Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

I lowered my gaze to my hands, flexing my fingers once while Rui and Ume continued rolling around on the deck in a squealing tangle of limbs, skirts, and offended pride. Akuchi had a hand over her mouth by then, laughing too hard to try to hide it, and even the garden felt lighter for a minute, the ginkgo leaves stirring above us like they approved of all the house’s new occupants.

I idly wondered why Natalia-sama hadn’t gotten involved.

But my chest did not stay light for long, returning to the mindset that drove me to perform kata in the yard to clear my mind.

Loss still lived in there, sharing space with warmth. So did the fading softness of the kiss I’d shared with Akuchi. So did the old ache that returned whenever I thought too hard about Baku’s dream world and all the impossible love I’d gotten to experience there for a little while. I let out a slow breath and tipped my head back to look at the green canopy overhead.

Life moved on, as hard as it was.

That thought did not feel cruel anymore, just honest. The world was not going to stop and wait for me to finish grieving in a tidy and beautiful way. The days would keep passing. The detective license exams would come soon. Missions would come after that, assuming I passed. We, especially Natalia-sama and Rui, would keep building SSDS. People would keep expecting me to move on and be professional.

I could not keep drifting with that forever. I needed to find myself before becoming a genuine spiritual detective.

“I think...” I began, then sat up a little straighter and looked at all of them one by one. “I’m sorry to say this so directly… but I think I want to live alone for a while.”

That stopped Rui and Ume faster than any referee’s whistle could have. They untangled with a flurry of offended noises and pushed themselves upright springing to my side. Akuchi’s ears twitched in confusion. Natalia-sama had appeared on the deck without me noticing the exact moment she arrived, calm as always, her golden hair catching the morning light while she watched me with unreadable patience.

“I need to figure out who I want to be,” I said. “Not only what and who you need me to become. Life can’t only be about SSDS and going wherever the current takes me. I need my own things to do too… my own things to live for. So I will look for an apartment.” Just the idea of going back to live in my old apartment disgusted me. I was sure that the nosy landowner would catch on that Susumu was gone and a stranger had moved in.

“What?!” Rui gasped.

“I need to track down my possessions. I need...” I swallowed and forced myself to say it plainly. “I need to see what kind of woman I become when nobody is telling me where to go.”

They all started talking at once.

“We’ll help you,” Ume said immediately. “I can help carry stuff,” she added, already half raising her hand like this was a classroom. Old habits died hard.

Akuchi nodded, looking anxious. “I’m sure that I could track down some good places for you.”

“What’s wrong with the house that Natalia gave us, Susu?” Rui said, glaring. “It’s beautiful and there’s plenty of room for you to train in the yard. You’d trade all this and us for a cramped apartment? You haven’t even tried the bath yet!”

“I’m sorry, Rui, but I need some time and space to think.” I looked at Akuchi and shook my head. “And I’ll find a place myself,” I said, offering Akuchi a smile.

That came out firmer than I expected, and they all went still.

I drew in a breath. “Thank you, everyone. Really. But I need to do this on my own.”

Rui’s face scrunched up in open irritation at once. “Why? That is stupid.”

“Because I won’t feel worthy of all this responsibility if I can’t achieve even a few things by myself,” I said. “You’re all giving me a place to live and work and trusting me to do the job right. I don’t want to accept all of that while I still can’t even stand on my own feet outside SSDS.”

Rui opened her mouth, pointed at me, then jabbed that finger harder like volume alone would push me backward.

“Don’t be so stupid. We’re offering to help. At least accept that much.”

Her tone would have flattened Susumu. It used to. He’d be flailing and curling up on the inside. Rui had always known how to get under his skin, how to crowd him, how to push until he bent just to make the noise stop. But as she glared at me from beneath her messy black hair, I felt the difference clearly. I was not as bullyable, nor controllable as I had been. The sensation was strange enough that I nearly smiled.

If anything, the person Rui had always struggled to move was Reiko. She was truly adamant.

That thought came with a little sting of fondness. Rui could needle, whine, cling, and complain for an hour, and Reiko would still do whatever she had planned to do. About the only thing Rui ever managed with her consistently was ending up in the same bed. Reiko had also been one of the few people who treated Rui like a woman without hesitation or cruelty, never mocking her small body, never looking down on her for it.

