Chapter Thirty-Four

Not Dying Is Weird 

...

The silence stretched and Kasuga's gaze became graver. The lanterns in the room flickered as though the electric Nagare tension inside them was snapping. Nekohiko couldn't handle this pent up frustration first.

"I am wood!" he cried, not even aware of how stupid that sounded.

"He is wood," Kataji echoed him almost immediately.

Damn it! Who speaks like that? And why were they even blabbering? Where was their solidarity and honor and, above all, brains?

Yet Kasuga's military appearance and the atmosphere in the room that seemed to have grown so much colder rendered Nekohiko and Kataji nearly spineless. Was this girl extremely intimidating when she wanted!

Nekohiko figured she was altering the temperature of the draft in the room along with the electric Nagare currents running through the castle. Aomi had been right: what a showoff, and what a cheater, too.

Wait... Aomi.

Aomi! This was who they needed if they wanted to keep their dignity for the duration of this inquiry.

"I can see that he is 'wood'", Kasuga said. "What I meant was why would a piece of wood talk and even argue with you? Most dummies, even if they are given the ability to speak, do not possess consciousness to be able to argue. It's not a Spirit to be able to animate lumber, and even if it were, Spirits never argue with humans. So what--"

"Aomi!!" Nekohiko shrieked, too riled up to control in which body he was doing it. Kataji flinched away from him screaming but Nekohiko already shifted to the nearest body Aomi had with her.

The ladybug.

"Aomi please help us!" he went on screaming as soon as he found himself inside somewhere dark and stuffy. A jewelry box? Why did these siblings keep putting him into jewelry boxes? He wondered if he should take it as a compliment or as an implication of his "precious" yet still very objectified status in this family.

The lid popped open. One of Aomi's eyebrows arched dramatically when she peered inside.

"So you will use this body if you really, really need it," she hummed, satisfied. "Who was wrong, so wrong about dismissing it when I made it for you?"

"Kasuga is interrogating us," he pled, trembling. "She knows! She knows, Aomi!"

It only took her a heartbeat. She flicked fingers at him. "Well, then go back or she'll know you have a spare body here."

"B-but... will you come?" he asked before she could put the lid back. "She's tweaking the temperature and the electric currents in the air and it's messing up our moods and thoughts! We need you in there!"

In response, she only gave him the most obnoxious, victorious grimace he had ever seen, then slammed the lid back on.

Back by Kataji, Kasuga had already strolled up to the boxes that kept most of Nekohiko's log parts in them. She wanted to take a closer look but Kataji scrambled over to cover it all up with his body.

"What is th-the meaning of this, Your Majesty?" he said. "These are my things, and--"

"You brought your things into my kingdom. Into my very own castle. By now, they are as much my things as they are yours," she replied tepidly. "Especially since they seem to be of a dangerous quality -- and I have not been warned about it by you before you snuck them in here."

With a frown, she scanned the room and all the chunks and wood chips and shavings strewn over the desk. "I'm confiscating all of these until our examination team can attest that this thing is harmless."

Kataji's bloodshot eyes after the restless night were an intimidating sight, too. "What."

Nekohiko was too nervous to wedge in a word. Without further explanation, Kasuga turned to walk away but Kataji grabbed her sleeve.

His thin nostrils flared as he tried to lift himself off his wheelchair to not keep looking at Kasuga from below. "What did you say?"

"This thing is of mysterious origin. We need to research it before we can make any conclusions about what it is and what can be done with it--"

"Nothing will be done to him unless I say so!"

Even Kasuga halted, taken aback by the ferocity of Kataji's outburst. When she reached for the doors to pull them open, they slid themselves. Behind them, Aomi was leaning on the frame.

She had dressed up in her most ostentatious outfit of black silks and skull patterns all across them, topped with the spiked headdress over her hair. She gave Kasuga a slithery smile. 

"Don't you think it's inappropriate for a young lady and a young gentleman to even be in a bedroom together with the doors closed and nobody to supervise? Or do you think because it's your castle, everything under this roof goes? You can barge in on anyone and harass them without consequences?" In a languid manner, Aomi lifted her nails to thoroughly inspect them. "I might just start demanding you marry my brother for compromising his honor in such a shameless way, Your Majesty."

Nekohiko could only admire Kasuga's stone face and her ability to filter through any nonsense she was being drowned in. Especially at such a young age.

