Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

I lost my mind in the dark shadows of the Yamanote. My humanity had been taken away from me. The moment I changed, everything that had gone into the creation of Noh-face ignited and swallowed me whole. For the second time, I became a savage creature. My first instinct was to bide my time and prepare for my revenge. I was obsessed with Mitsuhiko, but I knew he kept a powerful guardian at his side. Some shred of logic held me back from attacking him directly. That shadow creature… Enenra… was always with him. 

I chose to wait. To watch. To stalk him. Eventually, he sent Noh-face after me again, as I knew he would. On sensing its presence, I carefully ambushed it.

I savored the moment I destroyed my own accidental creation. Our fight was savage and brutal. We ravaged the Yamanote tunnel. The clashing of our fists cracked walls, blew out chunks of concrete and broke the lights. Even the trains screaming past weren’t enough to stop us. We hurled each other again and again across the tracks. I used what I had learned of the tunnels’ layout to outwit the simple creature. It was easy. At one point I slammed it onto the rails and curb-stomped its head over and over.

I am a fighter, but it was a fragment of my mind… and to a degree, it knew me better than I knew it. The fight was so long, so exhausting, that my technique disintegrated into pure brutality. I slammed it into cement as hard as I could, and it returned the favor with equal savagery. Time dissolved. I lost my mind in that interminable war in the dark, with only passing trains to break the monotony.

In the end, I lost the last reservations I had toward killing. I threw Noh-face down and drove my claws into its core. The action backfired on me. It started a fusion that I couldn’t stop. It was like reclaiming a part of myself… my own spiritual energy… but it shoved me even further over the edge. It ignited my violence in a way I had never experienced. I waited for something to happen, though I didn’t understand what it would be. Was it you? Rui-chan? Had I hoped my parents would somehow rescue me? Did I expect salvation? Or another monster to come after me?

I couldn’t sit around doing nothing, and all that was left of me was staring at the silhouettes passing by on the trains. Wondering what was different about me was the only clear thought I had left. Those thoughts eventually faded too. I began to resent the people when I realized what they had that I did not. They had faces, identities, voices, lives. I had no nose, no ears, no true voice, no eyes. I became a creature full of greed and hunger. I stole from others. Just as Mitsuhiko claimed. I preyed on my victims.

His murders were soon overshadowed by my own. I killed and left behind wrecked bodies with no evidence. Not because I was sane… it wasn’t because I was rational… but because my nature was a void without identity. I was a shadow.

My kills number over a hundred. And all the while, I missed something… you. Although I didn’t remember much, you were one of few things I could keep straight in my mind. But I knew there was nothing you could have done to save me. I saw you every day, commuting in your silly business suit. I didn’t think it suited you, but even that thought felt distant, empty. I missed Rui. I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want you to see me. You both would have seen what I had become… and I was certain you would fear and loathe me… and you did.

I watched the passing crowds in obsessive detail. I came to know everyone who rode that train daily. And then one day, someone new appeared. New faces always thrilled me… a rare novelty in my bleak routine. Except for when I killed someone and stole a face for my collection, no sensation compared. But even then, it was fleeting. Irregularities… novelties… all of them were precious.

My hatred had dulled, but my hunger had not. On the other hand, seeing one particular face made me feel something different. It stirred something forgotten by me. Something I had lost. It truly nagged at me. I couldn’t let her go. Something about that face burned in me…. Because that face was mine. The person wearing it was on the train.  It was a young woman who looked identical to me.

I rarely attacked in broad daylight. Some faint spark of reason reminded me to hunt cautiously. But when I saw her, that spark died. I crashed through the window nearest to her. A surge of violent emotion… rage, confusion and desperation… they took hold. I seized the woman immediately. I needed to see her clearly. I needed to verify. The passengers’ expressions twisted in horror. They screamed. They shrank away. And I weep now to think of what I did to her in front of all of them. I didn’t harm the face… for it was mine… but when she screamed and begged for mercy, I was stunned.

And infuriated.

“PLEASE, NO!”

I won’t go into detail about what I did to her. I reclaimed my face, and she told me everything she knew. Mitsuhiko had started dating again after I disappeared. He spotted her in a crowd and approached her, charming her. She was overwhelmed… because she already knew who he was. That bastard wooed her on the spot and took her back to his tower. Then he demeaned her. Called her ugly. She couldn’t understand why he bothered with her at all if that was how he saw her.

He told her she was insufficient, but had “potential” to be his wife. She wondered why she wasn’t beautiful enough, even though she had caught his interest. He explained that she was perfect except for one thing…

Her face was unbearably ugly.

