Mirage of Blaze: Raise the Red Flag
Twin Peonies 1
“Waah, I’m starving! How ’bout we stop for yoshigyuu 
on the way home?” a student called to his friend in the row diagonally in front of him before the bell signaling the end of classes had even stopped ringing.
Jouhoku High: Year Two Group Three. Their last class on Saturday was Modern Japanese. The male student ‘with a rough look in his eyes’ who had spoken at the same time as their teacher, Yoshikane, stepped off the platform was seated directly behind the window.
“You don’t have Club today, right? Let’s eat on the way home!”
“Fine with me, but don’t you have work?”
“At two. So I have time.”
“A gas station near the Matsumoto Interchange , you said, right? It doesn’t really matter to me, but have you reported it?”
“You didn’t let it leak, did you?”
“Stop being so careless. What if you got called in again?”
“It’s not gonna kill me,” Ougi Takaya said, grabbing his very light bag.
After school on a tranquil Saturday.
The weather had cleared in what might be called a break in the rainy season, and the sun shone down into the schoolyard. Students passed each other on their way home and to their afternoon club activities. Narita Yuzuru would normally have been in the latter group, but since the wind ensemble had performed a concert last week, he had today off.
“Hey Yazaki! Wanna come too?” Takaya called to Yazaki Tooru in the desk in front of him.
“Sorry, I gotta go home right after school today.”
“That’s pretty rare of you.”
“Oh, stuff it. I’m the manager for Aoyama-sama this year, so I gotta help out with this ’n that.”
“Aaaah, it’s already that time of year?”
Jouhoku High was a school located in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, a scenic, history-rich city built at the foot of Matsumoto Castle.
Yazaki’s family ran a tofu shop with a pedigree as an upstanding merchant house stretching back to the Edo Period.
Aoyama-sama was the Lantern Festival held every year around this time. A tradition particular to this region was the Children’s Festival, where children carrying a shrine of cedar leaves paraded through the city.
“Aoyama-sama—that’s where you‘d chant ’wasshyoi korashyoi’...huh? I did that a long time ago—...”
Matsumoto had been much refined in recently years. The areas around Karuizawa were greatly changed in this same Shinshuu of old, but it had many more stylish shops and was a popular gathering place for the local young people. Even so, the old corrugated iron fences at its street corners were in good repair, perhaps because a balance had always existed in this castle town between the preservation of old traditions and the absorption of new ideas...at least, that was what their Social Studies teacher, who also taught Local History, claimed. Takaya didn’t know whether it was true or not, but well, from his end it certainly seemed that way.
“Yeah, that’s right. And besides, our neighborhood association’s gonna be one of the ‘lead’ groups putting together this year’s Bon-Bon.”
“No way, really? You’re leading?”
“Oh no, what should I do? It’s cleared up! I thought we were gonna suspend Club today!” A shrill voice suddenly crested over them from behind, and Takaya turned. It was Morino Saori, who was a member of the Tennis Team.
“Hey, Ooougi-kun, are you carrying any sunscreen? Sunscreen!”
“What? Why the hell would I be carrying sunscreen?”
“Augh! Matsumoto has strong ultraviolet rays, so I don’t want to get sunburned!”
“You sound like an old woman!”
Matsumoto, at the foot of the Northern Alps, was 600 meters above sea level, with accordingly stronger UV rays.
“Oh, sure. A crude guy like you wouldn’t care whether they’re ultraviolet or infrared rays, huh?”
“I don’t wanna hear that from you.”
“Whatever. So is your amnesia cured? Have you remembered Chiaki-kun yet?”
Takaya gave a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I remember.”
“What’s with that attitude? I don’t care either way, but you’re the teachers’ prime suspect for breaking the glass that other night.”
“What?!” Takaya gave her a cold glare.
“They’re saying it was retaliation for you being called into the principal’s office. I wouldn’t put it past you, Ougi-kun.”
Takaya groaned, forehead creasing. That put him in a bind; he hadn’t broken the glass, but he also couldn’t say that it had nothing at all to do with him.
“Don’t worry. I’ll vouch for your alibi.”
“Wh...what alibi, Yuzuru...”
“If they suspect you, then I’ll say that you were with me, and we were investigating the Kasuke Uprising together.”
“Oh...ah, yeah, that’s right. Hahahah.”
Yuzuru smiled effortlessly in response to Takaya’s spastic laughter.
“Yeesh, I guess it’s okay since I can’t really ride my bike during the rainy season anyway, but how much d’you think the repairs will cost?”
It was around noon, so the gyuudon shop was filled with truck drivers and a crowd from nearby Shinshuu University. Looking sideways at Takaya grumbling over his lunch, Yuzuru smiled with a mixture of sympathy and censure.
“Because you had to go and get into that weird stoplight race.”
“Dammit. My GSX...”
Trying to think of suitable condolences for Takaya, who was crying into his bowl of gyuudon, Yuzuru put up his chopsticks and rested his elbows on the counter.
“But I’m so glad that we were able to return Kasuke-san and the others to normal...”
It had happened just days before.
A strange onryou riot had occurred at Jouhoku High School. The spirits of the vanguard of an uprising that had occurred in Matsumoto more than two hundred years ago had appeared at Jouhoku High. They were the spirits of Tada Kasuke and twenty-seven others, called the Joukyou Selfless—so named because they led a protest around the middle of the Edo Period against higher annual taxes and were met with oppression from the government and executed. They had been spirits filled with bitterness.
Since the Kasuke had become a danger to the students, Takaya and company had reluctantly decided to exterminate the spirits. Accordingly, they had ventured into the school in the dead of night and in the end managed to resolve the situation and calm the Kasuke.
“They were never evil to begin with...” Takaya looked down with teacup in hand. “I’m not gonna let him get away with it.”
(Mori Ranmaru...)
Takaya’s blood still boiled at the thought. The courageous souls of the Kasuke had been used. In an attempt to kill him.
(Because I’m supposed to be Kagetora...)
“Hey Takaya, let’s pay a visit to the graves of the Kasuke at Nakagaya?”
Takaya lifted his head in surprise. “A grave visit?”
“Yeah. It looks like everybody’s heard about Kasuke-san, so I was thinking about volunteering to go on a grave visit after finals. It wouldn’t take that long to get to Nakagaya by electric rail.”
He had to work at his part-time job every day during the break after exams, but...
“Azumino, huh...?”
In elementary school, he had visited the landmarks of the Kasuke Uprising during a local history social studies field trip. A Shinto shrine and museum dedicated to the Joukyou Selfless were located at Nakagaya.
“Maybe I should see if I can go along too...”
“If you’re not going to eat your ginger, give it to me.”
“Huh?...Oh, sure.”
Yuzuru reached over with his chopsticks and picked the red-pickled ginger out of Takaya’s bowl. Takaya heaved a big sigh.
(I wonder if Naoe’s okay....)
In order to suppress the Kasuke, Takaya, Naoe, and Ayako had entered the school in the deep night. They’d been trapped in Mori Ranmaru’s kyuuryoku-kekkai, and Naoe had been seriously injured by a shower of glass shards lancing into his back.
(To protect me...) He had literally substituted his body for Takaya’s. (Because he...wanted to protect me or something...)
“Somebody die in your gyuudon or something?” Takaya, startled by a now-familiar sarcastic voice, turned to see a young man dressed in Jouhoku High’s uniform plopping down in the seat next to him.
He was a rather handsome young man with stylish glasses and longish hair tied into a ponytail.
“Ch-Chiaki, dammit—!”
“Gyuudon, large, with broth! Oh, and egg!”
“One large, with broth and egg!” One of the restaurant’s assistants repeated in a louder voice.
Takaya ground out, “Why the hell are you loitering around in our uniform?!”
“What kinda greeting is that? I have some free time, so I thought I’d go to school.”
“The Kasuke and Ranmaru are both gone!”
“But school’s fun.”
This was the zashikiwarashi who had slipped into Jouhoku High by some strange, murky method. Chiaki Shuuhei—Yasuda Nagahide—was now quite thoroughly settled in Matsumoto.
“Chiaki, you live by yourself, don’t you? Pretty comfy, aren’t you?” Yuzuru asked with unreserved frankness.
“Yeah, living alone is great. I can watch porn all I want, stay out all night and come home in the morning. Having a guardian is pretty painful, isn’t it, Ougi-kun.”
Takaya was just a bit envious of the porn.
“Come over for some fun tonight, Ougi.”
“I’m not going, idiot.”
“You can watch porn all you want.”
“No way. Really?”
“Nope!” was the immediate reply.
“Fine then.”
Chiaki’s large serving of gyuudon arrived, and he dug in.
“That was great. Oh, Haruie left this for you.”
Standing, Chiaki flipped a coin over to Takaya with his thumb. What fell into Takaya’s hand was a 500-yen coin.
“Consolation for breaking your bike. That’ll treat for the gyuudon. Incidentally, it’ll cover mine, too. I’ll come pick you up tonight.”
“Hey, wait! I’m not going! You don’t need to come pick...me...hey, Chiaki!”
Chiaki walked out of the restaurant airily with a toothpick in his mouth.
Next to the dumbfounded Takaya, Yuzuru said with some sarcasm, “I did not need to know that it’s because you have Miya-chan at home...”
Takaya became even more dejected.
The gasoline station on Saturday afternoon operated in a state of controlled chaos. Situated before the Matsumoto Interchange , it was a frequent stopping place for cars heading for the highway, among them many licenses from out of the prefecture.
“A bit more, a bit more...okay, right there! Thanks for visiting!”
Takaya liked his part-time job at the gasoline station. He didn’t mind the smell of gasoline and oil; in fact, he found it rather calming. Washing cars in the middle of winter was painful, but at least he didn’t have a cramp from a “professional smile” as he would from working somewhere like a fast food restaurant. Running around the busy station was work suited to his character. Most importantly, he could look at the various cars and motorcycles. Like when a corps of touring Harleys had descended on the station just a few days earlier—he’d gotten so involved in a conversation with them that he’d been scolded by his supervisor.
“Regular, full tank!”
“Can you check my air pressure too?”
“Thanks for waiting!” Takaya said, carrying the gas nozzle to a woman customer standing beside a red Legacy with a license number from outside the prefecture. “Here is your 5000 and 900-yen change. Where are you headed for?”
“I want to get to the train station from here—it is okay if I make a right turn, then go straight?”
"Hmm—... You should follow the right lane after the turn. At the Nagisa Str...er, let’s see, at the Number 19 intersection , the straight lane merges with the right-turn lane. It’s easy for people to make a wrong turn around there the first time.
For Takaya, his part-time jobs were much more fulfilling than school clubs or activities, though he couldn’t exactly call his school experience inspiring. (He had always looked older than his age, and people mistook him for a college student quite often.) He could already tell whether the gas tank door was positioned on the left or right side of the car by its make and model, and checking tire pressure and changing the oil were jobs he could now handle flawlessly. He was learning to maintain his own motorcycle, and getting a lot of information from the older car and motorcycle fans working at the station—it was killing two birds with one stone.
(If only schoolwork was like this...)
One of the more senior part-timer workers called out to Takaya as he saw the customer’s car out of the station.
“Ougi, you coming this Monday evening?”
“Evening? I wasn’t scheduled, but...”
“Sorry, but I was wondering if you could fill in for me? I have some urgent business...”
“That’s fine. I’m free from four.”
Another car had entered the station during their exchange. Takaya ran a bit to greet it.
“The first stall inside is free. ...you!”
“Well done, young man.”
The head which popped out of the driver’s seat window was...
Chiaki Shuuhei’s!
“Y-y-y-you, Chiaki! What’s with that superior look? And how come you’re driving that car!”
“What? What’s the fuss?”
“You’re a high school student, aren’t you?”
“Me? I’m nineteen.”
“Liar.”
“Sour grapes, huh? Fill ’er up with regular, okay? Oh, and can you wipe the windows with a new towel? I don’t want a dirty towel touching my Leopard-chan’s face.”
Though Takaya was annoyed, he couldn’t pay Chiaki back in kind while he was a customer (and other customers were watching), so he could only grudgingly begin working.
“Well? When do you finish?”
“Nine.”
“Hum. Then I’ll wait for you at the family restaurant over there.”
“What?! Did you really come to pick me up?”
“Of course, General.” He blew Takaya a kiss. “Hurry up and finish.”
Takaya suddenly felt completely drained.
He was a total idiot for being tempted by porn videos...
Takaya could only regret that fact with soul-deep remorse. Chiaki had brought Takaya to his apartment after work. Instead of porn, what awaited the exhausted Takaya was the glory of a Spartan training course...
“All right. Naoe told me that I have to push you hard until you regain your «powers». That means that I’m gonna give you some special training starting today. We’re starting out with a crash-course in nendouryoku!”
He had a bad feeling about this just looking at Chiaki’s gleeful face, but—
(Jackpot.)
It was the same ‘training’ he’d seen a long time ago in a children’s magazine he’d loved, which had a real-life ESP-development corner: moving a coin dangling from a chopstick without touching it with your hand.
“What the hell? This training’s totally dull.”
“Then let’s see you do it. Here.”
How the hell was he supposed to move it? Chiaki, with another gleeful grin, said, “Like this”—and immediately the coin began to revolve in large circles on its string. Takaya was impressed by this simple act.
“Woah, it’s really turning.”
“Now you do it.”
Clonk.
“Not like that. Picture it in your mind. Imagine it.”
Clonk.
“You can’t do it at all, huh?”
Clonk.
“Stop muttering.”
“Then move it!”
Irritation built in Takaya when he couldn’t even do this simple trick used to fool children. They got into a huge brawl which had the next-door neighbors complaining before he even managed to make any progress, and they were chased out of the building by the management.
“That’s why I told you that I’m not Kagetora!” Takaya spat out, sitting cross-legged in front of a convenience store.
Though he thought it quite natural that he couldn’t perform nendouryoku, it still pissed him off that Chiaki would show off like that in front of him. It added to his dejection and made him feel like running away.
“Everybody and his sister says Kagetora this, Kagetora that. But like I said, I’m not him. Just because I did «choubuku» a time or two—so what? It was just an accident. Under those circumstances anyone...”
“I don’t wanna believe an idiot like you turned out to be Kagetora either.”
“Feh. That’s a bit excessive.”
“Humph. If you’re gonna grumble, I can tell you a thing or two. I don’t see why I gotta trouble myself with you. And just when I got a comfortable life, too.”
“It’s not like you had to come. Besides, you were Kagetora’s enemy, weren’t you?”
“That was more than four hundred years ago.”
“... Whatever. I heard that Naoe and the others perform kanshou on babies, but that’s not true for you, is it? You snatched that body away from someone by force, didn’t you?”
“... And what if that’s true?”
“I won’t forgive you,” Takaya replied immediately, his profiled illuminated for a moment by the red break lights of a car entering the parking lot. “That’s how Shingen almost robbed Yuzuru of his body. So if that’s true, then I won’t forgive you.”
Chiaki, looking at Takaya’s fierce eyes, suddenly poked him in the forehead.
“Ow!”
“That’s a speech you should save for when you can use your «powers»,” Chiaki said, and stood. “Even if you’re not Kagetora, we’ll take anyone with the firepower. Well, it’d certainly make Naoe happy to have someone filling in for Kagetora.”
Takaya sighed. Naoe was a total smarty-pants too, but whether it be Chiaki or Ayako, anyone would probably develop something of an attitude after living for four hundred years.
(Yeah, yeah, I’m the cub here.)
He looked up at the night sky, feeling strangely abject. Scorpio’s red star twinkled directly above the castle hill.
Monday morning was the pits.
Still drained from working at his part-time job on Saturday and Sunday, Takaya was sleeping late as usual. In addition to his difficulty with getting up, he had detested Physics as the first period of the day today. There was nothing was more depressing than that. He rushed into the Physics classroom at the last minute, stomach rumbling—happily, the teacher had not yet arrived. However, the students seemed to be in a strange mood.
“Oh, Takaya! Over here!”
Yazaki and others were standing with Yuzuru near the heater by the window. They waved at him when they saw him come in.
“What’s everyone making a fuss about?”
“Nothing good. It appeared again.”
“Appeared? What?”
“A ghost.”
Takaya scowled. “A ghost...it couldn’t be...”
“It was seen last Saturday, too. It was in the girls’ locker room this time.”
“You were peeping?”
“No! Idiot. They said that it was a girl wearing a white kimono.”
“A white kimono?” Takaya asked, his brows knitting. The Kasuke had all been wearing white as well.
“It sounds like the students who went back to the locker room after their club activities saw it. For some reason, the clothes they left in there were all totally soaked.”
There had been considerable distress. At first they had suspected a malfunction in the sprinkler system, but they had found no trace of water on the floor.
“Woah, really? Sounds like the real thing.”
“Could there be a child of the Kasuke who still can’t rest in peace?”
“Couldn’t be. Because I’m sure we...” he trailed off, realizing that he had no proof that all of them had been there at the time. There certainly might be others.
“Yo.” Chiaki Shuuhei raised his hand from the door and walked in.
Greeting him with only a “good timing”, Takaya told Chiaki about what had happened.
“Here again? Those ingrates.” Chiaki wasn’t being quite serious. “There shouldn’t be anything left at this school. If one of them had remained, Haruie or I would’ve noticed a long time ago.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“Rise!”
Akasaka, the Physics teacher, entered. The ghost problem would have to wait until after class.
“Hmmmmm. So I was right,” Chiaki groaned softly as he opened a book in front of the Local History shelves. It was the noon break. Takaya and the others were, on this rare occasion, in the school library.
“Look. Here.”
The book Chiaki was holding had material concerning the Kasuke Uprising.
“This is about the people who were executed. As I thought, there were only boys, no girls.”
Only one female had been executed in the Kasuke Uprising—“Jun”, the daughter of Oana Zenbee. It had been an exception; apparently it was because she had served in the important post of a government messenger. They took a look at Dekawara, which had also been an execution ground, but there were no women listed there either.
“They would’ve executed the boys to extinguish the family line, so there wouldn’t’ve been any point in including baby girls.”
“Then what’s going on now?”
“Mmmm. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the Kasuke Uprising.” Chiaki closed his book with a thud. “...Maybe they’re spirits who were here originally and became active after being stimulated by the Kasuke. Investigating the sightings at the actual site ASAP would be the best thing to do at this point.”
Unfortunately, the site in question was the girls’ locker room.
“Should we call that lady—Haruie or whatever?”
