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電車の中でも寝る前のベッドの中でもサクサク快適に。
もっと読みたい！がどんどんみつかる。
「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
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電車の中でも寝る前のベッドの中でもサクサク快適に。
もっと読みたい！がどんどんみつかる。
「読んで」「書いて」毎日が楽しくなる小説アプリをダウンロードしよう。
テラーノベル
アプリでサクサク楽しめる
In a corner of a reclaimed land area along Tokyo Bay stood a mid-rise building, abandoned just as it neared completion. Though its exterior looked brand new, it was already enveloped in a decadent atmosphere, much like a ruin.
A young man approached the building’s entrance with an unsteady gait. A small service door creaked open with a grating sound, and a woman dressed in a black maid outfit — reminiscent of those worn in old European aristocratic mansions — spoke up.
“Are you the one who contacted us via email?”
The young man nodded, his expression blank. The woman ushered him inside.
As he followed her, they emerged into a vast open space.
The building had originally been intended as a hotel; the area they stood in was likely meant to be a grand banquet hall. In its center, the silhouette of something massive loomed.
Numerous flickering shadows appeared in the darkness, encircling the young man. One of them addressed him.
“You are the 108th. Rejoice — you shall be the momentous final one.”
The figure, her eyes concealed by a large mask, spoke in the dim light. Judging by her voice, she seemed to be a young, innocent girl.
Her long black hair hung loosely down her back, and blue eyes peered through the openings in her mask.
“But are you sure about this? It means taking a life, you know.”
The young man replied, his tone tinged with fear.
“Who — or what — are you people?”
The shadows responded with eerie, high-pitched laughter. Then, the girl’s voice rang out again.
“Well, you might call us ‘tsukumogami’ — spirits that dwell in tools discarded by humans.”
The young man retorted indignantly.
“Tools? I’m a human being. Why would the likes of you — mere remnants of tools — choose me?”
The girl laughed as she spoke. “Haven’t you lived your life as a tool, too? A tool used however others saw fit? They call it ‘non-regular employment,’ don’t they? Isn’t that exactly the same as being a tool?”
“I suppose so.”
The young man nodded with a sigh.
“You’re right — I’m absolutely done living as a convenient tool for full-time employees. If there’s no future for me as a human being, then do whatever you like with this life of mine.”
High-pitched laughter, emanating from the shadows, echoed across the area.
A few weeks later, on a summer night, a pair of uniformed police officers arrived at the scene in a patrol car after receiving a report of a foul odor and strange noises coming from that waterfront building.
The older officer shone his flashlight at the building while covering his nose with his palm.
“That is a terrible stench. Sort of a raw, fishy smell … but it’s not the smell of a dead body.”
The younger officer grimaced and shone his light on the ground nearby.
“It’s that building they started constructing to cash in on the tourism boom, but then abandoned halfway through, isn’t it? I wonder if some creature has made its home there?”
“The shutter over there is open. Is that the parking garage entrance? I’ll go take a look. You stay here.”
The older officer approached the spot. Suddenly, a scream rang out.
Startled, the younger officer swung his light toward the sound and saw something thick — like a massive hose — coiled around his partner’s body, dragging him straight into the building.
“No way … is that a python?”
The younger officer rushed over, but his colleague had vanished, leaving only his cap behind. A low, rumbling growl echoed through the air.
The younger officer aimed his flashlight upward. A gigantic eye was visible in a second-floor window. Just as he turned to flee, the building’s outer wall collapsed outward, and a massive hand smashed down, crushing him flat.
The colossal creature emerged into the open, tearing away more of the building’s exterior wall as it did so. It possessed the head and upper arms of an ape, the torso of a tiger, and a turtle-like shell upon its back; its hind legs resembled those of a wolf, and its tail was shaped like a blind serpent.
Once fully outside, the giant creature looked up at the night sky and let out a high-pitched, bird-like cry.
It rolled its bloodshot eyes. In the distance, the lights of an upscale residential complex were visible. With the ground shaking under its weight, the creature rose onto its hind legs and began to walk toward those lights.
The following morning, police and Self-Defense Force vehicles surrounded the devastated apartment complex in the high-end waterfront district.
The giant creature sat in the center of the wreckage, curled up and fast asleep.
Several camera-equipped drones were transmitting footage from a distance, careful not to provoke the beast.
