I was chained to a board. Dressed in striped prison garb, by limbs stretched out in an X, as all I could do was weakly look up at the shadowy judge looming above me, cloaked in a black robe and brandishing a gavel. All around me, more shadowed figures sat upon countless rows of benches towering high above, all laughing at me like hyenas.
"Mr. Akechi Goro," the judge said in a booming voice, "you are guilty of crimes against humanity, being a bastard child, and a friendless scum who will die alone. How do you plead?"
I didn't want to believe it. I knew it was true, but I didn't want it to be. I didn't want to be friendless, unloved, alone. I wanted to be accepted and adored, not to be tossed aside like a cat carcass in a Shinjuku back alley.
"Not guilty," I said weakly. I looked down, and all around me the crowd erupted in uproarious laughter, flinging eggs, tomatoes and garbage at me and yelling profanities while blowing raspberries.
"Fool," the judge chided, "you cannot escape the truth. We will make you pay for your crimes." He turned his head. "Jury, what is the verdict?"
I looked over to the jury, which contained all the people I had betrayed with my lies but considered my friends - Sae-san, Sumire, Haru, Futaba, Makoto, Yusuke, Ann, the cat, Ryuji, Sojiro, Dr. Maruki and… him. All of them stood up and shouted in unison, "GUILTY!"
I looked back at the judge in horror, who in one swift motion threw off his robe, revealing his true figure, the bald head and orange glasses leaving no doubt that it was Shido. He smirked, chuckled, and bore down with his gavel.
I awoke.
For a few moments, I stared up blankly at the ceiling, my eyes open but my mind not fully conscious. What really stirred me awake was the smell - an earthen, ashy scent which wafted into my mouth and nose and stimulated my senses.
Pushing myself up, I rubbed the sand out of my eyes and took a moment to look around the room which I found myself in. I was laying in a futon with a red quilt, against the wall of a traditional-looking room with bamboo walls, an olive-green tatami sprawled across the floor, and a sliding door off to the right side. It was warm, and there was a fire crackling in a granite fireplace on the opposite wall. Looking at myself, I found I was back in my detective clothes, my shoes placed neatly at the foot of the futon with my gloves laid on top.
I had no clue how I ended up in this place. Obviously, this was someone's home, and they had taken me back and were caring for me while I was unconscious. I vaguely remembered falling into the snow on the day the palace was destroyed, except there was no snow in Tokyo the day I confronted the thieves nor was there any in the forecast for several days. Had I really been knocked out for that long, I wondered? Whose home was I in? Where was I?
These thoughts went through my head, when I heard steps approaching the door. I turned toward it, and heard someone whistling as they fiddled with the latch before throwing it open. In walked a curious young woman, who had white hair so long it nearly reached down to the floor and had several red-and-white ribbons tied in it, with a large bow on top. She was also wearing a white button-up shirt and long, baggy red pants covered in what looked like ofuda and held up with red suspenders. She was also barefoot. In her hand was a silver plate with a bowl of soup on top, and she was smoking a cigarette.
She looked over to me, and stopped whistling. She took the cigarette out of her mouth and tossed it into the fire.
"Oh. You're finally up," she said. She laid the soup next to me, and I picked it up. It was fairly simple, just some noodles and vegetables floating in stock, but I was very hungry at that moment. "Here, eat up," she told me. "I'll go get you some tea." She left the room briefly, during which I blew on the soup to cool it down before grasping some noodles and a carrot piece and eating them. The flavor… I couldn't quite place it. It definitely wasn't beef, and somehow it was distinct from chicken, and had a sort of gamey flavor to it.
The woman came back with two cups, and placed one next to me. Green tea, I could tell from looking in the cup. I took a sip, letting the scent flow through my nose as I did so. I couldn't remember when was the last time I had traditional soup and tea like this, as my budget didn't leave room for much else besides instant noodles and conveyor belt sushi.
"This soup," I said. "It has quite a unique taste…"
The woman sat cross-legged beside me sipping her own tea. "I take it you've never had Crested Ibis before?"