Now Rui was staring at me and finding the same wall.

Natalia-sama’s lips curved faintly. She did not look displeased.

“I think that initiative is healthy,” she said. “This will probably be good for you.” Her gaze settled on me more directly. “How do you intend to get an apartment?”

I answered before I could lose my nerve. “I’ll figure it out. I can sleep in parks if I have to until I find a job.”

Rui made a strangled noise and stamped so hard the deck gave a soft wooden thump under her shoe.

“You are being an idiot. Ungrateful idiot!” she snapped. “We only have five days left before the exams. Five. We do not have room for you to run off on a ridiculous tangent trying to find yourself. Stay here with us. Train and relax.”

I shook my head.

“I can’t do that. I get a feeling that I won’t be happy if I just follow your orders forever.” I held her gaze even while my heart beat harder. “I promise that I’ll be back to take the exam so I can become the Spiritual Detective you need.”

“Baka!” Rui muttered again, though it came out weaker that time.

Natalia-sama gave her a sidelong look, then reached into her purse and removed a wallet with elegant, feminine movements. She slid out a card and held it between two fingers.

“This is a secondary account that I have been using to fund SSDS,” she said. “I will open another one for our business here. I would like you to borrow this for now.”

I stared at the card.

“My condition is that you use it to find somewhere affordable,” she continued, her mouth curving with dry amusement. “I am not a sugar mama.”

A very visible sweatdrop might as well have appeared on all of us at once.

I waved both hands quickly. “No, no... I’d much rather just get a job. I need that kind of socializing to figure things out.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Rui snapped again, throwing her hands up now. “You do not have that kind of time. You act like you have all the time in the world.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, wincing a little. “But I want to work for it, like I did when I moved out from my parents’ house. It won’t mean anything otherwise. I’ll only be following along and calling it growth.”

That changed Natalia-sama’s expression.

Warmth filled her face so quickly that the faint flush reached her cheeks before I fully understood what I had said to her. Then she crossed the distance between us in a few smooth steps, bent toward me, and wrapped both arms around me without warning.

I let out a small sound of surprise that got cut off when she kissed me.

It was not just a peck, nor was it playful either. Her mouth pressed to mine with enough feeling to make my knees soften almost at once, and my body betrayed me in the most humiliating way possible by melting into her on contact. Natalia-sama had that effect on me. She always had. Even when I first met her in her shop, when I still did not understand what kind of woman she was, there had been a pull to her that felt sunny, warm, a little dangerous and impossible to refuse.

When she finally drew back, I had to fight not to sway where I stood, my face burning. My heart was pounding so hard that I was sure everyone could hear it.

“I completely agree with you,” she said softly, still close enough that I could feel the heat of her body. “But please take the card and use it initially. Find a job right away. You can return the card to me afterward and reimburse me for whatever you use later.”

I swallowed hard and nodded before my voice made a fool of me. Then I failed anyway.

“I will pay you back for all of it,” I said, looking up at her, still trying not to wobble. “And extra. To help pay for SSDS’ expenses.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rui freeze.

When I glanced at her, her expression was still caught somewhere between annoyance and a full doki-doki moment she clearly did not want anybody to notice. That only made her look more irritated, which somehow made it worse for her.

“Good,” Natalia-sama said.

She tilted her head a little and extended the card toward me again.

This time, after a brief hesitation, I accepted it.

It felt much heavier than a card should have.

Rui marched over at once and jabbed me in the arm with one finger, not hard enough to hurt, only hard enough to make her point.

“Make sure you let us know where you live,” she said. “You do not get to be a stranger.”

I looked down at the card in my hand, then back at all of them. Rui was glaring. Ume was watching me with bright worried eyes. Akuchi’s ears were still tipped forward. Natalia-sama stood nearest, calm and beautiful and impossible to ignore.

For the first time since waking from Baku’s dream world, the path ahead did not look kind. It did not look easy either, but I chose it myself.

“I won’t,” I said.

Natalia-sama did not let me leave empty-handed.