Inside a makeshift command tent, a Ground Self-Defense Force captain and a Metropolitan Police Department inspector stared at a computer screen displaying a recording of a police interrogation.
On the screen, a white-haired old man sat in an interrogation room chair, speaking to the officer in a defiant, fearless tone — hardly that of a typical suspect.
“I created that thing by fusing the cells of several animal species with those of 108 humans. It is the ultimate chimera. A ‘Nue,’ if you need a name.”
The interrogating officer asked a question, his voice laced with anger.
“Why did you create such a thing? Thirty-two citizens were killed by that monster. And ten of them were … eaten.”
“I received a revelation telling me to do it. Something supernatural chose me and delivered the message. I never even dreamed that such a thing could be possible with modern science, though.”
“A revelation? Don’t give me that crap. Is that supposed to justify taking the lives of innocent citizens?”
“Do you public servants have any idea how a researcher on a fixed-term contract feels? No future, no prospects, no hope. The young people in the same boat as me were more than happy to offer up their bodies. This is revenge. It is a righteous act of vengeance against a society that oppressed us and used us like mere tools!”
The Self-Defense Force commander stopped the video and spat out the words:
“The guy’s insane.”
A Self-Defense Force subordinate burst into the tent and shouted, “The giant creature has resumed activity! It’s heading toward the city center!”
Sarina received a call on her smartphone just as she was preparing to evacuate with her parents.
An evacuation order had been issued for the residential area where Sarina lived, as the mysterious giant creature — currently dubbed “Nue” for convenience — might be heading their way.
“Hello? Huh? Is that Minase? The classmate I had when we lived in Gifu? Wow, it’s been ages. Oh, sorry, things are really hectic right now … Huh? What do you mean?”
Sarina tentatively spoke to her father.
“Hey, Dad. Could you drive me to a place right now?”
Her father stopped packing his suitcase and asked with a bewildered look.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know how we lived in Gifu Prefecture when I was in junior high because of your job transfer? Do you remember a classmate of mine named Minase?”
“Oh, the daughter of the shrine priest, right? What about her?”
“She says she has something really important and needs my help. She thinks it might be related to this whole monster crisis.”
Sarina’s mother cried out in surprise.
“What is that about? And at a time like this, too.”
Sarina, still holding her phone to her ear, tilted her head and said,
“Apparently, she’s already made it to Shinagawa Station. The Shinkansen bullet train has stopped there.”
After TV news revealed that the Nue’s projected path would miss their neighborhood, her father ultimately agreed to drive Sarina to Shinagawa Station.
The station was packed with people trying to evacuate via Shinkansen trains running turnaround services heading west.
When Sarina and her father spotted her, their eyes widened in astonishment. She was dressed as a shrine maiden, wearing a pure white kimono, scarlet hakama trousers, and traditional zori sandals.
She wore her black hair long — fitting for a seventeen-year-old, the same age as Sarina. Though she still bore traces of the girl she had been in junior high, her beautiful face now held a dignified, almost possessed intensity.
Sarina spoke to her, feeling a sense of bewilderment.
“You’re Minase, right? Do you remember me?”
Minase nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry to ask this at a time like this. But you’re the only acquaintance I have in Tokyo; there’s no one else I can turn to.”
“That’s fine, but … what is it you want me to do?”
“This.”
Minase picked up a sports bag from her feet — an item that looked out of place with her traditional attire — and pulled out a reddish-brown object about fifty centimeters tall.
It looked like a haniwa — a squat, simple clay figure resembling an ancient soldier. Minase cradled it protectively against her chest as she continued speaking.
“I received a divine message from the deity at my shrine. I was told to bring this to a specific place. But I’d never been to Tokyo before, so I didn’t know how to get there.”
When Sarina asked for the location, Minase pulled her smartphone from the folds of her kimono and showed her the map app.
Sarina turned to her father.
“Dad, do you know this place?”
Her father frowned as he looked at the map.
“It’s near the Imperial Palace. Otemachi, isn’t it?”
The location was nestled in a spot that felt like a canyon between skyscrapers, close to the palace moat. A solitary stone monument — resembling a tombstone — stood in an open space roughly the size of ten tatami mats.
A paved stone path cut through the bed of gravel, leading right up to the monument. Surrounded by modern high-rises, the place felt as though one had wandered into another world.
Minase walked up to the monument and reverently lifted the haniwa with both hands.