My eyes widened in surprise? "Crested Ibis? You mean, Japanese Crested Ibis? But I thought those were critically endangered."
"Maybe where you come from, but here they're all over the damn place," she said flatly. "In fact, if you wanted to you could just climb a tree and snatch one right out of the air."
I was very confused. Crested Ibises were supposed to be all but extinct in the wild, except for wherever I had found myself apparently. I knew I couldn't possibly be near Tokyo anymore, if that was the case.
"Excuse me," I asked, "but, where am I?"
"...my house?" the woman said.
"Well, obviously," I joked, "but where is your house?"
The woman looked up, and told me, "let's say a place where things end up when humans no longer believe in their existence." She looked back at me. "I saw you falling out of the sky while I was out walking, and you landed right in the snow. I dragged you back here and I've been pouring soup down your throat every day until now."
"...how long was I out for?" I asked again.
"'Bout a week or so? Today's Christmas."
"I see," I nodded. "And then… a place where things that humans no longer believe in… what exactly do you-"
There was a knock on a door outside the room. "Come in," the woman said. I heard a door open, and after a few moments another woman came in, also wearing an unusual dress which was blue-and white with a red ascot, periwinkle hair and what looked like a miniature pagoda hat on her head.
"Merry Christmas!" she smiled and waved.
"Right back at ya, Keine," the white-haired woman said. "What brings you here? It's frickn' Siberian out there. And after the full moon yesterday I'dve thought you'd be chillin' at your place!" As they chatted, it struck me as odd. Obviously, they were speaking Japanese, but it was an older-sounding dialect… Meiji-era, if my memory from my history classes served. What kind of place had I found myself in?
"Well, there's no school today, and I know you're terminally bored with winter, so I thought I'd drop by and cheer my Mokou up," she said in a sing-song voice. She then glanced over at me. "...oh?"
The woman, whose name I guessed was Mokou, immediately tensed up and blushed. "It-it ain't what it looks like! I just found 'im out in the snow and took 'im in to keep him from gettin' hypothermia!" she pleaded in a country accent.
I bowed at the other woman, who was apparently named Keine. "Good morning," I said politely. "My name is Goro Akechi. I just woke up."
"Nice to meet you, Akechi-kun. I'm Keine Kamishirasawa." She knelt down and held out her hand to shake mine. "I hope Mokou has been taking good care of you."
I looked over. "Mokou?"
"Yeah. That's me. Fujiwara no Mokou."
Again, my eyes widened. "Fujiwara? As in, the Fujiwara clan?"
"The one and only," Mokou said. I looked down, and thought about the history of the Fujiwara clan and how they dominated Heian Japan until their decline in the 12th century. "But, hasn't the Fujiwara clan been gone for centuries?"
"Yeah," Mokou said. "Doesn't matter for me though. My dad's been dead for, well, I forget. He was the guy who founded the clan, I'm sure you know him, Fujiwara no Fuhito."
I was silent.
"How old are you?" I asked candidly.
"I'm a fuckin' geezer," Mokou answered. "Didn't they tell you not to ask a lady about her age?" Both her and Keine had a hearty laugh over that one. "In all seriousness, I was really old before your great-great-great-great-great granddad was born."
Again, I thought about what sort of place I had found myself in where Crested Ibises were common and there was a woman before me who was centuries old and claimed to be a daughter of the founder of the Fujiwara clan. She also mentioned something about the "Keine" lady being affected by the full moon. Did that mean she was a therianthrope?
So I asked Keine "tell me, where exactly am I right now?"
"Oh, of course," she smiled. "Right now, you're in a place called 'Gensokyo.' It's a land sealed off from the rest of the world by a powerful barrier. This is where people and things people no longer fear or believe in end up, safe from the harm and loss of faith they face on the Outside."
"Gensokyo." A place not on any maps and which was sealed away from the rest of the world. A normal person would have thought it incredibly strange, but I realized it was little different from the Metaverse which I rampaged across for many years, and it piqued my curiosity to learn more about it. After all, I was probably going to be stuck here for at least a while.
