Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyoubi

They pa.s.sed through the gate.

The view of the city was released from behind the red city walls, and its wide expanse suddenly spread forth for the travelers’ eyes.

Before them was sun, castle, mountain and unending green.

There was wheat, still young and green, planted on what little flat ground there was that reached to the mountains. The wheat there looked to be faster-growing than the mountain variety Ai was accustomed to: from their color, they seemed nearly ready to sprout grains.

A couple of farmers sat on a ridge, watching their crops.

Ai could predict very clearly what adults like them talked about at times like this. They would resume for the umpteenth time conversations already dried and tasteless, like “They’re growing well this year,” “Yeah.”

The travelers’ eyes had long since become accustomed to the grey of the wilderness, so, faced now with this sudden a.s.sault of green, their surroundings seemed to them impossibly bright and gaudy.

A farmer suddenly noticed their presence and waved at them, and the rest followed suit. Ai rubbed her eyes and gave a small wave in return.

The car moved slowly, but eventually they shook off the farmers and continued onward.

After a while, as the sun reddened behind the mountain range, the travelers arrived at the foot of the hills.

Any further and they would reach the market. All the buildings before them had been converted into apartment flats, with the ground floor composed entirely of shops bustling with the in-and-out flow of customers.

The whole of the Ortus market was in fact built of rock, with marble and clay and brick and the like having been combined together to form the compact apartments that fitted snugly together and packed the already narrow streets full, close to bursting.

The road had been maintained in excellent condition, with large and comfortable spots to rest all along its side. Households all but competed with one another in adorning their doors and windows with budding greenery and arraying the flowers of the season in other prominent locations. Just before their eyes was an elderly lady changing her potted plants on the roadside. Children ran past them in packs like gusts of wind, laughing as only they can, while along the road wizened old men blew with their pipes streams of colorful smoke and cast bets on little games of dice.

Everyone was, of course, dead.

The dead looked like they’d stripped off old clothes, with their muscles withered and dried and some thin as a wire. The younger the dead in question were, the stranger they looked.

Skeletons parading about in three-piece suit and tie. Coolies with chains coiled about themselves to make up for missing body weight. Women so wrapped up in lace they looked to have been melded into some strange sartorial beast, youths who’d amputated their limbs and replaced them with prosthetic ones, looking like puppets, college students [1]carrying library books under one arm and their heads under the other.

Most of the living treated these dead as monsters. They would react to such sights in much the same way: to think of the streets of Ortus as a devil-infested h.e.l.l and say, frightened, that they shouldn’t have come here, then arrange for a speedy departure. This sort of thing had happened so many times that Kiriko had already given up being outraged at it.

But Ai was different.

She pressed her face glumly to the car window and watched the faces of the people they pa.s.sed. She didn’t even stir at their appearance which so shocked others, instead watching only their eyes.

Unnatural or ordinary, strange or familiar, the faces of the dead all wore smiles. As Ai watched, they joked and talked and chatted and laughed with the people close to them, and on their faces were the smiles of the everyday.

A mother with a baby turned and beamed at Ai, and she waved and smiled back, a pure smile without the barest shred of surprise, pity or rage in her expression.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

Kiriko, thinking that he’d just witnessed something forbidden to him, hurriedly turned his gaze back forward. Up ahead, in the sky that had donned its night colors, he saw a star the same color as the tear, scattering light down on the city.

At the same time there came a “Wow…” from behind as Ai, too, saw the same scene.

It was dark when they arrived at their hotel. By that time, even the car’s gears had begun acting up, and they’d ascended the hill with difficulty, relying on only a single flickering headlamp to steer themselves into the car-park.

The appearance of the hotel was rather different from the apartments on the streets below, being a tall construct built of rock. All around them, there wasn’t a single building in sight, making it seem as though the hotel had been isolated from the din of the market.

The car park was unfamiliar to the travelers, as, rather than paving, the ground was just compressed earth. They took their luggage from the car and went over to the building. The moon was full, or very near it, and it lit up the night for the travelers below.

“This was a school an year ago.”

Kiriko pointed out the features of their residence as they walked. That there was the car-park, the male dormitories opposite to it, the female ones on that side over there, and here the school building, shut and locked.

“Right…”

Ai was spiritless in her response.

“…Let me just say something first.”

Seeing Ai like that, Kiriko was spurred on to say the words he’d been deliberating over a while ago.

“Thank you for saving me. I’m very grateful for it...but I don’t think you should stay in here. Ortus is a city of the dead, a city belonging only to the dead, and the living have no business coming in just to fool around. If it were up to me...I would not have permitted you entry.”

“Oh… Then why…why did you still let us in…?”

“It wasn’t up to me! I couldn’t have defied my superiors like that!”

“Ah… Is that…so…?”

Ai didn’t even seem to be listening to him. Kiriko’s mouth tightened into a line.

