My uncle called out to me again and again, but his voice was perfectly clear.
It seemed like my voice wasn’t reaching him, though.
The Aburatori.
A time travel Package.
A deadly Youkai had gained so much power and was now targeting that Zashiki Warashi to gain even more power.
“A photo.”
My uncle was repeating the same thing over and over, so it would be difficult to communicate any further. I felt bad, but I ended the call to do something else.
“An altered photo!! The key to the time travel is a photo with the Aburatori added in!?”
What does it mean that the Zashiki Warashi has vanished?
Has she been sent to the past? Or has something happened to her in the past so she’s been wiped from the pres-…
No.
I don’t even want to think about that possibility!!
“Whatever the case, I need to find that photo. The altered photo is the source of all this, so I might find a way to solve this if I find it.”
I ran full speed through the night and to the thatch-roof house.
I ignored the surprised cries from my parents and pulled out everything that held photos: albums, digital photo frames, computer folders, etc. I looked through them all, but nothing looked out of place. I even asked my parents so I could check their computers as well. I must not have chosen the best way to ask because both my dad and grandpa hit me, but when I kept asking, they reluctantly agreed.
But even after all that, I found nothing.
That only left the Zashiki Warashi’s computer and smartphone.
However, I didn’t know the password for the computer and the smartphone had vanished along with her, so I couldn’t check either.
Was I stuck?
Or was I thinking about this wrong?
My uncle had mentioned photos, but did it not have to be ones from my house?
“Honestly, what are you doing? Stop worrying the old lady with your bizarre behavior.”
The annoyed Nekomata spoke to me, so I discussed the situation with her and she sounded even more annoyed.
“So that means the Aburatori can travel to a past era by altering a photograph?”
“Simply put, yes.”
“Then why would he rely on an album that is subject to someone else’s tastes? He would use a system that more evenly and generally takes photographs over a constant time and place. That would be a lot more convenient for time travel.”
“But he’s apparently trying to mess with the Zashiki Warashi and my past, so wouldn’t he want some records connected to us?”
“He gained this time travel ability by hijacking a Package some humans created, didn’t he? Why would those original humans assemble the Package based on your albums?”
Now that you mention it…
“But then what cameras or photos would they use?”
“They’re everywhere.” The Nekomata used her front paw to point left, right, and everywhere else. “Aren’t Intellectual Villages monitored by countless cameras to prevent crop thieves?”
My breathing really did stop for just a moment.
If the Aburatori had a technique to interfere with and alter such a massive system, the level of the threat shot up. After all, that would allow him to move to whatever time and place he liked within Japan.
But at the same time, something bothered me.
My uncle was a police detective and the police did not take action unless a crime was being committed. Time travel was an unprecedented incident, but there were no laws to punish it. It was “unprecedented” so that was only natural. In that case, my uncle had to have reached this time travel incident while pursuing some other incident.
For example, a crime related to a network.
If that was true, it supported the Nekomata’s theory.
Where and how had my uncle gotten this information? If I knew that, would it help give me a clue?
“Dammit. It’s no use. And he only just called me!”
The call wouldn’t go through. This was rare for an Intellectual Village with a perfect net environment. In fact, it made me worry about him.
But if I couldn’t check via my uncle…
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll use whatever’s available to me.”
With that answer, I called another number stored on my phone.
This one connected me to Madoka-chan, my class’s eccentric beauty.
“Hi there. What is it, Shinobu-kun?”
“Thank goodness the call got through. Are the communications working as long as it’s within the village?”
“Wait just a second! What’s this about communications not working? That is not good. If it affects my stock trading, this could be serious.”
“Um, doesn’t the whatever-it’s-called market close at night?”
“And what time is it in New York right now? And London?”
From the sound of it, Madoka wasn’t having any issues. Did that mean my uncle was in some complicated place or did it mean it was centered on me specifically?
“It doesn’t matter. Anyway, Madoka, you hire a bunch of armed guards, don’t you? Have you heard of any trouble with the security camera network? Like someone hacking in from outside?”
