Jinya had momentarily stopped in his tracks because he was thinking of his old home. His one-night romance had dredged up the memory of a loved one from his past.
The memory of this distant love was precious to him, but it wasn’t a lingering regret within him. He could say with pride that he had said his farewells to Shirayuki, and so his reasons for wandering into the Dove District had to lie elsewhere.
“I can’t stand in place forever…” He exhaled the air in his lungs to soothe his stirring heart.
It was unlikely to all be a coincidence. The daughter of his mortal enemy must have been there for the same purpose.
The streets of the red-light district had grown quiet, their unique vitality nowhere to be seen. There were visibly fewer women seeking to bring customers into their shops and fewer men wandering around than before as well. Everywhere Jinya looked, he saw brothels with their lights out. This gaudy neighborhood felt empty without its people. The Dove District was gradually becoming deserted, similar to what happened when the Prostitution Prevention Act came into place.
The air of this dying district was growing stagnant, like the air in an abandoned building. This place would eventually meet its end if it were left alone. Time was all it took for lingering regrets to be buried by memories; regrets faded naturally as one lived out their days. But there was something he needed to do before that time came.
Jinya arrived at Ichikawa early in the evening, a time before most customers patronized it. The women were familiar with him by now and immediately guided him inside to the one he was there to see.
“Oh, you came.” Waiting for him in the back of the room was a listless woman wearing Western clothes—Nanao, daughter of Magatsume. “Take a seat. I was just thinking it was about time you showed up.”
He sat as she requested, which made her giggle. There was teasing in her voice, and weariness and resignation as well, but that all faded in an instant. She looked at Jinya appraisingly, nodded to herself, and then fixed her posture.
“So what brings you here today? Maybe you’ve finally come around to purchasing my services?” she asked.
“Drop the jokes. You know why I’m here. It’s what you’ve been after this whole time.”
“My, how rude. You make it sound like I’m scheming something, even though we’re after the same thing.”
“Hmph. I suppose you’re right.”
The two kept their eyes locked on one another. There was neither hostility nor passion in their gazes. They were too tense for things to be called peaceful. Jinya tried to act like he usually would, but the stiffness was still there. He felt no discomfort, however, likely because his goal was clear now.
“Everyone’s beginning to move forward,” he said. “It’s time I do the same.”
“And I as well. We have to do this eventually or it’ll never end, will it?”
The job Nanao gave him was to resolve the mystery of the Dove District that shouldn’t have existed. She knew how this place operated but didn’t make any effort to do anything about it herself. She likely didn’t care what happened to this place. She was a daughter of Magatsume, a discarded part of Suzune’s own self. For better or worse, that meant her motives had to lie with none other than Jinya himself.
The same was true for Jinya—his motives for coming to the Dove District lay with her. Their lingering regrets had to do with one another.
“I consumed the woman named Nanao and entered this place. I had no particular goal; it was just mere coincidence. I was abandoned by my mother and simply happened to drift here. But while life here’s been good, at the end of the day, I’m still my mother’s girl.” She held Jinya’s gaze squarely, not looking away once. She knew that if she backed down here, she would come to regret it. “My lingering regret is you. I don’t care about doing anything for my mother at this point, but I’m still a fragment of her. A fragment of the Suzune who loved you long ago.”
He recalled his hundred-year journey up until now, a journey both short and long. He had found many precious things along the way, but his hatred had been a constant companion throughout it all.
“It’s the same for me. I need to confront my feelings toward all of you sooner or later,” he said. His voice was uncharacteristically weak. He had meant the cruel words he directed at Magatsume after he lost Nomari. He had come to hate her, not because he had to do so as a demon, but with his whole heart.
He had delayed deciding what to do with her, believing he might find it in him to forgive her one day, and that was what came of it.
“I despise her. I still hold her dear and I’ve lived a hundred years, but I can’t part with the hatred in my heart. She’s no longer the Suzune I knew either, but Magatsume now. The two of us have long passed the point of no return.”