“I hope you’ll leave soon after finishing your business here.”

“…Huh, you’re not making any sense, Kiriko-san…”

Dwarfed by the luggage she carried, Ai swayed unstably as she walked.

“…What did you say?”

“Aren’t you living as well?”

Kiriko kept his mouth shut.

“…Kiriko-san…that’s…funny…”

“…Ai?”

Something was wrong with her.

She rocked left and right as though rowing a boat, tripped, and fell to her right.

“Ai!”

Kiriko reached out and caught her in the nick of time.

“So much has happened today that her brain’s probably tired out.”

Yuri took Ai’s rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. Weight removed, Ai slumped down and fell asleep, looking as contented as a well-fed baby.

“…I’m sorry, Kiriko, but could you carry her on your back?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

The moment Kiriko presented his back to her, Ai twined her arms around his neck and fell unconscious. Kiriko clasped her legs under his arms and got up with a low gasp, and only then did he stop to think “Why me?” But Ai was already on his back, and trying to hand her over to Yuri would just seem strange now.

Ai began to snore softly. Her face was entirely pale with exhaustion but for traces of red in the corners of her eyes.

“…Hey, Yuri-san.”

“What?”

“Ai… How old is she?”

At that time, Kiriko didn’t notice that he’d broken a rule.

“Who knows? You ask her yourself.”

Ai spoke up.

“…I told you I’m not asleep… Really… I’m…not…”

“What kind of person says that in their sleep?”

Kiriko adjusted Ai’s position on his back and walked toward their rooms.

Morning was long past when Ai awoke.

She sat up wearily. She had no memory of the room she was currently in, nor any idea of her circ.u.mstances; but to these she paid no mind. She yawned widely.

It was only after she had allowed the cells under her every tooth and beneath her tongue and even of her vocal cords to bask fully in the morning air that she shut her mouth and looked around her.

...Where was she?

The room was dim and unlit, but soft rays of sunlight slanted in from the windows and illuminated the specks of dust in the air.

She looked to her right and saw another bed, on the far side of which were a dressing table and a wardrobe put against the wall.

Not a sound penetrated the room from outside, imbuing it with a hushed atmosphere.

Slowly, Ai turned her half-opened eyes towards the left and swept her gaze across the room, seeing a door, bookcase, desk and chair arrayed in it.

Then, at the left wall...

She found a window with curtains drawn.

“...Shuuu…”

Moving as if she were swimming, Ai stepped off the bed and padded barefoot to the window.

The curtain was thick and kept the room dim, but the sunlight contrived to shine around it and into the room. The curtain’s edges glowed with the pa.s.sing light. Floating particles of dust were set sparkling by the light falling on Ai’s toes.

She drew it open.

The light that shone in was strong enough to hurt even when she squinted her eyes shut. Warmth flooded through every corner of her body, scorching away the dazed drowsiness that had occupied her head just a moment ago.

Ai looked out over Ortus.

“Wow…”

Unthinkingly, she stretched out her hand, lifted up the latch and pulled the window open. The wind that blew in set Ai’s bangs fluttering along with the curtains, and she squealed in delight, resting on the frame and leaning her body half out of the window.

The road stretching from left to right before her was fully paved with white tiles that shone beneath the sun’s light. As Ai turned her gaze down across the city, she saw the green of the wheat fields and, further ahead, the red bricks of the city walls.

And to the right, she could see a dark colored castle, built into the tall hillside.

Unable to contain her excitement, Ai pushed herself back into the room and almost stumbled backward in her haste. Recovering, she then spun toward the wardrobe with the leftover momentum. She threw it open with the same energy with which she had opened the window and saw her coats hanging neatly there along with her culottes.[2]

She suddenly realized that she didn’t know what clothes she was wearing. She looked down, and saw the shirt and underwear that she normally wore.

And she began to wonder, quite naturally, who it was who had gotten her changed.

Probably not Kiriko, she thought. As for Yuri...that was quite possible, but she couldn’t tell whether the one who’d changed her clothes was the uncaring traveler or the father taking care of his daughter.

That left Scar. She would be the best of her companions.

“...Ai?”

Ai heard Scar’s voice from behind just as she was thinking about her. She turned around and saw her lying on the other bed.

“Scar-san! It’s time to get up! Good morning!”

“...No, it’s already noon.”

“Eh?”

With her enthusiastic greeting met by a dispirited reply, Ai pulled out her pocket watch from inside the coat and checked the time. The hour hand pointed at twelve.

It was then she noticed that the sun did seem rather high up in the sky.

“Scar-san...why didn’t you wake me up…?”

“...I did…”

And so her question of blame was met by an answer of even greater blame.

Scar told Ai that both she and Yuri had tried to wake her, but she’d been too deeply asleep to be roused.

“...To think you managed to sleep all the way till noon... You have me impressed.”

