Queenfisher

Don't worry -- any of the mentioned side characters do not need to be remembered :). Referencing them is there for the atmosphere rather than for information. If they are truly important for the story, they will be properly introduced later as... actual characters instead of only their names.

Chapter Seven

Splitting Apart

Aomi perked up, a bleary smile spreading on her thin lips. "Always. But I thought you hated disturbing those old memories. Did that change?"

Regardless of both halves of him being so tenderly cared for by either sibling, he had a hard time getting used to the idea. "I really don't want to dwell on being sawed. Especially with how many times I'll have to survive it in the future," he said. "If I can distract myself from that, I'm all for it."

"Yaaay!"

The morning in the garden tended to be chilly, but underneath the dripping walkways of ivies where they sat, it was even more so. Wrapped in blankets, Aomi and Nekohiko reclined against the low seashell wall that divided this reclusive, quiet corner of the garden from the rest. Aomi checked if the blanket wrap around Nekohiko was secure. Then she put her elbows on his front and her chin on top.

"So let's get to the root of it! Tell me everything. First, what's your traitor-best-friend's name?"

Nekohiko didn't need to think about it. "Tenma."

It was a rare name, but a passable one. If one was generous with its meaning, it could be "true heavens" -- a tranquil, melancholic name. But if one gave it no thought at all, there was only one popular meaning such a combination of sounds had.

A vile demon.

Oh, was this petty? Yes, but also fitting. And it uplifted Nekohiko's mood to say it out loud.

"Wow." Aomi made an impressed face. "Your friend's name is... unique. Did his parents hate him that much? No wonder he murdered his best friends. He probably had issues."

"Yes. Many of them." Excited, Aomi gestured him to go on, and so Nekohiko did. "He was disrespectful, annoying, clingy. A blabbermouth, a lecher, and he was so lazy -- pure evil. He had weird sleeping routines, and he collected the creepiest, most irrelevant things. He was extremely aggressive, and manipulative, used his looks as a weapon against others, and was constantly primping himself up. He was clumsy, he slobbered all over when he slept, and he sleepwalked to make it even worse, and..."

He could list all of these for hours, actually. "...he was pure evil," he finished because he didn't want to go into further specifics for the fear that Aomi might recognize some of Abihiko's quirks. "I bet he still is."

"Just so you know, you said 'pure evil' twice." Aomi tapped her lips with her finger, pensive. "Also I honestly have no idea why would you be best friends with such a person. Unless..."

What was that supposed to mean?

Her gaze directed at him made him uncomfortable.

"Unless yourself, you're also not as fluffy and nice as you think." She gave him a languid shrug. "Similar things bond easiest with one another. Isn't it some kind of first law of Spirit Binding or... whatever?"

"Actually, it's 'like attracts like'", Nekohiko said vacantly.

"Huh?" Aomi made huge eyes. "You know Binding?! Oh, why didn't you tell! That's so amazing!"

Oh crap. He... didn't mean to.

"It'll be so much easier to find your friends who can help us! All Binders keep tabs on each other, don't they? Wait, wait --" She stuck a palm into his face, thrilled. "Is your murderous best friend also a Binder? Oooooh, our Eldest Brother is a certified Spirit Wayfarer, so he can get access to all names of all the other Binders in Izumo archives. I bet that if we tell Eldest Brother Abihiko, he'll help us find--"

"Aomi, NO."

Nekohiko didn't mean to yell. He'd never lost his patience with others to such a degree before.

She deflated. "But it'll be so much easier if we do..."

"My murderer, Tenma, is a Binder, yes." He struggled to find a safe route through what he needed to say. "He wasn't the only one who was present when I died. Other Binders were there, too. They saw it all. They allowed it to happen."

"Were they also your friends?"

He closed his eyes in negation. "No. They were people I barely knew, and who barely knew me. For all intents and purposes, they would get no benefits from my murder, but they are not mere witnesses either. Therefore, they are..."

"...accomplices?" Grim, she nodded, eyes already glinting with resentment. "How many were they?"

He remembered them all as if it happened a day before. "Five. Two women, three men."

"Well, do you know their names?"

He did. He'd had to hang out with those bodyguards every single day for the last month of his life when the Usurper's attempts to kill him were getting seriously out of hand. His life had been an utter mess at that point. That mess hadn't ever truly ended.

