Chapter Sixty-Four

I Am Not Your Father, You Are Not My Daddy

 

 

The crate lids thundered closed above him, then shook top to bottom when the dummy carriers began hauling the crates onto the transporting platforms.

Frustration rose in Nekohiko at such an unfortunate treatment. To Abihiko? Really? He was being hauled to the Palace -- now, of all times?

And to do what, exactly? He had no clue as to what Abihiko might do to his poor logs. Talk to them? Torture them for information? Start harassing them with his generally annoying persona as he had always done?

No, thanks -- to all of these. Nekohiko might check out Abihiko's idea of communicating with his logs, but if even the slightest thing irritated him there -- he would abandon all the logs without a second thought.

And good luck to Abihiko in trying to force him to talk if so!

Judging by how long the road to the Palace was and how heavy the logs, he'd likely only end up in Abihiko's vicinity in an hour or a bit sooner than that. So with free consciousness, Nekohiko went back to his cat form. Better do something in that time.

And there was so much to do...

Aomi, oddly, had the same affinity to talk in her sleep or to tumble and roll around her bed at night or during the morning or sometimes even afternoon as she did now. At least she didn't speak nonsense like Abihiko sometimes did, but she could scream and toss nonetheless, and thus, Nekohiko always preferred to keep as far away from her as possible if they shared a bed.

Carefully, he wormed out from under her pillow and skittered to the floor. The doors of her lonely quarters were all open, so he slid out in no time and directed his search toward any mention or sight of Kasuga in the twisty corridors of the dark Nagare castle. He didn't need to look for long.

Kasuga found him herself.

"Mrrrrrrm!" he whelped.

Like a very rude hand, a gust of wind swept him off his paws and dragged all across the corridors to where the stormy-looking girl was strolling beside Kotone.

Nekohiko could only meow in fear as Kasuga ordered the castle draft to whisk Nekohiko off the floor and deposit in her arms. Her hands, in their usual military gloves and spike arm braces, felt as hard as stone around his torso. Seemed like she would not let him go again no matter what he did.

"...and aid in the ceremony," Kotone finished saying even though she looked as though she had long forgotten what she was talking about. Her face showed as much confusion at Nekohiko's treatment in Kasuga's arms as Nekohiko felt.

But Nekohiko had no time to pay attention to that. In Kotone's hand, he saw the royal announcement message, already opened and probably read moments prior.

The ceremony Kotone was talking about... it had to be Abihiko's and Sakami's wedding!

Of course. As the official from Izumo Shrine, Kotone would be notified about the wedding as soon as all the other high-ranking priests who would serve in the ceremony! Kotone would have to attend it and would have to take part in it, so of course she had already received the news.

But so far, Kotone did not seem excited about it. Which was strange, with how much Nekohiko knew about her.

Kotone loved happy news about her friends and loved ones. He could swear Abihiko was one such person in her heart. So why wasn't she happy about his upcoming wedding?

In fact, she looked downright miserable, clutching the slightly-crumpled notice in her fingers.

Kasuga, on the contrary, was in good spirits. She squeezed Nekohiko's fur, pressing him closer to herself.

"I figured you won't talk to me again as a wood block and I won't be able to trace if you're present or not inside it," she said, menacing. "So I decided to monitor your cat movements instead. Good call, wasn't it?"

"I was just about to come to you and talk!" Nekohiko protested meekly.

"Of course." Kasuga nodded. "Because you want something from me again. You only ever talk to any of us when we're useful to you. But not when it's the other way around. Is that not so?"

Well...

He tried to not look too guilty in her arms.

"How is my brother doing?" Kasuga demanded.

"He's fine. Absolutely fine!"

"Are you sure? He's safe in Lord Okinaga's home, well-fed, and well-rested, and not in any danger?"

...

"Yes?" Nekohiko said as believably as he could.

Kasuga frowned like a tempest brewing.

"Poor Cat Prince," Kotone sighed but reached her hand to rub him behind the ear. "Don't bully him, Your Majesty. It's a sad day for all Nekohikos around the land..."

Yes, why was he constantly bullied by different kinds of Majesties? Abihiko, Morokata, now Kasuga... 

And he was the most majestic of all of them! Also -- what?

"A sad day for all Nekohikos?" he asked, perplexed.

