Hoshino Ei didn't know what was wrong. Didn't know why such violent emotion churned inside her.
She watched Nanami Kira in silence, waiting for him to explain—but she had forgotten what she was.
Just a hand.
Nothing more than a hand.
Nanami Kira tilted his head. His gaze was as calm as ever, deep as the sea. He leaned in close, his nose twitching, and spoke a single sentence that shattered her completely:
"It's gone bad."
Yes. Gone bad.
She was just a hand—of course she'd go bad. She was nothing but an ugly little Cursed Spirit, after all.
Rotting. Decaying. Withering. A Cursed Spirit...
Hands go bad, because that was her true form. So hideous, so unspeakably hideous... of course she'd be thrown away.
Because she was born a Cursed Spirit.
Just as Hasegawa Kaede was born a Curse User, she was born a Cursed Spirit.
Those beautiful, slender fingers, that smooth skin, every inch and joint carved to perfection—those were Hasegawa Kaede's hands. It was all the emperor's new clothes.
Why? She couldn't understand. What exactly had she been fantasizing about?
She'd known for so long. She'd accepted the truth ages ago. So why—why...
Did she resent it so much?
Did she resent it so much!
Nanami Kira shook his head and placed Hoshino Ei back inside the freezer. His fingers traced across the back of her hand. That sensation she'd once known—like fine sand brushing softly against skin, gentle enough to make a cat purr with half-closed eyes—now felt like a blade scraping against her.
Knife after knife. Sharp edges tearing through skin, boring into bone, piercing straight through her soul.
The agony was unbearable, yet Hoshino Ei wished the blade would linger a little longer. Don't leave so soon. Even if it was pain—even if it was pain that Nanami Kira inflicted upon her—she couldn't bear to let it go.
The way one might wish summer could last just a little longer, she wished his fingertips would stay on her just a moment more. Even through such agony, such despair—because those fingertips still carried warmth, and inside the freezer there was only cold and darkness. Because the pain still made Hoshino feel alive. Made her feel human—capable of suffering and despairing over human things—and that let her forget the truth that she was nothing but a Cursed Spirit.
Let her forget that she was nothing but a hand, destined to rot, destined to crumble into white bone. Those summer days had been so beautiful, even though they were all bubbles, nothing but lies...
No. They were going to take even this from her...
She didn't want to go back into the coffin. She didn't. She'd rather die than—
Click.
The freezer lid shut. Infinite cold and infinite darkness wrapped around her.
The days passed like that.
Day after day, Hoshino Ei lay encased in ice. Day after day, she lay in that darkness, waiting to decay.
Every evening before dusk, Nanami Kira opened the freezer to check on her condition.
Each time, it was the happiest moment of her day—though it lasted barely seven minutes.
Every day, the moment dawn broke, she began to long for it. She counted the seconds in her heart, whispering to herself to endure, to hold on.
When the time came, she would see Nanami Kira—and then be placed back inside the freezer, to begin the next day's wait.
Her life had been compressed, shrunk down until only those few minutes felt alive.
The rest of the time she was as good as dead, lying still in the corner of the freezer. That enormous compartment was her morgue.
More than once, she could smell other women's scent on Nanami Kira's hands. The smell drove her mad. Drove her to fury.
Fury enough to want to cut off Nanami Kira's hands. Fury enough to want every woman in the world to lose their hands.
But she could do nothing. She told herself to endure. Nanami Kira despised things beyond his control.
Otherwise she'd lose even this last sliver of time.
Another agonizing day.
It was a summer night. Through the thick wall of ice, Hoshino Ei heard explosions from the courtyard, followed by Nanami Kira's muffled grunt. She didn't know what had happened, but worry rose unbidden—and even she found herself pathetic for it.
But there was nothing she could do. She was just a hand. Just a tiny little Cursed Spirit.
The next day. Early morning.
For the first time in ages, Nanami Kira took Hoshino Ei out of the freezer and set a place for her at the dining table.
What a gloriously clear morning it was. Warm sunlight fell upon her, every particle of light scattered through the air, landing on the sky-blue window frames, rising and falling gently with the breeze. The day itself seemed to glow.
Hoshino Ei lay obediently in the corner of the table, watching Nanami Kira. Every minute, every second was so precious, sparkling like diamonds. Such happiness.
Knock knock knock. An unwelcome rapping came from downstairs.
Nanami Kira pushed back his chair and went to answer the door. Hoshino Ei loathed whoever was knocking with every fiber of her being, her five fingers digging into the tabletop, leaving faint marks.
The visitor's name was Megumi Fushiguro. Hoshino Ei didn't know him.
Jujutsu sorcerers were all shit.
They were discussing work. Hoshino Ei had no interest in any of it. Work was shit.
She listened intently. She didn't want to miss a single word Nanami Kira said:
"What is it, Fushiguro?"
...
"Hold on. I'm in the middle of an argument with my girlfriend."
Her nails dug in harder. She listened.
"I think her feelings for me have soured."
The sky came crashing down.
Hoshino Ei lay silent, numb, in the corner of the table. She watched Nanami Kira and Fushiguro talk and talk. Watched him slam the door shut with a bang. Watched him walk back inside. Watched him drain the last of his coffee. Heard him speak these words to her:
"I want you to sit here and reflect on exactly what you did wrong."
Then he straightened his clothes, went upstairs to feed the cat, and left with Fushiguro.
Leaving Hoshino Ei alone on the table.
Morning passed. Noon passed. Dusk passed.
The summer sun wheeled overhead, and the green shade cast by the paulownia trees wheeled with it. Cicadas droned their death-song. It was the height of summer. The temperature was brutal.
Nanami Kira had made a mistake. He hadn't put Hoshino Ei back in the freezer—or perhaps, for a woman he was about to discard, the gesture was no longer necessary.
Hoshino Ei sat on the table and waited to rot.
What exactly had she done wrong?
Her only sin was being born a corpse.
She returned to that question she'd asked herself before:
If the purpose of her birth was simply to wait for decay, then why had she been awakened at all?
Hatred.
Hate.
This feeling was hate, wasn't it? Hoshino Ei wasn't entirely sure.
A hatred that wanted to flip the whole world upside down. The cicadas outside were so annoying—she wanted to crush every last one. The sun was so hot—she wanted to tear it from the sky and slam it into the ground.
She wanted to kill every woman who walked past on the street, then pile their hands into a grave and leave them under the sun to watch them rot, bit by bit.
Hate. Hate. Hate!
She had once loved summer beyond measure. Now she despised it with everything she had. She hated Nanami Kira. She hated every black-and-white film they'd watched together on those long evenings. She hated every star in the night sky.
But she still couldn't let go... so hate curdled into resentment, and she could only rot down to bare bone.
Dusk had fallen. The moon rose. The shadow of the window frames crept along the corridor, across the living room, and gradually draped itself over Hoshino Ei.
She still hated. She still resented. And this will burned so fiercely it seemed ready to abandon everything, to sacrifice everything.
In another corner of the house—in the attic upstairs, in a place the moonlight couldn't reach—a dark-gold Arrow trembled.