Yuka couldn't understand.
How the current situation was unfolding.
She had heard the story.
She knew that Kotone wasn't an ordinary person, and that she was a child who represented some kind of god.
The same went for Koko, and she knew that Kotone had been able to come back to life by using part of Koko's body.
She knew that this might be the best option in the current situation.
A being that seemed impossible to deal with using just a sword.
A monster connected to a world that the living should never know about.
Yuka understood that to face such a thing, one had no choice but to become a monster of the same caliber.
But still, there was one thing she couldn't understand.
Why did it have to be Kotone?
Why did a child who had always suffered have to sacrifice herself?
Why, in this world—
"————!"
A grating sound.
The glowing blue flesh mass was screaming.
At least it wasn't the voice of Kotone that Yuka remembered.
It was huge, but smaller than the massive bundle of tentacles sprouting from the ground.
As if to tear apart the flesh mass that threatened its very existence, the tentacles gripped it tightly.
"......"
Yuka clutched her sword tightly.
She blinked away the tears that had welled up.
"Kotone..."
Holding the sobbing Koko tightly in her arms, Yuka stood up. Koko followed her lead and got up as well.
Koko's face looked up at Yuka. It was a mess. Blood was caked all over, and some unknown liquid continuously flowed from her hair, which had been reduced to almost a bob cut.
Only the parts where tears had streamed down her face revealed patches of white skin.
"Koko, we can't stay here."
"Uuu...?"
"Kotone... Kotone went that far for us."
Yuka looked up at the sky.
She still didn't know why it had to be Kotone.
But at least she could understand one reason why Kotone had acted that way.
The appearance Kotone had shown as she ascended to the sky.
The blue flames falling from above might not have been very harmful to Yuka, but they would certainly have been fatal to Koko's body.
Koko, whose body was already weakened, wouldn't have been able to withstand it.
Fortunately, that flesh mass was now struggling high in the sky, so no fire was raining down on their heads at the moment.
But it was only a matter of time.
Fire had spread to the bodies of several of the dead.
"...We need to go."
That request Kotone had mentioned...
She decided not to think about what that request might be.
She just needed to survive here, to ensure that Kotone's actions weren't in vain.
Grieving would come later.
Yuka raised her sword and slashed sideways.
Several of the dead, along with a tentacle, were cut.
"———!"
The tentacles were also screaming. Yuka had no way of knowing if these screams were due to her sword or because of the flesh mass biting into them.
She just needed to make a path.
Though she didn't know which direction to go, she had to protect Koko until the end.
Koko seemed to finally understand Yuka's intentions and tried her best to widen the gap in the tentacle flesh for them to pass through.
The regeneration speed was much slower than before.
It was a bit too much to feel joy or relief, though.
*
The ground continued to rumble. Because of this, Fukuda's bike nearly tipped over several times, but he somehow managed to maintain balance and keep riding.
Screech!
But even that had its limits.
After stopping the motorcycle by turning it sideways, Fukuda felt a chill run down his spine.
The ground had split open right next to where he had placed his foot. If they had been just a little later, the two of them might have fallen right into that gap.
Feeling the weight on his back disappear, he turned around to see Kagami already getting off the motorcycle.
"Kagami-san!"
"We need to go further."
Was she always this blindly determined?
Fukuda wondered as he watched her back.
To be honest, her demeanor at the store had been the opposite. Eyes that seemed to gaze into the distance, as if she had no particular interest in anything.
She always responded politely when spoken to, and would laugh at jokes, but she was quite far from the image of someone dedicated.
He had seen her at the police station too.
"Go," Kagami said.
"Fukuda-san, you have a daughter too."
"......"
Fukuda opened his mouth briefly, then closed it.
...Indeed, even if he followed further, he probably wouldn't be of much help.
Besides, he couldn't completely shake the thought of what would happen to Harumi if he died here.
The thought did cross his mind that if the world ended, he wouldn't see his daughter either, but—
BOOM!
"Aaah!?"
Just as he was getting off the motorcycle to follow, something fell from the sky.
It was a massive... octopus leg, for lack of a better description. Of course, it was different from a normal octopus leg.
It was densely perforated with holes. Red blood was flowing profusely, as if boils had grown all over it and then burst.
This thing had fallen in the direction where Kagami had gone.
"...Kagami-san!?"
He called out, but there was no sound.
Was she not hearing him, or had something else happened?
"......"
Fukuda looked up at the sky.
The blue flesh mass had split vertically.
It had become a huge mouth, biting and tearing at the tentacles. Even from this distance, he could see an enormous amount of blood or bodily fluids pouring down.
"...What the hell is all this?"
Fukuda muttered in bewilderment.
*
A dragon burning blue.
That's how the flesh mass appeared to Kagami's eyes.
It became a huge mouth, then grew legs at the back. It was lashing its tail like a whip, as if trying to strike something.
Stretched long across the sky and writhing, it looked exactly like a dragon straight out of mythology.
"Ah..."
And seeing that battle, tears flowed from Kagami's eyes.
That's... surely Kotone. Or perhaps Koko is with her too.
