

The woman comes back again, and tries to feed Moriguchi an eyeball. Kume stays with Moriguchi again the following night. He is afraid because he had believed the woman would not return after he was rescued. Moriguchi is convinced that he should not have eaten the flesh. She returned periodically to feed him with flesh and fresh blood. However, the woman appeared and fed him on half-chewed flesh from her own mouth. After falling off the mountain, he was too badly wounded to move, and was starving to death. Under pressure from Kume, Moriguchi confesses the truth. Kume tries to ask Moriguchi what's happening, but sees a pile of shredded flesh on Moriguchi's pillow. When Kume calls out to her, she smiles and leans in close to his face but suddenly leaves. Kume is woken in the night by a strange gulping sound, and sees a woman with hideously engorged lips lying on top of Moriguchi. They chat and Moriguchi repeats his assertion that he is an orphan who has no family or friends. However, Moriguchi seems frightened and begs Kume to stay in the hospital room with him overnight. Kume comes to visit and announces that Moriguchi's story is all over the news. Moriguchi is scheduled for corrective surgery. Moriguchi claims that he survived the month through living off the rations in his backpack, and that he is unemployed with no family or friends to contact. He submitted a mountaineering log one month ago before setting out to climb the Shirogane-dake mountain, but was then injured in a fall down the mountainside. The man confirms that he is Shiro Moriguchi from Tokyo. Kume calls the emergency services, who take the man to hospital.

Kume is bird-watching in the woods when a badly injured man calls out to him for help. Black Bird is the sixth chapter of Ma no Kakera.