By the time I stepped into the genkan with my shoes on and the strap of the pack settled over my shoulder, she had already filled a modest bag with supplies I would actually need, bottled water, some basic toiletries, a change of clothes, a small towel, a packet of tissues, painkillers, a notebook, and enough cash tucked into an envelope that I could not pretend she had not thought several steps ahead of me. She stood in front of me while I adjusted the weight of it, her expression composed in that unfair way of hers, as if she had always known this would happen and had simply been waiting for me to catch up.

“I am not sending you out into Tokyo on your own like a stray cat with no provisions,” she said.

Rui made an offended noise from behind her. “You’re less prepared than a stray cat.”

“Quiet you,” I muttered.

“Nope.” She pulled down an eyelid and made a rude gesture.

Natalia-sama ignored us both and placed another card in my hand. This one was not another bank card. It was her business card, cream colored, elegant, and a little ridiculous in how cute it looked held between my fingers. Her name and business name were printed on it along with a phone number, an email address, and the name of her LANE account written below in neat lettering. It oddly reminded me of the patch that she’d stitched onto my sentai suit’s backside to advertise her business.

“Get a phone as soon as possible,” she said. “Use the card for that. Once you have your number, message me immediately. When you find somewhere to live, I will send some basics to the address. A futon, kitchenware, the little things that make sleeping on the floor slightly less romantic than you imagine it will be, as well as your clothes that I’m keeping at my atelier.”

“I was not looking forward to sleeping on the floor of whatever apartment I get.” I said dryly. “There’s nothing romantic about catching a cold on the first night in your new home.”

“No?” Her mouth curved faintly. “Then you are already wiser than most people who decide to go on a journey to discover themselves through avoidable discomfort.”

I tucked the business card carefully into my wallet with my relatively new My Number card that we’d obtained a few real world days ago, although it felt like it was a long time ago since we saw the Yōkai Council.

“I’ll contact you as soon as I can.”

“You had better,” Rui said, folding her arms. “If you vanish and make us search for you, I’m going to be furious. Since I’m a detective, whether they’ll give me a license or not, I WILL track you down. There’s nowhere you can hide from me. Wahahaha!”

“Kami…” I shook my head, clapping a hand to my forehead. “I won’t run from you. Even if I can fend you off and kiss you senselessly, I know that you’d never let me go.” I grinned at Rui as she blushed, remembering the way I held and kissed her until she surrendered in my lap.

“Baka!” Rui pouted. “I didn’t think your training would make you so annoying.” She huffed, looking away.

Ume had gone quiet by then, her eyes bright in a way that made her look younger and softer than usual, even though her breasts were considerably larger than Rui’s. Akuchi leaned in the hall with her hands stuffed in her hoodie pockets, her orange skirt brushing her knees, acting casual enough that I knew at once she was paying attention to everything. 

I looked at the two of them, then back at Natalia-sama.

“Thank you for everything, Natalia-sama,” I said.

She stepped closer and adjusted the strap on my shoulder with deft fingers, smoothing it as if I had somehow put it on incorrectly despite there being only one obvious way to wear it. Then she touched my cheek once, brief and warm, and stepped back before the gesture could turn me into a mess again.

I was completely unworthy of her and I knew it. Natalia-sama, Ume and Rui were all business owners. I was closer to being like Akuchi, aimless in life. If I was still a man, I’d have thought of myself as a ronin and ronins were unworthy of any of them.

“Go on,” she said softly. “Before Rui chains you up in your bedroom.”

Rui sniffed. “I’d need a really strong chain. Do you happen to have some stored in a dusty room that we haven’t discovered yet?”

“Maybe.” Natalia smirked. “But I won’t help you with that. You’ll have to get strong enough to catch her on your own.”

Rui pouted. “I’ll get strong in my own way so that I can properly help Sumire.” She walked over to Natalia-sama and poked her stomach. “You moved Dad’s things from the back room, right? I want to look through things. At least I’ll be able to focus without her around.”

She feels that way about me, even though I’m just a freeloader?

I laughed despite myself, turned, and stepped out the front door past the orange gate in front to walk through the Shinto shrine outside, past the coin box through a thin crowd of visitors towards the street with the pack on my back, the card in my wallet, and a pulse throbbing in my throat that would not settle right away.

