Akari hesitated, heart-struck. Was he saying goodbye?
“Remember when you said you’d be lonely without me? Was that just a lie?”
“No. I was a hundred percent serious.”
He seemed confused by her question but answered readily. Akari felt anger bubble up inside her, then burst out.
“Then stay the course! Like a tenacious, unmovable demon! …Idiot!”
“But, Mistress Akari, you fear me…”
“Oh yeah, I fear you! I do, but you’re still my Mr. Demon! My friend, who I thought was the coolest! Who I longed to play with! You want to be wonderful in my eyes? What’s wonderful about bailing on me now?!”
The red-coal eyes widened as Akari glared, shaking with emotion.
Her tears spilled down her cheeks and plopped onto the cover of the Kotogatari in her hands.
It was anger that was making her body shake. Anger over the audacity of this demon…and her own naiveté.
In that moment, Akari made up her mind. About everything that was going to happen from then on, about her entire fate.
Be brave, like a woman. She’d seen that saying somewhere.
“So watch this!”
“…Mistress Akari?!”
She slammed the Kotogatari shut. Closing a Kotogatari ends the current narration that is manifesting the Kotogami and allows a Narrator the opportunity to narrate anew.
Usually, the power manifested in the Kotogami will last until naturally expended, but for this demon, who had already exhausted its life span, it would serve as a self-destruct signal.
The demon’s red eyes opened even wider, and then the golden particles that made up its form began to disappear.
“Miss Akari, are you seriously discarding your own weapon…?”
Mitsuko snorted derisively, but Akari ignored her, immediately reopening the Kotogatari. Mitsuko’s face fell.
Her mind running a mile a minute, Akari took a deep breath.
She didn’t know if this would fix what had already disintegrated. But she knew that you could re-narrate a Kotogami. So surely all she had to do was start over, narrate again, and he would be healed. Right?
The first time she had narrated the demon, she had simply read what was written, never thinking any deeper about it. She also didn’t know how this demon had managed to remain manifested for over ten years. He had said that her narration had brought him happiness. She would narrate again in hopes that he would be spared. Just one more prayer.
As an adult, she understood now.
“You are a fearful sight to behold. Those horns, those fangs, they are just as they were described in the folklore of my village. You are the physical embodiment of all the world’s evil. You can steal lives with a mere swipe of your arm. But you also spent peaceful days playing with a child. You were a faithful, if annoying, servant to your mistress. You have a good heart and a desire to right the wrongs you caused. You are so much more than what you were!”
Yes, the demon tale she narrated twelve years ago was correct. The truth was horrid, shocking.
But the Kotogatari did not contain the entire story. Only Akari could tell the truth about the creature standing before her. She had to tell his real story. Whether in written or spoken words, that power lay only with her.
If she could just tell the story over…
She’d opened the book to the final page. It was fresh, blank. She stroked it with her fingers.
Glaring up at the rapidly disappearing demon in front of her, Akari began to speak in a loud, clear voice.
“Demon of gold, you symbol of corruption,
you crystallization of evil!
Your hubris and wickedness led you to losing your head,
and still your wrath endured!
Until you befriended a human child
and awakened inside yourself a desire
for goodness, and happiness, and peace!”
Yes. That was how Akari saw him.
A spirit with a terrible demonic past, who saw human suffering as insignificant, until he met a child who insisted on seeing the good in him.
How he frustrated her, and yet, she still wanted him by her side.
“…The Aratama Tomohito Yagyou!”
If this didn’t work, Akari was happy to die right then and there.
If this merely provoked the demon, then let him slay her.
After all, one shouldn’t manifest a Kotogami lightly. One must always be prepared for the consequences…
The half-crumbled Kotogatari in her hands was suddenly giving off waves of heat.
Red and gold streaks were rising off the final blank page.
The streaks shot past the Raiju, stopping the beast in its tracks. They blew past Mitsuko, who was standing wide-eyed with disbelief. They wrapped themselves around the disintegrating demon and manifested a new body for him, a body shimmering in gold. Then the streaks disappeared.
Standing in front of Akari now, in the form of a slim and handsome young man, was the Kotogami Akari knew as Tomohito Yagyou. But he wasn’t wearing his familiar three-piece suit. Instead, he was clad in a gorgeous kimono, the likes of which any woman could only dream of wearing. Not to be outdone by the kimono’s splendor, his hair fell down his back in a swoop of the brightest gold. A single, slender horn rose high from his forehead. He had been completely renewed.
His eyes were a glittering ruby red.
He was beautiful, bewitching, extravagant. The shining, dashing demon of a child’s wildest fantasies. He was just as Akari had always pictured when she was a child.
She felt weak, exhausted. But she spoke his name.
“Tomohito…”
He turned to her, golden hair flowing. His solemn face suddenly crumpled as he began to cry.
“Mistress Akari, why? Why did you narrate me anew?! Now I can’t disappear in a noble and heroic way as I always planned!”
That petulant, tearful face. Akari had come to know it so well over the past two months they’d spent living together. Feeling relieved, Akari held up the book.
It was such a thin volume, but it felt so heavy in her hands.
“You came to me in my loneliest hour, and you were by my side as a Kotogami, even as I claimed to hate stories. And that is the true tale of the demon I love.”
A tale that was precious to her. And she wasn’t about to let it disappear on her.
Tears falling down his face, Tomohito tried to say something. But he was drowned out by the bonging of the grandfather clocks’ gongs.
“Why?”
The sound was deafening, but Mitsuko could somehow still be heard, her voice hard and cold.
“Why can you do it all, Akari? Why can’t I? What is it about me that isn’t enough?”
As Mitsuko’s shrieks rang out, the Raiju seemed to jitter and twist in pain.
Mitsuko fixed Akari with a glare dripping with hatred and malice.
“Why can’t I do the things you can do?!”
After Mitsuko’s enraged scream, the Raiju instantly began to swell, crackling streaks of electricity arcing in every direction.
Tomohito grabbed Akari by the arm and pulled her aside, just as a thunderbolt struck the floor right where she had been standing.
With a thunderous roar, the Raiju threw itself against the wall of the warehouse. It rebounded, still writhing in agony, rampaging this way and that.