A little apologetically, Ai scratched her head and asked the question that had preoccupied her a moment ago—“Was it you who helped me undress?”—and Scar replied with a “Yes.” Good.

“...Ai, you’re always so lively, aren’t you…”

Ai looked more closely at Scar, and only then saw that she seemed drained somehow, dressed only in a shirt and even now in bed, curled up beneath the covers.

“What happened? Are you too lazy to wake up as well, Scar-san? Or did you eat too much last night?”

“...How do you say it? Is this the feeling called sadness?... Ai, please do not group me with you in your mannerisms and behaviors.”

Ai walked across the floorboards to the bed, held her forehead to Scar’s to see if she was feverish. She wasn’t, and she didn’t look particularly ill either.

“Do you feel unwell?”

“...My chest hurts. My head hurts too, and I feel sick…”

“Right. Is it that voice from before—can you still hear it?"

“Yes...”

Scar turned away from Ai and looked directly in front of her.

“I wanted to find its source...”

“You mustn’t. Please stay here and rest.”

“Alright,” she returned obediently.

“...Now, what should I do? Do you need a doctor?"

“I don’t know...are there doctors who can treat Grave Keepers?"

“Aren’t there?”

“Who knows…”

“...Wait, Grave Keepers fall sick?”

“I’ve never heard of it happening before…”

Ai came down with the flu once a year, but it didn’t seem like she’d be the best reference for Scar’s present condition.

“Yuri said that he’d buy some medicine on his way back, so I should just stay here like this...and wait and see if I get any better…”

“Ah, really? Yuri-san’s gone out?”

“Yes. He looked quite busy, having to go fix the car and replenish our supplies… Oh, he left a note.” Saying this, Scar handed a piece of paper folded in half to Ai.

On the note was written:

“Do not, under any circ.u.mstances, leave the hotel.”

Technically, that was a message conveyed through a myriad others. The ones like, “There are many dangerous people among the dead, so don’t leave the hotel,” or, “If you cause a ruckus, it’ll be almost impossible to clear up, so don’t leave the hotel,” were reasonable enough, but, “The air this season isn’t good on the throat,” was clearly just needless fussing. And, “Look out for cars,” was something you’d only say to a person leaving the house.

Ai folded the note into a paper airplane and flew it out of the window. Although the paper must have been heavy, soaked full as it was of that ramblingly incessant ink, on attaining freedom it flew high up into the blue Ortus sky.

“Scar-san.”

"...Yes?”

“Please answer my question honestly. Do you need looking after as you are?”

“No, not at all.”

Scar even waved a hand to emphasize the fact.

“If you stayed here, you’d only make it worse... Do you want to go get something to eat?”

“A-Aren"t you being a little too forceful here…?”

Ai was a little hurt, but she nonetheless went and dressed herself. She pulled on her culottes and socks and did up her bootlaces, changed her shirt, tied her hair, set her straw hat on her head and swung on her coat.

She went over to the window.

“Should I close it?”

“...Yes, and the curtains too.”

Ai pulled the window closed and drew the curtains across.

“Well, I’ll be off for some food then.”

She stood by the door as she spoke.

She didn’t really need her hat and coat just for that, but Scar refrained from pointing it out to her.

Instead, just as Ai was hurrying out of the door, she called to her back-turned figure, “Did you bring your permit?”[3]

Ai’s embarra.s.sment at that mistake was quite substantial indeed.

Ai dashed out of the room, but naturally, she didn’t have the faintest idea of where she wanted to go.

She first headed to a corridor and, after peering left and right, found a staircase and descended to the first floor. Something told her that she couldn’t let herself be discovered, so she walked on tiptoes. With the floor plan at the first floor stairs, she found a place where there was water, and there washed her face and drank hugely to quench her thirst.

Signs of past students filled the dormitory building. There on the blackboard was still the name of a student punished with cleanup duty, and there in the umbrella stand was still stuck a baseball bat. The display cabinet placed beside the main doors still held dozens upon dozens of medals and trophies, while the lost-and-found box, long since been forgotten about, still held a blue notebook within, awaiting its master. Ai picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages.

“Actually, I am quite hungry after all.”

She announced this to the statue of some unknown notable situated between the second and third floor, and began searching more boldly through the dormitory building. Her plan was to find Kiriko or Yuri and get some food off them. Deciding to focus her search on the first floor, she spent her time running to peek at the front door, and heading to the janitor’s office to explore. A lot of things captured her interest on the way, but right now her primary objective was to find food to eat.

So Ai ran to check the canteen. She crossed the entire length of the room, peering with a baffled expression at the place where used bowls and plates were collected.

And in the kitchen, a certain Keira Venna[4] saw all this as it went on.

“What’re you doing over there?”

Caught completely off-guard, Ai leaped up in fright and looked frantically around for the speaker.

“This way.”

Keira looked at Ai from over the counter that connected the kitchen and the canteen.