It might be difficult to express it that way. After all, Kagami had given birth to many of those flesh masses. Enough to fill several refrigerators in her apartment.
There was no way to know if it was truly one being, or if many had become one.
Perhaps their consciousness had been merged as they combined.
If so, what was there couldn't be Kotone and Koko.
"Haa, haa."
But even thinking that, Kagami didn't stop moving.
THUD!
Something fell from above.
It was a severed tentacle. It fell beside the path Kagami was running on, and the impact shook the ground. Kagami stumbled and fell, but she didn't let go of the mirror in her hand.
There were no monsters or anything around. At some point, the monsters that had been popping up were gone. There were traces, though. Traces as if something had burst open everywhere.
The ground was slimy.
Were they all dead?
Something had changed when that flesh mass arrived. She forced herself to get up.
"......"
Kagami realized the unnaturalness.
If such a huge tentacle fell, it would naturally be fatal to beings below. Like a person stepping on ants, the houses and buildings below would collapse too.
People inside would not be able to escape harm either.
But what had fallen—
The fragmented pieces had strangely avoided the residential areas.
Cars were crushed and roads were broken. Parts of buildings were damaged and collapsed.
Yet, Kagami somehow felt that no one had died because of it.
When people survive situations where one more step would have meant death, they often think it was divine protection, even if it was just coincidence.
Is it going too far to think that about this scene now?
Kagami's heart beat wildly.
"————Hahahahahahaha!"
Laughter echoed.
She looked up at the sky again.
Was the opponent... really her sister?
She couldn't tell if the voice had changed as the body transformed, or if her sister had become—something else.
But amidst the maniacal laughter, the bell sound that had been heard until now had long since stopped.
Kagami started running again.
The reason her heart was racing wasn't just because she was running.
Would an entity like an Outer God move with consideration for humans, such insignificant creatures?
In Kurosawa's plan, people were expendable. After all, even if people died because of that power, when life and death became one, the concept itself wouldn't matter anymore.
If even a fellow human thought that way, would a being called a god care about such things?
Therefore—
"It's still... Kotone."
Kagami couldn't give up.
Even if her appearance had changed like that, even if she had merged with countless beings and could no longer be recognized as a single entity.
Because Kotone's heart was there.
Because Kotone, while being a messenger of a god descended upon this world, was someone who could empathize with people more than anyone else, such things were happening.
That's why Kagami ran.
*
"Hahahahahahaha!"
When the laughter was heard, the dragon seemed to become even more enraged, opening its mouth wide.
It was impossible to tell 'what' was making the laughing sound, but all the dead attached to the tentacles screamed at once.
Pop, pop, pop.
The dead burst one by one, and blood splattered everywhere. The dragon hadn't spat anything out, but the dead, having heard some incomprehensible sound—a sound that ordinary people couldn't hear—all lost their form in this world.
With the dead gone and the tentacles covered in blood, the dragon bit into them.
With its long body, it coiled around the tentacles in reverse, withstanding the force of other tentacles trying to tear its body away. The blue-burning body seemed to be helping.
CRUNCH!
With a sound like pulling out iron bars, the tentacle was torn sideways, and black blood gushed out from there.
The sight of red and black mixing and pouring down was bizarre. Even in the dark night, the blue dragon's flames illuminated the surroundings.
The monsters fought in the pale light.
When the dragon opened its mouth again, the tentacle dug into that gap. The tentacle, which had wrapped around the lower jaw, applied force without caring that it was being torn by the closed upper jaw.
With a terrible sound, the dragon's lower jaw broke. The tentacle was also torn off, but THUD. After the tentacle fell to the ground, the dragon's jaw was revealed to be bent downward, dangling.
"———!"
The dragon's tail was caught by a tentacle, and numerous tentacles wrapped around its long body from above.
Creak.
Crunch.
The sound of something collapsing from within was heard.
The dragon screamed.
Slash.
Blades sprouted between the tentacles that had wrapped around its body.
Those thin but sharp razor-like blades tore through the penetrated areas. The sound of tearing spread far around.
"Hahahahaha!"
But the opponent seemed to find even that amusing, applying more force.
In the end, the dragon was able to break free. No matter how massive a being was, if its form was torn to the point of not remaining, it would lose its strength.
But the dragon's body was just as tattered.
Blades sticking out here and there.
A surface that had become like rags.
It looked as if it had returned to that initial flesh mass.
The dragon seemed to retreat to the sky, then lowered its head again and fell.
And it bit one of the tentacles it had reduced to rags.
What had been razor blades became hands. In a grotesque form with human arms sprouting from a snake-like elongated body, the dragon grabbed the tentacle.
And bit into it.
A large chunk of flesh entered the dragon's mouth.
After chewing it a few times, the dragon swallowed the flesh.
THUD.
Another tentacle fell on the dragon's waist, but this time the dragon didn't try to escape and instead rolled its body like a snake, moving its head toward that tentacle.
One arm grabbed the end of that tentacle.
As if not to be outdone by the tentacle wrapping around its body, the dragon also wrapped its body around the tentacle.