Kotone flipped the royal notice in her fingers, then nodded at another one Kasuga had stashed in her sleeve. "There will be an Imperial wedding soon and everybody is invited to attend. I personally will be in the procession and the bride preparation group. My good friend Haehime, the Izumo Shrine Maiden will lead the ceremony, so of course there will be a lot of work to do for all of us.

"It's just that," she hesitated, "I always felt that if I will take part in Abihiko's... forgive me -- His Majesty's -- wedding, it would be to a different person. This marriage will not make him happy."

A genuine shade of sadness marred her face. Despite himself, Nekohiko felt a twinge in his heart as well.

"...why?" he asked before he could stop himself. "What made you think so?"

She took in a deep breath as though surrendering. "I know true love when I see it. And his heart obviously belongs to someone else."

...tch.

Nekohiko tried not to grow annoyed and failed. Luckily, he wasn't the only one. Kasuga also followed the conversation with vivid displeasure. "Can we talk about anything other than the Emperor's marriage today, please?"

"I knooooow," Kotone moaned, patting Kasuga on the shoulder. "You are also engaged to him. Ah, Abihiko is so much like himself. Breaking so many people's hearts without committing to them... That young man! If he wasn't the Emperor now, I would have had one very strong conversation with him, you can bet!"

Kasuga politely extricated herself from Kotone's grasp and sidled away. "I'm going to go now. I have... business to attend to."

"Oh yes, I also have to leave," Kotone livened up as though only now remembering. "If I want to make it to the preparatory ceremonies in Nara, I need to leave now and ride without rest for two whole days..." She gave the halls and the people shifting in the distance a concerned glance. "I was only waiting for little Aomi to wake so I could give her my goodbyes."

Kasuga had walked some feet away but turned around immediately. "No worries. I will drop you off in Nara whenever you want. I and His Imperial Majesty's sister will have to fly to Nara to attend the wedding in two days anyway, so..."

"All righty!" Kotone perked up, a sunny smile on her face. It was as though she had been waiting for Kasuga's offer all this while. "But isn't it a bit too funny, Queen Kasuga, that you fly people here and there like some sort of an airborne vehicle all the time?"

"..."

Kasuga didn't reply anything other than clear her throat and depart with all her poise. It was Nekohiko who received the brunt of her frustration as her hands minced and squeezed him too hard for him not to notice.

The concept of a "Kasuga-vehicle" must have been an incredibly offensive remark to her. Poor Kasuga. Unlike Aomi who would have had a blast from teasing Kasuga with such a title, Kotone likely had no idea her cute joke would stab Kasuga so hard.

For some reason, Nekohiko empathized with Kasuga a lot. Quiet, reserved people like him and her were bullied by others all too often!

"What was it you supposedly wanted to tell me?" Kasuga asked once she flew into her office and slammed the door shut behind her. The gusts of wind of her arrival disturbed the scrolls and papers on her desk and shelves and beat the window curtains.

Frankly, Nekohiko felt very intimidated by all this. He jumped to the desk and sat behind the log cube of himself as though hiding.

"Well, you asked me who I was -- but I had no time to answer you back then. So now..." he began, timid. "My name wouldn't tell you much, but you can just rest assured that I am not your enemy or the Nagare Kingdom's enemy."

She sat down in her chair, eyes narrowing. "That doesn't prove anything. Your name, on the contrary, might."

With a sigh, Nekohiko rolled his eyes. "Nekohiko."

And as he had predicted -- no trace of recognition emerged on Kasuga's face. "Cat Prince? Really?"¹As usual, the direct translation of Nekohiko to Japanese yields this result as well as the following one.

"No! Tree Roots Prince! Actually, my full name is so splendid, you might feel inferior just from hearing it. It's an official Imperial name," he snapped. "Because I'm the Emperor. The actual Emperor, all right?"

If anything, Kasuga was not growing less suspicious. Rather, she was looking more and more uncomfortable as though watching a madman breaking loose in her office.

"I'm not insane and not lying! This time, at least," he added, calming down somewhat. "But see? It doesn't ring any bells in you, so what did it matter what my name was? It has been erased from all historical records."

Kasuga fumbled around her desk boxes and shelves, then turned back to him with the black glass scroll she had shown him the last time. The Binding aura imprint across the last five years.

"...and you being Bound to a tree around that time?" she asked, pointing to the scroll. "Which one was your aura?"

He felt both trapped and hopeless. But it wasn't as though she could check it anyway. He only knew he shouldn't tell her all of the truth.