One of the mikos we’d met several days ago glanced at me and stopped sweeping long enough to wave at me.

I waved back, feeling warm, not looking back at the ryokan turned shrine.

If I had, I might have stayed. Life here was appealing.

High above the street, where the old roofline cut against the morning sky, the aged figure watched the girl leave with the kind of attention he gave to things that were apparent to him before anyone else noticed, things that had begun to change shape.

Below him, Tokyo continued on as Tokyo always did. Trains moved. Traffic breathed. The neighboring yards held laundry lines and narrow strips of green that had no idea they existed beside a threshold between worlds. The ginkgo leaves stirred in the mild air and the fox statues kept their patient vigil over a portal.

The troubled girl who had been practicing kata in the yard was gone now. In her place, a determined young woman walked down the street with a borrowed pack on her shoulder and the uncertain stiffness of someone who had chosen hardship on purpose because the easier path offered the least, while offering so much.

The old figure’s gaze followed her until the turn in the road took her from his sight.

He did not smile, nor did he frown either. He only watched with quiet interest, measuring her body language as she departed the way one might study the first crack in a river’s winter ice and wondering what shape the break would take once it spread.

By the time Sumire reached the second block away from the ryokan and shrine, Akuchi was already trailing her.

She did not do it clumsily. She was a trickster yōkai, who preferred concealment whenever she wasn’t showing off and strutting. She had spent too much of her life learning how to be where she was not expected. Sumire walked at a human pace, lost enough in her own thoughts that she never once glanced up toward the roofs or the narrow places where Akuchi moved. A leap took her from a low wall to a garage roof. Another carried her across to a squat building with sun-faded signage. When she could not stay above, she cut through side alleys and service passages, keeping parallel.

If only she’d taken me with her, I’d have turned into a bike for her or whatever she wanted…

She sighed, hurting from rooftop to rooftop, her jumps longer and farther than most could manage, since she could subtly manipulate her body in ways that let her move in surprising ways.

I’m only following her to make sure Sumire gets to the station safely.

That was not quite a lie. It simply was not the whole truth. She convinced herself of things only moments before changing her mind.

The nearest station was not close. Sumire had to walk for it, and Akuchi watched the rhythm of her walk change as the distance stretched on. Natalia had pointed her which direction to go, since she didn’t have a phone with a map or GPS to guide her. She saw the little moments when Sumire’s hand brushed the strap of her pack or dipped toward where she kept her wallet to make sure everything was still there.

Akuchi saw her pause at a crossing and lift her face to watch a passing train, thinking.

Sumire did not turn back, feeling much stronger than she was by far.

At the station she bought a day pass, stepped through the gate, and made her way to the platform for the southbound line. Akuchi stayed outside her line of sight, perched above a sign for a stretch, then moved again when a station attendant wandered near her. By the time the train arrived, she had already decided she was not letting Sumire disappear into central Tokyo unwatched either.

The train pulled in with a metallic sigh, the wheels rattling on its tracks.

Sumire boarded with the rest of the crowd and vanished into the packed car.

Akuchi hopped onto the roof and lay low.

By the time the train reached Akihabara, I had already been stared at enough times that the sensation had started to blur into the background.

It felt different from when I was a high school aged girl, although I hadn’t taken any trains then, relying on my own two feet and my mint-green mamachari to take me where I needed to go.

At first it had been one or two people on the platform, then a longer glance from a salaryman when I stepped into the car, then quick double takes that came whenever someone’s eyes moved over me and caught on something that refused to fit neatly. My face, my body, my clothes, the way I held myself now, I could not always tell what they found so appealing. Maybe it was everything together. Baku’s dream world had changed me in more ways than I understood. I was certainly more at peace with myself now.

The car was already crowded when I got on. By the second stop it had become standing room only. By the third it felt as though the walls had moved inward. I found space between one of the doors and the end of a bench seat, planted my feet, and fixed my gaze on the window so I would not have to keep meeting strangers’ eyes.

