The spirit cores, the demon had said, were representations of people's beings.
Everything a person was appeared plastered on the landscape that kept the soul safe. Like the roots of a tree, the tree grew and extended from the soul, where everything originated from.
Kazuya wondered what kind of person that girl had to be to possess such a spirit core. Definitely not a nice one.
"I won't ask her out, not even as a joke," he muttered, blowing against his hands in a poor attempt to warm the cold fingers with his own breath. "Not even as a joke."
His gaze was still fixed on the dark roof in the distance, but the melted snow, the steep hill and the few clarity the Moon offered, high up above the sky, only made him trip time and time again.
He could barely hold the awl with which he had to break the spirit core in between his hands, his teeth chattered, snow kept getting in his clothes and why did no one tell him spirit cores could be so goddamn confusing?
The roof was the only constant there, all the trees appeared to be the same and that place was flooding with red spider lilies, tall and thin that tangled with his feet and drowned the path marked on the ground.
"Are you lost?"
Kazuya looked up to find, on top of the hill, the figure of a little child. He instantly slid the awl in one of his pockets.
She looked at him from above although her eyes were closed. There was something shining on her forehead he couldn't see. With intertwined hands inside her sleeves, the girl tilted her head to the side and waited for an answer.
"No one usually comes here by choice," she added, at which Kazuya raised his eyebrows. "It's a very ugly place."
"It sure is." Kazuya couldn't help but chuckle, leaning on his knees to regain his breath, always with his gaze on the girl.
"Hey…," he said in between huffs. The girl skipped a bit and craned her neck up, nervously playing with her hands. "Have you seen a shiny ball closeby?"
"You… you're looking for the spirit core?" She muttered, out of breath. "I don't think the samurai will like that."
She fidgeted, as if looking for someone in between the trees and the flowers. Could she even see when her eyes were still closed?
"Then don't tell them," Kazuya proposed, starting to walk in her direction again. "It can be our secret."
The girl finally got one hand out and offered it to Kazuya to help him up, blushing cheeks.
"Secret… like a friend's secret? We'll be friends that have secrets togethers?" She cheerfully whispered. Kazuya stretched a hand out to take hers and the girl tugged him to the esplanade she had been standing all that time. Even if it was a cold place, the touch of the girl was warm and comforting. When looking at her fingers Kazuya noticed they were black, frozen and on the verge of crumbling. Something so warm couldn't survive for too long in a place like that.
Kazuya realized that they had finally reached the roof. It must have belonged to the mansion of some great feudal lord that appeared in the distance. It was big, wooden, countless porches and long corridors destined for powerful royal warriors and outstanding ladies to walk through.
«The spirit core must be there» Kazuya thought. «This must be the center of everything»
The girl was still looking at him, now she had to crane her neck up and, with Kazuya's eyes used to the dark, he finally saw what shone on her forehead. An only open eye, shining, from where tears fell.
He had to look away in disgust, but the girl kept tightly holding his hand, as if she couldn't even see the expression on his face. Every part of her was trembling, covered only by a light yukata.
"You live here, don't you?" Kazuya muttered, eyeing the huge house that rose in between the trees. The girl nodded enthusiastically, an unnerving eye always staring.
"Yeah! I'm sure you'll love it here!" She tugged at his hand to get him inside, with a light skip in her pace that made it look like she was dancing. Kazuya allowed the girl to continue holding his hand to warm his own fingers.
«Like stealing candy from a baby» he thought.
She talked nonstop, about cats, majorly, not even looking back, at Kazuya.
"What do you tell a three-headed ghost?" The girl didn't wait for an answer. "Hello, hello, hello!"
And she laughed alone, not even noticing that he wasn't laughing along with her. Instead, Kazuya fixed his gaze on the poor light that came from the hand she hadn't gotten out of her sleeve. Slowly, he took the awl out.
«No, the spirit core isn't on the housen» he finally realized, suddenly letting go of the girl's hand. She turned around in confusion, yelling when Kazuya pushed her and she fell against the floor.
From under her clothes fell a shiny glass ball, that rolled against the down showing different unknown faces, all of them smiling. Why was it cracked?
The girl jumped to take it and hugged the ball against her chest. The awl on Kazuya's hand shone under the moonlight.
"Why did you do that?" The girl laying on the snow painfully asked.
