Miira no Kaikata

Ta-da.

It's an invitation to the land god festival.

It only happens once a year.

Yamada-san the oni gave it to me.

You've been kind of down since you hurt your arm.

You should...

I'm not going.

I don't want to go.

Tazuki...

#11 I Want to Be With You Forever and Ever

You guys believe me, right? See?

It's just a dog.

That's what Tanaka said, too!

Well, it is a normal dog.

It's not!

It disappeared after I took this picture, too!

It floated away and vanished like smoke, right?

Yeah!

You must have been seeing things.

Or dreaming.

It was hurt! It was bleeding!

I bet it's the restless spirit of a dog that was hit by a car.

Holy crap, that's scary! Bachiyama's scary!

Bachiyama?

It's a small mountain near where I live.

They say anyone who goes inside gets cursed.

That's where I found this guy.

You aren't interested at all?!

What are you reading, Tanaka?

A kanji dictionary.

Huh, an inugami?

It looks like a normal dog.

I think it's just a puppy still.

Mature ones can take human form and talk.

He said it was hurt.

Someone might have chased it into Bachiyama.

Hey, want to go look for it?

I feel like we should do something.

You're right.

Let's go.

Really, Tacchan?

It's too late to start today.

How about tomorrow?

We should talk to the god if we're going after school.

Yeah.

This is a surprise.

I told you to just leave him be. Don't you understand?

It was a miracle that he even went to look for Conny.

I thought he'd resist.

Soraino.

I'd forgotten, I can't sleep yet.

I mustn't sleep.

Huh? Wh-Why?

There's a foreign drama that I wanted to see tonight.

Is this the right channel?

It is.

You can head to bed, Soraino.

I'll watch, too.

I couldn't sleep anyway.

Soraino...

Besides, you can't control the remote by yourself, can you, Aayan?

Indeed!

What's wrong with Mii?

He really doesn't want to be left here.

What happened was, last night,

he woke up from a nightmare, and I wasn't there.

He's been like this all day.

He's in baby mode.

It wouldn't be good if we forced him to stay,

and he left to go after Sora.

Want to stay together today, Mii-kun?

Wh-What was that cutout?

It's gone.

It's nothing to be afraid of.

It's like a tag.

Thank you, god.

Hey, Tazuki,

it's summer break after our search today, right?

Let's all go hang out.

Okay.

Yay.

I'll ask the other two, too, then.

Isn't that great, Mii-kun?

I hope all our schedules line up.

We probably won't be able to go anywhere once we graduate.

Are you trying to say we won't meet up with you anymore?

I'm kidding.

Let's clean up and head home.

We're going to the mountain, aren't we?

Yeah.

It's so pretty here.

It looks like any other mountain.

The strange creatures might be spreading scary rumors to keep people away.

Huh? What for?

To protect their own home.

You know how people avoid places that have stories about them?

Everyone just wants to live in peace.

There's a fork in the path.

Want to split up?

Let's pick a time to meet back up.

Good idea.

Oh, it's the summer solstice today.

Oh, yeah, it is.

Summer solstice...

I feel like there was something about today.

What was it, again?

Hey!

Inugami-san!

Inugami!

Hey!

It's so quiet on this mountain.

You can't even hear any echoes.

Weird...

I don't see any creatures at all, let alone the inugami.

Hey, Sora-kun, did something happen between you and Kami-kun?

You guys weren't talking at all earlier.

We both kind of said things we shouldn't have.

We just feel like we screwed up.

It's my fault, to be honest.

Hey!

Inugami-kun!

Hey!

There's nothing here.

Something's off that there'd be so little here.

Really?

Thursday, June 21

Let's go back.

How was it?

Did you find it?

No, we didn't.

We couldn't find it, either.

We couldn't find a single animal, in fact.

We didn't find anything, either.

Isn't that weird?

Yeah, it's weird.

Mii-kun, want to go in my pocket?

Let's leave.

Something might happen once the sun goes down.

Sora-kun?

What's up?

Hey, did something just shift?

Hey.

It's turned into a single path.

Wh-What the...?

Festival music?

Summer solstice...

Festival music...

A festival.

We couldn't go last year, but want to go to the land god festival this year?

Yamada-san got us invitations again.

Let's stop getting involved in that stuff.

I think we should find other friends and humans to play with.

Tazuki's words stuck with me more than the festival.

That it's none of his business.

I'd totally forgotten.

This is bad.

We wandered into the festival.

The land god's festival.

It's a special festival that happens on the summer solstice.

A festival, huh?

There must be someone we know, then—

It's not enough to have an acquaintance.

It's not allowed for someone who wasn't invited to enter.

It's a no-humans festival.

Humans.

When did...

Present your invitations.

I'll handle this.

Then again, it's no use lying.

And there's no point telling the truth.

I'm sorry, we got lost and wandered in here.

So we don't have...

You don't have invitations?

Unforgivable.

A human entering our sacred festival without an invitation

calls for punishment.

Can't it be just me

who gets punished?

I'll do anything.