“N-Nice to meet you! My name is Ai Astin!”

“Hey. Nice to meet you too. I’m Keira Venna, the manager of this place and its cook.”

Ai stood at attention and summoned up a voice from the depths of her being.

“I-I just wanted to say, I didn’t have anything to do with the globe on the second floor falling down! It was already on the floor!”

“...So you’re confessing before anyone’s even asked you about it... You’re a funny kid.”

Keira disappeared back into the kitchen, and Ai was left standing there at a loss for a good while.

“Here.”

Keira returned and plonked a tray on the counter.

“Huh? What’s this for?”

“It’s for you. You"re going to eat it or not?”

Ai stood on tiptoes to peek up at the tray, and found that it was laden with freshly baked bread and a thick, rich stew.

“Oh! Thanks for the food!”

She took the tray from the counter and scurried over to a nearby table, and began to dig in.

“That was great!”

Ai had finished the bread and stew in just a few mouthfuls, and now she was carrying the tray back into the kitchen.

“Um, Keira...you’re a really good cook…”

“Really? Well, thanks.”

Keira was sitting on a chair in the kitchen with a newspaper in front of her, and she didn’t even look up from it as she answered. She was solidly built and looked to be middle-aged, and her face always seemed to wear a slightly ironic smile.

Ai placed both hands on the counter and pushed herself up, so that she could see over it.

“I didn’t know the dead could cook so well, you know.”

Then the tray was off the counter and in the air, speeding towards her head. It connected. What shocked Ai the most as she stood there blinking in confusion wasn’t the pain of the impact, but rather that she couldn’t tell what was going on.

“Let me tell you, kid, "You’re a really good cook" was fine by itself. You didn’t have to add that bit about the dead. D’you think that just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to be good at cooking? How about we sit you down for a lecture from old Miss Keira here on cooking with science, and how we don’t need to use our senses for it, huh?”

“Ah—No—I meant—I’m really sorry!”

Ai, who had since fallen below the counter, had to push herself up again to deliver the apology.

Keira placed two cups in front of Ai, and the warm bitter fragrance of tea began to issue from them.

“Here. Have some.”

One cup was larger than the other. After giving it a little thought, Ai decided that it would be best to be polite, so she picked up the one that looked small enough to be part of a toy set.

“Blergh!”

The tea in it was concentrated to the point of being thick, and was both scalding hot and very bitter.

“Silly, that one’s mine.”

Keira lightly removed the cup from Ai’s hand and sipped at the dark-colored liquid within.

“You"ve never had dehva tea[5] before, right?”

Ai nodded a few times in response, and began sticking out her tongue experimentally. So bitter was the tea that even now she was unable to speak.

Dehva tea was a specialty of Ortus’. The first draft that the dead took was both thick and bitter. The second, the Living Blend, was made with the used leaves of the first and was therefore half as strong. That was the blend in the larger cup that was pushed toward Ai, and which she now raised carefully to her mouth.

Keira took care of Ai as if on a whim, returning occasionally to the kitchen to check on something that was cooking in the pot. It was during one of these times that Ai addressed Keira’s turned back.

“E-Excuse me!”

“What is it?”

“Do you know where Yuri-san and Kiriko-san went?”

“If it’s the tall one you want, he left right when morning broke.”

He’d said that he had to take the car to be checked and repaired. He’d also asked where the telegraph office and drugstore were, it looked like he’d be heading there as well.

“Kiriko’s probably at work, but he’ll be back by dusk.”

“Does Kiriko-san live here?”

“Yes... Oh, but if he’s gone to the castle, it might be nighttime before he returns.”

“The castle?”

“To see the princess.”

On hearing this, Ai was reminded of when she first met Kiriko, and he’d mistaken her for a princess.

“Kiriko-san knows the princess?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I heard the princess treats him like a friend. What, didn’t he ever tell you anything about it?”

“He only said that he had to run errands all over the city...”

“That’s what he does. When he’s here he runs errands for me, and when he’s at the castle he runs them for the princess.”

Ai was so impressed that, without really noticing it, she soon slurped up all of her tea.

She returned her teacup to the counter, thanking Keira for the tea as she did so.

Then she checked the clock. It was just noon then, and there was plenty of time left in the day.

But there was nothing for her to do in that time.

Ai rested her chin on the counter, alternately watching Keira as she worked and tilting her ear to listen to the clock as it ticked away the time.

This was the first time she hadn’t had anything to do since she left the village.

“Excuse me…”

Ai couldn’t stand it much longer.

“Excuse me, can I go out into the city?”

Keira’s face took on a pained expression.

“What did the tall one say?”

“He didn’t say anything at all.”

Well, he hadn’t.

“...Then I don’t have any reason to stop you. But be careful. Ortus has been closed for nine years now, and just about everyone’s forgotten how to behave around living people like you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But, Keira-san, you seem...perfectly normal to me.”

