Asuka Karasawa, with empty eyes, sank into the abyss-like water wrapped in the aura of death.
Above, the fierce sounds of battle, the hysterical shouts, and the harsh and hateful cries of babies were getting away little by little, peeling away from Asuka Karasawa's ears piece by piece like peeling eggshells.
She settled motionless, letting wisps of scarlet blood mist flow out of the wound in her lower abdomen. The lighter blood mist surged upward, while the heavier one sank downward. At this moment, she seemed to be walking
On the road to death, away from everything above, everything that caused her death.
What is she thinking about at this moment? Regret? Angry? Sad? Maybe nothing...
Asuka Karasawa was unexpectedly numb, as if she was used to it, as if she didn't care at all... At this moment, she just felt cold, dark and silent.
So cold...so cold...
Accompanied by this seemingly endless coldness and silence, Asuka Karasawa thought dully and monotonously. "Dong...dong...dong..."
That is to say, at the same time and at the same moment, an extremely distant and uninterrupted sound of wooden fish came from nowhere in her ears.
It seemed like it was the first time she heard such a voice, but Asuka Karasawa felt that such a voice was particularly kind and familiar.
ah···
I remembered, this was the sound of the wooden fish in my father’s temple.
When this idea appeared, it wasn't just the sound. The tip of her nose no longer felt suffocated. A deep and delicious Buddhist fragrance filled the air, and her eyes quickly became bright again.
At this moment, what appeared in front of her was a small room with only a few and a half stacks.
On the cool tatami, she knelt down next to the sliding wooden door, staring blankly at the homework on the small table in front of her.
"This is what I heard...for a while...the Buddha was in the country of Savatthi..."
The small TV with a snowy screen, the faint sound of chanting outside the door, and the sound of the wooden fish "Asuka..." seemed to be right in front of my ears.
Outside the door, a calm female voice suddenly sounded, like thunder exploding in Asuka Karasawa's mind, bringing her dull expression to life a little bit.
She kept panting, and her body trembled like chaff. As tears continued to fall from her eyes, her brown eyes narrowed to the extreme, and she slowly looked at the closed sliding door next to her.
Outside the wooden door, the shadow of a woman with permed and curly hair sat quietly outside. The outline of her face seemed to be able to see Asuka Karasawa from a distance, watching her calmly.
The calm, just an ordinary female voice sounded from the shadow's mouth again, she said, "Asuka..."
"mom, Mom, Mom···"
Asuka Karasawa's face was filled with tears of fear. She looked straight at the shadow behind the door, her mind going blank.
"Asuka...open the door..."
"But...but dad said...you can't open the door..."
"Did dad say...?"
"Um."
The sound of the wooden fish was ringing for a long time, and the shadow of the woman outside the door remained motionless. After a long pause, her smiling voice sounded again,
"...Asuka, didn't you close the door yourself?" "Me?"
"Ah, that's right..."
“Crack, click, click, click!!!”
As the woman's voice sounded one after another, the entire door suddenly shook. Even though no one was touching it, it seemed to be constantly being tried to open and then blocked by another force...
"Did you forget that you used [magic] to close it?"
Karasawa Asuka's eyes suddenly shrank, and the next moment, the wooden door could no longer control its trembling, and then was suddenly pushed open in front of Karasawa Asuka, revealing the darkness outside.
At this moment, Asuka Karasawa's consciousness continued to sink. She seemed to have returned to Tokyo, Japan, where there were many high-rise buildings and was full of luxury, and to the huge but extremely cold house in Nakuru.
There are no lights in the house because my mother said turning them on would waste electricity.
A small girl wearing a primary school uniform was sitting blankly in the corner of the living room holding her schoolbag. She had a slender face and her body was trembling slightly due to the low temperature that had entered winter early.
"Gululu~"
On the wall, the clock slowly moved toward nine o'clock. The little girl's stomach kept making noises, causing severe cramping and reminding its owner that she was very hungry.
