Chapter Six

Wood Puns

Several days passed after Nekohiko had regained his sight, speech, and sense of smell. He wanted to assume a calmer view of his existence now -- general indifference and serenity were states he felt most comfortable in. But the weight of all the bad memories of his afterlife still haunted him.

He couldn't stop flinching at loud noises or wishing he could crouch down into something far smaller than what he was -- to cower and hide from any potential threat. It didn't matter if potential threats were actions or words, or even thoughts. Everything set him on edge. Everything made him squirm inside, yearning to flee.

Aomi's "friendship" most of all.

"I brought you some new books to read! Do you wanna?"

"Hey Itsuki, let's go for a walk around the apple orchard!"

"How thick and how long do you want me to draw your eyelashes?"

He couldn't understand this girl. Only fourteen years old. So privileged, and fairly clever and attractive for those who'd be interested -- and free to do anything she wanted in her life. And yet, all her free time she spent on him. Chatting, tickling him, making terrible lumber-related puns after every other word. Referencing her "splendid and fair Eldest Brother Abihiko" too often for Nekohiko's liking. Sometimes, she even quoted some of the Eldest Brother's "sagacious" quotes about the meaning of life or something just as incoherent. Like a proud mother boasting about her son's many accomplishments.

Nekohiko reeled inside but wore the most deadpan expression on his face.

Was this girl toying with him? What did her mentions of Abihiko mean? Why talk about him at all? Did she suspect anything about Nekohiko's real identity? But how would she? When he'd died, she was about nine years old. The two of them had never even met each other!

And if she did know something about him, then why wouldn't she act on it more directly? What did she want from him?

The worst thing was that he couldn't ask her about any of these! The moment he would start questioning her innuendos and hints about Abihiko, he would expose himself. Because really -- why would some random unimportant reincarnated person ask pointed questions about the Emperor? Other than being generally curious about the state of things in the Empire, was there any sufficient reason to ask anything more specific? He'd even pretended to care about what her Eldest Brother was like as a person, because "Oh wow, this is the Supreme Divine Emperor's family I'm living in! I feel so honored and want to know some delicious gossip from the lives of the royals!"

But he knew he'd failed the moment he tried to feign interest. He'd never been gossipy, and he'd rarely paid attention to those who were. So he didn't know how to believably act like one.

Even Aomi noticed the strain of his fake excitement.

"What do you want to know about him?" she once asked him, wincing. "What he's like as a sibling, or what he's like in... other areas? I can only really speak for his sibling qualities. Sorry. You will not get any spicy gossip from me. Not that I believe anyone will." She suddenly grew upset. "He's such a dullard. I don't think I've ever seen him with a girl or a boy or whomever else."

"That makes me respect His Majesty so much more," Nekohiko replied grandly. "An Emperor shouldn't be known for lasciviousness."

"Lascivi-- what? There's respectable, and then there's just inhuman." She made huge eyes. "He doesn't act like a real person at all. He doesn't even like dolls. And most young people in the capital do! That's natural."

Nekohiko suppressed a cringe. He hated any reminder about creepy people who liked to own human-sized dolls for whichever nefarious reasons. Bound Servants were disturbing already. But much more lifelike dummies to keep in one's house as some kind of "relatives" or "friends"? Pure stuff of nightmares.

Aomi reclined against Nekohiko as she always did. "Overall, he's work-obsessed, quiet, and very detached most of the time."

...?

Who? Abihiko?

Were they even talking about the same person? Then again, five years could change people a lot, couldn't it?

A slight edge of bitterness marred Aomi's tone. "Doesn't visit us here, and wouldn't even say anything other than smalltalk to Kataji or me or Auntie and Uncle when we came to his capital last year. He's... all right, I suppose. He constantly asks us if we need anything or if he can help us. But other than that -- it's like we don't even have a brother anymore. You know?"