"The true Emperor's, obviously. The one that Suzumegara had caught when you found me and Abi siblings during the Line accident," he said with a sigh.

"Ah." A visible dejection crossed her expression and her shoulders sloped a bit. "I see. It all makes sense, at last."

Nekohiko waited for her to demand more answers and explanations from him, but she only sat there, watching the dimming and brightening imprints of Binding auras on her scroll, saying nothing. The girl looked so... depressed all of a sudden, Nekohiko couldn't help but feel guilty.

"...you sound upset," he said. "But also -- not very interested. And I thought you would pester me with so many questions about my goals and motives and my connection to the current Emperor, ha-ha..."

Dark, thoughtful, Kasuga's eyes traced the lines of Binding auras as if not bearing to look anywhere else.

"It was stupid of me," she whispered at last, "but I hoped... that maybe the person who had fallen during the siege of the Emerald Palace and been Bound to a tree to preserve him was..." She dwindled out. "My father."

...

Oh.

Of course.

Nekohiko closed his eyes, pained.

"Suzumegara was so excited to respond to your call during the Line accident, and besides, I just felt it -- how profoundly Suzumegara trusted you the moment she came close to you. And then, when you advised me how to resolve the conflict with the Emperor after the Fuji battle... and how you took care of me and Mikawa ever since... So I thought... maybe..."

Spirits, this was awful. This young girl hoped so badly for her father to come back to her and help solve her many troubles, guide her, protect her. And instead, all she got from the wretched gods of fate -- was Nekohiko.

"I'm sorry, Kasuga. But I am not him. Neither of them," he said after a beat of silence.

"Yes." She rolled the scroll closed, then once again assumed her usual stoic exterior. "Like I said -- it was stupid of me. Think nothing of it since it has nothing to do with you." She cleared her throat and steeped her fingers before her. "Back to business, then. If you are the true Emperor--"

"You don't ever have to worry about me," he said. "I knew your fathers. Both of them. Actually, Yakabe had saved my life by sacrificing himself, so -- please believe me when I say I owe your fathers and would never make a move against either you or Mikawa."

She listened, patient, but none of her emotions now showed on her face even though Nekohiko had just seen how deeply vulnerable she could be.

"My issues are between me and Abihiko and nobody else," he went on. "The Empire will not notice it at large. Especially the Nagare Kingdom that, I am sure, had nothing to do with my untimely death during the Emerald Palace siege five years ago." And before she could ask him how he knew, he struck while he had an advantage. "On the other hand, the Hisome Kingdom and the Towa and the Hira aren't as innocent in my eyes. That said, I want to gather information first, then dispute my claim to the throne."

Kasuga reclined in her chair, lips bitten in deep thought. His words about being opposed to all her enemies might have just been enough to tug at all the right strings in her heart.

"...and Mikawa has spied for me about everything you did in Nara," Kasuga murmured to herself, "yet he didn't think you were dangerous at all. He feels very safe with you. In fact, so much, I am unsure whether I should hurry to bring him back here, to Nagare after the wedding."

Nekohiko brightened up. "I am very happy to hear that. There's this one thing I noticed lately about him, too. He no longer has his health issues with his terrible cough he had here, in Nagare. Which is weird because he once told me it's a condition he had always had."

"He does," Kasuga said, lost.

But Nekohiko shook his head. "Probably not. I doubt the capital's air is so much healthier than Nagare castle's. Then again, the lack of people surrounding him who would benefit from him being sick is a great improvement in the capital compared to here." He held his small pause for a grander effect. "Queen Kasuga, I think someone from your family had been poisoning Mikawa or at least trying to maintain his poor health while he lived here. Once that changed, his health improved."

Kasuga kept quiet, watching him in a grim stupor. Nekohiko shrugged. "I just wanted you to take that into account before you want to bring Mikawa back to Nagare. He seems so much better off far away from here."

Subtly, she nodded, and a trace of the same vulnerability flashed on her face for a moment. "All... right. I'll think about it. Later."

The way she said that made him squirm with pain once more. Not only had he taken her only hope she had for seeing her father, Kazuragi, again. But now he was very obviously telling her that her only family member she felt close to should stay away from her. Probably forever.

No doubt she was lost and miserable.

Yet she controlled her emotions quite well.

"That is not what we're discussing here, though," she went on, going back into her business-like tone that Nekohiko immediately wanted to support to distract her away from her sadder concerns. "The last proof I need about your truthfulness is that Suzumegara trusts your completely," she mused on to Nekohiko's delight.

