June 27th, 2023
Miyo's breath huffed in her chest as she staggered through the wet grass and sudden mud of the cloudburst. Rain poured down in tepid streams, making it impossible to tell where her sweat ended and the rainwater began as her clothes stuck to her body in humid, sticky patches. Her nylon stockings were torn, her feet showing through in muddy, raw patches as she continued her stumbling dash through the woods.
This isn't the first time this has happened to me… running all alone through the rain. It's not the first time I've run barefoot either…
Flashes of memory scalded her exhausted mind like lightning: the bet she had made against God, the telephone box, the scratches that had burned along her skin from desperately pushing through bracken and bushes.
It's just like when I was a girl…
Miyo closed her eyes, hiccupping out a sob. The misery of that day crashed down on her afresh, as though it had been no time at all since she had been a small, scuttling little girl, terrified of the people behind her and running blindly towards a future that she now knew didn't exist.
The rapid thud-thud-thud of a helicopter's whirring blades jarred Miyo out of her thoughts, and she gasped, hastening her steps as bare pebbles and sticks scratched her feet. It thundered by overhead as she tucked under the spreading canopy of a tree, clutching her grandfather's binder close to her chest and pressing her back into the small lightning-struck hollow of the trunk.
She shivered despite the humid heat spreading around her, whimpering out another sniveling little cry.
"Major Takano! Put down your weapon and turn yourself in!" a megaphone bellowed from the bay of the helicopter. "The Wild Dogs have already surrendered!"
Miyo curled up as she slid down to land on the ground, pressing her face against her folded knees. She barely needed the shouter to tell her what she already knew.
"You have nowhere to run. You have no allies to turn to."
Another sob quavered out of her throat at the reminder, tears pouring down her sticky face, smeared by grime and her own running makeup. Miyo had believed that she could trust the people around her, and they had one and all turned their backs on her. She had been dancing to someone else's tune this whole time, and never once been able to break free of their strings.
Everything she had done, for her research, for Hinamizawa Syndrome, danced bloody before her eyes. All of it had ultimately meant nothing in the end. All of it had been futile. She had sinned and sinned and sinned again, too caught up in her own visions to see how she was being led to damnation while someone else profited from her mistakes and her research both. She had been played like a cheap whistle.
She briefly gritted her teeth, pulling out the gun Okonogi had given her. Miyo stared down at the hideous grey thing in horror, his words running through her head.
I… have no choice. She thought. I have to do it… death I the only way I can atone.
All the same, the fingers that had once been so steady as she vivisected the Furude matriarch shook like Miyo had a high fever as the weight of the gun sank heavily into her hand.
I can't go back to that day, she tried to remind herself. I've committed too many crimes. I know I'll never be able to pay for all of them…
The tears that had been leaking intermittently from her face thickened, turning into a steady flow as they dripped down onto the glossy cover of her binder.
"But does that mean… does that mean death is the only way for me to atone?" Miyo choked, her tears overflowing from her eyes now as the fear truly set in. "No… I don't want to, Grandpa…"
She squeezed her streaming eyes shut, curling into a tighter ball.
"I don't want to… I don't want to die… I don't want to die!"
Miyo wept, her choked cries bursting out of her without a care for her own safety or if the steady curtain of rain might mask the sound. She wept herself into red eyes and hiccupping sobs as the rain hissed against the leaves and pattered down steadily onto the ground, soaking the world in a steady deluge. She wept for so long that the sound of anything but her own sobs and the steady fwssssh of rain was an alien change –even something as soft as this.
"Child of man."
Miyo's head whipped up with a gasp.
A little girl dressed in the traditional hakama, haori, and detached furisode sleeves of a shrine maiden stood directly before her, as though she had been set down on the path by an omnipotent hand.
Or… perhaps she was not so very young, after all: there was a watchful stillness about her face, a gravity in her posture as she stood stock-still with hands clasped patiently before her, that made Miyo think of someone much older. It was difficult to place her height, too: Miyo was sitting down, which skewed her perspective but she somehow couldn't make up her mind if this was a very short maiden with slender curves, or a young girl who had been blessed with unprecedented height.
Regardless, Miyo recognized her.
She knew her well.
"Y…you…" Miyo croaked, her voice raw from crying.
"Child of man." the girl-child-maiden that was almost certainly an avatar of Oyashiro-sama said again, as though Miyo had not spoken at all. "You have endured countless trials. Do you still seek the seat of godhood?"
"I wondered who would still be talking to me. Long time no see…" Miyo huffed, taking her own turn to ignore her partner's words as a bitter smile curled her lips. "I haven't seen you since I went to the shrine grounds to declare war…"
At the reminder, though, Miyo's expression crumpled, and she lowered her head.
"I've lost this game. It's all over for me…" Tears began to stream down her face again as she squeezed her eyes shut. "This is the fate of a lowly, pitiful human who dared to challenge a god. The seat of godhood…? I'll never reach it."