Nekohiko tried to sound reasonable, faking politeness. "Being an Emperor of the country is a great responsibility. He probably has too many people to prove himself to, and can't show his weaknesses to them."

"But not to us. Why would he be afraid of being close to Kataji and me? I really miss it when we were younger." She pouted. "I miss my brother. I hate the Emperor."

"Deep inside, he probably feels the same way."

"You're only saying this to make me feel better."

"...as long as it works."

Nekohiko was loath to defend any of Abihiko's actions but he couldn't help but sympathize with the gravity of the position Abihiko held. Aomi was being such a brat. She couldn't demand anything from a person as historically-important as the Emperor. How hard was this to understand?

The funny thing was, Abihiko had once been just as selfish and bratty toward Nekohiko. There could be no doubt that Aomi and he were blood-related. They even had similar petty grievances with the others.

And that was the extent of their conversations about Abihiko. Oddly enough, she never again brought up the eventual meeting of him and Nekohiko. As though the fact she'd joked about it in a seemingly calculating manner that one time was only something Nekohiko had misunderstood and made out to be much more menacing than it actually was.

And by now, he truly wondered if he had.

Anyway, he had too many other things to bother about rather than obsess over Abihiko and his weird sister's innuendos. Kataji worked on his body, bringing it back to shape. Himself, Nekohiko was busy soaking up as many beautiful nothings the world offered him as he could: mornings, twilights, sunrises, and sunsets. Birds chirping and the smell of curling incense. Everything he'd never known he missed.

The weather on the Red Stone coast was crisp even at the cusp of late summer. Kataji told Nekohiko that beyond the mountains and cliffs, the bay opened up into the cold northern sea that cradled all the hard lands of the Abi family¹Actually just Mutsu Bay and maybe Tsugaru Strait. Both can connect to the Sea of Japan and Pacific Ocean, but Kataji likely doesn't care about geographic precision. . Nekohiko listened intently, feigning the lack of knowledge, but of course he knew the history and geography of even the most remote parts of his Empire.

"And I bet that you southerners all dismiss our beautiful North as the 'backside' of the Empire," Kataji vented as he worked the polishing cloth against Nekohiko's grain. "But we don't care what others think of us. Our family birthed the current Emperor, so good luck condescending to us now!"

"I didn't say anything."

"Yes, but you definitely were thinking it." Kataji had the same painful defensiveness about his birthplace as his Eldest Brother had been known for. Another similarity that gave Nekohiko a migraine. "As if anyone from the gaudy south would ever have true respect for our harsh lands!"

Nekohiko could only let the young man rant in peace.

This was the Shimokita peninsula, the northernmost reach of the Empire. Abi family's ancestor, the infamous Demon King Abihiko (a fitting name for either of them!), had been exiled to this hostile place by the Supreme Divine Emperor. But instead of being depressed about it, Demon King Abihiko²Demon King Abihiko is a legendary Japanese character as well, so our Abihiko has some great lineage just as Neko does ^^. conquered this land and all the ancient tribal peoples who lived here. He set his grand castle and his empty kingdom and called it Backside³There is actually a lighthouse on Shimokita that is literally called "Backside" so this isn't even a fictional joke ^^ . As a joke, probably.

From what Nekohiko knew about this family, they all had incredibly poor sense of humor. He half doubted the "Demon King" title hadn't been made up by them simply to annoy their enemies. Nekohiko still remembered times from his School years when Abihiko had claimed he had demon blood in him. However ironic that sounded to Nekohiko now, the demonic ancestry was nothing but a bad joke.

The Red Stone estate where Kataji and Aomi lived was a marvelous place. The buildings were modern, with complex fused and Bound materials and comprehensible architecture. Stark geometric shapes, beautiful curved eaves and scale-like shingles. The mountain breeze traveled through the open halls and rooms freely, making the diaphanous curtains billow out like pastel-tinted jellyfish, and many times over, Nekohiko had lost himself in sheer pleasure at all the scents and sounds it brought. Even the overcast days were marvelous.

