-Break-

  Every day since Suzuka told us her name, we have e to visit her. The twinstars have tighteheir defences around the area of her house, but as long as we sneak past them, it is no issue.

  Whenever we arrive, Suzuka is filled with joy to be with us, so much so that I felt that she was overbearing but still, that smile is too genuine for me to pin, so I bear with it.

  We spend all our time from m till night pying. We draw, we build snow sculptures, we even fight though Suzuka tends to beat our asses at all of these things, which has stroked my petitive spirit quite a bit. So instead of making sure she has been having a fun time, I have been trying to crush her with all my heart though it turns out life isn’t going my way.

  One day I lost so pletely at everything I fell to the ground on my hands and knees i with tears falling down my eyes. Seeing this, Suzuka said to me.

  “Sorry about this Orb I’ll let you win the one.”

  “That won’t make me happy,” I say, even more, depressed than before.

  Cyrus walks up to Suzuka and says, “Don’t worry about him, he lost, so as the victory, step on his corpse and take what is rightfully yours now.”

  Cyrus really does say some scary stuff at times. Spurred on by Cyrus’s words, she steps on my head and says, “You’re where you belong, on the ground, like a loser.”

  After she does this, I curl into a ball and say, “I don’t want to py with you two anymore.”

  “Shaking my body, they say, “Orb, please don’t do this.”

  “I am s-s-s-sorry.”

  Turning my head back, I ask them, “Really?”

  “Yes,” they both say in unison.

  “The me touch your tails right now.”

  So, both of them present their tails to me, and I take my fill of rubbing them. Cyrus’s tail is dynamid hard, almost like a sword and whenever I touch it, he twitches, while Suzuka’s is like a fluffy cloud which pletely envelop me. After feeling both of them I say, “I like Suzuka’s better, and y my head on it.”

  Suzuka has a smug face of victory, while Cyrus looks shocked. “A-A-Are you sure you don’t want tain?”

  “I’m sure. Now what was that you said about losers being stepped on.” Cyrus sits beside us dejectedly at this moment.

  While feeling up Suzuka’s tail, I remember something then. I asked her, “Why do your tails grow back randomly without your knowledge?”

  “Oh, you see, when I take in people’s thoughts aions, I also take in some of their spiritual energy, and when I actally take in too much, my body tries to automatically store it in my legacy without my sent which causes my tails to grow back.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean you stantly refill on spirit energy whenever you run out?”

  “As long as I hear people’s thoughts aions, I .”

  Isn’t she just a perpetual motion engine of spirit energy? That’s rather dangerous information to know. “Well, you always have these tails whenever you want. Their so o be in.”

  “Enjoy. My friends touch them all they want.”

  “You hear that, Cyrus. Stop pouting and e over here a your fill of this softness.”

  Walking over, Cyrus drops his head oail as well. When he does, his body rexes as her tail envelops him.

  As we all y there staring into the night, I say, “Did you two ever want to be anything when you grew up,” after I say this, they both go silent, then Suzuka says.

  “I have old ahis, not even my parents, but I always wao be a shrine maiden.”

  I let out a little ugh hearing this.

  “What funny about that Orb.”

  “Nothing. I just found it funny, but why do you want to be one?”

  “It is just whenever I see one while walking through the city, I thought they were so pretty, their clothes, their hair, how they presehemselves.”

  “Well, at the very least, you don’t have to worry about being pretty.”

  Smugly she says, “Thank you. Now tell me what you wao do.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “e on, tell me.”

  “Not a ce.”

  With tears in her eyes, she says, “But isn’t this what friends do, and you promised to be my friend.”

  As her sadness increases, I say, “OK, I will tell you but don’t ugh. I wao be a doctor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because aren’t doctors so cool? There are so many things that kill a person, and doctors have the power to stop those things. Doctors will always be needed no matter what era, isn’t that cool.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  I say to Cyrus, “What did you want to be.”

  “Well, like all dragons, I wao be a warrior and plead plete loyal to the dragon god.”

  “Why.”

  “When all dragons are young, we are taught there is no greater joy or pleasure in life than pg your everything to the dragon god. You should, sleep or think if it isn’t directly about how to please the dragon god and his family.”

  Hearing this, I sigh and say, “Cyrus, you have been brainwashed.”

  Putting his hand on his ears, he suddenly starts saying, “LALALALALA.”

  “What are you doing, Cyrus.”

  “That’s what they thought us to do if anyone speaks ill about the dragon god. We either do that or kill them.”

  “My god.”

  “Oh, Orb, have you started to serve the dragon god.”

  “NO. Listen to me, Cyrus, you know that thing I said about thinking for yourselves.”

  “Y-Y-Yes.”

  “It applies here, so if you trust me, you will fet everything they taught you.”

  “But Orb.”

  “Cyrus, I don’t want to hear any buts. Please trust me.”

  Pouting he says, “Ok, I will.”

  I swear he will do anything someoells him. Though I am not doing aer, I need him to stop following others’ orders, including mine, so that her think for himself.

  Suzuka starts ughing at us as we talk. “Hey, I don’t see what’s so funny. This is serious.”

  “I know, but I am sorry; it just makes me ugh. It reminds me of how my parents used to se.”

  “You were probably scolded all the time due to your bad behaviour.”

  “I erfect child I would have you know. I always did what I was told ao bed immediately. I also ed up after myself whenever I made a mess like an adult.”

  “Yes, yes, very adult.”

  “I don’t like that tone.”

  “Whatever,” I say, cuddling up to her tail more and more.

  After sitting there for a while, I say to Suzuka, “It has gotten quite te. I think it is about time me and Cyrus go.”

  “But you guys usually stay longer.”

