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PART FIVE: AOBA, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MOTOKI SOUSHI
THIS IS A RECOUNTING of an event from the Taisho era.
“What’s the matter, Soushi-kun?” A peculiar customer visited Kogetsudou, an antique store located in Asakusa. They wore the latest Western fashion: a white shirt, boater hat, some slacks, and leather shoes. It was unclear whether they were a young woman sporting a boyish look or a feminine-looking young man. They had been a new regular of Kogetsudou lately.
“Oh… Yonabari-san…” Motoki Soushi tended the store a lot, so he was familiar with Yonabari. They were on good terms, even if the latter never bought anything. Kogetsudou didn’t receive many customers, so it was often just the two of them, as well as Saegusa Sahiro, chatting in the store.
Soushi was in low spirits that day, but who could blame him after his friend Sahiro had been devoured by a monster?
“I was hoping to sell you something, but maybe now’s not a good time?”
“No…now’s fine. What do you have?”
“A demonic sword! It was forged by some swordsmith a long time ago, and it can apparently seal demons away, believe it or not.”
Kogetsudou was no ordinary antique store. The Motoki family were a line of spirit hunters who handled possessed objects and artifact spirits, which meant Yonabari’s claim was not at all outlandish to Soushi. He could feel a strange aura coming from the sword.
“You don’t say?” The mention of the sword’s ability to seal demons made his gaze sharpen. If he had this, could he seal that demon away? The thought made him freeze in place, causing Yonabari to speak up somewhat worriedly.
“Huh. I don’t see Sahiro-chan around, and you’re real off today, Soushi-kun. Did something happen? Come on, you can tell your buddy Yonabari.” They smiled reassuringly, and their kindness set Soushi at ease.
“O-oh…” He couldn’t contain his emotions, and tears streamed down his face. He told them everything: how Sahiro had suddenly disappeared, how he’d looked for her night after night, and how he’d seen a demon cut her down and consume her corpse. “H-he, he killed her, and then…”
Soushi had met the demon before. He was on good terms with the ticket boy at the theater called Koyomiza. He lived hidden among the populace and ate humans. He was that kind of monster.
“Ah, the Demon Eater, huh?” Yonabari suddenly said.
“…What?”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s this really wicked demon who can consume others for their power. He’s lived for a hundred years and absorbs life with his left arm.”
Their description of the demon matched perfectly. Soushi hadn’t known such a terrible demon was on the loose. He felt frightened and utterly indignant.
“Y’know, somebody ought to do something about him before more people get hurt!” Yonabari said.
Still in tears, Soushi clenched his fists as the image of his sworn enemy became clear. He understood he was too weak to slay this demon, but just thinking about the monster who’d taken someone dear to him made anger well up inside him. If the demon was left alone, he would devour again. More people would be hurt like Sahiro had been.
“You’re right… Somebody needs to do something.”
“Right. But, uh, just putting it out there, Soushi-kun, there’s no way you could beat that monster. Don’t go rushing to your death! You only have one life, so you got to treasure it!”
“But—”
“I get it, Sahiro-chan was killed by a demon. But revenge is stupid. I’d reeeally hate to see you bound by something like that and end up unhappy, Soushi-kun.”
Soushi was touched by Yonabari’s kindness. He too understood that revenge led nowhere.
“And I know this is a really mean thing to say,” Yonabari continued, “but sometimes the best thing you can do is forget and move on.”
Soushi agreed with what they said but shook his head anyway. His mind understood, but his heart couldn’t follow suit. Even if revenge led nowhere, his hatred for the demon forced him to pursue it.
Suddenly he recalled the legendary spirit hunter Akitsu Somegorou the Fourth and the advice he had once given. He told Soushi he should let Sahiro know how he felt before it was too late. Of course, Somegorou hadn’t known she was going to be killed. He’d just been jokingly suggesting he not waffle about and let another man sweep her off her feet first, but his words were all the more meaningful now.
He loved Sahiro. He’d been too embarrassed to say it when she was around, but he had wanted to be with her, forever if possible. Those who lied to themselves couldn’t choose what’s dear to them when it mattered most and became pathetic men who gave up and pretended they never cared that much to begin with—that was another thing Somegorou had taught him.
Soushi envisioned the life that awaited him ahead. As time passed, the pain in his heart would surely fade and he would learn to love again. He would marry and have children, and his busy life would drive away thoughts of Sahiro and the hatred smoldering inside him. But he didn’t want to live a happy life if it meant forgetting her. He didn’t want to avert his gaze from the emotions he felt at this moment. He was not the kind of man who could pretend he didn’t care about the cruelty of her murder.
