Honoo no Mirage

Chapter 7: Wings

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Chapter 7: Wings

Utterly unaware of the events that had engulfed Naoe in Nikkou, Takaya had spent most of the night wandering the streets of Kabuki Town.

As the ornamented darkness gave way to the dawn of a tawdry reality in Shinjuku, the ‘Nightless City,’ Takaya awoke in a s.p.a.cious hotel room.

His last memory had been of getting into a one-sided fight in Kabuki Town. Disoriented from sleep, he was disoriented even further to find himself in an unfamiliar place. He sat up abruptly on the bed.

—And moaned involuntarily at the pain lancing through his body.

“Owww...”

The students using him as a punching bag had certainly left him a few marks to remember them by. Takaya looked dazedly around the room as he waited for the worst of the aching to subside.

(Where the h.e.l.l am I...?)

“You’re awake.”

The man from last night rose from his seat at the window. Though it was not yet fully light outside, he could see the Meiji Jinguu forests as dawn suffused the far horizon with a purple glow. He finally realized that he was in a hotel room—a room in one of the upper-cla.s.s hotels in western Shinjuku, in fact. Takaya blinked.

“Are you sober now?”

“Huh? ...um, yeah...”

The man must have brought him here. He looked younger in the bright room than beneath the dim light of the streetlights. He reminded Takaya of the kind of actor who was typically cast in detective dramas, but somehow gentler.

“You must be thirsty. Let me see if there’s any water.”

“...”

His watch told him that it was almost five. This man had found him beaten to a pulp on the roadside and brought him here. The briefcase he had been carrying was now on the bed, and Takaya suddenly noticed that the trampled cigarette box had been placed beside his pillow.

“It’s something you cherish, isn’t it?” The man remarked, reading his thoughts. “You should cut back on the smoking, though. It’s not good for you.”

“Who...”

“Come take a look? There’s mineral water in the fridge. Would you like one?”

Takaya climbed out of bed. The next room turned out to be the living room. Even if the lavish interior design hadn’t convinced him of the likely expense of these rooms, the unearthly view from the windows would have. The man was seated on the sofa, extracting the cork from a bottle of mineral water.

“...Is something the matter?”

“Ah...no...” The man’s question jolted Takaya out of his frozen reverie, and he scratched his head embarra.s.sedly. “I was just thinking that I...um...must’ve given you a lot of trouble...”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man responded, giving him a good-natured smile. “I only brought you here because I wanted to. You weren’t planning to go home last night anyway, right?”

“...”

The man gazed at the silent Takaya for a moment before asking, “Who do those cigarettes belong to? A friend?”

“Friend...” Takaya murmured before smiling bitterly and shaking his head. “No. Not a friend.”

“Then...what?”

He turned the question over in his mind. Yes, what? What was he to Takaya?

(My...va.s.sal...?)

That was certainly one answer—an answer for the part of him that was ‘Kagetora,’ perhaps. But what of Ougi Takaya? What was he then?

As Takaya stood there thinking, unable to come up with an answer, the man touched the heart of the question: “But it’s someone very important to you?”

“Important?” Takaya repeated, startled. “Why should I give a d.a.m.n about somebody like that? He could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn’t even notice. It’s not like I asked him to keep following me around—”

“...”

“...he’s just using me anyway...” Takaya trailed off, eyes darkened with emotion falling to the floor. The man studied him carefully, but Takaya was silent, lost in his thoughts. After a moment, he suddenly smiled. “That’s right, I am just being used, aren’t I? They saw something that gave them an advantage and they took it.”

The man eyed Takaya oddly as his shoulders shook with laughter and set the bottle in his hand down on the table.

“What is it?”

“I just felt really stupid all of a sudden. It’s not like me thinking about it is going to change anything, is it? There’s really no point in thinking about it at all.”

“...”

“I actually thought he needed me, but the one he needs isn’t me. It’s Kagetora. Everything he said, everything he did, that was all for Kagetora. He just wants me to be a subst.i.tute for Kagetora. I am such a f.u.c.king moron. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid, it f.u.c.king p.i.s.ses me off.”

Maybe he wasn’t as sober as he’d thought. The words kept pouring out, and he couldn’t seem to get his feelings under control.

