However, Ira’s medium, Miyabi Maisaka, had already broken through the barrier. Ganzheit’s warmonger faction led by Eusebius Berith concentrated their forces around Sagano, and Yahiro’s group had to move carefully to avoid alerting them. “It seems Galerie’s HQ alone has a big enough army surrounding the Myoujiin. There must be five hundred operators at minimum.” Wei placed pieces representing the enemy troops on a map while parsing the enemy’s comms. The situation seemed critical, but Giuli only shook her head with a sigh. “Oh my… They’re disregarding earnings entirely. The shareholders are not gonna be happy about this.” “Not to mention they have at least four other big PMCs involved. Then there are two unidentified units; I imagine they are some country’s special forces.” “Ganzheit’s warmonger faction is spending everything on this operation. Facing them head-on would not be smart. They’re gonna find out about our revolt soon, too. Should’ve blown that guy’s head off when we had the chance,” Giuli said, her tone making it hard to tell whether she was joking or not. Iroha frowned with complicated feelings about her remark. “But you have a plan, right? We wouldn’t be here otherwise.” “Not a plan plan. We’re infiltrating in small numbers and snatching Karura. Simple.” “And realistic. I think it’s a good plan,” Karura replied through the black Moujuu’s mouth. “What about everyone else? Are we leaving them for dead?” Yahiro asked with a scowl. Naturally, Karura wasn’t the only person in the Myoujiin territory. Whisking everyone away would be impossible, but they would fall victim to Ganzheit’s assault if left behind. “If I leave the forbidden zone, no one will have any reason to stay. The Moujuu should be able to help them escape.” “The Moujuu…eh?” “Yes.” Karura stared at Yahiro. The Myoujiin hadn’t fallen despite the broken barrier because they had hidden in the deep, dark forest. The Galerie HQ operators were having a hard time fighting them on unfamiliar turf. “Yeah, and I doubt that guy would risk it to pursue noncombatants. I think they have a fair chance of running away as things stand now.” “Let’s hope that is the case,” Karura prayed in response to Giuli’s composed analysis. They realized they were being optimistic, but they had no choice but to believe. Yahiro fell silent as he picked up on the determination in Karura’s voice. “We’re here. Let’s go.” Karura ordered them to stop the vehicle in the middle of a mountain road surrounded by a bamboo grove. “Here? Pretty rustic house, isn’t it?” Giuli said sarcastically as she looked out the window. “I’m sorry to say this is only the hidden passage’s entrance. People in power always have an escape route in place. Betrayal and uprisings are commonplace throughout history.” “There’s a path…here?” Yahiro looked around with confusion as he exited the car. In the darkness he could see only a dense bamboo thicket and the ruins of a small shrine. The black Moujuu escaped Iroha’s arms and walked up the stone stairs to the shrine. Giuli instructed Wei and the rest to stand by, taking only Yahiro and Iroha with her to follow the Moujuu. Karura stopped upon reaching the top of the stairs. A half-wrecked torii gate and altar remained beside the entrance of a cave that was so small it could only fit one person at a time. Two gray Moujuu stood before the entrance, blending in with the scenery. “Moujuu?!” Yahiro reached for his sword on reflex. They resembled small tigers. They sat before the cave like a shrine’s lion-dogs, glaring at the approaching group. “They’re the passage’s guards. Don’t worry,” said the black Moujuu under Karura’s control as it approached the cave’s entrance. The two beasts guarding the cave stood up in silence to let her through. There was something solemn about the sight. “Huh… They really protect you, just like Iroha,” Giuli said as she looked up, impressed by the two Moujuu. “I just ask them for favors. I can’t do what Karura does.” Iroha placed a hand on her cheek. Her white Moujuu wasn’t with them. Nuemaru stayed back at the camp with Runa to protect the kids. “That’s not true, Iroha Mamana,” Karura objected cleanly. “As I told you, you’ve lost most of your real power. I can