But the names weren't important. Those guards weren't free people. Each of them was most loyal to their respective Great Lord, and thus, they were only representatives of the Five Great Lords' will. Not individuals free to choose what they did, or why.

Which only meant one thing: all five of the Great Lords must have had a motive to agree upon his assassination.

Hira Okinaga, the Lord of the Mountains. Towa Hinokuma, the Lady of the Seas. Nagare Kazuragi, the Lord of the Skies. Hisome Takarashi, the Lady of the Mists. And the last one of them -- Utsuro Sakai, the Lord of the Waste. Each symbolized a branch of the Emperor's power and served the Empire by serving him.

And, in regards to him, they surely sucked at serving.

"No, I don't know their names," he said, chary. "The fact that they all turned a blind eye only means that they and Tenma worked together. But for my purposes, I only care about my revenge on him. Not others. Others weren't my best friends. What do I care if they betrayed me?"
Aomi sighed, shaking her head in earnest. "You're such a sensible person. I respect that. So about asking Eldest Brother--"

"I don't dare to inconvenience the Supreme Divine Emperor," Nekohiko said. "Please, don't bother him with my embarrassing personal issues, will you?"

"But! You don't know him one bit! He always asks Kataji and me if we need help with anything, so why not do this? He wouldn't mind helping you."

Abihiko? Helping strangers for no real reason? Suuure.

"Aomi, I beg you. This is too personal. I don't want anyone else to know. Even the idea pains me."

Begrudging, but she agreed to it, slumping against Nekohiko in idle displeasure. She picked a blade of grass and fidgeted with it, by turns whipping it at his surface, or braiding it in her fingers. Her pout had all the resolve of a seasoned warrior before a battle. "Then the only lead we have is this... Tenma. That's really not much for me to go on with if we want to deduce why he did it, you know? Can I ask you a very terrible question?"

Nekohiko wanted to groan but kept himself together. "That depends."

"Do you intend to kill him? Tenma?"

"...yes."

With a bronze knife to his throat, preferably.

"Do you really believe it's a sufficient punishment after what he'd done to you?"

He scrunched his brows, on guard.

As far as revenges and punishments went, his method was probably the most obvious and banal one. To hurt those who'd hurt you -- in the exact same way. An ironic comeuppance. Nekohiko had once pondered if this plan were too easy or too mundane, and if he wanted Abihiko to suffer much, much longer and in a much more gruesome manner. Yet, with how well-protected and accomplished Abihiko was, and how weak and useless Nekohiko's body was in comparison -- he doubted if he could pull off a plan much harder than the most basic one.

"I'll take it, seeing as I don't have much choice," he said. "Why do you ask?"

She kept playing with the blade of grass, tangling it between her fingers in languor. "Does he have loved ones? Does he have people he cares about?"

...erm...

Nekohiko felt chill down his sides even before she went on.

"I mean it's probably just me," Aomi said, defensive. "But if I wanted to take revenge on my enemy, I would make them suffer. Truly suffer, you know? I bet this Tenma person isn't completely alone in this world. He probably has friends. Lovers. Family members he's protective about. No?"

"I'm not a murderer," he replied stiffly. "My only aim is Tenma like I said."

"Yes, but hurting those Tenma loves or cares about IS going to hurt Tenma most. Especially if you do it slowly -- harm his loved ones a person at a time. At first, he wouldn't know what's happening. But then, gradually, as everyone connected to him is hurt or killed, or worse, he'll have no way but realize..."

This girl was really quite terrifying. No one should ever make her their enemy!

"And this slow, inevitable realization is the most delicious way to serve revenge. By the end, he'd be begging you to murder him and relieve him from the torment, if we do it all correctly. Just imagine how satisfying it would feel."

"Why... don't we talk about his potential motives instead, mmm? Please. Pretty please, now."

She rolled her eyes with passion. "Spirits, you're such a stick in the mud. And what motives if you refuse to tell me anything private about you and him? Huh?"

Yet Nekohiko was adamant. No personal information, however much Aomi complained about it.

Come night, Nekohiko was so worn out by all the talking and scheming and Abihiko-bashing along with Aomi, that he was ready to sleep like a rock. Both of his halves fell into slumber in the workshop right beside Kataji who had built around himself a small fort of books and scrolls he pored over, researching the best methods and techniques of carving a human-sized doll.

"You don't have to overwork yourself for my sake," Nekohiko told him, slurring. "Go to bed, Kataji."