He didn't answer. As disgusting as the girl and her eye were, she was small, and weak, and he knew that if she tried to fight it would be easy to overpower her.
She looked surprised for a moment, looking at the awl in muffled horror. Then she tried to give a few steps back, only to trip and fall back.
Kazuya was gonna pull her up by the hair in order to snatch the spirit core away, which was much bigger than how the demon had described, when something fell from the sky.
The floor got broken there where that huge thing landed. He believed to see horns but they were only the twisted ornaments of the samurai helmet it wore.
That monster, there was no other way to call it, kneeled at his height, and he could see in between the darkness and the armour that on its face there were two brown eyes staring, that time those are normal, and the one on the forehead was closed.
It roared so loudly it sent Kazuya flying back, stopping only because he crushed against a tree.
The blow made him dizzy and he was forced to let the awl fall from his fingers. The world was spinning and the only thing he managed to distinguish was that thing wearing a samurai armour arguing with the girl. Their voices were the only thing his senses could catch as the Thing took a shining sword from its sheath.
"Don't hurt him!" The girl pleaded in horror, clutching to its leg desperately and allowing for the spirit core to be left alone on the ground. "Please, don't kill him!"
The Thing turned around to look at her with drilling eyes.
"Are you sick in the head!? He only said that to take advantage of you! Stupid naive little girl!"
She shook her head. "He's my friend! He wouldn't do that!"
"But he has!" The samurai replied, trying uselessly for the girl to let go of its leg. "Let go!"
With a last push the girl fell to the ground, next to the spirit core. She started crying against the snow.
"I miss Yuu," she weakly moaned, holding onto the ball with countless faces that smiled inside. "I miss mum and dad, and grandma too."
And she repeated those names, along with a bunch of others Kazuya didn't recognize, time and time again.
"Do you wanna stop crying for once!?" The Thing yelled, at which the girl flinched over the spirit core. "This is your fault! It's your fault I'm like this! If you weren't so weak I wouldn't have to protect you!"
They argued for a while, the samurai screamed at the girl and she did nothing but cry, repeating names over and over.
"I hate you!" He heard the girl yell over the dizziness on his ears.
"And I would like for you to drop dead already!" The samurai spit, bitter and resented, stomping on her direction. "But you won't! We can't disappear, Ayaka Iwamoto needs us both! That's why I'm stuck here with you!"
They continued yelling at one another about things he didn't understand, about their father, their family, Yuu, spring, winter and Tanjirou.
Then, by the corner of his eye, with his sight blurry because of the blow, Kazuya saw something warm.
It wasn't very big, barely seen if not because it shone intensely.
A little flame came to the rescue of the girl hearing her cries. It fluttered around her in worry, finally enveloping her into a hug with the tiny limbs that came out of its body. Something within it told him that the flame had been living there for hundreds of years, much more than the child and the samurai.
The small form of the girl stopped trembling, getting as close as she could to that warm thing.
The Thing, in all her monstrous glory, stopped yelling.
The flame offered its hand and settled it on the foot covered by iron and leather. Silently, she knelt and stayed silent, enjoying the touch of something so small that appeared to have her wrapped around its finger.
"Tanjirou," the girl sobbed, clutching more strongly to the only warm thing in that place.
Kazuya, who had only wanted to have sweet dreams, huffed. «I hate my life»
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Yuu Kobayashi knew, from the moment his eyes fluttered open, that something was wrong.
The walls of the room covered in academic titles were something he had never seen, but for some reason, all of them had his name.
At first he stayed still, with the comfort of the cushions against his back. Then he looked down to find a flutter of papers spread across a wooden desk in front of him. They all had names he didn't know about.
"Hana Sakurai, urethra infection"
"Shin Ida, tuberculosis"
"Kenji Rokujo, scarlet fever"
He did recognise the illnesses, but everything around him was too unknown, too blurry on his memory. He remembered nothing about this, nor the plant on the corner nor having read the books on the shelves or having studied for the titles that painted the walls. He didn't even remember having bought that room or even the reason why he was there.
His memory had never failed him, his memory had never failed him, why would it do so now?
So just to make sure there was nothing wrong with his head, he whispered;
"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon." The names were muttered with the easiness he knew he had, at the same time as he got up. His head hurt like it had never done before. He was forgetting about something, he knew. He had forgotten about something vital and even himself was yelling for him to remember. But what was it, what was it, what was it?
