Chapter 403: Matou Sakura's World
Sakura lived alone in this world—a peaceful and tranquil world where there were no major conflicts between nations, nor were there the Mages and Holy Grail Wars that the girl detested.
The girl appeared here as an orphan who had lost her family in an accident. Her parents had left behind enough inheritance, combined with insurance compensation, to ensure she could live a life of comfort without worry.
There were no other relatives, so there were no issues regarding property division. The house she lived in had its mortgage paid off, so after setting aside a portion for inheritance tax, everything else was inherited by the girl.
However, because she had to live alone, she had to accept guardianship from a government welfare agency.
The girl's age at this time was about the same as it was before she left the Tohsaka residence. Her identification documents, property, savings, and closet were all filled with clothes for changing, from loungewear to Western-style dresses. They were all in colors she liked—not too flashy, simple but not old-fashioned, retaining a pure beauty.
Opening the refrigerator, there was a week's worth of groceries inside, and the cold storage contained emergency canned goods. The kitchen counter was not too high, and the kitchen utensils were small-sized; she could stir-fry by standing on a small stool. There was even a washbasin for children, so there were no inconveniences in her daily life.
It was as if someone had moved her in and painstakingly prepared everything she needed.
The city where the girl now lived was a small, ordinary city. In spring, cherry blossoms bloomed on both sides of the road; in summer, one could reach the beach in half an hour by car or train.
In autumn, there were many local delicacies. The girl happened to live in a small town very close to mountain farmlands and a seaport. It took less than ten minutes to walk to the shopping street, where the prices of vegetables and seafood were very affordable.
In winter, there would be a few light snowfalls, but not enough to obstruct traffic or cause inconvenience.
There was no hustle and bustle of a big city, and the neighbors were very gentle and kind to her. It was indeed a place she would like.
However, this was a completely unfamiliar environment with no acquaintances. Although it was still the same nation, there was no Fuyuki on this land; it was a world that had nothing to do with her past.
The only thing the girl brought with her to this world was the red ribbon she always wore on her head. It was a gift from her sister when she was young. She had always kept it on her person, perhaps because of that, it was preserved.
But even if the objects of memory remained, the people in those memories were gone.
A new world, a new residence—everything was a new beginning.
She could go to a new school here, make new friends, and freely pursue things she wanted to do, yet she always felt like something was missing. Her heart felt empty, but she could not figure out why.
Time is the best medicine. Although she could not forget everything from her past life, under the erosion of time, she would slowly become accustomed to it.
Waiting, long waiting, suppressing all pain and grievances, waiting until all of this passed, and then smiling in front of the people who mattered—this was exactly what the girl was best at in her previous life.
But in this world, there was only the girl herself. No pain, no important people—just a lonely existence.
Senpai... where are you? Will you come back to see me? As expected, I still feel very lonely...
That was an afternoon with heavy rain. The sky was covered with dark clouds. Rainwater hit the grown-out small yellow umbrella, bounced off, and landed on puddles on the ground. Small rainboots stepped through, sending ripples across the water that spread into the distance.
The purple-haired girl carrying a red leather schoolbag walked home alone.
Because Sakura was set up as an orphan who had inherited a family estate, she lived alone under the protection of the government's child welfare agency. Naturally, she also entered school.
Since it was the age for elementary school, even though there was no longer any academic assistance, in order not to cause trouble for the adults at the welfare agency, the girl chose the elementary school closest to her home and enrolled.
She did not deliberately disguise herself, nor did she go out of her way to show off. She simply lived her campus life quietly and low-key. In the eyes of the teachers, she was a quiet and obedient student who did not like to talk much.
She interacted normally with her young classmates while maintaining an appropriate distance.
If no special circumstances arose, the girl might have continued to live out her life quietly and alone like this.
Until that rainy day, when a small, strange animal's head suddenly poked out of the grass by the side of the road. It seemed to have crawled into the grass to hide from the rain. In the small animal's eyes, for some reason, Sakura perceived a loneliness akin to being separated from its family, and a feeling of empathy surged in her heart.
"A kitten? A squirrel? Are you also alone? Or are you lost?" The girl crouched down, looked at the small, fluffy white beast, and asked with a light smile.
"Fou?" The small animal opened its innocent, large eyes to examine the girl in front of it. Its curled tail, bearing slight purple markings, swayed gently.
"Come here~. If you stay in there, you'll get soaked by the rain." Sakura reached out her hand to the small animal.
"Fou~!" The small animal sniffed toward the girl's hand, then its eyes widened as if it had confirmed something. It gave a light leap, jumped into the girl's arms, and clutched the collar at her neck, refusing to let go.
"Wait, there, there, no need to be nervous." Sakura, holding the small animal, stood up and wanted to pat its back to soothe its emotions. At this moment, she discovered that there was a small parcel tied with a belt on its back, and the bulging space inside was the size of a pocketbook.
Thinking there might be information about this child inside, Sakura untied the parcel and opened the lid. The object that revealed itself was a black screen—a thin, rectangular machine that possessed a sense of technology surpassing this current era.
