"I... I understand, Mother."
Kazumi lowered her head. Her mother's words sounded like a curse wrapped in nightmares.
"Very good."
Only then did her mother's previously icy tone return to its benevolent guise as she said with satisfaction:
"You only need to devote yourself to making that doll. Your younger sister finished preparing long ago. She truly is such a diligent child. Even so, in my heart, you still hold a higher position than your sister. I have placed such caring hopes upon you, so you mustn't lose to her."
With that, the sound of her mother's departing footsteps came from beyond the door.
Kazumi let out a faint sigh and spoke as though complaining to her mother:
"I never once thought about defeating her. Mother, it's your upbringing of Manto... that has twisted her."
Manto was Kazumi's younger sister. Whenever Kazumi thought of her, she couldn't help sighing, partly from helplessness and partly from powerlessness.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Kazumi allowed the blood to slide from her hand and fall onto the floor. Her steps grew heavy. Kotomi's sudden departure and her mother's judgment of Kotomi had both dealt her a crushing blow. She didn't want to believe that the sights and stories Kotomi had described to her were all false, yet having never left Kuchihana Residence since childhood, she instinctively believed what her mother said.
Looking back on the fifteen years since her birth... To Kazumi, the sky had always seemed terribly small. The sky was only as large as Kuchihana Residence.
That was why, when Kotomi told her that the sky was an endless vault and the ocean stretched beyond the limits of sight, Kazumi had yearned for them so deeply. She wanted to leave Kuchihana Residence. She wanted to leave Gokugū Village. She wanted to see the sky outside with Kotomi. She wanted to see the ocean with Kotomi.
"We clearly promised that you would take me to see the ocean... Kotomi, why did you have to leave without saying a word? Could it really be just as my mother said? Were the boundless sky and the ocean stretching beyond sight all lies you invented to deceive me?"
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
This time, it was no longer only beads of blood dripping from her hand. Tears also spilled from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
Kazumi had no idea how long she cried before she finally stopped. She picked up the short blade once more and cut a small piece from each of the ten mounds of white clay.
Each small piece of clay contained white, red, and the flesh that had been placed inside.
She arranged the ten small pieces of white clay on the floor one after another, then gradually shaped them into a doll according to her mother's earlier instructions.
First, she formed the torso, carved the lines of the waist, and pinched out the hands and feet. Then, beginning with the head, she assembled the separate clay body parts in order until they formed a human figure.
Using her fingernail, she carved lines into the doll's head to create a face.
Next came the doll's expression...
But when she reached this step, Kazumi suddenly stopped moving. She stared blankly at the doll's expressionless face. As long as she wished, all she needed to do was continue carving lines, and the doll would have an expression.
But... Kazumi felt only confusion. She didn't know what kind of expression she should carve onto the doll.
She had originally planned to ask Kotomi and hear her opinion, but Kotomi had chosen to leave without saying goodbye...
"Even if you really lied to me, I wouldn't be angry. What I cherished was every minute and every second I spent with you. As long as I was with you, even if we did nothing at all, my heart felt incredibly peaceful, as though every unhappy thing would simply fade away.
"Kotomi, from the first time I met you until now, only a few brief days have passed. But those few days were the happiest time in all fifteen years of my life. It was as though, after endless gloom and cold, I had finally felt the warmth of sunlight.
"But that warmth was so fleeting.
"Kotomi, I truly want to see the ocean with you..."
Amid her murmuring, Kazumi set down the expressionless doll. She had no intention of carving an expression onto it, because she and Kotomi had agreed that Kotomi would decide what expression the doll should wear.
Since Kotomi was no longer at Kuchihana Residence and had not said what expression should be carved onto the doll before leaving, there was no need for the doll to have an expression at all.
With that thought, Kazumi pressed the short blade against her wrist. She pushed the edge down slightly, then slashed quickly, leaving a thin red line across her skin.
Hiss—
Kazumi's expression trembled violently. Her senses, which had earlier been frozen numb by the cold, had already awakened from their dullness.
Without the "protection" of numbness and dulled sensation, the pain caused by the short blade naturally revealed itself in full.
Beads of bright red blood slowly swelled, then burst from the wound. The entire process took only a few seconds.
Kazumi breathed deeply, trying to ease the pain with each breath. At the same time, she tightly clenched the hand whose wrist was bleeding. With her other hand, she picked up the doll and let the flowing blood drip onto its limbs.
Onto its abdomen, then onto its arms and legs.
Onto the doll that had not yet been fully completed.
The shriveled white clay doll turned red after drinking the blood.
Only when it later became completely dark red would it truly be finished.
Kazumi gently wiped the bloodstained blade with the white paper beside the candle, then returned it to its sheath.
She had intended to wrap her wrist in white cloth to stop the bleeding, but when Kazumi looked at her small hand again, new tissue had already begun slowly growing over the missing flesh in her palm.
At first, the long, slender tendrils of flesh resembled a clump of earthworms knotted tightly together, slowly writhing within the hollow in her palm.
But soon, as though they had understood how to repair the damage, several slender tendrils began weaving new flesh across her wounded palm like a warm sweater worn in winter.
Accompanied by the sound of writhing flesh, a malformed mass mixed with blood and traces of skin continuously filled the hollow in her palm.
Blood gradually stopped flowing down her small hand and onto the floor. Her scar-covered hands slowly returned to their original state.
Eventually, even the wound on her wrist vanished.
Kazumi stared dazedly at her pale hands, now completely restored. After considering it for a while, she still wrapped white cloth around her wrist.
She knew she was a monster capable of healing wounds within a short time. Although the process appeared slow, compared with the healing speed of an ordinary person, it could already be described as astonishingly fast.
Insisting on wrapping the healed wound in white cloth was merely a childish form of escape, as though covering it could conceal the fact that her wound had healed itself.
After wrapping the white cloth securely around her wrist, Kazumi lowered her head once more and looked at the white clay doll resting within the three-sided ritual stand. She whispered:
"Doll, this is good enough. Whether you have an expression or not... it's all the same."
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