“I am a cook after all, so I get to see the living from time to time… Well, where’re you planning on going?”

“I saw this Mask Street on my way here yesterday, and I want to go take a look…”

“Ah, there’s good. Did you bring your permit?”

Ai flashed her new entry permit at Keira.

“If you get lost or need help, show this card to anyone nearby, preferably the ones in the shops. Also...hey, put this on.”

Keira took from a drawer an object completely incongruous with its surroundings, and handed it to Ai.

“A mask?”

“If you’re heading to Mask Street, then of course you’re going to need one of your own! Plus, you stand out a little too much, so this’ll help you blend in a bit more."

Ai looked at the mask. It was shaped like a fox’s face and seemed filled with all the exciting mysteries of a different country, much like the group of dead they saw yesterday.

The smell of cardboard and glue flew up her nose.

“Does it look good on me?”

“Not bad, isn’t it? Let’s lower your hair now… Also, don’t wear that long coat of yours out, put on this jacket[6] instead.

Ai’s golden hair billowed down from her shoulders to her back, a yellow blanket wrapped around her body.

She looked for all the world like a straw-hatted golden fox.

“Not bad. Now go on, it’s your debut.”

Thoroughly enjoying this, Ai barked once at Keira.

Then, she dashed out to the noonday street.

Cats, horses, oni, monkeys, eagles, dragons, weasels, cows, tigers, elephants, owls, men, faces dead, and faces living.

The street was packed with masks. Every wall of every building was covered and crowded with them, and not only the storeowners but shoppers strolling back and forth seemed to have grown a second face over their own. This was no fancy-dress party, and every person wore only the most normal clothes about, but their masks were so fantastical that the contrast lent the scene the surreal tint of a daydream.

Ortus had a great demand for masks.

Most of the dead modified their faces in some way or other. For the conservative, there was makeup; for the radical, facial reforming. There were many ways to be found for the dead to play with their appearances, and of them the simplest, and consequently most popular, was the use of masks.

To satisfy this need of the populace, on Mask Street shops had opened up selling masks of every shape and form, from street stalls for the inexpensive goods to luxury stores for bespoke tailoring.

The street was wide and rose on a gentle incline. Among customers here just for the masks were tourists, wandering about in search of fun, and numerous cafes had sprung up expressly for their patronage.

There, a corner off the street.

An alleyway opened off from the main road, and there a small fox crouched behind the mask stand of an abandoned stall.

As if out of its den for the first time, the fox peeked left and right from behind the stall’s sign. There was a green l.u.s.ter shining out from beneath the two slits of the mask, one which took antic.i.p.ation and excitement and combined and doubled them into a wild synergistic mix within its owner. She stared out at the truth before her, that this almost violent swirl and flow of people, of a kind she’d never witnessed before, was composed entirely of the dead.

“Oi, Shorty.”

As if unable to watch this any longer, a young lion from the neighboring stall addressed the fox.

“You’re blocking the masks from view. If you’re not here to shop, clear off.”

The fox turned around. Her accoster was seated in front of a stall laden with the cheap kinds of masks seen everywhere else on the street, jostling for s.p.a.ce on a rack already enlarged with the addition of a metal ladder. It looked to be just that sort of stall opened up by a craftsman yet to make it big, with mask quality varying wildly between low and high, and the amount sold depending more on how well the seller could exhort people to buy them than on how well they were made. Based on this standard, the lion’s conduct probably wouldn’t even warrant a pa.s.s. At the present moment he was sitting on a worn rug in front of the stall, so preoccupied with putting finishing touches on an unpainted mask in his hands that he ignored pa.s.sing customers one and all. His words to the fox were, clearly, quite unmeant.

The fox stayed as she was, watching the lion; then she suddenly dashed out from the stand, not away as the lion expected but towards him, stopping and sitting herself down at his side.

“…Oi.”

“Ah—no—then—I’ll leave right away, it’s just…I’m a bit tired…”

It was only upon hearing this that the lion looked up from his hands and had a proper look at the fox’s mask.

His eyes widened beneath wooden slits.

“Oi, fox, where’d you get your hands on this mask?”

“This? It’s not mine. Keira-san lent it to me.”

“…Ah, was that it? I see.”

Mystery solved, the lion nodded few self-satisfied times to himself and continued on with his work, ignoring the fox seated beside him.

The fox breathed a sigh of relief at having been allowed to stay here, and wiped at beads of perspiration which had formed beneath her mask.

She was exhausted.

Ai had seen so very many new and interesting things today, and now she was content to ease her tired eyes and sit with her knees hugged to her chest, experiencing the floodlit chatter of the world around her with only her ears. There was one sound constant among the hubbub, the rough sc.r.a.ping of knife on wood as the lion started carving yet another mask. In her eyeshut darkness Ai felt only that this repeated sound was somehow relaxing, and her body began to loosen as a wonderful languor almost like sleep crept up on it.