Tear drew glistening trails down Takaya’s face beneath the hand that hid his eyes. Tears from laughter? the man wondered. Or from something else? Takaya continued to shake with mirth.

“I get it now. I’m just a subst.i.tute. Aren’t I? I think I always knew it. I’ve been worrying over nothing all this time. It was all just me...all in my head.” The tears were overtaking the laughter in his voice.

“I am such a f.u.c.king kid.”

“...”

“He was protecting ‘Kagetora,’ and I knew it, but I wanted to believe he was doing it for me. When he was kind, when he trusted me, that was all for ‘Kagetora.’ I only pretended it was me because I’m a conceited idiot. I’m so stupid. I’m just a hopeless little punk! I start thinking I’m all that as soon as somebody indulges me a little... That’s why...!” Bitterness filled his voice. “—I never should have let myself think it was anything else! Why did he have to be so desperate to protect me? Why did he have to be so kind? Why did he have to look at me like that? It made me think... it made me think... But none of it was for me...”

The man gazed at him in silence. Takaya panted for breath, shoulders shaking as he tried to calm himself, before slumping down on the sofa.

“Who are you speaking of?”

“...”

“The owner of these cigarettes?”

Takaya smiled tiredly at the question. “They only smell like him.”

“How do you know?”

“...”

Takaya’s face darkened in self-scorn, and he laughed again bitterly. “I’m such a kid that I start having all these stupid hopes as soon as somebody turns to look at me. I should‘ve just left it alone, but I had to go and think, ’Maybe I can trust him. Maybe it’ll be all right to open up to him...’ Like an moron, I started messing my head up with all these useless thoughts. I was constantly terrified that he might throw me away... The truth is...”

“...”

“Why does he have to be so different?” Takaya closed his eyes. “Why did he have to go and get all torn up protecting a kid who’s got nothing to give him? He was hiding all of that pain... He would’ve done anything to protect me, and it scared me. So I put up walls between us, I pushed him away, but he...”

“...”

“No matter how hard I pushed, he wouldn’t leave. Anyone else would’ve just given up, but not him. He always came back. He was always there. And that terrified me, because I started to think that maybe he’ll stay. Maybe I can trust him to guard my back. I could never trust anybody, always had to look for enemies from every direction, but it wears you down, you know?”

“...”

“I started to hope that maybe with him at my back I wouldn’t have to be on my guard all the time...but at the same time it scared me so much—not of betrayal or being shot in the back...”

Takaya’s gaze fixed on the window. “It wasn’t betrayal that I was afraid of. Because if he wanted to cut me down from behind, I would’ve been all right with that. I’m not trying to sound like a tough guy or anything. It’s just that if he was going to throw me away anyway, then betrayal wouldn’t have mattered...”

“...”

The man gave no indication of agreement, only listened quietly as Takaya spoke. Takaya laughed again.

“It was enough for me just to have somebody there at my back... But he’s such a fool that he wanted to protect me from everything.”

“From...everything?”

“Yeah. All of me, from everything. Not like a shield, but...”

He saw the familiar face in his mind’s eye.

“...like wings. Gigantic bird’s wings. Enfolding me like...‘here is safety.’ No matter where I was, being inside those wings meant that nothing could hurt me. Like they were telling me, ‘you’ll never be cold again.’ But I’m just a gutless punk, just a kid who can’t stop wanting it all, and as soon as I felt that warmth I wanted to be inside it always... Because it’s something I never had, so like an idiot I...”

Longed for it...

For the one who had appeared in his life offering it with both hands. The one he never wanted to leave. Never wanted to lose. Selfish as it was, arrogant as it was, he no longer knew how to live without it. That was why...!

“I can’t go forward, and I can’t go back! How could I have gotten this weak? Just because I had him there to protect me! I’m so afraid of being abandoned, of him vanishing...! No matter what he does to me, no matter what his reasons are, I can’t let him go!”

Takaya shook, teeth gritted and fists clenched, unable now to hold back the wild outpouring of words and emotions.

“I can’t understand him. He won’t tell me anything... How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to react, when I don’t understand anything? All I saw was his pain and his suffering, and all I knew was that it was because of me...!”

