108 - Children Kidnapped by Spirits 1
It was Leonardo. Convinced of that, she chased after the owner of the familiar black hair and grabbed the edge of his cape.
"Huh?"
She felt a sense of wrongness in the color of the cape she had grabbed, and stared at her own hand gripping its edge. The cape in her hand was black. It was not the crimson Leonardo always wore.
"I made a mishtake. I'm shorry."
She released the cape with a start and looked up at the person she had grabbed by mistake. The other person was probably surprised too, having his cape suddenly grabbed by a little girl. His red eyes were round with blinking.
...Huh? Is it still Leonardo-san?
She could tell he was a different person, but when she stared at him, he felt like Leonardo. She could not shake the lingering wrongness, and though part of her thought it was rude, she could not look away from the man in the cape.
The color of his hair was black, just like she had mistaken for Leonardo. But the texture was straight, without the waves Leonardo had. His bangs were long, hiding his right eye, but his left eye was as red as a pomegranate. Though she could not see it behind his hair, she had a strange certainty that his right eye should be blue. She could not tell his age. It should not be possible, but he looked like a boy as young as Nils, a young man like Leonardo, and a middle-aged man like Bart all at once.
...What is it? It is weird?
The impression of the young man before her, since he looked Leonardo-like, she would think of him as a young man, would not stabilize. When she observed him carefully, his image shifted. When she tried not to pay attention, she misrecognized him as Leonardo.
"Hmmm?"
As she tilted her head in confusion, the cat-eared hood flopped back behind her.
"No, no. On the night of the Divine King Festival, you must not remove your animal costume."
...Ah, his way of speaking is gentle. Like Alf-san.
His hand gently adjusted her hood, and when she looked up to thank him, the young man who had looked like Leonardo now looked like Alf. But his hair and eye colors were still the same as before.
...Something is strange, is it not?
She thought that, but she could not figure out what was strange.
"Um, thank you for the hood. And, I mistook you for someone else. I'm sorry."
She bowed her head in apology and looked up again. When she did, her hood fell off again, but this time the young man did not reach his arm toward her head to fix it. Instead, he just frowned as if troubled, then made a gentle brushing motion near her shoulder.
"No, no. This child is a human child. Do not play tricks on her."
"...Is there something there?"
Puzzled, she looked at her shoulder with a light head, and there sat a black cat with red eyes. The moment she noticed the black cat, her hood grew heavy, and she reached behind to check.
...Huh? There is something in there?
Feeling a fluffy texture, she pulled out the contents and found a white cat with golden eyes.
"Huh? Kitty, when did you...?"
She was surprised to find a cat she had no memory of putting there coming out of her own hood. It was the hood she had been wearing just moments ago. There was no way a cat was inside.
"This is a problem. Right now, who do I look like to you?"
"You look like Alf-san."
But the hair and eye colors are different, she added. Then she felt a little relieved. "Who do you look like" -- that meant her unstable perception of him was a normal reaction, she realized with a sense of understanding. The thought that this itself was abnormal did not occur to her at all.
"Is that person your family?"
"No."
"Eh?!"
The young man was surprised, so she added that Alf was not family but a friend of Leonardo's. When asked who Leonardo was, she answered that he was like an older brother figure in her current family.
"I mishtook you for Leonardo-san and grabbed big brother's cape."
"Ah, that is good. So at first you did see him as family."
"Yes, I saw him as Leonardo-san."
Then she explained that when she noticed something off and observed him carefully, she could not tell who he was anymore, and when his way of speaking reminded her of Alf, he started to look like Alf. It was a trivial, childish wonder-story, but the young man listened intently to her tale. Even though he should be someone she was meeting for the first time, she felt he was a young man who somehow did not inspire any wariness. When questioned by him, she felt compelled to tell everything honestly, without hiding anything.
"...I see. So you are a person from another world."
"I was born in this world, but probably, I think so."
"From the way you are quick with words, you are a reincarnator on top of that, are you not."
"Yes."