Never had Yuu Kobayashi forgotten something, why would he get started now?
When getting out of the room he crashed against someone else, the papers the person had been holding were sent flying and fell to the floor. Yuu's eyes followed them. More names.
"Emi Yamagi, heart attack"
"Nanami Sato, sore throat"
"Yumiko Sato, thrush"
"Ryu Takahashi, traumatic brain injury"
"Ayaka Iwamoto, sick child"
"Takeshi Akada, demonification"
The girl who he had tripped against raised her eyes and, with the red of shame on her cheeks, started to take all the papers from the floor in a hurry.
"Doctor Kobayashi, I'm so sorry! I should have looked at where I was going!" She started, bowing in apology and clutching the messy papers to her chest.
With a blink, Yuu realized that the girl was dressed in a nurse's uniform, the western kind. The shimmering corridors should have been enough of a sign, all the titles in the room had the word "medicine". When looking down, the white coat with a plate only confirmed it.
"Nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium," Yuu muttered to himself. The nurse stared, in confusion. Yuu ignored her and got up, everyone in that goddamn hospital appeared to flutter around him.
"Doctor Kobayashi!"One of the medics called, wearing a coat identical to his. "The testing will be taking place this afternoon, I was wondering if you could assist in order to supervise-"
"Aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine," Yuu answered.
"Doctor Kobayashi, the blood analysis!" Another woman approached him, stopping when hearing his whispers.
"Argon, potassium, scandium, titanium." Slowly, Yuu went up the stairs, leaving behind the worried whispers of those he crossed in the corridors.
"Vanadium, chrome, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gallium," he told one of the patients that walked by his side when going up the stairs.
Another nurse ran into him when he had already gone two floors up.
"Doctor Kobayashi, Akada has had a relapse!"
Yuu harshly took off the white doctor coat and threw it at her face.
The nurse blinked, coat still on hands.
"Doctor Kobayashi!" she yelled behind him.
"Germanium, hell!" He yelled back.
"Someone call doctor Kobayashi," she whispered, with Yuu not even being able to hear her. And when he went up another floor, she yelled. "Someone call doctor Kobayashi!"
"Arsenic, selenium, bromine, krypton," Yuu continued on his endless song. His throat was starting to hurt because his head ached and it pulsed like it had never done before. Gods, oh gods, it hurt so much. Everything was fuzzy around him and Yuu had to hold onto the railing to continue on his way up until opening the doors that lead to the rooftop.
"Rubidium... strontium... yttrium... zirconium... niobium... molybdenum…," he panted when the fresh air from the top crashed against his face. Yuu ran to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. It was a hospital, a goddamn three floored hospital. No… No…
Now trembling, or maybe he had been trembling for a long time, he clutched to the railing that marked the end of the rooftop and set a single foot on the edge of concrete. More confident this time, he set the other, and Yuu looked down. The only thing separating him from the void was but a centimetre, if he gave a step… he'd disappear, he'd disappear along with his body and the headache and the dizziness that came with it.
Soaked in sweat, Yuu weakly smiled.
Yeah, disappear, goddamn you.
"Yuu." He remembered that voice but not that she was still alive.
His mother got closer to him, in slow steps. Behind her there were countless faces, nurses, doctors, even some curious patients that had to be told to go away.
"Yuu, get down from there," she said, as soft as she had always been. As soft as he remembered Nozomi Kobayashi to be.
"Technetium... palladium... ruthenium... silver... cadmium…" Yuu recited, without looking away from nothingness. Nozomi gave another step in his direction, Yuu screamed. "Don't get any closer! Who the hell are you!? My mother is dead!"
"Yuu, please, get down and we'll talk about this," she said, taking a step back. Fat beads of sweat slid down Yuu's forehead, everyone behind his mother whispered about the purple eyebags adorning his cheeks.
"You must be tired from work, right?" His mother continued, not daring to get any closer but sticking a hand out to him. Yuu stared with a frown.
"You're scaring everyone, Yuu," she whispered with what could have been believed to be an inch of worry. "And me too."
"You shouldn't be here!" he exclaimed. Everyone gasped in astonishment and ran in a hurry to the railing to look down, because screaming "tin!" Yuu had at last given a step back and fallen into the void.
The headache finally disappeared.
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