only control the Moujuu because I inherited part of it.” “Inherited…? What, you’re part of the Heavenly Imperial House, Iroha?” Yahiro’s brow furrowed. “Huh?! Then, we’re relatives?!” Iroha looked at the black Moujuu in shock. “No, that isn’t it, although you could say we’re old acquaintances.” “R-really?!” Iroha’s eyes sparkled. Karura’s comment implied that she knew Iroha before she lost her memories. Iroha took it as such and got her hopes up. Then Karura came to a halt and sighed deeply. “I intended to explain that to you here…but it seems we’ve already had another visitor.” “What?” Yahiro followed the black Moujuu’s gaze and gasped. Someone stood by the entrance, protected by the two Moujuu. She was a beautiful woman whose long forelocks covered her right eye. Yahiro recognized that face. “Sorry, I took the liberty of entering without permission.” She smiled at Karura. The Moujuu guards showed no intention of attacking her. They did not attack dragon mediums. Yahiro glared at her. Why was she here? Karura sighed and shook her head, but welcomed her. “No, it’s fine. We know each other, after all… Ira’s medium, Miyabi Maisaka.” 3 “What is the meaning of this, Miyabi?” Yahiro asked her as he moved to guard Iroha and Giuli. “Why are you here? Did you bring Ganzheit?” “No way. I only used Ganzheit to get near this place.” Miyabi shook her head, chuckling at Yahiro’s hostility. “I showed them half the way, but I left some layers of the barrier. It’ll take them a while to get here.” “You used Ganzheit…? Why?” Iroha asked with a furrowed brow. Miyabi had been acting under Ganzheit’s orders until now. She was clearly an enemy of Yahiro’s group, and she knew that, yet now she stood on her own, defenseless before them. It was basically suicide. Why did she take such a risk to enter the forbidden zone? “It’s a bit embarrassing to have someone ask that to my face, but my goal has been the same since the beginning.” Miyabi smiled with self-derision. “I want to tell the truth. The truth I reached after you drove me away two years ago… Will you show me this time, Karura Myoujiin?” “Very well. The situation is unlike back then, after all.” The Moujuu in Iroha’s arms spoke calmly. “Now that the forbidden zone’s master has returned, there is no reason to turn you away. And besides, she should understand quicker if we have more dragon mediums with us.” “I see… I knew it.” Miyabi nodded, her gaze stuck on Iroha. “Huh? What do they mean?” Iroha whispered to Yahiro. Yahiro sighed. “Don’t ask me. How could I know if you don’t?” “Right… Sorry…” “Is that something worth apologizing for?” “As chummy as ever. I’m jealous.” Miyabi smiled at the sight of Yahiro and Iroha’s slow back-and-forth. “Ah…” Iroha’s lips trembled. Miyabi’s Lazarus, Douji Yamase, was no longer around, and it was none other than Iroha and Yahiro who had killed him. “Miyabi… I…” “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean anything about Douji, don’t worry. For starters, I abandoned him first.” Miyabi narrowed her left eye mischievously. “But I couldn’t allow it. I wanted the truth, and he covered it in lies to try and spread it around the world. I was not going to stand back and let him.” Yahiro felt chills run down his spine. Upon breaking the oath with the medium, the Lazarus’s dragon blessing turned into a curse that ended him or her. Yamase broke his promise to Miyabi to report the truth. As a result, his power of immortality was taken from him and he died. “What is this truth you pursued? It doesn’t sound like it was just the existence of dragons,” Iroha asked with a serious tone. Ganzheit had ordered Miyabi and Douji to reveal Iroha’s identity as a dragon medium to the world, but that couldn’t possibly be what Miyabi was looking for. “It isn’t, obviously. I have no interest in Ganzheit’s goals or reign. What I want to know is what we are.” “We?” “Yes. Nina Himekawa asked me if I remembered what happened nine years ago.” Miyabi looked at Iroha as though asking her the same question. “Nine years ago…?” “How old were you then? Can you remember where you were before that?” “No… I…” Iroha shook her head weakly. “You don’t remember?” “No.” “I guess it’s expected. You were too