Mob Yandere

[Part 4/4]

"No, no, no!! That's not it! That's not important now! More than that, more than that...!!!!"

She scrambled to make sense of her thoughts—desperately, frantically, like trying to catch water slipping through her fingers.

No. There was no time to get lost in doubt. Not now.

She forced herself to move.

Get up. Go.

She threw the carriage door open and jumped out, chasing after Magoroku without hesitation.

As soon as she got out of the carriage, Tamaki found Magoroku standing there, stunned.

And then, as if exhausted, he just stood there, and as the dust began to settle, she finally saw it with her own eyes.

"Ah, uh..."

It was like the ramblings of a sick person, like the babbling of a baby; only incoherent words came from the depths of her throat.

The land of the Spirit Vein exploded from underground.

In the center of strong bedrock, there was an explosion while completely sealing off the passage to the outside.

The "Reiki (spiritual energy)" that had been stored and blocked inside the Spiritual Vein was suddenly released in an explosion.

However, most of its power was contained and deliberately trapped within the mountain, minimizing damage to the surroundings.

The contamination of "Reiki (spiritual energy)" was also mostly confined within the mountain.

The only notable damage was that the 'farm' established very close to the fortress sank due to a landslide.

...Paradoxically speaking, the situation caused in the mountain was nothing short of hell.

The unleashed power, trapped in a sealed space with no escape, bounced around endlessly—echoing, resonating, building on itself.

In just a short span of time, it repeated not thousands, not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of times.

The force shook the entire mountain, again and again—until even solid rock and metal began to melt from the sheer friction.

The structure that supported the fortress melted along with the bedrock.

The underground water path flowed in like a muddy stream, and above all, because of the hollowing out caused by the explosion in the center of the mountain, the mountain collapsed from the top down.

A geologist from Nanban would have described it as resembling a caldera.

...Of course, Tamaki—caught in the middle of it all—understood none of it.

There was no way to grasp it, no way to analyze it.

And honestly, none of that mattered.

Because what mattered to her—the only thing that mattered—was who had been there.

"Tomobe-kun...? H-Haha... this is... just a joke, right?"

She kept replaying everything.

Everything that led up to this moment, and everything she was seeing right in front of her, looping in her head over and over.

Right before they split up, he'd looked at the map and pointed something out—said something seemed off.

But which direction was he talking about back then...?

...What a lie.

Even though she knew.

"......Th-th-that's right!!"

And then Tamaki suddenly remembered and took out a curse-tool shaped like a compass from her pocket.

She held it with great care, as if it were a precious item, and the tip of the needle was red because of blood.

The curse-tool that had a searching curse put into it would point in the direction of the target based on the blood painted on the needle tip.

Although it was made very simple and even a weak Barrier Curse could make it lose sight of the target, now it was different!

"...!"

Tamaki cautiously began to walk.

Just as she was about to step out of line, she stared at the needle of the searching compass that was handed to her to confirm his location, along with the others.

While staring intensely, Tamaki got mixed up in the chaos around her and hesitated for just a moment, but then she decided to step over the boundary.

"...ah, ha!"

Tamaki felt a kind of accomplishment that she didn't understand herself.

She exhaled.

Anyway, she had violated the territory of the Juuyaku family.

She had broken through the simple Barrier Curse that surrounded that territory.

She lowered her gaze to the compass in her hand.

The needle of the compass suddenly began to spin wildly and quickly.

It was influenced by the pressure from the "Reiki" caused by the spiritual triggering explosion, but that began to settle down gradually.

Tamaki held her breath.

Despite being tense, she continued to stare at it.

The wobbling of the needle converged, settled down, and pointed in a direction, and then, and then...

"Oh, ugh... eh......!!!?"

Faced with this shocking reality, Tamaki dropped the compass and began to vomit.

On all 4s, she kept throwing up, unable to see the situation around her.

She heaved everything from her stomach, and even after it was just stomach acid, she kept heaving.

She was trembling in fear of her own guilt.

"No way, no way... this is a lie, it can't be true... it's a lie... it has to be a lie!!!?"

Everything was too late, everything was finished, she questioned herself about why she couldn't act sooner, she answered herself, but no one was there to give her an answer, surely, no one would blame her either...

"Why... why?"

And while Tamaki , who realized everything, let out a heartbreaking scream, the maid who got out of the car late could only mutter one weak word.

The dust from the collapsed mountain was swirling up into the sky ahead of the maid, forming a dirty mushroom cloud.

It was just like a tombstone...

* * *

The mountain that collapsed due to the spirit detonation was filled with silence.

Birds, beasts, insects, and even youkai were fleeing.

This was because they avoided the thick miasma created by the explosion.

The strong miasma that flowed out due to the planned detonation in the mountain might be minimal, but it was still poison for all living things, making it instinctively hard to approach.