"Master Kataji," she said, belatedly turning to bow to him. Then to Aomi. "Forgive me for barging in. That was ill-behaved of me. I beg you to not judge all Nagare people on my example. And yet, the questions of my city's safety are of utmost importance to me. And your... wooden object breaks all rules of safety established in this place." Only slightly scowling as though uncomfortable, Kasuga extended her hand to take hold of the closest Nekohiko log part on the desk. "I am terribly sorry but I have to investigate first--"

"Ugh, don't touch that!" Aomi squealed. "Do you even know what he does to it?" She dropped to a very dramatic whisper. "Men at his age have the most insatiable appetites with their sex toys."

This was it. No amount of training and discipline Kasuga had ingested could rival Aomi's endless innuendos. The girl's gloved hand jerked away from Nekohiko faster than an electric charge.

Kataji even allowed it, so furious he was at the hint of Nekohiko's confiscation. He sat in his wheelchair, dejected, trembling with barely restrained anger, and looked at the floor. His jaws flexed under his skin. Yet Nekohiko didn't doubt he was only mad at Kasuga's intentions, not at Aomi's tasteless lies that could actually save them.

Or not.

"My soldiers will come to collect these shortly," Kasuga informed Aomi and Kataji and went to the door.

Aomi blocked her way with her leg propped high against the doorframe. "Here's a suggestion. To solve the issue of Nagare safety, why not kick us out of the castle and out of the city? If we're so dangerous, we would be more than happy to leave." With a light chuckle, she added, "Of course, don't kick us out literally. The ground is painfully far away, yes?"

"A couple leagues of fall¹Plus/minus the same altitude our modern planes fly ^^. ." Kasuga hovered her hand a hairbreadth away from Aomi's shin spread before her like a bar, but didn't touch her. She only tilted her head, dark eyes fixing Aomi's. "Now please move. I have already summoned Etsuko and the others to inspect this place and make sure no danger comes to you while we will be doing that. I would prefer it if you stepped aside for the same exact purpose."

Aomi's eyelashes lay demurely on her cheeks. "A threat? Your Majesty, so forward, aren't you?"

Kasuga blinked, unamused. "Yes. I am."

"Yet you aren't so forward about eavesdropping and spying on the guests in your home, mmm?" Aomi went on. "What other things have you heard Kataji and I do during this night?" Her smile was tempered only by the suggestive biting of her lip. "Oh please tell me you've heard many interesting things."

Kasuga pondered about it. "I am not the one listening, so you may rest assured I did not hear anything that wasn't intended for my ears."

...not the one listening? Nekohiko's interest piqued.

He had never known the Nagare Lord's power over the winds stretched as far as being able to listen in on people's conversations. It made sense, though. And made even more sense knowing Kazuragi's or Yakabe's personalities -- neither of those two would ever stoop to such activities as spying.

Kazuragi had never been an observant type, and Yakabe had been too polite to resort to this method.

But the main question still stood. In the first place, nobody but the Nagare Lord had such control of the winds to listen to the words they could carry.

So how come Kasuga said she wasn't the one doing it?

Aomi had arrived at the same general conclusion. "Oh." She nodded. "So there's more than one pervert in Nagare castle? I wouldn't mind meeting that person just to admire her. Would you mind introducing her to m--"

"That person is no one's business," Kasuga cut, reserved yet unbending.

Not silliness, not stalling, not even shame would divert this girl, would it? Nekohiko had to resort to the only other method he knew.

"Your Majesty, I am not a danger to you or your people. I am a human, not a Spirit, neither a Demon."

Kasuga gave him a sideways glance but didn't move.

Nekohiko resorted to the last thing that was in his possession. His Binding. With the barest strand of it, he reached out to touch Kasuga's Binder's aura. No more than a tickle. He didn't want her to get the full scope of what his powers were and the vast difference between the two of them.

"I am human," he said, defeated. Nobody but humans could Bind in such a crude and ineffective way, after all. Spirits and Demons used far more superior methods, and human manipulations of Binding were inaccessible to them with how base they were. That should be more than enough to convince anybody who knew even a little bit about magic.

Kasuga walked to stand before him. Protectively, Kataji slid to be in between them.

"...are you the Binder who called Suzumegara to come to your rescue yesterday?"

"That would be my cousin, Aomi," he blurted.

He had been preparing this escape route for the last few moments. No doubt Kasuga would try and get a feel of what his aura was like. If he said he was related to Abi siblings, it was a safe bet to claim he also had the blood of the Emperor's in his veins and this was why the auras were so similar and powerful, and so on and so forth.

But as long as it worked...