young.” Miyabi narrowed her eyes with a sense of jealousy. “But I remember. I died.” “What?” “I was in the middle of a news coverage when I died in the most stupid accident,” she said with a jesting tone. “I wasn’t killed. They were peaceful times. Not to say there was no war or crime, but I lived in a relatively peaceful country, in a different world from this.” “A different…world…” Yahiro listened to her confession with a stern look on his face. Miyabi lived in a different world and died there—an unbelievable story. Any normal person would laugh it off, and call it a delusion, but Yahiro could not doubt what she said. He already knew about the existence of a different world, a different ruined Japan that he had seen in the ancient dragon’s memories at the bottom of the Ploutonion. “Yes. I wasn’t born in this world. Nor was Nina Himekawa. We’re all dead.” “But… Then that means I’m also…?” Iroha asked, placing her hand on her chest to check her heartbeat. Miyabi only stared at her in silence. “Very interesting.” Giuli broke the silence and spoke in Iroha’s stead. “So you’re saying the dragon mediums reincarnated here after dying in a different world.” “Reincarnated? I wonder… That is what I’m here to learn.” Miyabi looked at everyone’s faces with a meaningful stare. Yahiro frowned as he got a bad feeling about her look of resignation. “Kuro…?!” The black Moujuu wiggled out of Iroha’s arms and ran farther into the cave. A person emerged from the darkness and picked the Moujuu up. It was a woman with long black hair that reached down to her hips. She wore a luxurious Japanese dress—a long hakama reminiscent of the Heian era. Her coat was adorned with Garuda, the emblem of the Heavenly Imperial House. “I believe I can answer that, Miyabi Maisaka, although I am not sure it will be the answer you seek,” the woman spoke with a familiar voice. “Karura…?” Iroha’s eyes went wide. “Yes. It is nice to meet you in person, Iroha Mamana.” The woman, Karura Myoujiin, nodded. Her grin was reminiscent of a mischievous kitten. She was far younger than they expected, around twenty years old. Her shapely face was dignified but graced with a soft expression. “Oh no, Yahiro. She’s so pretty…!” “Why are you getting worked up over that?” Yahiro sighed as Iroha hid and fidgeted behind him. Karura’s lips curved at their exchange. “I would love to welcome you with some tea, but I don’t think we have the time. And I did have some wonderful snacks prepared.” “Heavenly Imperial Snacks…” “Wipe the drool off your face. We gotta move.” Yahiro hit Iroha with a soft chop on the head. Karura couldn’t contain her laughter. “I’ll get them ready while we walk. But first, let’s go recover the Relict.” “The Relict? Isn’t that magatama your Relict?” Yahiro stared at a big gem on Karura’s chest. It was crimson like hardened dragon blood. He could feel the gem’s dragon aura even from afar. It was a real Relict Regalia, no doubt, and one as powerful as Vanagloria’s, which was currently wielded by Ayaho Sashou. “This is a Relict, but it is not the divine instrument heir of the Heavenly Imperial House. That is why I called you here. Only a real dragon medium can carry out the divine instrument,” Karura said while looking at Iroha. She couldn’t leave Myoujiin territory despite Ganzheit’s invasion because the divine instrument remained within it. So, she called Iroha to the forbidden zone to entrust it to her. “And will I find the truth I’m seeking there?” Miyabi asked, cutely tilting her head. “Yes, most likely.” Karura nodded with a sad smile on her face. Then, she reached out to Iroha. “Welcome, Kushinada. Iroha Mamana. Mistress of the Afterlife.” 