What intrigued me the most was that she mentioned that only things forgotten by the world at large ended up here. Given my circumstances, that meant only one thing: I had been wiped away from the public's cognition, either because I was still in the palace when it was destroyed, or for some other reason. Perhaps I had been given up for dead, and that's why I couldn't leave the palace, because no one would believe a dead man was walking. But I couldn't tell anyone here about my crimes, or else they would scorn me as the public surely would. So I had to come up with a plausible lie, in case they asked about my past.
"I see," I replied. "That's very interesting."
Keine chuckled. "You know, most outsiders would be freaking out right about now. You really are an interesting person, Akechi-kun. Where are you from, originally?"
"Tokyo," I answered.
"Tokyo!" Mokou exclaimed before chuckling. "So, you're a city boy, eh? Can't say I've met too many Tokyo folks; most people who wind up here are Nagano, Niigata, Yamanashi or whatever."
I tilted my head. "But I thought you said a barrier separates this from the rest of the world."
"It does," Keine explained. "It used to be part of the rest of the world, in a remote area just on the Sea of Japan side of the Japanese Alps of Nagano Prefecture. But because of the Great Hakurei Border, it now more or less exists in another dimension, but people sometimes slip in if they wander around where it would be if the barrier didn't exist."
I thought for a moment, then told them, "I think I know how I got here."
"Oh?" Mokou wondered.
"Yes, you see, I'm a detective. In fact, people used to call me the Ace Detective Prince because of how good I was at solving crimes, and I've appeared on TV numerous times."
"You look kinda young to be a detective," Mokou said. "You look like you're a high school kid."
"I am," I told her. I looked down glumly, and lied, "my parents both died when I was young, and I spent much of my time moving from one foster home to another." I looked up again, and smiled. "But, my intellect and sleuthing skills didn't go unnoticed, and an internship with the SIU during middle school became a job which I balanced with my school life. I live on my own, and make quite a bit of money too. Plus, I have many, many rabid fangirls."
"I can't see why you wouldn't," Mokou said rubbing her chin. "Young, handsome polite thing you are, smart, charismatic, any girl would be lucky to have 'ya." She sat back up. "But, something must've happened for you to come here."
"Yes. I was investigating a corrupt politician, one who was running for Prime Minister. Just as I was about to bust him, though, his hired Yakuza goons came after me, and the building I was in was set on fire and burned to the ground as a result. I got out, of course, but it was a rather intense explosion. It's easy to imagine me not surviving it. After that, I fell through the darkness until I ended up here." As I finished my story, I could see Keine looking at me with a scrutinizing look.
"What's wrong, Kamishirasawa-san?" I asked.
"Oh, it's nothing," she dismissed. "And you can just me Keine. We're not super on top of honorifics here in Gensokyo; I just called you Akechi-kun because I know they're still all about that Outside."
I nodded, "ah, I understand."
Keine looked around, then said, "well, in this case, I should probably get you to the village. You'll be safest there." She got up and turned to Mokou, "I promise I'll be back."
"Eh, no rush," Mokou said. "I'm used to being a bit of a hermit anyway."
"You know that's not good for you," Keine chided. "Just because you're an immortal doesn't mean you can just not talk to people."
"Whatever," Mokou said.
Keine helped me up and led me to the front door. She was right: it was very cold out there, and thick snow covered the ground, although it wasn't actively snowing right now. I could see the sun peeking through the thin cloud cover in the sky.
"Can I borrow a scarf from you, Mokou? I promise I'll give it back," Keine asked.
"I don't mind. I never get cold, after all."
Keine chuckled. "Of course you don't." She reached for a scarf and said, "here." I took it, wrapped it around my neck, and said my goodbyes to Mokou as we walked out into the white world outside her home.
All around, there were thick, tall bamboo shoots, unlike anything I've ever seen before, stretching out as far as I could see, and various animals dove in and out from between them.
"I've never seen bamboo forests this large," I said.
"It's not called the Bamboo Forest of the Lost for no reason," Keine said. "Mokou makes her living either guiding lost travelers out of it, or toward the mansion Eientei. There's a doctor who lives there who makes all sorts of medicines."
"Interesting," I noted.
