The rain that had been pressing down on the sky all night long finally broke.
Between the clouds, the last crack of sunlight was sealed shut. A thick pall covered it over. The last scattered shards of brightness dwindled and died, and a leaden darkness rolled down to drown the ground, drown the forests, drown the endless traffic of Tokyo.
The rain came in torrents—as if a whole lake had been penned in above the clouds, and the valve had blown loose, and the lake itself had fallen out of the sky.
The first raindrops flashed and glittered on the way down. The moment they struck the city below, they dissolved into the dark.
It was a rain that felt oddly familiar, as if it had come down just like this a few days ago. But no—this was today.
Today, the rain had to fall. Fate demanded it.
The raindrops had to fall.
Hoshino Ei could no longer hold Concealment. She tumbled out of the shadows.
This was a hillside, and she was rolling down it—her snow-white hair flying loose in the air, like a dandelion coming apart in the wind.
I can't fall here...
Hoshino Ei coughed blood. The rain lashed her body, plastering her hair into a dripping mane. She was soaked through, and her clothes, torn during the fall, were smeared all over with mud.
I can't fall here...
Bracing herself, trembling, she forced her body upright. The wound in her abdomen had split open again. The roots of Hanami's seed were still lodged inside, sunk deep into her flesh.
Those thin, hair-fine tendrils were eating her life away, minute by minute.
Hanami will come tracking the cursed-energy spikes, sooner or later. I can't fall. I can't die. Not here.
The amber of her eyes had lost its old clarity, clouded now, dulled. Hoshino Ei slapped herself hard across the face.
I will not die like this!
She couldn't die like this. Even if death was coming, it couldn't be like this.
She hadn't yet accomplished what she wanted.
Grinding her teeth, Hoshino Ei shoved aside the branches blocking her way. Against a downpour that seemed bent on drowning the whole world, she put one foot in front of the other. Forward. Forward.
Her delicate bare feet left a trail of blood behind her.
She pushed past one last branch and emerged from the thicket.
In her head, she ran the distances. Hanami was roughly a kilometer off. Even if the spirit came chasing now, it didn't matter—she'd left herself an escape route.
As long as one life remained, just one, there was still hope.
Death itself did not frighten her. What terrified her was after death, when no one would remember her—the eternal silence and darkness on the other side. How she feared the dark. Locked inside a coffin. Forgotten inside a freezer. How she feared the dark.
So even when she died, she had to die for something. She had to be remembered, forever, by the one person she wanted most to remember her. Branded into his heart.
That way, inside the endless dark of death, she would have comfort. That way, she could live on inside him, at his side throughout his life. That way, she would never be alone.
Hoshino Ei was a coward. She was afraid of the dark. She was a little girl who had only just been born, and she wanted a god—so that she would not be afraid of death.
So I can't die yet...
She raised her head and walked into the darkness ahead. And then, abruptly, her feet locked up.
Her pupils froze.
There, up the road, through the sheeting downpour, a figure stood holding a black umbrella, watching her in silence.
"So it's true. To find you, I needed your companion after all."
"Hasegawa Kaede."
Nanami Kira watched her beneath his umbrella, face expressionless, voice level.
"Wha... what do you mean?"
The words came from somewhere deep in her throat, leaving her head blank.
The rain beat down on her. Hoshino Ei swayed where she stood, staring at Nanami Kira like a kitten abandoned in the storm.
"To kill you, of course. Curse user."
Kira tilted his head slightly.
The entire world collapsed inward.
"I know your technique is Concealment, and that the body you send to the school is just an avatar. Killing her wouldn't do me any good."
"Your real body isn't at the school. I don't know where it is. You're very good at hiding."
"So I thought—maybe your companion does?"
"These past few days, I've been deliberately driving a wedge between you and your allies. Through Chou Fei, I got them to believe you were the traitor."
"I followed them. They led me straight to you."
Kira spoke calmly, without the slightest ripple in his voice, as if stating something of no consequence.
"To them, it probably looks like I was planning to ambush them. But you were the target all along."
"Curse user, Hasegawa Kaede."
Kira's tone was quiet, flat—but each sentence came down like a hammer blow against Hoshino Ei's heart.
Her shoulders were shaking. Her face had gone pale. She bowed her head, voice small.
"My name is not Hasegawa Kaede."
"It makes no difference."
"I'm not Hasegawa Kaede. I'm not Hasegawa Kaede... I'm not Hasegawa Kaede."
Hoshino Ei lifted her face. Rain fell on her cheeks, and for a moment no one could have told what was rain and what was tears. Of everything Kira had said, it was the final line that had broken her open.
Curse user, Hasegawa Kaede.
"I... my name is Hoshino Ei."
"I'm Hoshino Ei. I'm your hand... I won't break anymore, I promise, so—"
She looked into his eyes. Her own were crystalline now, fragile as glass, and in the wind and rain she looked about to shatter.
"I was wrong. I shouldn't have lied. I'm sorry... can we go back to how we were? Please? Please!"
Her gaze clung to him, hopeful, like a stray kitten.
Kira's lips parted slowly. And under the weight of that hope, quietly, calmly, he answered:
"Repulsive."
The light in her eyes went out.
In the next instant Kira was in front of her.
Killer Queen pressed its palm against her forehead.
In the pouring rain, specks of blood scattered outward, tumbled through the air, and dissolved without a trace.
"I won't give up... I haven't yet."
Those were her last words.
Boom.
The rain kept falling. It fell on Nanami Kira. It fell on every leaf, on every stone, on every inch of earth. A nightingale's wings were soaked through; it couldn't fly anymore. The summer cicadas sheltered under the flattened stalks of rice, and cried out their raw, rasping cry.
Scrrk-scrrk-scrrk.
Scrrk. Dead. Dead.
After a moment of silence, Kira raised his head and glanced at his watch.
It was already noon. One hour remained until Time Reshaping.
Things were starting to slide beyond his expectations.
Hoshino Ei's real body wasn't here.
In short order, Kira had the situation mapped out in his head. This was his mistake:
Unlike his own shikigami Killer Queen, Hoshino Ei's shikigami could exist in multiple instances at once.
If his read was correct, she had fabricated another spirit-body during her flight, handed her real body over to the new one, and left this one behind as bait.
The first avatar had carried Hanami's technique residue—the most visible target, a lighthouse in the black night.
She'd thrown the first one out as a decoy to pull the enemy's attention. The second one, carrying her real body, slipped away.
Kira's face had gone fully dark. He hated anything outside the plan. He hated the unexpected.
He looked once more at his watch, turned his gaze toward the forest laid out beyond the rain, snapped open his umbrella, and walked away.
His boots stepped into a puddle, sending ripples rolling outward.
He had to reach Hoshino Ei before Hanami did.
Because time was running out.