A plain desk, a bed, and a shelf, plus a uniform hanging on the wall. A well-organised room that didn't contain much. Right in the middle of it sat a lone girl.
Tomoe Nanamura plopped herself down on top of a small cushion, her dazed gaze fixed on a single spot. The curtains were tightly shut, the lights off, leaving the room in darkness, but she stared intently into empty space.
Tomoe took a large, deep breath. She tried with all her might to ignore "it", but it was all in vain. The more she thought, the more it tugged at her attention.
"It" meant everything. Everything her eyes could see. As soon as she asked herself, What was this, again? everything stopped making sense. She couldn't grasp what anything meant - everything in her room seemed to be made up of nothing more than circles and squares. That was the sort of loss that Moonlight Syndrome caused.
The more clearly Tomoe tried to recognise things, the harder it backfired. Fear welled up within her - fear that if things stayed like this, maybe eventually she wouldn't be able to sense anything at all. It wasn't exactly easy for her to control her own thoughts, however.
She kept as few objects within her room as possible: if she placed something somewhere, she couldn't help but be aware of it. She was afraid that she would become unable to distinguish what was in front of her. Still unable to shake off her fear, Tomoe sat all by herself.
...A face.
All of a sudden, it emerged from a corner of the boundless darkness of her room: something white, sitting atop the low shelf. When she looked over at it, it became a face.
As the face began to come into focus, Tomoe finally realised that it was a mask; an imitation of a face. She couldn't tell whose, or whether they were a man or a woman. To her eyes, which saw everything else as a blur, the mask was the only thing she could perceive. Perceiving it meant that she couldn't get away from it. The mask was facing her. It existed. It was white. The mask was crying; the mask was laughing.
Tomoe got unsteadily to her feet, and all but collapsed out of the door as she fled the room. She couldn't stand to remain in the same space as it any longer.
She fumbled her way to the nurse's office. It was spacious, clean, and didn't feel as though it were bearing down on her the way her own room did. Tomoe lay down on one of the beds and shut her eyes quickly. Sleep would make it better. Sleep would make it go away. She shouldn't focus on it, but...
She could sense many presences beyond her closed eyelids. As if succumbing to the pressure overtaking her, she opened her eyes. Atop the curtain rail. On the glass shelf. The door handle. And more besides. She couldn't get away from the masks; that, Tomoe knew instinctively.
Tomoe had been born into one of the mask-making families. It seemed a perfectly natural conclusion that she, who had been born into such a family and contracted the disease of that island, would be driven mad by masks.
She had no choice left to her now but to lie still and endure it. She couldn't sleep. Her head fuzzy, Tomoe took a deep breath and waited for her symptoms to abate.
She sensed the masks approaching and retreating, like the lapping of waves, and waited for them to pass. As she did, a different scene overtook her vision. It was of the Rogetsu Kagura, the beginning of it all.
She, the throngs of people, and the four other girls all wore masks. So, too, did the shrine maiden dancing in the centre.
Tomoe felt a strange sensation. For some reason, the shrine maiden's mask didn't frighten her. If anything, it possessed an entrancing beauty.
"...The mask of the Vessel..."
That was what the precious mask passed down through the Nanamura family from generation to generation was called. There were all sorts of stories about it - Tomoe had heard that if you wore the mask you would become one with it, that you would lose yourself and become a vessel containing many souls, and more - but it wasn't as unfathomable as that. In fact, it was warm, tranquil, and... She felt like it could remind her of something important. These days, when everything seemed so fuzzy to her, the mask was the one clear, definite thing, seeming almost like an anchor she could rely on that helped her to preserve her self.
As she stared at it intently, she felt herself becoming detached from the world around her. All that remained were her and the mask of the Vessel. Pitch blackness. A lone mask emerging from within. Approaching rapidly.
"Tomoe?"
The mask called Tomoe's name in a familiar voice. Why is the mask calling to me? she wondered. The next second, the mask transformed into the face of someone she knew very well. Tomoe reached her hand out towards its cheek.
"It's you, isn't it, Marie?"
The feeling against her hand was not that of a cold mask, but the warmth of another person; the somewhat hot, slightly sweaty cheek of Marie. So pretty. Tomoe felt this clearly, even her illness unable to steal the sentiment away from her.
But that face was becoming distorted, falling apart, turning into something she could no longer recognise. Tomoe stroked Marie's cheek to make sure of her face.
Yes. Her face will break. Break apart and burst into blossom.
But Marie was still there, alive. Her face was still fine, and she could clearly feel her presence through the hand she touched her with.
"That's your face. Marie's face," Tomoe murmured, almost as if to herself, too. Marie returned her smile in response.
"...I've been right here with you this whole time."
Marie's words lit up her hazy world. Marie would always stay with her. She was there. She was there, and she was alive.
That was good enough for her. That was all she needed.
~~~
Tomoe came to her senses, finding herself staring up into the sky. Right in the centre of her vision was the moon. Marie was by her side, looking up at the moon with her. She had a clear view of what she wanted to see, with nothing unwanted in sight.
Whenever she looked up at the moon, Tomoe always remembered something: on the day they had been spirited away, they had been looking at the moon, just like this, her and Marie together.
Standing within the light of the moon, she could feel her self slowly vanishing. She could feel it dissolving, spreading, the boundary between herself and everything else growing fuzzy.
If I stay here and yield myself to it, me, Marie, and everything else can become one. I feel that now, and I felt it back then, too. But...
"Hey, Tomoe. Do you remember that detective?"
Marie's words dragged Tomoe back to reality.
"Mr. Kirishima? Um, kind of..."
The question brought the scene back to the surface of her mind. Her senses dissolving; a trance that seemed to make her one with everything. The same way she'd felt just now, staring up at the moon.
I wanted me and Marie to give ourselves up to it together. But then that detective showed up and 'saved' us, Tomoe thought. Leave us here... Don't break us... A smidgen of her feelings from that day trickled back.
"It's okay. I'll make you better, Tomoe, I swear," Marie continued, warming her heart.
Thank goodness. I got to hear her say it again.
Tomoe entwined her fingers with Marie's and held onto her hand. She'd heard the words so many times already, but she didn't care.
Yes. Marie would stay with her forever. There was nothing to be scared of. Marie would light up the endless, eternal road before her - like the waxing autumn moon lighting up the cloudless sky.