The same night, Yumiko returned from Yomi to her house for the first time in ages, only to be greeted by the stench of blood. She stood fixed to the spot, staring at the wet pools of blood in the foyer.
Why...who did this....
Dropping to the floor, her hands slipped in the lake of blood below them. The mangled corpses of her mother, father, and younger brother all lay before her. Perhaps she was paralyzed by the overwhelming shock of emotion, but Yumiko strangely did not shed a tear. All of a sudden, the image of a sneering woman's face appeared before her eyes.
"Ohara!" Yumiko's honed supernatural senses had picked up her mother's faint residual energy and amplified it to a clear picture.
"It was you, wasn't it, Ohara!" Yumiko's field of vision reddened, her sorrow turning to rage. When she regained her senses, she found herself walking outside.
"Yumi! When did you get back?" The housewife next door had just just come up the stairs, but as she saw the blood dripping from Yumiko's hands, she dropped her shopping bag in shock.
But as if she did not even see the woman, Yumiko passed by her, walking down the stairs as if sleepwalking. Soon afterwards, she heard a piercing scream behind her. Most likely the housewife she had just passed had looked into Yumiko's apartment and seen the bloodbath there. To Yumiko, it all seemed like something that happened in a dream or a far-off world.
Why did I even come to Tokyo? If I had stayed in Sapporo none of this would ever have happened to me... Yumiko saw the roadside trees where she had been living three months earlier in Hokkaido superimposed over the lines of gingkos in front of her.
Nakajima, if only I had never met you...
Yumiko pictured Nakajima's handsome features in her mind. Love, malice, irritation. A whirl of uncontrollable emotion surged through her body. Unable to withstand it, Yumiko squatted down along the side of the road. The minute she thought of Nakajima, tears started flowing out of her eyes uncontrollably. A nearby child looked at her suspiciously, then ran away in shock upon seeing the blood on her clothing.
I've got to find Nakajima.
With heavy footsteps, Yumiko started walking toward the one connection she had remaining.
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2 comments:
good stuff. the plots seems much more involved and intricate compared to book 1 where it was mostly blood and gore >> <<
thanks for your hard work Masakado!!!! i'll be rooting for you from the sidelines ^_^
To think Yumiko seems like the culprit to bystanders! Poor girl, it's really unfair how though she did nothing wrong, Nakajima being the culprit behind Loki's summoning, she has lost everything but him now. Ohara too, even before her encounter with Loki, acted with sneer towards her as soon as they met, and that irrational jealousy leading to her murdering her family now, truly underserved chain of events.
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