“Oh, how timely. But it’s actually about a conflict between online services, not hacking. A notification message from a major SNS and the automatic backup service sending the village’s camera footage to the backup server conflicted with each other. It apparently caused the system to freeze temporarily.”
“Freeze?”
“It apparently did a lot of damage on the SNS end. While the security programs were locked up, it seems someone stole quite a few IDs. Do you know what an abandoned account is? That’s an account that hasn’t been used in over a year and even the owner has probably forgotten the password. It seems someone has taken over those accounts and is posting all sorts of things, both true and not.”
“Did some hackers cause that major freeze?”
“It’s hard to say. The trouble occurred as soon as the security company added in a new backup storage service, so at first, it felt more like an accident.”
“What kinds of things are being posted?”
“As I said, all sorts of things. The most noticeable ones are those influencing stock prices or raising futures prices for brand-name crops. That’s why an arrest warrant was put out. …But it’s strange. I don’t know if some software is editing the date or what, but entries are being added in for five or even ten years ago. Something about seeing a dangerous Youkai.”
The time travel Package altered past photographs to make an individual actually exist in that era.
Was this an example of that?
If so…
“You said the freeze happened because two large systems came into conflict. That was used to attack the SNS, but what about the other side? Was the security camera network attacked too?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like anyone took control of the cameras, but it will take time to check the recorded footage. There’s just so much of it that it isn’t easy to check for traces of deletions or alterations. It does seem there aren’t any traces of massive amounts of data being moved around, though.”
This meant the Nekomata had been more or less spot on.
The security camera footage had been altered and fictional entries had been posted on that SNS to create witness accounts.
In this day and age, people relied on online data more than their own memories.
When people didn’t know how to write a difficult kanji, they would check an online dictionary for the answer. Even if it wasn’t quite how they remembered it, it wasn’t uncommon for them to generally assume the dictionary was right and correct the information in their own head.
And this went beyond mere knowledge.
If an altered photo with a date from ten years ago was slipped into your computer or home server’s electronic album, you might very well assume it must have happened and alter your own memories.
People’s memories – and thus the truth – could be edited by a third party these days.
“Enbi mentioned an incident like this before. Two Packages came into conflict and went out of control.”
“Just hearing that isn’t enough to know what you mean.”
The Aburatori could travel to any time period using false photos and witness accounts.
A monster like this couldn’t be defeated by clenching your fist and punching it.
What was I supposed to do?
If I didn’t prepare some kind of trick, I wouldn’t even be able to stand on the final stage.
“Madoka, can I ask a favor?”
“You already are, but what is it?”
“Since you know about the conflict between the SNS and the security camera network, your armed guards must have been directly affected, right? I need you to use that connection.”
After I finished asking my “favor”, I ended the call.
The Nekomata looked up at me while lying on the tatami mats.
“Mess this up and you’re dead.”
“Perhaps.”
“For one thing, why is a human even trying to pick a fight with a deadly Youkai? You do understand that no Youkai can be killed by normal means, right?”
“But it’s worth trying. Or at least, I think it is.”
Hearing that, the Nekomata slowly moved as if letting me past.
I left the room, ran down the hallway, and made my way to the entrance so I could enter the night once more.
But on the way, I found a small form sitting politely at the end of the dark hallway. It was a girl with long bluish hair and a white kimono.
She was simply there and she blocked my way as a part of the usual scenery.
She gave off the intimidation of a border god that prevented disaster from entering a village.
I spoke her name without thinking.
“Yuki Onna.”
“I need to speak with you.”
She replied with a dreadfully icy voice that gave a glimpse of her true characteristic.
She most likely knew where I was going and why. She knew that, but she was stopping me.
She was warning me just how dangerous it was.
She was telling me that facing this Aburatori was different from the previous Packages and that I was crossing a line.
But…
“Please sit.”
“No, Yuki Onna. I don’t have time to speak with you right now. If I’m too late here…if I’m even a second too late, it will all-…”
“Sit.”