The only true downside was a particular Spirit that gave Nekohiko fright every time he spotted it. The estate brimmed with Spirits, as most human dwellings did. The Spirit of mice, the Spirits of different flowers, the Spirit of the hearth, the stray cat Spirit, the Rice Spirit, the attic Spirit, and myriads of other smaller ones. Many tiny stone shrines and Spirit houses peppered the estate's garden and backyard, hiding under the trees and within the moss patches.

But as always, wherever there were benevolent or simply indifferent Spirits -- there also had to be the malevolent, the insidious kind creeping around. Back in Izumo Shrine School, such demonic Spirits were the ones all pupils were taught to neutralize and placate to save common folk from the resentment and darkness such Spirits bred. The worst thing for Nekohiko now was that the Red Stone estate had obviously been purified by an expert Spirit Binder recently! So there were no malicious Spirits who would harm humans. And thus, humans weren't aware just how dangerous this estate was for non-human dwellers.

Well, now that Nekohiko wasn't human, he discovered the full scope of Spirit threats a simple block of wood faced. Termite Spirit, Wood-Rot Spirit, the bookworm Spirit that would eat lumber as easily as it did books.

But the Lumber-Devouring Spirit was the worst of all. It had a blurry humanoid shape but consisted of crooked and bent sticks, with even its face made from twigs in a mockery of a human's. Its ground-sweeping hair of dry grass trailed after it as the Spirit stalked, crouching, behind the trees and the bushes. Always watching Nekohiko. Always salivating with mildew and trying to come closer and closer to him.

Those obvious sawing teeth within the Spirit's ear-splitting mouth never closed. Fortunately, Nekohiko wasn't alone here. He had... "friends". Or at least acquaintances he could rely on and hopefully protect him if worse came to worst.

No big surprise: being a log, there wasn't much he could do other than sit around and wait and hope for Kataji's and Aomi's sympathy and desire to help him. Alas. He couldn't demand that they work on him, could he? He had nothing to pay them back with, and nothing to offer other than to talk to them. But thankfully, even without the reminder, Kataji had already begun researching humanoid carving in the estate's library. So one day very soon -- it was bound to happen. Nekohiko would have a moving body of his own. 

Yes? Please?

This morning started with the usual argument between two siblings about who had custody of Nekohiko. Aomi broke into Kataji's tidied up workshop, whistling and skipping as she weaved her way around the woodland animal statues in the middle. She wore her favorite robes of pure black with fused unmelting snowflakes strewn across. As always, the oddly-rich red of her mouth popped against the paleness of her skin, but hey -- so did Kataji's. Only a distinct family trait, Nekohiko gathered. He hated it a lot.

Kataji blinked sleepily at his tools arrayed before him on the shelf. He was picking one he wanted to use on Nekohiko's maintenance today but was hesitant about which one. He heard Aomi approaching, swept his jelly-lensed goggles off his face and onto his head, then swung around.

"No," he told her. "We're busy."

She stopped mid-hopping, a whistle dying on her lips. The dull clatter of several wooden Bound Servants behind her halted as well. Aggrieved, she flourished a hand toward them and said, "You're barking up the wrong tree, Brother. Itsuki promised me he and I will go out today. Your workshop is so dull, he's clearly dying of board-om here."

Ah yes. The puns galore.

"Well, he's my project, not yours. And my project wants to have his movement and his freedom back, not go out for a walk. I'm working on exactly that today," Kataji grumbled, once again crouching over his instruments. "Right, Itsuki?"

Movement and freedom? Yes! Thank Spirits!

Nekohiko didn't even mind that Kataji called him a "project". Twice.

Aomi made a sour face at Kataji's back. "Well, I'll help him solve his murder case today, then! Itsuki must really want to find out the real reasons why he was murdered so that he can deal with his murderer in clever fashion rather than rush like a complete dummy as soon as he has a body. Right, Itsuki?"

