That night, a luxurious meal was carried to Yae’s room as if the villagers mistakenly believed she planned to leave at once. And after her bath, a group of children approached her to offer candies made from honey. Yae knew they were trying to keep her there until Hotaru was completely cured, and it made her feel awkward. She decided to go to bed earlier than usual.
She was never able to relax on the fluffy Miya Province bed, probably because she was used to sleeping on hammocks. Her sleep was shallow once again, and she woke suddenly in the middle of the night. Feeling something was wrong, she pushed down the covers and sat up to find Arai’s black sword lying next to her. It looked just like his brother’s sword, except that Arai’s bore a gold teardrop pattern, and Sui’s had a black teardrop pattern. When in the world had it gotten under her covers?
“Isn’t this thing being a little too independent…?” Maybe it had decided to go on a nighttime walk, rattled into her room, and slipped under her covers. Wow, that’s a terrifying thought. No, maybe Arai had simply sneaked into her room and hid it in her futon. But why would he do that? This second option was just as terrifying.
Thinking she may as well take it back to Arai’s room, Yae adjusted her collar and sash, grabbed the sword, and stood up. She expected Arai and Sui would be sleeping in the next room. They had been given separate houses because of their genders, but the brothers had been ignoring that and sleeping near her. Nothing was going to happen between them, so she didn’t mind. I am Natureless, after all.
Yae held the black sword as she emerged into the hallway, which was also the veranda. She paused and leaned over the railing to look toward the river. It didn’t seem like Hotaru was struggling or crying. There were supposed to be bonfires burning down there, but… What was that?
“Torches?” Yae blinked. She gazed down and noticed there were torches set not just by the river but also along the stairs against the cliff face. Or was it a line of people holding torches and coming up the stairs? The house Yae was staying in was built on the top part of the cliff. Maybe the torch bearers were returning from a scouting trip to the river. That was what she thought at first, but something seemed weird about them… She could hear voices coming from the procession.
“Hello? Are you there?”
“Is that you? Are you there?”
It sounded like they were calling out to someone. Yae clung to the railing and strained her eyes.
“Are you there? Are you there?”
“Is that you? Are you whole?”
“Let us break, break your neck.”
Yae gulped. The torches were being held by shirabyoushi—female dancers from the Heian period in Japan—wearing red hakama. The arms holding the torches, however, were soot-stained branches. The dancers were all wooden dolls with circular holes where their eyes, mouths, and noses should have been.
They’re not human. They’re not shades, either! Yae shuddered, and the black sword rattled in her hands. She was so surprised that she almost dropped the sword, but she sensed that it was warning her to run, so she turned around and hurried back inside.
She burst into Arai and Sui’s room. There were two beds in the middle of the floor, with a human-shaped lump inside each; they were probably sleeping. Yae’s lamp had been set between the beds for some reason, and a red flame flickered within it.
“Wake up, you two! Something weird is happening—”
She pulled down their blankets without waiting for a reply and froze. There had definitely been a human shape under each of the blankets, but there was no one there. Instead, there was a pouch full of dried fruit in the middle of one of the beds. She picked it up and stared at it silently. She could hear footsteps approaching and voices saying, “Are you there?” and “Shall we break you?” The wooden dancers were in the hallway.
Yae jerked her head up. She had left the bedroom door wide open. She crawled toward the door to close it, the black sword in her right hand and the pouch in her left, but that was a mistake. A wooden dancer was already standing right outside the room. “Are you there?” the dancer asked.
Yae scattered the contents of the pouch before her and sat down holding the black sword aloft with both hands. She kept her head down, refusing to raise it. “I’m not here. There is no one to break,” she answered. After a short silence, the dancer picked up one of the dried fruits at its feet and left. But there was no time for relief. The next dancer stopped before the door just like the last one.
“Are you there?” it asked.
“I’m not here,” Yae answered.
She repeated the same exchange over and over again as each dancer approached. Strangely, the dried fruits scattered in front of her always returned to their original number no matter how many were taken. Eventually, however, the dancers stopped leaving right away and began to persistently ask, “Shall we break you?”
By now, Yae had come to realize that the dimension she was occupying had been slightly shifted—that she was on the grounds of some ceremony. She also realized the dried fruit offerings were beginning to lose their effect. They’re going to overwhelm me. Did she have some kind of charm that could drive them away? Her panic grew, leaving her unable to think straight.
“Shall we break you?”
“There’s no one to break.”
“Let us bend you, let us break you. Let us snap that adorable neck.”
Along with the voices came an object rolling down the hall. It was the wooden head of one of the dancers. Yae, her head still down, met its gaze. She stared into the pair of deep black holes.
Oh no. Yae realized the danger she was now in. She immediately drew the sword from the scabbard, and with a once-in-a-lifetime reflexive reaction, she swung the sword down and cut off the arm of a dancer that had been reaching toward her. Unfortunately, the miracle ended there. She looked down at the dancer’s fallen arm and lost the will to fight. The arm was a branch, sooty to the core.
“Let us break you, let us break you.”
The dancers streamed into the room one after another. Trying to respond to them all would be pointless. There was no end to them, and they were clearly after her.
I’ve been cursed. Somebody had cursed her, but she didn’t know who it was. She might have been able to perform ceremony rites, but there was no way she could remove a curse from herself.
“Ah… I don’t want to die,” Yae muttered unconsciously. That’s right; no matter how hard things had gotten, she had never wanted to die. She wanted to live. Even back then, I struggled to survive. No matter how neglected she felt, no matter how much of an afterthought she was, she never wanted to give up on life. After all, if she didn’t continue to live, she would never know love or affection.