"Is this a smartphone? As expected, you aren't an ordinary animal. Could you be a Mage's familiar? Even though this world's 'Big Ben' is just an ordinary tourist attraction, where on earth did a magical beast like you pop out from?" Sakura grabbed the soft flesh behind Fou's neck, lifted it up, and asked.
"Fou~?!" Being lifted up, Fou tilted its head innocently, looking just as confused. It had only relied on intuition to complete the task entrusted to it by Da Vinci.
At this moment, Fou had sacrificed the intelligence and magical energy it had accumulated for a thousand years to reshape Mash's body. Everything had to start over; its current intelligence was not much different from a pet dog owned by a ten-year-old elementary student.
"Alright, alright. Seeing as you're so cute, I'll forgive you." Sakura pulled Fou back into her arms, tapped its small face with her finger, and said with a smile.
Now that the mission of finding the person was complete and it could not return to Chaldea for the time being, Fou returned to the girl's arms, simply biting the bow on the girl's collar, acting as if it would not leave.
"What? You also want to come home with me?" Sakura looked at the small animal in her arms and asked with a smile.
"Fou~!" Fou rubbed against the girl's arms adorably, crying out as if agreeing.
"That's fine, too. The house is big, and we can be companions." Sakura stroked Fou's head and said with a smile.
However, what the girl did not know was that beneath this heavy rain, besides Fou—the small beast lying in her arms—there were other foreign objects that did not belong to this world. They had passed through the defense of the world's barrier and invaded.
On a mountain tens of kilometers away from this city, there was a small village surrounded by grid-like paddy fields. Under the eaves of the doorways, several elderly people with gray-white hair were leaning on wooden chairs, sitting together and chatting.
This was a rural village with severe aging. There were almost no young people left living here; those who farmed were all elderly. They were not accustomed to city life and were unwilling to move to the city with their children. But the children, having worked hard for over a decade to achieve some success, get on track, and afford the houses they were paying off, had no way to drop everything and return to the countryside to take care of their parents.
Examples of old couples living together on the mountain village were not rare, and those whose partners had passed away due to old age had no choice but to live alone.
"The rain this year came at a very timely moment. The crops this year have grown well; it will probably be a bountiful year." An old man holding a fan admired the heavy rain outside and said with a relieved smile.
"Brother Tanaka, didn't you say you wouldn't plant this year? Your old bones aren't up to it anymore," said an old man with crescent-shaped age spots on his side profile, laughing.
"Now that you mention it, it seems like I heard someone say that the year before last as well," said another squinty-eyed old man.
"That's right, old man. Even if it were just the two of us, we wouldn't be able to handle it. If you strain your back, it'll be a real pain," said the fan-wielding man's wife, who had brought tea and snacks over to the small table, chiming in.
The fan-wielding old man turned his head and shouted, "What do you know! Do you know what Gin-Shari (silver rice) is? Only rice grown by one's own hands is called Gin-Shari; that kind of rice is the most delicious! Every year when my grandson returns home, he says the rice at Grandpa's house is fragrant!"
"Alright, alright. Isn't the missus doing this for your own good? Otherwise, my family's rice..."
"What are you saying? How can other people's rice be as fragrant as the crops from one's own field? I'm still young! I can eat two bowls of rice in one meal! With such a good season, it would be a waste not to plant crops!" The fan-wielding old man stood up and said.
"Alright, we know you're young; you're still a cycle away from being a hundred years old," the old man with age spots replied cheerfully.
The fan-wielding old man didn't respond, but dug into the pocket in front of his chest, pulled out his reading glasses, and stared into the distance.
Everyone looked in the direction of his gaze, puzzled. They saw a hunchbacked old man in a kimono in the distance, holding a large black umbrella, walking with slow steps through the rain from a path outside the village toward them.
"Hey~! Brother, that's a face I haven't seen before. Which family in the village are you looking for? Come to my place first to avoid the rain." The fan-wielding old man sitting under the eaves called out to the hunchbacked, bald old man walking by with the black umbrella.
"..." The hunchbacked old man stopped upon hearing this, slowly raised his umbrella, revealing that he had no eyebrows and his eye whites had all turned into black pupils, showing a weird, unsettling smile.
"Nurarihyon (Sludge-creature/demon)?!" The fan-wielding old man stepped back in fright and cried out.
"What's the matter, Brother? No matter how you look at it, he's a person, right? It's rare to have guests in the village; you're being too rude," the squinty-eyed old man looked at the man outside the door and said.
The fan-wielding old man waved his fan and said, "It's not that! You didn't see that guy's face and expression—it's very ominous! That is definitely not someone a human should receive. Let's just go inside the house."
"What's gotten into you? Fortunately, it's raining, so he probably didn't hear us. If you don't want to, Brother, then bring him to my house," said the old man with age spots, standing up.
"Heh..." The hunchbacked old man standing in the distance clearly heard the conversation across from him. He raised his head to look at the old people under the eaves and smiled, showing his teeth.