"Of course she does," he said. "Do not you feel that the reason the Empire's Spirits are in such turmoil currently is because the wrong person is on the throne? A person who prioritizes and favorites all the wrong kinds of people among his subordinates?"

It was clear -- Kasuga enjoyed more and more where he was going with this. Yet she still gave him a frigid glare. "It's not that I think the Emperor should prioritize other people instead. The Emperor should be neutral and devoted to everyone equally."

"Obviously! Good we're on the same page about that," Nekohiko hurried.

"Good, indeed."

A couple of minutes passed as Kasuga pondered it over. Nekohiko didn't disturb her. He only straightened up when she leaned over the desk to him, secretive. "And what will your and the Emperor's dispute over the throne entail? Something militaristic, covert, or a religious claim, or maybe a revolt in all the Kingdoms?"

"No, nothing so drastic," Nekohiko huffed. His whiskers twitched in distaste just from thinking about it. "I'll tell you in a couple of days based on what I find about the Emperor's plans in regard to the wedding and the honeymoon. My next moves will directly depend on his, you understand. But you can trust me that my claim will be peaceful. The only people who might dislike and get offended by my way of doing it will be Abihiko himself and obviously -- Morokata."

"Mmm." Kasuga's eyes sparked up. "Interesting."

"What I will need your help in, though," he continued, already getting excited at the idea he had, "is Kotone. When you fly her off to Nara, can you make sure she takes this cat body with her?"

"...uh? What does Kotone have to do with your claims to the throne?"

Oh.

Something.

Something very vengeful and exciting and probably insane as well. Not that Nekohiko minded.

"You'll know it when you see it," Nekohiko told Kasuga. "But I can bet Kotone will love it."

 

 

---

***

 

"Has anyone seen my cat?!" Aomi screamed in the hallways of the Nagare castle. Nekohiko heard her all the way from Kasuga's office and heard that Aomi was coming closer, too.

He'd spent about an hour slowly and thoroughly talking with Kasuga about the state of the Fuji area in the Spiritside, but of course their peaceful heart-to-heart had to be interrupted so rudely like this.

Nekohiko had no time to explain himself or why he was spending time with Kasuga behind Aomi's back. So the moment the Nagare officers started panicking behind the doors and Aomi's classic inane flood of insults and acidic remarks began pouring out in the space in front of the office, Nekohiko decided to flee.

The door slid open a crack to show Aomi's gleeful face as she peeked at Kasuga. "Have you seen my--?" Aomi began only to grow very pissed when she saw Nekohiko on Kasuga's desk.

"Yes, I have seen your--," Kasuga answered coolly. "And he's not really your--, just so you know. He's a free person and right now, he and I are having a secret government meeting. Secret," she stressed.

"You... cat-stealer!"

"I have to go," Nekohiko told the girls.

Aomi darted to him, intending to grab. "No, no, please don't go! I'll behave! I missed you so much and Kataji is gone and this place is so dull! And the people in charge -- so mean! If not for Kotone -- I would have already died from boredom!"

Nekohiko gave her a cute face but curled into himself to rest this body just the same. "Sorry. I still have to go."

"But--!"

"Your Eldest Brother is waiting for me," he finished.

"Oh." Aomi's entire attitude changed in a flash. A crazed smile split her lips and her eyes ignited from within. "Then all right. Please do! Go, go! Straight away!"

Nekohiko nodded at Kasuga as a way of goodbye only to see her flick a distressed look at Aomi. "What're you so happy about?" she muttered under her nose as if hoping Aomi wouldn't hear.

But Aomi did. She flapped her hand at Kasuga and answered in a loud and obnoxious whisper, "Ooooh, you have no idea! Maybe I'll even tell you one day if you're nicer to me, mwahahaha!"

How tiring. These typical insinuations from Aomi again.

Nekohiko fled from the cat body and bounced a bit through all the others he had. All those small woodchips shared between Kataji, Mikawa, and Mikawa's cloth bag in their inn room, his ladybug somewhere in Aomi's jewelry boxes, his reBound dummy back in The Doll Palace that was still gradually recovering after Hibiki's and Morokata's spell, and finally -- the bulk of his logs transported to Abihiko's private quarters in the Emerald Palace.