But her mother hasn’t come back yet, and she doesn’t want to give herself money, but she is so hungry...
The little girl was so hungry that her stomach ached. She couldn't think of a way to do it, so she glanced at the empty room. She finally couldn't help but take a step against her mother - she took away the clothes her mother had left unorganized on the sofa.
He put one on his body, then looked around and came to the TV. After hesitating for a long time, he finally pressed the power button of the TV...
Gosh, even doing such things as turning on the TV and putting on her mother's summer clothes made that little girl's heart race and she was so panicked.
However, her mother won't come back until ten o'clock in the evening. As long as she turns off the TV before then, she won't know... The TV station has not been paid, and there are only a few channels that the little girl doesn't recognize at all. One of them is broadcasting
is animation.
"Gululu~"
In the dim room, the dim light of the TV covered the little girl's immersed expression, and the sound of the animation covered her shivering due to the cold and the sound of her stomach making noises due to hunger.
"I will use a magic to transform you into a princess to attend the prince's banquet, Cinderella... you will have gorgeous clothes, fine hair, expensive carriages and loyal servants..."
"Oh my God, magic is so amazing."
"But there is a premise. The magic will expire before midnight, and you must come back before then." "I promise to do it."
The thin little girl in front of the TV stared blankly at Cinderella who became so beautiful in the picture, her eyes couldn't help but brighten.
Magic...so magical...
How great would it be if I could also do magic?
He doesn't need such exquisite clothes and servants, nor does he need a prince. As long as his stomach is not hungry, it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't scream.
But it can’t expire at midnight, otherwise if her mother forgets to give her money after she comes back from drinking, the magic will fail and she will wake up hungry in the middle of the night...
The little girl immediately combined her own life, thinking this way.
Suddenly, a brilliant idea came into her mind.
Cinderella's fairy godmother used a staff to cast the spell. The magic is invisible at all. If the wind blows hard at night, it may be blown away. If you write down the magic with a pen, the magic will never expire as long as you don't take a shower.
?
The little girl stood up happily and looked for a pen that could be used to write [magic].
The pencils in your bag are not good. The pencil marks will fall off soon. My mother didn’t give me money for colored pens, so I didn’t buy them. I usually borrow them from others, but because I kept borrowing them, they were very unhappy.
I asked myself to buy it, but I felt a little embarrassed so I didn’t borrow it anymore...
The little girl rummaged through the entire room, but she found nothing except bills for various drinks and cosmetics.
There was really no other way, so she had to go to her mother's dressing table and get a pen she used to apply eyeliner.
As if she was committing a crime, her heart was beating very fast, because once her mother found out that she had touched her expensive cosmetics, she would definitely...
But fortunately, she was not found today.
So, she finally got what she wanted.
She returned to the TV with a trembling body, and sat in front of the TV with a smile. With the weak light of the TV, she opened her uniform, and wrote a line of "Magic" in Japanese on her arm crookedly.
”. She wrote,
"Asuka Karasawa will never be hungry."
As she solemnly finished this line of "magic", she immediately pursed her lips and looked down at her belly as if to confirm.
The amazing thing is that after the "magic" was completed, her stomach seemed to be no longer hungry and the magic no longer sounded. It was true!
Her eyes lit up slightly, and she looked at the animation on the TV in front of her as if she had discovered a new world.
Although I have never met a fairy godmother like Cinderella, maybe she has taught me her magic?
"Dong dong dong"
But even for this little girl, one [magic] is obviously not enough.
With the accompaniment of the increasingly quiet wooden fish sounds, there were more and more [magic] in her hands and body. To this end, she even secretly took a hundred yen from her mother and went out to buy a special one.
A pen that expresses magic.
"The place where Asuka Karasawa was spanked by her mother will never hurt."
Because the place where you were hit will feel very painful, but if you have this magic, you won't be afraid of your mother hitting you.
"Asuka Karasawa will never be sad or cry when her mother scolds her."