"Uh-hm." Kataji had a hard time ungluing from the pages of his book. But once he did, he propped his chin on his fist and gave Nekohiko a blissful smile. "It's nothing. I've never been so excited about a crafting project, I think. I'm having the time of my life working this out, don't you worry..."

A crafting project.

Was that how he saw Nekohiko? His... project?

"Just please take care of your health. You forget to eat and drink sometimes," Nekohiko reminded him carefully.

Kataji flapped his hand. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

The rustle of pages and Kataji's paced breath were so soothing, they soon lolled Nekohiko to sleep with the sheer feeling of coziness and nostalgia they evoked.

Waking up freaked him out, though.

His vision was doubled, and from such far-removed points of view! His head immediately ached from this bifurcation, and he couldn't help a groan. Which also rang as though coming from two separate mouths.

"I'm up! I'm up," Kataji mumbled groggily as he jolted from his uncomfortable crouch on the floor. A sheet of coal paper imprinted on half of his face. He peeled it off and blinked out into Nekohiko's direction.

Befuddled, he had to swivel his head both ways to do that.

"Wait!" He snapped his hands each in the direction of Nekohiko's equal halves kept several feet apart. "Which one are you in, currently?"

"I don't know!"

He was even seeing Kataji from different points of view, and this sight only made Nekohiko dizzier and shakier.

This hadn't been such a mess last evening. He'd always been able to maintain his consciousness in only one of the log halves, and merely "visited" the other when something called his attention there. But waking up so sleepy and disoriented, he'd mixed up which half he wanted to be in, and so...

Argh, the pain!

Kataji chose the half he was closest to and dropped to his knees before Nekohiko's distorted vision. After a moment of anguished dawdling, he reached out to Nekohiko's sides. And then, he tickled him.

In a flash, shock rendered Nekohiko quiet. Even the splitting headache disappeared, and only the discomfort of being touched so personally and so irritatingly remained.

"Better?" Kataji slowly withdrew his fingers.

"Y-yes?" Nekohiko breathed, then glared in the direction of his other half across the floor. "Will this happen every single time I wake up?"
Kataji followed Nekohiko's sullen gaze. However, his hadn't any graveness in it. In fact, Nekohiko could swear he saw amusement and even scientific vigor in Kataji's eyes.

"Mmm, I sure hope not," Kataji said. "We'll erase your eyes on all your parts except one before you go to sleep, I guess? Maybe then your vision will not disorient you, and everything will be fine? Also, once you have your own humanoid body, you'll probably be able to snap your focus to whichever part you want on will." He raised his hand and jittered his fingers playfully. "Just tickle yourself once you get hands. Seems to work great."

"...and before I have hands?"

"Before?" Kataji drew back and lifted his eyes to the ceiling, stretching his barely-out-of-sleep arms and legs. "Well, before that, I'll tickle you every single morning. If you want me too."

Want?

Who said anything about want? It was need, and a dire one. For some reason, Nekohiko remembered his yesterday's freaky conversation with Aomi but quickly shook it out of his mind.

"I don't want to be too indebted to you, Kataji," he told him. "You're already doing too much for me. Plus, it's a bit humiliating..."
Kataji choked in laughter, pointing at Nekohiko's drawn face. "More humiliating than wearing that proud mustache and those luscious, dramatic eyelashes?"

Damn that Aomi. The girl had zero respect for Nekohiko's appearance, didn't she?

The morning slowly unfurled into the brightening light and warmth. Since their little sawing experiment had been such a success yesterday, they decided to spend the entirety of today on cutting him into smaller, necessary chunks. His future head, his legs, his arms.

Nekohiko confined himself to only one half of his body while Kataji puttered around, preparing the saw to cut the other half into subsequently smaller sections. He erased the eyes and the mouth on that half and brought several Bound Servants into the workshop to help him be as quick as humanly possible. Nekohiko had specifically asked him to do all the most painful operations at once. He might be traumatized from so much agony, but at least he'd be done with it for a long, long time.

At first, he thought they'd found a way to avoid the pain. Though he still felt every bit of that razor-sharp blade on his body, this time, Nekohiko suffered much less when he kept his consciousness far away from the part that was currently being sawed. But then, the grim reality hit them.

"Itsuki." Kataji knocked on him and lifted the blanket under which Nekohiko hid away from all the noise and the sight of his body being dismembered. "Didn't you feel it when I scratched you to get your attention a moment ago?"

