Chapter 6.4

Natsuno snuffed outhis breath in the night. The scent of dried grass hung overhead. Past the bows the raspberry plants with the dried leaves, he could see the faint, dim light in his own room. 

Nights in a village within the mountains were cold. The feel of late autumn had slipped into the dead of night. Adjusting the collar of his parka, he clutched a momi fir stake at his chest. It had originally been a stake meant for use on Motohashi Tsuruko. Its initial mission still unfulfilled, now it was being held and warmed against Natsuno's chest. 

He's snuck a stake and a wooden mallet from his father's workshop. An amateurishly made cross shape, that was Natsuno's only gain. Crouched in the clump of bushes, changing his position numerous times to keep his legs from going numb, he gazed into the night as it wore on. 

He heard quiet footsteps in the garden when the hand on his wristwatch indicated that it was past two in the morning. The footsteps were clearly trying to sneak quietly, and the pitch black single figure neared the window that stood out with the light of the lamp. With their body leaned over, looking fixedly up at the window, it then stretched its arm out towards the window. 

His eyes used to the dark, under even just the faintest light, he could make out the distinguishing features of that human shadow. For a while, Natsuno watched that familiar shadow with its arm stretched out, yet keepig its face down as it knocked on the window. A strangely deep emotion welled up in him.

When told of Tohru's death, when seeing Tohru in the Mutou household tatami room, he'd seen it all as something besides Tohru. He was clearly just a shell, nothing more than an object. What Natsuno recognized as 'Tohru' was nowhere to be found within in. Even though it was obviously Tohru, "that" was not Tohru. --And then, what was right before his eyes then and there, while posessing a different quality than Tohru, was "Tohru" just as Natsuno remembered him.

How many times now hat Tohru knocked on the window. Natsuno, he heard a whispering voice call. Natsuno stood up.

"...I'm over here." 

Tohru turned around as if shocked. It was entirely like the reaction of a human who had run into something terrifying. Natsuno tried to find his footing and retreat. The dried underbrush crunched beneath his feet. Tohru seemed to be paralyzed, not moving beneath the window. It was strange, the terrified face he had as he watched Natsuno retreat. 

Trying even more to find his footing, he took two, three steps back. At last Tohru moved. With a somewhat resolved expression he rose up and started to take steps towards the woods. Natsuno thrust out what he'd been gripping in his pocket. 

"...Does this work?"

For a moment, Tohru faltered at that. Natsuno didn't know if that was because it was a religious article or whether it was the natural response a human would have when having something strange thrust out at them. Natsuno drew back. Tohru hesitantly stepped forward. Natsuno quickened his pace. Tohru too quickened his. When the distance between them was growing closer he reached out his hand, then faltered with a clearly unpleasant expression. ---So it had an effect, even something like this. If nothing else it made the other feel unpleasant. 

Natsuno bent half forward and started up the slope. When the distance between them seemed to be growing closer, once again he'd hold up the cross made of wood and crosswire. With that his opponent would falter and stop walking. Once again the distance opened. Repeating this each time, gradually his pace increased. 

Ahead was a place where the trees faintly gave way to an opening, so Natsuno made a dash to get there at once. Hurrying to an opening too small to call a clearing, he flew into the trees at the opposite side and turned around. By now he was probably fairly far from the house. If nothing else, the sound wouldn't carry. 

As Natsuno was leaning his back against a trunk and breathing hard with his shoulders, Tohru made an appearance in the opening.

"You're afraid of this thing?" Still catching his breath, he didn't seem at peace at all. Unable to calm his pounding pulse, his body should have been hot, but it was prickled with a cold sweat. His hand tucked into his coat gripped the splintering stake. The wooden mallet was tucked into his belt. 

"It's just some wood bound together. But you're still scared of it?"

"... Natsuno."

"Don't call me by that name, I told you!"

Tohru wore an even more complicated expression. ---He thought he did. All he could see was that it grew darker.

"So what do you feel when you look at this exactly? Or were you afraid of this since when you were alive too?"

"...Natsuno."

"Don't call me that I said!" He threw the cross at him. It missed his target, landing to Tohru's side. "Don't make a face like Tohru-chan. You're something else by now aren't you!"