Slowly, just a tiny crack, she opened her eyes and saw before her a sight as if from a dream, in which reality was as insignificant as a soap bubble[7] and high away from the ground.

“Hey.”

Her elbow suddenly b.u.mped into something and she raised her head: the lion had his hand out to her, and was offering her a small bag of some sort.

“…What’s this?”

“Flavor sticks. They help with tiredness.”

The sticks in the bag were made of herbs boiled down until they were soft. Ai took one and, poking it beneath the mask, placed it experimentally into her mouth.

“Woah! The mint is so strong!”

“That’s why I said they’d help.”

The lion chucked from under his mask. Ai had been shocked when the taste first hit her, block of solid freshness that it was, but now found after a bit of determined chewing that it wasn’t so bad after all. Before long, her tiredness vanished without a trace.

“I kind of feel like drinking something now. Something simple, like water—that’d match this flavor quite nicely.”

“We got nothing like that here—and besides, what if you got to go to the toilet after drinking it? We’ve got so few toilets here in Ortus that you can count them on the fingers of your hand.”

“What? Really?”

“Ain’t it obvious? The dead don’t have to eat, so they don’t have to s.h.i.t either. We’re not like the living.”

At this point a somewhat unusual customer wandered in. If the proprietor of this stall was strange, this customer wasn’t far off either: the two conducted their business entirely with motions of their hands, neither saying a single word.

Ai waited patiently until the cat-faced customer departed.

“How did you know that I’m alive?”

Thanks to her straw hat, mask, and new jacket there wasn’t a single inch of her flesh which showed. By rights no casual pa.s.ser-by should have been able to tell that she was alive. Unlike yesterday on the car, when she was gawked at by everyone she saw, today n.o.body on the streets took any notice of her.

“Your mask…”

The lion took a chewed flavor stick out from behind his mask and tossed it into a nearby bin.

“I made it for Keira-obasan back when I’d just gotten out of school.”

“Oh? So that’s how you knew?”

“…Even without the mask, the fact that you wanted a drink and were tired would’ve tipped anyone off. You’re doing a pretty bad job of hiding your ident.i.ty.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“That’s exactly what you got to do, you idiot, or you’ll end up raising h.e.l.l.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Let’s go with an example here.”

The lion tucked his chin and tilted his head, and the play of shadows on the dips and b.u.mps of his mask coalesced into a single solid expression.

It was an expression of deepest weariness and simmering anger.

“If you were dead, and saw a living person in front of you, how’d you feel?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Okay, so with me seeing you like this, how’d do you think I feel?”

“…I don’t know.”

So the lion told her. That to say he didn’t feel envious was nothing short of a complete lie.

“Don’t go around flaunting your life in front of the dead.”

“…”

Ai nodded meekly.

“…I’m sorry.”

“You got nothing to be apologizing for…I mean, this is an issue concerning us and us only. You’re alive, we’re dead. That’s all there is to it, so don’t go feeling sorry or anything.”

Despite his words Ai remained as she was, curled unmoving in a fetal position.

Seeing her like this, the lion began jiggling his leg in discomfort; then he took the bag of flavor sticks and handed it to the fox.

“Come on, let’s turn that frown the other way round. Eat up.”

“Huh? But I’m still…”

“Ah, never mind, just take the whole thing.”

He stuffed the bag into her hand.

The lion grunted and slapped his knee in displeasure, and began to call out, as he should have many hours ago, “Cheap masks! Get ‘em cheap and get ‘em good!”. He was doing a rather bad job of it. Hearing him as he tried to solicit customers, the fox’s face broke beneath its mask into a small smile of grat.i.tude for this man.

As evening approached, the flow of people on the street swelled. Along with it rose the voices of the mask sellers as they worked to draw customers, and even the lion’s stall grew busier from buyers coming in and out.

And yet, in the face of this increased business, the lion was closing up.

“You’re not selling any more, even now that business is improving?”

“It’s exactly because business is improving that I’m doing this.”

Quite matter-of-factly, the lion then added, “Because I wouldn’t be able to make masks otherwise.” Ai didn’t know whether to be dumbfounded or impressed at this.

“Well, see ya.”

The lion packed up his masks and tools and got up, and into the s.p.a.ce he vacated immediately swarmed other mask sellers to open up their stalls.

But Ai just didn’t want to part so soon, and followed behind the lion’s rattling toolbox as he walked. He went downhill along the street, and she went with him; and he ignoring her all the way until he finally turned into a small alleyway.

“… Hey, you’ve got to be going home too.”

“I want to stay and chat with Lion-san a while longer.”

The lion turned to face her. The dimness of the alleyway fell in shades on his mask, spelling out his solid and forceful rejection even before he spoke.

“Go—home—right—now. The sun sets fast around these parts, one minute you’re watching it sink and the next it’ll be gone. Ortus at night ain’t anything quite as nice as I am.”