Because when you are scolded, you will want to cry and your heart will be very painful, but my mother doesn't like her crying, so she will be beaten. Although she has the magic that it will not hurt when she is beaten, she really doesn't like it.
cry.
"Asuka Karasawa will not feel ashamed at school."
Because I have nothing, my friends won’t play with me. If my clothes are ragged, they will laugh at me, but if I have this magic, I won’t feel ashamed.
"Asuka Karasawa doesn't know how to ask her mother questions."
Although the teacher always praises himself for being smart and encourages him to ask more questions, saying that he will be very good in the future, my mother doesn't like asking questions, especially about her and why she has no food to eat.
Her mother felt that her questions would hurt her, so even if she wanted to ask questions, she couldn't say them. Although the teacher seemed a little disappointed after she didn't ask questions, she added one more magic, "Asuka Karasawa can ask questions at school, but at home
Can’t ask.”
The lines of text and the crooked magic seem to have really bloomed with magical power.
The little girl is still getting thinner and thinner, with more and more bruises on her body, and more and more numbness on her face. But probably, the magic has taken effect.
"Boom!"
Until one night when there was a very loud thunder and the sky was very dark with thick clouds, the little girl, who was no longer paying attention to the outside world and had no expression on her face, felt that the atmosphere in Tokyo had changed overnight.
.
People screamed, cursed, and cried, running around each other. They said they could not repay their debts, that they had lost everything, and that they wished they could die immediately.
The neon lights were still flashing, but the bubble of ecstasy burst silently, throwing the floating people heavily from the sky and smashing them to pieces.
The little girl looked blankly at the crying people below. Even though she hadn't eaten dinner, she might have been used to it. She couldn't hear the sound of her stomach, nor could she feel the hunger in her stomach. It was all magic that helped her.
.
"Asuka! Great! You're here!"
At this moment, the door behind me suddenly opened, but it was only just before seven o'clock today, and my mother was back now.
The messy woman outside the door looked at the little girl inside the house with disheveled hair. As if grasping a straw of hope, she fiercely grabbed the little girl's arm wrapped in a student uniform and forcefully pulled her out of the room.
Pulled out.
"With you, that guy will definitely help me pay back the money. I have to call him quickly. That monk has a temple at home, so he can definitely do it."
As a "hostage", the little girl didn't know that she had been used as a bargaining chip by her mother to blackmail her father, whom she rarely met, into giving her money. Until she was dragged to the top floor of a high-rise building by her mother, until she gave her father a beating in Kyoto.
It was not until the mother held the little girl in her arms and stood on the edge of the building for several hours that the police noticed that a woman driven crazy by huge debts was standing on the edge of death holding her daughter.
Too many people have died during this period. Things like this should not be paid attention to, but no matter which society it is, it is extremely tolerant towards children.
Just as the little girl's mother thought, when she held the girl in her arms as a bargaining chip and threatened the monk in Kyoto to sell the temple to pay her back, everyone began to pay attention to the face in her arms at this moment.
She was expressionless and seemed like a skinny little girl who had nothing to do with her.
"Madam, calm down! The person you are looking for will be here soon! Stay away from the rooftop! Your daughter is still so young, everything can still be discussed!"
"Discuss!? Do you know how much money I owe? If I don't have money, I might as well die directly, but I'm still so young, how could I possibly"
"Boom!"
The mother behind her was hysterical, and the policemen who surrounded the rooftop were sweating profusely. Even the reporters who came for the news couldn't help but feel worried about the little girl who was only ten centimeters away from the edge of the rooftop. The dark clouds in the sky became increasingly dark.
Thick, rolling thunder enveloped Tokyo at this moment.
However, the girl was unexpectedly indifferent. She just stared blankly at everything in front of her, as if everything had nothing to do with her, standing in her mother's arms like a puppet.
The reporter thought she was scared out of her wits, and the photo he took of her highlighted her thin, slutty face. "Get out of the way! The father of the child is here!"
"Didi"
It was not until a long time later that a man in cassock walked out of the stairs of the rooftop holding the Buddha, and the father of the little girl wearing glasses finally appeared.