By now, the crates with all the logs had long been brought into the rooms and taken out by Abihiko's servant dummies. Yet because Nekohiko didn't have good access to hearing or seeing through them, he preferred to stay in the seashell pendant on Abihiko's neck.

From here, he could see and hear everything so clearly. And feel the maddening pace of Abihiko's heart as it quickened by turns when his dummies were finishing their work on placing Nekohiko's logs all across the room's polished floors.

Abihiko was sitting behind his desk, spending only a bit of his concentration on reading the documents and papers before him. The rest of the time he was watching the dummies unload the logs, and his attention was far too hawk-like and possessive about it.

"Do not hurry," he told the dummies that nearly dropped one of the bigger logs. "Just be careful with it."

At times, Nekohiko shifted his view to one of the logs to see Abihiko from the side. The sight was as unsettling as ever.

Abihiko was still dressed in the same robes he'd had on yesterday night and he'd clearly not slept or rested at all till now. A feverish brightness shone in his eyes and in the sick flush over his cheeks, but he didn't look tired whatsoever.

Actually, he looked over-stimulated instead. His feet jittered under the desk and his fingers tapped the stack of papers ever so often.

So when the dummies overturned the last crates to check that they were empty, Abihiko was already on his feet.

"Go away," he said. "Now!"

All of sudden, he did want them to hurry. A small table-like carrier dummy bumped into his thigh on its way out and the glower Abihiko gave it felt like a threat to incinerate on the spot. Only after the pitter-patter of the wooden dummy feet clanged down the corridor behind the doors, did Abihiko exhale in relief and came closer to the logs.

From his high vantage point beneath Abihiko's chin, Nekohiko saw all the log parts in a long, careful stretch as though they were prepped for an operation. Abihiko sauntered alongside them, examining and studying each and every piece for long minutes.

He stopped beside one of the bigger ones and got to his knees. As though unsure, he extended his hand to it and brushed his fingers gently over the cut form. His fingers shook.

"Neko," he said, then lifted one of the pieces that must have been one of Kataji's failed attempts to carve out a human face out of it. "I have never imagined you could end up in the cut wood parts." A frustrated smile twitched on his lips for a second. "I always thought it would be the live branches. Something breathing and growing and... alive. Yet here you are. In a dead piece of the tree trunk."

Eh?

...so that was the reason this freak talked to that small Emerald Fir in his vault? Abihiko had believed that Nekohiko's soul would end up in that small potted plant instead? To be honest, Nekohiko was relieved. He had been worried if Abihiko had become fully insane in the past years, which, judging by him so readily talking to wooden blocks -- wasn't that farfetched either.

Abihiko's fingernail scraped the surface of the log lightly as though wanting it to take note.

Nekohiko winced. Because he did feel that. Only he had no idea where Abihiko wanted to go with this. Would he scratch and tap all of these logs in hopes it would answer?

Yeah, go ahead, weirdo.

Then Abihiko did exactly that.

"Can you hear me?" Abihiko asked the carved face. "Are you here? Are you aware?"

Nekohiko derived an odd pleasure out of this, partly because he could feel desperation emanate from Abihiko as he sifted through the other log pieces and no answer came to his questions. Yeah, be desperate.

Grovel.

And beg forgiveness, you bastard.

"I don't know if it was you in that doll Kataji brought last night," Abihiko said suddenly. "But if you were there... and if you're here now -- please, can you speak to me? Can you give me a sign? Anything."

If Nekohiko could laugh, he would now.

"It won't be a carving and I don't know human anatomy as well as Kataji does," Abihiko said, rising to his full height from the floor. "But if you need a working human form, I can give it to you, too."

Nekohiko balked.

--wait, what--!

Abihiko's palms already slid against each other in a recognizable pattern of an Imperial Fusion spell, one of the most complex ones. Molding matter together, then summoning a form out of it.

Noooo!

Shit, he wasn't actually going to make a human out of wood as though slapping together a statue out of clay -- would he?!

Madman! My wooden body does not work like this! I have to be inside all these pieces simultaneously for it to work, arggghh!

But of course Abihiko would not know that. What had taken Nekohiko and Kataji several attempts and countless hours of pain to discover, Abihiko simply stepped over and tried the most obvious way to make a human. By forcing it through Binding.

Like he always had done.

Something doesn't work? Break it. Someone displeases you? Kick them. A relationship with another person doesn't feel good anymore? Dump them, or in Nekohiko's special case -- slit their throat.

Abihiko snapped all the logs together, easy as that.