That one word was all it took for my knees to give out. All strength left my legs. My entire body fell straight down like a spring being pressed down or a transforming toy created to move like that.
I was forced to obey her and enter a similar sitting position to her.
“Wha-…?”
I tried to speak in surprise and protest, but I realized I could not even do that. My teeth chattered and I could not properly move my tongue, lips, or throat.
Is this…the cold?
Is my body so messed up that I can’t even tell that!?
“I have lowered your body temperature by approximately two degrees.”
The Yuki Onna silently narrowed her eyes and spoke calmly.
“Welcome to the world of hypothermia. When stranded on a snowy mountain, this is the beginning of your fear. Your temperature is currently thirty four degrees. If I lower it by another four degrees, you are almost 100% guaranteed to lose your life. Did you know that?”
“Yu…ki…On…na…!!”
“Does this seem unreasonable?”
A dry sound burst from the wood surrounding her.
As she sat there, she looked like a giant boulder blocking the sole path back to civilization.
“But that is how Youkai work. You have resolved a few incidents involving Packages, but that is not the same as defeating the Youkai themselves. You do not seem to understand that, so I thought I would give you some advice.”
As I collapsed, the Nekomata gave a sharp hiss to threaten her.
It sounded more like a snake than a cat.
However, the Yuki Onna was unfazed. In fact, she turned a sticky gaze toward that small form.
“I will not spoil him as much as you, nor will I treat him as carelessly as you. At this rate, he will almost certainly die. Letting him continue while knowing that goes beyond letting him die. It is blasphemy.”
My heart hurt.
Intense pain came from the center of my chest as if my organs were being squeezed.
Had my temperature dropped even further?
“Frankly speaking, the Packages humans create are clever, but even another human can destroy them if they know how they work. It’s logical that humans can destroy what humans made. But that rule does not apply when directly fighting a Youkai.”
It no longer felt like I was confronting the single Youkai called the Yuki Onna.
This was a queen’s territory.
The entire frozen world was coming to crush a single human.
“Humans can explain how fish live in the water and how birds fly through the sky, but that does not mean they can defeat a fish or a bird in an actual competition. Explaining how it works only reveals that you have no way to win. …Similarly, your previous methods will not work against this Aburatori. If you think you can win simply by revealing his trick, you are 100% guaranteed to die. Do you understand that?”
Were all Youkai like this?
Were they this far removed from humanity just because they were a deadly Youkai?
“Oh…ah…”
I tried to reply, but my lips wouldn’t move.
My vision shook, blurred, and sank into darkness. A moment later, I could no longer distinguish between front, back, left, or right. I wasn’t even sure if I was seeing reality or an illusion brought on by the cold.
All I could see was a vast darkness I couldn’t focus on.
Beyond it was a pair of glittering golden eyes.
The color of those eyes stabbed into my consciousness to an odd extent.
“I have…a chance. Not even I am about to make a suicidal attack here.”
Like surpassing numbness and losing all sense of feeling, I stopped feeling the cold tearing at my skin at a point. Oddly enough, it almost felt like soaking in lukewarm water.
At the same time, I managed to speak.
I wasn’t confident I was actually getting the words out in reality, though.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if I had already passed out and this was just a dream.
Deep in the darkness, the golden eyes spoke.
“That chance is an illusion. Following it will not allow you to defeat the Aburatori.”
“That’s not true.”
“No matter what you may have built up in your head, you do not have the physical ability to pull it off. Even if it is theoretically possible to run on water, your actual body will be unable to keep up and you will sink. A human is nothing more than a fragile container.”
“I can’t know that…until I try.”
“No matter what plan you might have, you will drown if you challenge a fish and you will fall to your death if you challenge a bird. …I am not arguing against what may be in your head. I am not saying you lack the brains needed. I am saying just having the brains is not enough.”
“…”
It felt like time stretched out infinitely.
Or perhaps it was already over and I just hadn’t realized it yet.