“It really hasn’t gotten to that point yet. And a suggestion would be a lot of trouble as well. We need someone who can go inside—maybe ask one of the girls for help?”
They pondered the question. Large eyes peered in at them through the gaps of the opposite bookshelf, and a voice said: “There he is, there he is! Ougi-kun!” Morino Saori stepped out from behind it.
“Perfect timing, Morino. Look...”
“I’ve been looking all over for you, Ougi-kun!”
“? What?”
“It appeared again!” Saori screamed, forgetting that they were in a library. “The ghost! We saw it again!”
“What!”
They galloped after Saori towards the girls’ locker room on the second floor of the gym.
When they arrived, the Fourth Period PE students were milling around outside, still in their uniforms. The PE teachers were clamoring about “somebody’s prank”.
“Sorry, ’scuse me.” Chiaki and the others, adopting the manner of detectives, pushed their way through the crowd of curious onlookers to the front. The female students were indeed holding uniforms which were drenched through. Strangely enough, only the uniforms were wet; neither the floor nor desks were even moist, and there were no signs of a dried leak on the ceiling.
“It’s weird! Because they got dripping wet when we started folding them!”
And it certainly didn’t seem as if someone had dipped the uniforms one by one into a tub of water.
“...What’d you think, Chiaki?”
Chiaki performed a spiritual sensing, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. Then he suddenly pushed his way into the crowd of excited young women.
“Ack, wai... Chiaki-kun!”
He looked around. The spirit was no longer there. He picked up the uniform lying on the nearest desk. Ah. Water dripped from the sodden cloth. It reeked faintly, as if the water were not fresh, but had come from a pond in which algae and other things grew...
Yuzuru seemed to sense something at the same time.
“...Takaya...! I hear singing.”
“What?”
Takaya strained to hear it. Though he didn’t believe that there was a ghost at all, he could certainly hear something mixed up in the general confusion: a child’s delicate voice.
(What kind of a song is...?)
It appeared that Chiaki also heard it: a girl’s voice singing a plaintive melody that Chiaki didn’t know. It, too, vanished not long after.
“Feh. I couldn’t catch it.”
Chiaki noticed the distant expressions on Takaya and Yuzuru’s faces when he returned. They apparently knew something of the song.
“Do you guys know what song that was?”
“... The Bon-Bon,” Takaya replied in surprise. “That’s a song of the Bon-Bon.”
The Bon-Bon? Chiaki tilted his head quizzically.
Twin Peonies 2
As a result of the succession of strange phenomenon, that afternoon the second-floor gym locker rooms were made off-limits for the time being.
“What is the Bon-Bon?”
Takaya and Chiaki had slipped out of their afternoon classes and were seated on the concrete ledge jutting out of a section of the rooftop passageway.
Takaya answered, “The Bon-Bon is one of Matsumoto’s old festivals. ...But actually, the Matsumoto Bon-Bon is something entirely different.”
“Matsumoto Bon-Bon? What’s that?”
“It’s more of a carnival held by the people of the city every year on the first Saturday in August.”
It had all begun around twenty years ago: a new festival called the “Matsumoto Bon-Bon”, a sing-and dance-along; the people of the city collected into “teams” and danced through the city in parades similar to the Awa Dance Festival or the Yosakoi Festival. Riding on the Yosakoi boom of recent years, various organizations formed teams and participated in an “everyone join in and work together” environment. Takaya, who disliked rules and was not very good at following them, was always bored when the day of the festival came around.
"It only borrows that name. The real ‘Bon-Bon’ is a more serious festival. The Lantern Festival has been called ‘Aoyama-sama’ and ‘Bon-Bon’ since the old days—it’s a children’s festival. The old neighborhood associations still hold it. The boys carry a shrine on their shoulders—the ‘Aoyama-sama’, and the girls wear yukatas and sing while walking in procession with red paper lanterns—the ‘Bon-Bon’.
Takaya had been born and raised in Matsumoto. Before moving into his current apartment, he had lived in an old part of the city with its own lineage and neighborhood association, so he was quite familiar with the ‘Aoyama-sama’ and ‘Bon-Bon’.
“And that was the Bon-Bon song. ‘Oh, the Bon-Bon is only today and tomorrow. The day after tomorrow—the bride’s dried grass’...”
‘Place the withered grass upon the scaffold
Seen from below, the peony blossom
The peony blossom blooms and scatters
The flower of compassion blooms only now
The flower of compassion, HOI HOI.’
The song Takaya hummed was unmistakably the plaintive melody that they had heard in the locker room earlier.
“The white yukata could be a white burial robe. But why would it be in a place like that?”
And why in the world had all the clothes become soaking wet?
They looked over the tops of the ginkgo trees in the courtyard toward the gym.
“...Want to try and call it out after class?”
“The spirit? Nah, I’ll pass. I’ve got work.”
“Feh. What’s more important: onryou choubuku or your part-time job?”
“My job.”
Chiaki groaned. The old Kagetora would immediately have answered, “Choubuku”.
He placed a hand on Takaya’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe you’ve changed this much...”
“What’s with that pitying tone?”
“All right, all right. You go and earn your pocket money. I’ll investigate the ghost.”
And so Chiaki and Takaya were drawn into another onryou outbreak at Jouhoku High.
Was he really Kagetora?
Chiaki had crept into the blocked-off girls’ locker room.
The ghost had only appeared in this one place, and probably had something to do with ‘female garments’. To make sure, Chiaki had come with some training-wear he‘d just borrowed from Saori. (He’d asked Takaya first, but the selfish lout had told him ’that’s disgusting’. So he’d asked Saori, and she had immediately agreed.) He placed the clothes on the desk and sat down in front of the lockers, cola in hand, to wait for the ghost to appear. Takaya had sure disappeared in a hurry. Well, not that it really mattered right now, since the ghost certainly hadn’t hurt anyone by making some clothes wet...
This Kagetora was so mind-bogglingly different, Chiaki half-sighed with amazement. Did people really change so much when they lost their memories?
(But then again, if he’d been this irresponsible, he probably wouldn’t have had to seal those memories in the first place...)
From Chiaki’s viewpoint, Takaya was full of weaknesses; his joy, his sorrow were so many chinks in his armor (though he did seem to be having fun...).
He could hear the sounds of practice from the Kendo Club from the first floor and the bouncing of basketballs reverberated above his head.
(Guess Naoe’s having a hard time, too,) he sympathized. It couldn’t be easy teaching everything over from scratch.
—Or not, Chiaki thought. Naoe might be thankful for those chinks in the armor.
(Forgetting was probably the only way that they could move past a relationship so far beyond mending. —...That’s what it is, I guess.)
Uesugi Kagetora, found after thirty years, was a high school student in Matsumoto, which became the ‘Candy City’ in January. Matsumoto had once been called ‘Salt City’; the origin of this name probably came from the story of how Kenshin came to Takeda’s relief when Imagawa withheld salt from him.
This city in which Shingen had suddenly been revived.
“Revived for good or ill, huh?”
(Takeda...hmm?)
He’d heard that Kagetora had been Shingen’s adopted son in his youth.
The reason for Kagetora’s defeat in the Otate no Ran had had much to do with the fact that Shingen’s son, Katsuyori, had turned on the Houjou, his allies, and changed over to Kagekatsu’s side. Perhaps he had betrayed the great Honjou in the end because he had feared being caught between its might and Kagetora as daimyo of Echigo. Thereafter, with his army decimated by the Houjou, master of the Kantou, his fate had been to be destroyed by Tokugawa.
If he had aided Kagetora instead, the allied clans of Takeda, Uesugi, and Houjou could possibly have overturned history itself.
(So Takeda’s out there somewhere too...huh?)
The Otate no Ran, then, could be called one of history’s crucial turning points. Had it been so fortunate for Uesugi, Houjou, and Takeda that Echigo had not become an outsider’s?
(If Shingen’s so bitter about Takeda’s ruin, he should curse that worthless son of his for not helping Kagetora.)
The revival of Takeda as an onryou meant that he had probably also entered the «Yami-Sengoku». And at the same time taken up a four-hundred-year-old fate with all its threads of obligation.
(Well, it’s none of my business anyway.)
He shifted mental gears back to the problem at hand: the true form of this spirit singing a Bon-Bon song. And it certainly wasn’t out of the question that this was a trap left behind by Ranmaru.
(If Kagetora isn’t here, would the danger just disappear?)
A chill suddenly ran down his back as he placed the empty cola can on the floor.
(It’s coming...!)
He could hear, mingled in with the sounds of physical activity from above and below, a soft singing voice. No mistake about it. It was the girl’s voice from earlier.
A stain appeared on Saori’s training-wear on the table. It gradually spread until the uniform was soaking wet.
The spirit had come.
A white silhouette misted into existence in a corner of the room. Chiaki focused on that spot. He saw something like a red paper lantern, growing gradually clearer.
That’s...?
A girl wearing a white kimono...
A girl who couldn’t be more than a year or two over ten. A cord held up the long sleeves of her kimono, and she was holding a red Chinese lantern flower. She looked—like someone from the Bon-Bon festival.
“Who are you?” Chiaki asked the dead girl. “Why do you make people’s clothes wet? Is there something you want to say? Can you tell me?”
The girl looked at Chiaki dreamily with her pale, blank face.
A closer look revealed that her kimono was soaked through as well, and water dripped from the hem.
The girl’s mouth opened with goldfish-like roundness.
(Huh...?)
Chiaki’s eyes widened at the girl’s words.
«The Lady Princess...is calling...»
Calling?
Who is?
«—The Lady Princess...is calling...from the castle...»
“Yo, Ougi—!”
A familiar face appeared at the gasoline station during Takaya’s shift. It was just past eight P.M. Yazaki slipped into the brilliantly-lit gas station on a silver motor scooter.
“Hey. You got a moped?”
“Eh. It’s easier than a bike. I’m collecting money right now. Gimme a full tank?”
Takaya opened the gas tank cover smoothly, pulled the gas nozzle toward him, and began pumping with familiar ease. Yazaki looked on in admiration.
“You know, about that ghost in the girls’ locker room. She was singing the Bon-Bon song, right?”
Apparently there were students besides Takaya and company who had heard it.
“You worrying about that?”
“Yeeeeah. Actually, I think the area around Jouhoku used to be marshland in the old days.”
“Marshland?” Takaya repeated, extracting the nozzle deftly without spilling a single drop.
"Yeah, a long time ago. They say that the Metoba River used to flow more to the north, and was diverted to the south to protect Matsumoto Castle.
“When’d that happen?”
“Probably in the Edo Period? You know that tiny river next to the school? Daimonzawa River? It used to flow around there.”
Now that he thought about it, the area was full of place names like ‘Fukashi’—‘Deep Aspiration’, and ‘Fukase’—‘Deep Torrents’, which Takaya had also once heard were vestiges of the swampland that used to be here.
“There were ponds here and there left over from the marsh, but it looks like they were filled in so this place could become a residential area. That’s what my granddad said anyway, so there’s no mistake,” Yazaki said. “So this is what I’m thinking: maybe that girl’s from the old school that was there before Jouhoku High was built, and she fell into the swamp and drowned. And she’s singing a Bon-Bon song because, um. Because she fell in right on the day of the festival or something?”
“Huh, so that’s why her clothes are wet?”
“Right?”
If she was a jibakurei who‘d been here from when the area had been a marsh, then perhaps the Kasuke spirits’ riot had given her the stimulus to become active...
Takaya was still busy conjecturing when a more senior co-worker called him loudly. A customer’s car had just entered. Takaya was about to go out and guide the car to a stall when he started. It was a Nissan with a Utsunomiya license that he recognized on sight. The car headed for Takaya on its own.
“High-octane, full tank.”
A man in a black business suit peered out at him from the driver’s seat, and Takaya did a double-take.
“Ack! Naoe!”
“Good evening, Takaya-san.”
“Y-y-y-you! The hell are you doing here again?”
The driver, a handsome man with an air of austere elegance, looked in the black suit as if he had just returned from a funeral or bodyguard duty. Yazaki blinked at Takaya’s language towards this large adult costumer.
“I went to Ueda to see if any sign of movement from Takeda could be detected in Sanada’s domain.”
“How’re your injuries?”
"The stitches have already been removed. Since I was already in Ueda, I thought I might drop in on you; Matsumoto is straight through the Misayama Tunnel .
“Don’t you live in Utsunomiya? An injured man shouldn’t be dropping in on anyone, so you just get on Highway 18 and go home.”
“Oh, but it would be a waste now that I’m already here.”
“Ougi, who is that?”
Takaya and Naoe chorused: ‘My/His cousin.’ Though Yazaki had never heard of someone giving their younger cousin the honorific of ‘san’.
“I have not yet had dinner. Perhaps I could ask you to join me after work? And your friend as well, if he would like?”
“All right!” Yazaki responded, raising his hand.
“Uuuurg,” Takaya groaned, holding his head.
It was forty minutes until the end of his shift. Naoe appeared to be talking with Yazaki in the family restaurant opposite. When Takaya came over after changing out of his gas station attendant uniform back into his school uniform, the two of them were having a frank discussion over after-dinner coffee.
“What evil rumors are you guys spreading?”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say. We were merely chatting.”
He appeared to have gotten quite a lot about Takaya’s school life out of Yazaki. Takaya pushed into Yazaki’s seat and sat down in a huff.
“You guys are the worst.”
“I also heard that you seem to have another ghost disturbance on your hands?”
“Chiaki could probably...” Takaya began, before biting off the rest: “...tell you more about that.”
“Oh? So Tachibana-san knows Chiaki, too?”
“So you heard the Bon-Bon song?”
Takaya noted the quiet expression on Naoe’s face darkening slightly.
“What, is it that?”
“No. I am simply somewhat concerned. Do you know the meaning of the words to the Bon-Bon song?”
“Uuuum. ‘Oh, the Bon-Bon is only today and tomorrow. The day after tomorrow—the bride’s...’ So in other words, because the Lantern Festival is until tomorrow—”
“Yes. I think perhaps it is a song expressing the thoughts of brides in the old days.”
The thoughts of women when they returned to visit their parents on the Bon-Bon. They would traditionally do so on such important dates as the Bon-Bon and the New Year, bearing gifts and food.
“People tend to think that women enter their husbands’ homes when they marry, but in the old days they would frequently return home to help with such things as rice planting and sericulture. I think that this song is probably talking about the relationship between the daughter-in-law and her husband’s mother.”
“So in short, it’s about a woman who stretches her wings in her parents’ home, but is depressed about having to return to her husband’s home where she’s bullied by her mother-in-law?”
“That’s probably right. It’s how I would read it.”
A waiter came by to take his order, and Takaya asked for a coarse-ground pepper steak. He drank from his glass.
“So what’s so significant about lyrics about a bride being bullied by her mother-in-law?”
“Actually, there is another interpretation to the song.”
“Oh,” Yazaki spoke up, pushing back against Takaya, “That? You mean the ghost story?”
“What’s the ghost story?”
“That maybe the song is about the woman who became the human pillar of Matsumoto Castle.”
Takaya stiffened.
“You’re kidding...!”
“No, it’s true! When I was a kid I heard about it from the old ladies in the neighborhood, too. That the Bon-Bon song is to console the woman who became the human pillar of the castle.”
“Liar. Anyway, where is it in the song?”
“The key word here is ‘scaffold’,” Naoe replied, sipping his second cup of coffee. “‘Place the withered grass upon the scaffold’. The scaffold is Matsumoto Castle’s tower. So the alternate meaning is that the human sacrifice is placed as a live offering on the tower’s balcony.”
“Human sacrifice?”
“Yes. A sacrifice to the dragon god. You know that the Metoba River originally flowed to the north of Matsumoto Castle? That’s right. Before the flow was artificially detoured, the castle sat at the delta of the Narai and Metoba rivers. The delta was a swamp, and since the rivers were still unstable, they easily flooded...”
Flood-control was essential for the construction of the castle.
“A human pillar for the construction of the castle and river banks. It may or may not have happened. However, it was said that a live offering was presented to the god of the waters as a prayer to calm the floods—by which I believe they meant the human pillar.”
“Did you see it too?”
“No, I did not see it with my own eyes, but human pillars are usually not put out on display.”
Yazaki gave them another strange look.
“I heard that Ishikawa Clan, who came after Takeda, built Matsumoto Castle’s towers. It couldn’t have been easy for a construction project of that size to take place on such uncertain swamp land. So there are rumors that a human pillar was made for the construction of the towers.”
“So that song isn’t about visiting the parents’ home?”
“That’s correct. It’s a song recalling the pathos of the one about to become the human pillar. The bride is the sacrifice—she is about to become the bride of the god of the waters.”
“You’re joking...”
“The god of the waters is the dragon god. Or possibly a serpent which represents the river. And the bride is the live offering.”
Takaya shivered slightly.
“Originally, the human pillar pointed to some kind of method for building or construction; people were apparently not buried or anything of the sort. Though I’ve never seen the actual thing.”
“So, so does that mean that the spirit of the girl singing the Bon-Bon song was the human pillar?” Yazaki asked, leaning forward.
Takaya declared, pushing him aside, “You guys are thinking too hard. I think it’s a kid who drowned there when that place was a swamp.”
“No! It’s gotta be the human pillar!”
“Oh, shut up!”
Naoe smiled sardonically as he sipped his coffee. “Before anything else, we must do a spiritual sensing. Let us visit that school again on the way back.”
Yazaki, who was supposed to be collecting money, said, “Uh-oh, I’m gonna get scolded” and went home. Takaya and Naoe went back to Jouhoku High.
“Well? Can you sense anything?”
“It’s not like what we had with the Kasuke. But there is certainly something here.”
Takaya, looking up at the dark school buildings, shot Naoe a glare. “It doesn’t matter that much to me, but because of that I’m being treated like I trashed the school.”
“Perhaps a fruit of your usual behavior?”
“You...”
A healthy dose of sarcasm.
“But there is something that concerns me,” Naoe said, and pointed at the street behind them. Takaya, following his indication, turned, and his eyes narrowed.
“That’s...”
A lantern procession.
No, they saw no human figures, only the bright spots of lantern lights lining up in the dark, deserted street and moving in the direction of Matsumoto Castle.
“They’re Bon-Bon lanterns... Could it be...”
Naoe’s face turned grim next to the frozen Takaya. “They are likely heading for Matsumoto Castle.”
The phantom lantern procession advancing toward the castle was endless.
“It’s that song...”
It drifted into Takaya’s hearing, a melancholy melody, the song of the Bon-Bon. There was no sign of the singers, only the voices of a great many people coming out of the darkness.