There was not a single sign of life present.

Only the sound of the desolate wind shook the earth endlessly...

'That light—it's so blinding~♪'

It boldly dug up the collapsed corridor and put its body out from the dust, saying it in broken words.

It was indeed a horrifying sight.

Almost the entire body was charred beyond burns.

Each time it moved, the burnt flesh cracked and fell apart.

Countless legs broke and crumbled with every step.

Juice flowed from the cracks, soaking into the charred skin.

If one look closely, they will also see that each of the somatic cells has been contaminated and killed.

It was a tragic situation where it would be impossible to treat or prolong life if it were a normal calamity youkai.

...It is nothing more than a brief rest for the divinity who controls life itself.

In fact, there was no way she could have even been so sullied.

The quality of the spiritual detonation that was installed in this land was indeed the same level.

In fact, it is a miracle that he was able to get so far.

...Because they guided their fate to do so.

'Aww, such a cutieee~♪ There, there, you're a good little one~♪'

The charred goddess who came out to the earth does not care about her own body, but simply sways what was wrapped around her arm.

​​There is no response.

It is almost like a lump of charcoal, but it was originally human-shaped, so it is impossible to understand unless you know it in advance.

What's more, he's an adult man, not a baby...

"......"

It didn't react at all.

There weren't any organs to show a reaction.

At the moment the Spiritual Vein exploded, a goddess being lovingly held it in its chest and surrounded it with countless little ones, so it was barely compressed and kept its original form.

Originally, it should have been liquefied by heat and impact, evaporated, and disappeared.

Anyway, it's impossible to describe it as being alive anymore.

'Are you, hungry? Yes, I see. I'll give you... my... flesh *SPLAT*♪'

She didn't care at all about her own state or the state of the little ones she was holding, and she tried to do the usual gesture of breastfeeding. Just as she was about to breastfeed... immediately, she was blown away by an invisible shock.

'Oh, I'm, flying in the sky... ZUBO!♪'

The carbonized goddess being, blown away lightly for a thousand steps, rolled and flew through the sky.

And then, in a posture that felt almost ridiculous, she plunged her upper body into the ground and fainted.

It was nap time.

"..."

A little later, he silently fell from the sky.

He was falling, spilling from the hands of the evil goddess, but he wouldn't hit the ground...

Just before hitting the ground, ihe floated.

No, that's not right.

He was embraced.

He was embraced with minimal impact, like scooping up feathers.

'...'

From the depths of the void, their form slowly emerged.

He descended on an invisible shiki, and in his arms, he cradled a compressed lump of charcoal—held gently, like a newborn.

She wore vivid pink robes that shimmered faintly in the shifting air.

Even from above, her figure was impossible to ignore—too curvaceous, too deliberately alluring.

There was a chill to her beauty, a haunting edge behind the elegance.

A voluptuous girl.

The second princess of the Onitsuki clan.

Anyone who had seen her before would recognize the figure instantly—every detail, every gesture, matched perfectly.

But more than appearance, there was one thing no illusion could fake—

that overwhelming, bottomless Reiki pulsing from her very being.

'...'

Be on guard.

Even with the vibrations, contamination, and turbulence from the Reiki (spiritual energy) explosion in the distance, she was able to grasp the situation with near perfect accuracy.

Leaving the oni stabbed in the distance, she noticed a lot of yokai messing around in the nearby mountains.

Tengu, Kappa, Kitsune...and even an Odama-bashi?

To sum it up, she has spotted all the evil animals.

There's a large group of exorcists and adults heading this way, but it will still take some time for them to arrive.

She'll leave the problem of the Butterfly and Hummingbird to deal with...but she sensed a completely different, very intrusive gaze.

One flash and it will be gone.

This is good ('∀*) WATA-SHI, SAN-JYOU!'... she crack open the charred jaw of the person holding her body and remove the spider, isolating it.

She can't win if she go against it.

'...'

While she was wasting time on that, she sensed a presence only in the empty space beside her.

The invisible youkai expressed its discontent in silence.

She understands.

That's right.

Staying in this place where the contaminated Reiki (spiritual energy) is seeping up from the ground is pointless.

So, she gives the order.

Instantly, it descends from the sky and lands.

Shinki (Divine Energy) is even imbued with this majestic hawk.

It hangs 2 figures wrapped in cloth from its beak.

The way it captures them seems careless, but it's intended to be quickly killed in emergencies.

What's most important right now is the small, charred lump she's holding.

Everything else is just an accessory and ultimately insignificant.

'Let's go.'

She embraces it and climbs onto the hawk's back.

After that, the invisible ones jump onto the giant hawk and it disappears in a flash.

Silent, without a trace, it soared away.

Silence filled the land again....

Fanart:

- Princess Aoi and Princess Murasaki ->here

- Untitled sword-related scene ->here

*

Next is the end of the arc.