偽神 童磨
Nisegami Douma
"false god, child"


Douma's waiting for me at the foot of the field, and I knew he was waiting because he's on his haunches, arms out, keeping for me. I fell crying into his shoulder, and something in the deepest depths of my heart told me that he did it, that he killed my dearest sister Tsutako, because I then saw the blood dribbling between his fingers, the tears bubbling under his eyes, the ironic mouth that oscillated between frown and smile. Holding me to his ear, he said this:

"Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. You are free to judge and hate me, but know that I cannot die now. Realise that my death is unavoidable too. I foresee everything… it's a world of pain, but I can't help it. It'll be the same for you too, when you eventually understand. It'll be a long road there, so I'll give you my human half to help you now. In exchange, I'll take her away. What you deem as most valuable versus what the world deems as most valuable. The subjective in comparison to the objective."

It doesn't take me any while to realise that the arm around me was not for reassurance, but that it was tight like a lasso, wringing my neck, and that he was choking me. Perhaps it was the state I was in then, that I didn't try to fight it. The sight drains out of my eyes, my nose begins to burn, then my knees slack and my fingers uncurl, until things melt into each other and finally, slide into darkness.


What's worth more? A person's life, or the memory of a person's life?

In the limbo between life and death, human and demon, in the midst of the Sanzu river, I'm presented this question by someone. It's a formless figure, akin to something a child would draw, and I'm sitting before him, watching, being watched.

Go on, they say. Answer.

"A person's life, of course," I reply.

And they shake their formless head.

That is the incorrect answer. But it is what you will get for now.

Then they snap their fingers and the hatch below me opens and I fall out onto the earth.


Giyuu's POV

The next morning I awoke and felt the matchsticks in my hand, then saw my sister's body had been wrapped in linen of purity and set on a log pedestal, topped with a bouquet and wreath, no sign of Douma anywhere. When I stood up, from my pocket I heard the crumpling of paper, and I took out a note and read it:

Look for a man named Mr Açores in the neighbouring town of Gunchū. He's the principal of the only international school there. Tell him your predicament. He'll give you a place to go.

Still destitute with remorse, I crumpled the paper and spat. I looked for a moment more at my sister's body, then realised: that she had been prepped for the honourable Buddhist practice of cremation, that the way to light it had been put in my hands.

It's a smoky smell, a corpse burning. But when the scent of my sister's body charring rose up my nose I did not move. The smoke formed a plume and this plume bulged into a grey-and-orange ball, eventually engulfing me, but still I didn't budge. I only stood, stood and looked, looked my failure to protect my sister in the eye, nothing but a milestone God had planned for me in his drawing room. When the fire dimmed and I was on my way to descend the chrysanthemum hill I realised that I felt no cold. It was the coolest month of the coolest season of the year and I was wearing nothing but a set of holey pyjamas and sandals with no socks, yet there wasn't as much as a single goosebump on me. When I looked down and saw the too-large red kimono draped around me I had my answer: that this was Tsutako's homage to me, that for the first time in my life, I was in solitude.

After departing my sister's body I was left with a strange determination that was neither want for revenge nor desire to grieve. I folded the note back into my pocket and found myself repeating the contents of it over and over in my head. Maybe a part of me would not accept that my sister was dead, and that the other part of me tried to appease it by proposing that somehow, if I carried out the instructions in the letter my sister would be there, girly-smiling as she always did, greeting me as I awake from my nap in a field of white chrysanthemum; that this was all just the nightmare I had then while I slept.

With fortitude, I went to Gunchū.


The colossal estate of tofu-like concrete nearly shook as the powerful west wind started to blow, and from where I stood on the street the building seemed to lurch over me, and I was intimidated. This was the home of Mr Açores, the home that was a church, a school, and a meeting ground for the public all at once, but mostly a school. The complex was set on a low hill, and a fenced iron perimeter let ooze an air of austerity. Aside from the main construction aforementioned and afore-described it consisted a marble square, a garden, and a little western-chapel incorporated into a wooden basilica. Besides that, everything else was built in the Japanese style. A sign on the edge of the road denoted the scene: Shujinkō no Kaigō street; Açores de la Costa International School.

