A child was crying loudly.
This dream was a memory from the time when Nadeshiko had first become a goddess. It did not take place in the villa but in the apartment where she’d lived before. The odd thing was that she could see two other Nadeshiko Iwaizukis from her viewpoint.
A five-year-old Nadeshiko suffering from the succession she was going through.
And an adult Nadeshiko watching the younger one.
The present Nadeshiko Iwaizuki looked at the grown one from above, while the adult looked at the littlest one. It was a bizarre world.
“It hurts.”
When an Agent of the Four Seasons perished, a new one was born supernaturally.
First, the stigmata appeared on their body.
Second, a voice called to the newly appointed god.
And finally, the power of manifesting the season was unleashed naturally; the new god’s will to use their power was not necessary.
That was how the humans saw the god. The previous Agent of Autumn was old and met a sudden death. Nadeshiko became the new one as the pattern of chrysanthemums ran across her body like lightning, and the furniture around her decayed in the blink of an eye.
“I’m scared, it hurts.”
Unfortunately, there was no one to witness the birth of the new Goddess of Autumn.
Nadeshiko had become a goddess while her parents were out of the apartment. It had been a few years since Hinagiku Kayo was abducted by the insurgents, so snow was falling in Yamato even during springtime. Summer had yet to come.
It had not been the parents who’d found their lonely child suffering in the dark apartment, but a member of National Security who had received a report from a neighbor from the lower floor about a strange smell and noise.
Nadeshiko Iwaizuki knew this. She remembered the cold and emptiness and loneliness of that day.
“Somebody.”
She knew shouting was useless.
What expression did the grown Nadeshiko have on her face as she watched the young one cry in pain?
Nadeshiko wondered, but she couldn’t see.
The adult’s hair was far longer than it was now. Curly hair grown out in imitation of her dear goddesses of spring and summer. It sometimes shuddered along with her shoulders from holding in her sobs.
Why is she crying?
Present Nadeshiko wasn’t very sad.
The memory was still fresh in her mind, but she saw it objectively as just another thing that happened in the past.
So many memories.
After her parents arrived, although they knew it was inevitable, they seemed upset that she couldn’t moderate her power and scolded her for it.
The wonderful furniture of their apartment had been ruined, and Nadeshiko still felt sorry about that.
I should have held in my powers.
In the end, the whole family had to move out in order to hide the location of the goddess, and Nadeshiko was taken from Teishu to the honden in Tsukushi, where she could be better supervised.
She hadn’t seen them since then outside of festive days. It was nostalgic.
As she kept watching, she began to hear the cries of adult Nadeshiko alongside the screams of little Nadeshiko.
Her adult self now seemed unable to hold in the sobbing, her voice growing louder and louder.
Why? Nadeshiko thought, having already overcome this memory.
Why are you crying? You’re an adult.
Did becoming an adult make you weak? Such questions popped into Nadeshiko’s head.
She wasn’t sure what to do as she saw the adult’s shoulders shrink and shrink.
It was harder for her to look at her future self crying than her past one.
She wondered if she would continue to suffer even after she grew up.
“Come, Nadeshiko.”
Suddenly, someone called her. Rindo was standing next to present-day Nadeshiko in the dream.
“Go be with her. I feel bad for her.”
Nadeshiko wanted him to console adult Nadeshiko.
But Rindo hugged present-day Nadeshiko.
Not me. Her.
But before she could say the words, the dream ended.