The city slid by in fragments, concrete, signs, wires, glimpses of rooftops, then another tunnel, then light again. My reflection hovered faintly on the glass. She had long brown hair and green eyes. A girl who looked older to me now than she had a month ago, even though a month was not much time at all. Not older in the face, exactly. Older elsewhere.

I had doubts, despite my conviction. Of course I did.

I was walking away from safety, a new family, with five days left before the exams, no apartment lined up yet, no job, and no phone yet. I knew how foolish that sounded. I knew Rui was not entirely wrong. I was a baka. But every time I imagined turning back and simply slipping into the routine they had waiting for me, training, missions, studying, sleeping, being obedient, grateful, I felt a tightness start under my ribs.

I could not go back just because uncertainty was a little frightening.

This was the first time I’d faced the world on my own. Even when I got an apartment, working for the money to lease it, I’d still had my parents, as unaffectionate and unsupportive as they were.

I’d scarcely thought about them before now.

Should I show up with this body and tell them what happened to me? That I’m still alive? I don’t know…

Not once had they called me after I left their house. I shook my head.

No. They don’t need to worry about me.

At one stop, two young men boarded and drifted into the slice of space near me. I noticed them first the way you notice anybody edging too close on a packed train, then more sharply when one of them glanced at the other and smirked.

Something in my stomach knotted.

They were not the same. Not exactly. But the type of them rubbed at an old trauma in me anyway. Tadashi Iwabe. Nakamura Koji. The dream world had made room for boys like that too, boys who looked at you as if your body was theirs to do whatever they wished with.

For half a second my body locked.

Then my training with Aoi… Reiko-chan caught up.

I inhaled once, keeping my posture straight, and did not give ground.

“Hey,” one of them said with the lazy confidence of someone who had never had a reason to doubt himself. “Where are you headed?”

I did not answer.

His friend leaned a little closer. “Come on, don’t be cold. We’re just talking.”

“I’m not interested,” I said.

They exchanged a look that made irritation crawl over my skin.

“That’s really harsh.”

“It was meant to be completely clear.”

One of them laughed under his breath. “You don’t have to act so serious. How about hanging out with us? We were going to Akiba. An arcade, some lunch… who knows, Akiba’s filled with fun things to do.”

I turned my head and looked at them directly then.

“If you keep this up, you’re in for a world of hurt,” I said with flinty eyes.

That made them blink. Then one smirked.

The other lifted his hands a little as if to show he meant nothing by it. “Okay, okay.”

They stopped talking after that.

But they did not go away.

At every stop the crowd shifted and pressed and rearranged itself, and still they remained somewhere behind or beside me, pretending now to be occupied with the ride, the signs, their phones, anything but me. I kept my gaze on the window and counted stations.

This would be dangerous if I was what they thought. I wonder if my wife will wake up if they bother me too much. I wonder what I’ll do to them even if she doesn’t.

When Akihabara finally arrived, I stepped off with the flow of people and did not look back until I had cleared the first choke point on the platform.

They had gotten off too, of course.

Akuchi had seen enough of them by then to stop pretending to herself that she was only making sure Sumire reached the city safely.

She had crouched low on the train roof through the changing rhythm of stations, one hand braced against a metal seam, the wind flattening her hair and tugging at her ears. Human trains were loud in a way the old world never had been. They rattled with purpose. They carried crowds who never imagined anything might be running above them.

From there she could not hear every word through steel and vibration, but she saw enough.

She saw the two men edge nearer. She saw Sumire’s posture sharpen. She saw the angle of her head when she delivered what was almost certainly a threat. Akuchi had grinned at that despite herself.

She had memories of the moment when Sumire kicked their asses in the dream world. Even though they were older and bigger, she recognized them. Tadashi Iwabe. Nakamura Koji. She’d fought them with Sumire as a ferret. There was much more that she could do to them if they made a wrong move.

Still, when the train reached Akihabara and she leapt down along a service structure before cutting across the outer edge of the station, she kept her eyes on all three of them.

Sumire moved ahead into the crowd.

The two followed at a distance they probably thought was subtle.

Akuchi followed all of them now.

Special thanks to PrincessArylin, ShinjiHinako, Assurbanipal II (Achan) for beta reading book three!