“…Lion-san’s not that nice anyway.”

“What’d you say?!”

“Fine, since you insist! Goodbye!”

And the fox ran off on light footsteps.

“…Huh, stupid, h.e.l.l if I care.”

Then he sighed, and hefted up his luggage.

“I said, you should be going home now.”

A teashop on the outskirts of Mask Street.

The lion sat fuming at a second-floor table that overlooked the street, disapproval emanating from every part of his body.

“Longer! Just a little longer! I wanted to see that one!”

The fox was leaning her body over the bal.u.s.trade, watching with excitement the Hyakki Yakou[8] procession beneath.

It was already evening.

“I’m serious, get home. You’re hungry, ain’t ya? I’ll get told off by obasan now.”

“It’s okay!”

It wasn’t as if there was anything to support that statement of hers. The lion, spent, hung his head and gave up.

The Hyakki Yakou procession on the street was originally a performing troupe. Their work was somewhere in between that of a busker and street entertainer, sometimes breathing fire and sometimes spinning magic tricks. They’d hand out fliers too, advertising in both sweet whisper and angered condemnation the Bolivier Apparel[9] clothes store. It seemed almost as if advertising was their main job and performing just an aside, but Ai had no way of confirming this.

It looked as if they quite liked being cheered on, especially if that cheering was loud. Perhaps the fox seemed particularly enthusiastic as she watched them from the second floor balcony, because troupe members would occasionally toss her flowers and release doves in her direction, and in the end four performers even stacked themselves into a human pyramid to address her at her height.

“Let’s buy go some purchaseable intelligence now! The Narle[10] Mask shop, at your service!

“R-Right! At my service!”

The fox took the fliers, and the performers immediately broke apart, leaving the air empty but for the clangor of the street.

But Ai continued to look upon it, as if something remained there that only she could see. And after a while, she took the flier and folded it carefully on the table.

“You don’t have to treat it like that. It ain’t some national treasure or anything, y’know.”

“I want to!”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I’ll just mind my own business, then.”

The fox couldn’t fit the flier into her pocket, so she took everything out to sort them. There were the flavor sticks she’d received from the lion, and along with them some bitter-flavored sweets she hadn’t had to chance to examine and hairpins with little decorations attached. All had been given to her for free.

The lion glanced at them out of the corner of his eye and began to speak to himself in a tone which conveyed a fervent and exasperated desire to sigh.

“…I knew it. I’ve known it from back when I was just a little kid, running around causing trouble for others. Someone me would only ever have the very worst of luck…”

“Did you say something?”

“Nothin’ at all”, the lion replied, before lapsing in to a silence and wondering why he’d gotten himself into a situation like this.

Back at his residence after returning directly from the teashop, the lion suddenly remembered that he was going to buy brushes on the way home. This really was nothing more than a task forgotten, and if it had been any other day he would have gone straight back out with a tut and a shake of his head. But today he found himself looking for excuses. He told himself that it wouldn’t matter if he bought it the next day, and forced himself to sit himself down and continue his work.

But he was restless.

Though the work of his hands was one that called for concentration, the lion found himself imagining quite easily the little fox, lost on the paths of Mask Street. The more he mulled over them the more fantastical the scenes in his mind became, until corpse-hustling toughs and wizened crones out to kidnap children began to surround the fox of his imagination.

The second time he slipped up drawing lines on a mask’s cheek, he made up his mind. He flung a ferocious streak of red across his lion’s mask and dashed out of the door. Looking very much like a real lion, his eyes blazed apart the darkness of the alleys, arcing golden trails in the throbbing air.

Night fell deeply, and the crowds waxed in even greater number. There was another stall now where the lion’s stood in the day, and its owner reported seeing no such fox come by. Untiringly, the lion immediately left and began running along the uphill road, describing the fox to those people he knew whom he pa.s.sed, asking them to look out for her as well. He had just prepared himself to find her even if it meant overturning the whole of the Ortus nightscape, when there she was before him.

She was in the Gorius[11] Mask Store, one of the larger and more famous ones on Mask Street. Its owner was Gorius of a Thousand Faces, a man advanced in his age and just as well-known as his store. And she was sitting in his lap, his hand running along her head and patting her golden hair.

The lion hurriedly wiped his mask clean from its badly made-up state and, with profuse apology, approached the fox. Across the vastness of the city and its numberless streets, he had managed to meet with her again.

It was a meeting of vain and hollow joy.

Thinking that this was an opportunity he might never have again, the lion had thanked Gorius humbly for looking after her. Then he had taken the chance to ask him, if he wouldn’t mind, to remember his name.

And Gorius’ response had been one typical of his character.

“A lion does not borrow the authority of a fox.”[12]

The words had fallen like the lash of a whip. Beaten, the lion scrambled, stumbled, ran up and away and out of sight. The fox started then: refusing the invitation to stay from the much-survived[13] old man, she took off without the barest hint of hesitancy in the direction the droop-tailed lion had gone when he ran away.