I trotted up the stairs and pummeled the metal gate to sound myself. Though it was a Monday, the grounds were closed off and empty of student life. Had I come too early? For a moment I felt a fool of myself, and I ambled in front of the complex. A wave of dread washed through me when I realised that the doors would only open when the school day began, and that meant encountering the educated children who'd flood through with it, such befuddling things they were. For even if I disproved the idea of going to school, I envied those kids for the clique they were in. Because through all my life I was an isolated child. There was my sister, my sister's fiancé, and they were good friends of mine, must've been, but nobody that was my own age. Even if the time I spent around those adults must have contributed to a maturity uncanny of twelve and in turn a relative, albeit silent self-confidence, I faltered in the presence of those children. And because I would not blame anyone but me for my own solitude I took to despising myself for not being able to assimilate with them, yet simultaneously assuring myself for being more mature than they.

I saw the girl named Makomo then for the first time. The pallid face stuck from behind the corner of the fence, then her whole small, lanky body stepped into frame. She had eyes the colour of watered jade, and legs like ivory chopsticks. We watched each other a while and I felt myself slink into my own skin. Then she opened her mouth, and said this:

"I'm Makomo. I don't live here, and I ain't a schoolgirl, but I come down the mountain often to visit he who does. But I haven't ever seen you. Hiya."

I returned the greeting, more a grunt than a word, and I asked if she knew a way inside the complex.

"Who knows. I'm here early, too. But why not just wait?"

"…I don't feel like waiting," I replied. "And I ain't a student."

"You should learn to be patient. Like me. I've been this way for a long while. The only way I've been able to cope is by learning to be the master of my time. I'm not so young as you see me."

On that lukewarm note, Makomo motioned me over and made a few steps down the perimeter of the fence and stopped by a filled-out portion of it, and I realised it to be another door. Then she tapped it with her knuckle two times, did something weird with her hands, and it cracked open.

"He keeps this other door unlocked?" I asked.

"Nope. I've just got powers. Ghost powers. I can reach and touch stuff nobody else can. Like… the internal mechanisms of a lock."

"…You're square," I said.

Inside the four unfamiliar walls of the Açores property, the space seemed detached from the world, and crossing the plaza of lunar stone, I kept looking over my shoulder, to see that the fence was not getting narrower, because of the intrinsic and young fear that if I stood here too long they were eventually going to come and crush me.

Then, arrived before the door of the estate of Mr Açores, Makomo opened it, and let me in.


A hallway conversation, perhaps

"What's your name, schoolboy? I told you mine, so tell me yours."

"…Giyuu."

"I knew a Giyuu once. But he was only a baby then, and that was a long time ago. He should be around your age nowadays. Nice coincidence, huh?"

"But you don't look any older than me."

"Wash your face three times a day and eat lots of fiber and you'll age just as gracefully. Just kidding, Tomioka. Why look so sour?"

"What? I never told you my surname."

"That's right. You didn't. Yet I know anyway. Another coincidence, hm? But that's not important. Açores is just here, by this door. He isn't very chatty, but you'll endear him, I think. You sure did endear meway back when."


Makomo left me, and in turn, another filled her presence.

Mr Açores was a huge western man with no hair and a beard so furiously grown out it put bears to shame, and eyes like small blue gun barrels. In his mouth hung a cigarette that he chugged as he would a cigar, and the uncannily tidy room of fine wooden furniture and yellowing books was awash with the smell of tobacco and drying ink.

"What?" He was shocked. "Who're you? How'd you get in?"

Even I did not have an answer for him.

"Well, school only starts in an hour," he said. "So scram, anywhere. Can't you see I'm smoking? Go, before you breath in too much."

He turned around to continue leaning out the window by which he stood, smoking with bleak apathy. When he didn't hear me leave and looked back to see that I remained placid in the doorway I assembled the courage to speak up:

"My sister is dead," I said. "A man named Nisegami Douma took her life."