“It really is...”
“Lady Princess is calling.”
Takaya jumped at the unexpected voice from behind him. He spun around to see Chiaki standing there in casual clothes.
“What, Naoe, here again?”
“What do you mean, the Princess is calling?”
“Dunno. That’s what the little child jibakurei that appeared in the girls’ locker room said. That the Princess is calling from the castle.”
“Princess? Not Sanjou-no-Kata?”
Sanjou-no-Kata, Shingen’s principle wife, had been one of the perpetrators involved in the resurrection of Shingen’s spirit. She had possessed one of their descendants, Takeda Yuiko.
“But we performed «choubuku» on Madam Sanjou.”
"Whoever the heck is doing it, it looks like she’s at the castle. She’s summoning the phantom lanterns from all over Matsumoto.
The lantern procession meandered the wrong way onto one of the residential areas’ one-way streets and advanced toward Matsumoto Castle. Takaya, Naoe, and Chiaki walked along the line. They passed next to the Former Kaichi School , and as expected, were absorbed into Matsumoto Castle.
At this time of night the castle was closed, and even the spotlights had been turned off. The phantom lantern procession crossed over the moat via the “spanning bridge” with its vermillion handrails and was swallowed up into the entrance.
When they looked up, they could discern will-o’-the-wisps fluttering within the windows of the tower.
“Shall we go take a look?”
“Ah...hey!”
Naoe stepped onto the bridge unconcernedly and began to cross. A flick of nendouryoku easily opened the door, and disabled the security system as handily. Naoe and the others stepped inside.
“This is...”
Many pale phantom lanterns were gathered within the court of the Second Wing . It was a fairly impressive spectacle. Hundreds of lanterns fluttered above the vast lawn, as if the festival had already started. The line of lanterns continued to stream in from the Black Gate opposite them.
“Hey, Naoe! Over there!”
They looked up. The window of the uppermost floor of the tower, which should have been closed long ago, was open, and a shadow moved within.
“A woman...?”
It looked like a woman with long hair. But from the way that her pale, hazy form seemed to be floating above the ground, they could guess that she was not a living person. The uchikake she wore indicated that she was from the Sengoku Period.
“Hey, who the hell...!”
“Takaya-san!”
Perhaps they took fright at Takaya’s rough, menacing tone—
The silhouette at the window disappeared like a blown-out candle flame. At the same time, all the lanterns gathered in the court began to fade away.
Darkness descended in the blink of an eye.
“Looks like that shadow was the princess who’s calling.”
Takaya and the others’ expressions turned grim. What in the world was that?
(A ‘Princess’ who summons the Bon-Bon procession?’)
Yet more trouble seemed to have descended upon Matsumoto.
Twin Peonies 3
Naoe ended up spending that night in Matsumoto, and went to the castle to perform a spiritual sensing the next day while Takaya and Chiaki went to school.
Coincidently, Takaya’s Fine Arts class for Fifth and Sixth Periods were canceled that day, so he went to meet Naoe at Matsumoto Castle that early afternoon.
“Yo. Anything?”
“Everything looks normal on the outside, but there is something out of place here, as we thought.”
Naoe, sitting on a bench beneath the wisteria trellis, looked up at the tower beyond the moat. Apparently there were several tourist groups here; the stand next to the bridge was filled with people taking souvenir pictures. Seen like this, it was the usual ‘famous sightseeing spot, Matsumoto Castle’, but...
“I can feel the presence of a strong spirit here, an aura that was not here before.”
“Huh, right. Any signs that Sanjou-no-Kata’s still around?”
"No. Her presence has disappeared from this place. It appears now to be another spirit. I would guess that the disturbance caused by Shingen and company, rather than the Kasuke, stimulated this spirit. Perhaps it’s a spirit who originally dwelled in the castle that became active in opposition to being ousted by Sanjou.
“A spirit who lived in the castle originally... So it really is...”
The human pillar...?
The crowd of pigeons feeding at their feet suddenly took wing simultaneously. They wheeled before the stately towering blacks walls of the castle nicknamed “Crow Castle.” Its roof tiles would gleam with dazzling brightness on a clear day, but these majestic remains of the Sengoku gave the impression of solemn gravity beneath today’s lowering clouds.
“Matsumoto Castle has a long history, so many things may have happened during that time. The question is what this ‘Princess’ is doing here. And if we need to perform «choubuku».”
“The Bon-Bon parade...? But it’s not quite time yet.”
Leaning against a pillar of the wisteria trellis, Takaya followed the swans skimming across the full moat with his eyes for a while. The sound of ambulance sirens approached from somewhere, and suddenly noise erupted near them. The ambulance entered the Second Wing ; perhaps someone had fallen ill within the castle.
Next, the sound of loud weeping came from the direction of the bridge . It was a group of tourists with the appearance of office ladies 1 who came towards them as if they were running away from something, crying hysterically.
“Oh no, oh no! I’ll never come back to this horrible castle agaaaaain!”
Something clicked in Takaya’s mind, and he rushed over to them.
“What happened in there?”
“There was an accident on the stairs!” A young woman, her eyes swollen with tears, appealed fearfully to Takaya. “Some of the people from the tour group fell down the stairs on top of each other.”
“What?”
He knew that the stairs in Matsumoto Castle were steep. Their almost vertical angle seemed quite dangerous at first glance, but with the handrails, anti-skip treads on the stairs, and some care when going up or down the stairs, accidents were quite rare.
“This child said that she saw a white hand at the top pushing people off the stairs.”
“A white hand?”
“It was a woman’s wrist.” The office lady who had witnessed it was so pale that even her lips were colorless. “I only saw the hand. I was so scared. There’s a woman’s ghost who’s not at rest in that castle! Don’t go in!”
Takaya and Naoe exchanged glances.
Happily, no one died from the fall off the stairs, but there did appear to be some broken bones and back injuries. There was testimony from those who fell first that they had been pushed, but other tourists affirmed that there had been no one behind them.
There was less and less doubt that it’d been a spirit who’d done it.
Naoe was full of regret for the fact that he hadn’t stopped himself from pausing for food beforehand.
“My deepest apologies. I wish I had sensed this when I did the reisa earlier...”
At the Yobashira Shrine on Nawate Street which ran along the Metoba River, Takaya and Naoe rendezvoused with Chiaki.
Chiaki said to the despondent Naoe, “But we didn’t sense any malice last night. The princess is probably edgy because we’re moving.”
He grimaced around a mouthful of bean-jam pancake. There was no guarantee that someone would not die next time if they were pushed off such a steep flight of stairs.
“Anyway, we should do something before this escalates. So it’ll have to be tonight.”
Takaya, sitting on the stairs of the main building of the shrine with his chin in his hands, looked up at Naoe and said, “You shouldn’t push yourself too much, since you’re still injured. Chiaki and I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m fine. Besides, you cannot say with any certainty that you’ll be able to use «choubukuryoku».”
“Don’t worry ’bout it. When push comes to shove, I’ll be able to do «choubuku» just like that time with Ranmaru,” Takaya declared optimistically, but Naoe still seemed worried.
“I understand. But please allow me to be of assistance. I will not hinder you.”
The agreed-upon rendezvous point: in front Matsumoto Castle’s Black Gate at midnight.
In order to hunt down the onryou plaguing Matsumoto Castle once more.
Though the humidity was rising, a strangely lukewarm wind blew through the night streets.
The lighting already finished, the majesty of Clow Castle had melted completely into the darkness. Takaya and Chiaki, who had changed out of their school uniforms, were standing by the moat looking up at the tower.
“The spiritual aura here has risen considerably, hasn’t it,” Naoe said as he came across from the Black Gate to their side. The spirits had apparently become active as soon as darkness had descended upon the castle. It was the same as last night. Ghostly fire danced in the tower.
“Well then. Let’s crash the party one more time.”
The lanterns formed a progression.
The floating line of lantern lights and their plangent song was swallowed up into the castle.
“So they really are singing the Bon-Bon song.”
“Please be careful, Kagetora-sama. There is one among the spirits who is acutely sensitive to and hates those with strong spiritual powers. If you become agitated, it will be able to conceal itself from you. Please proceed calmly.”
“Let’s go in, Kagetora.”
The three of them entered along with the lantern procession. The number of lanterns gathered within the court of the Second Wing was even greater than last night.
‘Oh, the Bon-Bon is only today and tomorrow
The day after tomorrow—the bride’s dried grass
Place the withered grass upon the scaffold
Seen from below, the peony blossom...’
“It’s a woman’s voice...” Takaya strained to hear. “A young woman. It’s coming from the tower.”
It was as if the castle itself were singing.
Takaya, Naoe, and Chiaki approached the tower with great caution, pushing their way through the line of lanterns. They paused before the stone walls to look up, and...indeed, they could see the silhouette of a pale floating shape on the topmost floor of the tower.
“!”
There was a ripple of movement through the line of lanterns, and the singing stopped.
The wind rose. The swarm of lanterns all suddenly charged towards the tower and scrambled up the stone walls. Oh! Takaya thought, as fires began to sprout to life one after another.
“Hey! The fire is...!”
Oh no! The flock of lanterns blazed ferociously. Fire engulfed the handrails and the wooden door.
(Shit, the fire’s spreading!)
“Dammit...so this is what they were planning!”
One by one, the phantom lanterns began to assemble in Matsumoto Castle.
Their goal was ‘fire’.
This was the purpose behind the summoning of the Bon-Bon procession. The spirit had been calling fire.
She was planning to burn down the castle!
“Chiaki, put out the fire with your power! Don’t get near it!”
“Humph!”
Chiaki and the others knocked out one after another of the phantom lanterns swarming into the castle. There were a staggering number of them. Two more gushed into flame for every one that they brought down; there was no end to them. Exasperated and out of temper, Takaya leapt out, intending to sever the root.
“Kagetora-sama!”
He sprinted for the castle entrance and wrenched open the doors, brushing away the lanterns crowding in with him. He twisted around.
“Take care of the lanterns! I’ll get the spirit.”
“Wait! «Choubuku» is not yet within your...!”
The door had already been shut. Naoe tsked and began to savagely clear the swarming fire.
Takaya stepped into the tower.
It was pitch black. No illumination shone, and even the storm doors were shut.
“...She’s here, isn’t she? The Lady Princess or whatever.”
The sense of menace thickened.
Takaya, moving around the castle by memory, walked with creaking footsteps towards the stairs. The tension caused by the brimming spiritual aura within the castle was no trivial matter.
With a faint woosh a dim light appeared in front of him.
It was a will-o’-the-wisp.
(What the?)
Takaya navigated the inside of the castle by its light. The ghostly fire illuminated the stairs as if in invitation.
(It’s trying to lure me...)
He hesitated for a moment, thinking back to the accident from earlier that day. But something had made people fall then—he changed his mind, and suddenly began to ascend.
As he went up the floors, the atmosphere became colder and heavier. Even Takaya could sense the spirit’s aura now.
Sweat trickled down the nape of his neck.
“!”
Something cold suddenly wrapped around his neck, and he started. It was a person’s arm. A horribly wet, white arm had Takaya’s neck in a stranglehold.
“Uhgh...!”
He tried to tear the arm off, but it was so cold that he started. It felt as if he’d been submerged in ice water. He reached behind him in an attempt to catch the person strangling him, but his hands met only empty air—the arms had no shoulders.
“Damn...you, let...go of me...!”
He wrenched at the arm around his neck with all his strength. The arm abruptly disappeared, and he staggered. He looked down with surprise at his palms; they were dripping.
“What the hell...?”
The will-o’-the-wisp was at the top of the stairs, waiting for Takaya. As if to see what he would do next.
(Dammit, fine, I’ll go!)
As he climbed towards the topmost floor, the ‘white arm’ obstructed him countless times. Each time he was somehow able to shake it off, but before he knew it his entire top half was drenched.
He could hear a woman’s voice singing.
“...I’m coming, Lady Princess. Or whatever you are.”
At last the arm stopped grappling with him, and he arrived at the stairs leading to the highest floor.
A pale white silhouette lingered vaguely in a corner of the scaffold.
“Why are you gathering the Bon-Bon procession? Are you looking forward to the Bon holiday? If you have anything to say, I’ll listen. So?”
The singing stopped.
The white shadow turned.
(A kid?)
The girl was even younger than he’d thought—only around ten or so. Her long hair trailed down what appeared to be a pure white uchikake; though she did indeed look like a princess, she was still a little girl. And her appearance was strange. That snowy uchikake-like garment was odd, and what looked like wet seaweed clung to her long black hair. Her entire body was dripping wet, and she stared at him out of sunken, haunted eyes. Takaya, still unused to the existence of spirits, shuddered violently as he came face to face with this eerie sight.
(Guess I’m scared after all...)
He plucked up his courage, though he felt more like cowering.
“—...What are you doing here? If you cannot rest in peace, is there something here that you’re still attached to? If there is, I’ll listen.”
«...Wa...ter...»
“Huh?” Takaya asked. Like it had been with the Kasuke spirits, what he caught from her was nothing so clear as language. She «thought» at him.
“Water? Are you thirsty?”
«The water...is coming...I’m scared.»
He finally realized how terrified the child spirit was.
“The water is coming? What are you talking about? Aren’t you the princess of this castle? The daughter of the lord or something?”
«Help me...»
The child spirit approached him.
“H...hey.”
«The big water...is coming...from the mountain!»
“!”
Behind him was the stairs—he couldn’t escape. He could see that the spirit’s hand had been absorbed into his chest. A sensation as if sand was being packed into him instantly spread from that spot.
“Ugh...ah!”
The spirit entered Takaya’s body. He couldn’t repel it. He moaned at a violent physical malaise the like of which he had never before experienced.
(Is this possession...?!)
He sank helplessly to his knees on the floor, feeling as if a school of minnows were swimming around within him. So this was what it was like to have a spirit enter him? Had Yuzuru felt this, too?
He could sense another consciousness within him, and desperately fought to expel it.
(Dammit! She’s trying to occupy my body!)
There was a sensation of something brushing against his consciousness. From that point something invaded him as if it had burrowed through his skin. They were images. Strange images flowing into his consciousness!
(What...is this?)
He saw a mountain village. A flash-flood from the river advanced on the village with a terrible roar. The bridge collapse, the bank crumbled, and the village people were washed away. They were people wearing farm clothing, obviously not from the present era.
Crash! Roar!
The muddy torrent drew closer. The violently raging billows, swirling with earth and sand, dispossessed all else in his sight. His body was frozen in place. No place to run!
He suddenly understood with terrible, violent clarity.
“U-uuuaaaaagh!”
“Kagetora-sama!”
A voice. It was Naoe, who’d chased after him and sprinted up the stairs in one burst. Arriving at the top floor, he stared at Takaya crouched in agony.
“Please hold on, Kagetora-sama! ...! You’re...!”
Sensing that the spirit had entered into Takaya, Naoe immediately moved to perform an exorcism.
“Wait, Naoe...!”
Takaya, in Naoe’s arms, stopped him.
“Don’t. This is fine...!”
“But...!”
“Just a little longer...I’ll catch her...” Takaya screamed in agony. “Just a bit longer...I’ll catch her true form!”
“Kagetora!”
Another cry from the stairs. It was Chiaki, who had chased after them after making a clean sweep of the phantom lanterns. He took in the situation from a glance at the crouching Takaya. This time Chiaki stopped Naoe, unable to bear the sight of Takaya’s anguish, from starting the exorcism.
“Wait! He’s trying to attune himself to the invading spirit’s consciousness!”
It was all unconscious.
Takaya was trying to read the deepest memories of this child spirit who had entered into him.
Naoe was dumbfounded.
“Takaya-san...”
Takaya appeared to be conversing with the spirit as he crouched there upon the floor. He finally raised his head. Though he was sweat-drenched and completely exhausted, yet for some reason a smile still curved the corners of his lips.
“....So that’s...what it is. Then don’t hold back, say it...”
“Takaya-san...?”
"Naoe, Chiaki, this spirit that’s going to come out of me—she says that she wants to rest in peace. Do «choubuku».
“This spirit wants to be purified?”
“Yeah. But there’s a curse on this castle, so...it seems that she can’t go to the next world. Without something as powerful as «choubuku», the thread that binds her here...can’t be cut...”
Chest heaving with harsh panting, Takaya looked over his shoulder at Chiaki from his position on the floor.
“...I’ll push her out on a count of three, and you guys do the «choubuku». I’ll break the curse wrapped around her. Naoe, catch her with «choubuku» from directly opposite. It’ll be like catching a wild bird. We need to do this at the exact same time, so don’t be late.”
(Kagetora-sama...)
Though he should still be memory-less.
Though he neither looked nor sounded like the Kagetora of old, as the days passed his mannerisms were certainly more and more reminiscent of Kagetora’s.
Takaya drew in a deep breath. Collecting the strength of his entire body at his abdomen, he curled inward upon himself before thrusting out his arms to spit out the thing in the innermost part of his body.
“One, two, three...!”
A white form was pushed out from within Takaya—a child’s spirit clad in a pure white uchikake. Naoe clasped his hands in the ritual gesture immediately to catch the spirit dancing wildly in midair.
“ (bai)!”
“The key to the curse—!” Takaya thrust out his hand. “That white coat!”
Takaya seized the collar of the uchikake from behind. The coat crackled with fire sparks in violent rejection. Indeed, it was no ordinary coat. The child spirit screamed. Takaya didn’t let go; instead, he put more force into tearing it off.
“Chiaki!”
“Got it! (bai)!”
The coat came off half way. Gebaku could be used to stop the spirit from moving as well as to remove any foreign matter that might interfere with «choubuku». Takaya, covered in more fire sparks, put as much power as he could into getting the coat off the child.
“Kagetora-sama!”
“This white coat is what’s tying this child to the castle! Fine! Just do «choubuku» now!”
“Noumakusamanda bodanan baishiramandaya sowaka!” Naoe and Chiaki chanted in unison. A multi-hued shimmer rose from their bodies.
“Namu Tobatsu Bishamonten! For this demon subjugation, lend us thine power!”
A fiery energy gathered within their hands and in an instant grew into a radiant sphere of white-hot light. When it reached the height of its density, they cried out with one voice, “«Choubuku»!”
The sphere of light exploded. The ferocious blast of white light filled the scaffold in an instant and engulfed both the child spirit and Takaya. The white coat, refusing to allow the child to rest in peace, resisted the «choubukuryoku» violently, but Takaya stubbornly gritted his teeth and ripped off the coat in one motion.
