The Baby Has to Eat!
I would have sworn to it. A god's own bedchamber wrecked twice over by the very same person—this had to be the first time.
Yellow and blue horns rose in rolling waves. They sprang up with such splendor she might have been the king of the oni herself, and each horn held a different power. The yellow was the sun. The blue was the oni.
The labors of the Oni King and the sun goddess had not been wasted. Their proxy was proving what she could become. The trouble was that she was proving it on someone who had nothing to do with any of it.
"Whoa! It's blowing!"
The room that had held the girl shattered and shot upward. The gods' sanctuary, raised with such care by the Shrine, was ruined badly enough to bring tears.
Out of the space that had been a room, the girl burst, Amaterasu clinging to her back like a vine.
"Baaaaabyyyyy!!!"
Her eyes found me exactly. The sheer weight of hatred packed into them sent a chill down my spine.
"Child, be calm. This will do you no good."
Amaterasu strained and grunted, trying to hold her back, but she could not bring herself to answer with real force. This was a child she had saved only by a thread.
"I expected as much. I did not expect it within a day."
Susanoo set both hands into a ready guard. He did not draw his sword. To raise a weapon against a mere little girl would have been unseemly. Bare hands, empty fists—he meant to put her down with those two fists alone. That was what a god of war did.
"Come, then. Strong child, young as you are! I will not go easy on you, not even for your god!"
"You will go easy on her! Susanoo!!!"
Amaterasu's eyes physically blazed. Susanoo ignored his terrifying sister's glare and met the girl head-on.
"Out of my waaaaay!!!"
"Hmph...!"
The girl kicked off and shot forward. She rose, light as a bubble, and the speed she built was nothing but wind. A prickle ran through Susanoo's chest.
"Sloppy!"
He stepped in and slipped inside her guard. The unguarded inside lay wide open, perfect for a technique. His right hand darted like the teeth of a comb, caught her shoulder firm and gentle at once, and turned the recoil of her inward rush down toward the ground.
Her path kinked. Amaterasu, still hanging from her back, gaped, mouth working.
If she is hurt, you are dead.
Then kindly get down.
He swallowed the sigh that wanted out. His left hand carefully caught the girl at the stomach. Slam her down like this, and the unripe goddess would soak up most of the blow, but a trace of the recoil could not be avoided. Out of consideration even for that, Susanoo meant to draw the impact into himself through the girl's belly. When all was said and done, he too was a god who treasured the child.
Without knowing it, she pinwheeled through the air. Belly to the sky, back to the earth. Her speed held. Left as she was, she would bury herself in the ground.
But the gods had overlooked something. The girl, newborn, now possessed a vessel of an entirely different order from before.
The Oni King's blood and the serpent god's wish-granting pearl had been tempered and cast as flesh. The sun goddess's power had filled every hollow in that body, and the Phantom Thief had dusted the sprout clean, finishing a work that had still been green. Her mind was no different from a young child's, but the flesh was perfect. No greater masterpiece could have been born. Measure only completeness and potential, and it far outstripped a god's body.
Years upon years would be needed to command it and bring it into flower. A drop, though—she could spend a drop.
And just then she had given herself over to instinct and was rampaging, so that what the body thought mattered more than what the head thought. In that instant her body hunted for the best path through the fight. A nuisance clung to her back and threw her balance off, and her feet stood on nothing. The hands at her shoulder and belly were heavy as stone. Strength would never tear them away. If her back touched the ground, that was the pin, and there would be no escape.
Her heart kicked. Blood rushed to supply the strength she lacked and poured spring and suppleness into her muscles. Her brain burned oxygen, settled on the move to come, and wrote the action in. Good. A thin possibility had opened.
"It will not go as you wish."
But her opponent was a war god. He had not trained so idly that he would miss a change happening under his nose. The force on her belly and shoulder doubled, and the girl was hurled without recourse.
BOOM!
The wreck came off whole. Dust billowed and filled the air.
"Sister, are you all right?"
Susanoo called out. He had answered too hard, and he feared his sister had been caught in it.
FLASH!
Light detonated in front of his eyes. It was the sun goddess's radiance.
"Sister, that is too—"
"It is not I!"
The dust split, and something shot out. Susanoo took it for the girl and moved on reflex to set another technique—
"Sister?!"
"D-dodge—!"
What came out was his one and only sister. She windmilled her arms as if she had been launched, and her brow cracked against his.
"Kh!"
"Gack!"
Chief god struck chief god, and a shockwave worse than the last ripped loose. Susanoo's skull rang. The girl did not let that sliver of an opening go.
———!!!
The ground cratered. Explosive speed, made with two legs, wrapped her and flung her on. Susanoo could only stare as she lanced away like light.