Chomp.
And it chewed the tentacle.
Like a combination of a snake and wolf's predation, the dragon chewed and swallowed the tentacle several times.
The laughter didn't stop. Rather, the more flesh the dragon swallowed, the louder the laughter became, as if enjoying it.
THUD. THUD.
Towards the snake, endlessly sprouting tentacles struck down like whips.
Perhaps thanks to eating the flesh, the snake seemed to have gained a bit more strength, not yielding to them and repeatedly thrusting its maw.
*
Breathing heavily, Koko and Yuka finally managed to emerge on the opposite side.
How many tentacles had they passed through?
Their entire bodies felt exhausted to the point of collapse.
It couldn't be helped. They had been fighting for their lives for quite some time now.
Kosuzu, who was fighting the dragon, seemed to have no leeway. She had been laughing loudly enough to burst eardrums, but Yuka didn't think it was because she was relaxed.
Thanks to the dragon—Kotone—biting and tearing from above multiple times, there were times when Yuka didn't need to cut the tentacles herself.
A few times they almost got crushed by violently moving tentacles, but they survived because Yuka swung her sword and Koko blocked.
The two walked aimlessly, not knowing where to go, without saying a word.
If they stopped, they would die.
That thought alone kept Yuka moving.
And—
Was it a coincidence?
Or was it some kind of guidance?
They had just been trying to find a path and escape, but—
"...Ah."
In front of them was a 'person'.
At least, it looked like a person.
The lower half was no longer in human form. The legs were so finely split and stuck to the ground that they were barely visible.
Numerous tentacles sprouting from the back were connected to the massive tentacles soaring high into the sky.
Around were many dead, their bodies slumped.
And the central figure itself was just hanging limply, doing nothing.
The hair had turned white.
The face and arms were wrinkled.
It no longer looked like Kagami's 'sister'.
"......"
That thing—Kosuzu—had her right hand extended forward.
A bell hung there, swinging pitifully.
It made a tinkling sound, but unlike before, it seemed to have no meaning.
Did it mean that the owner of the bell had died?
Yuka almost lost strength in her legs for a moment.
"Yuka!?"
If Koko hadn't been beside her, she would have.
Yuka slowly moved forward with Koko.
The corpses of the dead were stepped on.
Crunch.
And unable to withstand Yuka's weight, they simply turned to dust.
They looked as if they had dried up and withered after too much time had passed.
Yuka walked as close as possible to Kosuzu.
And slowly, she raised her sword and placed it against Kosuzu's neck.
Before she could even perform the action of 'stabbing', Kosuzu slowly crumbled.
As if she had been molded from dust from the beginning, Kosuzu crumbled too easily, like overly dried leaves breaking apart.
Her head fell off, turning to sand before it hit the ground.
Her neck collapsed, and her chest turned to powder.
Her arms fell off.
When her hand shattered upon hitting the floor, the bell simply rolled on the ground.
All that dust, like the inside of some creature's stomach, stuck to the sticky and damp floor and walls, slowly changing color. Like sand absorbing water.
Kosuzu was already dead.
Exactly when, it was impossible to know, but already before Yuka and Koko arrived here.
Why—
—There was no need to think about it.
"—Hahahahaha!"
Above, a being laughing as if it wanted to bring down the world with just its laughter.
It must be because of 'that' which Kosuzu had swallowed.
No matter how much a human transcends humanity, they cannot become a god.
A human who tries to swallow a god will, in the end, only be swallowed by the god—
Why hadn't Yuka thought of that?
"Yuka?"
Koko called out to Yuka.
Yuka was about to look towards Koko when—
"—Ugh!"
She suddenly felt pain in her head and dropped to one knee.
"Wuah!?"
It seemed Koko felt the same pain.
The tentacles were slowly collapsing. Starting from where Kosuzu had been.
As if they had been deliberately maintaining that form until now.
Though her head felt like it was splitting, Yuka somehow managed to stand up with her sword.
Despite tears streaming down her face from the headache, she barely caught Koko's body as it floated upwards with her eyes rolled back.
Because Kotone had asked.
"As if I could give up!" Yuka shouted through her tears.
Yuka had no intention of giving up.
She put Koko down and held her in her arms again.
Then she stood up and ran.
"Ugh!"
Something grabbed her foot, but Yuka swung her sword.
She continued running, frantically swinging her sword around.
"U, uuu..."
"Koko! Snap out of it! You can't do that!"
Koko was reaching her hand towards the sky. Her eyes were still rolled back.
As if something in the sky was calling her.
Finally, the sky came into view.
The blue-burning dragon was visible.
The dragon was writhing in the air.
As if in great pain.
"...Ah!"
The broken tentacles began to rise into the sky.
Koko was doing the same, so Yuka, tightly gripping her sword, wrapped her arms around Koko and held her close.
And she pressed herself flat against the ground.
She was scared.
Scared of what would happen next.
But she couldn't give up.
"—Hahahahaha!"
Laughter echoed.
It was a chilling laugh.
Perhaps Kotone had been hearing this laughter all along.
Yuka thought as she shed tears.