An evil spirit's resentment!

"Aren't you Little Gō's sister? Why do you hate him so much?"

Kagome demanded angrily.

There might have been some hidden reason for attacking her own family. But deliberately involving innocent bystanders, even taking her anger out on the children who kindly came to visit their classmate-not only pushing them down the stairs and injuring them, but even shoving them into the middle of the road when the light was red-was truly vile.

There was nothing cute about a child like that.

"Hmph, it's none of your business! I'm going to kill Little Gō no matter what. I'll kill Little Gō, who took everything from me. Mom hates me, and it's all because of him. She only saved him from the fire, not me. She must not love me.

It's all Little Gō's fault!"

Mayu turned her back and spoke coldly.

"How could you think that?"

Kagome truly couldn't understand this child.

But she also realized there must have been some misunderstanding. The little girl's words were full of jealousy, with an underlying yearning for her mother's love.

Then she recalled how the little girl always avoided her mother when playing her malicious pranks.

Could there have been a misunderstanding between mother and daughter?!

"Mayu, if there's something you resent, something you can't let go of, you can tell me, and I'll pass it on to your mom. Your mom can't see you now that you're only a spirit, so she can't talk to you. But I can. Maybe once everything's out in the open, you can understand each other."

Kagome spoke optimistically.

Then she went on to comfort her:

"And please, let go of your obsession. Don't do anything evil or wrong again. Otherwise, you'll turn into an evil spirit completely..."

But those words only agitated the little girl further:

"There's no misunderstanding.

I'm just a child nobody wants.

Mom only has eyes for Little Gō. She doesn't care about me at all."

"Mayu, your mom is very gentle. She's always cared about you. Please don't make her sad anymore..."

Kagome hurried to explain.

In the brief time she had spent with the mother, she had glimpsed some of the woman's guilt and pain. A mother that gentle was unlikely to show such blatant favoritism.

But Mayu only grew angrier and more impatient:

"Shut up! Stop getting in my way, or I'll kill you too!"

As if to prove her strength, Mayu vanished. Trees and shrubs in the surrounding flower beds were uprooted by an invisible, intangible force and hurled dozens of meters into the air. Then an enormous force slammed them down in front of Kagome.

They smashed shallow craters into the concrete.

Kagome jolted in fright and instinctively threw herself over her younger brother, Souta, to protect him.

Souta, lying on the ground, had genuinely fainted from fear.

Oh my god, evil ghosts really existed!

And this one was Gō's sister!

Once the commotion subsided, Kagome, who had kept shielding her younger brother, Souta Higurashi, with her body, raised her head and opened her eyes to look around. Seeing the devastated garden below, even she could only bite her lip and remain silent for a long time.

Humans were so insignificant before these ghosts and monsters.

A spirit born merely from a ten-year-old girl's lingering obsession had become capable of such obvious destruction after only a few months. What kind of destructive power would evil spirits with even stronger obsessions possess?

Then there was what had happened two days earlier: a monster her ancestor had sealed centuries ago had broken free and attacked her grandfather. Six of the Shikon Shards kept at home had also inexplicably vanished, leaving only one that had fallen by the foot of the bed.

Taken together, these supernatural incidents happening around her quietly planted a seed in her heart:

It seemed this modern world I lived in wasn't as peaceful as it looked.

After taking Souta back to the Sunset Shrine, she rushed straight to the hospital.

Mayu's younger brother, Little Gō, had been unconscious in a hospital bed for months and still hadn't woken up. Kagome couldn't believe Mayu had nothing to do with it. Besides, the little girl, whose resentment had persisted all this time, had explicitly threatened to kill him.

She couldn't know about it and simply stand by while such a tragedy happened.

She couldn't let Mayu keep going down this wrong path.

Outside the hospital where Little Gō was staying.

A small ghost invisible to ordinary people floated in midair.

It was Mayu.

The little girl glared angrily at a certain hospital room, at her younger brother lying in bed, and at her kind, gentle mother sitting beside him. She couldn't help murmuring to herself:

"Tonight, after Mom goes home, I'll kill her favorite, Little Gō."