"Hear me, child of man." the god-child repeated patiently. "I will now show you the path to godhood."
"What…?" Miyo's eyes opened, and she raised her head slightly.
The god-child raised a delicate arm, pointing towards Miyo's chest. No, not her chest, nor her arms crossed over it to cradle the binder… at what she held, fingers wrapped achingly tight around a black rubber stock.
"Use the iron fire in your right hand, and bid farewell to your life."
Miyo's mouth gaped as she stared at the god-figure in shock.
"Wha…?"
"A body of flesh will be unnecessary in the realm of the gods." the girl-child-maiden said. "You must not seek acceptance from men while you remain in that form."
Miyo opened her arms slightly, staring at the gun dangling from her hand in shock.
"Are you telling me to shoot myself in the head…?" she whispered, staring at the pistol –the pistol with one sole, singular shot– as though her hand belonged to another person entirely. "Something so simple would turn me into a god…?"
She gritted her teeth, sudden rage flashing through her.
"Then what have I been doing until now?!" Miyo spat, lunging up onto her knees as she glared at the figure before her. "What have I been building up to all this time!?"
"You have shouldered the burden of many humans' sins." the god-child replied, their voice as flat and unyielding as the slab of a tomb. Miyo shrank back a little, wondering if those eyes had always looked like that: if there had been a bright point of something not entirely red glowing in their depths. "The sins of many will be cleansed when you offer yourself as sacrifice. Your courage will be lauded, and you will be allowed a seat in the lowest pantheon."
"Wh-what…?" Miyo's teeth gritted. "Why, you little… are you telling me to be the lizard's tail?! You're telling me to die!? No! I would never do that?"
"Why do you oppose the idea?" the god-child asked. "To enjoy peace in the world of men, each impurity requires a sacrifice… just as my daughter struck me down as a sacrifice long, long ago. You sought to sacrifice a little girl to obtain the future you desired. Was that not because you understood this principle?"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about!" Miyo cried, wanting to cover her ears. "Stop it! I don't understand!"
There was a moment of silence that seemed even longer than it should be.
"…if you do not understand, then you are indeed merely human." the girl-child-maiden said at length. "You shall regret your arrogance in seeking godhood."
"I do regret it…" Miyo sniffled. "I don't want to be that kind of god… I'm glad I'm human."
Her arms tightened around the binder she had kept clutched to her chest this whole time, and she lowered her head, beginning to weep again.
"I only wanted someone to tell me that it's all right for me to live. So why… why did it turn out like this…?"
"Then how will you cleanse the impurities that you have brought to this world?" the god-child asked insistently. "How will you pay for what has been done?"
"Why?!" Miyo shouted, putting all her feelings into the word. "Why does anyone have to take the blame?! That never happened when Mom and Dad and Grandpa were alive! We were all happy together… no one forced anyone else to take the joker…"
A choked sob rattled through her.
"How did I fall out of that world…?"
There was another long silence as the rain hissed down and Miyo wept.
"I knew… deep down, I knew…" she sniffled at last. "That somewhere along the way, I had put too much importance on the wrong thing. but I didn't want to admit it. It wasn't until after I crossed the line into the point of no return that I started to regret it. Now I'm paying the price for my sins…"
"The world of men will demand atonement for your crimes." the girl-child-maiden said at length. "That is how the world of men cleanses impurities. However… I am not of men."
Miyo looked up again, almost daring to hope, if she had not already been so far beyond anything but further despair.
"I am one who forgives the sins of men. One who surpasses humanity. One who replaces the peace that is lacking." the god-child said, moving closer to her. One slim arm was extended again, a hand held out before Miyo's startled eyes. "Miyoko Tanashi. I forgive you."
The benediction, if that was what it was, lasted but a moment before the figure gravely folded her hands before her once more.
"Demanding sacrifice for cleansing impurities is not the law of man. It is the law of demons. I assumed the seat of godhood to put an end to that law. After more than a thousand years of agony… I wished to abdicate my throne. I wanted to see a world where everyone could be friends without needing a god to act as mediator. And… after a thousand-year journey, I saw that fragment at last."
Miyo found her tears drying slowly as she stared and listened –but she still found herself tensing as that figure drifted closer, raising their hand.
"Now, child of man."
Miyo watched that small hand draw ever-closer, moving as though to rest atop her head.
"In my own name, I forgive your sins."
There was a brief, silent flash of light just before –or perhaps just as– it touched her, and Miyo blinked against the sudden flare of light as it dissipated, coming back to herself with a gasp as the fork of lightning faded into rumbling thunder in the distance.
There was no god-figure before her –just that girl, Hanyuu Furude, standing some meters off and watching her with an oddly grave expression.
"Hanyuu!" Miyo heard her friends calling in the distance, and blinked, shaking her head a little.
"Y…you're…"
What just happened? Was I dreaming…?
11.43 AM, USA Central Time