Well, um. Not really, more so if it meant Aomi would once again torment him with such ambiguous-sounding arguments as she'd done the very first day.

Because when she'd asked him why exactly did he think his "best friend" killed him -- he hadn't known what to answer to that. And didn't know to this day, even though at night, when sitting lonely and lifeless in this eerie, dusty workshop, he'd given it a lot of his thought.

Why had Abihiko killed him? Had it really been for power? Could it be that easy? Nekohiko was the last true heir of his line, so shifting the throne claim from him over to the Abi family wasn't an obvious choice however Nekohiko looked at it. All five of the Great Lords of the Empire must have agreed to it. And knowing those five arrogant bastards firsthand, Nekohiko doubted they could agree on anything ever, including such basic questions as "what is the color of fresh snow?" and "what season is it now?".

Abihiko becoming an Emperor made zero sense. Many things didn't add up when he thought about his assassination more. For example, during that fateful minute as he'd been bleeding out to death in Abihiko's arms, Nekohiko didn't remember any of his elite bodyguards reacting to it. His literal bodyguards had allowed it to happen, and they hadn't done anything about it afterward. Why? Each of those five guards had been given to him personally by each of the Great Lords. To protect his life and make sure the representatives of the other Lords weren't trying to influence him in favor of one or the other. So these people had been bound to protect him, not scheme behind his back to murder him and then put his killer on the throne.

Pondering this was too depressing. Most times, Nekohiko didn't want to think about it deeper than the surface level. He didn't want to focus on anything other than the act of betrayal itself. Why bother? Betrayal was betrayal. Who cared about the motivations behind it?

"Don't speak for him," Kataji snapped at Aomi.

"Don't speak for him yourself!" Aomi retorted, not backing a single step before her brother's fury. Out of the two of them, Nekohiko could bet she'd win any glowering match as well as any sneering match, hands down. "He can decide on his own, can't he?"

"Well, let him decide then. Itsuki?"

Nekohiko knew he would pay for this later, but... "Aomi, I really want to have a body as soon as possible."

"See? He chooses me. A smart choice." Kataji winked at Nekohiko and picked something clanging from the shelf.

"But if we leaf right now, I can take you anywhere you want even without a body. Don't you want fishing, or rocking on a swing, or swimming, or kiting? We can do all these even without you having a body." Aomi made another helpless wave to her dummies. She'd used them almost every day to carry Nekohiko all across the Red Stone estate. Nekohiko didn't mind being dragged around to see orchards and gardens and sun pavilions. It was fun as far as his existence went. It was Aomi herself who he preferred to stay away from.

"I'll go do all those things with you once I have a body of my own. We won't need any dummies to carry me then," he said, trying to sound genuine.

The girl skittered over to him and squatted, hugging her knees. "Itsuki, I only want to protect you. Be-leaf me. You don't want to remain here with Kataji today. Or see that giant saw he's going to get out of the storage."

...Giant saw?

The instrument that glinted in Kataji's fingers was so small that Nekohiko hadn't paid it heed. But now that he did, he could see it wasn't one of Kataji's many scrapers or awls. It was a tiny bronze key.

Kataji heard Aomi's warning and stopped in the middle of the room. He let a sigh out and turned to Nekohiko with an affronted scowl on his face. "Itsuki, I didn't want to scare you, but..." He gave the key to the nearest Bound Servant and shoved it toward the small door in the workshop's wall that led into a storage room Nekohiko hadn't seen before.

"--but?" Nekohiko asked, alarmed.

"My work is done on your surface. You're clean and protected from bugs and blights, you're smooth and healthy. If we want you to finally have a body, we need to... start carving the parts for it. But before we can, I'm afraid we have to chop you up--"

Nekohiko's expression must have screamed his emotions loud enough that Kataji paused, looking down. "--or saw you. Or cut you in some way for further work to be done on the smaller, more manageable pieces. It might hurt. I'd bet it will. I'm really sorry," he added lower.