“What do you have beyond your brains? What specific ability do you have to compare to a fish’s gills or a bird’s wings? I want you to show me. My supernatural ability is much more popular and closer to a physical phenomenon than the Aburatori’s. That makes it a good test, don’t you think?”
At that point, the core of my mind grew much clearer.
“That’s not what this is.”
“How so?”
“While dragging the conversation on and making me worry, you’re continuing to lower my temperature. You were planning to end it all here from the beginning.”
I heard a small sound.
Was it a laugh? Yes, the golden eyes were laughing from the darkness.
It was not the sound of an explosive revolution in my muscles. I had not removed some limiter in my head to achieve the ridiculous strength some people gain in a fire. My body was still a human one. No power of friendship or hard work had burst out to increase my potential five or ten times over.
Most likely, the cold had simply caused the house to creak.
But oddly enough, I took an unsteady step forward at that same instant.
I had realized something then.
That bizarre world of golden eyes floating in the darkness was not an illusion or a dream. The darkness did not stretch on without end and the golden eyes were not a vague monster.
I was still inside the thatch-roof house I had been born and raised in and the Yuki Onna sat only a few steps ahead.
If I could walk, I could reach her. There was a goal.
To keep me from noticing that simple fact, she had used the cold to rob me of my senses and judgment and she had trapped me in a labyrinth of my own creation. And she had done it slowly and carefully as if to safely freeze my body.
And with that realization, the very brains she had rejected returned definite strength to my body.
“There’s one thing I want to ask you.”
“What is that?”
I took a step.
“If I give up here, who can save that indoor Youkai? Can you or the Nekomata defeat that Aburatori?”
“I seriously doubt it. We could kill him in a direct confrontation, but his very existence is too elusive. He can attack us whenever he likes, but it would be rare indeed for us to find him. So if he focuses on fleeing, it would be difficult for even a deadly Youkai to kill him.”
I took a second step.
“Then leave it to me. Don’t crush other people’s possibilities just because you can’t do it!! And if he’s that dangerous, that’s all the more reason to go. I’m not going to back off because he’s dangerous. If he’s dangerous, it means I have to go save that Zashiki Warashi even if it’s reckless!!”
“Humans and Youkai are different. Is she truly that important? Having her around might be nice, but you can live without her. You would have to be insane to risk your life for something like that.”
I took a third step.
“You always act like family because we live in the same house, but when it comes down to it, you’re saying to abandon her because she’s a different species? She’s more important than that!! She’s been a part of my life from the moment I was born. In fact, she’s probably been a part of it since before that. I can’t back down here!! Whether it’s an Aburatori or whatever else, I’m not letting some bastard show up now and steal half of my life from me!!!!”
“…”
I took a fourth step.
I suddenly realized the golden eyes were directly in front of me.
I slowly stretched out my arm which was shaking uncontrollably.
The palm touched something and that slight sensation brought reality rushing back. Like a receding wave, the world of darkness returned to the familiar entranceway.
The sudden cold that had assaulted my entire body completely vanished.
My hand was placed on top of the Yuki Onna’s head as she continued to sit.
“Don’t worry.”
She remained perfectly motionless, so I spoke to her.
“I’ll be fine. This Aburatori isn’t a normal Youkai. He’s not your average deadly Youkai. He’s a cruel being that was born to kill, enjoys killing, and leaves behind nothing but killing. But I have a chance even then.”
“…”
Humans could not defeat Youkai.
I agreed with that. It did not even have to be a deadly Youkai. In a serious fight, I probably couldn’t even defeat a Zashiki Warashi or Umbrella Obake. If you still wanted to defeat them, you had to work to transcend the framework of humanity like Hyakki Yakou did. But this Aburatori was not in a normal state right now. He had transcended the framework of Youkai with human help, so the otherwise solid rule that humans could not defeat Youkai was beginning to crumble.
And so…
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I come back.”
With that, the Yuki Onna truly fell silent.