"No." Nekohiko hated the urgency in Kataji's voice. "Why?"

"Fascinating." Kataji held his brow in his hand, deep in contemplation. "I think that when your consciousness hides away from being cut, you end up... being completely severed from that part of your body afterward."

Dread snapped around Nekohiko. "...severed?"

"That part that I just cut off seems to be dead matter. See? I'll show you."

Kataji walked over to the newest half of Nekohiko he'd cut off, but whatever he did to it -- stroked, tickled, slapped, pierced with a small awl -- Nekohiko felt nothing of it.

Nekohiko still wouldn't accept it, even after he'd tried, repeatedly to share his awareness with that part. But he felt nothing of it. He couldn't transport his mind into it, as though that part no longer had any relation to him whatsoever. It wasn't a big chunk of wood, so losing it wasn't such a great deal, but nonetheless...

"Just an average block of emerald fir." Kataji knocked on it several times as though in a demonstration. "Unbelievable, huh?"

Nekohiko ignored him. "Does this mean that if I want to preserve my consciousness in any of the cut-off parts, I have to--"

"--be fully present and aware of being sawed at the exact moment the saw goes through you?" Kataji finished for him. He looked bewildered -- pretty much how Nekohiko felt. "Yes, I'm afraid so. It simply wouldn't work unless you bear the full amount of pain." He kept quiet for a while. "I'm sorry, Itsuki."

It took a lot of effort not to scream. "It's all right."

...well. But at least they'd tried to make it easy. Even it hadn't worked out in the end.

Kataji was adjusting the blocks for the new cut when the door to the workshop cracked open, and a smiling face of a wrinkled old person peeked in. "Do you want anything from Sai, dear?" Kataji's Great Aunt asked. "Aomi and I are going shopping."

Kataji shook his head instead of an answer, so the old lady could only exhale reservedly. She almost left, but then remembered something.

"I see you made great use of that log. Good, good. Your Eldest Brother will be so happy you liked it. Doing anything specific?" She pushed the door wider and took a busy look around the workshop. "Another fox carving? Or an owl like you wanted?"

"Great Aunt..." Kataji had already assembled the new blade and placed Nekohiko's body underneath it. His impatience almost felt palpable around him. "I'm thinking of making a human doll. Maybe..." he added after she let out a surprised noise. "I haven't really decided yet."

"Well, that is admirable, Kataji. Such a high-class talent, doll-making. Only..." She tapped her knuckle against one of Nekohiko's log bodies absentmindedly. "Your uncle and I have already written to Abihiko that we'll send something small and classy for him to decorate his bedroom or study. You remember how drab and dull that place looks, don't you?"

With clearly-decreasing patience, Kataji turned. "...and?"

"Like a small wooden panel with a landscape on it. Or maybe... a hairbrush? A comb? A box for writing utensils?" The woman gave Kataji an apologetic smile, only now noticing how intense he was. She waved her hand, laughing, and turned to the door. "Nothing major. I'm sure you'll be able to scramble up something. I don't want to make him feel like we don't care about him, or like all we do is get his favors without giving him back the support and attention he needs. This fir is from him, so it only makes sense to send a small souvenir back to him, made from the same fir, don't you think?"

"From the same fi--" Kataji dropped his hands, taken aback. "No. I need every single part of this fir for my project!"

"Ah, Kata!" The woman stopped in the door long enough to pout. "A thin sliver of a wooden tablet with a carved outline of Red Stone estate on it! It's not too much to ask, is it?"

Nekohiko had even forgotten about the pain still surging through his body from the recent sawing, so engrossed he was in that conversation. A piece of him, put into Abihiko's private chambers?

Several days ago, such a fate would have horrified him, but now... it didn't seem quite as awful. Actually, it was genius. Could he spy on Abihiko to know how to approach him while his main body parts were coming after him from afar? How amazing that would be, to know any of Abihiko's moves ahead of time!

"Stupid promises, stupid home decor!" Kataji muttered, pacing the small area in front of Nekohiko as he fumed after his Great Aunt left. "I'm so sorry you had to hear all that, Itsuki. It's such a waste of my time, too, doing some banal wood paintings. Ugh." He struck a palm at Nekohiko, firm. "Don't worry -- I won't use your live body parts to do it. Only the dead matter that you can no longer feel. Still, just how annoying this is... can't believe this..."