“Yaaaaaah!”
Eeeeeeeeee!
A screech pierced their ears. In the instant the coat was torn completely off the spirit, the «choubuku light» released by Naoe and Chiaki completely consumed that space.
The merciless light swirled and converged. Then all that remained was the sound of birds’ wings flapping, and the darkness fell around them.
The «choubuku» was over.
“Kagetora-sama...!”
Though choubukuryoku was ineffective against kanshousha, who had bodies of their own, being engulfed in that energy was still an overwhelming experience. Takaya sank to his knees on the floor, panting wildly.
“Are you all right?”
“...Yeah.”
“What is that...?”
In Takaya’s hand was an old charm.
“Guess this is the true form of that white coat.” Its amalgam of symbols and characters marked it as a spirit charm of the Shugendou school. “...It was this charm that prevented that girl from resting in peace.”
“What?”
“She was...” Takaya said, crushing the charm, “...the human pillar of this castle.”
The phantom lanterns which had flooded the castle had completely disappeared.
In the court of the Second Wing , silence reigned.
Coming out of the castle, Takaya, Naoe, and Chiaki returned to the wisteria trellis by the moat.
Matsumoto Castle soared quietly against the starry sky on the other side of the moat, as if nothing at all had happened. Takaya, looking up with his chin on his knees, suddenly shifted his gaze to the reflection of the waning moon on the surface of the moat. He threw a pebble into it, and the ripples distorted the moon’s image.
“That girl was someone who drowned in a flash-flood up stream of the Metoba River a long time ago.”
Naoe, standing beside Takaya, looked down at his profile.
“In a flash-flood?”
“Yeah. It happened about a year before they finished construction of this castle. After being carried around by the river, the body somehow washed up here. They found it during the construction.”
The spirit, who came to be called ‘the Princess’, had been soaked from head to foot because she had drowned in the flash-flood.
Accidents befell one after another of the castle construction workers who had discovered the body, casualties of the curse of a drown victim seeking a proper burial. Such was the judgment of the head mountain ascetic of the construction. He enshrined her spirit, and suggested to the building overseer that she be made guardian deity of the castle.
“I see...so it was a memorial charm in name only,” Chiaki nodded, leaning against the wisteria trellis.
“They dressed the corpse in white burial robes and took her up to the scaffold, probably performed some kind of ceremony. I dunno what kinda ritual that mountain ascetic conducted, but it looks like he buried that girl’s body and this charm together in the foundation of the castle.”
Afterwards, they called her spirit ‘Princess’, and she became the guardian of the castle and its domain against flood disasters.
“That uchikake was the mark of her guardianship. But she wanted to take it off. Being engulfed by Sanjou’s fire probably gave her the stimulus. She called the Bon-Bon procession because she thought that if the castle burned, then she would be free,” Takaya explained. “Poor kid.” He took out a 100-yen lighter from his pocket and held it up to the crumbled charm.
Pushing the tourists hadn’t been an act of malice, but an appeal of her own existence. In truth they had fallen not from being pushed, but from surprise.
“She wanted to go to the other world with her parents rather than be the water guardian.”
He threw the burning charm into the moat. The flame illuminated the surface of the water like a floating lantern for a moment before disappearing into its dark depths.
“I suppose we cannot just say that ‘happily, it wasn’t a living human pillar’.”
Naoe also looked up at the solemnly rising tower. A soul had been chained beneath it for more than four hundred years.
“There are probably many such people here in this country...”
“Yes, there are. Like the one from just yesterday,” Chiaki muttered, taking out a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it with a small match.
The black castle said nothing.
Takaya continued staring at it as if he were conversing with silent history, the night breeze blowing against him.
footnotes
- For some insight into the ‘Office Lady’ phenomenon, try the interesting article, “The Office Lady in Japan”.
Twin Peonies 4
The next day after class.
Behind Jouhoku High’s gymnasium, next to a thick stand of trees, two students were assiduously applying shovels to a patch of ground.
“Hey, Takaya! Chiaki! What’re you doing?”
Yuzuru, on his way to Band, looked out at them from a hallway. He’d been coming down the stairs, and ran to the window in his indoor shoes to see them digging there with sweat dripping down their faces. The hole was already close to two meters in diameter, and Chiaki and Takaya were down to their waist.
“What are you guys doing over there?”
“Weird. It should be about here,” Chiaki said, head cocked.
Takaya peered about. “Hey, is it that thing?”
There was something white in the ground. (It can’t be...) Yuzuru paled.
“You guys...aren’t looking for the skeleton of that child from the girls’ locker room, are you?”
“There we go.” Chiaki pulled some white fragments out of the soil. “Yup, this is it. This is what that kid was looking for.”
“Huh?” Yuzuru asked.
Chiaki said, dusting it off, “Looks like this is what she was looking for when she fell into the swamp.”
Chiaki was holding a white shell.
On its surface was a drawing of flowers. It was a lipstick container—part of a women’s toiletry set of ancient times.
“She wanted to add some red to her lips. This was her red. Her mother lent it to her for the Bon-Bon procession.”
She had dropped the shell at night on the road, and gone back to look for it on her own when she fell into the marsh. As Takaya had guessed, the spirit who was appearing so frequently in the girls’ locker room was a girl who had drowned when the area had been a swamp.
“They found her corpse, but I guess she continued to regret the lost lipstick, huh?”
“And it was here...” Chiaki heaved himself out of the hole. “She probably knew that it was buried here, and wanted someone to dig it up. Now her regrets can be put to rest. I’ll take this to her mother’s grave.”
With her regrets erased, she would probably be able to rest in peace.
“Tree peonies, huh...?” Takaya said, peering into Chiaki’s hand. The flower drawn upon the shell was a deep red peony. “‘The peony blossom blooms and scatters / The flower of compassion blooms only now’...?”
Actually, she was just about the age of the child in Matsumoto Castle.
“That’s probably why they called to each other.”
Those two little girls in their yukatas joined the Bon-Bon with their hands clasped and red lanterns flickering, their voices raised in song. That image suddenly rose wistfully to his mind.
“They’ll certainly be good friends in the next world.”
And Chiaki lit the incense he had brought. It wreathed around the three of them solemnly. Just then—
“Hey, Ougi! Are you smoking down there?!”
“Ack. Oh shit!”
Discovered by the Guidance Counselor from a hallway window, Takaya the delinquent panicked and ran off. Chiaki and Yuzuru looked at each other blankly for a moment, then finally burst out laughing.
“And we spent so much time digging this hole, too. Guess we’ll plant some peonies for her memorial.”
“Waah! What a beautiful night!”
That night. Naoe had come to pick Takaya up right after work, and they’d gone out to enjoy some of the area’s nightlife. The Cefiro, running just about fifteen minutes straight up the highway from the gas station right before the Matsumoto Interchange , had arrived at the Lake Suwa service area .
“When I passed by this way before, the night scenery was very beautiful, so I wanted to stop for a look sometime.”
“It’s not just the night scenery. There’re hot springs here, too.”
Takaya, sitting on the concrete amidst thick shrubbery, pointed at the buildings in question .
“Wanna go?”
“Please feel free. I will wait here.”
“What? D’you catch a cold or something?”
“I am a vassal, so I cannot bathe with my lord. I will wash your back if you would like.”
“Oh, give that antiquated stuff up. We’re not in a historical play, you know.”
Takaya wrapped his arms around one knee and looked down on the night view of Lake Suwa, like a black mirror adorned by jewels. The bustle of Kamisuwa Street —Hot Springs Street—was apparent by its bright lights. There were many precision-instrument factories here as well, and in olden times had been called ‘the Switzerland of the Orient’. Perhaps because it was clear, they could see right to the hazy outline of Tatesha Mountain rising against the night sky.
Naoe gazed at Takaya as he looked off into the distance.
“So I guess the Bon-Bon song didn’t have anything to do with the human pillar after all.”
“...Perhaps. But though there was no living human pillar, that child still existed.”
Though in actuality there had not been such a person, perhaps it had taken that shape through people’s retelling of the story.
“I guess that kid at the school was performing a public service too, huh? She was on her way home to her parents from the Bon-Bon. She must’ve felt like the Bon-Bon song.”
“The flower of compassion blooms only now...?” Naoe murmured, and suddenly noticed Takaya staring up at him. “What is it?” he asked, and Takaya combed his hair back.
“I was just thinking that...well, um, that I’m glad that you came. I dunno if Chiaki and I would’ve been able to put all of this to rights otherwise...”
His eyes followed the outward-bound cars flying past them.
“And Chiaki’s a pretty good guy, too—I was surprised. I thought he was the type who’d just take the easy way out and perform «choubuku» on everything.”
He was thinking of the spirit at the school. Chiaki could have just resolved the problem by doing a quick «choubuku», but instead he had put all that effort into digging the hole.
Gentleness softened Naoe’s reddish-brown eyes. But a moment later they turned serious again.
"You must receive at least some proper training. Your life may depend on your usage of your «power».
Apparently Chiaki’s lessons did not fall under the heading of ‘proper training’.
“I spoke of this earlier as well, but I will need to bring you with me to Sendai before long.”
The mention of Sendai seemed to strike a nerve with Takaya.
“Is that all right?”
“...Yeah.”
Takaya heaved a big sigh. Naoe gazed at him with a complex mix of emotions.
—Kagetora will remember, Naoe.
Naoe realized that he was hypersensitive to Takaya’s every word and movement.
Was there any sign that he had remembered the past? Did his words have hidden meanings or conceal nuances of blame?
That awareness put Naoe on guard.
(Sinners can only live in this world by not allowing themselves to forget their crimes.)
There were times when it was painful to be with him, burdened as he was with his secret. But he wanted to surpass it, to be able to look upon Takaya’s every action. This Kagetora who had returned himself to the beginning. This Takaya who was here now.
Takaya was pondering something, sitting in the breeze. The keen eyes that reflected the Lake Suwa night was still yet, in some ways, full of the moodiness of a young man.
“How ’bout we go to Tokyo?” Takaya murmured whimsically.
“What are you saying? It’s on the next interchange.”
“Are we really just here to see the view?”
“Yes, we are. You have school tomorrow, do you not?”
“Hum. Nice to be a monk with all that free time on your hands, huh?” Takaya said like a child who hadn’t had enough of playtime, and Naoe smiled slightly. His chest ached. There was little chance that this peace would be allowed to continue for long, but—
(If we could but be allowed to stay like this...)
Though he surely was not entitled to it—
(At least, for just a little longer.)
Just a little longer...like this.
This new-forged bond between them unpolluted by anything of their former selves.
(This woven time.)
Takaya abruptly stood and stretched. “Haaah. All right, let’s go get something to eat and soak for a bit before heading home?”
“You’re still planning to go to the hot springs?”
“You can get some tea after dinner and wait for me. I’ll make it quick.”
“If you go in right after you eat, you’ll get dizzy.”
“No I won’t!”
Naoe smiled slightly and looked down at the reflection of the bright streets reflected on the surface of the lake. He had the sense that he was peering at a black mirror, and it startled him for a moment— ...but it didn’t matter what future was reflected there.
(I cannot run away...)
“Let’s go, Naoe,” Takaya called.
I can only walk along, Naoe thought, (...with this person.)
The lights of cars flying down the highway skimmed along the mountain ridge. The headlights of a container truck coming into the service area for a bit of rest illuminated Takaya’s profile for a moment. He seemed to be enjoying the night wind.
The gentle night breeze glided smoothly across this lake of the God’s Crossing on tip-toes. As if summoned by the brilliantly shining ivy, the two disappeared into midst of the drivers filling the bustling city streets.
Mirror-Image Love Chapter 1: The Right Hand's Significance
These so-called onshou were a flexible bunch, Chiaki Shuuhei thought.
How was it possible for them to have such familiarity with present-day society? He could only stare in wide-eyed wonder and admiration at the recently en-bodied onryou strutting down the street in his borrowed face, blending in perfectly... Amazingly enough, he was even fluent in loanwords of foreign origin. That ability to learn and adapt was an imminently imitable trait.
(Eh, he’s probably just showing off.)
No one wanted to miss the latest fashions, be it then or now.
The onshou within his line of sight were making pleasant small talk.
“Can you hear me, Nagahide?” Naoe’s low sonorous voice came clearly through his earphone. “The target is approaching you. Can you confirm?”
“Yeah, confirmed. He’s just joined them.”
A café, early afternoon. Chiaki was loitering next to a wall, dressed as a server. Hypnotic suggestion being his forte, Chiaki often worked jobs requiring infiltration. Dressed in matching monochromatic colors and wearing a long apron, a round aluminum tray in one hand, he looked the very image of a waiter.
(Not that clothes alone will get the job done; you also need top-notch acting skills.)
He was monitoring and reporting the movements of the onshou back to Naoe via an earphone hidden under his hair.
Their ‘target’ had just come through the door. He looked like a businessman in his thirties and carried a large luggage bag.
“Looks like he’s brought the object. I’m going to verify the contents,” he murmured into the small mike latched to the back of his collar, before jauntily stepping out onto the floor. Proceeding towards his quarry’s table with pitcher in one hand to top their water glasses, he addressed the ‘target,’ “I’m very sorry, sir, but we have a no-pets policy within the café. May we keep it up at the cash register for you?”
“Oh no, this is just a puppet,” the ‘target’ explained, holding onto the bag. “It’s inanimate, so I don’t believe there should be a problem. It should not be touched.”
Chiaki quietly withdrew, but not without first sneaking a look inside. Back under cover, he reported to the mike, “—Confirmed. There’s no mistake. It’s the object we’re looking for.”
“Copy. Don’t let it out of your sight.”
The onshou finally left the café with the ’target’s luggage in hand.
“Can you hear me, Naoe? The transaction is complete. Three men in business suits are leaving the café now. You follow them, and I‘ll stick to the ’target.’”
“Copy that,” Naoe responded, ending their communication.
Chiaki swiftly removed his apron and bow tie. He waited for the ‘target’ to finish his tea and followed. After leaving the café, he pushed his way through a crowd of youngsters in a bustling CD store to sample the music at several listening stations before wandering aimlessly through a bookstore. By the time he got on the subway, night had fallen. Tailing someone in rush hour was no picnic, but this wasn’t Chiaki’s first rodeo. He was more or less able to keep the man in sight through the congestion.
The ‘target’ had reached the parking lot in front of his apartment building when an unfamiliar man addressed him.
“Sir? I believe you dropped this.”
Chiaki had anticipated him. He was carrying the ’target’s wallet.
“...Oh, you’re right, I guess I did. Huh, when did that happen? Thank you for coming all this way.”
Chiaki approached with a kind expression. He forbore to mention that he had used the turmoil of disembarking to slip it out of the man’s pocket, then beaten him here using the address from his license—a perfectly executed plan.
Chiaki grabbed the ’target’s hand as he reached out for the wallet.
“! ...What...? Ah!” He pitched forward as Chiaki jerked him close.
Chiaki murmured into his ear, “You can’t use a body to hide. It’s obvious you’re possessing this man.”
“!”
The man’s eyes immediately changed. He thrust Chiaki away and went on the offensive. His will flared against Chiaki’s «goshinha» before igniting the shrubs behind him. Crap. He was a fire-starter.
(Guess I’d better settle this quickly.)
“ (Bai)!”
Without further ado he cast an outer bind to freeze the ‘target’ in place and formed the symbolic gesture of Bishamonten.
“Noumakusanmanda bodanan baishiramandaya sowaka. Namu Tobatsu Bishamonten!”
Headlights brushed against Chiaki and his quarry as a car entered the parking lot. Oh, crap, Chiaki thought, but he could not stop mid-incantation, for it would cause the «exorcism» to fail. Focusing his concentration once more, he continued: “For this demon subjugation, lend me thy power! —«choubuku»!”
The flare of light from the back of the parking lot startled the young couple climbing out of their car, and they turned. They screamed as what they had mistaken for a camera flash exploded to encompass the entire parking lot, the light so intense that anyone looking straight at it would be blinded. After ten seconds or so, it disappeared with a gritty sound like the movement of a river of sand.
“Wh, what—what was that just now?!”
“Hey, someone’s collapsed over there!”
They saw a man lying on the asphalt, and a figure standing over him.
“What are...?! What did you do to him?!”
Chiaki walked past them without a word, and the couple stiffened. Time stopped. The thread of their consciousness severed cleanly with a plink, and they stood frozen in place. A moment passed, and the sound of a car horn brought them back to themselves.
“What—what just happened?”
“Hey, someone’s collapsed over there!”
(Mission complete.)
The shouts faded over his shoulders as Chiaki walked away.
Living in the city had its conveniences.
Mild apathy, revolving doors. Another anonymous face doing who-knows-what, where no one cared enough to pry into how he put food on the table—such conditions were obviously ideal for someone like him. His specialty in hypnotic suggestion had probably been born out of a desire to ‘avoid troublesome interference from others,’ after all.
Yet six months ago he had put down roots in Matsumoto.
Of late he’d become quite charmed by the view of the sun setting over the Northern Alps from his apartment door—and was rather alarmed by that fact. The city offered no such sublime prospects as those sun-struck peaks crowned by sudden clouds—one he could view by taking but a single step out of his door. What fantastic luxury.
The Northern Alps were particularly lovely under its cover of snow.
The cold still stumped him, and he fretted over the fact that he didn’t think this sort of life was half-bad.
These were the thoughts running through his head as he stared at an advertisement hanging from the train ceiling. It’d been a while since he’d taken the Hanzoumon Line, though Tokyo was a familiar hunting ground. He’d known it since it was called Edo, after all, and had witnessed all its transformations great and small.
And where people gathered, so did onshou.
Rather than large-scale cases of the type they’d seen in Matsumoto and Sendai, Tokyo seemed to attract smaller mysteries related to the «Yami-Sengoku» on a regular basis. Transactions between onshou like today’s were not unusual, in fact.
This early in the year, the city seemed not yet past its New Year’s mood. For someone who celebrated neither the Lantern Festival nor New Year’s, the first three days of the year seemed to sap away all energy, and even deeper into January it was difficult to switch into top gear; though companies and schools were open again, everyone was finding it difficult to regain the rhythm of their ordinary days. The city had that kind of feel about it.
(Too bad the onshou don’t have any holiday spirit...)
Naoe was at the hotel bar where they’d arranged to meet. Apparently he’d already completed his part. He was seated alone at the end of the counter, deep in thought as he nursed a drink.