“Oh dear. I see there’s nothing I can say to sway you,” Yonabari said.
Soushi’s mind was set. Something weighty and solid replaced the grief in his heart. When he lifted his face, his expression was cold and his eyes held a dark glint. His tears had dried up at some point. “I’m sorry, Yonabari-san.”
“It’s fine. But I certainly wouldn’t mind if you bought this sword at a premium in exchange! This is a demonic sword that can seal demons by cutting them, and its name is Yatonomori Kaneomi.”
A tempting offer, Soushi thought. He gingerly accepted the sword.
Yonabari continued with a happy smile, “I’d be happy to tell you everything I know about the Demon Eater if you’d like. I hear he used to be a human, which is something that makes him rather soft. He’d probably freeze up if, say, a good friend of his were to turn a blade against him.”
“How do you know so much about him?”
“Ha ha, good question! Why don’t we just say I hear lots of rumors?”
Yonabari taught him many other things about the demon: his appearance, his abilities, and much more. Soushi listened attentively, committing every word to memory.
“He’s merciless. If a clearly hostile person like you approached him—he’d kill them instantly. Of course, I can’t tell you what to do. If you want to stake your life and fight him, then be my guest. But just remember that little ol’ me here tried to tell you life’s too precious to just throw away like that.”
After telling him all they knew, Yonabari stared at Soushi’s face, trying to gauge his reaction. They probably hoped he would give up on his revenge. He appreciated their kindness, but he could not do what they wished for him.
“If you’re really going through with things, then I do have a scheme you could use to lure the Demon Eater out. It’ll only work once, though…”
Graciously, Yonabari even went so far as to top things off by giving Soushi a scheme.
Unfortunately, Soushi never got to put that scheme into action. He had the anger, but his strength wasn’t enough. He came to understand that as time passed, and he gave up on slaying the Demon Eater with his own hands—but he didn’t give up on his revenge. If he couldn’t see it through, then he would entrust this task to the next generation.
After several years, he took a wife, marrying a cousin he knew fairly well. She seemed to already like him, so there were no serious problems, and they were quickly wed.
He did feel some guilt over marrying someone whose love he couldn’t return, but he did it anyway for Sahiro’s sake. He remembered Yonabari’s teachings and chose to entrust his wish to his children. He did his best to be a loving father and told his children from a young age about how the girl he loved was killed by a demon. He said that he wanted them to slay the Demon Eater and avenge her.
His beloved children listened to their father’s wishes, even though they bore no personal grudge against the Demon Eater. That was what made them perfect. If the demon was as soft as Yonabari had told them, then he would likely hesitate to kill someone who wasn’t truly hostile. Soushi married and had children all for the purpose of creating a perfect assassin without malice. This was his desperate bid for revenge.
Ideally, the assassin would be a girl. Soushi had heard the Demon Eater kept a girl around like a pet, so he figured he would be more hesitant if his would-be assailant was a girl. Unfortunately, he and his wife had three boys. He loved them all dearly, but none of them granted his revenge.
Unbeknownst to him, however, his wife had told their sons not to act recklessly and explained that their parent’s grudge wasn’t theirs to inherit. His mind was too clouded with thoughts of revenge to ever realize this.
He changed his methods once his granddaughter was born.
“You will inherit Kogetsudou and live to slay our mortal enemy.”
He became stricter than ever before and took his granddaughter, Aoba, away from her parents to train her up. He wanted her life’s purpose to be killing the Demon Eater. He loved her, but his desire for vengeance was far greater. His hatred had turned into an obsession over the years. Through no choice of her own, Aoba was molded into the Demon Eater’s assassin.
It was only thanks to her grandmother’s presence that she had a somewhat proper upbringing at all. Her grandmother would tell her that she didn’t need to take on her grandfather’s grudge and that he hadn’t always been the way he was. Her grandmother worried for her, and that was enough for her to grow up to be a happy, spirited girl. But with her friendly nature came a strong will. In defiance of the way everything in her life was forced onto her, she impulsively ran away from home.
From there, she grew frighteningly quick in a short span of time. She drifted to the Dove District and encountered many new things under Nanao’s tutelage. She learned things she couldn’t have found out by just studying at a desk. She began to think about her grandfather’s feelings and felt ready to hear him out once more.
But then news of his death suddenly came, along with the sword she had been supposed to inherit. All hope of the two ever understanding one another was lost.
From there, her lingering regrets grew stronger, and she wandered into the Dove District that shouldn’t have existed.