"...She never meant to break the hold."
This was what she had wanted from the first. The strength of her body had been for getting away.
"To think she can wield even Sister's power... We may have gained the strongest child there is."
"And you pick now to stand and gawk!?"
SMACK!
The back of Susanoo's head snapped aside. Amaterasu flushed red to the neck and fumed.
"Well. If Sister had done her part at the start, none of this would have been necessary. Hanging on where you were useless, turning yourself into a shield—look at you, a chief god with her dignity in tatters."
"Be quiet! Don't just stand there—stop her!"
"I see no need."
Susanoo pointed at the girl. She was chasing the Phantom Thief at a full, glorious tilt.
"A child who rejects her mother needs discipline!!!"
"My mother is not that young! And she does not move faster than a car just to beat her son!"
"Baaaaabyyyyy!!!"
"Everyone, I beg you, save me!"
The Phantom Thief shouted an SOS, but Susanoo only waved a hand. The rest of the company merely watched.
"He brought this on himself, so let him settle it. Our child seems intent on chasing only the honored guest. Leave them, and the matter will resolve itself."
"And if she is hurt..."
"She slipped a war god with her pride intact. She will not be injured unless the honored guest chooses to act. Let it be."
Susanoo signaled his elder brother, Tsukuyomi. Tsukuyomi nodded and sent the others back to their rooms.
"All we must do is watch, so that nothing truly dire comes of it. Too much care will spoil her."
"...Haa."
Amaterasu beat a hand against her chest. She wanted some rebuttal, but her younger brother's counsel was right. Every disgrace she could show, she had already shown, and she folded her greed away.
"The two of you, go inside. I will watch until the end."
"Go in, and miss a show like this?"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"Baby has to eat!"
"If she eats, the world ends!!!"
"I'm huuuuuungry!!!"
"Calm down, I am begging you!!!"
Every sort of beam sprayed from the girl's brow. The Phantom Thief spun a full circle and slipped them all.
"We watch the honored guest take his punishment, and we watch what the child can do. Two gains at once, wouldn't you say?"
"And which part of that is fun..."
Amaterasu let out a thin breath of a laugh. There was simply no talking sense into him.
KRAAASH!!!
"Hate you!!! Baby hates you!"
"I hate you too! I hate you more!"
The farce showed no sign of ending quickly.
"Eat."
"......"
"When you're given food, eat it while it's given. Don't you refuse it."
"...Get rid of it."
"Oh, this bastard's starting again. Eat, before I jam a bag in your vein and drip the whole thing into you."
Dan Miryong ground his teeth and opened his mouth. A lettuce wrap slipped straight in.
Crunch. Crunch.
Sharp dragon fangs shredded the meat, the chili, the rice, and the kimchi folded in the lettuce. At the delicious sensation wandering over his tongue, the knot between Dan Miryong's brows came loose.
"Tastes good, and still you play hard to get. What are you, a tsundere?"
"...Shut up."
Dan Miryong squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted at least to turn his head, but the body had been dead a long time and would not follow. This was the whole of the rebellion left to him.
"Aigoo. It's not like I'm looking after some old man with dementia. Even back when I was volunteering, it was never this hard. At least you don't piss and shit all over yourself. Small mercies."
"Kh!"
The taunt was naked, and still he could do nothing. Dan Miryong wanted to kill himself on the spot.
"Hey, you punk. I grilled that meat special, just for you, and this is what I get? Not even a thank-you."
"......"
"That sorry excuse for the silent treatment. Open your mouth, you little shit!"
Another lettuce wrap was pushed at him. Dan Miryong lost to his appetite and ate.
"......"
"Haa. Now I finally get to eat."
Once he had fed Dan Miryong a full bowl, Dan Chuyeon took up his chopsticks. He stacked two slices of meat gone cold, then three, and inhaled them.
How long do I have to keep living like this?
Dan Miryong stared blankly at the ceiling. The house of his enemy. A life of humiliation, tended by his enemy's family. Paralyzed, he choked down cheap pity and forced himself to go on.
Why did you live. Why.
In a life that had been nothing but pain, was even death a luxury? He resented it. All of it. From the prison of his flesh, Dan Miryong was singing of death.
Dan Chuyeon set his spoon down with a clack.
"Hey. It's been a while since we went out, right?"
He declared it.
"We're going out today. Just so you know."
"What?"
"What do you mean, what."
Dan Chuyeon grumbled as he cleared the table.
"We're stuck in the house every single day and I'm losing my mind, so I'm taking you with me. Got it?"
"...Do whatever you want."
Crazy bastard.
And he had the gall to call someone else a tsundere...