Walnut-chan - Chapter 65: Incompleteness and Restrictions

Chapter 65: Incompleteness and Restrictions

…

The more the two of them discussed and summed up, the clearer it became how troublesome the idol vengeful spirit's cursed technique was. It was far better suited to sorcerers who excelled at long-range combat.

The only mercy was that the idol vengeful spirit had no intention of killing them.

"That isn't necessarily a good thing. Like I said before, cursed spirits of the vengeful-spirit type all carry powerful fixations."

"The fact that she hasn't killed us actually means she's incomplete right now."

Kento Nanami had already asked a friend to look into the tenant of that rental unit.

If they could understand her fixation, they might be able to counter her from another angle.

Then his tablet received a message from that friend. Nanami took the tablet from Ijichi and read it.

"The victim is Ai Hoshino, a member of the idol group B-Komachi. She gave birth out of wedlock to a boy and a girl, and has no other relatives. Her children currently attend XX Junior High... Tch. So it really is that kind of case."

"What is it, Mr. Nanami?"

Satoru Anjouin was deeply confused.

"Your target is incomplete at the moment. Her fixation should be love, love for her own children. But to become whole, she has to kill them."

"She hasn't killed us because she hasn't killed her children yet. Only once that condition is met will her restriction be lifted."

Nanami took a sip of water from his thermos.

"Some vengeful spirits have what you might call a 'murder restriction.' Like the hypothetical cursed spirits born from urban legends, they need certain conditions to kill their targets."

His expression grew graver. Frankly, the sheer power of the idol vengeful spirit's cursed technique probably had something to do with her restriction.

As long as she couldn't kill the family she loved, she couldn't lay a hand on anyone else.

Because of that love for her children, she was incomplete as a cursed spirit.

And precisely because she was now a cursed spirit, she instinctively craved wholeness. In other words, she longed to kill her children and complete the bond of "love."

But the resistance buried in her subconscious made her refuse to finish the act, and so she was stuck here.

"I'm going to probe her once more."

As Nanami spoke, Anjouin looked worried, then quickly laid out his own idea.

"Mr. Nanami, I have an idea."

"Since her goal is to drive us away, we stop the elevator first, so the only way out is the stairs. If I don't listen, don't look, and don't think, I can become someone outside her technique."

"I'll stay at the stairs and be the one to wake you. That way we won't have to keep going back and forth and wasting time. And if you come to sooner, could you attack her right away?"

Hearing Anjouin say this, Nanami thought it over seriously.

"Don't listen, don't look, don't think? How do you plan to do that?"

"I can use a Binding to make myself forget the target for a while," Anjouin said. "Then, if I hide at the stairs, I won't see the idol vengeful spirit, and with earplugs in, I won't hear her either."

Surprise crossed Nanami's face. The arrangement sidestepped the vengeful spirit's technique neatly.

"You really are well suited to being a jujutsu sorcerer."

"You flatter me."

The two then followed the plan and shut down the elevator first.

Luckily, this luxury apartment building had hardly any tenants left, so halting the elevator wouldn't cause a stir, at least for now.

Anjouin, who had the waking duty, curled up as small as he could. He also dragged some clutter onto the landing at the stairway's turn to hide his body, so the idol vengeful spirit wouldn't spot him.

Then he set down on the flight of stairs a phone holding a recording of his own voice. It was playing his calls and Ijichi's.

The phone Nanami carried was repeating the calls as well.

As long as he woke fast enough and had a little reaction time afterward, then even if he fell under the idol vengeful spirit's technique again and again, he could quickly organize an attack.

Incidentally, Nanami had already classed the idol vengeful spirit as a Grade 1 cursed spirit.

Even among Grade 1 cursed spirits she wasn't the strongest, but her powerful technique was a hard counter to any sorcerer who needed to see his target or could hear her voice.

Nanami went up, and ran into the idol vengeful spirit.

【I'm Hoshino. I'm human.】

Curse energy rolled off her, and she wore the skin of a lovely idol. But the longer he looked, the more wrong her limbs' proportions seemed, like some unknown creature wearing a layer of human skin.

Faced with something so jarring, Nanami pushed up his glasses and began talking to the idol vengeful spirit with the composure of a corporate professional.

"I see. Mrs. Hoshino, I'm an investigator from the Tokyo Waterworks Bureau. Have you heard any strange noises lately?"

"A few days ago, the Ministry of the Environment issued a statement saying that the recent drastic climate changes would increase the air pressure inside the pipes of older apartment buildings and produce odd sounds."

【I wouldn't know~】

The girl in the idol outfit answered with a charming smile.

Her expression didn't move. Neither did her lips. She wasn't breathing, her chest never rose or fell, as though even her heart were cold.

She was a perfectly crafted, ice-cold corpse.

Or an unknown creature wearing a layer of skin.