Aomi couldn't have looked smugger. "Told ya."

By this point, the Bound Servant had unlocked the storage and was dragging out of it an enormous mechanism consisting of metals, woods, and some sinewy live matter all fused together to create a monstrosity of glinting metal razors. A saw to end all saws.

Kataji pressed both his palms in front of his face in a somber praying pose directed at Nekohiko. "I hope you understand, Itsuki..."

Nekohiko knew this day would have to come sooner or later. No matter what a carver would be doing to his body, it would have to involve a lot of pain. There was simply no way out of this.

"It's all right." He quelled his terror and tried to sound dignified. "I entrust myself to you, Kataji. Do it -- whatever needs to be done."

"At least some of us are mature people around here," Kataji said pointedly, rising from his majestic bow. "Unlike certain someones."

"Do you enjoy being beechy to others?" Aomi drawled, cheek in her palm. "You only want to do it because you're dying of curiosity about what will happen to him when you hack Itsuki into parts. You probably dreamed your whole life to experiment on someone like that."

Kataji didn't bother to answer that, already busy with setting up the saw and unwrapping all the membranous binds that held it in a collapsed, resting shape.

"At least test whether you can cut him in half first, or if he'll die from it!" Aomi plastered herself over Nekohiko's side when Kataji made a step to Nekohiko with a drafting pencil in hand. "What if he can't be cut into parts and he will simply lose all sensation and perception in that cut-off half instead? How can you know his mind would survive his body separating into more parts than one?"

Nekohiko stiffened, and so did Kataji.

Actually, Aomi did make a lot of sense. Sometimes it astounded Nekohiko how smart she was and how surprised he was every single time she showed that.

"Indeed." Kataji crouched on the floor beside Nekohiko and Aomi who was still draped over him. His eyes flickered about in intense contemplation. "We don't know in which part of this log his soul resides, so we need to be cautious. I suggest to... maybe cut off only a small part at first, one that can later be carved into something appropriately sized? Like a head, or wrists and palms."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Nekohiko said after a moment. "And in case it doesn't work out, we'll still have a lot of the remaining mass to work with."

"Agreed," Kataji said. "This plan seems good."

"Uh-hm," Nekohiko said.

"It is not!" Aomi knocked her fist on Nekohiko to call his and her brother's attention. "How can you tell which cut half your consciousness will stay in -- what if it goes fully into that tiny little chunk instead? And then the rest of the huge mass will end up becoming dead matter, and nothing more?"

Oh shit.

He hadn't even considered that!

"Mmm," Kataji and Nekohiko said in unison. Then, as though reading each other's minds, they exclaimed at the same time, "We should cut into symmetrical halves!"

Being so in tune with someone else felt nothing short of magical. Nekohiko couldn't help but feel grateful for Kataji being with him, every step of the way. "Exactly what I thought," he told him. "What would I do without you?"

"Right?" Kataji beamed at him. "Absolutely."

...Spirits.

This was such a close call to an utter disaster.

Aomi narrowed her eyes, dour. "You do remember that I was the one who came up with this whole plan--"

"Let's get to work!" Kataji rubbed his hands together and sprang to his feet. He darted to the Bound Servant who held the saw in both its arms, straining to keep the circular-blade monstrosity above the ground. Once he took hold of the saw's polished handle, Kataji shooed his sister away with a tired flap of his hand. "Aomi, get off him. You're in our way."

"But you will hurt him," Aomi whined, hugging Nekohiko with both her arms.

And once again, she was completely right.

The task itself took them about fifteen minutes to finish. Sawing a tree log in half, however huge the log was, couldn't pose a challenge to a saw so fast and so aggressive. As though in a nightmare, boiling in gut-churning agony, Nekohiko still acknowledged the mastercraft of Binding that the saw represented. Third-force carcass bound with Second-force live matter. Aided with the First-force heat to make the saw's engine roar and spin with such velocity. He hadn't realized he still perfectly remembered the terminology and how to classify the Binding Spirits. And all while wishing he were dead because of how intense the torture was.