Mr Açores was empathetic to my heartbreak tale. He sat me down and gave me tea and crackers and listened to my ramblings with a keen ear. A kind man, I'd say, and he wasn't nearly as fierce as he looked. But he also had to be decisive. I would've been decisive too, in his position. When I'd finished my story and he'd given his condolences for Tsutako, he had this to say, firstly.

"Why not go to your relatives?"

Yet again, I didn't have a real answer.

"What, you don't have any? I don't believe you," he said. Indeed, he looked like the kind of man who could see through your lies. He saw through mine, hastily uttered as it was.

"But hold that thought for a moment," he said. "You told me… that it was Douma who sent you here. That he wrote that note. Right?"

It must've been, I muttered.

"My god…" he wiped his face with his sleeve. "Douma… out of all people."

He fell back into his seat, cracking with the shift of his weight. He was about to light another cigarette, but it must've been my presence that stopped him, and he flicked the thing away and spoke again looking up at the ceiling.

"You… would you like to know about Douma? This man?"

This man.
Nisegami Douma.
My enemy.


Of course, I said. So he obliged.


"There's a cult around here… a moderately sized cult, called the 'Eternal Paradise Seekers'. Douma's the leader of that cult. Their goal is just that: 'to seek paradise'. What that exactly means is up to interpretation. I don't know. But they seem to be a cult formed solely to facilitate whatever goals its leader has. Again, whatever those goals may be. As for Douma himself… he's not a particularly old demon. But neither is he that young. He dates back to the mid 1700's. For reference, a century before the Americans came and opened up the country. He falls under the peculiar watershed of being junior to the so called 'original demons' and being senior to everyone else. So, in this sense one could call him niche.

His cult is nearly as old as he is. It was formed – I hear – when he was still a child, based entirely around the notion that those rainbow eyes he was born with implied he was a kind of broker to God, and could communicate with him. Some typa bullshit, right? I'm guessing Douma was smart enough to realise that the whole thing was a fad, and twisted the cult's ideals over time to mesh what he said with the word of God. So now the people follow him everywhere.

You saw those characters in his eyes. 'Upper Moon Two'. The Upper Moons are six of the strongest demons… in Japan. Of course, aside from their leader. That makes him the third-most powerful in total. Though he's pretty unpopular among the brass. 'Cause of the large influence he holds, the Demon Lord in particular. There's one person, I remember, though, who was with him always, forever loyal. Or two, I guess, but this one I'm talking about in particular was special. The so-called… 'greener part of his soul'. And his name was…


Nisegami…


You–


I could not hear what came next. I only saw Mr Açores had bent over in his seat, hands cuffed around his neck. He looked unwell. The complexion was leaving his face like water. He recovered after a while, not entirely, but enough to speak again:

"Oh…" he said. "I've spoken too much…"

He tried to look strong, but it was unconvincing, and it was a while before the colour would seep back into his skin.

"In any case," he intermised. "I'm guessing your sister's death was spontaneous. Cult leaders are often 'paths, socio or psycho, and they… tend to have outbursts like that. But it won't change what you're going to do."

There was no such reply from me as 'whatever do you mean?' because I knew exactly what he meant.

What I was going to do now.

Now –

That my sister was dead.


"Revenge," he said. "It's what anyone would want in your shoes."

I neither shook my head to deny him, nor nodded to affirm him.

"Hey…" Mr Açores said. "Have you heard… of the Demon Slayers?"


The utterance came with no warning, no prior indication, but there was no need for it. Mr Açores looks into my eyes with recovering fortitude. His hands are folded over each other, placed on his knee. He's regained his powerful stance. But this doesn't overshadow the magnitude of what he just said. He continued.

"An organisation that has existed since time immemorial to fight the demon enemy. The Demon Slayers," he repeats, and his little eyes glisten. And maybe, just maybe, that is what the letter meant in saying a place for me to go.

