She doesn’t know who she is, she’s trapped in a cage, and she’s baring her fangs against the person she most wanted to save, even if she always complained. ...Are you going to keep that going for decades? And if you make a mistake in caring for her and get bitten, you’ll become a zombie too. If she has enough of a mind left to understand that, how much despair do you think she would feel? Hurting the people you care for the most hurts more than anything else. I know that alllll too well. Do you think she might prefer saying goodbye here and suffocating for an eternity to that?”
Please stop it!!
“Shinobu-chan. ...Like I said. I understand how you feel.”
She reached for the thick glittering blade of the cattle cleaver named Namagusa.
“Just because it’s the most logical answer doesn’t mean the human heart can bear it. So Shinobu-chan... If you insist that you can’t do it, then let’s think up some other way that doesn’t require dirtying our own hands. Maybe create a slope that will send the cage down after some amount of time passes. And digging a hole isn’t difficult. It’s possible we could find some other solution years or decades later and we could dig her back up.”
“Just stop it!!!”
I cut her off at the top of my lungs.
My mind had gone entirely blank.
The next thing I knew, I had grabbed something from the hallway wall. It had a wooden handle like a mop, but with a beak-like piece of dark steel on the end. It was known as a hooked rod and it was an old tool meant to clear underbrush from a path or destroy the surrounding homes to prevent the spread of a fire.
And when I pointed that weapon at Nagisa, she narrowed her eyes in a horribly, horribly cold look.
“I see...”
“No, um, Nagi-...”
My attempts to explain myself did not reach the girl in front of my eyes.
Something gave a roar and the air split apart in a horizontal slash.
It was the cattle cleaver which was as long as a Japanese sword.
I raised the hooked rod, but not because I had tried to. It was more like ducking down when a ball flew toward your face. The impact reached me a moment later. I really did think my thumb had been taken out. More than just the muscle, I felt the dull pain of the bone shifting out of place.
“Ah...gh...!!”
Still, I did not drop the hooked rod.
My bones had not actually broken.
I finally moved back, dragging my aching arm with me. She had lured me into using my dominant hand to prevent me from using it anymore. She was preparing to kill me. I moved away from her. Oddly, I ended up with my back against the bear cage holding the Zashiki Warashi.
“Do you understand, Shinobu-kun?”
Nagisa opened her eyes strangely wide and let Namagusa sway loosely in her grasp.
Her movements were far removed from kendo or proper sword fighting, but they were endlessly terrifying. She looked like a hopeless wall that would only get me chopped in two no matter which direction I attacked from.
“Do you really understand what it means to make an enemy of me here?”
“...!!!???”
Don’t let it get to you.
Don’t lose heart before the fight even begins. If you can’t beat her with 100% of your strength, don’t even think about trying to defeat her when your fear has weakened you to 50% or 60%!!
You can’t give in on this one.
Whether she’s a zombie or whatever else, I can’t give up on that Zashiki Warashi!! Just because she’s a Youkai and we might not be able to kill her is no reason to bury her in the dirt and leave like she’s some old rotting garbage. I can’t allow that. Youkai don’t die and zombies are immortal, so we might be able to dig her up years or decades later? That isn’t the point!! I can’t bury her in the first place!!!!!!
That may have been the most logical choice.
It may have been a kind suggestion that took my feelings into consideration and hid the end result from me.
But...
“We don’t know yet.”
“Shinobu-chan?”
“This zombie outbreak isn’t being caused by a strange curse or a mysterious pathogen. It might have to do with the Youkai known as a Kasha! If this is a Package someone set up, everyone might be freed from their zombification if we eliminate the Package!!”
I desperately tried to push back with my voice, but Nagisa took a casual step forward.
Her huge cattle cleaver swung diagonally toward me.
“Gwaahh!!”
My hand stung as it held the handle.
I couldn’t think about defeating her. It was practically a miracle I was blocking her attacks at all.
“Allow me teach you some manners... This is the same as the hierarchy of dominance among animals. While family is of course important, you need to be strict with them when necessary or a lot of children will begin to see themselves at the top of a strange pyramid-shaped hierarchy.”
No, it was possible she was intentionally toying with me. I wasn’t blocking her attacks. I started to get the feeling she was targeting my hooked rod to punish me.
“Shinobu-chan.”
“...No.”