4 On the other side of the cave, Yahiro’s group reached a Shinto shrine in the shinden-zukuri style, similar to a noble mansion of the Heian era. Its size was far from majestic, but the vermilion-lacquered building was as elegant as the Heavenly Emperor’s palace. The building was named “Myoujiin”—Karura’s clan had no official last name and used the residence’s name for convenience. “I would’ve loved to give you a tour around the temple…” Karura sighed with regret as she led them. Despite everything, she commanded her retainers to get snacks for Iroha. She was quite courteous, though one couldn’t deny the possibility that she just wanted to snack herself. The buildings surrounding the Myoujiin’s main shrine were beautiful and magnificent, but there was no sign of people inside. It was a ghost town. The people had already evacuated the territory, leaving only Karura and a few of her retainers. Her retainers feared not for their lives as they were dedicated to serving her until the very end, and they solemnly welcomed Yahiro’s group. Karura instructed the retainers to open the door to the worship hall at the heart of the shrine. The immense wooden gate needed multiple people to open. Purification ropes guarded the door’s surroundings, refusing anyone without proper status. Everyone understood upon seeing the gate: the Myoujiin clan existed to guard whatever was beyond. “Karura… What is this…?” On the other side of the door was a clearing with one round rock sitting in it. The stone was about Yahiro’s height, with a circumference well over ten meters. It was an unbelievably huge disc. Despite its general roundness, its shape was irregular on a finer scale. It was not polished nor refined. It was a mossy, natural rock, but there was something pure and divine about its enshrinement, as though it were an altar. “This is a lid. A seal blocking the passage between this world and the Afterlife—the real Ploutonion. The Ploutonions you know are but imitations of this Gate to the Afterlife.” “This is the real Ploutonion?” “Yes, but what lies below this rock is a dried Afterlife that already accomplished its role. It only holds a memory, like a fossil.” Karura looked at the rock and smiled sadly. Yahiro knew this “Afterlife” was a name for the world opposite to theirs. It was commonly understood as the world of the dead, but that was not the essence of the Afterlife. It was an unchanging world, a space liberated from the flow of time and the law of causality. It was a perpetual sanctuary. Yahiro had no idea what this meant, but Karura’s explanation of the Ploutonions being imitations of the Afterlife sat right with his understanding. Yahiro met the ancient dragon and a mysterious dragon medium at the Ploutonion in Nagoya, and he thought that they might be trapped in an incomplete eternity. “We have no time. Let’s go.” Karura approached the rock sealing the Ploutonion without hesitation. Miyabi and Giuli looked around with curiosity while following behind her. “…Iroha? What’s wrong?” Yahiro followed a few steps behind Karura, then stopped when he noticed Iroha remained in place. Iroha grabbed his sleeve with a trembling hand. Her eyes were wide and unfocused. He had never seen her frightened like this. “Oh no, Yahiro… I’m so scared…” “Why?” “I feel like we shouldn’t be here… No, more like, I don’t want to see what’s ahead,” she whispered. The way she weakly shook her head made her look even younger than Runa. Yahiro exhaled quietly before grabbing Iroha’s hand. He looked into her surprised eyes and pulled her toward him. “Yahiro…” “It’s okay. I’m here. I promised I’d stay with you.” “…Yeah.” Iroha nodded hesitantly. Yahiro held her hand as they walked toward the entrance to the Afterlife. Karura giggled at the sight of them. “Yahiro Narusawa… I thank you for being by Iroha Mamana’s side. Hopefully you remember what you’ve said until the very end.” “What do you mean?” “Hee-hee… Watch your step.” Karura ignored Yahiro’s question and climbed atop the rock. The top was quite high up, but she seemed used to it. The rest searched for footing to follow her. Above was a small altar of piled rocks and a tree in the middle. The tree was big and twisted, probably hundreds of years old. It grew from a deep crack in the middle of the stone—which meant its roots extended below, to the bottom of the Ploutonion. A rock was embedded into its trunk: a faded-gray jewel the size of a fist. Although unshapely, it had the general form of a magatama. This was the Relict Regalia, but it emitted no divine instrument power. Then Karura touched it, and it changed. “Huh?” Yahiro felt terribly dizzy at that moment. Darkness overtook his eyesight and the giant rock at his feet disappeared. Light, sound, sense of