She had been using harsh words and acting sharply to get me to stop, but all that clearly ended.
I removed my hand from her head.
I put on my shoes.
I opened the front door.
With each of those completely normal actions, I was approaching the Aburatori who had put the Zashiki Warashi in such danger. This was no different from approaching death. Most likely, the Yuki Onna and Nekomata could see the great danger much more clearly than I could.
But so what?
My goal wasn’t to approach that creepy Youkai or to be sucked into his world.
Nor was it to save the Zashiki Warashi with a one-way ticket.
My goal was to return here and rejoin the family and Youkai who had forgiven my selfishness. That was what I had to focus on as I ran forward.
Are you watching me from the depths of darkness and madness, Aburatori?
Well, sorry, but I’m not looking at you.
Part 12 (3rd person)
The Yuki Onna remained motionless for a while.
The door behind her had already opened and the boy had vanished into the dark night.
This time, it was not an illusion or lie.
He had entered a black world where true death awaited him.
“Don’t you want to watch him leave?”
She heard the annoyed voice of the deadly Nekomata who had been left behind with her.
“He’s already left. Just as you feared, this might be the last time you see him. This world is unbelievably dry and puny humans are easily killed. I don’t think this is any time to be stubborn.”
“…”
The Yuki Onna did not reply.
Her warning had not reached him.
No, it had reached him, but he had still left for the battlefield, saying he would rescue the Zashiki Warashi.
This was one result.
It confirmed a certain order of priority. It was a simple and cruel answer that tore a hole in a girl’s heart.
“That wasn’t fair.”
But she spoke quietly with her back still to the entrance.
“He shows me the answer, chooses his path, and gives me a clear sense of loss, but he still leaves a slight possibility that fills the hole in my heart.”
“Sigh. What are you talking about? Weren’t you looking at him? A kid with his hair dyed blonde who runs out into the night searching for a girl is obviously a lady-killer. …Also, you were clearly unsure whether to stop him to protect or to kill him here so the Aburatori couldn’t. You just about lost sight of your original goal and gave into your desires.”
“Hmph.”
His final words had clearly been unnecessary.
If he had made her completely give up, it might have opened a different path, but that small bit of kindness had recaptured her with its massive pull.
She knew it was impossible.
She knew that, and yet…
“I hope he gets stabbed by a kitchen knife one day.”
“Yeah, but I hear he’s already been stabbed twice by a human girl, so I doubt even death would fix that side of him. He was stabbed in the side with a fruit knife and in the chest with a pair of scissors. He only survived the scissors because they were stationery scissors with a rounded tip, but he laughed and said he would’ve died had they been sewing scissors.”
“Damn him! I really need to give him a proper near-death experience!! I can put him into full cold sleep!!”
Part 13 (3rd person)
“It” stood in a place that once was.
The rural scenery resembled what any Japanese person held in their hearts as a sort of sacred ground. All of them were born in different parts of the country, but seeing a single photograph of that place would make them feel nostalgic.
“It” stood in an already harvested paddy field at night.
As if ignoring the weather radar and satellites, white snow poured down on this one isolated area. The area seemed to completely transcend the timeline. The moon directly overhead was a full moon. Like a sun shower, the snowflakes falling from the night sky glittered bluish-white in the moonlight.
This was the scenery from that time and place.
This was the place where “it” could gain everything it had so longed for. Even with the ability to control time and space, there was something there that “it” desperately wanted.
“I see.”
“It” slowly exhaled.
The breath was not that of a wrinkled old man. It sounded more like the oddly charming breath of a young woman.
“So this is what it’s like.”
Ten seconds before, a sense of elation had filled “its” body, but that sense was already gone. Just like the hundredth or thousandth time hearing a great song, the impression it left faded. It had very nearly reached zero.
To gain this, “it” had eliminated as many obstacles as possible.
It had even restrained from killing.
Or at least, it had tried to. It was not confident how much it had succeeded. It had tried to restrain itself, but the number of deaths may not have changed much. All of its memories of past deaths were vague. That may have been one of its traits. If it could fulfill its desires with its memory of the killing, it would not need to kill someone new.