“Shinooobu-chaaan?”
“No! No!!”
The pain in my hand was also part of her setup. When I flinched back, she took action. Her tail fluttered behind her and the cattle cleaver shot up. She raised it high. She was exposing her body to danger in order to pull off a shooting star of an attack with the most weight behind it. By the time I realized that, she had already swung the cattle cleaver and almost double the impact reached me. She made more and more of the same attack. I felt like my fingers were going to break before the hooked rod. No matter what I did, I was gradually pushed back.
The bear trap was already right behind me.
The zombie in a red yukata shook the bars. If I moved back any further, she would grab my back. She would bite me and it would all be over. Nagisa was telling me to give up before that happened. A wordless pressure was telling me to realize that was a dangerous enemy rather than a woman I had to protect.
But...
But!!
I’ll say it as many times as I have to: but!! She may be stupid, good-for-nothing, and useless. She may be the kind of person who ends up turning into the worst zombie of them all when she tries to save me. But!!
She still came here to save me.
If she hadn’t tried to go against her character here, this wouldn’t have happened.
I can’t punish her for trying to help. I don’t want to! How can I just abandon her here!?
The decapitated people might be a lost cause.
The people who have been devoured and had their organs dragged out might just die even if they turn back into humans.
But this Zashiki Warashi has no obvious injuries. Her eyes may be muddy, but her hair and skin are perfectly lively. If there’s a way to turn the zombies back to normal, she might be able to return to her normal life as a Good-for-Nothing Youkai. Right!?
I’ve had enough.
I’ve had enough of simply giving up on all the lives around me!!
“P-pant! Pant, pant...!!”
After thinking through all that, my thoughts started wandering.
Oh, so that’s it.
I looked at Nagisa’s face again.
Whether consciously or subconsciously, she may have had a reason for advocating such drastic measures.
“If we found a way to turn the zombies back to normal...”
“What is it, Shinobu-chan? Do you want me to call you a good boy now?”
What would that mean for everything Nagisa had done?
Once I realized that, all sound seemed to vanish.
The nearby deaths were filled with the same stinging warmth one felt when holding ice barehanded for extended periods of time.
I had not out-and-out praised Nagisa’s actions, but in our extreme situation, I had considered them acceptable. She had even saved me several times.
But that was based on the assumption that the zombies could never return to being human, so killing them was the only option.
What if there was some other way?
What if Nagisa had been killing human lives, not zombies?
What would that mean for Nagisa? It was unlikely the courts would be able to handle an unprecedented zombie outbreak. And as a minor, the law and privacy concerns might treat her favorably.
But this wasn’t about what other people thought. Could Nagisa herself forgive her actions?
So she would prefer that the zombies did not return to normal.
That was why she could not stand to see me protecting the Zashiki Warashi. This was different from killing. She held no grudge or hatred toward the Zashiki Warashi. She simply wanted to put her mind at ease by going through the motions of “disposing of” that zombie. She wanted me to show everything was fine and that I accepted her point of view.
“I can’t believe this...”
“?”
My expression twisted and Nagisa slowly tilted her head.
She gave me a crazed look with the giant cattle cleaver glittering in her hand.
She looked like that St. Bernard waiting for further instructions.
Nagisa had acted on her own to defeat the zombies, but did I have any right to criticize her when I had just sat there and let her rescue me? Couldn’t you even say my inability to do anything had forced the role of killer onto her?
So this was a choice between extremes.
Would I choose the zombie Zashiki Warashi or the zombie-killing Nagisa?
This was my first and final choice where choosing one would mean decisively forsaking the other.
Why?
Why wasn’t there a convenient way to choose everyone? Why wasn’t there a way to not hurt or abandon anyone, like I was creating a cheap harem?
I raised the battered hooked rod in both hands and faced Nagisa once more. Her cattle cleaver could lop off the heads of those zombies that were as strong as bears. Depending on how I answered or how she felt, I could be chopped to pieces right here.
I tightly clenched my teeth.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
And I chose.
“Sorry, Nagisa. I just can’t abandon this Good-for-Nothing Youkai!!”
I said it.
They were decisive words of parting.
But I couldn’t.
It was simply not something I could do.
Call it na?ve or unrealistic, but I couldn’t see myself burying her alive, leaving her to suffocate for eternity, and just forgetting about it all. I wouldn’t make i-->>