We continued along the path, and I found myself asking, "so, the village. Is there only one?"
"Yes," Keine explained. "We also call it the Human Village, since that's where most of the humans live."
"Are there not-humans who live here?" I asked.
"I'm sure you're familiar with youkai from Shinto, correct?"
"Of course," I smiled. "Creatures embodying human beliefs and fears and who served as explanations for various phenomena before they found other explanations. They told us all about them in my history classes."
"You're quite the sharp student," Keine praised. "Anyway, those live here too, and they often try to attack humans. Some of them even still eat humans, although never any in Gensokyo, only ones brought in from Outside by Yukari who are either attempting suicide, or are inmates on death row blocks."
"Who is Yukari?" I asked.
Keine laughed. "That's your first question? You're not the least bit afraid of man-eating beasts coming for you?"
"I don't see how the danger is any different from those in my job," I said, glossing over, of course, my experiences facing mythical beings in the Metaverse.
"You are a strange one," Keine noted. "Anyway, Yukari is one of the three sages who helped to create the Border. She's a powerful boundary manipulator, and can come and go as she pleases. The second one is Kasen; you probably know her better as Ibaraki-Douji. She can guide animals and wields powerful Hermit magic. She can also come and go from the border as she sees fit. The third one, however, has kind of been lost to time, and no one remembers their name or what they look like. They leave the work of maintaining the border to the Hakurei Shrine, which is always staffed by a shrine maiden who can channel the border's powers and those of the enshrined kami. I'm sure you'll meet her at some point; she comes down to the village fairly frequently."
"That's good to know who runs this place," I said. "And I'm sure avoiding the youkai who live here will be simple, since they are monsters and all."
"Well, it's not as easy as you might imagine," Keine warned. "Most appear in human-seeming forms most of the time, either to lure you into a trap or just out of personal preference. There's even a few who come and go from the village, although I make sure they never cause trouble. I help run the town, and I also teach at the school. It's a fairly low-key place, and most of the people there are content to just live out their lives in and around it. There's a very strong sense of community."
"I'm glad to hear that," I told her. "In Tokyo, there's millions of people, but it seems like everybody just goes around caring only about themselves and never looking out for anyone else."
"You just can't get that in the big city," Keine told me. "We don't have things like skyscrapers, internet, cars, trains or anything like that, but we also don't have the smog, pollution, crime, and depressed mood they have either."
"How would you know? It's not like you can leave this place," I asked.
"Oh, we're not completely ignorant of the goings-on outside. We only get bits and pieces, sure, but we know the world has changed a lot since this place was sealed back in the day."
"I see." We walked further along the path, before I asked her, "how did you become friends with Mokou-san?"
Keine looked down, and I could tell she was hesitating to tell me something. "Well… let's just say I was disowned by my parents when I was little, and she stepped in to help raise me. The least I can do is help keep her from being such a hermit. She's immortal, so from her perspective, humans die in a flash. That's why she doesn't make friends with any."
I smiled. "But there must be something special about you, and that's why she raised you."
Keine smiled at me. "Well, I guess. Eventually I came back to the village, and found my parents on their deathbed, sick from a very severe flu. They apologized to me for disowning me, and told me to use my talents for good. And so, that's what I do. I teach the kids, and I defend the village."
"How do you defend the village from powerful youkai, though?" I asked. "Surely, a human like you wouldn't stand much of a chance."
"I'm stronger than I look," Keine boasted. "And, I have a special ability."
"Hm?"
"I can hide history, make it seem as though there never was a village. It fools even the strongest of youkai every time."
"That's… very interesting, Keine-san."
Keine giggled. "Those honorifics are really ingrained in you, aren't they?"
After some time walking, we emerged from a clearing, on a small hill overlooking a village nestled in a valley. It was quite large, and even though it was winter I could see many dots along the streets between the buildings, people running around doing their daily business.
"This is the place," Keine told me. "When we get down there, I'll ask around and help find you some lodging. Knowing me, it won't be too hard."
"Thank you, Keine-san."