"My story is tragic and... painful to recite or even tell a perfect stranger. And that is the primary reason we prefer to keep it hidden from the people outside of our family. I hope you understand. But I'm sorry we lied to you. We didn't mean to cause harm. My name is Abi Itsuki," he said, politely dropping his eyes as though attempting to bow and failing due to his rigid form.

Gods, first he'd been living in Abihiko's home and depending on Abihiko's relatives. And now he was taking his last name for himself. No matter; that person owed him much more than this! "Pleased to meet you, Your Majesty."

For the first time since he'd met her, Kasuga appeared upset. Her thin lips gave a quaver and she bit on them lightly. "I... don't... understand. But how--"

"Your Majesty!" an entire squad of soldiers roared. They had somehow snuck up to the door of Kataji's room, even with all the floors being so hard and stony. Had Nagare people always been this stealthy, or had the military science made such a stunning advance while Nekohiko had been dead?

In any case, impressive.

Aomi grabbed her chest in the amusing rendition of her Great Aunt's gesture. "Freaks! What are you screaming for!" She stuck a finger at Kasuga, appalled. "Once I get to Nara, I will demolish Nagare reputation for all the pilgrims in the capital seeking to go here. This place is horrible."

Commander Etsuko also poked her long nose from behind the doors to push Aomi aside. But Kasuga was faster.

"Etsuko," she said, her high voice faltering only a little. "Please take the men away for a while. I'll notify you when you will be needed."

Etsuko took in the small room and the bizarre arrangement on display. But of course she wouldn't dare dismiss the Queen's orders. After a curt bow, she motioned her soldiers to retreat.

"And please close the door," Kasuga told her, too, when the woman stepped out. And once that was out of the way, Kasuga turned her attention to Nekohiko and only sometimes to Kataji. What Aomi was doing, didn't bother the girl in the slightest.

She seated herself ceremoniously on the floor in front of Nekohiko and nodded at him.

"You may begin," she said. Or ordered. With this girl, it was hard to tell the difference.

***

At first, Nekohiko was the one talking. But it didn't last long. What did he need to tell her, really? Only enough to make his overall scheme apparent to Kataji and Aomi so that they could start backing him up and filling in the holes in his rambling narration.

He told her about his untimely death from an illness at the young age of nine and his boring yet peaceful life in the Red Stone estate prior to that. Why that age specifically? Because, he gathered, if he had been older than ten, he would have needed to attend Izumo. And Kasuga wouldn't find it too hard to check Izumo School records for a Binder named Abi Itsuki. Nine was a perfect age for a Binder free of any records.

Why did his voice sound older than nine? Um... that was because he had been stuck in this pathetic form for several years now and managed to grow up like this. Yes. What was so weird about it?

Really, as soon as people accepted the concept of talking tree logs, they could manage to accept any other number of incoherent concepts alongside it. Like playing a game for the very first time. At some point, you just accept everything, choosing to figure it all out much, much later.

Next, he told her about waking up one day and being unable to move or to perceive the world unless somebody drew eyes and ears on him. He had reincarnated as a tree! Wow!

Why? Who knew...? Divine intervention?

At this point, the lie was so twisty and intricate and shameless, he just went with it. Kataji's face had grown ashen. He refused to look up, only focused on his feet on the floor. But his whitened knuckles clutching the edges of his wheelchair were telling on their own.

He only nodded along with the story. Who did the majority of the work of smoothing out the emerging narrative -- was Aomi. No surprise there. She was ecstatic! How she moaned and lamented the death of her beloved cousin Itsuki! How she piled on guilt and accusations of emotional voyeurism onto Kasuga! How she overdramatized the joy and positivity the reincarnated tree had brought back into their lightless, depressing days back at home.

And now, their poor Eldest Brother was waiting to see his little cousin so much, and some extremely annoying and manipulative Queen was abusing that.

"...and would you care about that? Nooo, of course not. Everything about the army, everything about the greatness of Nagare! What do all those meaningless human lives mean to a wind-brains like you?" Aomi ranted, a pleased smirk on her lips. Not only was she allowed to act to the height of her abilities, previously unappreciated, but she could also sneer and insult Kasuga to the girl's very face and not get a single retort back.

As long as she did it smartly.

Kasuga took everything in with the same impassive expression on her face. She almost appeared as if she was sleeping with her eyes closed, but Nekohiko recognized the look he had seen on Nagare Yakabe's face many times. Yakabe was a thoughtful, unhurried person. If he wanted to analyze something properly, he would listen and think and never give an outward sign he was doing either, so deeply concentrated he could become.

So of course Kasuga absorbed Aomi's whining because it was so masterfully interspersed with bits of potentially useful information this girl must have wanted.

