Vol 3 Chapter 12 (1/2)
VOLUME 3
Chapter 12: And Then, a Witch…
It was a chilly day, right before the end of our spring break.
I had successfully “given birth” and had made a full recovery. I could finally go outside again.
Of course, it’s not like I was pregnant in the normal sense, so instead of “giving birth” you probably should say I successfully performed a “divine birth.”
I had managed to drop all that extra fat I had picked up, and like the legend of Chikarataro, (1) I molded that fat into a human shape.
Within that fat rested the power of the Supreme G.o.d, which I had transferred to it, and my mother’s will which would control that power.
My consciousness had been pretty hazy while this whole divine birth was going on, but…
I think I had a pretty strange dream.
No, it was more a trip to the past that was borrowing the form of a dream.
I remembered our confrontation with Tamamo-no-Mae, the fiendish G.o.d who was trying to alter the past, my interactions with my mother and with Tsurugi, and our parent-teacher conference.
After getting through all that and waking up, I found that my body was back to normal.
I had no idea where my mother was.
She was probably somewhere fulfilling our promise – keeping the power of the Supreme G.o.d safe until I was ready to take it back.
“It certainly seems like you’ve been through quite a bit.”
We were in a dim movie theater.
Kagami was sitting right next to me, whispering in my ear.
Today, I was on a play date together with Kagami.
She was in a pretty cute outfit and had braided her hair. She gave me a slight bow.
“Congratulations on your new baby.”
“Stop it. That’s not funny.”
I would probably never have kids.
Sure, I had made up with my mom, and I no longer felt a strong urge to get away from her and end the Tsukuyomi bloodline… but if we were just going to go through this cycle over and over, then I didn’t need kids.
We would end that cycle with my and my mother’s generation.
“Is there still anything unusual happening with your body?”
Kagami gave me a worried look, and I gave her a bitter chuckle back.
“Nah. My weight was worrying me more than anything, and that’s more or less gone back to normal.”
“More or less, you say? Does that mean you are still slightly chubbier than you were? Ah, certainly… looking closely, it does seem that your cheeks are a bit… squish squish.”
“Stop! Don’t touch me! This is… uhh… this has nothing to do with mom. I locked myself in and ate and slept too much, and so this is the mark of guilt for letting the demon known as inevitability into my body!”
“Ahh, that’s right, Sasami-san… you stayed in your room for the entire spring break, didn’t you? Of course you would grow fat from that. That must be why you feel desperate enough to come out and roam around like this, trying to burn off that excess fat.”
“Yeah. I guess the lesson learned this time is: if you lock yourself in your room and just sleep and eat all day, you’ll get fat! Or something like that.”
“Granted, that lesson is quite an obvious one. Ahh, that’s right, Sasami-san lost the power of the Supreme G.o.d, correct? And she cannot use her spiritual abilities to lose weight, correct? There also still seems to be a bit of snow left in town, so it could be that there remain lingering aftereffects of this little adventure of ours…”
Kagami let out a gloomy sigh.
“Neesan also seems to have completely restored herself from the Underworld and is back to normal. However, perhaps she is slightly unstable because there are times when she still acts rather buggy. Just the other day, she slipped into my futon. ‘Ehehe, Kagami-chan, can I sleep with you. Huff, huff, I swear I won’t do anything pervy,’ she said to me.”
I watched Kagami be a worry wart and suddenly realized something.
“…… By the way, should we really be talking like this? Shouldn’t we be focusing on the movie?”
“I-I cannot. I am adamantly trying not to look.”
Kagami shook her head vigorously and rejected my suggestion.
Well, I kind of understood where she was coming from.
After all, that huge screen was throwing so many images of blood splatter at us that I could’ve sworn we were watching a horror flick.
For a while now, Kagami had been grabbing firmly onto the hem of my s.h.i.+rt, looking down, and trying desperately not to look at the screen.
“Ehh…”
I put my hand on top of the doll-like Kagami’s head and began to stroke her sleek black hair.
“I guess we should’ve realized when we noticed we were the only ones watching this movie. We really should’ve just picked the safe action movie we were originally planning on, but Kagami got lured away by that cute animal poster she saw and really wanted to see this movie instead.”
Now I realize that changing your plans so suddenly was just inviting trouble. You really had to be careful on dates…
“To think… what we thought was a heartwarming story about cute animals being all fluffy and happy and kyakyaa~~ and ufufu~~ would turn out to be a movie on how to make delicious food out of those cute animals… seriously, an ‘animal movie’ and a ‘doc.u.mentary about animals’ are polar opposites of each other, aren’t they? Ahh, look what they’re doing to that baby spotted seal…”
“Nooooo, Mr. Seal… Mr. Seal?! No! And with soy sauce?!”