Tears blurred his vision. He scowled fiercely, pressing his hands hard against his eyes, trying to hold them back. His chest felt pierced through by the arrow-sharp memories of that day, by the look in Naoe’s eyes, full of accusation and hatred for a Takaya who could not understand his pain. Who could not understand the heart of a man whose own tears had drawn glistening trails down his cheeks as he pressed all his stifled, violent emotions into Takaya’s lips, breathed them into his mouth.

Why couldn’t he understand?

Who was Takaya to him?

What was it he’d been trying to make Takaya understand?

“...What do you want from me?” he asked the memory of Naoe, opening his eyes. “What was it you wanted me to do?”

“Hey...”

The man, sensing the strange shift in Takaya and realizing suddenly that Takaya was no longer speaking to him, half-stood.

“The things you said, the things you did, how was I supposed to respond? What did you want from me? What were you asking me for? Why do you hate me?!”

“Hey, what’s—”

“What did I do to make you hate me?! I—no, it was never me, was it?! ‘Kagetora’ is the one you see, never me. I’m just a subst.i.tute for him, aren’t I? It’s all conceit, it’s all arrogance, whatever I do! I’m always the one flailing about! Nothing I do matters!”

“Hey...!”

“I don’t get you! Why won’t you just tell me instead of holding it all in? I don’t get anything! I can’t...d.a.m.n it! d.a.m.n all of this!”

The man shook Takaya lightly, and Takaya clutched at his arms, mind still caught in the turbulence of his emotions.

—How he needed something to cling to!

“...What should I do...?!”

He grasped at the arms around him with all his might, desperately trying to restrain his emotions as they shot from one violent extreme to the other. Desperately looking for an answer.

“What...should I...”

“...”

The man held Takaya’s trembling shoulders, gazing at him silently as he sobbed. After a long moment, he finally answered calmly, “Keep thinking... Keep looking for your answers. You’ll find them.”

“...”

“He...is there for you. Just as you are there for him. Believe that you will not turn from each other, and keep thinking. Keep reaching for your answers. Don’t look away.”

Takaya’s head lifted. The man gazed at him and into him, deeper than anyone ever had before.

“Whatever he is seeking, it is encompa.s.sed within your existence. I believe the fact that you are here means everything to him.”

“...”

The man nodded quietly and smiled as Takaya met his gaze, face still wet with the tracks of his tears. Takaya closed his eyes once more, shutting the pain back in his chest as he murmured a name in silent longing.

(Naoe...)

I will be by your side. Always.

Yet he was not. He had left Takaya behind.

(Liar...)

At rush hour, Shinjuku’s almost tangible energy focused and accelerated to an even higher intensity. To Takaya, gazing at the crowds of commuters being disgorged by the underground pa.s.sage’s western exit, this was the truest face of Shinjuku.

Ah, of course. Today was September 1st, which meant he was already missing the opening ceremony for the second semester. If he was skipping school from the get-go, the rest of the year didn’t bear thinking about, Takaya thought as he drained his coffee.

“So. Where to next?” The man seated across the table asked guilelessly. He had reserved a table for them in the lounge for breakfast, and apparently was not inclined to let Takaya return home just yet. Yet his grin was so good-natured that Takaya felt all his wariness vanish.

The man was a mystery, and not just for the fact of his unknown ident.i.ty. That Takaya, normally so violently distrustful of strangers, could open up to him was in itself extraordinary... or perhaps not ‘open up,’ precisely. It was as if this man had the rare gift of understanding the hearts of others so completely that it made their natural reserve superfluous.

“We have lots of time. Is there anywhere you would like to go?”

Takaya laughed. True, even if he started back for Matsumoto right that minute, he probably wouldn’t make roll-call. “Let’s see...” he rested his chin on his hands and gazed out at the hot city morning.

“What’s around here...?”

The famous places of Tokyo flashed through his head. But it wasn’t as if he was a tourist from the countryside, and the usual attractions, like Tokyo Tower and the bus tours, didn’t quite seem to fit the bill. And besides, what the heck was he doing here anyway? Doubt a.s.sailed him for a moment before he shoved it recklessly aside.

“I can’t really think of anything... Maybe just wander around for a bit?”

