At the very start of it all, he lost everything. He failed to protect the woman he loved and his family, saw everything he believed in get trampled on, and took his first step forward out of nothing but hatred.
Human, for what purpose do you wield your blade? That question once posed to him had continued to haunt him ever since.
In Edo times, he surrendered himself to his hatred and lived as it dictated. He wanted to become stronger, and that desire became everything to him. But a woman whose smile was as beautiful as a flower showed him there was solace to be found along his mistaken path. From her, he learned to walk slowly again.
In Meiji times, he had a friend who was always ready to lend a hand and a daughter who said she would stay with him as family. He learned there was strength to be found in days of peace, but he ultimately failed to prove the worth of such strength. He lost all that he had gained, and hatred flared in him once more.
In Taisho times, he clung desperately to what he had. He hated his own weakness and his perpetual failure to protect what was dear to him, so he fought with all his soul and was finally rewarded with a smile at the end. That girl probably had no idea how much her gratitude meant to him.
Finally, the Showa era. Aoba brought him to this room in the brothel called Ichikawa, where he came face-to-face with someone his destiny was tied to.
“Aoba-chan, if you would,” Nanao said.
“Of course. You’d better not do anything to her while I’m gone, Jin-san,” Aoba warned.
“But doing things with men is my job, isn’t it?” Nanao joked.
Aoba left readily, as if she’d been informed beforehand that Nanao wanted to talk privately.
It was just Jinya and Nanao now. Jinya made no move to sit and instead cautiously drew his left leg back a little. She remained where she was, sitting lazily with her legs to one side.
“Does it smell? I’m sorry, I just had a client in a moment ago,” she said. As there was little ventilation, the air remained stagnant. It teemed with the scent of sweat and something else—the smell of sex. Nanao apologized without much remorse. Without moving from her seat or bothering to fix her disheveled clothes, she gave a bored yawn. She was teasing him.
“Is Nanao your name, or that body’s?” Having no intention of being swept into her pace, Jinya forced the conversation forward. His voice was firmer than it was when he talked to Aoba. Though Nanao was a woman, she was also the daughter of his sworn enemy. He didn’t feel like playing games with her.
“This body’s. But it’s still the name of a ‘flower,’ is it not?” Red-light districts were also commonly known as “flower districts” in Japanese—the flowers referring to the sex workers, just as the doves in “Dove District” did. She was making a play on words.
She must have wandered into the Dove District at some point as a featureless demon with the name of a flower. She then consumed a sex worker named Nanao, thereby gaining a will and a human appearance, and had since blended in with her surroundings—effectively becoming Nanao.
As someone who cannibalized his own kind, Jinya couldn’t fault her for consuming a human. The grimace on his face was there for a different reason. “Is it you Aoba looks up to, or the real Nanao?”
He didn’t know how long it had been since this daughter of Magatsume became Nanao. Perhaps Aoba knew the real one, perhaps not. Knowing wouldn’t change a thing. He knew his question was meaningless, but he cared enough about Aoba to ask it anyway.
“Oh my. You’re a softer man than I thought. How can someone so soft hope to kill his own little sister?” She made a shrill, energetic giggle, but he felt no malice or hostility from her. This was just a sex worker flirtatiously teasing a man.
“I take it you have no intention of answering?” he said a bit strongly.
“What would it mean if I did answer?” She replied with the plain truth. The events leading up to her becoming Nanao would not change the way Jinya dealt with her. “Perhaps I deceived sweet little Aoba-chan. Perhaps her adoration for me is real. It doesn’t matter, does it? This will all end the same way.”
Indeed, the truth didn’t matter. Jinya would end up killing this daughter of Magatsume regardless. Aoba would lose someone dear to her, no matter where the truth lay.
“So? What’ll it be, then? Are you going to kill me?” Nanao said teasingly, as though daring him to become a murderer in Aoba’s presence.
He shot her a cold gaze, but she was unfazed. She had guts—or perhaps she was just underestimating him. Either way, she was troublesome to deal with.
“No,” he said. At least, not yet.
“Well, that’s a relief. Oh, just to put it out there, I didn’t intend for things to end up this way.”
