invisible behemoths conquer
“In the dim corner of the sanatorium, Takaya once again sensed the presence of ‘Zankyo-chan.’
A high-pitched ringing, like fingernails scraping softly across glass, echoed deep inside his left ear.
It reacted most strongly whenever he wrote.
So he formed a hypothesis.
Maybe Zankyo-chan still had no eyes.
No proper body. No complete outline as a yokai.
That was why she borrowed his vision instead. Studying the world through his retinas.
If that were true, then her inability to properly recognize smartphones and tablets also made sense.
A particle-manipulation type entity. Or perhaps a being made entirely from residual echoes.
Not truly physical, but something closer to fluctuations in recognition itself.
‘But if that’s the case… then she isn’t really a sound yokai at all.’
The ringing returned.
Not denial. Not agreement. Something in between — almost embarrassed.
Then his thoughts drifted toward another entity he had designed the previous night: “Meido no Miyage-chan.”
White funeral robes. Bandage-like undergarments inspired by ritual seppuku imagery. A reversed triangular ghost talisman wrapped around her throat like a choker. Long black hair.
For now, she remained quiet.
But Takaya knew: once his paranoia and feelings of humiliation accelerated far enough, she would eventually laugh and whisper—
‘Let’s erase all twenty-three dimensions.’
Still, none of them truly cared about victory or defeat.
‘As long as it’s fun.’
That alone was the rule of the Night Parade.”
“In the end, he acted tough.
The rakugo storyteller, still stuck somewhere between numbness and dysfunction, continued to write.
‘To the Noise God — the superior being beyond Zankyo-chan.
Gru-san, your Pulsar-style drumming probably needed more empty space too. More moments where the sound drops away.
There was also that Japanese noise artist… Can’t remember the name anymore. The one who sold cassette tapes covered in handwritten marker. Even his silence had rhythm. His absence of beats was beautiful.
And… maybe this is narcissism, but during drumming, I could sometimes feel that floating distortion of time itself.
Like the flow loosened.
Like gravity weakened.
It doesn’t happen much anymore. Maybe making a contract with Zankyo-chan stabilized me a little.
Still…
I insist that silence itself is also noise.
And if that idea annoys you, then maybe it becomes war.
But… can we use my rules instead?
…No?
Yeah. Makes sense.
You’re god-level after all.
Probably billions of years old.
So maybe… if you could lower yourself just enough to match the level of ten or twelve broken humans like us…
then someday, I’ll meditate properly.’
The cursor blinked.
Takaya stared at the white smartphone screen for a long while before continuing.
‘Even if I became a god or something beyond human… it still hurt.
This miserable existence still hurt.
That’s why… sometimes I still want to kill everything.’
Silence.
The refrigerator compressor clicked again somewhere behind him.
Then—
――Kiiii……
A thin metallic ringing stretched through the room.
Zankyo-chan had reacted again.”
だいぶ違うけど…おちょくってくる群生国際派の思考回路わかんねぇし…俺とは違うし…別にどうでもいい…。
世捨て人が軽く救われたら少し生きた意味が有ったかな…
