Eventually, Kairi looked down as if to hide his face and answered. “Because I’m a bad boy.”
“How so?”
“I’m not related to Mr. and Mrs. Okazaki by blood. But we lived in the same neighborhood, and Grandma and I were friends with them. When Grandma died, I didn’t have any relatives left, so Mr. and Mrs. Okazaki took me in. I don’t think I should be there, though.”
“It’s not that you don’t want to be there?” Itadori said.
“I’m not their family. They’re just being considerate. They feed me and send me to school, but I’m afraid that I’m bothering them.”
“I see.”
For a little while, Itadori didn’t say anything. He wasn’t so much organizing his thoughts as taking the time to build up his determination. At last, he sighed deeply and spoke. “You put that curse there.” Itadori looked directly at Kairi for the first time. “And since you put it there, only you can get rid of it.”
“Me? No, I can’t! Anyway, what do you mean that I put it there?!”
“What if your family is in danger?”
The sound of swinging stopped.
Kairi turned unsteady eyes on Itadori. They were full of a fear greater even than when he had looked upon the demon.
“What do you mean?”
“That demon is always stationed at your house, right? Maybe you are afraid it could attack Mr. and Mrs. Okazaki?” Itadori asked.
“No way! It threatens me!”
“But the one it attacked was me. Can you guarantee it won’t hurt someone else? After all, you do like the Okazakis, right?”
“Well …”
“Your fear gave birth to that curse,” Itadori explained. “If you want me to shut up, fine. But if you want to go home, you gotta work with me before there’s no place left for you to go home to.”
Itadori got off his swing and stood in front of Kairi.
As a streetlight shone behind him like a spotlight, he extended a hand toward Kairi. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t think I can beat that demon alone.”
Just then, the clock struck nine thirty.
Kairi took the hand that Itadori had offered and got off the swing.
They ran toward the house.
Itadori was hung up on what Kairi had said. The boy didn’t think the demon would attack other people in the house? Those words echoed over and over inside his head as they ran.
Itadori coughed in the cold night air, and his heart pounded in alarm.
In the dark nighttime streets, worries assailed him. Alternating rapidly in his mind were the images of the demon that had attacked him and the faces of the family that had taken the boy in.
Rounding a corner, they entered the familiar lane. If he kept running straight, he would arrive at the house.
“Um, Itadori … ?”
“Seriously? It’s getting bigger?!” Itadori exclaimed.
They could clearly see it, even from a distance.
“Tryyyyyy agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.”
The body of the demon, the size of a beach ball, had now bulked up to the dimensions of a station wagon. Its hulking arms spread to block the street, and the two mouths in its eyeless face were baring and grinding their teeth menacingly.
Itadori had a basic understanding of why. If Kairi had given birth to this curse, it grew larger with his fear. The boy’s fear had swelled as he turned toward home, and that was making the demon stronger.
“I knew it! It’s no use! I can’t do it!”
Kairi turned to run away, and Itadori couldn’t catch him. But he could call out toward the boy’s back.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“But … but … !”
“While you’re running away in fear, you could lose your home! Is that what you want?!”
“Ah … !”
Kairi stopped. In great trepidation, he once again stared at the street. The giant, hideous form of the demon was still there. The fright welling deep from within kept telling him to flee … flee!
However, what he witnessed in the next moment drove all thought from his head.
“Kairi!”
Beyond the demon’s arm blockade stood Mrs. Okazaki.
She might have happened to step out for a stroll. Or maybe meeting Itadori had inspired a change and she had come out to welcome Kairi home. Either way, there she was, standing right beside the demon.
And the demon’s attention had shifted from Itadori to her.
“Mom!”
There wasn’t a moment to think. Kairi took off running, but not to flee. His feet were carrying him straight toward the house. He was running toward the person he had called “Mom.”
“Tryyyyyy agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.”
The demon’s gaze, which had turned on the woman, snapped back to Kairi. For the average person, the challenge of confronting a demon head-on would be like a nightmare. But Kairi didn’t stop. He was more afraid of losing her than he was of the demon itself. His hastening feet thumped across the ground with increasing speed. He raced along the road, heading toward home as if to drive away the darkness filling the neighborhood.
“Tryyyyyy agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.”
“Yeah, it’s about time.”
A shadow passed Kairi as fast as the wind. Itadori was swinging his right fist, packed with cursed energy. The demon didn’t have time to dodge. Itadori was tearing across the asphalt at top speed and at close range. He leapt under the beautiful moon.
“Divergent Fist!”
With incredible momentum, his fist bashed into the demon’s face. The demon’s arms, now as big around as logs, swung in an arc but were too late to stop Itadori’s attack.
“Tryyyyyy—!”
Cursed energy coursed through the demon’s body. Despite its size, it dispersed quickly. Just like a popped balloon, it deflated and whooshed away.
One blow from a sorcerer had removed the curse wall that had been blocking the street. The nightmarish evening had ended. Now without obstruction, the street returned to its former appearance.
Kairi was calling out. “Mom … Mom … Mom … !”
“Kairi … I’m sorry. You must have been so lonely.”
Kairi kept crying, “Mom!” as if to make up for lost time.
Most likely, not every problem had been solved, but at the very least, Kairi would stop wasting time in the park.
“Thank you very much, Itadori,” he said.
“No problem. Make an effort to get along with your father too, okay?”
Perhaps their farewell lasted a few minutes, perhaps half an hour. But after this exchange at the side of the road, Kairi bowed one last time to Itadori and finally disappeared inside his house. This time he wasn’t alone. His mother was by his side.
Watching the two of them depart, Itadori felt a strange sensation, as if he were suffocating inside, as if he might cry. But he was just saying goodbye to someone he had saved. When they were out of sight, he looked to the side of the road, where something the size of a beach ball was rolling around.
“Why, you …”
But Itadori immediately dropped his sudden alarm.
The demon, already on the verge of death, looked at Itadori with its eyeless face. The stitches slowly came undone and its
lips parted.
“Kairi is truly home now.”
When Itadori spoke, the demon’s shoulders shuddered. Then, with its face that was all mouths, the demon smiled broadly and vanished. Serenity enveloped the street, now that it didn’t have the tumult of a fight, a mother and child caught up in the trouble, or a lurking demon.
“I think it was his grandmother,” Itadori decided.
He didn’t have any proof. But if it were true, Itadori thought, she must have been a cool grandma. He thought her love and worry for Kairi must have outweighed all else.
“I need to be sure I don’t make Grandpa worry, either.”
He had decided on his own reason to fight. He hadn’t forgotten his grandfather’s final words.
Now he could help many more people, and there was no time to waste.
With these thoughts, Itadori turned and started walking down the nighttime street.
“No, not just my grandfather.”
Itadori was recalling his own death. How had Fushiguro felt when it happened? Had Kugisaki been sad? It certainly couldn’t have been a good feeling. Itadori knew that all too well.
“I need to go home now too.”
He would show everyone he was all right. With a bright laugh, he’d say there was no need to worry. This time, he would be stronger, and he would do more.
As his resolve firmed, Itadori’s feet turned toward home. Sometimes a detour leads you back to your rightful place.
Itadori’s long, long walk had finally ended.