Kagami buried her face into my chest, sobbing a flood of tears.
“I do not think I can eat meat any longer… humans are cruel, cruel creatures…”
Kagami sure was cute.
It was evening on the same day.
Kagami had exhausted all her energy and patience at the movie theater, so we just did some window shopping while taking a few breaks in between, playing out the rest of our date in a pretty normal way.
If we stayed out too late, certain overprotective family members would start worrying about us, so we walked back together as far as we could while making small talk and then said goodbye for the night.
Neither of us had eaten dinner yet.
We were high school students, so as long as we didn’t stay out overnight we could’ve been out a bit longer… but it was our first date like this, and both of us had annoying guardians at home.
Kagami and I lived in the same neighborhood, so when we went our separate ways, I was already pretty much at my house.
Even then, I still sent Kagami a text while walking home.
Today was really fun. Let’s hang out again and go somewhere before spring break ends. We could go eat yakiniku or barbeque or something~~.
I waited a little bit, and I got a response.
Please cease all talk about meat.
Good, a reply.
I tried continuing this exchange without being too annoying.
Maybe we can go to the zoo next then?
In that case, I would like to bring Tama as well. Someone sent some zoo pamphlets to our house, and Tama has been annoying me to take her ever since.
Sure~~. Tama is a good kid, and the more the merrier.
Ah, I have arrived. Thank you very much for today.
It was fun. I’ll text you again, Kagami! I love you (>w<>
Shut up (=_=).
It was the acc.u.mulation of small things like this that would strengthen our connection with each other.
Okay, I admit it might’ve been a bit strange to be thinking like that about a friend, but the book I was referencing was a book that was supposed to bring you closer to someone you loved.
Why was it that there were mountains of books on how to flirt with a lover, but none on how to deepen a friends.h.i.+p with the first friend you made in high school?
“Welcome back, Sasami-san!”
My brother was shoveling snow in front of our house.
He was in a raincoat, ready to get a bit dirty, and busily working his shovel.
It seemed that there were some alterations still left over evident from the snow that was still piling up on the ground in my town.
I smiled at my brother as his breath misted white in front of his face.
“I’m back, oniichan.”
“Your oniichan is also relieved that you’ve been going outside again~. At this rate, you’ll probably be able to go to school normally too when spring break ends.”
“Ugh, that’s what I’ve been saying. When I locked myself in my room, I was just taking a bit of a break.”
Well, it’s not like I didn’t understand where his worry was coming from.
I looked at my brother in slight disbelief. But he remained just as cheerful.
“How was your date with Kagami-san? Was it fun?”
“Yup~~.”
“I see…”
My brother still seemed very calm on the surface, but I could hear him grinding his teeth.
Scary…
“Dammit. Ah, your oniichan isn’t jealous at all. Sasami-san’s happiness is my happiness, after all. I’m definitely not jealous of Kagami-san for taking Sasami-san all to herself or anything and I definitely haven’t been out here since the morning shoveling snow to try and vent all that jealousy out.”
“Uwah, now that I look at it, all that snow is gone already! There was so much of it this morning too! Are you seriously that jealous?!”
I had thought that with my brother the way he is, he would definitely come and b.u.t.t in on my date. I guess he had been able to relieve his stress by shoveling snow, and that’s why he didn’t show up.
Even my brother had learned a bit of tact, hadn’t he…?
“I’ll be done soon so please wait a bit before dinner is ready.”
“I’ll help too, oniichan.”
I felt a little bad for making my brother do all this work while I went out and played with friends, so I took the shovel from my brother and stuck it into a nearby snow pile.
Also, this was the first time I’d ever shoveled snow, so I was a bit curious.
“Hyah… ah.”
I put strength into the shovel and moved some of the surprisingly heavy snow out of the way.
And that exhausted all my strength.
“Agh, ow ow ow ow, my back hurts. I’m done. Oniichan, you can handle the rest.”
“What?! That fast?! W-Wait, Sasami-san! I’ll go bring another shovel, and then we can shovel snow together! And then all the old ladies in the neighborhood can be like ‘Ohh, look at those siblings. They get along so well,’ and I can respond ‘Siblings?! We’re husband and wife!'” And then-”
“Don’t come hugging me from behind while spouting out all that nonsense!”
My brother must’ve been really lonely from having been left at home alone. He came up from behind and wrapped his arms firmly around me.
We’ve been through a lot, but it seems things had finally kind of returned to normal. I sighed a sigh of relief.
“Good afternoon.”
Suddenly, someone’s voice echoed around me.
It was a sweet, melting voice, reminding me of a piece of diligently crafted sugar candy.
I stopped trying to pry my brother off of me and looked to the side, a bit surprised.
She was standing there.
A girl who looked to be around the same age as me.