"Haaah..."
The moment Kenjaku finished speaking, Mahito stood up beside her and let out a long yawn.
"So boring I wanna go watch a movie~"
"Hey! Where are you going?"
Before Jogo could finish, Mahito's legs had already blurred into afterimages as he dashed off into the distance.
"Tsk. Born from human fear, and yet so flighty. All he ever thinks about are movies and games..."
Seeing that Mahito had long since disappeared, Jogo took out his pipe and clenched it between his teeth, listening to the shrill scream coming from the human-like face embedded in it.
"Guess that's it for today..."
Jogo glanced at Kenjaku. With Mahito gone, even he found the meeting dull after Kenjaku's analysis.
Kenjaku watched the Cursed Spirits heading back to their "nest," lowering her head as the habitual smile faded from her lips.
[A curse is still a curse...]
She looked toward Saishū, who hadn't moved to follow the others.
"Oh? Why aren't you heading back?"
Saishū's second face turned to look at Kenjaku. With the other faces remaining still, it looked as though an enlarged vertebra had suddenly jutted out from his neck.
"Mahito is still very young. I'll go keep an eye on him..."
Saishū's fourth face abruptly rotated forward, its eyeball sliding within its socket to fix on Kenjaku.
"Hehehe~~"
"Is that so..."
…
Fun and life have to be explored for oneself.
After leaving the scam company that served as their "base," Mahito wandered leisurely down a small path.
When the wind was at his back, he leaned slightly into it and let it push him along.
When the wind blew against him, he simply sat down where he was, letting the post-rain air brush over the stitches on his face.
"Why did you follow me?"
Lying on the ground, Mahito tilted his head to look at Saishū approaching openly, making no attempt to hide.
"My intuition tells me that following you might lead to something interesting."
"Interesting... huh?
...Somehow, I get the feeling you just want to watch that 'interesting' part disappear~"
Mahito turned his gaze back to the sky, which was beginning to clear. As a Cursed Spirit born from humanity's fear of "loss," Saishū didn't seem like the type who cared about fun at all.
"Hey, Four-Faced Monster.
There's something I've always wanted to ask you..."
"Go ahead."
"What do you think is the meaning of a soul's existence?"
"Waaah... so sad~~"
Mahito shot a glance at Saishū's second face, which had suddenly started wailing.
"Mahito-chan asking such a stupid question... and you even asked it wrong~~"
"Oh?"
"You should've asked: 'What meaning do you want the soul's existence to have?'"
"What I want?"
"Hehehe... that's right~~"
Saishū's comical face turned toward Mahito.
"The meaning of a soul's existence is nothing more than your subjective wish. Don't mistake it for some objective truth~~
If one day a certain aspect of the soul goes beyond what you expected, would you say the soul deceived you?"
"Wuuu... If Mahito can't see through that, you won't be able to keep moving forward."
Mahito curled his lips slightly.
"You're too sly. You didn't answer my question head-on at all..."
"It doesn't matter... It doesn't matter..."
"..."
…
Two Cursed Spirits trailed after a stray cat on its leisurely walk, eventually arriving at a street. Every time they reached the traffic light at an intersection, they stopped and waited until it turned green before crossing.
Ironically, in a city that belonged to humans, not a single person lived more freely than these two Cursed Spirits.
Even while waiting for the light, Mahito and Saishū would stand there or sit on the ground however they pleased. If they missed this cycle, it didn't matter. They could wait for the next one... or simply ignore it altogether.
But the humans? One by one, they stood there stiff as statues, as if they wanted to press their eyes directly against their watches.
They lived in a sprawling city, yet confined themselves to the narrow routine of work, home, and commute, as though they carried a prison on their backs every day.
Mahito casually plucked a flyhead off an office worker's shoulder and toyed with it in his palm.
"See that?"
Turning to Saishū, he pointed at the man whose shoulder suddenly felt lighter, his face shifting into a strange mix of confusion and faint delight.
"Humans can even feel happy when they 'lose' something.
A soul responds equally to everything. But when humans lose suffering, they feel joy. The state of the body contaminates the purity of the soul. That's humanity's inferiority... and also the reason you were born~~"
Mahito flashed an exaggerated grin at Saishū.
"If Four-Faced Monster can't distinguish how 'loss' affects the soul versus how it affects humans, you won't be able to keep moving forward~~"
Saishū ignored him, all eight eyes quietly observing the people who boxed themselves in with their own "rules."
When he didn't respond, Mahito followed his gaze.
"Well... staring at these people isn't all that interesting. They don't even realize they're living under an open sky. First they lock up their souls with their own perceptions, then they carve those perceptions into pieces according to their daily lives..."
"Wuuu... then why did you come here?"
"To learn. I want to see how their souls react when stimulated by something external~~
Do you have any thoughts about these people?"
"Pitiful..."
"Oh?"
"I finally understand Jogo's thinking. If humans can only crawl along the ground, unable to lift their heads to see the sky, then the sky should belong to someone else.
We curses must change them."
Mahito couldn't tell which face Saishū had spoken from. He simply rested his chin in his hand and nodded.
"Can you tell me what you really think?"
"If someone has never recognized their own freedom, how can they speak of losing it?
This city? I hate it here..."