“...Drinking on an empty stomach? You’d better eat something or you’ll feel it in the morning,” Chiaki said, dropping into the seat beside him.
Naoe looked up at him. “Is it done, Nagahide?”
“Yeah. Target eliminated without a hitch. How about you?”
“The object in question has been deposited at their secret base of operations. The «Nokizaru» are keeping an eye on it, and they’ll let me know if there’s any movement. More importantly, we now know the identity of his business partners.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Onryou from Iga League’s rebellion—those who died when Oda quashed the Iga Revolt.”
“Iga Revolt?” Chiaki repeated.
Oda Nobunaga had attacked Iga in the ninth year of the Tenshou Era (1581). Now the north-western part of Mie Prefecture, Iga had been a place worthy of special mention. Long-disregarded by the various powerful daimyo of the Sengoku, its lesser-known residential samurai-farmers had unified to form their own province with a parliamentary system which exercised the power of a feudal lord, creating a ‘commons.’ Regular government affairs were carried out by ten elected magistrates according to eleven articles of law. In times of invasion, Iga’s powerful clans were mandated by law to band together to defend the province. Surrounded by mountains, Iga was a natural stronghold located strategically between the Kinai and the eastern seas, and for a long time its inhabitants successfully defended it against encroachment by much more powerful warlords.
Until they were destroyed by Oda Nobunaga in the offensive against Iga in the ninth year of the Tenshou Era. That grudge had given them new life in the «Yami Sengoku».
“Huh. So now they’re looking for revenge against Nobunaga.”
“Their aim is to retake Iga Ueno Castle and make it their stronghold in their resistance against Oda.”
“Iga Ueno Castle... the one that Toudou Takatora built?”
“Yes. It’s currently in Oda’s hands. It was constructed to seal away the onryou of the Iga Revolt. The Iga League will soon be attacking the castle to take Iga back from Oda both in name and reality.”
“They’re planning to use the object in question in the attack?”
“After the revolt, Iga Ueno Castle was designed by Toudou Takatora to be a ‘fallback castle’—that is, secure to the point of being impregnable. They know that they can’t take it without considerable preparation.”
“That makes sense,” Chiaki muttered, picking up some peanuts. He asked for a draft beer from the bartender and planted his elbows on the counter. “...So that’s why they need a monster.”
“The «Yami Sengoku» has grown rather clever. The onryou are no longer blindly waging war on each other as they were a few years earlier. Using tsukumogami and spirit beasts and the like seems to be the new fashion.”
“Yeah, really.”
Just a few days earlier a tsukumogami-possessed saber had caused an uproar.
In the old days, wars of the «Yami Sengoku» had been simple affairs: onryou warrior crossing swords with onryou warrior and battles unfurling from there. A more innocent time, it seemed now. Then it became more prevalent for onshou to take vessels, with strategy becoming more and more crucial. The phase of pure grudge being pitted against grudge had passed.
“It wasn’t so much trouble when all we had to do was go around and perform «choubuku», hmm?”
“Feh. Because the onryou are getting pretty darn good at passing as normal people? Great.” Chiaki gulped down his beer. His thirst appeased by the stimulating, refreshing drink, his empty stomach started making itself felt. “So now we even have weapons dealers specializing in «Yami Sengoku» weapons?”
“Nothing good comes out of onryou possessing people.”
The spirit Chiaki had «exorcised» earlier had been one of these weapons dealers, a troublesome fellow Naoe had been tracking who’d gathered tsukumogami and spirit beasts from all over the country to sell to onshou. He had frequently surfaced of late in connection with tsukumogami utilized by onshou.
“...He was involved with that mess with the saber from the other day as well. In any case, the problem has been eradicated at the root. All that’s left is to deal with the object.”
The article purchased by the Iga League was a youkai called the ‘Bald-headed Snake-Bones Monster.’ Born from the ruins of Iwamura Castle in Tounou, it was said to possess the ability to produce mist. Iwamura Castle, too, had a connection to Oda; it had belonged to the clan of his aunt’s husband, and Oda had laid siege to it and destroyed it.
“She was called Lady Iwamura. After the castle fell, she was executed on the riverbed on Nobunaga’s orders. It’s said that she cursed him on the brink of death. The youkai appears to have some connection to her.”
“Why don’t we just let them do what they want, Naoe?”
“You mean stand aside and do nothing?”
“If they can bring down Nobunaga, we should be thanking them.”
“... We can’t do that.” Naoe shook his glass, loosening the heap of ice. “It would be dangerous to allow the youkai to go on a rampage. I don’t believe they’ll be able to control it. We have to take care of it before it harms the ordinary people of the city.”
Chiaki gazed at Naoe’s profile in silence. “Well, you haven’t changed. Still faithfully discharging his duty according to the instructions set down for him.”
“That’s our mission.”
“And you’re the very image of a workaholic—though that’s not at all what’s on your mind.” Naoe’s eyebrows lifted slightly at that. “So what’s going on with you and Kagetora?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It may not be any of my business, but it worries me. Besides, our work sure as hell doesn’t get any easier when there’s trouble in paradise.”
“... Shut up,” Naoe snapped, and threw back his drink. There was no getting him to say anything more when he was in this mood. So it had been since the old days. Drinking didn’t loosen his tongue; even completely plastered, he was still silent as a clam.
(Though he’d probably feel better if he’d just let himself go once in a while.)
It was necessary to Naoe to hold fast to the precepts he’d claimed as his own. Like the clothes he wore, his abnegation and self-restraint were by-products of that dogma. If he could only release himself from those prohibitions, he could perhaps live in greater ease.
(Somewhere down the line, you became so afraid of your relationship with Kagetora tearing apart that you put yourself in a cage... But you can’t stay in it forever.)
And the cage had broken.
Thirty years ago—
(Though you already knew a long time ago that doing it that way wouldn’t work.)
One look at Takaya when he’d returned from Kyoto had told Chiaki that there was trouble between him and Naoe. He’d been wearing the same expression as Kagetora of thirty years ago, when Minako had come between them—his eyes had been that cold, that wild.
(So you guys’re now writing the sequel, huh?)
A young salary man entered with a woman, their argument rather out-of-place in the quiet bar as she badgered him for a name-brand Christmas gift.
“...Geez, Christmas is already over. To her every day is probably Christmas, while all I get are onryou exterminations and youkai eradications. I want it to be the next New Year’s already! Sheesh.”
“Christmas, huh...?” Naoe flashed an ironic smile, his angular hand wrapped around his glass. “Do you know of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper,’ Nagahide?”
Though wondering at the abrupt shift, Chiaki accepted the new topic with equanimity. “I’ve never seen the real thing... but it’s supposed to depict the dinner Jesus Christ shares with his twelve disciples before he’s arrested...”
“Yes. It’s a mural of Jesus and his disciples after he tells them that one of them would betray him. They’re seated at a dinner table; all the disciples are shaken, asking ‘who is it’—‘could it be me?’ One look is enough to tell you which of them is Judas.”
“Isn’t he usually the one doing something sneaky at the end of the table?”
“No, he’s sitting among them. Jesus is at the center of the table, and Judas is in the cluster of three men to the observer’s left. He’s the only one whose expression you can’t clearly see. If you look closely, you can see the bag with the pieces of silver in his hand, but it’s hard to see from a distance. Everyone searches for Judas when they look at the painting; besides the coins, da Vinci gives us another big hint.”
“Hint?”
“Judas‘ hand,” Naoe answered. “His left hand, the one not holding the coins. If you look carefully, Judas’ left hand is held out in Jesus‘ direction. The pose captures a sense of great urgency, like this, as if saying ’I can only throw myself on your mercy.’” Naoe held out his hand in the same manner. “Jesus, meanwhile, is speaking serenely, his hands spread on the table like so. He’s not looking at Judas. That’s how it appears at first view, but if you observe only Judas‘ left hand and Jesus’ right, it seems to me that what they say is extremely important. It left a deep impression on me.”
“Their hands...?”
“To me it’s the most striking part of the painting.” Naoe sank again into thought as he gazed down at his own left hand. “...Was he reaching out for forgiveness? Or was he only...” Naoe stopped again. “...I’m sorry, Nagahide. I’m going to go up.” He stood, tab in hand. “I’ll phone your room in the morning.”
Looking up at him, Chiaki saluted jokingly. “Roger that. Hey—don’t be bringing any women back to your room now.”
“Don’t stay out too late,” Naoe retorted, and left. He looked tired. His black funereal suit might as well be his dogmatic cage—a mark of his fidelity.
“Goodness’ sake...” He tossed back the rest of his now-flat beer. No flavor remained but bitterness.
What Naoe had been trying to say kept nagging at him.
Chiaki impulsively turned into a specialty bookstore. There were few people this late at night, so near closing time. He found a massive volume of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings. Leaning against a rolling ladder used to reach the top shelves, he studied ‘The Last Supper.’
He found Judas as Naoe had described him. Everyone else was well-lit, their expressions clear; Judas alone was shadowed, his face turned diagonally backwards so that the viewer saw him at an odd angle, his expression distorted and unreadable. In his right hand was a bag with the ‘thirty pieces of silver’ inside.
Jesus sat at the center. A halo encircled his head, and his expression was gentle, transcendent. He remembered hearing that da Vinci had purposely left Jesus’ expression ambiguous in order to evoke that feeling of transcendence. Compared to the realism of his disciples, Jesus appeared enigmatic and unearthly.
Chiaki’s gaze moved to his hand.
(That’s—)
‘Their hands’ as Naoe had described them.
It was difficult to see from a distance, easier to understand with the close-ups provided. As Naoe had said, Judas’ left hand was extended toward Jesus with obvious urgency, tendons rigid with tension, as if pleading for salvation.
And Jesus’ right hand—
It was straining as well, in marked contrast to his mild, ambiguous expression, as if it was trying to grasp Judas‘ hand yet still. Jesus’ hands were spread, and he was not looking at Judas, but his right hand told the entire story—the right hand reaching toward his betrayer.
These two hands told the truth.
Distracted as they were, none of the other disciples noticed. Nor did Jesus himself draw attention to Judas. But their hands—their hands alone spoke the truth.
(Huh... What a masterpiece,) thought Chiaki. The painting told a deep, poignant story, using Jesus and Judas’ hands to tell the truth that they alone knew.
It was as if Jesus‘ hand was a response to Judas’ plea of forgiveness.
Or was Judas begging for rescue from the sin he was about to fall into?
It was the hand of someone reaching out to grasp one who was about to fall off the edge of a cliff.
What significance did Naoe attach to this hand?
Was he reaching out a hand in a plea for forgiveness? Did he see himself as Judas?
Was he begging Kagetora for his forgiveness?
(But to me...) Chiaki muttered, closing the book. (...it looks like they’re asking each other for rescue.)
The store began playing ‘Light of the Fireflies’ in preparation for closing.
Time to go home, he thought, and was about to put the book back on its shelf when—
“—Shuuhei? Is that you, Shuuhei?” a woman’s voice behind him interrupted his thoughts.
Surprised, Chiaki turned. A pretty young woman in her early twenties stood frozen in place in the middle of the aisle. She was wearing a mini-skirt with long boots and a knitted hat pulled over her shoulder-length brown hair. ...But he didn’t recognize her. She, however, seemed to know him. Tears gathered in her eyes.
“I’m sure it’s you, Shuuhei...! Shuuhei!”
“Woah!”
She suddenly stepped right up to him and hugged him. The book nearly slipped out of his hand.
Chiaki was exceedingly disturbed to find himself being embraced by a strange woman in front of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
“...You...”
“Where have you been all this time? I’ve been searching for you for so long!” she asked, her dark eyes wet with tears. “I’ve been looking for you, Shuuhei!”
He should tell her she had the wrong person and make his escape.
But if all else failed he could always fall back on hypnotic suggestion...and so he stayed. The woman who had suddenly hugged him there among the tall shelves in the specialty bookshop minutes away from closing began crying without regard for the stares of the other patrons.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me?”
(Crap...)
So she knew this vessel, had known ‘Chiaki Shuuhei’ before Yasuda Nagahide had taken over his body. Of course Chiaki didn’t know who this woman was. If she’d been his lover, things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.
“Um, I’m sorry...but I’m kind of in a hurry...”
The woman paled. She grabbed Chiaki’s collar before he could make his escape and pressed him back.
“What are you talking about? Have you really forgotten me?” He did not want to get into a noisy lovers’ quarrel. Just as he was getting ready to perform a hypnotic suggestion, she yelled, “Have you really forgotten your sister?!”
Chiaki’s eyes widened. “—‘Sister’...?”
They moved from the bookshop to a nearby shop.
The woman’s name was ‘Chiaki Natsumi.’
She was the biological sister of ‘Chiaki Shuuhei.’ The reason she had looked so familiar to him without them ever having met was due to the similarities between her face and the one he saw in the mirror every day. The resemblance in the area around their eyes was especially striking. Natsumi’s face, however, was round—perhaps even a little childish—while Chiaki Shuuhei’s was oval with more mature lineaments. He didn’t know which of them more resembled their mother or father, but anyone could tell at a glance that they were brother and sister.
She was five years older than him, and working now as an office lady in Tokyo.
She’d been searching all this while after he had gone missing from their home in Fukui three years ago.
“We had the police search, too, but they came up with nothing. I’d almost given up hope... I never guessed you might be in Tokyo.”
Natsumi rubbed at her reddened eyes. Not that anyone could blame her for her copious tears, given her sudden reunion with her lost younger brother.
“I had no idea that you had lost your memories in a traffic accident. I’m so sorry, Shuuhei. You must have felt so alone. What are you doing now? Are you okay getting by?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. He could only gaze wordlessly at her flushed face. But she attributed another explanation to his silence.
“Oh...I’m sorry. I should have realized. It must be pretty confusing to have someone suddenly show up and tell you she’s your sister when you don’t remember anything.” She took a drink of her red tea in agitation. “But maybe if you came home, you’d remember something. We left your room exactly the way it was. So please? Come back with me. Mother and Step-father and Yoshiki are all waiting. Just once.”
“I’m sorry, Natsumi-san.” Natsumi’s eyes widened in surprise. Chiaki continued calmly, “...I have my own life now. I have a busy job, and I don’t think I can leave right now.”
“Why?! Don’t you want to remember who you are?!”
For a moment Chiaki was at a loss for words. But a flustered Natsumi immediately collected herself and folded her hands on the table. “You-you’re right, of course. Expecting you to just drop everything is silly. We have time. But at least tell me how to get in touch with you. I‘ll give you my contact too, okay? Please?” she entreated cautiously. She was a stranger to Chiaki, but to her, he was family. Though he had mixed feelings, to say the least, he could well understand a ’sister’s desperation,’ which made it impossible for him to simply refuse. With a deep sigh, he mirrored Natsumi’s folded hands on the table.
“I’m sorry...Nee-san. This has all been so sudden. But I do want to know who I was.”
Natsumi’s face immediately cleared. Her smile shined like the sun through clouds and for a moment captivated him completely. She leaned across the table and covered his hand with hers.
“Thank you, Shuuhei.”
Then she started telling him all about ’Chiaki Shuuhei’s life growing up. Their mother had re-married a man who also had children from a previous marriage, and they now had a step-brother called Yoshiki along with other siblings. Only their mother and step-father remained at home. They had married six years ago, and their relationship seemed a happy one. Shuuhei had gone missing the spring of his first year in high school three years ago. He’d been a excellent student, and had gotten into the top college prep school in their prefecture.
“You...liked music and books. You went to the library every day and checked out and read hundreds of mystery novels. You did kendo in elementary school—look, you still have the scar from a bamboo fencing stick.” She turned his hand palm-up and pointed. “You were such a cheerful, dutiful child...”
She then murmured something that Chiaki couldn’t hear before pressing a hand against her mouth in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I...”
“Guess I grew up to be a handful, Nee-san?”
Natsumi turned serious, and she clasped Chiaki’s hand as he peered into her eyes. Then she smiled wryly. “Boys get moody when they hit puberty—that’s what they teach us, anyway. You weren’t exactly an exception to that.”
“I see,” Chiaki commented, pulling his hand away. “I don’t remember anything, though. You really don’t feel like my ‘sister’ at all. If I’m not careful I might start flirting with you, so I’m going home. See you around.”
“Shuu—Shuuhei? Wait!” she cried as he got up, forcing a memo with her contact written on it into his hand. “Call me, okay?” she beseeched. “Just call me. Please. Promise me.”
His expression as he looked down into her pleading face was sober—then his tight-pressed lips loosened, and he hooked his pinky finger around Natsumi’s in promise. They left the shop together, and she watched him uneasily as he disappeared down the street.
A troubled Chiaki was still wondering what he should do later in his hotel room as he rolled over on the bed.
Experience had taught him that to be found by a blood relation was the most difficult of scenarios to deal with. He should have erased her memories and gone about his day as if nothing had happened. Instead he’d made her a promise that would only create more difficulty for the future. Cutting off contact now would only serve to make Natsumi even more worried.
(What should I do...?)
He’d intended to erase the memory of meeting him from her mind when they’d parted, but for some reason he hadn’t done it.
Right about now Natsumi would be telling her family, who in their delight would be eager to seek him out. Things would’ve been much easier on him if they’d given up hope of ever finding him.
(Meeting her again to put the whammy on her wouldn’t fill that hole when I make my escape.)
What a terrible waste of effort, and all to drive the happiness from her face. Not that she would believe him if he told her the truth, and the particulars would shock her even more. Had he been so soft-hearted with her because he felt as if he needed to atone? Atone for what, at this late date?
Just then he got his regularly scheduled call from Takaya. On the other end of the line Takaya immediately sensed Chiaki’s agitation.
“Has something happened?”
It annoyed Chiaki that Takaya, who was usually so frustratingly dense about these things, would be so quick to catch on this time around. “What? No, it’s nothing. Have you contacted Naoe?”
“... I got his report.”
“That’s it? Did you at least tell him how much you appreciate his work?”
Takaya didn’t respond. After regaining ‘Kagetora,’ Takaya’s behavior toward Naoe was reverting to the abruptness and ugliness of their mutual hatred thirty years ago.
“... How am I supposed to tell him I appreciate his work if he hangs up on me?”
Chiaki abruptly recalled ‘The Last Supper’ from the book of paintings earlier. How Jesus had held out his hand to Judas even while he averted his face...