But whether that restraint meant anything or not, it was no longer necessary.
“It” had achieved its goal.
The sense of elation from that fact had vanished.
And that meant “it” would return to its normal territory.
Time, space, and destiny.
In the perfect place, at the perfect time, and with the perfect method, “it” would kill and kill until it had had more than its fill. There was no reason for that. It had always been said to kidnap children, remove their organs, cook them, and retrieve the oil, but no one knew why. But even though no one knew why it did any of that, people had believed that monster existed.
People did not look for a reason in a symbol of fear.
People simply feared the method.
“Now, it is about time.”
“It” gave a thin smile.
“I will spread fear with every method available to me.”
This monster had surpassed even the realm of Youkai and it was about to be released on the world.
But a moment before it did…
“Wait.”
An impossible voice slipped in.
The voice clearly did not fit that perfect scenery that looked like a hanafuda illustration.
Part 14 (Jinnai Shinobu)
To be honest, I didn’t remember where I had run or how I had done it. If someone told me to do it again, I probably couldn’t. In fact, I was born and raised in this village, but I had never before seen a place like this.
It may have been cut off from the rest of the world like a hidden village.
Or perhaps the terrain itself had formed a labyrinth.
I wasn’t a specialist like Hishigami Mai or Hyakki Yakou, so I didn’t know the answer. Fortunately, that didn’t matter. What did matter was that I had made my way onto the final stage.
It was an unnaturally perfect paddy field of the kind any Japanese person could immediately picture in their mind.
It was a snowy landscape that completely ignored the current season and weather.
But the oddest thing of all was the Aburatori, that worst of the deadly Youkai standing in the center of the landscape.
“It” wore a conical hat with a large eye pattern that covered its head and face.
“It” was a woman with a glamorous figure and black hair that reached its ankles.
“It” was bewitchingly beautiful and wore a showy white yukata. “It” was terribly twisted.
“It” retained some vestiges of that indoor Youkai which only made it creepier.
“Oh, now this is unusual.”
The Youkai that everyone referred to as an Aburatori formed a definite smile on the mouth peeking out from below the brim of the one-eyed hat.
“Only those with the same sort of power as me should be able to reach this distorted place. But come to think of it, you are the one who that Zashiki Warashi directly saved. Perhaps you two were treated as antipodal singularities, just with one on the active end and the other on the passive end.”
“Antipodal singularities? I don’t know what that means, but are you sure you aren’t getting your terminology wrong?”
“Ha ha. As you can clearly see, I am an old-fashioned Youkai. I was merely using the general nuance of the terms. I don’t actually know anything about math or physics.”
The Aburatori stroked slender fingers across the brim of the one-eyed hat.
“So what brings you here today?”
“I’m here to take back what you stole.”
“Do you really think you can?”
“That doesn’t matter. Do you really think I made it all the way here just because ‘I can, so I might as well’?”
“I see. You say that like you loathe me. But really, you should be thanking me. Just as much as you should thank the Zashiki Warashi who once saved you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jinnai Shinobu-kun, I have continually rewritten a past incident to achieve my goal. I greatly altered the original incident to make it a child organ trafficking Package.”
The Aburatori smiled in absolute delight.
It was the look of someone tossing live fish into a pot and gradually raising the heat to cook them.
“So what do you think the ‘original incident’ was? Do you remember, Jinnai Shinobu-kun? Do you remember just how you were torn to pieces? Ha ha!! That is why you should thank me. It was truly and undeniably horrid. It was such an utterly and incomparably gruesome incident that the child organ trafficking Package seems like salvation in comparison. …It was so horrific that your Zashiki Warashi felt the need to alter destiny.”
“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”
“Do you understand now?”
The Aburatori smiled and smiled and smiled even more.
“Besides, there is nothing you can do. Nothing at all. Things are already settled between us. And they are settled so perfectly that nothing would change even if we repeated this one hundred times. What can you change by working yourself up here?”
