In a certain prefecture, in a certain district, there was a rural village. And this village was located in an area suffering from population decline. As one would imagine, this meant that there were few youths in this village. In fact, people in their forties were considered young.
Living so far out in the countryside came with a lot of inconveniences, but the denizens of the village spent their days helping each other out—it was good old-fashioned rural life. The worst that ever happened was the occasional rampaging wild boar, crop-eating monkeys, or huge nest of wasps—that sort of thing. That was how peaceful this village was.
But on this particular day, something was different in the village. Some unusual visitors—several young men and women—had shown up. However, they didn’t seem excited to be there at all. They wore clothing of the same color, and walked with their faces turned downwards. The villagers, too, wore the same color and walked in the same manner. Some of them wept. Some collapsed onto the ground. They were all heading to the same place, where one story would end and a new one would begin.
Tenma Otori looked on as these people poured into the meeting hall for the funeral. As he watched them, he thought, “This is a strange world we live in.” There wasn’t anything unusual about what he saw. What was unusual was the place from which he was watching them, because he was sitting cross-legged on top of a coffin. Under normal circumstances, if someone did something that foolish and rude, the bereaved family and friends would probably have beaten them senseless.
But no one grabbed hold of Tenma. In fact, no one even looked at him. It was a bizarre sight to behold, indeed.
Well, if there had been anyone who could behold it, anyway. Yes, you must have figured it out by now—the funeral Tenma was observing was his own. In other words, no one could see Tenma because he was a ghost.
“Wonder how long I have to stay here,” he muttered. But of course, there was no one there to answer him.
Or at least...there shouldn’t have been.
“Well, shall I take you somewhere else, then? Hello, Tenma Otori. I’ve come here to recruit you.”
This was the first thing anyone had said to him since he became a ghost. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to answer his question, so he turned around, startled. At that point, he saw a strange, human-shaped light.
“Hello, I’m— Whoa!”
The light reached out its hand(?) towards Tenma, who grabbed a nearby bowl and chucked it at the light. He lobbed the bowl quickly and rather accurately, but the light bent to dodge it like something out of the Matrix.
“Hey! That’s dangerous!” The light seemed startled, but not angry. Despite that, Tenma grabbed another bowl and was on the verge of throwing it too. That was when the light began to panic. “Look, I’m not here to hurt you! Don’t throw that at me! If you do, it might hit someone else! Just listen to me!”
After the light began pleading with him, Tenma put down the second bowl. The first had gone through an open window, so it probably hadn’t injured anyone. “Well? What are you?” he asked. “It seems as though I’m some kind of ghost, so I’m guessing you are too?”
In response, the light puffed out what Tenma could only assume to be its chest. “How rude! I’m a god!” At these words, Tenma slowly reached for the bowl again. “I’m not lying! It’s true! Seriously, just listen to me!” the light said. Tenma paused. “At least let me finish, okay? Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m a god from another world. And I’ve come to recruit you to my world, Tenma.”
Though Tenma was frozen with surprise when he heard what the self-proclaimed god (pfft!) had to say, he quickly recovered.
“‘Pfft’? Hey, don’t you think that’s kinda harsh? Anyway, you sure seem to be handling this well. I thought you’d be more confused.”
“Well, I am a ghost, after all. So I think I can buy that you’re a god from the Otherworld who wants to reincarnate me. Why’d you pick me, though?”
“Oh, that’s easy. It was random.” Once again, Tenma took up the bowl—“Enough of that already!”—before rethinking it. “Anyhow, it’s true. I just happened to be passing by when I sensed a soul that I thought would really fit the vibe of my world.”
“But...you already knew my name.”
“Right.”
“And you mentioned you came to recruit me.”
“Right.”
“But you just said you only happened to be passing by and thought I fit your world’s vibe.”
“Right.”
“Is it possible that you weren’t ‘just passing by,’ but that you instead knew about me all along?”
The light paused. “What makes you say that?”
“Because it all sounds a little bit too perfect. Maybe you just happened to come across me and thought I’d fit right into your world...so then you killed me, turned me into a ghost, and acted like it was all just a big coincidence. That would make more sense.”
The light was silent.
“So?” Tenma prompted it. “Did you kill me?”
“Of course not! I wouldn’t do that! Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Sorry,” said Tenma quickly, apologizing when he realized the light was close to tears (and it called itself a god?). “I think I’m just kind of on edge.”
Then the light lowered its voice. “I have something I need to apologize for as well. Honestly...I’ve known about you for a long time. But I swear, I didn’t kill you! I’ve been keeping a close eye on you, waiting for your life to come to an end.”
“How long is ‘a long time’?”
“Since you were born.”
“That long?! But I’m from a different world. Why were you interested in me?”
“In my world, there exists a sickness which can affect even the world itself. Everything that exists has something called ‘élan vital,’ which is kind of like their life force. And when the world gets sick, the sickness drains the élan vital out of it. In the worst-case scenario, the entire world could disappear. So in order to avoid that, we regularly gather souls with very rich life forces from otherworlds, and send them to our world in order to stimulate the growth of the élan vital.”
“Kind of sounds like a vaccine or something. What does it mean for someone’s soul to have a rich life force, though?”
“Well, it basically means that they’re able to have an effect on physical things, even when they lose their physical forms and are reduced to little more than their souls. Think about it—you’re a ghost, but you were able to pick up that bowl and throw it at me, right? Normally, if a ghost had tried that, their hands would slip right through the bowl. That’s how ghosts are, after all.”