We hiked down the hill and through the town gates. I studied the town around me, the place that would serve as my home, at least for a while. All around me, farmers pulled rickshaws, kids built up snow sculptures and had snowball fights, merchants sold their wares from traditional wooden storefronts. As we walked around, Keine stopped to ask some people if they had any spare rooms for me. I was out of place in my modern detective outfit, compared to the traditional kimonos most everyone else wore, although some were wearing vaguely western-style clothes such as heavy, baggy work pants and boots. Predictably, I got some stares from people, not just because of my clothes but also because of my brown hair which, although natural, was widely assumed to be dyed even in Tokyo, and everyone else here had black hair. It made me wonder what it would be like for me to be stuck in this place…
...but then, I wasn't sure I wanted to face the world outside again either.
Eventually, we came to a storefront calling itself the "Kirisame Secondhand Shop." This time, Keine led me under the paper lanterns and into the shop, where shelves lined the walls and tables filled the center, all holding books, toys, tools, and various other knick-knacks. At the counter was an older gentleman reading a book, who looked at us when the bell on the door rang.
"Ah, miss Kamishiraswa!" he said. "Merry Christmas!"
"Thanks," Keine smiled. "I didn't expect you would be open today."
"Oh, you know, people have been coming in getting things for their families at the last minute. Not much, but it is money. And I don't really have a family to look after, so why not keep the shop open?"
"I suppose," Keine said. "Anyway, I saw your sign out front, saying you were looking for live-in work? I have this gentleman here looking for a place to stay. He recently arrived here from Tokyo."
Mr. Kirisame rolled his eyes. "Oh, is she fooling around again?"
"I don't think so," Keine said. "He says he came here after narrowly escaping being killed."
I stepped up and bowed. "Pleased to meet you sir, my name is Goro Akechi."
Mr. Kirisame chuckled. "Pleasure to meet you too. I'm Masato Kirisame, and I'm the owner of this shop." He turned to Keine. "Quite the polite young lad you brought in. Are you sure you picked him up?"
Keine blushed and stammered, "uh, it's not like that at all!" She huffed. "I hate it when you do that."
"Sorry," Masato laughed. "He just seems like a natural lady-charmer. I'm sure I won't have any trouble getting business with him around."
"If that's what you think, maybe I should take him to Mr. Morichika instead," Keine joked. "I'm sure he could use some extra business."
Masato paused, then cleared his throat. "Anyway, so you need a place to stay?"
"Of course," I said.
"Well then, I'll just give you the grand tour, then show you your room." He waved me into the back storage room as Keine waved and made her way back out.
A few hours later, once it got dark, Masato snuffed the lanterns outside and flipped the sign on his door to Closed. He was also kind enough to make dinner, grilling up a fish and serving it with rice and vegetables.
"So, I haven't actually asked you about your life before this," he said. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"
So I told him a bit about my past, using the same partially fabricated story I had told Keine and Mokou earlier. Honestly, I felt bad doing it, but if there was someone I didn't want to know about my murderous past it was the man giving me a bed.
"I see," he said rubbing his chin. "That must have been hard for you, living without your folks. But, you seem like you've built your life back up quite well."
"It certainly seems so," I smiled. "Although I guess I did choose a tumultuous path."
"As dangerous as the youkai here are, sometimes I feel the world outside is even more fraught, what with all the gangs, crime and corruption. It's good to know hardworking people with a strong sense of justice like you are around to combat it."
Justice… I pondered what that word meant, and if I was worthy of having it be able to describe me, after what I did. I tried my best not to get hung up on it, though, since I knew Masato would catch on to my brooding.
"It's not work everyone can do," I told him. "But you could say I have a natural talent."
"Maybe you could help the shrine maiden out with solving incidents."
"Oh yes, the shrine maiden. What is she like?"
Masato adjusted his glasses. "Well, I knew her mother, and watched her be trained. Her mother died in a storm, struck by lightning, when she was twelve, so she's been holding the duty down ever since. She can be cold and distant to strangers, but deep down she's a compassionate person who can make friends with anyone if you get her out of her shell. She's good at what she does, but many of the villagers are wary of her, since she has a lot of youkai friends as well. Her shrine doesn't get many visitors and donations as a result. Thankfully, her youkai friends are all marshmallows; there aren't really any real human-hating youkai left in Gensokyo these days, though I will caution they're still out there. Her mother invented, and she perfected, a system where people can duel using special magical cards that allow everyone, human, youkai, and god, to fight on an even field, and the sages mandated their use. This place has been very peaceful since then as a result."