“I‘ll dispatch the «Nokizaru» to Iwamura Castle. Don’t make a move on the ’Snake-Bones Monster’ yet. Naoe didn’t sound happy with the plan; if he tries to move ahead himself, stop him. I’ll join you once Haruie gets here to guard Yuzuru. Keep an eye on them both until I get there.”
“Fine, but don’t act like a kid paying a courtesy call to the landlady.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s darn aggravating for everybody else.”
“I have no idea what you’re driving at,” Takaya refused to play along. “Don’t be so caught up in the New Year’s spirit keeping a woman company that you let our target slip out of your hands,” he warned, and hung up. Chiaki looked at the memo paper Natsumi had given him. Even her handwriting looked familiar.
Kanshousha were capable of compartmentalizing their bodies‘ memories away, and generally never touched them. To do so was to run the risk of having their own personalities be affected, so it was far better to seal those parts away. Which was why Yasuda Nagahide didn’t really know what kind of person Chiaki Shuuhei had been. On the other hand, perfect isolation was probably impossible as well. Perhaps the reason he had been unable to cut Natsumi off was due to ’Shuuhei’s’ love for his sister permeating his brain and seeping through into ‘Nagahide.’
(I guess he really loved his sister...)
Studying the affection welling up within him as if it belonged to another person, Chiaki rolled again on the bed.
(I‘ve cast you away, ’Shuuhei’... Because I can’t take your place.)
Though he hadn’t even showered, he closed his eyes and instantly sank into sleep.
Mirror-Image Love Chapter 2: In a Warm Room
“What happened last night?” Naoe got the jump on him the next morning as they drove toward the scene.
In the passenger seat, Chiaki flinched. So now both master and servant were conjecturing. “Did you hear about it from Kagetora?”
Naoe shook his head. “The «Nokizaru» said they saw you meeting with a woman. Was it someone related to the case?”
“...What? No. I came across somebody related to the former owner of this body.”
“A relative? What happened?”
“Nothing. I went home without even hypnotizing her.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Argh. Yeah, it’s not like me at all. I’m no Kagetora,” Chiaki grumbled, leaning back against the headrest. “Well, I guess I could just ignore her.”
They stopped at a traffic light, and Naoe gave him a intensely meaningful look. “That’s unconscionable,” he retorted, smiling wryly.
How’d he know Naoe would throw him to the wolves?
“Something’s troubling you. I didn’t know you were the type of man who’d feel himself so beholden.”
“I don’t feel beholden!”
“We choose to perform embryonic kanshou to limit the amount of necessary evil we do. If you have any doubts, then you shouldn’t be performing kanshou on anyone older at all. I had always thought you were sure of your decisions.”
“I am sure of my decisions. That’s not the problem.”
They arrived at Shiba Park. The Iga onshou had made Shiba Toushou Shrine, a small Shinto shrine located next to the Tokugawa family’s Bodai Temple, their hiding place. The giant ginkgo here was a national treasure said to be planted by Tokugawa Iemitsu himself. Slow to turn in the autumn, it still retained some of its leaves among its boughs, despite the fact that it was already January. Perhaps because of the drop in temperature this morning, the golden leaves around the great tree’s roots had turned white with frost. The shrine here was also dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, of course, but gave the impression of being much cozier than the shrines at Nikkou and Kunou-san. It had once belong to Bodai Temple, but had gained independence with the government policy of separation of Buddhism and Shintoism.
Speaking of which, the shrine now hosting the onshou of the Iga League must also have acted as a cornerstone of the magical protection High Priest Tenkai had cast over Edo. The possibility existed that they would attempt to harness the manifested power of Toushou Shrine’s Ieyasu, but all was quiet at the moment. They weren’t precisely taking shelter beneath the biggest tree they could find, but as ‘Edo’s safe-spot,’ it was a perfect location from which to make a feint at Oda.
They joined the «Nokizaru» staking out the site.
“I didn’t know you were coming, Hakkai.”
Among them was a man in his mid-thirties wearing a business suit. He had an angular chin and piercing, rather gloomy eyes. This was the leader of the «Nokizaru», Hakkai.
He operated under Kagetora’s direct command. Naoe’s brows twitched nervously upward. “This job is our responsibility. We’ve been making regular reports.”
“No one is saying otherwise. There is no deeper meaning to my presence here.”
Naoe frowned with distaste. ...Had that been a polite way of saying that they were being monitored? Could they not be trusted to finish the job?
The rebels of the Iga League had not yet made any alarming movements.
“The Snake-Bones Monster is within the main shrine.”
They had erected layers of barriers around it. In front of them was Hibiya Avenue with its constant flow of traffic.
“The traffic is heavy, and the subway passes right beneath it. If it goes berserk, we won’t be able to prevent casualties.”
“We need to take care of it as soon as possible.” Naoe pushed, impatient to finish off the Snake-Bones Monster.
“Kagetora-sama has told us to hold off.”
“We don’t have the time to await his ruling. Who would take responsibility for the harm it would cause if it goes out of control?”
“Kagetora is probably thinking it could act as a useful check on the Oda side.” Chiaki interjected on his behalf. “The current Snake-Bones Monster is likely a fusion of the spirits of Lady Iwamura with those of the castle’s serpent’s. As you know, it was sealed away by Oda thirty years ago—”
Lady Iwamura had been Nobunaga’s aunt. He had had her executed despite those ties of blood, and she had become an onryou. She had bided her time until thirty years ago, when she had attacked the resurrected Oda and nearly succeeded in killing him. But in the end Oda cast her into the snake pit of Iwamura Castle and sealed her within. In all probability, she had joined with the snake spirit called the Snake-Bones Monster there which she herself had enslaved in her previous life.
“This is a spirit which even Nobunaga couldn’t kill, only seal away. Her hatred for Nobunaga is turned up to eleven. If we were looking for a spirit guaranteed to go after him, we couldn’t find a better candidate.”
“Our highest priority is to protect the living, and there’s no guarantee that it will not harm them.”
“The Snake-Bones Monster is still tranquil. We have enough time to verify a few facts. The «Nokizaru» have gone to the Iwamura Castle’s snake pit to confirm. We should at least wait until they get back.”
Naoe’s displeasure was obvious. In addition to being the private police force of the «Yami-Sengoku», the Uesugi had to maintain the balance between the various powers objectively. To crush one side meant complicity with its adversaries. To fail in this balancing act was not unlikely to pour gasoline on the fire of the shadow war.
The time when they could simply go around exorcising onryou was long past.
“... To tiptoe around the onshou while the living are harmed is putting the cart before the horse. I will talk things over with Kagetora-sama. Don’t slack off with the monitoring.” Naoe returned to the car.
“Geez... Why’d he have to get all mad for?”
“Why must Naoe-sama oppose Kagetora-sama to such an extent...?”
“...Who knows—I sure don’t. But hey, I’ve seen worse than them clashing over something like this.”
“Yasuda-sama?”
“Naoe should know the meaning of his left hand.”
Hakkai could not decipher this remark—not that Chiaki had meant it to be deciphered. He shifted out of Naoe’s line-of-sight.
“Whether we exterminate it or return it to Iwamura Castle, we’d better do it before Oda’s gang get wind of it. Bodai Temple is our focal point—we need to spread a watch over the entirety of Shiba Park. Let’s get to work, Hakkai.”
It was past eight in the evening when Chiaki returned to the hotel. Upon collecting his key from the front desk, the concierge there told him that he had a visitor waiting for him in the lobby lounge.
Natsumi rose from her table seat to greet him.
“Na-Natsumi-san. Why...” Chiaki asked, taken completely back.
“I’m so sorry. I was worried, so I followed you last night.”
She had apparently been worried that her little brother would simply disappear again, so had secretly followed him back to his hotel, which was how she’d known to find him here today. Chiaki had been completely oblivious. ...What a blunder on his part.
“Maybe if we interacted a little more, you would remember something. I brought some albums and things, thinking that maybe there’s an off-chance that they might trigger a memory. And maybe dinner? I brought onigiri with pickled eggplant. You used to love them.”
The words ‘I have no intention of remembering’ stuck in his throat in the face of Natsumi’s heroic efforts.
“And wow! I didn’t know you were staying in a hotel!”
“Oh, yeah. It’s, um, for work.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Dunno... ’Til the job’s done, I guess.”
“Are you okay for money? Are you getting paid well? What kind of work are you doing?”
Natsumi couldn’t seem to help feeling concerned about her little brother—understandably, of course. What kind of job would pay a young man who was nineteen, twenty at most to stay in a hotel—and one suffering from amnesia, at that? It was fishy, to say the least; Natsumi certainly seemed to think something shady was going on.
“You’re not doing anything illegal, are you? Something you can’t even tell your sister about?” Natsumi pressed.
She certainly acted like a big sister.
“Urm,” Chiaki hemmed and hawed. “No-nothing like that! It’s just a normal job at a small night entertainment business.”
“Night entertainment business? Like a host?”
“Yeah, um...”
“Liar! If you were a host you’d be at work right now!” Natsumi leaned forward, pressing for an answer. Caught out, Chiaki attempted a dry dissembling laugh, but Natsumi stared at him with wide eyes and a look resembling that of Lord Shoki the Plague-Queller, commander of 80,000 demons.
“Uh, yeah...I mean, it’s closed right now. For, you know, renovations. My apartment too—it’s being remodeled.”
“Oh, really,” she said, completely unimpressed. Chiaki smoothed his shirt against his chest. “But I guess it’s understandable... I mean, what other kind of job would hire a kid without an identity who can’t even remember who he is? But still, my Shuuhei as a host? ...I guess I’m in a bit of a shock.”
“So, see? I’m doing fine. You don’t have to worry about me. Why don’t you...”
“Hey, want to come over to my place?”
“Huh?” Chiaki’s eyes widened.
“It’s not that far—just by Sanguu Bridge . I can at least cook dinner for you. I have a spare loft, so you can sleep there if you like.”
“Hahahah... I appreciate the invitation, but...”
“What? You don’t want to?”
“Um, well, I’ve lost my memory and everything, so...I mean, we’re like total strangers now. Wouldn’t it look bad if you brought a strange man home with you?”
“That’s a weird way of putting it. You’re not a strange man, you’re my brother. You don’t stop being my brother just because you’ve lost your memory. So you don’t have to feel awkward about coming over,” she persisted, unexpectedly stubborn. “I bet you’ll be begging to come over next time once you’ve tasted my onigiri...oh shoot! I was focused so much on the pickled vegetables that I forgot about the rice!”
Natsumi could be absent-minded at times, too, it seemed—and ironically, with the onigiri in which she had so much confidence. Holding back tears, she stared forlornly at the plastic container with the pickled vegetables for a moment before looking up with tear-bright eyes at Chiaki. Oh shit, he thought, but he had no escape.
“I’ll go get some with you, so...please don’t cry.”
Thus, thirty minutes later saw Chiaki Shuuhei pedaling along the track of the Odakyuu Rail Line on the bike Natsumi rode to work every day. She was riding behind him.
“Hey, steady! You’re wobbling!”
(You’re complaining when I’m the one who got suckered into riding around on a granny bike?)
Chiaki pedaled hard with Natsumi’s reproofs in his ears and the bright glow of skyscrapers at his back, overtaking railroad cars on the pale track next to them.
“What a wonderful feeling! It’s been so long since I’ve ridden tandem with you, Shuuhei. The last time was in elementary school—do you remember? I was the one pedaling then!” Natsumi recalled merrily.
Chiaki huffed up Kiridooshi Hill . It’d been decades since he’d last been on a bike, and man, were his trembling thighs reminding him of that fact.
“Ha-have you put on weight, Natsumi-san?”
“Wow, rude! I’ve lost weight, actually—15 kilos since college.”
He was openly panting by the time they reached Natsumi’s studio apartment. Located on the second floor at the end of the hall, it offered a nice view of the Shinjuku nightscape. The interior was decorated in warm colors and sundry items indicating that a young woman lived here. On a wood-grained table were a fashion magazine and the remainder of that morning’s breakfast, including a mug with leftover coffee.
“Crap! Give me just a minute.”
Noticing the underwear left forgotten on her bed, Natsumi rushed to tidy up. Her brother he might be, but she was still embarrassed to have him see her private things lying around.
“All right, come on in!”
“One cup of tea,” Chiaki insisted as he entered. Natsumi’s flat was a window into Natsumi herself. She was not a particularly tidy person. Her breakfast things had been left lying out, indicating a rushed morning. Videos were stacked high next to the TV—probably recordings of shows she liked. The room had that lived-in atmosphere, but rather than feeling cluttered, it somehow managed to convey a sense of peace.
“Is oolong okay?”
Natsumi returned with a mug. Seasoning and condiments stood in a line in her tiny kitchen space. The cramped layout likely meant she couldn’t do any complicated cooking while she lived here. Rehydrated seaweed strips lay piled in a colander.
“Here, have some onigiri.” Natsumi re-entered with a plateful of the onigiri she had ‘forgotten’ earlier.
Though not particularly hungry, refusing was out of the question. He bit into one half-despairingly. It had stuffing made from the seaweed he had noticed earlier.
“Here’s some miso soup to go with that.” She came out again with a wooden bowl of reheated miso soup. She grinned at her little brother. “So? Is it good?”
It discomfited him. ...He was completely discombobulated.
“Eat as much as you want. There’s lots,” she urged, pointing at the pile of seaweed. ‘No thanks,’ he thought—but it truly had been a long time since he‘d had real home-made miso soup (his ’home-made’ miso soup usually came from fast food joints), and it moved him more than he could have imagined. The Chiaki family miso was quite mild. As if his body held some sort of taste-memory, a strange, bewildering feeling of deep familiarity welled up inside him.
“Miso soup is the only thing I make that Mom actually gives me a passing grade on. Nothing else meets her standards.”
Chiaki unthinkingly set down his chopsticks.
“Are you okay? Did something get in?”
“No... it’s nothing.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
The tears abruptly welling up in his eyes surprised Chiaki. His body knew this taste, though Chiaki had no memory of it. A startlingly deep sense of nostalgia flooded into him.
(It’s strange,) he thought. The part of his brain that he had locked away was reacting. That had to be it, for why else would something to which he had no emotional attachment whatsoever affect him so strongly? Was it his own emotions he was struggling with or his body’s? The uncertainty addled him not a little. Could the part of himself that he had locked away awaken if he ate any more? The possibility frightened him.
“Ah, I guess you weren’t very hungry, then...” Natsumi said with some regret, for she had wondered whether her miso soup might not stir her brother’s memories even just a little. Recognizing the shine of Chiaki’s eyes, though, she began wrapping the remaining onigiri in aluminum foil, relieved. “I was worried about you becoming a total stranger because you’ve lost your memories... well, in some ways I really don’t know you anymore. But you know, I feel like it’s so much easier to talk to you now. I mean, you’ve grown up into such a cool guy, it surprised me!”
“Really?”
“You’ve matured, Shuuhei,” Natsumi gazed at him warmly. “I never even dreamed I’d find you like this. I thought it was impossible just yesterday. I’ve phoned Mom to let her and everyone know.”
“Already?”
“Of course,” Natsumi said, her eyes falling slightly as she continued more gravely, “Mom...and Step-Dad...were overjoyed. He said...he’s forgiven everything that happened, so come home. ‘It’s all right now. Everything’s all right.’”
Her voice had become unwontedly solemn at the end. Her hands, clasped together over her lap, had tightened. Chiaki could vaguely guess at what had happened between ‘Shuuhei’ and his family.
“Are they coming? Here, to Tokyo?”
“They wanted to come immediately, but Step-Dad isn’t feeling well enough to make the trip right now... After you disappeared, all the light just went out of the house. We didn’t know whether you had run away, or if something had happened to you, or if you were even still alive...” Chiaki’s expression stiffened, but Natsumi continued without noticing, “Mom lost ten kilos.”
“...”
“It won’t be until later, but when you see her again, call her ‘Mom,’ okay? Please? Even if you don’t remember her.”
Chiaki’s thoughts were decidedly mixed. Natsumi’s anxiety over her brother meant that she was trying her very best not to pry into his life. But her fervent longing to repair her shattered family came through loud and clear.
“...Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you. Anyway, you know, I was thinking of buying a heated table, but they don’t really have single-person sizes. Maybe an electric carpet? What do you think?”
Her bell-like voice was soothing, and subtly cast a spell of peace over the room.
Perhaps it was because Natsumi had such a tranquil disposition that the atmosphere of her home felt so comfortable. Her bright chatter held no hint of malice, and never seemed to become irritating. He felt as if he’d always known her, rather than for just a few short hours—maybe it was just that they thought alike. Was that feeling also an influence of ’Shuuhei’s brain on his consciousness?
“Do you like mandarin orange?” Natsumi asked, looking up at him with her big beautiful eyes. They were a lovely pair of siblings. But no matter how big-sister-like the baby-faced Natsumi acted, Chiaki could not help but think her sweet. Her silky hair, her soft skin, the faint flush on her cheeks, her moist lips...
(Oh shit...)
It was close to midnight when he next became aware of the time.
“I-I gotta go.”
“Wha—already?” Natsumi asked reluctantly. She caught at Chiaki’s sleeve as he stood. “Are you sure you don’t want to come stay with me?” Chiaki’s expression had turned serious. She added, looking up at him imploringly, “Mom won’t have to worry as much that way, and maybe you’ll get your memories back, too. I don’t care what kind of job you’re doing, okay? So just think about it.”
Chiaki sighed and smiled wryly. “Alright, I’ll think about it. Thanks for the onigiri.”
Natsumi saw him out, looking after him until he disappeared past the light of the street lamps. The skyscrapers were mostly dark now, only their blinking aircraft warning lights delineating their shapes against the night sky. As Chiaki walked away, he felt the night wind’s chill slice into him like a knife. Yet within him was an almost intoxicating warmth.
(Come stay with you...?)
It had been jarring and awkward to hear those words from her; innocent though the invitation had been, it reverberated with another meaning to Chiaki’s stranger’s ears. Though he had no such intentions, it still felt nice to be asked. Convincing himself that there was nothing wrong with basking in that feeling, he walked through the dark streets with pleasure in the lingering memories.
And then he abruptly came back to himself.
(What the hell am I doing...?)
The hotel lobby was nearly deserted at this late hour. Someone, however, was awaiting Chiaki’s return.
Though he was dressed in a fur-lined jacket, Takaya had caught the last limited express out of Matsumoto rather than taking his bike.
“Where the hell have you been?”
He’d apparently heard from Hakkai that Chiaki had left Shiba Park hours earlier. Chagrined, Chiaki scratched his head and responded curtly, “... I was with a girl.”