Jinya’s lingering regret was that a part of his heart was naive enough to still think things would turn out all right. He believed that he might find it in himself to forgive her in the end and she might have a change of heart too. He had been putting off deciding what he would do, unable to give up on a happy ending.
But Suzune had become Magatsume, and his hatred for her still persisted. The fate that had been foretold for the siblings seemed inevitable by this point.
“That’s why I need to confront her and the feelings she once held for me.”
Kadono Jinya needed to determine his answer: At the end of his journey, what would he choose? The day had come to give firm shape to his wavering heart.
“In other words, you want to understand us, the discarded pieces of our mother’s heart, before you decide whether to kill or spare her? You’re a rather foolish man. Killing her would be so much easier the less you knew.”
She was right. Still, he didn’t want to take the easy route.
“If I kill her, it’ll be with full knowledge of her feelings. If I accept her, it’ll be together with all my hatred. That’s what it means to confront something.”
“What an exhausting man you are.”
“Sorry. It’s in my nature.”
She sighed with exasperation, but there was some joy in her expression. Jinya was, at the very least, a man who wouldn’t kill her mother without some thought. Knowing that made her less tense. “You’re certain to end up fighting to the death, but you want to understand her anyway. Do I have that correct?”
“I’d say that’s about right.”
“I see. My own goal was to confront you, or to put it more simply, I wanted to make you understand a small part of my mother’s feelings. What a lucky girl I am for us to both be on the same page.”
In a sense, they had been on the same page since their first meeting. Even though she knew the Dove District would meet its end on its own, she asked him to resolve its mystery so things would end on both their terms. He agreed to her request to show he accepted that. They didn’t say it directly, but they had both been hoping to confront one another like this.
“Well then, why don’t we dive into things…is what I would like to say. But a professional has a price for everything, even just talking,” she said.
Jinya frowned somewhat disappointedly. He had thought they were after the same thing, so why was she stalling here?
“How about this?” she said. “Bring me gifts. For each one that pleases me, I’ll tell you something you want to know.”
“…Gifts?”
“Yes, women love their gifts. You don’t mind, do you?”
“What is this? Your version of the Five Impossible Requests?”
“Ha ha ha, I’m no princess. Just think of this as your cute niece asking you to play along with her.”
He couldn’t help but feel irritated. They both wanted the same thing, so why was she being so difficult? But she didn’t cower at his cold gaze; instead, she broke out into laughter. She seemed to be taking this all as a joke, but she too was a demon. She wouldn’t suggest such a thing and then flippantly back down, so he saw no choice but to play along.
“Fine.”
“Oh? That was easier than I expected. I suppose you’re too stubborn to threaten killing me.”
The fact that she called him stubborn, and not naive, proved she was appraising him correctly. He’d killed many people up until then and had no hesitation over killing others, but he had no desire to kill her here. He had already chosen to confront her and the feelings of Suzune she held, and he wasn’t going to walk that decision back.
“I told you, didn’t I? I intend to confront you all. Besides, I don’t think you’re the type of woman to mess around for no reason.”
“Ha ha, I’m flattered. You’re right, of course.”
That was good enough for him.
“I’ll come by again.” He got up and moved to leave, feeling her gaze follow him as he departed. He didn’t look back once.
Their conversation had lasted for quite some time. When he stepped out of the brothel, the sky had already turned indigo.
He had taken the first step, but he was far from thrilled. Nanao had said she would talk if she got gifts that would please her. In other words, she wouldn’t say a peep if his gifts weren’t to her liking.
In “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” five men came to ask for Princess Kaguya’s hand in marriage, and she asked each of them to obtain a treasure. These were the Five Impossible Requests: the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, a jeweled branch from the mythical land of Hourai, a robe made from fire-rat skins, a jewel from a dragon’s neck, and a cowry shell birthed by a swallow. They were all treasures impossible to obtain, so, naturally, none of her suitors succeeded.
Compared to the Five Impossible Requests, Nanao’s request for him to bring her something that pleased her was terribly ordinary. He suspected there might be more to this, but he figured he might as well do what she wanted at this point. Still, he felt a bit weary and exhaled a sigh.