direction, and gravity itself faded away. He was thrown into nothingness, unable to know where he was, and it didn’t stop there: he felt himself blur together with the emptiness. Yahiro then realized that he had passed through the rock blocking the Ploutonion and was thrown into the Afterlife. This had to be the memory Karura talked about. All he could feel were the tree branches reaching from the bottom of the endless darkness, and Iroha’s presence. The world she saw flowed into him from her hand, which he held tight. Yahiro would have been unable to comprehend the gigantic Afterlife without the dragon medium’s senses. It was a vast space like a starry sky. The bright stars were lives. Surrounding it was a giant dragon—no, he wasn’t sure if he could call it that. The world was a boundary defined by the dragon, and at the same time, the dragon was part of the world. The dragon formed a circle by biting its tail, and time flowed within it through the tree. Yggdrasil and Ouroboros. The world tree and world dragon were not perceptible to humans, and the Lazaruses were no exception, but Yahiro was able to share Iroha’s dragon medium senses. “What is this place…?!” “The Afterlife. The root and trunk of the world. Perhaps it would be easier to understand by calling it the system that manages the world. Ganzheit calls this system ‘the Corpse.’ The world dragon’s—Ouroboros’s—cadaver.” Yahiro heard Karura’s voice from afar. At the same time, vertigo struck him. He could still see Ouroboros, but it was no longer the overwhelming being he felt before. He was sure they were on the borderline between Life and Afterlife. Karura explained it at a level barely understandable for humans. “The world dragon’s…corpse…” Yahiro exhaled deeply as he drifted in the outer-space-like darkness. The world humanity inhabited was born of a dragon’s corpse—many populations had such creation myths. Yahiro understood then that it was the truth; or rather, part of the truth. Humans could only understand the world through such a vague image. “This…is a dragon? And the dragon…surrounds the world…?” “If that is how you perceive it, yes, it’s a dragon. The Corpse has no physical body, naturally. This is not even a place that humans are capable of grasping to begin with.” Karura’s voice became clearer as the vision of the dragon faded away. Yahiro stumbled as he felt the weight of his own body. Gravity returned. He clung to the world tree’s branches to stand up and looked around. “The world we live in is but a tiny box surrounded by the giant dragon. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an illusion born from Ouroboros’s Regalia.” Karura exhaled harshly, in pain. The magatama in her hand beat like a heart with a dull glow. The divine instrument showed them the Afterlife in exchange for Karura’s vitality. “I know…” Yahiro heard a voice beside him. Iroha was pale, eyes wide as she trembled. “Huh?” “I know this place… I know this dragon…” “Iroha…?!” Yahiro held her up as she collapsed. She held her head with both hands as her body went cold and limp, as though it was about to disappear. “You, too, Miyabi?” Giuli stared curiously at the woman. If Iroha knew about the world dragon because she was a dragon medium, then Miyabi should have the same memory. However, she shook her head quietly while observing Iroha’s reaction. “As far as I remember, this is my first time seeing this. But I understand now. As much as it pains me to admit, Nina Himekawa’s theory was right.” “Nina’s theory?” Yahiro repeated while holding Iroha. Iroha’s shoulders quivered. She looked at Miyabi with fear, as though asking her not to answer. “We… That is, everyone in this world…is dead,” she said as plainly as if she was stating the solution to a riddle. Iroha shook her head with a look of despair while Miyabi looked up at the Ouroboros filling her entire field of vision. She smiled with satisfaction. “Nobody was alive to begin with. The world we thought to be the real one was the underworld—the land of the dead.” 5 “The world we thought to be the real one…is the underworld…?” Yahiro stood on the branch of the giant world tree and stared at Miyabi in bafflement. The Afterlife. Ouroboros. The giant