The lion couldn’t remember very well what had happened afterwards. All he knew was that he had told the fox, again and again, to return home.

Perhaps the fox didn’t notice the lion’s dejection: she stayed excitably by his side, talking, pointing, annoying him to no end.

The lion rested his chin on a bal.u.s.trade, and looked down at hubbub he’d years ago already grown accustomed to.

There was something new there, something unfamiliar which he’d never seen there before.

“It’s the Princess.”

“Huh?”

“There, the ‘brand new comedy-tragical drama’ from Silver Ring Theatres[14], Koroshiohake and the Princess of the Dead. They probably don’t have government authorization, with a t.i.tle as risky as that.”

There was a young woman sitting on a palanquin where the lion pointed. Her cheeks were painted crimson and her skin powdered white as snow. She had clearly been made up to resemble one of the living, but surely the princess wouldn’t wear makeup as heavy as this.

Nor would she be anywhere near as sociable.

“Brand new plot! Brand new plot! A whole new story to add to the Ortus mythos! A brand new comedy-tragical drama from Silver Ring Theatres! h.e.l.lo, ladies and gentlemen! I’m Amietta![15] I’ve been lucky enough to be picked for the female lead for this production! Please keep supporting me, everyone!

The woman handed out fliers from the palanquin in a friendly and intimate manner.

“They shouldn’t even be doin’ this. Hey! You! Joke of an actor!”

The lion suddenly gave a great bellow, making the fox jump from her chair in shock.

“What kinda s.h.i.t princess you trying to be? Looks no different from any country girl I know!”

The woman looked around for the speaker before spotting the lion and glaring straight at him as she spoke.

“What do you want, you joke of a mask maker? Got a problem with our interpretation? Bad news: the cla.s.sy kind of princess that weirdoes[16] like you want is just the kind we won’t do! If you like fairy tales that much, why don’t you go sleep with a storybook under your pillow?”

The lion immediately raised his hands in surrender. Throwing down a “Shut the h.e.l.l up, b.i.t.c.h!” as a parting shot, he retreated to the rear of the balcony.

“So what if I’m a b.i.t.c.h? Everyone! Do you like me tight, or do you like me loose?

The woman flapped up the hem of her dress in a provocative motion, baring to view her smooth white legs. Watching men began to hoot at the sight, transforming her into an instant celebrity, and fliers disappeared into the crowd with the speed of flight.

“That’s Belivera[17]. We were cla.s.smates.”

The lion was sprawled on a table, looking for all the world like a joke of a man.

“Her dream was to act a leading role in the Enkinza[18] Troupe.”

He gazed at the dancing princess on the street with faraway eyes.

“—She even said that, when she did, she’d wear one of my masks onstage.”

“That’s awesome!”

“Yeah, and she also said, ‘Make sure you become the best mask maker in the whole of Ortus.’ Huh, who’d she think she was?”

“That’s tough…”

“It was alright, but…”

Under the slanting lamplight, the lion’s mask seemed to smile with a grim ferocity.

“It was my dream, after all.”

Then he added, in a low voice, “And it’s not like it was anything special of a dream.”

And there was a quiet applause.

“That’s amazing.”

He turned, saw Ai gently clapping her hands.

“You’re really cool, Lion-san.”

“Don’t clap, you idiot. Stop it.”

The fox, gazing on the lion with excited eyes, ignored him.

“Jeez…You, what dreams you got?”

“My dream?”

“Yeah.”

“Eh—No—That’s…”

The fox was suddenly fl.u.s.tered and tongue-tied.

“Will you…laugh at me, after hearing it?”

“Don’t plan to.”

“Or get scared away?”

“…Your dream’s one that scares people away?”

The fox hemmed and hawed for a little while, then picked up her courage and, a little tentatively, spoke.

“I want to save the world.”

“Oh?”

He didn’t laugh, didn’t draw away in shock or fear or contempt. He accepted this answer of hers with a quiet respect. But his craft hadn’t been advanced enough to depict emotions on masks: seeing no change on the lion’s expressionless features, the fox worriedly asked him:

“Y-You don’t think it’s weird?”

“Nah. What, did you get laughed at for it before?”

“Um, I told Kiriko about it, and he said ‘What a foolish dream’…”

“Him, huh…”

The lion’s tone had abruptly changed.

“Don’t take what that idiot says seriously…”

In his words was an undercurrent of rage which he couldn’t conceal. Ai heard it, and didn’t say anything more.

Right away the lion realized that he’d soured the mood and wanted to talk about something nicer, but the words wouldn’t come. Ai turned her gaze back to the street, faking an interest on the proceedings below.

The lion gave up on talking. He’d make Kiriko pay for it later.

This was all his fault.