Nekohiko couldn't do anything about Kataji's inner turmoil and he was clearly not needed by either Aomi or Kasuga in the midst of their one-sided conversation, so he used the moment. And fled.

Something had been going on with Abihiko all this while but Nekohiko found it hard to peep in during such worrisome events in Nagare. Curious, he perked his ears and blinked above the high collar of Abihiko's inner shirt to see what was going on in the Emperor's day.

A lifeless, bureaucratic stretch of the government council in which Abihiko was mainly listening and nodding was dragging to its end. Nekohiko still preferred it to Aomi's bickering because this was his Empire. He genuinely was interested in any problems and successes it experienced. Alas, Abihiko already rose from his seat and departed the chamber with everyone standing up and bowing while he strolled toward the exit.

"Your Supreme Divine Majesty," the whispers came from all the sides yet not one soul was close enough that Nekohiko could really see them.

Abihiko's heartbeat never hastened, his breaths never caught or deepened. Everything that was happening could not stir him even slightly.

In a strange wave of understanding, Nekohiko wondered just how much Abihiko must hate such a lifestyle. Nekohiko would have enjoyed distance from people and he would enjoy all these meetings. But for someone like Abihiko, this had to be next to torture...

"My Lord," a faint voice called from the side gallery past which Abihiko walked.

A young woman in the tenderest hues of lilac stood shyly by the wooden columns painted shimmering green. A heart-shaped face, fair complexion, big velvety eyes. Among her maidservants, she was like a single blooming flower on an otherwise lackluster shrub.

Abihiko was looking her way but again -- next to his heart and his breath, Nekohiko sensed no reaction from either at the sight of this woman. Even when Abihiko responded to her with the words that should stir even the most heartless of people.

"Ah, my Lady Sakami. Please forgive your feckless betrothed for my poor memory," Abihiko said dryly, then inclined his head after a moment of thought. "We are supposed to spend time together daily before the wedding, aren't we? I forgot once again, My Lady."

The maidservants all kept their heads down and some even shrank when they heard the Emperor speak ill of... the Emperor. But Sakami was only flushed, eyes gleaming and lips trembling as she shook her head passionately.

"You don't need to apologize. It's only a silly contract. I promise you that nobody in my family actually requires all the terms to be followed so strictly. Least of all I."

Her last words were spoken so softly, Nekohiko almost didn't hear. He knew for sure Abihiko didn't because Abihiko started speaking even before she finished.

"I wouldn't want to offend the great Hisome family," he said with a smile that didn't reflect in his pulse one bit. "Unfortunately, as I said -- I forgot to fit our today's promenade into my schedule. You would have to excuse me, Lady Sakami." He didn't wait for her to respond and nodded instead to the maidservants, each of whom also wore the lilac and lavender colors and the diaphanous robes of the Hisome Kingdom. "Please give my sincerest regards to King Morokata."

One of the maidservants was glowering at Abihiko even with her head bent down. Nekohiko felt that Abihiko's words had been mostly directed at her rather than at Sakami who seemed just as uncomfortable to have such a conversation with her future husband as he was with her.

Though, judging by her flustered appearance and pained curve of her eyebrows at she watched Abihiko indirectly, her reaction was of a different sort than his.

When he turned to resume his walk, she forced herself to speak once again.

"Dear cousin Morokata sent me a letter today. He says he will be visiting Nara soon."

Abihiko froze on the spot. The hard skip his pulse did shocked Nekohiko. The following depth and labor of his breaths even more so.

"Tell him I can't wait to see him," Abihiko told Sakami almost naturally.

What Nekohiko had at first believed was excitement, felt more and more like barely restrained resentment as Abihiko hastened his pace down the gallery as though fleeing from being observed by the Hisome maids in a moment of such high emotion.

By the time he was safely out of their sight, his breathing had quietened down even if his heartbeat hadn't. But that, he dealt with easily. As he usually did when frustrated by something.

He punched a damn wooden column he passed -- punched it so hard, Nekohiko heard the distinct sound of knuckles shattering.

Abihiko had never been afraid of pain. One of his many aggravating qualities. As a Binder, he would just heal himself if the damage was too severe to endure. But he had told Nekohiko countless times he liked feeling physical pain for a little longer than he needed to. It distracted him from something far worse than that.

So instead of healing his broken hand, he shook it off and proceeded with his purposeful walk from one Palace building to another. But at least his heartbeat seemed to ease down faster from the spike the pain had dealt it than from the news about Morokata's imminent arrival.

