Oh. I'm going to die.
Probably. No, definitely.
With a hole in my stomach, my chances of surviving were basically zero.
I was alone in a dark stone chamber.
A barrier had been erected around me, and in my near-death state, there was no way I could get outside.
Outside was a sea of fire.
The angry shouts and screams I'd been hearing in the distance until a little while ago had gone silent at some point.
“Cough... cough.”
Every time I coughed, blood spilled from my mouth.
The searing pain piercing my stomach had faded into the distance, too. Apparently, when pain exceeds its limits, human senses start to dull.
What a convenient body.
Miroku Kannagi, eighteen years old.
Today was my birthday.
Dying on your birthday was a pretty impressive twist of fate.
When I was seven, Saio had prophesied, “You will die at eighteen.”
The adults around me had panicked like crazy back then. They'd looked so absurd that I remembered laughing before I could stop myself.
As for me, I hadn't thought much of it.
I'd never believed for a second that I would live a long life.
Still, I felt a little sorry for Saio now that the prophecy had actually come true. It couldn't feel good to make such an ominous prediction and then have it come true.
On the day I graduated from high school last month, I was arrested.
The charges were all things I'd never even heard of.
I knew someone had framed me with a conspiracy.
But there was no point insisting on my innocence to people who refused to listen. If I made the wrong move, the people I cared about might get dragged into it, too.
So I did nothing.
I enjoyed a carefree NEET life in my cell.
And yet today, the Imperial Palace was suddenly attacked by a group of inhuman beings.
The surprise assault came so abruptly that there wasn't even time to call for reinforcements. In an instant, the area became a hellish cacophony.
And for some reason, I was declared the mastermind behind it all.
Even though I was fighting back for my life, my own allies started trying to kill me, too. Before I knew it, I was in this state.
“...When I really think about it, hasn't my life been awful?”
A little late for that.
It was still hell outside.
Were everyone else all right?
But there was nothing I could do anymore, even if I thought about it.
Even so, there was at least one thing I could do at the end.
Dragging my dying body along, I drew a ritual array on the stone floor with my own blood.
My fingertips trembled.
My vision blurred.
Just keeping myself conscious took everything I had.
In the end, I hadn't been able to accomplish the goal I'd devoted my life to.
That was the one thing I regretted.
But...
“...Well, dying after protecting people isn't so bad.”
I poured the spiritual power I had left into the completed array.
This was truly, absolutely the end.
I put my prayer into the purification litany and began to recite it.
May they be blessed with abundant happiness.
“Great God Izanagi, I humbly call upon you—
“When you cleansed yourself in the waters of Awaki Plain at the Little Gate of Tachibana in Himuka, Tsukushi,
“the Great Gods of the Purification Gate came into being.
“Whatever calamity, sin, and pollution may exist,
“please cleanse and purify them, I humbly beseech you.
“Please hear my supplication, I respectfully and reverently make this declaration—”
—...Huh?
There was a ceiling.
The familiar wood grain.
The small stain at the edge.
Even the number of beams I'd counted as a child to pass the time was exactly as I remembered.
It was the ceiling of my room.
Thin morning light filtered through the shoji, and familiar birdsong drifted in from the garden.
I blinked.
The ceiling didn't disappear.
I blinked again.
Still there.
“...For a dream, this has pretty high resolution.”
I put a hand on my stomach.
There was no hole.
No blood stained my fingertips.
The pain that had burned through my entire body, along with the taste of blood rising from deep in my lungs with every breath, had vanished without a trace.
All that remained was the lethargy of just waking up and the warmth of my bedding.
“If the afterlife turns out to be my family home, I'm going to be so disappointed...”
I had been born into a family involved with gods and Buddhism, and I'd spent my childhood wandering along the boundary between worlds.
So I knew.
This wasn't the underworld or the Eternal Realm.
More than anything, it didn't smell like death.
I picked up the smartphone beside my pillow.
“Whoa.”
I recognized it.
It was the model I'd used until the end of my freshman year of high school.
A few months later, I'd drop it down the stairs, smash the screen spectacularly, and replace it.
I had a bad feeling.
I turned it on and checked the date.
I looked again.
Just to be sure, I checked a third time.
“...Two years ago?”
The date displayed was in the spring, two years earlier.
Back when I was sixteen and had just started my sophomore year of high school.
“Seriously...?”
A deeply unhappy noise escaped me before I could stop it.
