THE SHRINE GIRL AND THE SEALED DEMON
The three of them ended up playing the whole day. Keito bought them plenty of things at the candy shop and told Yayoi what Nanao was usually like, while Nanao got back at him by dredging up embarrassing secrets from his past.
Their busy day of fun flew by. When evening arrived, Yayoi returned to the small shrine once more.
“Sounds like you had quite a lot of fun.”
“I’m sorry, I must be boring you.”
“Not at all. Old folks like me love hearing about the antics of you children.”
Yayoi had encountered this strange demonic sword on her first day in Asakusa. It was now her fourth day of meeting with it.
The one who’d stopped her from drawing its blade out of curiosity was none other than the blade itself. Understandably, her shock had been great. But she didn’t throw the sword down and run off, since it was her friend’s family heirloom.
“Um, umm… Hello?
…Now this is a surprise.”
The demonic sword had fully expected her to run away in fear. She was only an elementary school girl, after all. But instead she stayed and warily talked to the sword. After talking with it more, she understood that it meant no harm and her fear of it faded away.
After the initial strangeness, she found the sword quite easy to talk to. Every word it said overflowed with consideration for her young self. It was always kind to her when she visited, so she met with it in secret every day.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind you.”
“I think so too. Keito-san’s kind, like an older brother.”
She told the sword how she’d played with Nanao and Keito that day. It reacted a bit strangely when the topic of Nanao came up, but it listened to what she had to say even more attentively than a father would. She enjoyed her conversations with the strange sword.
“Oh, by the way…”
“Yes?”
She’d come to understand some things about the sword over the past few days. She could only hear its voice when she touched it, which meant she wasn’t hearing its voice with her ears but through her skin. Another thing was that the sword itself wasn’t exactly the one talking, but the person contained inside it. After learning a demon had supposedly been sealed away by the sword, she could guess what kind of being she was speaking with.
“Keito-san said the sword in this shrine was a demonic one that had sealed away a wicked demon. Is that demon…you, Sword-san?”
The sword’s name was Yatonomori Kaneomi. According to legend, it had sealed away a terrible, terrible demon.
“It is. I am the demon sealed within Yatonomori Kaneomi.”
“So…you’re a wicked demon?”
“I’ve committed my fair share of heinous acts.”
“Hey…nuss?”
“It means I’ve done many bad things.”
He said it like it was nothing, but Yayoi couldn’t believe it. After talking with him for four days, she knew he wasn’t a bad sword. She didn’t think he was somebody who deserved to be sealed away. “You don’t seem evil.”
“The more wicked the person, the better at deception they are. One shouldn’t trust what someone says just because they act kind—especially not a cute girl like you.”
“C-cute…? Wait! You’re trying to distract me.”
“You got me. But I’ve proven my point, haven’t I? Kind words can be deceiving.”
She glared at the sword in her hands, but since it had no expression to read, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His voice did sound like he was enjoying himself, though.
“Fine. Let’s just say I fell for your kind words, then.”
“You don’t need to sulk. I meant it when I said you were cute. Just let what I said about kind words often containing lies remain with you in some corner of your mind.”
“A-all right. Jeez.”
In the end, she couldn’t tell how much of what he said was true or not. That saddened her a bit, and being called cute made her feel bashful, so she pouted a little. Soft laughter came from the sword.
She enjoyed talking to him, but she didn’t like being treated like a child so much. It didn’t help that she understood he was telling her this out of genuine concern.
After chatting with him some more, she suddenly remembered to ask, “Sword-san, don’t you want to come out from there?”
“Pardon?”
“You were put in this sword against your will, right? Don’t you want to come out?”
“It’d be a lie to say no. There are some people waiting for me. My memory was a little fuzzy after I was sealed, but I’ve recently become able to recall them. I feel bad making everyone worry.”
He had been in the hands of a young man for a time. He couldn’t recall the past at all then, but after he was returned to the shrine, his memory slowly started to come back.
His words didn’t make much sense to Yayoi, but he said not to worry about it, so she didn’t. Instead, she thought about how he must have felt.
“Then—” She began to say something, but he interrupted her in a firm tone.
“Yayoi. You mustn’t think of releasing monsters that have been sealed away.”
“But…”
“Thank you. Your feelings alone are enough.”
The fact he would say such a thing made her even surer he wasn’t some wicked demon. She didn’t think he was trying to deceive her somehow. Even though she was a child, she felt bad for him and how he’d been sealed away in a sword and left all on his lonesome in this shrine.
“Don’t worry about it. There were some things I wanted time to think about, anyway. Being sealed away like this presented a good opportunity for just that.”
“R-really?”
“Yeah,” he replied in a lower tone. “It’s not that I don’t want to return, but I still have these thoughts that lead nowhere stuck on my mind.”
✦ ✦ ✦
THOUGHTS THAT LEAD NOWHERE, THE HEARTBROKEN YOUNG MAN, AND THE SHRINE GIRL
Yayoi used to think adults knew everything, but even the strange sword that was far older than her had things it didn’t know. She realized how unsure of himself he was from the self-derision in his voice.
“But I still have these thoughts that lead nowhere stuck on my mind.”
She wanted to help the sword, but she didn’t know what she could say in that moment. This was the first time she felt the pain of not being able to help someone who needed aid.
Takamori Keito wanted to help his first love somehow.
“I still have these thoughts that lead nowhere stuck on my mind.”
But he didn’t know what to say to her in the moment. Being a child was rough. If he were just a little more mature, maybe he could’ve done something for her.
He used to think adults knew everything. He’d grown since then, learned many things himself, and experienced many things too—but the things he didn’t know had only increased in number.
Was that because he was still a child? If he became an adult, would he finally have answers to all these remaining unknowns?