[Prev] ~ [TOC] ~ [Next]


II: Lily of the Valley
Chapter 134: Shibuya (1)
She's in the right place.

＊＊＊

The vast expanse of people seemed like a sky that would never fall.

Yayoi didn't like places with too many people.

On the one hand, it’s because she had enhanced five senses that were superior to ordinary people. When there were more people, the sound of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of pacing hearts was like a drum that was suddenly beaten, playing deafeningly. They were crowded together in a disorderly manner. On the other hand, they were strange creatures formed by the accumulation of negative emotions vented from the body due to cursed spirits. They were always fermenting and rotting in the corner.

When she first became aware of the "cursed spirit", she was still living in Tokyo and still in kindergarten. When spring turned to winter, the cherry blossoms on the branches were scattered and covered with plain silver frost. The dark branches were like a hearty stroke of ink in the snow-white world.

The winter and summer vacations come as scheduled every year, and the school bell rang when classes start, and the end bell rang when classes were over.

As time went by, Yayoi gradually discovers that the little carrots sitting in the classroom with her prefer the end of the school bell to the start of the school bell. Just like a saying among parents and teachers, students were like a soft caterpillar in class and a jumping dragon after class.

"Don't be afraid, Yayoi."

Her mother was worried that she would be sad because she was left in kindergarten, and she would not feel relieved when the school bell was about to ring.

Her mother bent down and touched her hair. The black hair that was completely different from hers hung down from the temples, like a flowing cloud.

"I will pick you up after school, don't be afraid."

When she was sent to the gate of the kindergarten, her mother saw many children crying. They were suddenly sent to a strange environment and had to be in the absence of their parents. It was inevitable that the children would cry and make noises.

But her red-haired dumpling face was still expressionless, with a look of neither joy nor sorrow, like a delicate little mirror hanging in a shop window.

Her mother knelt down and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"I really hope you can smile." Mom suddenly laughed, "I hope the children here can help you learn to smile."

Yayoi was puzzled, her amber eyes looked at her mother's black eyes without blinking, as if they were inorganic metal.

Yayoi still remembered that her kindergarten class was called "Penguin Class". There were several round fat penguins hanging on the sign at the door. There was a particularly big fat penguin. The particularly big fat penguin was accompanied by several smaller fat penguins.

Children at this age were very noisy, and they also easily get into trouble together. When everyone had their own playmates and toys, the solitary red-haired dumpling became more conspicuous.

Yayoi did not like to be with other children, did not like to play puzzles, did not like to build blocks, did not like to play games, and lacked interest in even the most basic speech. For a long time, she was considered mute by the children in the same class.

"Are you mute?" The kid with a runny nose put his hands on his waist, trying to make himself stronger and taller.

Yayoi, who was in a daze, came to her senses and told him, "I am not mute."

A child at this age was a particularly magical creature. Just one sentence made him feel as novel as discovering a new world. He looked at Yayoi with a shocked expression and his mouth widened.

"Look, she's talking!"

Just talking.

A particularly loud shout directly attracted the attention of all the children in the Penguin Class, and they came over one after another, their eyes brighter than the other.

The child who first noticed her talking raised his chin with a super proud expression, as if he had accomplished some great feat. He was very happy and said to everyone, "I made her talk. I made the little mute talk."

"Can you really speak?"
"Can you write?"
"Why is your hair red?"

A gust of cool wind suddenly blew in from the window, which made all the children flinch, but they were still unwilling to give up and let her 'speak again'.

The pages of the book placed by the window were blown up by the wind, and the clattering sound was mixed with the chirping of chickens, as if they were gathering together to forage.

Yayoi stopped talking and concentrated on his idle activity.

The other children who did not hear her speak agreed that the snotty-nosed child was lying and wanted to attract everyone's attention by lying. How could a mute speak?

"I didn't lie!" The kid who everyone thought was lying ran up and grabbed her shoulders. His face turned red, with snot hanging from his nose. He stared at her with wide eyes, "Speak quickly! Otherwise everyone will think I lied! Speak up!"

She let the child hold her blankly, without any resistance or explanation. She looked at the top of the child's head blankly. The strange catfish-like creature wrapped its long tail around the child's neck, and its flat head lay on the child's neck. He raised his head and opened his mouth from time to time, and the distorted and fragmented syllables were like the distorted audio in a tape recorder.

It's laughing with 'he he he' strangely.

"You did this on purpose!"

The louder it laughed, the angrier the child got.

She noticed that no one heard it and laughed.

