"Scared?"
"Yeah."
"Me too."
They exchanged a small, nervous smile.
Hoshino thought for a moment, then made a "follow me" gesture. He jogged up to the small landing between the first and second floors and looked up the stairs at Kobeni.
"Alright, come down like this!"
Hoshino straightened up, pinched the edge of his "imaginary skirt" with his fingertips, and lifted it slightly, striking a pose like a noble showing off to royalty.
Kobeni covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. "That's… that's embarrassing."
Hoshino acted like he didn't hear her, raised his head, and clapped his hands once.
"Oh~ my dearest Elizabeth Higashiyama the First, you're absolutely stunning today—the most beautiful princess I've ever seen!"
"…You're an idiot."
"…Am I?"
Her face flushed red, but she couldn't help mumbling, "Was I… not beautiful yesterday?"
"You were the most beautiful yesterday too."
"The day before?"
"Most beautiful."
"And the day before that?"
"Still the most beautiful."
"'Most' sure sounds cheap coming from you."
"Not at all," he said seriously. "When someone's as noble as you, they can buy the rarest things in the world for the smallest price."
"Like what?"
"My 'most.' Same value as my moral bottom line—gets refreshed every time I see you."
Kobeni laughed, unable to help it. Hoshino usually pissed her off more often than not, so when he got earnest like this, it was almost disarming.
"Keep going." She tilted her chin up, playing along, a perfect little princess.
"I'm troubled," he sighed.
"Huh?"
"I'm troubled by things that don't live up to their names."
"Who, me?"
"The former goddess of beauty, Venus."
"Former?"
"I fired her."
"Why?"
"Too many reasons."
"Say them."
"Alright," he said solemnly. "Venus was sculpted by a mere artist, discovered by some Greek farmer, and eventually gifted to King Louis XVIII—who locked her in a cramped corner of the Louvre for two hundred years. But you, dearest Princess Kobeni—molded by the world's most mysterious force. Every biologist who's ever tried to understand you has barely scratched the surface. Your limbs are perfect—graceful enough to belong anywhere in the world. And for your little 22-euro ticket to the Louvre, there'd be a line of princes waiting to serve you."
He placed a hand on his chest and smiled. "Most importantly… I discovered you."
"And who exactly are you?"
"I used to be Hoshino."
"And now?"
"Aishin Gioro—Coldhearted D—Hoshino."
"And in the future?"
"King of the world!"
"…Idiot."
She smiled faintly, eyes gliding over him in mock appraisal. "Alright then, Coldhearted Hoshino. What did you come here for?"
"I came to invite you to a theater performance."
"Introduce it."
"It's an original show by an unknown, small-town Primal Devil."
"Sounds boring. I'm not going."
"Ah, but you see," Hoshino said dramatically, bowing with a hand to his chest, "these nameless beings have been preparing for over a decade—all just to impress us."
He extended a hand to her, palm up. "Show them a little mercy."
A moment of silence. Then came the sound of footsteps descending the stairs—
step, step, step, step.
"…Fine."
Kobeni lifted her chin, pinched the hem of her "skirt" with one hand, and gently placed the other atop his.
"Lucky you."
Hoshino leaned down and kissed her ring finger. "An honor beyond words."
The plaza below was divided into a grid around the towering snowman, thirty meters tall.
Crowds filled every section.
It was Saturday, and over half the thousand households of Okura Village had turned up, joined by swarms of tourists. The total headcount had to be around forty-five hundred.
Families, couples, classmates, coworkers, friends—
everyone was swept up in the excitement, relishing a rare holiday in the gray years after Japan's economic bubble had burst.
Hoshino and Kobeni didn't push into the crowd. They sat on the roof of a four-story ryokan with a perfect view of the plaza.
Onstage, a white-haired host with snowflake earrings wrapped up a long speech. The opening performance was about to start.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
"It's starting," Hoshino murmured. His fingers tightened around Kobeni's.
Kobeni pressed her hairpin down. The wind had begun to rise.
A thick mass of clouds swallowed the sun.
The light dimmed instantly.
From both sides of the plaza, groups of people began walking in. Step by step, they moved with identical pace, identical rhythm—mechanical, synchronized.
They wore matching kimonos—icy blue fabric glinting with a cold sheen. The pattern wasn't flowers or cranes, but hundreds of pale, shifting faces. Their features bled into smudges of light-blue ink—some floating, some overlapping.
Among them, Hoshino saw familiar faces.
The landlady.
Mai Asakura.
The old guys they'd shared the outdoor bath with.
Even… Himeno.
This scene naturally caused discomfort to the tourists, and many children were frightened and cried.
The people near the front tried to back away—but the crowd was packed too tight. And behind them…
Five-meter snow walls had silently risen, sealing everyone inside.
Unlike soft snow, the walls were compacted, dense, unbreakable.
The dancers—a thousand of them—took their places around the huge blue curtain that hid Okura-kun IV.
Without warning, they all began to move.
Their arms jerked stiffly but precisely. The rhythm was unnervingly perfect, each wooden geta scraping against the snow in sync.
The faces on their robes writhed and twisted—
smiling, weeping, screaming—
the fabric shuddering with every turn of their steps.
Then, on one sharp beat, every dancer's body began to collapse.
Skin, clothing, and features melted downward like wet paint.
Black brows dissolved into gray, dripping over pale faces, blending into the ivory snow until the figures stood translucent—
pure, crystalline blue.
When the last smear of color vanished, the dance was over.
A thousand ice sculptures stood in silence, facing the curtain.
A single sound—shhhh—as the curtain fell.
Okura-kun IV stood revealed.
And everyone could see it—something was wrong.
The head was far too big. Comically so. So wrong it twisted the brain just to look at it.
A sudden gust tore through the square. The snowman's color drained away, scattering upward as a flurry of ice crystals.
What stood beneath was not snow at all.
It was a tree.
A thirty-meter-tall ice tree, glowing faintly blue, its countless branches bare and sharp as blades.
Every branch held a body.
Hundreds—no, thousands—impaled corpses.
Mai Asakura. The landlady. The old bathhouse regulars.
And… Himeno.
Her arms and lower body were gone. A branch skewered her from the side, protruding through her torso.
"So they'd been dead all along," Hoshino whispered.
Far below, the frozen dancers fell to their knees, crawling toward the ice tree like pilgrims.
Their foreheads touched the ground—crack.
Hoshino looked up.
High above the tree, maybe a hundred meters, a wooden door appeared in the sky. An old-fashioned Japanese door, glowing faint blue.
It creaked open. Inside was nothing but darkness—thick, infinite black.
Something fell out.
It tumbled through the air, then stopped two meters in front of the tree.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
A heart.
A huge, black, beating heart—its veins pulsing like worms under its skin.
The sound didn't just echo—it drilled straight into Hoshino's skull.
He instinctively spat out silken threads, wrapping Kobeni in a cocoon.
Three, four breaths later, the crowd went silent.
Their faces changed—each one wearing a different emotion.
Joy. Sorrow. Rage. Calm. Shyness. Pride. Grief. Tenderness. Fear. Confusion.
One by one, their expressions froze.
Then someone moved.
A mother clawed at her child.
A husband punched his wife.
A teacher bit into a student's neck.
A boy slammed his girlfriend's head into the ground.
In seconds, the plaza became a slaughterhouse.