A low, heavy thud echoed through the area. Startled, Sarina and her father stepped back. A deep, booming voice seemed to come from nowhere.
“Are you Sukuna?”
Sarina and her father looked around, but there was no one in sight. The voice resonated again.
“You ask for my aid, claiming a bond as fellow enemies of the imperial court? Interesting. I’ll take you up on that offer.”
Sarina’s gaze casually fell upon an information board at the edge of the site, and she cried out.
“Is this … Masakado’s Head Mound?”
Sarina shouted toward Minase. “Taira no Masakado — wasn’t he a rebel in the old days? What do you intend to make such a villain do?”
The voice spoke with a hint of amusement.
“Girl, have no fear. I became an enemy of the Imperial Court only out of a desire for the people’s well-being. Because I once claimed to be the new emperor of the East, I shall protect you — the common folk.”
The haniwa figure rose from Minase’s hands and floated into the air. Suddenly, lightning flashed several times across the cloudless sky, and the haniwa was enveloped in a dazzling light.
When Sarina and her father lowered the hands they had been using to shield their faces, a giant was standing on the road right beside them.
It was a colossal figure, easily twenty meters tall, clad in archaic armor. As the giant turned its back on Sarina and the others, a second face was revealed on the rear of its body.
With footsteps that rumbled like an earthquake, the giant began to walk in a specific direction. Watching the massive figure recede, Sarina ran over to Minase’s side.
“Minase, what is that?”
Minase, looking utterly drained, leaned against Sarina as she answered.
“That is Ryomen Sukuna — a legendary demon deity said to have fought against the Yamato Court in the Hida region long ago. He is going to join forces with Lord Masakado to battle that monster, the Nue.”
The colossal Nue lumbered northward along the main road of the waterfront reclamation zone. It strode forward, toppling buildings in its path and snatching up people who had failed to escape with its serpentine tail, devouring them as prey.
A tank unit and anti-tank helicopters from the Ground Self-Defense Force launched an attack, but even when shells gouged chunks of flesh from the Nue’s body, the wounds regenerated almost instantly; the creature appeared completely unharmed.
A missile strike by Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets was considered but ultimately ruled out, as an airstrike in a densely populated area — where residents might still be trapped — posed too great a risk.
At the southern edge of Hibiya Park, the giant Ryomen Sukuna and the Nue confronted one another, then clashed violently, leveling the surrounding buildings in the process.
Blasted away by the giant’s arm, the Nue sprawled on the ground before leaping thirty meters into the air.
It appeared to have maneuvered behind the giant, poised to strike at its back.
However, the face on the back of the giant’s head snapped its eyes open; the joints of its arms and legs bent in the opposite direction, effectively swapping the front and back of its body.
Reeling from the counterpunch, the Nue crashed into the government office buildings in Kasumigaseki, partially destroying the exterior wall of the Ministry of Finance’s main building.
However, no matter how many attacks it sustained from the giant, the Nue’s body regenerated at a terrifying speed, preventing the delivery of any decisive damage and resulting in a back-and-forth struggle.
Locked in a fierce struggle, the giant and the colossal creature bore down on the National Diet Building. The Nue’s ferocity knew no bounds, and the giant began to find itself forced onto the defensive.
Inside the Imperial Palace, the Grand Steward of the Imperial Household Agency and the Grand Chamberlain were engaged in a heated exchange.
The Grand Steward, flushed with agitation, pressed the Chamberlain:
“We must evacuate Their Majesties immediately. Even the Self-Defense Forces are unable to hold the creature back.”
The Grand Chamberlain replied with a gentle demeanor, yet his tone was resolute.
“His Majesty is currently offering prayers at the Three Palace Sanctuaries. He has declared that he cannot abandon the people to flee to safety alone.”
“But that could put His Majesty in grave danger!”
“In that event, it would mean we failed to protect the people. His Majesty believes that sharing the fate of the people is the duty of the nation’s symbol. Both Their Majesties hold this view.”
The Grand Steward had no choice but to back down.
At that same moment, the grounds of Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya were rocked by violent tremors.
Priests rushed out of the shrine buildings, only to notice that there was absolutely no shaking just a few hundred meters away, outside the shrine precincts.
“It wasn’t an earthquake?”
With a roaring sound, a massive object resembling a beam of light shot up into the sky.
