I Screwed Up!
He burst out of the girl's Mindscape the way Mario explodes from a pipe. Bonk—his head hit the ceiling. In a skittering instant he caught himself on hands and feet and turned into a phantom-thief spider.
"You're awake. A pleasure, Miss Successor."
I looked down. A girl was mumbling her way through an apple. I had just popped out of her chest, and all she did was open her eyes very round.
She swallowed the last of it, looked at her chest, then at me. Her hand wandered over her chest. Knead, knead. She worked both soft hills, and pinched the little trees standing perkily upright.
It was embarrassing to watch. A girl who looked about ready to start high school was feeling her own chest with a blank face, and simply holding the sight in my eyes felt like I had stepped over a line I was never meant to cross.
"Hnnnngh..."
The corners of her mouth trembled and climbed. Her eyes slanted, gloomy and sharp, and her tongue licked her lips again and again. Her cheeks flushed as if with excitement, and her feet kicked and fluttered.
She looked like a child waiting on a gift from Santa. She also looked like a brat wearing the twisted smile of a sinister little plan that had just succeeded.
A life of phantom thievery. Had a person's smile ever made me uneasy before?
I was confident I wouldn't be afraid even if Another One tore space open and appeared in a fit of mad laughter. If he showed up in that foul a mood, I'd probably shoot my mouth off first, rip away the mask, and fight him while smashing a planet or two.
This was different. The unease came from being unable to get any read on what she was thinking. To think there was something even this Phantom Eye had failed to see. The true path of a phantom thief was long, and rough.
But I am Phantom. A prepared aspirant who has survived every battle on land and sea, in the air, and out in space. Let whatever it is put me to the test. Nothing will be able to stop me...!
"I had a baby...!!!"
The mom just got replaced!!!
"I had a baby! I had a baaaaaby!!! I'm a mom noooow...!!!"
An earthquake struck. No—not an earthquake. Someone was coming, and fast. The threshold exploded and hurtled toward me; the speed of it had broken the sound barrier. I was driven into the wall along with the door, and the one who had put me there stepped in.
"A child?! What is this talk of a child?!"
Amaterasu, the great goddess, fully armed and mantled in the light of the sun, let out a furious roar.
"Mom! I became a mom, just like Mom!"
The girl welcomed her with a wide-open smile. That bright little laugh was soaked through with a child's untainted innocence.
Amaterasu's eyes went soft and wet, but only for a moment. Remembering why she had come, she seized the girl by the shoulders.
"Child. Will you explain it properly to this mother? For you to be with child is a matter great enough to bring this world down."
"Huuuh? It isn't physically possible?"
"And where did you learn knowledge like that...?!!!"
Amaterasu's divinity surged and sank with her feelings. Look only at the sight of her, and she was no different from a clueless mother fussing over her precious daughter. The girl, for her part, only beamed, as if she understood nothing at all.
"I became a mom, just like Mom! I'm going to be a wonderful mom!"
"Child...!"
Amaterasu's mind reeled.
"What's all this racket in broad daylight?"
Pele—owner of a voice that was young, and yet thick as some rough old man's—rubbed at her eyes and frowned her pretty brow.
"O goddess of the volcano! The child is with child! What are we to do!"
"A kid having a kid? What kind of bullshit is that. Is the world ending?"
"No! I had a baby!"
At Pele's incredulous retort, the girl puffed out her cheeks. Pele sighed and looked at me, still smashed into one piece with the door.
"One glance and I can tell you caused this. You coming down or not?"
"Yes, ma'am."
I set the door down with care and dropped swiftly to the floor.
Knees laid flat to the earth.
Palms set sideways beside the head.
Head planted as straight as Tokyo Tower.
"My child!"
The girl climbed off the bed, pattered over, and threw her arms around me. The thin softness of her cheek pressed in past my shoulder.
Amaterasu looked deeply shaken.
"The honored guest is the girl's child...? Don't tell me the honored guest is ours, come from the future...!"
"You think so? That one's Korean to the bone."
"But then why would the child—"
"That's what we ask right now."
Pele asked it gently.
"O child of the divine demon. Can you explain why that one is your child?"
"Because I gave birth to him with my chest!"
She was triumphant, as if she had been asked something obvious, and her dainty chest was thrust forward like proof.