“With a...! At a time like this?!” Takaya burst out, leaping straight to the conclusion Chiaki had laid out for him—but he paused with aggravating astuteness, scowling. “I don’t give a damn about your private affairs, but if you go gallivanting about and screw up the job, innocent bystanders could get hurt. So be a little more careful, will you?”
“‘Private affairs,’ huh? My my, aren’t you acting all mature all of a sudden.”
“Were you with the relative?”
Chiaki’s eyes widened at Takaya’s perspicacious guess. When asked how he’d known, Takaya responded that Naoe had told him. So Takaya realized that he’d met up with Natsumi.
“Let’s talk in your room.” Takaya tossed him the room key. He’d recently started using hypnotic suggestion, and had apparently voodoo’d the front desk into giving it up. “Naoe’s spending the night on stakeout, so he’s letting me have his room.”
Chiaki shrugged and got on the elevator with Takaya behind him. Once the door closed, Takaya asked, “You performed non-embryonic kanshou, didn’t you?”
Chiaki leaned back and twirled the room key chain around his finger.
“A pretty flukey meeting, huh?”
Chiaki caught the key and stared down at his feet. The elevator doors opened. They got off and went into Chiaki’s room, which was immediately next door. Chiaki took a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge.
“You got a problem with that?”
“I’m asking if you feel any guilt at all over it.”
Non-embryonic kanshou was to perform kanshou on a body already grown—in Chiaki’s case, just three years ago, which meant that his vessel had been at least fifteen or sixteen years old at the time. Unlike Takaya and the others, who had performed kanshou on their hosts before birth, Chiaki had taken his body from someone already born into the world, already living his life. Takaya crossed his arms and learned back against the wall with a grim look.
“Naoe said that you’ve never balked at performing non-embryonic kanshou.”
“True.”
“Takes some nerve,” Takaya commented softly, the censure evident in his voice. “I‘ve been struggling with the question of how to accept kanshou since I learned of it. This body was supposed to belong to somebody named ’Ougi Takaya.’ And it’s not just that. I mean, how am I supposed to face Miya and my mother? The guilt isn’t so easy to shake off.” Biting off the pained words, Takaya lifted piercing eyes. “How are you going to explain being in that body to his family?”
“... Sorry, but I don’t feel any of that guilt.”
“Chiaki.”
“I’ve never been interested in those kinds of questions, so I’m gonna leave the philosophizing to the rest of you. I’ll thank you to keep your moralizing to yourself, General.” He capped the half-consumed bottle and tossed it over to Takaya. “I’m me, you’re you. It’s not like you haven’t done everything in your power to survive and carry out our mission, so you’ve got no right to cast stones.”
“Why haven’t you used hypnotic suggestion?” Takaya demanded. “Don’t get close, don’t invite trouble—isn’t that your modus operandi?”
“...”
“Nagahide.”
Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise at Takaya’s use of his original name. Takaya had regained a large part of Kagetora’s memories, it seemed. Even he had a hard time keeping up with the transformation sometimes. He sighed to hide his discomfiture.
“It’s not like she‘ll be saved if she gets mind-wiped—you should know that firsthand.” The allusion to himself and Naoe choked Takaya into silence for a moment. “Stop worrying.” Chiaki threw himself onto the bed. “I won’t let anything slip—I’m not that much of an idiot. So worry about yourself instead. Narita nags at me like an old woman, and it’s all because you’re procrastinating on your decision. You need to be prepared to give up on having a ’normal life.’”
“I know that,” Takaya muttered, and left the room.
Once he was alone, Chiaki took out the present he’d received from Natsumi. Still lying where he’d fallen on the bed, he extracted one chilled onigiri from its aluminum foil wrapping and bit into it, exposing its seaweed filling.
He couldn’t seem to get Natsumi out of his head.
Staring fixedly at the onigiri, Chiaki sighed. “...Guess I have a crush...”
“Shuuhei! You’re here!” Natsumi smiled with heartfelt gladness as she saw Chiaki in front of her door. It was the following morning. He’d dropped by Natsumi’s apartment before leaving for the stakeout to return the tupperware she’d given him with the onigiri last night. She lit up with happiness as soon as she saw him.
“I was just getting ready to bring you a bento! Come on up!”
“Um, not right now. I have to get to work.”
“Oh? Okay then, I was about to go out anyway,” Natsumi said, and they walked to the station together. Not many people had to work on a Saturday morning, so pedestrian traffic was lighter than usual. Natsumi took the Chiyoda Line to Omotesan Road , so they rode together part of the way. Though the train was usually crammed with people commuting to work and school, today there was room to spare, with casually-dressed passengers barely filling the seats.
Hanging onto an overhead strap, Natsumi grumbled, “Yeesh, I wonder if my company’s in trouble or something. There’s a ban on overtime work and no overtime pay, and we had to shift our work hours to the weekends. Everyone’s taking work home. Don’t you think that’s pretty unfair?”
She was actually heading over to the office to grab some work materials she had left behind.
“My astrology reading this morning was horrible... Oh, but don’t worry, your Aries was the best. Isn’t that wonderful?”
(What’s not wonderful is the way you’re looking at me, sheesh.)
No red-blooded male could help but react to those wide, bright eyes looking so sweetly up at him from that lovely face. “But it was totally true. ‘The one you await is coming.’ That must be you, Shuuhei.”
“Do you like astrology?”
“Yeah,” Natsumi grinned at him. “I always end up looking up horoscopes and compatibility charts even though I know I shouldn’t.”
“Compatibility charts? Do you have a boyfriend, Nee-san?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be so obsessed with horoscopes, hahah.” A self-conscious Natsumi blushed hotly as she said it. “Whenever I get a favorable result, I re-read it over and over. It makes me smile, and I keep thinking about it, because I feel like my wish has been granted. I get a lump in my throat even though I know I’m indulging in a delusion. It’s totally unproductive, but it makes me happy, so I feel like my little foible can be forgiven.”
“Have you told him?”
“I-I can’t do that! ...Really, he’s just not someone I could ever tell.”
He was not so crass as to ask ‘who is it?’ Not that he’d know the guy even if she did tell him. Chiaki looked down at Natsumi with a touch of dejection as she sighed deeply. Though her tone was light, in reality it seemed to weigh on her heavily.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained?”
“No, I can’t. I’m too afraid of ruining our current relationship,” she admitted soberly, though a moment later she was all smiles again. “Anyway, having found you makes me happier than anything right now. I’ve canceled our missing persons report with the police, and Mom and Step-Dad are coming to Tokyo next week. Yoshiki Nii-san wants to come and see you, too. Do you have any time tonight?”
Chiaki said nothing for a moment. If he didn’t put a stop to this now, he might not be able to stop himself from getting involved. Like Takaya had said, entangling himself even further would be to no one’s benefit.
“I’m sorry, I can’t tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Not Tomorrow either.”
Seeing Natsumi’s expression cloud over, Chiaki hurriedly raised the paper bag with the bento she had made for him and temporized, “I’ll come and return your tupperware, though.”
“Okay. But just in case—” Natsumi extracted the restaurant’s business card from her purse. “I’ve made dinner reservations with Yoshiki Nii-san. If you can come for even a little bit, please do. We’ll be there until closing time.”
Leaving him the card along with a smile bright as spring sunlight, she got off at Omotesan Road Station . She waved until the train slid out of the station. The smile slipping off his face, Chiaki gazed back at his solemn reflection on the darkened windows.
(...I’m likely being affected by ’Shuuhei’s emotions.)
Though rare, there had been instances in the past when the Yasha-shuu had been influenced by their vessels’ memories. It was ridiculous that he should feel practically suffused with happiness, but when he tried to laugh at himself, it fell flat. He grabbed the strap Natsumi had used, still warm from her hand. Strange how much it hurt.
(Who’s the unproductive one now...?)
A short time later he arrived at Zoujou Shrine, where he joined up with Takaya and Naoe. Takaya scowled at Chiaki, who had left earlier yet was arriving later, silently expressing his mistrust of Chiaki’s intentions for refusing to sever his ‘bond’ with Natsumi. He was frighteningly astute sometimes.
(Guess I’m the indecisive one now.)
“You’re relieved, Naoe. Go get some rest.”
Naoe, who had taken the night watch, looked exhausted.
“There’s been a report that Oda is on the move after learning of the Snake-Bone Monster’s acquisition. The probability that he’ll attack this location is high. Keep a close watch. Don’t slack off.”
“Aaaall righty.”
Naoe walked off without even a parting word to Takaya. Takaya’s grim eyes followed him as he got into his car and drove off. They’d been like this since Kyoto. They each had things to say to the other, but refused to engage. Chiaki noted the way Takaya’s gaze crumbled and filled with pain as he watched Naoe walk away. Hakkai murmured into his ear: they’d been arguing before Chiaki’s arrival.
(When he looks like that...)
But when he turned, Takaya’s face was serene, all trace of emotion locked away.
“We’ve received word from the «Nokizaru» I dispatched to Iwamura Castle: as we thought, Lady Iwamura’s spirit is missing.”
“She’s merged with the Snake-Bones Monster, then?”
“Yeah. What’s more, without a leader to control them, the onryou of the former garrison are becoming restless. There’s a danger of them running amok and destroying the castle ruins. For now, we need to look at returning the Snake-Bones Monster.”
“So we need to break up the revolt and get it out of that shrine?”
“I’d like to resolve this peacefully if possible... if they’re willing to talk to us,” Takaya said, gazing at the giant ginkgo tree within Shiba Toushou Shrine. Its branches had lengthened discernibly these past few days, though with odd twists and bends: a direct effect of Snake-Bones Monster’s miasmatic influence.
“...The leaders of the Iga League will be meeting there tomorrow,” Takaya murmured, his gaze still fixed on the tree. “Let’s see if we can persuade them to hand over the Snake-Bones Monster. If not...we’ll have to resort to brute force. We’ll go in at night to minimize harm to innocents if things go sideways.”
“...We’ll have to «exorcise» them in any case,” Chiaki snorted, looking back at Takaya with his usual boldness. “So let’s wrap this thing up and get back to Matsumoto.”
Mirror-Image Love Chapter 3: Truth and Courage
The restaurant glowed invitingly beside a fir tree strung with bright lights in the outer gardens of Meiji Shrine, within a grove right in the center of the city. It was Saturday evening, and the place was packed with couples. Though there were terrace seats, the cold had driven everyone inside.
Chiaki gazed at it from the footpath opposite. Natsumi, wearing a sleeveless cashmere sweater, was seated next to a window facing a man in a suit—the afore-mentioned step-brother, most likely. Her cheeks were lightly flushed with wine, and her bright smile never dimmed. She looked happy. He would have mistaken them for lovers if he had not known they were siblings.
The terrace lights were dazzling.
He made no move to enter, only observe from a distance.
What would happen to him if he should step into that effulgence?
He could never be a substitute for ‘Shuuhei.’ And yet, these delusions: were they perhaps a yearning for that kind of happiness hidden somewhere within his heart? Could he not walk alongside these souls journeying through their ‘first lives,’ submit himself to the same ‘happiness of ties’ that bound them as his body aged? He wavered, arguing with himself.
Was he so shaken because he had been alone for too long?
“It’s gonna close soon.”
He spun, startled, at the abrupt voice. Takaya emerged from the shrubbery.
“...What the hell? You were following me?”
“You sure you don’t want to go in?”
“Hmph. Mind your own fucking beeswax.”
“So that’s her? Your vessel’s sister?” After being relieved by Naoe, Takaya had apparently secretly followed him here. Returning his gaze, Takaya asked, “Who’s that with her? Her boyfriend?”
(Oh.) Chiaki thought.
He had suddenly realized the object of Natsumi’s unrequited love—
“She’s pretty cute.”
“She’s my ‘sister’.”
“Are you in love with her?” Takaya asked, no change at all in his casual tone, and Chiaki’s eyes widened for a moment.
“Are you kidding me?” he finally managed with his usual insouciance. “I go for sexy women with curves.”
“Chiaki. She’s off-limits,” Takaya warned in his ‘Kagetora’ voice. “She might be a ‘stranger’ to you, but to her, you’re her ‘little brother.’”
“...”
“I know you know this.”
She could never return such feelings. It was not even the taboo of incest, but that she would never put ‘Chiaki Shuuhei’ in the category of potential love interests. Unlike the step-brother with whom she shared no actual blood, she would never regard her ‘biological brother’ that way.
“—What if I, say, explained to her that I’m a stranger in possession of her brother’s body...?”
“Chiaki.”
Within the restaurant, Natsumi suddenly became aware of their presence and waved through the window. Takaya grabbed him as he tried to leave.
“She’s coming out.”
Natsumi hurried outside without even throwing on a coat.
“I’m so happy you made it! ...Oh, who’s this?”
“Ougi-kun, a co-worker.”
Takaya hurriedly uttered a ‘Nice to meet you.’ ‘Thank you for looking after my brother,’ Natsumi returned politely, bowing her head. Then she turned her bright smile back to Chiaki.
“I’m glad you made it before they closed. I was so sure you’d come. Come on, let’s not stand around in this cold. Our brother Yoshiki is waiting for you, too.”
“I gotta go to work.”
“But I thought your workplace was being remodeled?”
“I found another job. I’m just here to return your tupperware.” He held out a paper bag. “Thank you. It was really good.”
“Shuuhei...”
“You should get back inside, you’re gonna catch a cold standing around like that. ...Tell our brother I said hello,” Chiaki added, and began walking away. To forestall Natsumi, who looked like she was about to try to stop him, Takaya bowed slightly and trotted after Chiaki, leaving Natsumi standing in the cold in her sleeveless sweater.
Chiaki never looked back, taking a straight path down the ginkgo-lined path illuminated by the orange light of street-lamps towards the subway station.
“Nagahide’s been acting rather out of character, hasn’t he?” Naoe opined cautiously when Takaya showed up alone at Shiba Toushou Shrine the next day to relieve him. The morning sunlight illuminated him through the windows of the Windom, from which he had conducted his surveillance. So he’d noticed as well. “To go so far as to meet his vessel’s family... It’s not like him. To steal a body is to steal a person’s life—to kill them, in other words. How does he have the nerve to meet the family of a person he’s killed—not once, but several times?” Naoe’s tone revealed his doubt and censure. “How is it he’s never felt guilt at performing kanshou on non-embryonic hosts? I’ve never understood that about him... Maybe because he’s always been a bit different from the rest of us.”
“Different...”
“I suppose you could say he has no attachments, or that you can never tell what he’s really thinking. He doesn’t bat an eye over the things the rest of us can’t help but obsess over... On other hand, there are times I rather envy his rational and unsentimental approach to things—it seems a kind of ‘freedom.’” Naoe’s brows clouded as he laid his hands lightly on the steering wheel. “I don’t think it would occur to Nagahide that he should meet his vessel’s family as a kind of a atonement.”
“So Chiaki’s never told you, then?”
“About what?”
“His vessel.”
Naoe gave Takaya a puzzled look. “What happened during his kanshou?”
“... Well, I only recently heard about it, too.” The winter-clear blue sky stretched high above the skyscrapers crowding close around them. Looking at the windshield glass slightly fogged by the chill of the morning, Takaya muttered absentmindedly, “Apparently his vessel was planning to commit suicide.”
He‘d met ’Shuuhei’ at a hospital by the sea.
An ambulance had brought him there in critical condition, soaked through with sea water.
It’d been the middle of the night. He had ridden his motorcycle straight off the wharf of a tiny fishing harbor overlooking the Sea of Japan while being chased by a police patrol car. It had been considered an accident. But they hadn’t known the truth. A passing fishing boat rescued him, but he had ingested too much water; by the time he arrived at the hospital his heart rate and breathing were already weak, and he was close to cardiac arrest.
The ER took desperate measures to save his life.
(While I only looked on...)
Not even offering a ‘Please live—’
(I just looked at him, this man who had given up on his life.)
Chiaki breathed a small sigh as he ran a finger through the condensation forming on the hotel room window. Dull sunlight sparkled on the drops of water trickling downward.
All right, then. It was the first and last thing Yasuda Nagahide ever said to the soul of Chiaki Shuuhei. “If you don’t need it, give it to me.”
There was no glimmer of resistance in ‘Shuuhei’ as his vitals continued to drop. His soul was already half-detached. For an instant, at the moment of kanshou, he touched ’Shuuhei’s memories and consciousness. He was in a house, arguing loudly with an adult man. His older sister and mother were crying. Then an image of himself swinging the bat in his hands, and the man crumbling to the floor with a pool of blood spreading rapidly around him.
“I killed Yoshiki’s dad...”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“I have...nothing left.”
(It’s what ‘Shuuhei’ wanted...)
He ran his fingertips down the glass, gazing at the blurring streets through the condensation.
He’d wanted to disappear from this world.
(It wasn’t an accident—it was suicide.)
He didn’t know what became of ‘Chiaki Shuuhei’ once he left his body. After kanshou, ‘Shuuhei’ had recovered at an astonishing rate, and left the hospital and vanished before the police could question him.
‘Shuuhei’ had assumed that the police wanted to arrest him for the assault, when in fact they had only been chasing him because he had overrun a police checkpoint. In fact, his family had never reported the incident, and they had only gone to the police to file a missing persons report.
(He thought he killed his step-father.)
The alarm clock rang. He’d hardly slept.
Sleep was impossible with Natsumi’s face flickering in and out of his mind’s eye.
“—Even if I explained to her that I’m a stranger in possession of her brother’s body...?”
(If I told her, she’d only call me a cruel bastard for not saving her brother.)
What if he tried to become ‘Shuuhei’—could they try for a close ‘sibling’ relationship...?
(While trying to hide these dangerous feelings?)
“Fuck...” he muttered to himself, flopping face-up back on his bed as his febrile thoughts raced around and around his head. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t do unrequited love—he wasn’t that stupid. I’m not like the rest of you; I won’t be tied up by useless feelings.
(Sorry, but I’m gonna pass...)
I’ve had enough of that kind of love just spectating.
I’m not strong enough to step knowingly into Hell. Someone who plunges in recklessly might be called rash, but to give oneself up to love without pausing to think of the consequences is also, in a certain sense, brave. There is no courage in knowingly dragging your beloved with you into hell. To know that being with that person will bring only pain, and still abandon yourself to that thankless sentiment—
(...Guess the soul within this body is just too cowardly for that.)