“Then let’s wander.” The man seemed willing to tag along, though Takaya couldn’t guess at his intentions—or even his name. Didn’t an adult like him have anywhere to be rather than knock about town with a kid?

“How about we go sightsee the historical landmarks around here?”

“Historical landmarks?” Takaya asked incredulously.

The man nodded, a smile lighting his eyes. Takaya realized that it was that boyish grin set in a face with enough years to have crows’ feet that made him so personable.

“It’ll be fun! We can go on a tour of the old Edo landmarks.”

“Fun? You call going on a social studies field trip fun?”

“You’re missing the point,” the man sighed in the theatrically exaggerated manner of a bossy child. “All those Edo towns you see in historical dramas? They all existed right here once upon a time! Come on, I know you must be a little curious. Wouldn’t it be fun to visit the actual sites of all those places you see in Chuushingura or Oooka Echizen?” The man peered at Takaya expectantly.

In actuality, Takaya hadn’t seen that many historical dramas. What was the point when they were all alike, anyway? Still, he had to admit he was a bit curious about what the megalopolis had been like in the old days. The man’s expression put him in mind of a father who had taken the rare day off so he could take his kids on an outing. Why is he even putting this much effort into trying to get me to go along? Takaya wondered, but the amiability he felt for the man made it impossible to refuse him. He gave in with a wry, half-disgusted smile, no longer even able to care about his ident.i.ty.

“All right, all right already! I’ll come with you wherever!”

Takaya was a bit surprised to find that the man drove a Pajero. It wasn’t that the car didn’t suit him, exactly—just that it wasn’t a car one usually saw in the city. But riding in it, Takaya thought it was rather cool. Tokyo was filled with cars at the best of times, but most people drove flat pa.s.senger models; it was nice to be able to ride above it all in the taller Pajero.

They drove through Oote Town along the moat of the Imperial Palace with the forest on their right.

“We can take our time,” the man murmured, relaxed. He truly seemed to be in no hurry—or rather, he was, for whatever reason, making time for Takaya.

“I believe Edo Castle’s tower was around here. It was gigantic—you could see it from anywhere in Edo.”

“It got burned down, didn’t it? They couldn’t rebuild it because there wasn’t enough money...”

“So I heard. A daimyo’s castle was a symbol of his power. Many of j.a.pan’s modern cities grew out of old castle-towns. If you think about it in that light, then you have to conclude that the Edo Period formed the foundation for modern j.a.pan.”

“Are you like a teacher or something?”

The man’s only response was a smile—a smile containing a trace of irony, Takaya saw.

“...One cannot refute that those who live through an era best know the truth of it. But perhaps only those who come after can teach its meaning.”

“Wh...?”

“Yet only knowing what value there is to living for the sake of living...is meaningless.”

Takaya peered questioningly at the man in profile, and the man glanced back at him.

“Do you like history?”

“Huh...?” the suddenness of the question left him floundering. “Um, like...? It’s a pain having to remember the names of all the eras, and it kinda feels like the people who write all that stuff in textbooks don’t really believe it was all real,” Takaya replied, then added flatly, “But I do know that I hate the Sengoku Period.”

“Hmm? Why is that?”

The answer was obvious, of course. Because it was...too real.

But after meeting Naoe and all the other warlords, he could certainly feel the connection between the events of the distant past described in his textbooks and the modern era in which he lived. If only he didn’t have to confront that past...

Takaya sighed lightly. “The people who lived back then were all insane. Totally bonkers.”

“Is that right? So none of the Sengoku generals were in their right minds?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds unlikely, but you’re probably right. Perhaps the power to change an era is really the sum of a tiny piece of everyone’s insanity.”

“So ‘insanity makes history?’”

“Hmm. Whose words are those?” the man asked admiringly.

“Dunno...”

Takaya propped his chin up in his hand and turned his gaze to the stone wall running along the moat. Where had he heard those words before? As he reached back, a strange image suddenly rushed forward from the deep recesses of his mind.

“Ah...!”

Takaya abruptly stilled. The image was followed by another and another, all coming back to vivid life.

The burnt field had once been a city. Now its people, countless blackened, unrecognizable lumps, littered the crumbling ruins.

