It Cannot Be Avoided
Her day began with looking up at the sky.
On a mountain that held nothing but her house and her fields, the only pleasure left was watching nature. The sky was always the same. Clouds drifted and the sun shone; now and then the clouds thickened and let down rain, and when they grew worse, the wind came with them. That was all the sky ever was.
But the sky in her eyes was badly warped.
"……It's changed."
The sky she had watched all her life was, today of all days, strangely restless. The ground beneath her feet had been swept through dozens of national calamities, and still it had kept its peace. Wars that could have burned the world had broken out twice, and still it had stayed indifferent. That sky had changed in an instant. It felt like the sun rising in the west.
"Yesterday was strange, too."
She called up what she had seen the day before. Sleep had sat wrong with her, so she had stepped outside and looked up. The stars had flickered, and the moon had wavered. Wondering what was amiss, she cast a divination, and Heaven answered her with this.
It cannot be avoided.
She understood that the omen was aimed at her. Asking why it should be her was meaningless. Heaven was capricious, and the answers it offered could not be understood. Fretting over them was a waste. She dismissed yesterday's sky out of hand.
And the sky she looked up into again today was uncanny.
"……Has the end of the world come calling?"
Or was Heaven in a fury because someone had made light of it? She watched for a while, then went back to the house. Whatever happened, it was nothing to her. Whether the earth was wiped away or the sky fell in, she would spend what remained of her life in this house. That was all.
"Hm?"
She had been eating rice gruel. A prickling signal sang through one corner of her mind.
"Who is it?"
A barrier of her own making enclosed the place, meant to keep wild animals and people from wandering in. Now and then someone exceptional slipped through without meaning to. When that happened, she laid a suggestion on them and sent them back toward the nearest city.
"……This one is different."
Not a soul who had stumbled in by chance. Someone who had come knowing, running straight for her. It happened from time to time: people who decided there must be some rare treasure here and barged in as they pleased. If she said not to come, there was always a reason not to come.
She cleared away the gruel and rose. This would cost her a little time. One stamp of her foot, and the scenery rushed away. From the highest tree she looked down, and the intruder that met her eyes made her recoil.
"What kind of thing is that supposed to be?"
The intruder tearing through the forest was no human being. It had no face—no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Its arms flopped loose to either side, and its legs walked as if there were no bones in them. Its neck was twisted backward. Wherever a body ought to have been, it split open and bared its own flesh. The flesh was black. No: countless insects were crawling over it, and that was what made it look black. On two legs, bold as anything, it came bounding toward her.
"Has the world ended after all?"
She had lived a long time, but never once, in all those years, had she seen a thing like that. The sky from this morning was genteel beside it. She had looked on every kind of filth, and still she had not known that a shape alone could frighten her half to death. Every glance made her want to retch. It felt as if some corner of her mind were being gouged out. That thing was not meant to exist. Merely existing was its crime.
She steeled herself and leapt down. From within her robes she scattered talismans, and they hung in the empty air, circling her. She landed in front of it.
"———."
Seeing her, it startled and bent at the waist.
"What are you saying?"
She could not understand a word. A ringing scrambled her ears.
"———."
It spoke again.
"I cannot understand you. I do not know what brought you this far, but turn back at once."
"———?"
Its head corkscrewed like a twist of dough. Hands and feet gestured together, as if it were trying to explain something. To her eyes it was only something revolting, flopping about.
"No thought of leaving, I see."
Had they been able to talk, she would have sent it off in peace. Mercy ended here. She swept her hand through the air.
"Bind it."
Chains leapt from the talismans. They came not from one direction but from many, closing in to seize it.
"———!"
Shocked, the thing went wild, and with a grotesque twist of its body it slipped the chains.
"Burn it."
She paid it no mind. Embers bloomed from the talismans, and dozens of fireballs screamed in. The blast went up—kra-koom!
"Stubborn."
She looked up. There it hung from a tree, without a single scorch.
"———!"
She scattered more talismans. Unknown glyphs spilled out of them, latched on, and burned the charms to nothing. A long bamboo pipe rose into her hand.
"How long can you hold out?"
Lightning fell out of the sky. Crack! The sudden judgment speared straight down at it. The tree split in two and toppled.
"Hoh?"
It had sensed the lightning and dodged.