Behind Mayu stood a Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit with narrowed eyes.

Once the little girl truly decided to kill her younger brother, the Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit behind her abruptly opened its narrowed eyes wider, leaving them half-open.

Before, Mayu had frightened people as though playing pranks. Although some had been injured, no one had actually died.

But now things were different.

As her heart grew darker, the closed-eyed Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit, whose role was chiefly to guide and soothe, rapidly transformed into an open-eyed Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit that restrained and punished.

Good and evil were only a thought apart.

Time flew by.

Night soon fell.

"Gō's mom, are you heading home?"

A nurse she knew asked with a smile.

Hearing her, Mayu and Little Gō's mother smiled and bowed to the friendly nurse.

"Yes. See you tomorrow."

She had lost her husband years ago, then her eldest daughter a few months earlier. Now her only son, lying in that hospital bed, was all she had left to sustain her emotionally. She dared not imagine how desperate she would feel if he left her too.

Just as the mother was about to step through the hospital doors, Kagome arrived in time.

"Excuse me, ma'am..."

Kagome called out to stop her before she left.

"You're... Souta's sister?"

"Yes.

Um...

I'm sorry, ma'am, but could you tell me a little about Mayu, your daughter who passed away?

I know it's difficult, but please."

Asking a mother about her deceased child's past was terribly impolite.

As expected, the mother before her was startled by the question.

But to Kagome's surprise, rather than becoming angry at the intrusion, the woman looked guilty and remorseful. "You sensed her too?"

"Huh? Ma'am, does that mean you..."

"I know. The evil spirit everyone talks about, the one that keeps causing accidents, is actually Mayu. I can't see her, but I'm certain it's her. And I know she's still lingering around Gō and me, filled with resentment.

Also, I'm very sorry for the trouble and distress Mayu has caused Souta and the other classmates who came to visit Gō. Ask whatever you'd like to know. If I know the answer, I'll tell you honestly..."

This time, it was Kagome's turn to be shocked.

Ghosts were beings no ordinary human could see.

Yet this mother said she could sense her daughter.

A mother's love could truly be astonishing sometimes.

After that.

Kagome learned the whole story, listening as though to a tale.

That day, Mayu's younger brother, Little Gō, had suddenly developed a high fever, so their mother hadn't gone to Mayu's school for the parent observation day as promised. Mayu had therefore decided her mother loved only Little Gō and had run away from home in a huff.

Her mother had assumed Mayu had gone out to clear her head as usual and hadn't thought much of it.

But while their mother was out buying groceries, Mayu had returned home. Ignoring Little Gō's warning, she had put her scarf on the heater to dry. Then she had hidden in the wardrobe in his bedroom and even told him not to tell Mom she was there. She wanted to make her mother worry a little.

The scarf had caught fire.

And Mayu had already fallen fast asleep inside the wardrobe.

By the time Mayu woke up, the entire house was engulfed in flames.

During that time, because their mother hadn't known Mayu was still at home inside the wardrobe, she had only rescued Little Gō, who was bedridden with a high fever and had passed out from the smoke, even suffering severe burns to her hands in the process.

Only after the firefighters put out the blaze did they discover the little girl, already dead inside the wardrobe.

"So that's what happened. There really were so many misunderstandings between you and your daughter."

Mayu's departed soul had never found comfort. She had kept hating, believing her mother loved only her younger brother and not her, and that this was why her mother hadn't saved her and had let her burn to death. That was why she had spent months wreaking havoc.

She wouldn't let anyone near Little Gō.

And lately, she had even begun thinking of killing him.

At that thought, Kagome felt both relieved and anxious.

Just as she was thinking of finding Mayu and explaining everything.

On the hospital's sixth floor, the light in one of the rooms suddenly began buzzing, then burst with a loud pop. The brightly lit room plunged into darkness.

"That's Little Gō's room!"

Both Little Gō's mother and Kagome paled.

They hurried upstairs.

Elsewhere.

At Little Gō's home.

Three elders and a youngster had followed the trail here.

"Esteemed elders, this is the place..."