His heart was weak, and he often recited the Buddha's words devoutly, which made his heart filled with compassion and softness, but it also lacked the anger of King Ming. Even when he saw the poor girl who had not seen him for a long time and had become completely different, he felt sad in his heart.
Still far greater than anger.
"Hurry up and sell the temple, or I will jump down with Asuka! The reason why we are like this today is all your fault!"
"But even if I sell the temple, I still won't be able to pay back the money you owe. Please put Asuka down first, and then we can discuss a solution."
"Are you kidding me? Come on! Come on!"
Despite her parents' quarrels and the whispers all around, the little girl seemed like she couldn't hear anything. She wasn't afraid because she had painted magic on her clothes before she came up. As long as there is magic
The little girl glanced down at her sleeves. Under the cover of the school uniform that had become slightly shorter and no longer fit, a line of text was half exposed,
"No matter what happens, Asuka Karasawa will not be afraid." "Didi"
"Boom!"
But the next second, in the calm and numb eyes of Karasawa Asuka, a drop of rain suddenly fell from the sky, and suddenly fell on her arm, just falling on the end of the line [Magic], and the words that fell with cheap strokes
It's a little blurry.
It turned out that it was going to rain.
No one knew why, when the mother was bargaining angrily, when the father was bowing his head to recite Buddhist scriptures and praying, when the police were moving forward to persuade, the little girl in the woman's arms suddenly started shaking like chaff.
Her originally yellow face had completely turned pale at this moment. Her pupils narrowed in disbelief as she looked at the black ink dripping down her hand along with the drop of rain.
Soon, as more rain fell, the second half of the writing began to become extremely blurry. However,
But
But my magic needs
So scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared, so scared.
Ah "Boom!"
"Give me the money quickly!! Asuka, stop moving!"
At this moment, the woman who felt the constant shaking of the little girl in her arms gave her a hard slap with her hand in annoyance, just like in the past, and the little girl was just like the sandbag in the past, without any reaction.
In her mother's eyes, when the skinny girl's lips trembled slightly and she told her mother over and over again,
"My magic magic magic magic"
Such stupid words made the woman even more angry. She strangled the little girl's neck and shouted at her,
"What magic are you talking about? You stupid pig, any magic is a lie! Stop moving!"
But the woman didn't expect that after she finished speaking these words, the little girl who had not moved for a long time suddenly raised her head abnormally in the woman's arms and looked straight at her.
At that moment, the woman saw an extremely terrifying look. In those deep and dull eyes, there was a sense of annihilation of a collapsed building, as if a monster in human skin was confirming the answer to her question.
Those eyes made the woman suddenly forget that she was still on the edge of the tall building at the moment. The physically uncomfortable terror bursting out of the girl's body made her keep retreating until her foot missed the mark and she fell straight down.
"tomorrow"
At the moment of weightlessness, the woman was surprised for a moment, and then she stretched out her hand towards the little girl, as if she wanted to catch her, but the little girl just stared at her blankly, and let her fall to her without moving.
Under the tall building.
"Quick! The suspect has fallen! Hug the girl quickly!"
At that moment, as if the goddess of luck had favored her, everyone rushed to the edge of the rooftop and rescued the little girl, who was almost a skeleton covered in skin.
On that day, she left her mother forever and returned to her father.
Asuka Karasawa opened the door and looked in disbelief at the little girl outside the door who was tightly held in the arms of her father wearing a cassock. Many memories flooded into her mind again.
She covered her heart with angina, and kept wanting to retreat from the scene outside the door and return to her small room.
At this moment, the scene outside the door changed back to the temple again. When the father, a monk, took the girl back to the ancestral temple in Kyoto, he suddenly discovered that his daughter's heart had changed somehow.
She was riddled with wounds, especially after her mother passed away, especially after [Magic] was completely denied.
The doctor said that she suffered from a severe bipolar disorder. Sometimes she would be so angry that she lost control of herself, destroying everything she could see, including her own body. Sometimes she would feel as if she had been drained of all strength and belief.