"It sounds like she has a very hard job as well," I commented.
"She does support the barrier, and keeps the balance of Gensokyo. She's helped put down many incidents over the years."
I took a bit of my food, then said, "I hope I get the chance to meet her. She sounds like a good person to know, if I'm going to be here."
"Go right for it," he said. "Maybe you could charm her," he winked.
"Oh, I have no such intention," I dismissed, chuckling. "I may attract fangirls, but I'm a gentleman who doesn't believe in superficial relationships."
"I don't know, when I was your age I was quite the ladies' man," he claimed.
"Sounds a lot like Sakura-san," I laughed.
"Sakura-san?" Masato asked.
"He's the owner of a coffee shop in Tokyo's Yongenjaya ward. I would often go there after school or work. He makes very good coffee and curry. And right now he's actually housing a young man like myself in his store's attic."
"How come?" Masato asked.
I thought for a moment about him… Ren, was it? Sometimes I called him Akira for some reason. I thought about the injustice he suffered at Shido's hands, and how alike we were in spite of our rivalry.
"He was wrongfully convicted of assault after shoving a drunk man off of a woman, and was given a year's probation. He was expelled from his school, and a private school in Aoyama-Itchome was the only place that would take him. His parents were friends of a frequent customer of Sakura's, so he offered to take him in and report to his probation officer. In addition, Sakura makes him work in the shop too."
"Sounds an awful lot like your situation right now," Masato noted. "Although, that boy sounds like he met some real injustice, if he was punished for his good deed."
There's that word again, Justice. How Justice failed Ren, and how it failed me as well… or, did I fail it? Bastardize its meaning? Disguise my crimes as Justice?
"Something wrong?"
I snapped back to the present. "Oh, sorry, it's nothing." But it was something.
After dinner, I helped clean up the kitchen and the shop, and Masato walked me upstairs to a furnished room. It was rather sparse, but that was to be expected. Just a futon, a closet and a window. I could tell it had recently been cleaned up, and scuff marks told of furniture that used to be in there.
"This is your room," he said. It was lit by a candle, and outside I could see the snowflakes gently hitting the window. "The washroom is downstairs in the back, the outhouse is just outside it and there's a well outside too." He gave me a set of sleeping robes. "You can have these, and I'll get you some kimonos and underclothes your size in the morning."
"Thank you, Kirisame-san," I said.
"You should get some rest," he told me. "I'm sure you've had a stressful day, and this is a big change in your life." As he walked out of the room, he looked back and said, "good night."
I was indeed very tired, and removed my detective clothes and hung them up before slipping on the robes. I snuffed the candle and slipped under the covers. For a long time, I lay there thinking. Thinking about my life going forward, and how my life before that fateful night had ended. Even if I was leaving modern niceties behind, so was I leaving my tortured past and role as Black Mask.
...or, perhaps I was merely running away from it. Hiding from it in the one place the angry mobs wouldn't find me. Hiding from where Justice couldn't…
There again was that word, Justice. What exactly did it mean, I wondered? Was it fighting for your ideals? Fighting to defend the weak? Righting the crimes of corrupt individuals, no matter the cost or methods? Getting revenge? Could my actions be considered any of those? Causing crimes by initiating psychotic breakdowns, an ability born from the hate in my heart, and then using my real detective skills to solve fake crimes? Assassinating people on Shido's orders who were parents? Who was responsible? Shido for ordering the killing, or me for pulling the trigger? Were we both guilty? These were questions which tormented and tantalized me for quite a while. And then, there was the scorn I would receive if the truth of my parentage ever got out, and how my mere existence was a slight, a scandal and a flaw.
Before I knew it, my eyelids became heavy… and the darkness seemed to encompass my mind...
