“Can I butt in?” Tamuramaro asked hesitantly. “Doesn’t that mean you could stop because you learned something? If you keep learning about people, you’ll have more and more things to think about, and then you’ll definitely be able to stop yourself before killing someone. Every time.”
He usually left things unsaid and rarely asserted anything, but this time, he was firm.
“I dunno. Who can say for sure? If I killed someone again by accident, Sora would say he’ll break himself with me.”
“Fuuka…”
“I wouldn’t mind if you ripped me apart, Fuuka.”
That’s what Sora had told him when the thugs broke into their house during the previous case.
“If you ever want to kill someone, kill me.”
Now Sora realized just how much his words had been tormenting Fuuka.
“I bring you pain when I’m with you. It’s okay, Big Brother. After all, I started out as—”
Sora squeezed Fuuka in his arms before he could say the rest. Fuuka didn’t hug back as he always would. Tamuramaro only looked on and didn’t intervene again.
“I have taken your name for safekeeping.”
“Fuuka?”
Wind swept past them as Sora looked up at the sound of Fuuka’s voice, weaving together words that weren’t like Fuuka at all.
“I have taken the part of you that wields power to burn everything you touch like fire in the wind. I am a sheath for the sword that you are.”
Sora listened in stunned silence.
“Those are the words I learned. The first words I ever knew. But I couldn’t say them out loud till now,” Fuuka confessed, scrunching his face in a grin. “Up to a certain point—I don’t know when—that was all I was. But since you cherished me so much and tried so hard to turn me back into a human and loved me…”
“So a soul was kindled in the sheath?” It was Tamuramaro who asked.
“I don’t really know myself. I used to be just a sheath for my brother in the past. I was made to stop Sora, to keep his power bottled up. But now I just want to be with him like an ordinary brother.”
“You are my little brother. I don’t care if you’re a dog or a wolf or a human. You’ll always be my brother.”
“But you’re better off without me. I mean, I was made to seal in your fate, the burden of the fire you were born with.”
Fuuka was suddenly speaking resolutely, like a grown man.
“I’ll take all your hatred and sorrow with me,” he gently reassured Sora with a smile.
“Aren’t you saying that out of love? The love you have because you’re my brother? Just forget everything you heard in the beginning!”
“I think Lord Aterui created me. But he probably made a mistake and failed to seal in your fire completely.”
Perhaps Fuuka was always meant to disappear when his duty was done and there was no sword to sheathe any longer. When Sora looked back, he remembered what a gentle, sweet little brother Fuuka had been; whenever Sora clashed with anyone because of his insistence on what was just and right, Fuuka would do everything he could to calm him down. He had been the place where the sword could rest without hurting others.
“Maybe Aterui did make a mistake,” Tamuramaro said, “but it’s also possible that Sora’s fire that time far surpassed anything Aterui ever imagined. The sheath only covered the sword; it couldn’t keep it contained.”
Sora understood Tamuramaro’s theory that the seal had broken at Awata-guchi.
“But that fire was mine!”
“Could be… But I feel like I already had some will of my own that day. When I was born, I wasn’t even fully formed in a human shape,” Fuuka said, speaking of things that Sora had no recollection of. “You always took care of me and loved me so much as a brother, Sora. Sometimes you’d even quarrel with people just to protect me, you know. So I think what I did that day also came from my own desire to protect you—my big brother. Even though I was never even human.”
Fuuka laughed sadly.
“But the fire was always mine,” Sora protested. “I think I’ve found a way not to be so fixated on one sense of justice. My fire that was sealed in you is probably…gone, too. So you’re just my little brother now!”
“Yeah. I wish I could’ve always been your little brother.”
Sora’s words didn’t reach Fuuka, who was already seeking the next step in his journey.
“Hey now…”
A familiar, airy voice they hadn’t heard in a long time echoed through the Aomi Terminal.
“You’re back, you sloppy Miroku-bosatsu!” Sora shouted toward the voice as if they were the root of all evil.
“Don’t give me such a weird nickname. It’s been a little while. Was it you who called me?” Miroku-bosatsu looked straight at Fuuka.
“Yes,” Fuuka answered in a clear voice.
“Don’t go, Fuuka… Don’t take him away from me, Miroku-bosatsu!”
As always, Miroku-bosatsu was clad in their vestments, floating in the air in a sitting pose, joining their fingertips in a circle.
“Does that boy truly have a life of his own, or is he merely a vessel to seal in your fate? It’s easy to check, you know.”
“What?” Sora, still clinging to Fuuka, was puzzled at the abrupt suggestion.
“In fact, I’ve known the answer to that from the very beginning. I sent you off on your journey regardless. There’s not much in the world I can’t handle, but there are things I find interesting to observe.”
Sora could only feel frustration at Miroku-bosatsu. He was about to lose his precious little brother, his companion throughout their long journey, and Miroku-bosatsu’s opinion of the matter was that it was “interesting.”
“I mean, suppose I fixed every failure and made everything whole—what next? The world would come to an end, wouldn’t it?”
As irritating as they were, Sora couldn’t find the words to defy Miroku-bosatsu at the moment. He bit his lip.