The story begins with an eight-foot-tall lady surrounded by ghost story ladies.

That's not a heart.

It is a torii gate.

An inverted torii gate made up of countless distorted human faces stacked together.

A mirror hangs in the center of the torii gate.

The mirror faces downwards, reflecting the inverted sky beneath one's feet.

What was reflected in the mirror was not this eerie, dark space, but an ordinary Japanese garden.

The sunlight was just right in the courtyard.

A woman in a white dress was squatting in front of the flower bed with her back to her, watering a cluster of seven-flowered lisianthus while humming a lullaby.

Looking at this figure I've seen countless times in my dreams, listening to this lullaby from my dreams.

Rin Jinguji froze on the spot, unable to move.

Seven years ago, every night she woke up from a nightmare, her mother would sit by her bedside, humming this song and gently patting her back until she fell asleep again.

The tune is exactly the same.

Even the slightly off-key note when humming the third measure was exactly the same.

"Mother."

She heard her own voice.

It's not the current voice, it's the voice from seven years ago.

"Mom, don't go."

The woman watering the flowers stopped.

She didn't turn around, but her shoulders trembled slightly.

"cold."

The mother's voice came from the woman whose back was to her, as gentle as an old dream.

"You shouldn't have come here."

"because..."

The woman's neck began to turn.

180 degrees.

Her face turned around.

It was still her mother's face.

Gentle eyes, a curved mouth, and a small beauty mark under her left eye.

It imitates that thing exactly the same way as the one before.

The only difference is...

She was crying.

Two lines of tears flowed from those gentle eyes, sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the white hem of her skirt.

"Mom will eat you."

The words fell.

The sunlight in the courtyard has disappeared.

The bellflowers have withered.

The water in the spray bottle turned dark red, and it seeped out drop by drop from the showerhead, falling onto the dry, cracked soil with a hissing sound like burning.

And the mother's face was splitting open from the middle.

It wasn't torn apart by external force, but rather stretched open from the inside.

Something is wriggling, swelling, and searching for an exit beneath the skin.

Rin Jinguji's hand holding the short sword was trembling.

It's not because of fear.

It's because she finally understood.

Seven years ago, my mother was not taken away by an evil spirit.

The mother walked into that mirror voluntarily.

In order to seal away that thing that was born from the objects worshipped by the Jinguji family for generations...

The mother sacrificed her body, her consciousness, her soul, and everything she had!

Seven years.

Every day, every moment, we are devouring each other with that thing.

And now, Mother is about to lose.

"cold."

The face that was cracking open was still smiling at her.

"Mom held on for a long time."

"But this thing..."

A hand emerged from the crack, not the mother's hand, but a bluish-gray claw covered in scales, with five fingers bearing backward-curving hooks.

The claw gripped the edge of the tear and tore it outwards with force.

More bluish-gray hues oozed from the crack.

"It's too hungry."

My mother's left eye began to become cloudy, the iris changed from dark brown to cloudy yellow, and the pupil elongated into a vertical slit.

"so..."

"Let's go."

"While Mom is still Mom."

Rin Jinguji didn't leave; instead, she reached out and touched the mirror without hesitation.

Instantly, the entire mirror began to absorb her consciousness.

Rin Jinguji offered no resistance.

She let the force pull her into the mirror, then walked straight to her mother who was undergoing transformation, reached out, and grasped the bluish-gray claw that was extending from her mother's body.

"Mother."

"I am your daughter."

"You promised me."

"I will come back."

Tears were still streaming from the mother's right eye, but a glimmer of light appeared in her cloudy left eye.

"cold..."

"so."

Rin Jinguji interrupted her mother.

She looked up and met the gaze of her left eye, which had begun to turn into a vertical pupil.

"I've come to pick you up."

The short knife fell.

It wasn't aimed at his mother, but at his own left palm.

The blade pierced the skin, and blood gushed from the wound, flowing along the Sanskrit inscriptions carved on the blade.

The Sanskrit characters lit up the moment they came into contact with her blood; it wasn't the cold blue they had before, but a golden-red that resembled flames.

"The bloodline of the Jinguji family was originally the final wedge in this seal."

She pressed her bleeding hand against her mother's splitting chest.

"You made the choice for me seven years ago."

"Now, it's my turn."

Golden-red light flowed from Jinguji Rin's palm into her mother's body.

The bluish-gray claw let out a piercing scream, trying to retract, but she held it tightly.

"Trying to run away?"

Rin Jinguji's lips curved into a smile.

That curve is exactly the same as when my mother smiles.

"You've been eating my mother's food for seven years."

"Now..."

She pulled the claw outwards.

The bluish-gray scales peeled off in her hand, revealing the shapeless, pitch-black body beneath.

The moment the body came into contact with the air, it began to struggle violently, emitting a sound that would be equivalent to a thousand people screaming at the same time.

"Give her back to me!"

Jinguji Rin said every word.

Then, pull hard.

The whole world shattered.

The courtyard, the bellflowers, the watering can, the withered flowers—everything shattered into countless fragments like a broken mirror.

Each fragment reflects a single moment...

The mother held her newborn daughter, while the father awkwardly tried to help but didn't know where to put his hands.

Her mother taught her to write, holding her hand and writing the character "凛" stroke by stroke.

On the night her mother first saw the evil spirit and cried in terror, she held her in her arms and said, "Don't be afraid, Mommy can see it too."

Before stepping into the mirror, the mother glanced one last time in the direction of her room, her lips moving silently three times.

She understood those three words.

"sorry."

All the fragments fell at the same time.

Then, Rin Jinguji saw the true appearance of that heart.

It wasn't a torii gate, it wasn't a human face, it wasn't any of the forms she had seen in this distorted space.

It is a baby.

A baby, curled up in a ball, semi-transparent, still connected by its umbilical cord to the upside-down sky beneath its feet.

Its eyes were tightly closed, and its expression was neither ferocious nor painful.

It's hunger.

A hunger that has never been satisfied since the moment of birth.

"This is..."

"The fetal god."

Natsume Fanyu's voice came from behind her.

"The land has a spirit, and so do houses."

"The Jinguji family has lived in this mansion for generations, making offerings and maintaining a continuous stream of incense offerings, which is originally a good thing."

"But you've forgotten."

He walked over to her and looked down at the curled-up baby.

"Even the spirit needs a 'name'."

"A spirit without a name is like a baby without an umbilical cord."

"The only way to fill that never-ending void is to keep devouring."

The baby's umbilical cord is connected to the upside-down sky, while the other end is deeply embedded in the mother's body, which is regaining its human form.