I wanted to be loved by someone. I wanted to love them back. I wanted to support them, bring them joy, and make them smile. She didn’t have any special reasons or tragic circumstances. It had all started with a very commonplace desire to make the people around her smile. She felt happy when someone smiled at her or talked to her. That was all. But as she grew into adulthood, her desires grew into cowardice and greed. She became so starved for kindness that she wanted to shovel it down her throat with both hands.
As Yae watched the approaching wooden dancers, Arai’s voice suddenly reverberated in her head. Do you have something you want to say to me?
“I want to live… I really want to live. But I hate being alone. I want someone by my side. Someone I like. I… Arai, I haven’t forgiven you for trying to kill me. Why haven’t you apologized? That’s so cruel. Hey, answer me. I-it made me feel miserable! Oh, I don’t care anymore. Just come here!”
Yae was venting her feelings straight from the heart, just like she had when she released Arai from the stone monument. When she was done, she laid a kiss on the blade of the sword, and then she heard a crack. It had come from the ceiling. “Huh?” she said, looking up as the ceiling fissured and broke. She watched, dumbstruck, as Arai landed nimbly in front of her with his heavenly garment around his shoulders.
“Will you stop yelling?” he said, looking down at her pompously. He began to scold her. “Took you long enough to call me. You had my sword, so you could’ve called me ages ago.” He ripped the black sword from Yae’s hands as she stood, expression blank, covered in wood chips from the broken ceiling. He then began to repel the wooden dancers by kicking them mercilessly with his feet and carving them up with his blade.
Really? He’s just going to brute force his way through this?! Yae had half expected the black sword to transform into Arai so he could gallantly whisk her away, like a scene out of some fairy tale. But that was just a naive fantasy. In reality, he crashed through the ceiling and began to smash everything to pieces with muscle. There was nothing romantic about it.
“Ha, I don’t know if this place is the result of a curse or what, but it doesn’t matter as long as I tear the whole thing down!” he yelled.
He’s such a meathead, Yae thought to herself.
After he had eliminated most of the dancers, Arai put on a show proving just how much of a meathead he was. He sliced through the sliding door with his sword and then cut down the thick pillars supporting the roof with one more wide swing. Yae trembled. Where did he get that strength from?
The house groaned as it began to collapse. Mission accomplished, Arai returned to a dumbfounded Yae, sheathed his sword, and effortlessly picked her up.
“Let’s go. Three, two, one.”
“W-wait…!” That was all Yae could manage before Arai stepped onto the railing of the crumbling veranda with her on his shoulders and leaped to the ground. Yae screamed. The house was built near the top of the cliff, meaning it was dozens of meters above the ground. It was like they were jumping from an apartment over ten stories high.
“Close your eyes if you have to!” Arai barked.
Trembling with fear at the feeling of air rushing past her, Yae responded on reflex. “I won’t!”
Yae and Arai were not alone in their descent from the cliff. The wooden dancers fell from the crumbling house as well, each one morphing into a pitch-black tree as it collided with the ground.
At a loss for words, Yae watched as the strange phenomena continued without end. The trees grew rapidly, shooting out countless branches that themselves sprouted black leaves and flowers. Finally, the trees began to sprout black deer skeletons. What are these trees, some kind of barometz plant? I don’t want any part of this…! The barometz was a legendary plant that grew sheep as its fruit.
And it didn’t end there—purplish-black snow had begun to fall. Arai looked puzzled and set Yae down. There was an unpleasant sploosh when her feet hit the ground, and she realized she wasn’t wearing shoes. She glanced toward her feet and saw that the earth had been covered in a viscous substance that resembled black oil.
Yae clung to Arai with all her might. He turned from his observation of the barometz plants to look at her and wrap an arm around her waist. “Hey, Yae… I think you still have something you want to say to me.”
He’s bringing that up now?! Yae was astonished, but when she looked up, his expression was entirely serious. She then had a sudden realization. Maybe he’s the one who has something to say to me. That felt right to her. Watching from the corner of her eye as the black deer skeletons continued to grow, she opened her mouth and posed a question.
“Do you have something you want to say to me? Tell me.”
Arai touched Yae’s cheek, and all her attention shifted to him.
“I do,” he answered with a difficult smile. He looked like he had been waiting some time for her to ask that question. “I detest people. Those bastards who sealed me…and you for trying to make me submit.”
“…Yeah, I know.”
“That’s why I won’t say it yet,” he muttered quietly.
He couldn’t apologize for killing Yae because of his persistent hatred of people and inability to trust them completely. Yae wondered if that was what he had meant. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t ready to share the reason he’d tried to kill her, either. But she felt worlds better. He had shared with her that there was indeed something he was not yet ready to say to her. She had wanted to know his feelings more than she had ever wanted the truth.
“I don’t have anything against you, really,” Arai said.
“Yeah… Okay,” Yae responded.
“My fate has been tied to yours. I won’t try to hurt you again… So don’t look so lonely. I was originally a god of high divinity. I was probably kind to people. Keep that in mind.”
Isn’t “kind” a word other people are supposed to use to describe you? Well, he probably felt guilty about trying to kill me all along, in his own way. Still scowling, Arai put his forehead to Yae’s. The sudden headbutt surprised her, and it hurt a little. He then started to rub his forehead against hers like a tiger cub. His bangs were itchy, and his breath was warm on her face.
Is he marking me? Yae thought with embarrassment just before she heard the plop of a heavy object falling into the black sludge. She returned to her senses and backed away from Arai slightly. The fully ripened—if that was the correct word to use—black deer skeletons fell from the branches one after another, shook their heads, and looked toward Yae and Arai. Then they bowed their heads, formed a herd, and charged.
“Exterminating monsters is my specialty. This must have been my purpose once. Get behind me!” Arai shouted. He drew the black sword from its scabbard and dashed forward, the cloth around his shoulders fluttering behind him as he slayed the black deer skeletons. He smashed each one apart with a single blow, but there were so many, and more continued to be born from the branches.