, like a dead corpse searching for the inner death.
Perhaps even this devout Buddhist father could not understand why, even though the woman had treated Asuka like this, she was still brooding over the woman's death, even to the point of torturing herself in her heart.
"Lord Buddha, my daughter is such a gentle person. She should be a person with great wisdom and compassion. Why is she suffering like this? I would like to fast sincerely and recite the teachings day and night. I just ask Lord Buddha to protect her."
Yes, that little girl is indeed an extremely gentle person.
It was only at this moment that she suddenly remembered that when she was tortured by mental illness, which became more and more serious day by day, and she wished to commit suicide in front of the Buddha immediately, she saw the people in the Buddhist hall who were knocking wooden fish to pray for her day and night.
Father.
The sound that accompanied her as she slept through mental torture turned out to be the sound of her father beating the wooden fish. The words that had been lingering in her ears and engraved in her mind turned out to be the Buddhist scriptures her father recited.
Once again, perhaps just to not disappoint her father, she wanted to try again.
So, after that day, the father was surprised to find that his daughter's mental illness suddenly and miraculously recovered.
He happily expressed his gratitude to the Buddha, believing that the Buddha had helped his daughter and made her free to be good after taking refuge.
Because from that day on, my daughter began to copy Buddhist scriptures by herself. This is proof of being bathed in Buddha’s light!
It's just that he didn't realize that something was wrong at all. The doctors who helped Karasawa Asuka's diagnosis and treatment didn't realize that something was wrong. Even Karasawa Asuka herself didn't realize that something was wrong.
She is good at deceiving everyone, including herself.
Because she didn't want to disappoint her father, just like before, she didn't want to disappoint her mother, so she resorted to magic.
Perhaps because she got too little, she cherished everything she had. So, why on earth did no one bully her after she entered high school?
The scene outside the door changed slightly and turned into a time when several female classmates dragged Karasawa Asuka into the toilet to give her "freshman education."
When they were playfully trying to take off the coat of Asuka Karasawa, who was just watching them quietly without any resistance, the Buddhist sutras densely written on her body with neat brush strokes were instantly revealed.
Out
So, why on earth could I not learn anything in high school, even though I was so smart? The scene outside the door changed slightly, until I saw the densely packed reputations written neatly in the schoolbag, textbooks, and homework books.
When the Buddhist scriptures were displayed, all the teachers in the office stared at her in shock.
The door was not closed, but Asuka Karasawa knelt down blankly in her room which only had a few and a half floors. Behind her, a shadow wearing a cassock and a shadow wearing a lady's dress looked at her quietly, until that
The two shadows completely changed and looked exactly like her.
Only now did Asuka Karasawa finally realize that she had been deceiving herself all along.
It was only now that Asuka Karasawa finally realized that the so-called "Buddhist Scriptures" and "Magic" were the same thing to herself.
Asuka Karasawa sat on the tatami, tilted her head, and looked at her room again.
In front of me, the small room that was originally paved with homework and with a snowflake screen TV in front suddenly changed its appearance and turned into its original and most real appearance.
The entire room is filled with densely packed Buddhist scriptures.
On paper, on the ceiling, on the TV, on the desktop, on homework, on my body. It turns out that I am not watching TV or doing homework.
Asuka Karasawa tilted her head. At this moment, all the black ink stains on the Buddhist scriptures in the room began to glow with a terrifying blood color, rendering the entire small room where she was kneeling like burning.
layer scarlet
"Didi Didi" "Gululu"
Asuka Karasawa, who kept sinking in the water, kept pouring out scarlet like blood mist from her seven orifices, until the scarlet like pollution completely covered the entire pool with the aura of death and fate, and then she seemed to have become conscious.
Similarly, above the pool, regular [traces] were formed that constantly aroused terrifying echoes.
"Dong dong dong dong dong dong"
At this moment, the constant and regular sound of wooden fish finally stopped.