In the last attempt to salvage his logs, Nekohiko tried to share his consciousness with a couple of them, but Abihiko pulled together too many -- and merged them all into one malleable lump of the wood grain. So many things were wrong with that and with Nekohiko's ability to maintain his mind in that aberration that he simply gave up.

Out of the misshaped mound of wood, Abihiko now Bound together a human form, rushing, unable to fully focus or pay attention. It wasn't as anatomically-correct as what Kataji had done, and obviously not as pretty as what Hibiki and Morokata could do. Abihiko was rushing and couldn't spare a moment to check a book on human body structures. He did it by instinct, and the result looked appropriately.

Or, in other words -- a mess.

But it still had the shape of a human body. A kind of a youthful, slender male body. Once the final form was done, Abihiko spent much more time to make sure the face looked right. Although Nekohiko couldn't say what Abihiko wanted the face to be.

For being a very talented Binder, Abihiko sure sucked at sculpting. He focused on details like the exact shape of the eyes or the mouth or the chin and forgot if all of it fit together well in the end. The wooden strands of hair lay in long, unruly locks over Abihiko's fingers as he stretched them out of the wood like he would from clay, giving the wood an aspect of softness and flexibility.

He did that a lot. Tried to give wood suppleness and capacity to breathe, and the qualities of movement and sensation and who knew what else. Nekohiko watched it all with detached indifference, only wondering about the extents of "insane" and "devoted" Abihiko seemingly possessed.

Truly, a mad sculptor who had no idea what he was doing but plenty of desire to do it.

Yet the form Abihiko had ended up making was lifeless. Once Abihiko released it from his Binding spell to finalize its form, the wooden human collapsed to the floor. The sculpture still held its form, and everything worked as it should. The wooden skin was tender and soft, the limbs heavy and flexible, the hair cascading down the sculpted shoulders and back as any real hair would.

But when Abihiko caught the thing in his arms to not let it fall, it all became clear.

This was still a block of wood. Only now shaped to be like a human. No amount of prodding and clutching it in his arms or asking it to respond could change that.

You idiot. You ruined all this wood and for what? Nekohiko grumbled at Abihiko even as Abihiko was still in disbelief about what happened and where he'd gone wrong.

Ah, so much waste! Nekohiko lamented, then thought with a touch of dark joy, Mmmm, can't wait to find out what Kataji will do to you when he finds out you ruined all his logs!

And yet, this was also a bit pitiful.

Because Abihiko gave the dead human body in his arms a shake, then slowly lifted in his arms.

"Nekohiko?" His voice ran with tremors. "Nekohiko, please... can you hear me? Are you here? Are you... mad at me and that's why you don't answer?"

Nekohiko settled down inside the seashell because, honestly, there weren't many log parts left that he could go to. Almost everything had been ruined and turned into dead matter thanks to Abihiko's rushed desire to make a human shape out of a log with magic.

Even if Nekohiko wanted to answer him, he couldn't. But more than that -- he probably wouldn't. Abihiko did not deserve Nekohiko's presence served on a silver platter before him.

If he wanted him, let him suffer to get it first.

The dummies tapped the doors from the outside and a few Voicers announced some governmental meetings scheduled soon in Abihiko's overstuffed working day. He had already spent so much time on making this ugly piece of a human. But it seemed as though he hadn't yet realized how long it had taken him. So even when his next scheduled chores came up. Abihiko ignored the dummies telling him.

But their voices kept coming from outside the doors.

"Neko? Neko, come on!"

As if finally realizing he was wasting his time, Abihiko wrapped up the wooden human into his outer robe and carried it to one of the bedchambers meant for the Imperial concubines and favorites to live in. The place was tidy and tastefully-decorated, which proved to Nekohiko that Abihiko had never spent his time here -- with Abihiko's garish taste and lack of any orderliness...

He lay the wooden human on the bed and spread the bedcover over it, prepping the wooden arms to lie on its chest as though resting. After a moment of aimless waiting, Abihiko sat beside it on the bed and went on watching the ugly wooden face again.

He watched for a very long time. A very uncomfortable and worrying period of time, actually.

His back was slumped and his breaths were so quiet, Nekohiko half-wondered if Abihiko forgot how breathing worked. His hand caressed the edges of the wooden fingers but pulled away as if afraid to touch them.