At the sudden sound of his room’s doorbell, Chiaki sprang to his feet. Takaya must be up and looking for him. Crap! It wouldn’t do for Takaya to find him in this pathetic state, he thought, slapping his cheeks to get himself back to his normal composed state. He opened the door...and caught his breath.
Natsumi stood there.
“Good morning, Shuuhei,” she panted.
Had she rushed over by bike in this cold? Her cheeks were apple-red above her down jacket. She held out a quilted bag with a lunch box.
“I’m glad I made it in time! Here’s your lunch.”
Though it was Sunday, she must have gotten up early to make it for him; her eyes were still puffy. Natsumi smiled brightly at the dumbfounded Chiaki.
“Heheh, I gave it my best. I don’t want to be a nuisance, but... I’m sorry about last night. I guess restaurant food is never as good as home-cooked. I made sure to pack lots of nutrients—”
He stepped forward without a word and hugged her tight.
Natsumi stiffened in surprise.
Chiaki buried his face in her hair.
“...Shuuhei...?”
Around Shiba Park, tension rose as the sun fell, and trees like shadow puppets seemed to close in on Shiba Toushou Shrine.
The silhouette of Tokyo Tower rose against a dark red sunset. Activity in and around the shrine was at a fever pitch as the onshou of the Iga League amassed their troops, giving its tiny grounds a night festival-like appearance. At last the streetlights began to flicker on, and naked light bulbs lining the shrine path glowed bright. The entryway to the shrine office had been left open, and people bustled in and out. In this lively atmosphere, one would not have been surprised to see food stands and festival booths hawking their wares.
“Chiaki. Where the hell have you been?” was Takaya’s annoyed greeting when Chiaki finally showed up.
“Sorry. I needed to cool my head.”
“...All right.” Takaya didn’t probe, and Chiaki offered no further explanation. He did, however, seem more like his old self.
“What’s the sitch?”
“Looks like the leaders are here. The meeting’s gonna start soon.”
“Kagetora-sama,” Naoe rushed up to them from behind. “We have them surrounded. Our warning system is complete.”
In preparation for the unexpected, Takaya had mobilized the entire «Nokizaru» force to guard the area, creating a blockade between the onryou and the general populace of the city. They were also prepared to seal the whole park in a defensive barrier if the situation demanded it.
“Hakkai, what’s the status on the Snake-Bones Monster?”
“We are currently unable to detect it.”
“Fine. Keep watching for it. Naoe, circle around to the back and assess the situation.”
“Affirmative.”
“Chiaki, come with me. We’ll follow the plan we laid out yesterday. All right?”
“Yooooou got it.”
Assembly finally complete, everyone entered the shrine office and shut the door, and the meeting began. The Iga League leadership was composed of ten members. It was nineteen-hundred hours, as scheduled. Takaya spoke into his walkie-talkie:
“Let’s do this.”
After taking situation reports from the posted «Nokizaru», Takaya and Chiaki approached the shrine complex. They had arrived at the shrine’s tiny plaza before suddenly noticing a black car coming to a stop before the shrine’s torii gates.
“Wait. Somebody’s coming.”
The person who stepped out from the back was casually dressed and looked, incongruously, like a high school student: a handsome youth of delicate build, with chestnut hair so light as to appear blond and skin too pale to be entirely Japanese. Both Takaya and Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Mori Ranmaru...! That’s Ranmaru!”
“What’s he doing here?!”
Takaya and Chiaki looked at each other, equally shocked. Why in the world had Ranmaru come to a meeting of the heads of the Iga League, Oda’s mortal enemies? He couldn’t possibly be here to negotiate peace, could he? Oda?
“Could he be here to try to win them over?”
Naoe and the Nokizaru had also spotted him. “Wait,” Takaya commanded everyone, while he and Chiaki strained to trace Ranmaru’s movements. Ranmaru and his small entourage passed beneath the torii gates.
“Kagetora-sama,” came the transmission from Hakkai, “Spiritual power levels within the site appears to be spiking due to third-party interference.”
“What...! Is it Oda?”
“Kagetora! Look!”
Takaya turned to see a succession of onryou burst up from underground, where the Iga League’s barrier didn’t reach, and barrel after Ranmaru. Ranmaru easily scattered them with his magic.
“He’s not here to talk peace.”
(Is he here for Lady Iwamura’s wraith, then...?)
Though there was no wind, the shrine’s giant gingko tree suddenly shook violently. Takaya moved on instinct.
“Defensive barrier, now! They’re coming!”
With a deep thunderous roar the giant gingko tree split right down its middle, and fire gushed out of the crack. The barrier around the shrine complex came crashing down, and Oda’s onryou stormed the main shrine with voices raised in rage.
Ranmaru shouted, “Surround them! Do not allow Lady Iwamura to rally!”
Alerted to the tumult, the Iga League’s magistrates rushed out of the shrine office with shouts of “We’re under attack!” “Return fire!” Instantly the fight was joined with exchanges of spiritual fire.
“Graaaargh!”
Ranmaru launched missiles formed of his will at the shrine. With an earth-shaking crash half of the shrine crumbled to ruin.
“Shit! The Snake-Bones Monster...!” Takaya bellowed into his transceiver, “The Snake-Bones Monster is waking up! It may go on a rampage. Strengthen the defensive barrier!”
“Kagetora-sama!” Naoe’s voice was close to a scream. The next instant, the ground beneath their feet jolted and split part in all directions with a strange crackling, crunching sound, forming giant fissures radiating outward from the main shrine building. The shrine path crumbled, and asphalt broke apart.
The uncontainable destructive power pierced through the defensive barrier and tore long gouges into the highway in front of them.
“Oh shit!”
They could hear car tires screeching and the thud of colliding vehicles. Sinkholes appeared, with rifts deep enough to reach underground.
There was a subway running directly beneath them...
“Chiaki! Stop the subway service from reaching this station!”
“Dammit!” He was sprinting for the subway entrance before Takaya had even finished speaking. The power of the awakening Snake-Bones Monster had exceeded their wildest estimation.
A dark shadow appeared at the entrance of the main shrine building: a skeletal serpent wearing the face of a long-haired woman. Its face alone was human.
“There you are, Lady Iwamura... You should have stayed quietly buried within Iwamura’s caves,” Ranmaru sneered. “This undue grudge becomes you not. With my lord’s resurrection at hand, those nearest him must cease their tiresome fracas.”
“Destroy the Oda!” The Iga League magistrates squared off against their attackers with the Snake-Bones Monster at their center. “Destroy our enemies!”
The ground was rupturing ever more quickly. The skeletal snake divided itself and attacked from multiple directions.
“Hold them back!” Takaya shouted, and the «Nokizaru» poured their power into the defensive barrier. “Break up this fight! Naoe, to the main building!”
“At your command!”
The Snake-Bones Monster’s rampage had transformed the giant ginkgo tree into something monstrous, and its roots, now hard as steel, were running amok. Parts of the subway entrance and stairs had already collapsed, and quite suddenly its walls and ceiling were coming down as well. The station was rubble, but luckily no trains were either in or near it. On the other hand, this was a busy line. Chiaki burst into the station office and forced the service into emergency shutdown. Then he bellowed at the panicked passengers: “Do not use the Onarimon Exit! Keep calm and head for the A2 and A1 exits!”
Happily, this being the weekend, the number of passengers was far below its usual levels. The electrical system was up and running, and the still-functioning lights were holding back the worst of the panic. If the tree grew any more violent, however, the whole place was in danger of collapse.
“Move along, hurry!”
“Shuuhei!”
Shocked at the familiar female voice, Chiaki looked over his shoulder to see a completely unexpected face among the fleeing passengers.
It was Natsumi.
“Na...Natsumi-san, why!”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I wanted to know where you were, what you were doing, so...!”
“You followed me?! Why...?!”
“Because you wouldn’t take it!” Natsumi yelled, half sobbing. “It was like you were saying that we would never meet again!”
Her words stunned Chiaki. He had refused her bento and silently returned home, his expression so troubled that it had made Natsumi suddenly uneasy.
“I can’t bear to have our family torn any further apart!”
Concrete from the ceiling came crashing down, and Chiaki immediately threw himself on top of Natsumi. Luckily the structure was still holding, but it was only a matter of time before the whole thing collapsed.
I say no to being buried alive, Chiaki thought. “Let’s get out of here first! It’s getting dangerous.”
“Kyaaaah!”
The wall tiles exploded, and the monster gingko tree’s roots rushed through and came straight toward them.
“!”
He smashed it apart with a burst of will as he lifted Natsumi in his arms.
“Run!”
More steely roots crashed through the ceiling and shot towards them. Chiaki fought with all his might to keep them at bay as he dashed for the opposite exit and up the stairs, finally reaching the outside to see a black shadow that looked like a gigantic hill with many heads rising from the direction of Shiba Toushou Shrine.
“Aaaaaah...! Wh-what is that?!”
“Just New Year’s festivities.”
“What?”
“Stay here, Natsumi-san. Someone will come to pick you up soon.”
“No way! Shuuhei...!”
Chiaki dashed off without another word. Back at Shiba Toushou Shrine the Snake-Bones Monster was destroying everything in sight. The onryou were finding it impossible to control, and even Ranmaru was fighting an uphill battle.
“Damn you...! If you are my lord’s aunt, how could you not want Oda to rule the country?”
“Stop attacking it! Stop, Ranmaru!”
“!”
Ranmaru turned at the sound of Takaya’s voice.
“Kagetora...! Hmph, I should have known you’d stick your noses into this.”
“Don’t rouse the Snake-Bones Monster’s malice any further! Withdraw! If you don’t...!”
“Keep out of this, Uesugi!”
“Kagetora-sama!”
Naoe shielded Takaya with a «goshinha» as Ranmaru shot a bolt of will at him. In the meantime, Lady Iwamura’s frenzy grew ever more violent.
“I will never forgive you for this, Nobunaga!”
“Die! I will extinguish you!”
“A bit too early for all this drama when the man himself hasn’t even made an appearance yet, don’t you think?” Chiaki vaulted over the fallen torii gates.
“Chiaki!”
“I’ll teach you respect!”
He threw a koppashin at the giant snake and drew “ (Ii)”, the shuji of Taishakuten. Lightning struck the Snake-Bones Monster with an ear-splitting crash, hurtling it head over tail through the air. As it writhed in pain, Lady Iwamura’s onryou crawled through the serpentine skeleton.
Her hideous suppurating form swelled in the blink of an eye into a giant rampaging onryou. There was no longer any distinction between her and the monster. Her evil aura rushed toward them like poison gas, attacking everyone indiscriminately and indefensibly, felling Ranmaru and the magistrates of the Iga League where they stood. And Takaya and the Yasha-shuu were next in its path...!
“Chiaki, Naoe!”
They immediately formed the symbol of Bishamonten.
“ (Bai)!”
They managed to bind the wraith. Shielded by Bishamonten’s protective aura, they raised their voices in unison: “Noumakusamanda ...”
Their power whirled around Lady Iwamura like a tornado and drew away her poisonous energy.
“«Choubuku»!”
Light burst over Shiba Toushou Shrine like a mass explosion of fireworks. Natsumi saw it light up the entire park in a tremendous flash that seared into her retinas, but she could not tell with it meant.
Eventually the fierce light faded, and nescient darkness fell once more.
She gradually became aware of the tumult of fire-engines and ambulances arriving on the scene, their flashing red lights criss-crossing the trees around her. “No entry” tape had already been placed across the subway entrance.
Chiaki, his clothes torn and dirty, came back for her perhaps thirty minutes later. She had begun to shiver as she waited.
“Nee-san...”
“Who are you?” Those short syllables froze Chiaki in place. He stared wide-eyed at a pale Natsumi. “You’re not Shuuhei... so who are you?”
Mirror-Image Love Chapter 4: You Are Wind
Gentle afternoon sunlight poured into the tiny park tucked into a narrow slip between old apartment buildings just off main street.
Natsumi had slipped out during her lunch break carrying a bento for two. Chiaki had arranged their meeting this time. Pigeons circled their feet, hunting for crumbs, as they ate their lunch.
“Thank you, it was delicious,” Chiaki said, closing the lid of the tupperware and taking a drink of his bottled Japanese tea. “Your bentos are the best. Especially the rolled omelets.”
“Are you being sarcastic?” Natsumi pouted.
The back of the omelets was burned, and not just slightly. Chiaki continued to poke fun as Natsumi licked the tip of her chopsticks and closed her tupperware as well.
“I’m so sorry about the other day, Shuuhei. I don’t know why I said all that weird stuff...”
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”
“Amnesia can affect your day-to-day behavior, and brain damage can even change people’s personalities. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m so happy just to know that you’re alive, Shuuhei.”
Chiaki looked at her with gentle eyes while Natsumi lowered her gaze.
“I think you got a little depressed after Mom married Step-father... You refused to listen to either of them, and they didn’t know how to handle you. You loved our father so much, and you opposed their marriage through rebellion.”
“...”
“You couldn’t forgive Mom for remarrying less than two years after his death. You had a huge fight with Step-father that day. In the end you hit him and ran out of the house. Everyone went out to look for you, but we couldn’t find you anywhere.”
The bright windless warmth of the afternoon sun didn’t feel like winter. Natsumi continued, her gaze on the flock of pigeons pecking at her feet, “That’s why I was kinda glad you didn’t remember that day. I’m sorry, Shuuhei. But both Mom and Step-father really do want you to come home. Yoshiki, too.”
“Are you in love with him?” Natsumi gave Chiaki a startled look. Chiaki smirked. “You’re in love with our step-brother, aren’t you?”
“...Oh boy. Am I that obvious?” Natsumi’s cheeks tinted faintly with embarrassment. “I guess I am. From the very first time we met, actually. That’s why I wasn’t opposed to Mom remarrying—it would mean that we could all live together. It made me feel guilty towards you.”
“It’s fine, isn’t it? I don’t know what the law says, but you’re not actually related by blood.”
“He’d never want me. I mean, he’s an adult.”
“So?” Chiaki gave her a smile small. “You’re more attractive than you realize.”
“Guess you’ve learned flattery, at least,” Natsumi retorted wryly, blushing. “So, New Year’s is over, but there’s still the burning of New Year’s gate decorations on the 15th. How about we go home for that?”
Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Burning of New Year’s gate decorations—urg! ...Um, I guess you don’t remember, huh? It’s also called ’Dondo,” where we take all our New Year’s decorations to the shrine and burn it in a great big bonfire. It’s pretty awesome. We would roast rice cakes—you always liked that. I’ll go too, it’ll be like a little pilgrimage back home. You don’t have to live there or anything, but Mom would really like to see you. So..."
Chiaki said nothing. He only gave Natsumi a look full of fondness before deliberately standing.
“Be happy, Onee-san. Live without regret.”
“Shuuhei?”
“You have only one life. So don’t waste it on regret.”
“Wait...! Where are you going, Shuuhei?”
She quickly stood and grabbed Chiaki’s shirt. Chiaki turned and placed his hands on her shoulders, bending so he could meet her eyes on an equal level.
“There’s just one thing I need to apologize to you about, Natsumi-san.”
“Wha...?”
“I’ve realized that I shouldn’t have simply looked on like a god of Death; I should have stepped in... For your sake, if not his.”
Natsumi looked puzzled. Pained, Chiaki bowed his head to her. “For not stopping him...I am sorry.”
Natsumi didn’t understand, of course. Chiaki exhaled a long breath and looked deep into her eyes. She felt caught, unable to look away.
“Farewell.”
He hypnotized her with the intention of erasing himself and the past few days completely from her memory. It would have been the best course. It was what he should have done from the start. What good would it do her to keep these memories of a false ‘Shuuhei’? None—was Chiaki’s conclusion. Better to have these memories fade away under hypnosis.
Her lips moved, trying to say something.
Chiaki’s eyes flew wide. He realized that Natsumi was resisting, though unconsciously.
“Natsumi-san.”
He lost his focus, and the hypnosis unraveled. Natsumi came back to herself to see Chiaki smiling wryly in self-mockery.
“Shuuhei.”
“Sorry, Onee-san. I can’t go home with you.”
“Why?”
“I’m traveling abroad as an humanitarian volunteer and probably won’t be back for a while. It’s honest work, so don’t worry. I’ll contact you when I get back.”
“Really? You’ll remember?”
“Of course,” Chiaki responded, smiling broadly. “When I get back I’ll want to eat your bento again. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Shuuhei.”
“See you, Onee-san.”
Natsumi felt no lie in Chiaki’s cheerful words. She nodded earnestly. “I’ll be waiting!”
The pigeons took flight.
Chiaki parted from Natsumi beneath the gentle winter sun.
They did not say goodbye.
“Why did you stop?” Takaya asked on the limited express train back to Matsumoto. Chiaki took the partially consumed plastic bottle from his lips. “You were going to erase her memories, weren’t you?”
“... Eh. Who knows?” Chiaki answered, gazing out the window at Yatsugatake Mountain Range crowned with brilliant white clouds standing in stark relief from the blue sky. “I just thought she’d be happier this way.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“...”
“Was it because of what you felt for her?”
“I told you, I don’t do unrequited love.”
So long as he inhabited his body, any confession from him would only dismay and distress Natsumi. And if he told her he was ‘someone else,’ he would have to explain what had happened to her brother.
“Anyone would grieve if they were told ‘your brother committed suicide.’”
“Chiaki...”
“I don’t want to make her cry...”
Right or wrong didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was that he cared for her.
“Besides, I don’t want her to hate me. Guess that makes me kinda despicable.”
He could not be around Natsumi lest he fell even deeper for her, so he had left. But he hadn’t erased her memories. He likely had to admit to ulterior motives for that—but on the other hand, Natsumi had carried a dark and heavy burden of guilt for her lost brother. Surely knowing that her brother was alive, even if she never saw him again, had eased that burden at least a little bit, would continue to bolster her in the future?
“She might worry, but telling her that her brother was going to live overseas will at least give her a seed of hope.”
“...”
“She won’t be sad. She’ll remember his smile as they parted, and she won’t fall into depression. Doesn’t everyone want to imagine the woman they love smiling? ...So it’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Chiaki.”
Chiaki’s candidness gave Takaya an amorphous sense of deja-vu.
Yatsugatake filled the windows, its upper half covered with snow like a white veil.
“Is this your ‘freedom,’ then?” Takaya asked quietly.
Chiaki snorted a laugh. “If nobody can save us from this reality, I will gulp it down.” They swayed comfortably with the train’s motion over the tracks. Chiaki’s gaze returned to the mountain peaks as he sing-songed, “...’Cause I am wind.”