I heard what sounded like scraping metal.
The next thing I knew, the Aburatori held dozens of metal skewers spread out like a fan.
“Oh, I know. If you are that dissatisfied with the altered past, how about I show you just how you met your end back then? I can place the ingredients on the chopping black, explain the process a step at a time, and finally give you a live demonstration.”
The Aburatori’s white kimono shook as “it” approached.
I was frozen in place as if entranced.
As if this was a fixed match that “it” just wanted to get over with, the Aburatori slowly stabbed the metal skewer into my eyeba-
Part 15 (Jinnai Shinobu)
“Oh…”
In the instant, the sharp skewer was going to pierce my eyeball, the Aburatori stopped moving.
The slender female arm trembled unnaturally.
“What…? My…body… My…arm…won’t move?”
“Do you think it’s just your body?”
I did not take a single step away from the skewer positioned right in front of my eye.
The effects had shown themselves, so there was no more need to move back.
“Why…? The scenery…the snowy full moon…and the paddy field are…collapsing. They’re melting…away. Why is…the symbol of my power…the power to even…control destiny…melting away?”
Your own traits let you pass freely through time and space. And once you gained “something more” from the Zashiki Warashi, you probably thought you were a god or something. Not a Youkai, but a god.
But that’s not the case.
Every Youkai has their advantages and disadvantages. Advantages can sometimes be disadvantages and vice versa. I seriously doubt there’s some convenient “perfect trait” that’s not a plus or a minus.
On top of that, you forcibly boosted your traits with human techniques. Even if your power itself had grown to rival that of a god, it was still manipulated by imperfect humans at the foundation.
I never had to worry about an unreasonable battle against a pure Youkai like the Yuki Onna feared.
I just have to destroy the human techniques at the foundation.
I’ll make your structure come crashing down just like removing a stone wall from a giant castle!!
“You took over a time travel Package that let you move to any era by placing yourself inside altered photos from the past.”
I quietly gave the answer.
“That made this easy. I just had to search through all the Intellectual Village security camera records you had targeted and delete all the image files you had altered. That erases the time travel. You used that to attack the Zashiki Warashi and steal her power in the past, so those events are erased too. But wait, there’s more. Your entire existence is relying on those photographs right now, so as soon as they’re all erased, your very existence is erased!!”
“Impossible… Impossible!! A mere high school boy could never search through and delete all of the video footage stored by a large corporation so quickly. Or are you claiming you are like a hacker from a movie!?”
“I’m not saying that,” I spat out. “You broke through the security of a large SNS and a security company’s video backup service by using the system malfunction when the SNS’s notification message and the backup service came into conflict. But it seems the security company had only just started using a new net storage service. That makes things simple. The occult criminal group that assembled the Package already had someone inside the security company. You set up that large-scale freeze, didn’t you?”
“…”
“That was the Achilles’ heel. I just had to make contact. Madoka has a contract with them for armed guards, so I asked her to contact the employee who had introduced the new storage. He was probably being threatened in some gruesome way by a deadly Youkai called an Aburatori, but he just had to be told this was his final chance. He just had to know this was his last opportunity to cut all ties with the Aburatori!!”
“That…bastard…!!”
“That employee has access to the video footage in the new backup storage, so he can easily tell which photos have been altered. Then he just has to delete those photos. And it looks like he made it in time. You no longer exist in any era of this world!!”
The Aburatori tried to shout something, but instead, the beautiful female jaw fell completely off.
“You seemed mistaken about something, but you didn’t think I was here to fight you, did you? I’m only here because I don’t want that indoor Youkai to vanish along with you.”
The precipice of not being able to kill a Youkai with a blade or gun was gone.
The Aburatori was nothing more than a still-living rotting corpse that would fall apart and vanish.
“Did I… Did I really look like such a saint that I would laugh it off as you tried to hurt that good-for-nothing Youkai that’s been with me since I was born or even before? If so, I really am going to laugh.”