Pointed out as a reincarnator, she admitted it smoothly. Following Aurelia's advice, she had always thought about not being found out, not being noticed, but before this young man, all her wariness seemed to become invalid. The young man, too, showed no sign of capturing her and selling her to someone regardless of whether she was a reincarnator or not. It seemed to be nothing more than a simple fact-check.
"How did you know I am a reincarnator from another world?"
"Because souls from another world are not disliked by spirits."
"Spirits?"
As she looked up at the young man, tilting her head, the black cat on his shoulder let out a small mew. Drawn by the sound, she turned her face to see the black cat, which had been sitting primly with its paws together, now sitting with its legs crossed like a human.
"We hate humans!"
"But we do not hate otherworld humans!"
Whispered to as if in song by the white and black cats, her mind grew a little confused. They hated humans, but apparently did not hate humans from other worlds. It seemed they had a clear distinction among themselves.
"Reincarnators like you are not people of this world, so there is no reason for spirits to dislike them."
"Is there a reason spirits dislike people of this world?"
"It is hard to regain trust once it is lost."
...What did the humans of this world do?
She wondered for a moment, but then something that seemed like the answer came to mind.
...The Recollection Festival?
That festival started from humans of ancient times committing a transgression, incurring the wrath of the goddess of justice Itsurateru, and even the merciful Divine King condemning the man who had erred. Thinking back, she felt that was also the last event where the Divine King's name appeared in history.
"Recollection... It has become quite a soft word now. In the old days, it was called the Festival of Shame, so as not to forget the feeling of shame."
...Huh? I did not say that out loud just now, did I?
She stared at the young man in wonder, and his eyes met hers as he smiled softly. Then she noticed. Her words had been normal for a while now. She was not tripping over her tongue like usual, and her speech was working properly.
...Where is this?
It was a question long overdue, but she could not tell where she was standing right now. She should have been eating candied sweet potato with Hermine in front of the Three Crows Tavern, but she had spotted Leonardo and chased after him. The distance she had moved should have been just a few meters. Yet she could not see Hermine, and moreover, even though it was a festival, there was no one around at all. The scenery was unmistakably the streets of Grenore, but there was no one there except for her, the young man, and the two cats.
"...Huh?"
The moment she grew uneasy, the face of the young man who had looked like Alf became Leonardo again. She should have been scared by the face that kept changing, but now she understood it was normal. With this young man's face, seeing his true face would actually be a problem. She was certain of that.
"A long time ago, a human king with great power used that power to destroy many... truly many lives, without distinguishing between humans and spirits."
Because of that, spirits closed their hearts and their world to humans, and shut themselves away in the spirit world. Because if they lived alongside humans, they never knew when they might be killed again. The young man murmured sadly, and somehow she felt sad too.
"Are reincarnators okay? Even reincarnators are humans living in this world, are they not?"
"Reincarnators are beings brought from another world that was overflowing with human souls, to balance out the greatly reduced human souls here. They might look the same in terms of being human, but it seems spirits see them as having completely different souls."
...Seems, meaning this big brother is not a spirit.
His words had the ring of something heard from others (spirits).
"Since they are souls originally brought from the same other world, they can also notice things left behind by reincarnators from the same homeland. If reincarnation between worlds happened by pure chance, would it not be strange if it was always people from the same world?"
In other words, as a sort of cleanup after the Festival of Shame, she did not know what range his "world" specified, but at the very least, it seemed human souls had been brought from Earth. Since they were souls brought from Earth, differences in origin like Japan or English-speaking regions were within the margin of error, and broadly speaking, it seemed correct to think of them not as "Japanese reincarnators" but as "reincarnators from the other world called Earth." It was not strange at all that there were reincarnators from foreign countries who would have been foreigners to her. They were all the same "reincarnators from the other world called Earth."
"Of course, normally before being born into this world, the death god Uaksu washes away all memories of one's previous life..."
But apparently sometimes there are souls who reincarnate while still retaining their past-life memories. That was her.
"You were a bit of a hurry, were you not. You reincarnated before Lord Uaksu could wash your soul pure white, so the things stained into your soul have not fully come off."