The old man with the strange pupils raised his hand and tossed the umbrella gently. The black umbrella that had just been held in his hand floated toward the old men's side.
An umbrella being pelted by rain should have fallen to the ground quickly. Yet, it defied natural laws, floating steadily in the air at the same height, rotating slowly as it drifted toward the eaves where the old men were.
"This? What is going on?" The squinty-eyed old man rubbed his eyes, completely baffled.
Vaguely, one could see the black umbrella floating over. The surface of the umbrella seemed to be heaving, and even without any external force, it was trembling. A closer look revealed that from the surface to the handle, it was actually composed of all kinds of insects. On the
surface were mostly black scorpions, spiders, and centipedes, while the inner layers were wriggling, nameless fleshy worms.
A gray worm with eight sharp claws pounced onto the face of the squinty-eyed old man. The sharp, claw-like appendages drove directly into his squinted eyelids, slicing them open and revealing large, blood-stained, protruding eyeballs that looked as if they were about to fall out. The worm moved its pincer-like fangs, biting directly toward the eyeball, trying to drill into the eye socket.
"Waaaahhh!! It hurts! My eyes!" The old man fell to the ground, rolling in agony.
However, he did not struggle for long before he twitched and stopped breathing, because the insects that had fallen from the umbrella had already crawled all over the ground under the eaves. A poisonous insect had bitten the old man, sending him from this world.
"Waaaahhh! Monster! A demon..." The old man with age spots stared wide-eyed and shouted.
At this moment, a flesh-colored worm with a round, suction-cup mouth emerged from under the umbrella, pounced directly into the old man's mouth, and bit onto his tongue. The old man showed a look of terror and wanted to scream, but his mouth was blocked, and he couldn't make a sound. The worm's tail hung right outside the old man's mouth.
"I'll save you!" The fan-wielding old man reached out and grabbed the worm's tail, pulling it out with force and throwing it away.
"Waaaahhh... waaaahhh..." The old man with age spots opened his mouth, but it was a pitch-black hole inside—his tongue was gone. Blood gushed from his mouth, and he clutched his own neck, collapsing to the ground.
"How can this be... Brother!" The fan-wielding old man screamed as he looked at his long-time friend from the village.
"Honey! Huuuwaaaaah..." The old woman was shedding tears; her entire body was already covered in black poisonous insects.
"Honey!" The fan-wielding old man rushed up to save his wife, but was stung on the hand by a scorpion. The wound turned purple-black and quickly spread to his entire arm; he collapsed helplessly to the ground.
Dense swarms of insects crawled all over the four corpses and began to gnaw on them.
Matou Zouken walked to the eaves, admired the rainy scenery outside, and said, devoid of emotion, "This village doesn't have any young bodies either. Well, I am now an immortal, so I shouldn't be too picky if I'm just feeding the bugs."
As he spoke, Matou Zouken's body continued to shrink, and countless insects crawled out from under his kimono, joining the army gnawing on the corpses.
After that, with the fan-wielding man's home as the center, the swarming insect colony moved through the surrounding houses under the rain curtain.
From within the village, a hoarse scream was heard from time to time, only to be drowned out by the patter of the rain.
At night, the phone rang in the fan-wielding man's house.
Ring, ring, ring...
Ring, ring, ring...
"That's strange? Grandpa and Grandma always answer after one ring."
In a town on the other side, inside an apartment building, an elementary school boy lying on the sofa held the phone between his ear and shoulder while playing with a transparent Game Boy game console.
"They must be asleep. It's all your fault for just playing games—what's so fun about that!" the housewife cleaning the clothes scolded.
"That's not it. It's only 8:30. Grandpa and Grandma don't turn off the lights and go to sleep until 9:00! I calculated the time. Grandpa and Grandma are super looking forward to my call; if they didn't hear my voice for a week, they wouldn't be able to sleep!" The boy looked at his mother with dissatisfaction and corrected her.
The housewife said, "Alright, go take a bath quickly. Call them tomorrow and tell them that next weekend, when Dad has time off, we'll drive home to visit them."
"Yeah~ yeah~!" the boy answered with a drawn-out voice.
The fact that the call to the village wasn't answered did not only happen to one family. But after all, it was a rural village with only a dozen elderly people living alone; it was not rare for signals to be cut off from time to time, for some places not to receive radio waves, or for calls to not go through when the weather was bad.
Ring, ring, ring...
The rain had already stopped at this time, and the sound of the phone was very loud in the quiet village.
But the creatures in the room where the phone was placed were no longer human. In the dark room, the sound of insects chirping rang out from time to time; the ground rustled as something was crawling. The windows reflected the moonlight and were covered with moths attracted to the light. Insects blinked their eyes, flashing a hint of red pupil light.
The wooden beams on the walls were covered with spider webs, and the walls were covered with arched little earthen mounds, while holes had been dug out in the ground.
This time, the existence connected to the Holy Grail and filled with black mud was the great mage Matou Zouken. As a worm-user possessing endless magical energy, he was constantly incubating new bugs with his body. In a few days, the entire village would become a nest for insects.
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