It wasn't that I had wanted to die.
If I'd had any chance of surviving, of course I would have taken it.
But there had been no hope of getting out of that situation alive.
So I'd accepted my death in my own way.
And yet...
Being told to start over from two years ago was a problem.
“Nobody told me about this.”
Naturally, there was no answer.
Gods rarely cared about human convenience.
Miroku knew that all too well. They were benevolent beings, but they were also unbelievably troublesome.
For the moment, I pinched my cheek.
“Ow.”
Apparently, this wasn't a dream.
I turned my awareness inward.
My spirit veins were normal. There were no noticeable abnormalities in my soul essence. I didn't sense anything possessing me, and there was no sign I'd been subjected to an illusion, either.
“...Did I really come back?”
It was hard to believe.
But there was no other explanation.
I sat cross-legged on my bedding and thought for a while.
“I see.”
Then, a few seconds later, I collapsed back onto the futon.
“I'm going back to sleep.”
If I didn't understand something, I didn't think about it.
That was Miroku Kannagi's philosophy of life.
I'd just died, after all. My body and mind were exhausted.
Sleep first. I could think about it afterward.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Thirty seconds.
“...Nope. Can't do it.”
I opened my eyes.
I had died.
I had come back to life.
I had returned to two years earlier.
When you put it all together, it was quite the major incident.
“What am I supposed to do...?”
Two years from now, I would be falsely accused.
I would be arrested as soon as I graduated from high school, and a month later, the Imperial Palace would be attacked by a group of inhuman beings.
For some reason, I would be declared the mastermind behind it, and in the end, my stomach would be pierced and I would die.
“...When I think about it again, my life was a complete disaster.”
It was a wonder I'd made it to eighteen.
I wanted someone to praise me.
“Good job.”
For now, I praised myself.
Yeah. Good job.
If I'd really returned to two years earlier, there was no reason to follow the same path.
I pulled the notepad from beside my pillow and scribbled in large letters whatever came to mind.
1. Don't die. 2. Don't inherit the Kannagi family. 3. Quit the ritual exorcist office. 4. Become an ordinary civilian.
“Perfect.”
Number one was especially important.
Miroku Kannagi's personal motto was Protect your life.
I wasn't sure whether dying once had made that motto more convincing or less.
Just then, footsteps approached from the hallway.
Immediately afterward, the fusuma slid open with a bang.
“Big Sister!”
“Whoa.”
She had long, lustrous hair and a lovely, perfectly formed face.
Even though she'd just woken up, she was dressed impeccably.
She was my younger half-sister.
“Ah...”
Seeing my sister from two years earlier was strangely nostalgic.
The last time we'd seen each other was shortly before I was arrested. After that, Miroku had no idea what had happened to her.
So...
“...You're alive.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
My sister furrowed her brows suspiciously.
“Father wants to see you.”
“Why?”
“To have breakfast together.”
“No.”
I burrowed back under the futon.
“Are you feeling ill?”
“I'm perfectly healthy.”
“Then please get up.”
“No.”
“Big Sister.”
“Five more minutes.”
“You said that yesterday, too, and slept for thirty minutes.”
“Humans are creatures that grow, so I can make it forty today.”
“It's getting worse.”
My sister sounded exasperated.
The utterly ordinary exchange felt strangely nostalgic.
I poked my face out from under the futon and looked at her.
“Do your best.”
“...At what?”
“Life.”
“Don't say weird things first thing in the morning.”
It had been a sincere encouragement to live life to the fullest, but my sister looked a little put off.
“Besides, don't you have school today?”
“...School.”
“Yes.”
I'd forgotten.
“Can't I skip?”
“No.”
“I just died.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
I'd let far too much slip. I gave up and reluctantly crawled out from under the futon.
As I changed clothes, I happened to glance out the window.
The cherry trees in the garden were in bloom.
Spring, two years earlier.
Spring at sixteen.
I was supposed to be dead, yet I was undeniably here.
I stared at the cherry blossoms for a while, then drew a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“...Well, nothing I can do about it.”
I had no intention of living the same life a second time.
This time, I wouldn't die.
I would throw away the Kannagi family, the ritual exorcist office, and every other troublesome thing.
I would live peacefully as an ordinary civilian, just like anyone else.
That was all I needed.
—At that point, Miroku still didn't know.
The second spring of her sixteenth year had already become something different from the first.