...what? Wait, no, Nekohiko wanted to scream. No -- he didn't mind it one bit!

And yet, Nekohiko couldn't speak out because... seriously, how creepy would it sound if he offered Kataji his own, fully-aware body to become a piece of wall decor in his brother's private rooms? Kataji would think Nekohiko was some kind of a pervert.

"All right," Nekohiko could only mumble in response. But his mind already geared up conjuring up a scheme to trick Kataji into using his live part instead of dead matter. And all that without Kataji suspecting a thing.

Which would be near impossible with how attentive Kataji was around his wooden blocks.

The following cleaving was gruesome. Devastating. And Nekohiko had chickened out several times, spurring his mind to flee into whatever far corners of his body that weren't being tortured at the moment. But it cost him. It cost him a lot.

By the time the hazy, cloudy afternoon rolled in, a few blocks of former Nekohiko parts had amassed on the floor. They were all dead matter, unable to accept his soul when he attempted to go there. He'd endured a few full cleavings without escaping from under the circular blade as well, but so far, the number of failures was much greater than the number of successes.

Kataji was at his breaking point, too.

"At this rate, we won't have much to work with when we will be actually carving your body parts!" Kataji spat, wiping his forehead with his sleeves and squinting from how sweat stung his eyes. "Itsuki, are you sure we should continue for today? Let's take a break and go on tomorrow, or several days after. With those few workable chunks we have, we'll have plenty to do with them in the meantime."

"No."

Nekohiko was heaving, so debilitating the pain was. But he couldn't possibly give up now. The parts they'd managed to cut out today were only sufficient for him to have a head and some fingers carved later. It wasn't enough! "We have to go on today. It won't be less painful tomorrow or a day after. The sooner we get this out of the way, the better."

Kataji huffed out a disappointed laugh. "We will wreck you if we go on. You can't even be aware you're escaping from under the saw, so tired you are!"

He was absolutely right, but Nekohiko couldn't take it.

His eyes felt reddening even from within. "No. We do it all today."

"Excuse me -- 'we'? I am the one who's doing it! Don't I have the final judgment? Besides, you're shaking so much the blade is lodging in the grain and shredding it instead! You are literally ruining all the workable wood, Itsuki."

Nekohiko had already cried once or twice through the morning when the pain had become too intense to push through, so he wasn't losing any more face by hot tears streaming down his surface now. "I want it over with once and for all. We do it today."

"No, we don't."

Nekohiko couldn't hold in a scream. "Nice for you to decide for me since you already have a body of your own. And all I have is your mercy. Your generosity. Your amusement with this whole... 'project'. I guess that's all I'll ever have, won't I?"

...

He didn't mean it. At least not in the way it ended up sounding.

Yet being so helpless and entirely dependent on others for survival, he had nothing else to dwell on. Especially as he thought more and more whether Aomi hadn't been right after all. And that tormenting Abihiko by first hurting Abihiko's loved ones wouldn't the most perfect way for him to have his revenge.

But how could he? How could anyone? Even imagining hurting Kataji or Aomi sickened him every time he gave it a try in his mind.

Except perhaps not in the current moment. Not when Kataji was being such a jerk.

"Who are you to talk to me like that?" Kataji turned to regard him, indignation slowly coloring his features pale. "Did you run your mouth like this at your 'best friend' before he murdered you, too? If so, then I kind of understand where he was coming from--"

"Shut up!"

"Keep going." Kataji's eyes burned. "It sure makes me want to help you get a body of your own as soon as possible."

"...a body of my own, or of 'Kataji's latest crafting project'? I'm not a toy for you to experiment upon."

"I never said you were."

Nekohiko blinked fast. He avoided looking at him. "Please, let's keep going. I swear I won't flinch this time. I just want it over with."
All of a sudden, Kataji swung around to one of the dead matter piles of lumber and smashed his boot into it. The pile exploded, and the small pieces scattered, crashing across the room with clangor. Kataji didn't stop there, though. He stomped his foot into ones that he could reach, and kicked them, and kicked again.

"I said NO," he snapped at Nekohiko after his outburst was finally over. "You are not the one wielding the saw against a live human being, so you get no say in this."

"Kataji--!"

"No!"

The door of the workshop slammed closed behind him.

Nekohiko felt crushed. He'd never really known how to get along with people, had he? The most unsettling thing about this, and also most ironic, was that his first interactions with Abihiko had followed pretty much the same pattern all those years ago.