"Sorry to have bothered you."

With that, Nanami simply left.

Sorcerers don't target non-sorcerers. Since he'd come here looking for the idol vengeful spirit, he figured he'd just ask the resident whether she'd noticed anything unusual.

Even so, he didn't take this resident's word at face value. People in the island nation had always hated causing trouble and had been raised never to trouble others.

So hiding the truth wasn't out of the question. As a Grade 1 sorcerer, Nanami had plenty of exorcism experience.

He had naturally been through jobs where locals burned him, or where residents who feared trouble deliberately withheld information and let the very cursed spirit he was meant to exorcise escape.

"Let's regroup with Anjouin first."

In his pocket, the phone kept repeating the calls of the two men.

As Nanami turned away, the purple-haired idol, who had never stopped smiling, slowly followed.

Her eyes, which looked like they held stars, stared fixedly at the left pocket of Nanami's suit, and the smile frozen on her face stretched faintly wider.

The next instant, Nanami swept his bandage-wrapped cleaver backward.

It struck her raised arm and blew the whole limb apart.

Bang.

Like a bag stuffed with flour bursting open, countless motes of dust drifted everywhere.

【Huh?】

The idol vengeful spirit's exquisite face stared at the vanished arm, her eyes cold and dark.

Nanami, his head slightly clearer now, kept swinging the cleaver.

"Ratio Technique—"

No matter who the opponent was, this technique could forcibly create a weak point on an enemy.

Nanami immediately unleashed it, dividing the target's length into equal parts and forcibly creating a weak point at the 7:3 mark.

A strike on that weak point triggered a critical hit. Even an enemy stronger than him could be damaged this way.

The technique took hold of the idol vengeful spirit with the terrifying eyes.

Wrapped in cursed energy of blue shot through with black, the cleaver struck that weak point.

Pop!

The idol's skin burst in an instant, and countless motes of dust gushed from the ruptured hide.

Nanami felt as though a huge wave had slammed into him. Swept off by the tide of dust, he drove his cleaver into the wall to steady himself.

When the dust finally cleared, where the idol vengeful spirit had stood there was now a pitch-black human shape, gathered from countless words, each reading "lie."

Only the head still wore the idol's face, as if it had pulled on a mascot mask.

Lies in every kind of typeface pieced together graceful curves and limbs. Now the generous swell of the torso rose into mountains, now it flattened into plains, as if she were changing every moment into whatever shape people adored.

A petite, lolita-type girl. A tall, elegant older-sister type. A slightly smaller, gracefully curved beauty who stirred the urge to protect her. Or a mature woman, ripe as a peach…

The idol vengeful spirit's body shifted without end.

Her cold, black eyes stared fixedly at Nanami, who was still leaning against the wall.

"So this is what you really look like."

Nanami rallied and brought his technique down on the idol vengeful spirit once more.

【I'm human, you know~】

The face mounted on her head opened its mouth and spoke.

Nanami's movements stalled. He stood stunned on the spot.

"I see, Mrs. Hoshino. Sorry to have bothered you."

He put away his cleaver and turned around again, while the endlessly repeating calls were gradually, bit by bit, drawing his mind back.

The idol vengeful spirit's head turned ninety degrees as if it had snapped, and she watched the departing Nanami from an eerie angle. Then she began murmuring again.

【Aqua… by… qua… by…】

She muttered some kind of call under her breath, lowered her head, and slipped back into her room.

Nanami, who had already reached the stairwell entrance, suddenly had clear eyes. The sound from the phone on the stairs became the moment that woke him.

Nanami broke free of the technique's influence once again.

But he didn't head straight for the rental unit. Instead, he threw himself rolling into the stairwell.

Almost the instant he dove in, the door of the rental unit opened again, and the idol vengeful spirit's face leaned out from behind it.

On a long, long neck, the human face still wore its utterly charming smile.

After a good while, the long neck slowly retracted into the rental unit, its head hanging almost down to the ceiling.

"Mr. Nanami, are you all right?"

Anjouin, still wearing his earplugs, asked anxiously.

Nanami was in a sorry state. Unsure whether he was still under her technique, he didn't dare let Anjouin take out the earplugs.

He pulled out his phone and, without stopping the calls still repeating on it, opened the notes app and typed what he wanted to say.

"Anjouin, stay alert."

"The recordings work."

Anjouin's phone still sat on the flight of stairs.

It was also playing the calls.

Anjouin didn't know what kind of cursed spirit Nanami had faced, but it was plainly extremely hard to handle. Even a Grade 1 sorcerer like Nanami had been dragged into a hard fight.

Then, in the next instant, he found out exactly what Nanami had faced.

On a long, long neck, that beautiful woman's face, like a mask of skin… now leaned out from behind Nanami.

Lies welled up as naturally as a black tide.

And swallowed Anjouin and Nanami whole.