"They number in the hundreds," Mr Açores goes on. "And though they've been nearly annihilated far too many times, they've persisted throughout history. They – are the embodiment of human spirit. Forever resilient. Do you know why I'm telling you this, Giyuu?"

I did know. I did know and I made no effort to hide it. There was no point in it. The path I'd have went down would've been the same, anyway. Because God's in his drawing room, and all's set with the world.

"You're still a child, now. And children are timid. They do not wish to inflict violence. Even if violence has been inflicted on them," Mr Açores said. "But once they're grown up… once you've become a man… you'll want to go a-demon-slaying. You may not feel it now, and you may not feel it in a long time, but the want for revenge will always linger. And one day, it will bubble over. Tell me, Giyuu…"


do you


want to


take


revenge?"


But no: my astuteness was shallow. And for the third time that day I had no answer. I was still wallowed in grief and thus there was space for nothing else. Hate had yet to overcome me. Now, there was only pain. I looked to my shifting feet and hoped that Mr Açores would retract the question, so that I shouldn't have to answer it. Eventually, he did.

"In any case," he said. "I'm assuming you don't want to go home. That's why you're here. And it's already been put out there that you don't want to run to your relatives, either. Therefore, you're in need of a place to stay. I'll give you one."

So I was quartered in an undistinctive, outer room, the only standout feature being that it was built parallel to a door leading to a little garden. Mr Açores showed me the way there, though the complex was so dazzling in the monotony of its interior I could not keep up. When we were finished he took me back to his office and sat me down again. Only then did I thank him. He asked me if I'd eaten, and I said yes, even though I didn't, but I wasn't hungry, anyway. The octagonal clock on the wall struck half-past seven, and suddenly the sound arose of children chattering, filing in like sand through a funnel. The school day had begun. He said I'd ought to retire to my room, and just when I was about to leave, I asked him this:

"Remain here as long as you'd like," he firstly said. "And if you decide to go, my doors will always be open."

I thanked him again, but didn't step out of the doorway. Still, one question burned in me.

"How come you know all this stuff?" I asked. "About Douma. And demons."

Mr Açores repeated his words of the past hour. "It's not fit for a kid to know." And he said it so stoically I chose not to pursue it. There was no suspicion in his tone, only caution. There was no cause for me to doubt him, but that didn't mean I was finished.

There was one more question. Only one more.


"And demons," I asked. "How do you know they exist?"

Mr Açores said it in his own way, the only way he could:

"It's not up to a child to think about that. A child doesn't need to be overthinking."


I heard the steps of children in the hallway pass me by, and in the dark storeroom of peeling walls and an old tatami floor, I lay in bed and whatever I'd repressed through the course of the past days were allowed to spill out and run amok from my splitting skull. I played out the events of the night before, and tried to imagine my sister's final moments. I attempted to ascertain when she left, when she was taken, when they started to kill her. I pictured Douma picking her apart, first her fingers from her hand, then her hand from her arm, watching her slowly die, before sowing her back together and placing her in that field of white chrysanthemum to be eventually delivered to me. My childish imagination held nothing from my eyes, and the terror of the images I myself had constructed pushed liquid to the surface, and soon I was crying again. The sobbing wouldn't stop until well after breaktime had ended, and when my sight was dry again and my ears had been cleared of the sounds of my own misery I heard it: the cry of a boy, coming from the room parallel to me. I went to my door and looked through the lock at the one opposite mine. A bunch of raggedy boys sifted through it, running from something, by appearance. When I realised I was intrigued I did not doubt my own instinct to go and look. The boys had cleared from the hallway now, and I stepped over the width of it, cautiously. I opened the other door to reveal a rich garden, carved out of a six tatami-mat sized section of the earth.

And in the middle of this garden –

Wound a river of white sand for purity.

And in the middle of this river –

Lay a girl.

Both alive, and dead.


And leaning towards her, I imparted in her ear the words of a lifetime:

"My name is Giyuu Tomioka…

…I'll stay with you until you die."