The images crashed into Takaya like raging waves driven by a storm-tossed sea, freezing him in place. Yes. It had been that night. That night out of a nightmare.

The city had been bombarded by a rain of incendiary bombs and hails of machine gun fire. And its people had died. In scarlet flames, in the blasts of scorching wind hot enough to melt gla.s.s. Too many to count as fighter planes stormed the singed night sky. They could do nothing as they slipped past the wounded and dying wailing their agony, their unique powers as wisps of mist in their first taste of the flames of h.e.l.l. Even for them, it had taken everything simply to survive.

“Water, oh please...some water for my child...” a woman carrying a child on her back implored. He didn’t know what kind of nightmare she had escaped, how far she had come through the raging flames. Her child was dead. The woman’s mind shattered the moment she saw the lifeless little body with its head torn off. Her crazed howls faded into the inferno.

The Sumida River had become a river of fire. Countless people trying to reach water died on its banks.

Everywhere he looked, there was only destruction. Their reality had been replaced by a scene out of h.e.l.l.

“Perhaps this country can only be saved if we all go insane...” someone murmured from behind him, embracing him with helpless desperation as he stood dazedly staring...

It had been...

“Is there something wrong?” the man asked with concern. “Penny for your thoughts...?”

Takaya didn’t hear him. His memories of that night had come to life in his mind. Memories of the ma.s.sive air-strike against Tokyo. Those gruesome scenes repeating themselves over and over again. Takaya clutched at his head, shutting his eyes tightly.

Naoe’s voice. Asking how they could have let such tragedy come to pa.s.s. Wanting to despise all the world. His heart crumbling, surely, beneath the weight of his hatred for the enemy nations who had wrought such heedless destruction, regret and resentment and helpless rage against the inhumanity and injustice of it. Grief beyond words transforming into madness, into wings encircling him. Standing at the center of h.e.l.l, feeling Naoe’s tears burn into his shoulder, those arms had healed the unspeakable agony of his soul.

“Let us live, Kagetora-sama.”

The words Naoe had moaned into his ear within those flames now echoed there again in crystal clarity. The pure strength and steely determination he heard in them made him want to weep.Whatever happens, I will never turn from you.

"No matter what happens, I will survive.

Even if this country’s future should be burned to ash in these flames, even if this nation called j.a.pan vanishes forever from the world...

“I will look upon it all with my own eyes. I will live, and I will fix my gaze upon the crumbling path of this poor country and all its mad people,” Naoe had said, arms tight around him within the inferno.

Why did he remember everything so clearly? Why had it come back now, so many years later?

“What’s wrong?” the man sounded truly concerned. “Are you crying again?”

Biting his lip and shutting his eyes tightly, Takaya shook his head. After a moment, he turned to look at the buildings of the Marunouchi business district, the past still burning against the towering skysc.r.a.pers.

(How did we ever rise up again from those ruins?) Takaya wondered. How had they gained such strength? How did such a torn and tattered country ever regain its feet? How had it given itself rebirth, risen from its own ashes to rebuild a city such as this?

The stubbornness and resilience of human beings. So many had fallen along the way, but the rest had been able to climb over them and move on.

(How can I become that strong?) Takaya implored the souls still tied to the city.

What formed the strength that allowed the wounded to climb back to their feet after being dealt such blows by a bitter era? What gave them the will to walk on even while carrying the burden of a painful past toward a harsh reality?

What was it born from?

How could he obtain it?

Or was it a power bestowed upon all, something everyone was born with?

“Is it just that...I’m the only one who is too weak?” he whispered haltingly.

“...”

The man, his own face full of pain, gazed with compa.s.sion at Takaya as he pressed his hands against his eyes. Takaya’s heart, always so lost in its insecurity, might truly be crushed with even the slightest pressure now.

“Let me take you home?...to the sea...” There was such gentleness in the man’s voice that Takaya slowly lifted his hands. The man’s gaze was far away, as if his mind had already raced there to that sh.o.r.e.

“Let me take you back one more time. To where we can see the water, hear the sound of the waves...”

Takaya’s eyes widened. “Take me...home?”

“Yes. Home.” The man’s eyes were already focused beyond the steel and concrete city upon an illusionary sea.

“Let’s go home...to our sea...”

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