A staff member who had gone to check the inner sanctuary came running back, a look of desperation on his face, and shouted to the head priest:
“It’s a disaster! The sacred object is gone.”
The head priest gazed up at the sky in the direction the light had vanished and murmured:
“Could it be … that it flew away? The Sword of Kusanagi…”
The Nue, having left the Prime Minister’s Office in ruins, was closing in on the Sakurada-mon Gate of the Imperial Palace.
The giant tried desperately to hold it back but was slowly forced toward the moat.
Just then, a massive beam of light arrived and settled into the giant’s grasp. The light faded, transforming into a colossal ancient sword.
Two voices conversed within the giant.
“They’ve sent us something handy. Are they lending us one of the Three Sacred Treasures?”
“It would be more fitting to call it the ‘Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi’ — Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven — rather than the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi Sword right now. Shall we wield it using the power of Yamata-no-Orochi (Eight-headed serpent)?”
The giant swung the sword down. The blade bit into the Nue’s shoulder, causing green blood to gush out like a fountain.
The Nue shook off the blade and stepped back to recover, but unlike previous injuries, the wound refused to close.
The giant swung the sword horizontally. The Nue’s belly was slashed open, and for the first time, the creature let out a scream of agony.
The giant swung the sword repeatedly — up, down, and sideways — slicing away the Nue’s flesh bit by bit. The severed chunks of flesh emitted black gas and immediately began to rot.
With a final swing, the giant severed the Nue’s head. The head plunged into the moat between the Sakurada-mon Gate and the Iwaida-bashi Bridge; it let out one last dying shriek before falling still.
The remaining torso collapsed onto the ground, continuing to twitch and convulse for more than ten minutes.
The giant turned its gaze toward the Imperial Palace. The mouth on one of its faces opened, and Masakado’s voice boomed out like a thunderclap.
“I ask the emperor of this age: are the people of this land truly happy? Is this monster not the embodiment of the common folk’s rage, hatred, and deep-seated resentment?”
Sarina, Minase, and Sarina’s father — who had been sheltering in the underground mall of a nearby building — emerged onto the surface.
Minase turned toward the giant, clasped her hands together, and began to sing in a clear, resonant voice.
“Even babysitters dislike the season once the Bon season has passed…”
Paying no heed to Sarina and her father, who stared on in stunned silence, Minase continued to sing with a ringing clarity.
“Snow flutters down, the child cries …”
The giant noticed Minase’s singing. From within the giant, Sukuna’s voice spoke to Masakado.
“It seems there are still people who carry on that lullaby. Masakado, shall we withdraw? Let me observe the state of this nation a while longer.”
“Very well. After all, this is your body. But let me say just one thing before we go.”
The two mouths on the giant’s two faces simultaneously let out a thunderous roar once more.
“Hear me, Emperor of this land, and the ministers who govern under the name of emperor. I raised the banner of rebellion against the Imperial Court because I could no longer bear to witness the suffering of the people. Are the people of this land truly happy now?”
The giant turned its body and roared again.
“If this nation is built upon the misery and sacrifice of its common folk, then you shall find yourselves doing battle with this very deity next. Mark my words well!”
At the giant’s feet, Minase chanted the final verse of the song at the top of her voice:
“Oh, to journey forth, beyond this very place; for yonder lies the home of my parents.”
The giant hurled its sword into the air. The blade transformed once more into a beam of light and streaked away toward the west.
The giant’s body also turned into a mass of dazzling light, splitting in two.
One part flew off toward the site of Masakado’s burial mound.
The other light flew to Minase, returning to its original form — a haniwa figure — within her hands.
Sarina asked Minase tentatively, “Is it over? Is it all over now?”
Minase smiled and nodded, cradling the haniwa figure against her chest. Then, she spoke gently to the figure in her hands:
“Thank you for your service, Lord Sukuna. Please, rest well.”
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うわ、めちゃくちゃスケールが大きい話になってきましたね…！ 鵺の創造主が非正規雇用の恨みを原動力にしているところが、現代の社会問題を突いていてゾッとしました。将門の首塚と宿儺のコラボで迎え撃つ展開はロマンしかない。そして「子守唄」で戦いを鎮める美那瀬のシーン、すごく印象的でした。破壊と再生のカオスの中で、民の想いを代弁する将門の問いかけが重く響きます。続きがすごく気になる…！