Abihiko even started humming a tune to himself after a while.

And all this time Nekohiko could only stare straight ahead, too terrified to even analyze what he had just seen and why.

Sakami and Abihiko... betrothed? Morokata requiring some bizarre rules for the Emperor to follow? Knuckles breaking... The Hisome King's visitation of the Emperor... spying Hisome maids...

...what?!

What kind of a writhing, baffling snake nest of intrigues had emerged in his very Palace in these last five years? Ohh, after this, he was yearning to return back to the bombastic bickering between Aomi and Kasuga. Anything would be better than this.

Besides, Kasuga was already leaving.

The girl stood hunched and still in the doors as though thinking. On either Nekohiko's side, Aomi and Kataji sat looking up at her as if expecting some kind of a grand verdict.

And she gave one. Slowly. Uncertainly.

"It makes no sense," she whispered as if only to herself. "It's completely illogical."

"I know," Aomi drawled. "Talking trees exist. Your horizons must be so expanded right now."

But Kasuga shook her head. Her eyes flicked to Nekohiko's small wooden cube. The deep perplexity in her gaze prodded his worries.

"Not a tree," she said. "That's exactly what doesn't make any sense."

"What do you mean?" Nekohiko asked.

"If you were reincarnated into a tree like you said -- should you not be able to speak? Or see, or hear? At least in the way you currently do."

Her fingers tapped the door frame as she frowned, thinking. Nekohiko gulped in sudden fear but immediately realized...

He shouldn't be gulping at all.

He had no throat. No saliva.

Indeed, the thought had never truly occurred to him before. He had been so ecstatic about gaining sight that he hadn't questioned how he had it. Or why. Aomi and Kataji hadn't been professionally trained in Spirit or Binding stuff so much that they could view his abilities as anything other than... "magic", vague and by nature, incomprehensible.

But of course Kasuga was different.

"Have you ever experienced roots absorbing nutrients from the soil or your leaves fed with sunlight and air?"

"No. I only truly became aware of things like... touch, hearing, sight," Nekohiko answered, more and more anxious. "When somebody draws very symbolic eyes on me is when I can see."

"Mmm. But you have never been a tree, yes? Never experienced what a tree would?" Kasuga nodded to herself. "You are not a tree. At least not one born as a tree. Which rules out this... reincarnation you speak of."

"But..." Kataji finally resurfaced from his depression. "What else is he then? And how did he become into a tree?"

Kasuga and Nekohiko must have arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously. Because when she started speaking, he already said it.

His heart fell. He felt breathless, too.

"I have never been reincarnated?"

"He is still a human as he'd been before. He even has his own voice. Hear?" Kasuga told Kataji. "So he had never died in order to become reincarnated into a tree. For the lack of a better word, he is a human soul... forcefully tied to that tree. That would be the only way that can explain it."

No. Not tied. She didn't have to use such a layperson's term to describe what had been done to him.

"I am... Bound to this piece of wood?"

Bound.

Exactly like a dummy. Exactly like a Bound Servant. Or like Suzumegara -- to all of its shells and metal plates for others to see it. His very soul trapped and stored inside a block of wood.

"That's what I thought," Kasuga said. "It's the only explanation that makes sense. The caveat is--"

"--no Binder has ever been powerful enough to Bind an entire human's soul and personality and mind to an object. Some facet would always be lost or destroyed in the process. Most times -- everything is lost," Nekohiko finished for her. His voice dropped low. "This should be impossible..."

...

This should be impossible! All of this!

How could this be? His body had died but his soul didn't?! It went on -- only now trapped inside a tree? But what else could he have called that? He had felt it -- death, cold and ruthless and inevitable! What else was it, then?! And how -- and by whom!

"Apparently not as impossible," Kasuga said coolly. "Aren't you here, after all?"

Queenfisher

Sigh -__-. So, here it is. One of the major reveals of the premise and one of the many puzzle pieces to the final mystery ^^. This had never been a reincarnation story in the first place!

Though the MC has always treated it as such, so that might still count since he wasn't deluding you all on purpose. But actually, the truth is a bit more complicated than that...

Kasuga-chan to the rescue! *_*

Sorry I am not drawing and putting out chibi pics for now ^^. Chibi pics only come out after the non-chibi fanart for the characters is shown, and Kasuga, Kazuragi, Yakabe, and one other important member of Nagare family will come out right before the next flashback chapter -- in a picture dump! After that one, I will flood you with Kasuga and Aomi (and other characters') chibi pics inside the chapters, mwahahaha ^^.