Aomi had thoughtfully erased his mouth so that he wouldn't scream during the ordeal. She asked if she should erase his eyes as well since she was worried that he would hate looking at his body being split into halves, but Nekohiko didn't let her. This wasn't his body, after all. It was only a log. The pain at seeing it destroyed was solely physical.

But it was an eternity of pain nonetheless.

Afterward, she took him to unwind into the garden. The day had only begun, and the morning was still chilly and wet with dew and misty shimmer over the leaves and grasses. The cool air felt nice on his surface after the torture he'd gone through.

He'd been sawed in two perfect halves. Who had ever been able to say such a thing about themselves?

Nekohiko was still shaking and dizzy and ill. He almost started regretting his goal of assuming a shape -- any shape -- out of his original "log" one. Life was wonderful even without a shape, wasn't it? He could smell, and see, and hear so many minuscule, precious elements of the world already. Why did he need movement and striving for revenge on top of this?

He felt so terrible he almost wished he was dead all along. Was this his inevitable future? Would every single time Kataji carved him -- be as agonizing? And with how many parts a human dummy required, Nekohiko would have to go through this same process no less than a hundred times over?

Tsk. Damn it.

"Oh, Itsuki. You're trembling." Aomi hugged his cut half with her arms and squeezed him tight. "Did it hurt that bad?"

Although she had drawn him his mouth back almost immediately after Kataji stopped sawing, this mouth was of no use to him. He found it hard to formulate full thoughts after being sawed, not to mention speaking anything out loud.

He could only tremble. But the good news was -- he did it with both halves of him.

Both.

"Itsuki, shhh. Do you want a blanket?" Kataji asked his second half in the workshop at the same time as Aomi took care of his first half in the garden. Kataji leaned closer, sounding worried. "Do you want a fused ice cloth wrapped over the cut?"

Yes, please. Nekohiko didn't need to speak to Kataji at all because Kataji already understood him. Aomi was different, of course, but no less important. That, he learned very, very fast.

Either sibling had such perfect similarities in their characters and such drastic differences. No doubt they both possessed many features that were unique solely to Aomi, or solely to Kataji, and wouldn't remind Nekohiko of anyone else. For instance, Aomi's affinity for bad puns and her greed for digging her teeth into all new curious things. Or perhaps Kataji's haughty, pompous attitude. Yet, however much Nekohiko tried to see them as their own, unique individuals, he couldn't help comparing the two of them to someone else.

To the only person who mattered to him, in the whole universe. The goal of his existence. The target of his revenge.

Take Aomi's sharp mind and her abnormal talent at aggravating the hell out of Nekohiko. And add to it Kataji's deep, almost intimate understanding of what Nekohiko wanted and what he needed, and the stark difference between those. And as a sum of these two, one would get --

Abihiko.

So... why would a person as close and as friendly to him as Abihiko was, ever betray him? Why? Whether Nekohiko admitted it or not, he still wanted to know the answer to this question.

At first unwieldy, but he was able to form words again after all the physical pain from being cut had dissipated at last.

"Aomi?"

The girl unglued herself from her drowsy hug against him. She'd started dozing off some time ago, snuggled within a quilt next to him, but quickly shook herself awake.

"Yeah?"

"About those reasons for my murder," Nekohiko said, resigned. "Can you help me find out what they could have been?"

Queenfisher

 Also, sorry for low image quality (and no proper digitization) since I don't currently have my scanner, and phone photo is all I get, but here's a picture of both Neko and Abihiko when they were kids. Anyway, that's just how I see them, but I wanted to share!

Spoiler

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Neko is obviously the angsty-looking boy while Abihiko is the smiling one. 

(Edit from the future: I colored it, and it's in the chapter titled "Abi x Neko".