Gripping the stake with both hands, his back felt weak. His hands chilled by the night trembled violently. Looking to where the cross had disappeared to, Tohru turned to look at Natsuno. He looked somewhat despondent as he looked towards Natsuno. 

"...I." Tohru started to say, then closed his mouth. Instead he started towards him. Natsuno no longer had anything to stop him with. 

"You... have you told anyone?"

"About what?"

"About me."

"I didn't tell."

I see, Tohru murmured.

"So you're gonna attack me after all?"

"...I'll be scolded." Tohru slowly went up the slope. "If I don't attack you, Aoi and the others'll be attacked. If I don't attack you and report back by dawn..."

"They're working you that hard, even in something like this?"

"...That's right. I don't have any choice. I'm one of their underlings." Tohru stopped. "It's because you poked your head into something off. Because you did something to anger them. The Takatoshi-san's from the Hirosawas, that was your doing, wasn't it?"

"Eh, was that who that was?"

Tohru nodded. 

"It'd still be a problem if we were found out. But you went digging up graves didnt' you? Even if you'd noticed it, it would have been fine if you just cowered in your bed. If you'd seen Takatoshi-san, screamed and ran away, and hadn't kept watch on them. But you have an oddly reckless side to you." Tohru once again stepped closer. "It's find if they're noticed, for them. If it's by somebody who holes themselves up shivering in their rooms. But you have to try hunting them. Hunters won't do. .... We can't allow them."

Natsuno gripped the stake more tightly. Nothing was on the ground beneath himself and Tohru who came up the slope. One more step. Then they'd be too close to sidestep. 

"And? You're being well used as their underling. You, you're really not human anymore, are you?"

"...That's right."

"That's dirty.... Don't you think?" The stake in his hands. It could have been any other weapon. "You'll bite me and that'll be the end of it won't it? And I have to stab you with this."

Tohru stopped.

"How's about at least trying to be a little more like a vampire. That... you're just like when you were alive."

Both of Natsuno's hands remembered the feel in them when they'd struck Takatoshi. Going beyond reasoning on things like good or evil, it was engraved within him. If it were at least a gun. If it were something that could stop his enemy from breathing without him having to feel the sensation with his own hand. If it were something where he could just flick a switch without having to see his target.

"...This, there's no way I can stab you with it, is there?!"

Natsuno couldn't do it. Gripping a weapon in his own hand, killing somebody with it, he couldn't do it. If he thought of them as an enemy, he could do something no matter how cruel. ---Should have been able to. But with something he couldn't think of as anything other than human like himself, he couldn't intentionally hurt them. The internal instruction that it was something one must not do would stop him no matter what. All the more when the other had human form, and more so when it was one he knew, and even if it weren't somebody he had once been close with, he didn't think that he could intentionally injure them.

"You... You're soft on people, huh?"

"That's not the problem! I'm scared, for no reason. Something that scary, you think I can just do it?!"

Even if it had been Megumi he probably couldn't have done it. Quite possibly he wouldn't have been able to do it even to Motohashi Tsuruko. Natsuno's reason understood that Takatoshi had risen up but as expected he couldn't stab him there and then. ---It didn't come to mind. He didn't want to. He couldn't tolerate it, physiologically. He was unconditionally afraid. He ended up avoiding it. 

He wasn't imagining it, he knew that it was how he truly felt. There was the fear of "the dead revived." A person he used to know, and one he liked---someone who when he died, he begged not to die, who he couldn't help but wish would come back, why would he raise a weapon to them? Setting aside if he'd hated them enough to want to kill them before, setting aside if the other had lost their personality and was simply nothing more than "a risen dead body."

If the other's personality lived on, the enemy was no longer an enemy. Since it was something beyond "a revived corpse," it would be certain to continue to follow him, and if so Natsuno could not become a hunter. And if he couldn't become a hunter, then sooner or later he could only become a victim. 

Tohru put his hand to Natsuno's neck as he hung his head. He knew it was supposed to be a soothing gesture but that palm was as cool as the night air. He rested his head against the chest before him, and then he turned his ear towards it. There was no warmth, nor was there any sound. ---Nothingness haunted this body.