"You deliberately let me be laughed at by everyone!" The child with a runny nose pushed hard on her shoulder. Maybe the child's balance ability was not that good. She fell to the ground, but it didn't hurt. The tatami mat on the ground was very soft.

The little boy who pushed her down started crying.

She stared blankly at him crying, blankly watched the teacher hurriedly come over to break up the fight, blankly watched the child crying, hiccupping, pointing at her and saying she was a bad child. The noisy sound was like a TV set with a snowflake screen. They were huddled together. The laughter of catfish-like creatures was among the cries of the children and the teachers coaxing the children. Its voice became increasingly sharp and distorted.

Maybe the sighting was just an accident. After that, she didn't see them again for a long time.

Not seeing them didn't mean they didn't exist. Her five senses have told her that they exist in every invisible corner of the world, even right in front of her.

After the winter frost and snow melted, in the old house, the heavy cherry blossoms bent the branches. Two teenagers wearing black uniforms with swirl buttons at the collar stood outside the wall of her house. The taller one had a pair of particularly beautiful eyes, just like the sky washed by snow at this time, as blue as the boundless sky.

Besides her sister's red, it was her favorite color.

•

October 31, 2018 19:00

With Tokyu Department Store as the center, a "curtain" with a radius of about 400m had appeared.

There was no warning, as if someone carried a bucket of black paint, pouring it from the sky, and a semicircular "curtain" fell to the ground.

The person who dropped the "curtain" was very smart. Compared with the "curtain" dropped last time in the high school, this time it also had the function of blocking radio signals. Moreover, the "curtain" itself did not refuse the entry of the sorcerer, at the same time, the sorcerer also unable to attack "curtain".

Choso reminded them that a large number of humans would gather in Shibuya on Halloween. "Sugur Geto" and the special grade cursed spirits would use these humans gathered in Shibuya as a stepping stone to seal Satoru.

Shibuya was a very important economic circle in the local area, with a large amount of human activities gathering around it. It was obviously impossible to mobilize and relocate people just for an ambiguous terrorist attack.

The number of humans was too huge. Even if there was no Shibuya, they could still choose other areas with a large flow of people. There were too many times when humans could gather together. Even if there was no Halloween, there wa Bon Festival, Summer Festival, and various social activities. If you avoid one Halloween, there would be countless Halloweens.

In order to minimize the losses, it was decided that Satoru would quell the riots in Shibuya alone.

Based on his experience in dealing with "Night Parade of a Hundred Demons" last year, Masamichi Yaga, the principal of Tokyo Jujutsu High School, submitted countermeasures to the top management and made holes in the enemy's future plans and layout. However, all of them were rejected by the higher-ups.

The jujutsu higher-ups would have direct jurisdiction over the sorcerers of their respective colleges. All sorcerers were forced to stay put and stay outside the "curtain" and were not allowed to enter the subway station at will.

On Halloween in Shibuya, there was a huge flow of people in the subway station. The greater the flow of people, the easier it was for riots to occur. If there was a conflict between the sorcerers and the cursed spirits, as well as the curse users mixed in, if there was a conflict between the three parties, this kind of turmoil would undoubtedly be magnified exponentially. It was impossible to estimate the extent of the losses at that time.

Therefore, the best solution was—

"Satoru Gojo can solve everything by himself."

•

When she received the news, Yayoi leaned on the backrest of the passenger seat of the assistant director's car, her retinas reflecting the starless sky.

The sky was dark, and under the black sky, the neon lights hung on the buildings were dazzling.

"...Madam?" the assistant director sitting in the driver's seat spoke cautiously.

Yayoi didn't answer, and it took her a while to realize that he was calling her.

Yayoi paused, "Are you calling me?"

"Hai." The assistant director squeezed the steering wheel and looked through the car window, his eyes falling in the direction where Yayoi had been looking just now. In the starless night sky, the brilliance of the stars seemed to have been swallowed up. The billboards erected on the high floors were hung with circles of neon lights, which were dazzling.

The air fell into silence again, and Yayoi's eyes seemed to return to the dark night sky.

The assistant director couldn't bear the silence and tried to find a topic, "Are you worried about Gojo-san?"

Yayoi was stunned for a long time before speaking slowly, "He is very strong. If one party is really going to suffer, it will be someone else who suffers."

"..."
The implication was that there was no need to worry at all, right?

The assistant director held the steering wheel and thought with sweat. He could only say that the wife of the Gojo family was indeed different from ordinary women.

"But it's inevitable to worry." Yayoi added.

The assistant director didn't understand where her words came from.