The Aburatori was rotting away, so even a normal high school boy’s arm could reach inside. That arm could break through, push through, and sink deep down to drag something out.
“I came here to rescue that Zashiki Warashi. I didn’t care in the slightest about you!!”
Without hesitation, I thrust my arm into the stomach of the beautiful woman in a white yukata. I felt my arm piercing into rotten flesh as it sank further in. Soon, my palm felt a much smoother sensation. I grabbed it and forcefully pulled.
I saw a red yukata.
I saw the same glamorous Zashiki Warashi I had seen ever since I was a kid.
At the same time, the Aburatori in the white yukata burst to pieces like a water balloon.
So did the unnaturally vivid rural scenery.
In that place where she had lost everything, the Zashiki Warashi slowly opened her eyes.
“I never once asked you to save me.”
“Oh, really? Well, I never expected any thanks from you.”
Part 16 (3rd person)
Why couldn’t you tell I was being tsundere!? You idiot! You really are the worst!!
“H-huh? What???”
The day after the incident, Jinnai Shinobu finally returned to school after neatly settling the problem facing him. There, he learned the love he thought was over had not actually been over, but now it really had been destroyed beyond repair.
He returned to his thatch-roof house with a battered face, but the lazy Zashiki Warashi had no intention of giving someone in the family love advice.
“L-love? Eh heh heh. Are you asking about that despite knowing how jealous and particular about promises Yuki Onna are? I see, I see.”
“This sounds like a job for the Succubus brand aphrodisiac! I can’t guarantee what will happen to their personality afterwards, but they’ll definitely be yours for the night!!”
To escape the Youkai and demon creeping up to him, Jinnai Shinobu ran from his home at full speed.
The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata watched him leave with a sigh.
Two things had happened shortly after that incident.
First, Jinnai Shinobu and the Zashiki Warashi had compared their memories.
No matter how many times they had spoken, both of them remembered a child organ trafficking Package using the traits of an Aburatori.
The Aburatori was gone, but it seemed the definitively damaged historical information was not going to return to normal.
That altered past had become fact.
The second was something Jinnai Shinobu was not aware of.
While walking through the village to return home after the incident, the Zashiki Warashi had parted ways with him.
She had not had any real reason.
She had simply watched him walk back home ahead of her.
She had not taken a step from that spot.
Finally, her body had shaken and she had collapsed to the small paved road.
“…Kh…”
While taken into the Aburatori and stored inside the Youkai’s stomach, she had been able to hear what happened outside. She had heard what that worst of deadly Youkai had told him.
And she had heard what he had said.
“Did I… Did I really look such a saint that I would laugh it off as you tried to hurt that good-for-nothing Youkai that’s been with me since I was born or even before? If so, I really am going to laugh.”
His voice had been filled with hatred and hostility.
It was a voice she would never hear in that thatch-roof house.
“I came here to rescue that Zashiki Warashi. I didn’t care in the slightest about you!!”
It had been a shock, like something had been terribly dirtied. The Zashiki Warashi had destroyed something that she could never make up for even with the infinite time given to her as an immortal Youkai.
“Uuh…”
A sob escaped her throat.
The Aburatori’s inhuman actions had altered that past incident. All she could remember was the incident centered on a child organ trafficking Package and whatever the original incident had been was nowhere to be found.
But a fragment of a long-forgotten memory jabbed at her heart.
Long ago, in the maelstrom of the “original incident” before the past was altered, a young Jinnai Shinobu had met a Youkai visiting the village in the middle of a trip. It had been an Akaname. It was a harmless Youkai that licked up the filthy water left in the bathtub. However, it could give an unsanitary impression to others, so it was one of the few Youkai banned from the Jinnai household because they dealt in the production of drinks.
“It can’t be helped. My traits and your family’s situation just aren’t compatible.”
And the young Shinobu had immediately replied as follows.
“Then how about you play outside with me? Don’t worry. I can get along with any Youkai!”