"You gave birth... with your chest?"
"Mom said so! Even if she isn't my real mom, I'm a precious child she bore from her bosom! And my child was born from my chest, so I became a mom!"
"Hmm..."
"Ah..."
Pele's pupils and Amaterasu's spun at high speed. Divine minds parsed a child's words and came up with the right answer.
"Did that guy pop out of your chest?"
"Yeah! He was born!"
"Figures."
Now that she understood, Pele looked down at me the way one looks at something worse than dog shit in the road.
"We were worried sick over where you'd wandered off to, and you were living it up inside a child's body?"
"Pele. This is a misunderstanding. A truly enormous misunderstanding."
"It had better be a proper one."
Pele jerked her chin toward Amaterasu.
"Get this wrong, and you could die."
A dark pit had opened. Amaterasu's once-sparkling black eyes had died to black. The edges of her sunlight blackened, then went white. I did not want to know what shape that was becoming.
"Honored guest, it is all right. Surely you had your reasons."
Her mouth was smiling. Her eyes were smiling. That was all they did. A long, grinding creak split the quiet.
"So I would ask that you speak only the truth. You are our benefactor, after all."
A longbow the height of a grown man screamed as it bent. From those delicate fingers, white as jade and seemingly never once touched by water, poured a destructive force fit to shake the earth.
"And if I am disappointed...?"
"That would never happen. But if it did."
I would become a most unfortunate god.
"A very unfortunate god."
"Goodness. Would I ever do such a thing?"
"See that you do not."
There was no killing intent in her tone. That made it worse.
"Quit stalling and just talk."
Pele let out a sigh and hurried me on.
"Yes! What happened was..."
I explained what I had done in the Mindscape in exhaustive detail—who, what, when, where, why, and how.
"I see... As expected, an honored guest would never commit so shameless an act. I apologize for the rudeness."
Amaterasu bowed her head low.
"Not at all. I was wrong to act alone without a word. Please, raise your head. Too many people are watching."
Perhaps the talk had run long, and the commotion with it. At the doorway stood everyone who belonged there, and everyone who didn't.
"You have saved the girl yet again. How am I ever to repay this grace..."
"There is no need. It was what had to be done."
Whew. Somehow, the situation seemed settled. That had taken ten years off my life.
"He's not my child?"
The girl sounded ready to cry. Why was she crying? It had been a long, difficult story. Had she actually understood all of it? She acted like a little kid, but her mind seemed to be something well past clever.
"Miss Successor. I'm truly sorry, but I am not your child. I have parents."
"But you were born from my chest...!"
"I wasn't born. I popped out."
"It's the same thing! A child like me, born from my chest—there's no way I would get it wrong!"
"And what is that supposed to mean...?"
Like her? That was absolutely impossible. No—it was something that must not be allowed to happen.
Did staying in the Mindscape too long cause a problem? Did I do something by accident?
"Hiiiing."
Unable to hide how wronged she felt, the girl spilled tears the size of fists.
"My chest hurts. I'm a bad mom. My child denied that I exist..."
This was awkward. Profoundly awkward. The stares stung, a silent pressure that said I had started this, so I could clean it up. A proper adult would have played along with the child here. But I am a phantom thief. Nonsense like that was none of my business!
"Miss Successor. I really am sorry, but..."
"I hate you..."
"...Huh?"
Crack. Crunch. A sound gone out of tune rang through the room. The source was the girl. She was changing.
Her thin, bracken-tender hands thickened, and tendons stood out. Her shoulders spread wide behind her, and muscle no clothes could hide came to the surface. Her neck swelled. She grew at a furious speed, until she was tall enough that her head might have touched the floor.
"I really. Really hate you."
The voices overlapped. One mouth, and two voices came out of it: the girl's, and a voice like metal scraping, like a throat being clawed raw.
With a splitting crack, two horns sprouted from her forehead. Yellow, and blue. Sharp horns, like bamboo shoots and like a deer's antlers. An oni's horns.
"Haah. Haah."
The girl lifted her head. Her eyes had inverted. Crimson light poured from those reversed eyes and raked straight across the human instinct to survive.
"Graaaaaaah!!!"
The oni roared. The room blew apart.
"Whoa!"
I screwed up!