  “I know, but we’re leaving Seirei tomorrow. So, we o get somethings done before we go and have a good night's sleep.”

  Pausing for a moment, Suzuka says, “I guess you would hat.”

  Getting up close to her face, I say, “Make sure you get a good night’s sleep tomorrow as well. Yoing to . Pulling Cyrus away, I say, “Before we leave tomorroill e and visit you, so be ready. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Φ Seeing both of them walk away, I sit down and think to myself. I have had some much fuhis st week. I made two friends, and I got to hang out a with them daily. So many things I wao do I have done, and this tight feeling in my chest was more wondrous than ever before.

  I got to hear stories about things I will never see or touch, and of all the friends Orb and Cyrus have, though I didn’t really like those stories. But still, I have truly been living a dream for this st week, ohat I have to wake from soon, but that’s ok since I am tent that I finally am happy to be here.

  But I suddenly feel horrible, worse than I ever did before. It is much worse than when I feel everyone’s emotions and hears their thoughts. I feel like I am about to die. What the hell is going on? Why am I feeling this? I think to myself. Though I know the reason, I ever allow myself to say it out loud, because after all the good fortune a cursed person like me just received, I shouldn’t say something so selfish.

  Still, this feeling persisted more and more until I couldn’t get it in, so getting up on my own two feet, I ran as fast as I could away from my house, and I screamed something that made me feel sick. “I DO NOT WANT YOU GUYS TO LEAVE ME. PLEASE STAY HERE FOREVER. I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE; FET ABOUT ALL YOUR OTHER FRIENDS AND STAY HERE WITH ME. I ’T DEAL WITH BEING ALONE AGAIN!”

  I cry as I run as far as I . I am utterly disgusted with myself. Their friends are dying, yet this is all I think about. I run so long and far that I cover most of the forest. I even run past the encirclement to the back of the forest for the first time in my life. After I stop due to exhaustion. I sit down and say to myself. “Go get some sleep, you have to give Orb and Cyrus a good send-off tomorrow. So, get your smiling face as good as possible ok, Suzuka.”

  But after I finished saying that, the nd mass I was standing colpsed and brought me down. I could cushion my fall with my tail, but looking down, I saw something I hought I would.

  -Break-

  Φ “This is the shop,” Cyrus says to me

  Walking ihe shop where Cyrus pced the order for our medie, I see a somewhat beaten-up old man and a woman standing beside him. I hand them a receipt for the order we pced, and the woman says “You’re the people whom my old man scammed out of all that money. Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t worry. It was my mistake not teag Cyrus the proper value of money, so it isn’t your fault.”

  “Well, your medie is ready, so how do you want it delivered?”

  “We will just carry it.”

  “But it is quite a lot.”

  “Don’t worry; Cyrus here will be able to ha.”

  “Well, if you say so.”

  As she back all the medie into a big bag for Cyrus to carry, the woman hands us a book and says, “Here you have this for all the money we took from you. I think it is more than enough to pay you back.”

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a soul book a lost item. If you charge it up with spirit energy and then use ya it, you find out lots of things about yacy. The way you make this book has been lost fes, so that is a super rare collector’s item. Though it takes a lot of spirit energy.”

  “Are you sure you want to give us this.”

  “People without legacies have no use for such things, and the more you know about yacy the better.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  As we walk out of the store, I will have to ask Suzuka to charge this for us. But then I heard someone scream. Then looking around, I see loads of people looking up into the sky, where I see a moving bck cloud.

  Cyrus says to me, “That’s s-s-spirit energy.”

  I am uo see pure spiritual energy. The only way I could see this is if it’s as dense as a spirit.

  Φ While walking through the city, people are giving me death stares and screaming at me to get away, but I don’t care. After what I saw, I needed answers, or my head will split open.

  After I walked around for a while, I saw a woman who had been in this vilge since I was young. So, I walk up to her, but a few twinstars e up behind me and say, “What are you doing here? Go back to the forest now, or we will remove you.”

  I knock them out with my tails, then tinue my walk to the woman as she moves away. I grab her and hold her down, and one of her kids with her says, “Get away from my mom,” but I send him flying into one of the buildings with my tail.

  “Hey woman, I have a question for you.”

  “Get away from me, you monster. Do you know what you just did to my son?”

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN! Earlier I happen to e upon something that I need answers about, and you will help me.”

  “Leave me alone; you filth-covered cursed piece of trash.”

  Looking up at the sky, I say, “I came ay parent’s grave a bit earlier. I had always wondered what had happeo them. I thought for sure they had run away, but they were dead. I was in disbelief at first, so I dug up the bodies to check, and they had their wedding rings in the same pce.

  But you see, that was also very strao me. My parents were both healthy individuals, and my father wouldn’t have lost to any minus that I could beat, so I only had ohought process: someone murdered them. Sht now, dy, tell me the truth.”

  “I know nothing. Please spare me.”

  “Don’t worry. If you tell me, I will find out for myself.” So, I read her mind and found out what I wanted. Moving back from her, I am in utter shock. Looking around, I say, “You people, all you people together, ganged up on my parents, evewinstars. They were the best people on this earth, and you killed them. What have my family or I ever doo you people? YOUR ALL TRASH FILTH SCUM. I HATE YOU ALL.” As I say this, I fall to the ground in tears.

  Φ As the little demon girl cries in front of me, I try to grab my children a away, but I see some ungodly bck spirit energy flows around her and five of her tails disappear, and from the mist a spirit appears.

  “You foolish humans, all the hate you have propagated for the st fourteen years for this child, and all the hate this child has for you has finally taken form. Now on the hat I ied from this child’s stro foe, I, Otakemaru, will kill you all.”

  This heavenly but demonic spirit strikes my family and I when it finishes speaking.