"You can rest here," Abihiko said, finally tearing his gaze off the uncanny sculpture and looking toward the windows that led to the inner garden of the Emperor's quarters. The sun was high and unusually bright today, making the day seem harsh, merciless. The sunlight flooding the room sharpened all the edges and intensified the contrasts with shadows and darkness.

Abihiko slid down the bed to the floor, not daring to raise his head to look at the human again.

"I don't even know if it's you in there, but if you are... if you are -- speak to me," he whispered so quietly, only the wooden human would be able to hear if it could.

Or the seashell.

"I know you want answers and I know you probably want revenge." Abrupt, a hollow chuckle escaped him, and Abihiko raised his face to the wooden human. "All right, I can bet you want revenge. You will get it. I promise you that. But before it... you and I have to meet. To speak. Not just me talking to you. I need to hear you back as well. To know that you understand me and that you absolutely believe me."

Yeah...

Sure. Absolutely believe you.

Enraged, Nekohiko really wanted to grind his teeth now; a pity his seashell didn't have any.

"Maybe... you can't talk in this form and can't hear me. So, no problem." Abihiko leaned over to the wooden human's face, and the seashell pendants hanging off his neck clinked as they bumped into the wooden cheek. Abihiko put his mouth as close to the wooden human's ear as he could. Then he whispered, "I will send an invitation to Kataji for you and him to attend a dinner or a breakfast with me tomorrow. It's the only way you and I can meet again in that doll form you have. If you don't feel safe to talk to me now, or if you can't -- please, please come to me with my brother. We can... come up with some other way for us to communicate or meet again, just the two of us. But... please, Neko.

"Please come back to me. I... need you."

A subtle crackle of Abihiko's knuckles was the only sound between them now.

Abihiko's fingers crumpled the blanket, highlighting all the bones peeking from under the skin. When Abihiko's started speaking again, Nekohiko could clearly see how deep the imprint of his teeth was on his lower lip when Abihiko released his bite.

A part of his lip cracked and bled, but Abihiko didn't notice.

The sight gutted Nekohiko.

"And just so I know that you and this log form are the same, when you come with Kataji -- put on something as a sign. Put on a red maple leaf in your hair if this body is the same as that body. Carry a... I don't know -- a book about agriculture you love so much with you if you are willing to talk to me," he laughed as though not believing his own words. "And if you hate me, you can quote all and any of the legends about Emperor Jimmu like you sometimes did when you wanted to annoy me. During a dinner in a high-class society, quoting poetry and legends is a normal thing, so you can be as vicious with me if you want. I won't care. Just please, come back to me. Come. Will you?"

Servant dummies tapped the outer doors of the quarters again and again and Abihiko could not pretend he didn't hear them anymore. He had to go. Brushing his fingers one last time over the wooden human's wrist, he rose to his feet and left. But before he did, he shut all the windows and Bound them against intrusion or spying and very carefully locked the door outside the bedroom with the creepy wooden person inside.

Nekohiko huffed in derision. For all Abihiko talked about wanting to communicate with him, he sure didn't mind locking him shut inside the room as if he were a prisoner!

Annoyed, Nekohiko fled back to his other bodies. And ah, how heavenly it was -- to settle down inside a real human body of his!

The breathing, living, and powerful body back in The Doll Palace.

Just a single moment here, and Nekohiko could already sense the vast improvements and superiority of this dummy compared to all his previous ones.

This was as close to his ideal self as possible. And this was exactly the body Nekohiko would not mind taking to Abihiko. Not held by him, not stashed away and trapped inside one of Abihiko's countless rooms. Because even if Abihiko tried to, this body would be able to kick his sorry ass right back.

This body could defeat the Emperor in a one-on-one fight, of that he was sure.

He sat up on Hibiki's Binding table, humming through his lips as his body reacted smoothly and perfectly to each of his motions.

At his feet, Kataji, Hibiki, and Morokata sat in chairs, sharing a few drinks of tea while they waited for Nekohiko to wake up.

Kataji blinked, smiling.

Hibiki's eyes glowed up with his usual psychopathic mania for everything doll-like.

And Morokata... As though having just succeeded in some marvelous trick, Morokata put his chin in his palm and crinkled up his eyes into crescents that befitted him so much.

"You know what I just realized, Kataji's cute little doll?" Morokata asked Nekohiko, dreamy. "That I'm one of your makers now. And you're the first doll I've officially helped make. So you are my first ever doll child, Itsuki! Congratulations." And he winked most adorably. "Now call me Daddy."