"Too many people."

Yayoi looked at the blank night sky. It was clear that there were many tall buildings standing underneath, but the sky was always empty and extremely lonely.

She closed her eyes and counted slowly in her mind. She had counted stars while lying on the floor under the eaves with her mother before. One star, two stars, three stars... she couldn't count them all. She forgot to count them as she kept counting. She saw so many stars that she fell asleep even while counting them.

But there were no stars for her to count.

So she had to count her years.

But she also forgot how long she lived.

Satoru was twenty-eight and she was twenty-five.

Twenty-five years ago, she didn't have Satoru. Without Satoru, she wouldn't be able to count the stars, and she wouldn't remember how long she lived.

When she counted to twenty-five, the phone in her pocket vibrated.

Yayoi took out her phone from her pocket and saw the phone screen lighting up.

—Satoru Gojo

Yayoi slid open the answering page.

"Yayoi." Satoru's voice was a little calm. Maybe it was too calm, and it was a bit unlike him. Or maybe the voice on his side was very noisy and crowded with people. Even though her cat was very noisy, it was still a cat.

He actually had time to make a phone call at this time.

But if the other person was Satoru, nothing would be surprising.

Yayoi paused and spoke slowly, "Gojo."

"I suddenly want to see you." Yayoi said.

The voice on the phone was still noisy. Satoru was silent for a moment amid the noise, and then a very sudden chuckle sounded on the radio.

"I miss you too." Satoru's voice was deep. After a moment, he muttered again, "We've been married for more than a month, why do you still call me by my last name?"

Yayoi was stunned for a moment. Calling this kind of question naturally became a habit. After more than a month of marriage, she didn't even notice anything was wrong.

Habits were a terrible force.

"Then let's change it." Yayoi rolled his eyes, "Satoru."

Satoru's voice paused again, and his mood improved obviously. If the occasion hadn't been wrong and his wife wasn't around, he could have hugged her and purred her on the spot.

"I will settle everything right away and find you." Satoru said, "I want to eat cake for supper tonight."

"I'll accompany you." A smile appeared on Yayoi's face, "I'll accompany you no matter what you want to do."
Cake should not be eaten as a late-night snack, but it seemed that it was not impossible to indulge occasionally.

"Then~ just wait for your dear husband to come back~"
After being sticky for a while, Satoru finally put down his phone.

The assistant director, who had not eaten since the afternoon, felt very full for no reason. The dog food he had just eaten was too much.

There was completely no sound on the phone. Yayoi turned off the phone screen, stuffed things into her pocket, reached out and opened the storage box under the front window of the car, and pulled out a map.

The map was unfolded in front of her eyes, and the traffic arteries as dense as a spider web came into view.

The assistant director opened his mouth and said blankly, "Madam, are you going to...?"

"There are too many people." Yayoi pulled out a pen from underneath and drew a circle on the side of Exit 2 of Meiji-Jingumae Station. The pen was red, so red it hurt people's eyes.

The trouble was not just the cursed spirits and curse users, but those people and "curtains" would make things even more troublesome.

The impostor saw through this, so he placed the time and place to seal Satoru in Shibuya, a place with a huge flow of people.

Ijichi sent her something. Currently, there were two "curtains" known to have fallen in Shibuya. One was the "curtain" that covered the entire subway station and trapped ordinary people inside, and the other was a "curtain" centered around the Fukutoshin Line Platform inside that prohibit sorcerers from entering.

The hand holding the pen unconsciously began to exert force, and the tip of the pen poked a hole directly on the map.

"I said I would stay with him until the end."

She didn't want to wait any longer.

Yayoi put down the pen, unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door and got out of the car. After a dull sound, the door was closed.

At eight o'clock in the evening, there were very few people near Meiji-Jingumae Station. The main traffic line leading to Shibuya was temporarily blocked, and a cordon was put up at the entrance of the subway station to prohibit unauthorized persons from approaching.

The noisy chatter, like the beating of countless leather drums, was huddled on the platform five floors below.

Ordinary people who had originally gathered in the subway station were driven to the Fukutoshin Line Platform on the fifth floor underground by an invisible force.

*crack—*

The tendons and bones were torn, the muscles were torn, and the sudden sound of chewing suddenly sounded on the second underground floor, as if evil spirits in hell were eating.

She's come to the right place.

Yayoi thought.

＊＊＊

· Genuine translation can be found only in OchatimesBlogspotCom, FanFictionNet, and Wattpad


[Prev] ~ [TOC] ~ [Next]