Once Kaguya began, it was like a dam had burst. Before she knew it, she was talking about all of them, all of the heroes she had come into contact with so far.
Yuuji Sakigaya. Sakura Arakawa. Even Azuma. Yuki, Shinji Takamura, Suzume. There were fifty-two of them in total—the people inside whom she had connected with. And Kaguya remembered each and every last one of them. All fifty-two names, faces, and last words.
“It’s amazing that you managed to remember all that,” Azuma said, sounding impressed.
Maybe it was. With over fifty people to keep track of, you would expect it to be difficult to match a name to every face. But she even remembered their last words, despite the fact that she had never written anything down. Maybe this really was a curse.
Kaguya told them about all of them, every last one, up to and including today’s hero.
No, not all of them. There’s still one left.
“That just leaves my brother…”
Her brother, who had turned into a hero long ago.
“I had been afraid all this time. I haven’t seen him in seven years, not since that day I turned into a hero.”
Of course, she had searched for him. But she had zero information to go on. And then, at some point, a possibility entered her head. One that she couldn’t manage to shrug off.
What if she had actually killed her brother?
“If he had just gotten sick of me, that was one thing. But I started to worry… What if, when I turned, I actually killed him? How would I ever cope with that?”
Maybe it was self-indulgent, but she truly wanted to believe that she could not have killed her brother. She suddenly found herself confronted with a rush of feelings, however. Things she had always pretended to ignore while Charon’s eyes were on her.
Although these feelings were always on the verge of spilling over, she had managed, one way or another, to keep a lid on them until now. But at the moment, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She clamped a hand over her mouth. If she didn’t, she was afraid of what might come spilling out.
It was just Azuma and herself in the room now. Koyuki must have quietly stepped out at some point.
“Should I leave, too…?”
“What…?”
“You want to cry, don’t you? I can tell from your face and your voice.”
Who was he to tell her how she felt? Kaguya was about to insist he was wrong, but as she opened her mouth to speak, she finally recognized the strange agitation she had been feeling for the past several moments for what it really was.
She just wanted to cry.
Loneliness, toil, hatred, burden, despair, regret, and fear—they all pointed inward, forming a sluggish mass in her chest. Eating away at her from the inside, whether she knew it or not. Well, she certainly knew it now.
It was all in front of her, and the rest followed quickly. The feelings rose up into her throat, and she couldn’t push them back down, try as she might. Azuma turned his head away, unable to bear seeing her like that.
“I should probably go after all. You can come join us again once you’ve settled down.”
“Wait.” Kaguya clutched at his sleeve. “Please…stay with me.”
Azuma hesitated, frozen in place. He could hardly just brush Kaguya’s hand away. But even Azuma likely understood that no one liked to be watched while they cried. Certainly not Kaguya, of all people.
But this is about trust.
She trusted him enough to let him see her at her weakest. Before long, the sound of steady sobbing filled the hospital room. The sound was measured, as if she was trying to hold her breath or to hold back slightly.
Azuma didn’t try to comfort her or urge her to stop. He just stood there quietly while Kaguya gripped his sleeve. That was all. But in that moment, it was the greatest redemption Kaguya could have hoped for.
“Are you feeling better now?” Azuma asked once more.
“Y-yes, thank you…”
Eyes red, Kaguya hugged her pillow and cast her eyes downward, seemingly embarrassed. She had pressed the pillow to her face partway through, leaving clear streaks behind. Her hair was slightly disheveled as well.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I got tear stains everywhere…”
“It’s fine. I can wash it later.”
“I know. But I got so carried away I used you as a handkerchief. I’m sorry.”
Before Azuma had pressed the pillow into Kaguya’s hands, she had been crying into his sleeve instead.
Azuma started to wonder if that was the real reason she had asked him to stay but decided not to assume the worst. After all, learning he had just been used as a substitute handkerchief was not going to do any favors for his self-esteem.
“To be honest, I feel relieved. It’s good to know you’re capable of crying like everybody else.”
“Why…? You’ve got a thing for crying faces? That’s a pretty niche fetish, Captain.”
“No,” Azuma said. He didn’t want people to peg him as some sort of pervert. “I just don’t think you’ve cried even once since meeting us. Out of sympathy for the heroes, sure, but I can’t remember you ever crying just for yourself. Even when Sakura died. Or the Director. Particularly the Director. You knew her for a long time. Or over the stuff with your brother, for that matter.”
“Now that you mention it…I guess I hadn’t. But it’s not that I didn’t feel sad, you know. There were just too many other things demanding my attention.”
“That’s what we meant about taking on too much by yourself.” A pained smile played on Azuma’s lips. It obviously wasn’t Kaguya’s responsibility to solve all their problems for them. “After Sakura died, it was the heroes. And now it’s whoever killed the Director. There’s always something else to worry about… You need to rely on us more. You don’t have to keep everything bottled up. You can believe in us a little more.”
“Okay. Then that’s what I’ll do going forward.”
This time it was Kaguya’s turn to smile uncomfortably. Azuma knew he was being a little pedantic, but he also knew that was what it would take to get through to Kaguya.
In any case, she no longer seemed convinced that she could solve everything all on her own. In particular, when it came to the current commotion surrounding the Director’s death.
“Regarding the situation we’re in right now, I doubt I’d be able to do anything about it on my own.” Kaguya turned her eyes upward toward the ceiling. “Seriously, what is happening around here? To us?”
“I know. It’s been one crazy thing after the next ever since you came to us.”
No, even before Kaguya arrived. It all began six years ago. Even earlier than that, actually. This whole thing started thirty years ago. And it continued ever since.
But it was true that something about the situation had changed recently.
“I don’t think these changes would have happened without you being here… This whole idea that the Chronoses are sentient. The Director only reached that conclusion after you made her aware of the heroes’ interior worlds. Which…is why she was killed, I suppose.”
“But why…?” Kaguya placed a hand on her chin, lost in thought. “I understand that the Director was killed because she learned something that someone didn’t want her to know. But why didn’t they want her to know?” she pondered aloud, the light dancing in her violet eyes. No sign of her previous sadness remained there now.