"So I am like some kind of dirt or something?"
She could not help but interject, pursing her lips. Questions welled up inside her about the young man, but though she felt like demanding answers, she did not voice them.
"Dirt sounds bad, but the perception is close to that. If you do not properly wash off the stains the first time, they are harder to remove the second time around."
Somehow, that was quite a harsh way to put it. Her past-life memories were being talked about like stains on laundry.
...Well, this is a world where there is a saying that after death, the death god Uaksu washes away the sadness and grudges of one's life in preparation for the next reincarnation, so the things stained into my soul might indeed be residual stains that did not wash out.
But still, that was too harsh. Seeing her purse her lips, the young man seemed to realize she was offended. He looked faintly flustered.
"...Do you remember your past life?"
"I do remember. I was Japanese!"
"Then, your name? Do you remember your parents' names? Your family structure? Did you have a spouse? A lover? Do you remember your childhood friend's face? Your hobbies?"
"You cannot ask me all at once like that. Wait a moment. I will..."
I will answer them one at a time, she said, stopping the young man's barrage of questions, and turned her thoughts to her past life again. She remembered being Japanese, so she should remember her name and everything else.
"...Huh?"
As she searched her memories again, she suddenly noticed. It was strange in itself that she had never thought about this before, but aside from remembering that she was Japanese in her past life, the rest was surprisingly vague. She had parents, but she could not recall their names. Family structure, she felt like she had an older brother, but it might have been a relative instead. Memories of spouses or lovers seemed to have been neatly washed away by the death god Uaksu, she could not even remember whether such people existed or not. When she died, what she died from, she did not even know that much.
"I cannot remember anything. Or rather, I do not remember...?"
"In your case, it seems only the knowledge you acquired in your past life remains. You seem to think the memories of another world are from your past life, but otherworld souls were brought to this world a long time ago, so you should be on your second or third reincarnation by now."
"Um...? So, when I first reincarnated into this world, I was in a hurry, and I reincarnated without waiting for the god's washing?"
Was it because of that carelessness that she now had the knowledge of being Japanese as a past-life memory?
...I always thought I was Japanese in my past life. So it was a past life several lives ago that I was Japanese.
"Most souls are washed pure white and settle into this world, but even though such people can live normally among humans, the spirits can clearly tell them apart, so they might be a little luckier than others."
Spirits would not lend even a whimsical hand to humans of this world, but it seemed they sometimes granted good fortune to souls brought from another world, given some trigger. A very small fortune, barely noticeable.
...Huh? Then, the children kidnapped by spirits during the Divine King Festival are...?
"They are people with souls brought from another world. Spirits basically do not approach humans of this world."
He answered something she had only thought in her head again, and she became convinced that he was reading her mind, not that it was just her imagination. When she recalled the old woman with cat ears she had seen in the city in early summer, the image in her mind changed into a little girl. That was probably what the old woman looked like when she was kidnapped by spirits.
"Yes, this one was brought by the spirits. She is a possessor of a soul brought from another world. ...I was worried about whether she had made it back safely, but I am relieved to know she is fine."
Nodding a few times, the young man's gentle smile faded. He had learned the whereabouts of the little girl who had supposedly been kidnapped by spirits before, and perhaps that put him somewhat at ease.
"By the way, what will you do?"
"What do you mean, 'what will I do'?"
"Right now, you are half-way into the spirit world, so if the Divine King Festival ends like this, you will be kidnapped by the spirits."
When he told her that this was what people called "death," she was startled. She had heard that there were children kidnapped by spirits on the night of the Divine King Festival, but that the children returned home through the hearth. She had never heard that there were cases where they could not return to the hearth and simply died.
[Author's Note]
It got long, so I will split it.
While explaining the reincarnation setting in this world, I briefly wondered if the Japanese person from several generations before Tina thought "Oh? Reincarnation to another world? Then I have got to bring modern knowledge with me!" and deliberately ran away from the washing area, that would mess up a lot of things.
Typos and missing characters, I will fix another day...
I have fixed the typos and missing characters I found.