mechanism behind the world. He felt as though he would faint under the pressure of the bird’s-eye view of this illusion. The entire world was artificial and they were puppets. It was all a tasteless corpse puppet show. “By the land of the dead, do you mean this is hell? Are we sinners or something?” “No. If hell is a place meant to punish the dead, it’s different from the underworld. But that doesn’t mean this is heaven…” “Hades, Purgatory, Yomi-no-kuni… There are many names for it, but they are all places where the dead are sent to purify their souls from sin or regret,” Karura added to Miyabi’s answer, indirectly accepting Miyabi’s statement as true. “We… Everyone in the world…are ghosts…?” “You can’t believe it?” “How am I supposed to…?!” Yahiro pursed his lips. Yet, he could see it, in a corner of his mind. Why wouldn’t he die? Why did the Lazaruses exist? They weren’t immortal—they were already dead. The dead don’t die again. They were just living corpses fueled by the dragon factor. That was the truth behind the Lazarus. “So the Moujuu were born because this is the underworld?” “Considering the theory that some people reincarnate as animals, it would make sense to say that the Moujuu are souls who lost their memory and were unable to retain human form. That also explains why they come from the bottom of the Ploutonion.” “So the Ploutonions are portals connecting the levels of hell.” Giuli accepted Karura’s explanation casually. Karura called the Ploutonions imitations of the Afterlife. Moujuufied souls were unable to go to the underworld or the Afterlife, and were sent to the boundary between worlds—the bottom of the Ploutonion. “That still doesn’t make sense. If our world is the underworld, how come it’s so…lively, so earthly?” “Are you saying the underworld is too much like the living world?” Karura wore a faint, bittersweet smile. “Yeah. There’s good food and hunger. There are people who live in prosperity their whole life and those who suffer from poverty and illness. There’s killing between humans. If it’s just a box, a phantom created by Ouroboros, then why is it so real? Wouldn’t that only leave us with even more regret?” “That is because someone wished for the world to be this way.” “And who’s that busybody? God?” “One could call her that. The Mother Goddess of Creation.” Yahiro was shocked to hear her say that so seriously. Karura looked at the world tree with a sad look of pity. Yahiro noticed something embedded in the trunk with the Relict Regalia, coated in thick ivy. “But she is only human. The first dragon medium, whom Ouroboros created, and who gave life to the ideal world with the Regalia. We call her Kushinada…” Iroha’s slim shoulders quivered in Yahiro’s arms. “Kushinada…?” he whispered hoarsely. Yahiro remained stock-still as Iroha escaped from his arms and walked to the world tree’s trunk. She tore off the ivy covering its surface. Behind it was a piece of amber, a golden gem created from crystalized sap. It was gigantic, well over six feet in circumference. Yahiro and Iroha were at a loss for words at the sight. Not at its size—it was small compared to the tree itself—they were shocked to see a person inside: a young girl wearing a rough miko vestment. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, she was offered as a sacrifice to the Afterlife system. In exchange, she created the world we live in,” Karura said gently, like singing a song. “We should be grateful to her. Without her, we inhabitants of the underworld would live in perpetual darkness, eating dust and mud.” “Then why were we summoned as new dragon mediums?” Miyabi asked with suspicion. It was the obvious question. The dragon mediums were meant to summon new dragons, but they shouldn’t be necessary if this world was created by Kushinada. Dragons already existed there. “Too much time passed.” Karura looked at the world tree with sadness. “It is the wish created by the dragon medium and Ouroboros that is maintaining the underworld, but centuries have gone by. The dragon medium’s soul has worn out and Ouroboros’s power has decayed. So, the Afterlife looked for a new sacrifice. A fresh soul with vivid emotion and a strong wish.”
Chapter 71
22 min read