“I know.”
She couldn’t have planned that Jinya would grow close to Aoba. She might have been using the coincidence against him, but he couldn’t fault her for that. It didn’t really matter much, anyway. When the need arrived, he would kill Nanao without hesitation. He was the kind of man to put his own goals before Aoba’s feelings. For the time being, he would settle for just asking questions. He could think about how he would kill her later.
“Why did you want to meet me?” he asked. It was the obvious question to lead with. Nanao was a daughter of Magatsume. By all means, she should have been his enemy. It was strange for her to take the initiative and meet him like this.
Evasively, she said, “Who knows? Maybe I thought it would be exciting to start a scandalous affair with my own uncle?”
“Take this seriously.”
“Boo. You’re no fun.” She brought her arms up and stretched deeply, arching her back. The demon that devoured many of her own sisters was in front of her, and yet she remained so relaxed.
“…Just how are you a part of her?” he murmured to himself. All of Magatsume’s daughters were formed from the parts of her own heart she removed from herself. The woman Nanao took in might possibly have influenced her somewhat, but by all means, Nanao should’ve been a side of Suzune. This bawdy woman full of composure bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Suzune he knew.
Nanao giggled scornfully. “You think you knew your sister? It’s because you knew nothing about her that things turned out like they did.”
That hit a sore spot. He and Suzune had been a loving family once, before they came to hate one another. But he hadn’t really been looking at her then, had he?
“You’re right. You know just the right words to say.”
“Of course. I am a sex worker, after all.”
He ignored her suppressed laughter. They were getting nowhere. Sitting down with a thud, he looked her squarely in the eyes. “Nanao, why did you want to meet me?”
She sensed the change in mood, and her gaze became a touch more serious. The listless atmosphere was still there, but the stagnant air seemed to drop a few degrees.
“I wanted to talk with you, I suppose,” she said defeatedly. Her coquettish look disappeared, and a faint, transient smile took its place. Now she was probably speaking her true feelings. “Well, I really had two reasons. The first is that I simply wanted to talk to you. No ulterior motives. I felt sentimental, is all. Let me guess, you probably thought my mother hatched some plot and sent me after you?”
“Yeah. I’ve just about had enough of her crazy schemes, though.”
“Ah ha ha! That’s hilarious.” She laughed from the heart, not at what Jinya said but at how silly her own mother sounded. “But, no, none of that. My mother abandoned me long ago. I have no reason to help her.”
“You… What?”
“You heard correct. My other sisters are dear to my mother, but she has no need for me. So I was abandoned, drifted my way here, and became a sex worker. An all-too-common story for those in the Dove District, really.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, showing no emotion. She was clearly different from the other daughters he’d met until now. Furutsubaki was an exception given her circumstances, and there were differences in the degrees of their affection, but all the other daughters had loved Magatsume and followed her every command.
“But I have freedom thanks to that, so I suppose I can’t complain.”
“Wait, but that means…”
“Yes. I have nothing to do with what is going on with the Dove District. If anything, I’m another victim.”
He had looked for her mostly because he expected a daughter of Magatsume to be behind all this, but demons could not lie. His belief had been wrong.
“Which brings me to my other reason for meeting you. These kinds of supernatural cases are your specialty, are they not? Won’t you be a dear and do something about all this for me?”
As a daughter of Magatsume, Nanao knew that Jinya had dealt with these kinds of supernatural cases in the Edo and Meiji eras. How strange it was to think he would be back at it a hundred years later.
“I have a job for the master swordsman who slays demons with but a single strike. Resolve the mystery of the Dove District that shouldn’t exist. Your reward will be, let’s see… Perhaps my ability will be payment enough?” It was a simple deal. She would willingly give him her life if he brought an end to whatever was going on. She spoke her words off-handedly, as if she were merely continuing a joke.
His mind came to a halt; he was unable to read her intent. She must have picked up on his bewilderment, because she smiled.
“It was nice meeting you. I have little to offer, but feel free to come by again if you don’t mind. If you have the money, I’ll make time for you whenever,” she joked.
She seemed to be in genuine high spirits. He didn’t reply, not knowing what to say.