Yae took off her shoes and forced herself to sing. While cursing her legs, which seemed like they could collapse at any moment, she held the black sword out in front of her with both hands, like an offering, and took one step forward. Kuroashi lined up beside her. Sure enough, he was telling her to perform the ceremony.
It was then that Yae noticed Kuroashi had no shadow. She had noticed, too, that the blood that fell from his wound disappeared inexplicably when it hit the ground. Maybe Kuroashi is a phantom. Now that she thought about it, she had never seen anyone else touch the tiger. It had taken Yae many years to become able to touch him herself.
“And by the heavens.”
The unsettling presence all around them grew stronger as she advanced.
“We worship high, we worship low.”
Something was following them.
“We worship here and gifts bestow.”
There was more than one presence. She heard the approach of beasts, of people, and of insects; the flapping of wings; the breathing of monsters. A veritable parade of demons was following behind Yae. She was convinced of that.
“In modern day as in times past.”
The tips of her fingers tingled from fear. I was supposed to marry a man from Miya Province. How did it come to this? Yae racked her brain. This is all wrong. Since when did marriage become so dangerous?
“Hear our worship, heed to the last.”
She wanted to turn around. She wanted so badly to see what was behind her. Was it really a parade of demons? But whenever Yae was about to stop and give in to temptation, Kuroashi glared up at her in warning.
Which way should I be going? Normally, she chased Lady Bihin to drive her away like in a Japanese tsuina ceremony. This time, however, she had no target to expel. Yae climbed the terraced fields and passed through a narrow lane. For now, she figured she should head away from the village basin and aim for the crimson pillar.
“By the hammer, by the high throne.”
Her stiff cheeks made it difficult to enunciate, and she felt like she was going to flub the lines of the chant. I’ve served as this ceremony’s envoy for a long time, but I’m still just as big a coward as I ever was! She had never watched horror movies. You would never have caught her in a haunted house. She had been a total scaredy-cat in her previous life.
“To the end of days do we sing.”
Yae knew the parade of demons behind her would attack as soon as they got the chance. She could hear the slurping of drool, causing her to shake uncontrollably and repeatedly mess up the chant. It was likely Kuroashi’s presence at her side that prevented them from striking.
“Seek ye our love overflowing.”
Beads of sweat ran down her forehead. She realized she had lost her veil at some point.
“We’ll hear no cry, we’ll hear no bell.”
All too conscious of the commotion behind her, Yae headed out of the village.
“Hear our worship and serve us well.”
Yae’s cold sweat would not stop. She sang this chant at every ceremony, and it had become almost like a lullaby to her. For some reason, though, she was suddenly consumed with doubt as to its purpose.
At first, she had thought it was simply a string of strange rhymes. After singing it over and over, she came to think it meant something like this: “We will always perform the festival in this land, so please don’t be mad at us for driving you away.” She believed it was at least partially meant to keep Lady Bihin in check.
Yae had a theory that Lady Bihin was the shadow of a goddess who drifted here from Japan. After losing all her worshippers, she turned into a fallen god that defiled the land with impurity. Yae believed this ceremony might have begun to prevent Lady Bihin from doing harm.
Now, however, she got the feeling the chant wasn’t that simple. She thought it might have a much more condescending meaning, more like this: “Even if we stray from the path, we will continue to give you offerings, cleanse your impurity, and worship you until the end. So don’t cry like a baby, and don’t clamor like a ringing bell. We’ll give you your worship, so obey us for all eternity.” If that was true, then who was the chant trying to force into submission? …Lady Bihin, of course.
Hold on. What have they been making me do all this time? This was like one of those festivals with secretly terrifying origins. Yae wanted to abandon everything and flee, but she could clearly feel the malice being directed at her from the parade of demons close behind; they would gladly attack if she suspended the ceremony. She had no choice but to continue.
Leaving all that aside for a moment, the sense of distance outside of the village was clearly wrong. How was the crimson pillar right next to the terraced fields? This is even more proof of my slightly different-dimension theory.
Yae held the black sword aloft and passed by the giant pillar, still trembling. Normally, her role would be finished here, but due to Lady Bihin’s absence, she didn’t know where to stop. As she fretted over that, another inexplicable anomaly occurred.
The scenery changed once again the moment she passed by the pillar. The ground beneath her feet turned into a stone-paved path that extended straight ahead. Crumbled stone lanterns lined the path on either side, lighting up only once Yae passed by them. She glanced at one of the lanterns to get a closer look and couldn’t have regretted it more. What she expected to be a candle burning with bluish-white light inside the lantern was actually a monkey head.
I never should’ve acted all mature and accepted the role of envoy. If she could go back in time, she would stop her child self from agreeing to everything so easily.
Yae spurred herself onward and felt another wave of regret. She saw a rugged stone monument taller than her standing in the middle of a square fence. The front half of a golden tiger was protruding from the bottom of the monument. She didn’t know how it had gotten its head through the stone, but that was hardly the strangest thing she had seen today, so she didn’t question it.
Yae was so afraid that she couldn’t blink. She studied the tiger closely. It had white and gold fur and faintly visible black letters on its forehead that looked like Siddham script. Its golden eyes were the dull color of rotten eggs, and there was black shading around them. A string of black prayer beads had been forced into its mouth like a gag. The beads were also wrapped around its front legs, neck, and the monument itself, as if they were doing their best to seal the tiger within the stone.
She didn’t have to know anything about this tiger to know it was dangerous. The violent look in its eyes greatly resembled Kuroashi, to the extent that he could have been an alter ego. At that thought, Yae looked to her side and noticed that Kuroashi had vanished. She immediately began to feel lost. When had he left her side?
How can I get out of this bizarre anomaly by myself? She had been entrusted with the role of envoy for the ceremony for many years, but she was Natureless and had no divine power. She didn’t have the special abilities of elebeasts, either.
Yae stepped back without thinking, and the golden tiger glared at her with eyes full of resentment. You can growl at me all you want; I still don’t know what to do…, she thought before realizing something. She still felt the terrifying procession advancing behind her. The golden tiger was probably warning her not to back up. She froze in fear, stuck between a rock and a whole bunch of demons.