"———."
It shook its head, as if to say there was no use in answering.
"It's been a while since I had any fun."
She lit the pipe. At that signal the lightning came again, and this time it did not stop: one bolt, and when it fell, the next, and when that one fell, another after it. All the thing could do was flee. She watched at her ease. Hopping and hopping, it looked like a frog.
"I don't know what you are."
Smoke left her mouth, and she smiled.
"But today you've met your match."
Perhaps it had felt her killing intent. It turned and ran.
"A game of tag, is it?"
The earth moved. The ground beneath her feet rippled and chased after it. The thing looked back, and its eyes went round.
"———!"
"What a booming voice!"
Thorns burst from the trees and cut across its path. Beads of water on the leaves veiled its sight. Attack after attack came at it by every means she could devise, and it dodged them all, slipping this way and that.
"——!"
But an opening always comes. It must not have seen the stone. Its foot caught, and it stumbled. A perfect chance.
"Heaven is helping me!"
She was not about to miss it. Water crashed down on the exact place where it stood. It tried to rise and was slammed flat again by the pressure. Soaked through, it fought to right itself, but the earth heaved up and bound its feet, and lightning and fire came riding the wind and set it burning.
"Not finished yet!"
She would end it here. Her palms met. Rocks buried in the ground rose and crushed it from both sides. Boom! Brute force that unmade everything swallowed even the workings of nature and ground them flat.
"Hoo……."
In the afterglow of victory, she drew on the pipe.
"Mm……."
Blood climbed her throat.
"The moment I showed an opening, it struck. Cunning wretch."
She tapped her heart with the pipe. The pain stabbing through her whole body sank away, and she spat the blood in her mouth onto the ground.
"I've grown weak……."
A few minutes of fighting, and she was this frail.
"How long can I hold out……."
Could she last until the day her life ran out? Could she ever be free of this pain?
"I ought to rest once I'm home."
She shook the ill thoughts off. Was today not a good day—one on which she had stored up a little merit? She would go back, drink the liquor she had been keeping, and recuperate. She dug into the earth and buried the heap of rock deep, and she did not forget to fix a talisman to it against whatever might follow. The stone had drunk that thing's blood; it was an accursed object in its own right. If the vile energy spread, there was no telling what chaos would come of it. A seal was essential.
She dusted off her hands and turned to go—and crushed the pipe in her fist as if she meant to break it. Her eyes blew wide, fit to burst, and she looked around.
A rustle.
The trees rustled. The grass rustled. The rocks rustled. All of nature was rustling.
An ill feeling stabbed up her spine, and she looked at the sky. A blazing sun had been there, she was certain of it. As if to take its place, a moon had risen into the clear sky.
"……What?"
She rubbed her eyes, and the bizarre sight did not fade. An illusion? A superpower? Or something else again—something she did not know?
"My. That was nearly a disaster."
Something was behind her. She turned her head, and there it was. The thing that ought to have been dead was looking at her. Its shape had changed: a man in a suit, a smiling mask over his face. Seen one way, it might have been a costume from a play. The sight crawled over her worse than before. She would rather have had the grotesque form. This was a monster wearing human skin.
"To attack me like that—I very nearly died."
It shrugged.
"Well, I understand. If an uninvited guest turned up without warning, even I would take it ill. But I am no robber."
Little by little, it drew closer.
"I would be grateful if you simply thought of me as a guest."
She parted her trembling lips.
"……A guest?"
"Haha. A bit much, is it?"
She barely managed to set the pipe between her teeth. Don't panic.
"……I don't receive guests."
"……Is there truly no way?"
She breathed out smoke. She wanted to shout at it to leave this instant, but she doubted the thing would go quietly.
"………Come back tomorrow, at this hour. I will be waiting."
There was no other way. If it forced its way in again, she had nothing that could stop it. Better, then, to harden her heart and face it.
"I am grateful for the consideration."
She turned her back on it. She could not bear to look any longer.
"……Your name?"
"I am a phantom thief. I am called Phantom."
With those words, it vanished like a mirage.
"Then I shall see you tomorrow."
Once it was gone, she snapped the pipe in two.
"Damn it."
She flung the broken pipe aside and looked up. The moon was nowhere to be found. The sky she knew had returned.
She muttered it, full of resentment.