She was enraged. But he locked her away just as he did you, to play mind games with her. He broke her and rebuilt her from the ground up. By the time he was finished, she would never stand up to him as I did. She would never leave him. In the end, he gave her a choice. “You can leave right now… or I will give you a special gift along with a ring. We’ll marry. You’ll bear my children.”

She agreed, unable to endure the thought of being cast aside. Her mind was already ruined by him.

He cast a spell using his scroll and released my face… the one he’d stolen. Using his spiritual power, he melded it onto her, and she gained my voice and appearance. Her body had already been a perfect match for mine, which was what drew his interest in the first place. After that, she was trained to be the Reiko he always wanted. Obedient. Compliant.

The day I saw her, she was on her way to tell her parents she’d decided to marry a rich man. She thought they’d be happy. It was never her intention to reveal what Mitsuhiko had done to her. She planned to say she had plastic surgery to suit the tastes of her lover. In her own way… she loved him, the filthy bastard.

I was infuriated by what he’d done. Seeing her wear my face like that… taking my life with my own face… pushed me past my limit. She had no will to resist him, no strength to fight his awful plans. I put her out of her misery and reclaimed my face.

And I was filled with fury. Truly filled. For the first time, I broke past the last shreds of restraint I had left. I stormed to the tower, carrying the girl’s body with me. Mitsuhiko had even arranged for an ID under my name for her and had done everything he could to turn her into me.

I barged into his room, consumed by rage. He was shocked when he saw the faceless girl slung over my shoulder. I dropped her at his feet and attacked him the instant our eyes met again. I had him pinned against a wall in seconds and tore at his face with my claws. I didn’t do much damage before he retaliated.

Despite having only human-level strength, he pushed me back with well-timed, well-placed strikes across my body. That bought him the moment he needed to call his shadow monster… Enenra. I fought it bitterly. We shredded his penthouse, ripping through furniture, walls, glass… everything. Eventually I was forced to flee when I realized the nature of my opponent. His creature was as relentless as he was, and immaterial—untouchable.

I threw myself through a window, crashing from the top floor all the way down to the pavement. A human being would never survive that fall, but I landed on my feet and ran. Enenra pursued me while I heard a loud impact behind me.

He had thrown the woman’s body out through the same shattered window.

So… that’s how you ended up in the newspaper, Reiko-chan… That’s why they said you committed suicide. I could never believe that of you. Not for one moment.

Oh, Reiko-chan…

I’m sure you hate me now, knowing most of the horrible crimes I committed after Mitsuhiko cursed me. There’s no excuse for any of it.

If I had been gentle like you, I would have acted noble like you. I know you would’ve used your powers to help people. But I was selfish and violent. Hurting others was the only way I knew how to cope.

My sins are too numerous to count. That’s why I intend to pass on. My thoughts and memories will stay with you.

I don’t know why you ever loved someone flawed like me.

We were always opposites.

The moon and sun.

And yet our looks contradicted our natures.

You looked like you should be violent, but possessed a gentleness I never understood.

I looked gentle, sweet even… but inside I was violent… exactly the kind of person everyone accused you of being.

I never imagined I would become a criminal, let alone a murderer. I only ever wanted to bring truth to light. It was my goal to expose evil. To print for justice.

Yes… the newspaper.

I returned to the Yamanote. Shaking off Enenra was difficult, but I’d come to know Yamanote better than anyone else. It could never find me. I felt it searching for me… feeling the murderous intent Mitsuhiko had sealed inside it.

It was his alter-ego. His noh-face, in its own way. Similarly, it was born from him. It embodied all of his violence. His ambitions. His greed.

When it finally gave up the chase, I went back to what I always did.

Watching the faces on the trains.

And then… one day… I noticed and remembered you. With full clarity.

It was you, of all people.

That’s probably why I never actually tried to kill you.

That day, I couldn’t let you leave without doing something. My depression swallowed me whole. I wanted to reach out… to you of all people… but I couldn’t let you see what I’d become.

So I stole a face… and wore it. I slipped onto the train disguised as a girl whose name I never learned.

I had used that ability only for hunting until then.

But this time…

I only wanted to give you a message.

To make you understand.

To make you come looking for me.

Even though deep down, I knew there was nothing you could do.

And I knew my sanity was fading fast.

I had only a sliver of reason left… just enough to act quickly before I lost it again.

A passenger had left behind a newspaper. I circled the article about my “suicide” with the last drops of my own human blood. Then I slipped it into your lap while you sat there distraught and distracted.

I walked away, convinced… absolutely convinced… that somehow you would make things right.

But you didn’t come the next day as I’d hoped.

You didn’t come for a very long time.

Waiting for you shattered the rest of my mind.

I resumed killing, unable to stop myself. Feeling betrayed, abandoned, I stopped taking faces. I left the bodies intact.

I didn’t want new faces anymore.

And then… you returned.

You finally reappeared on the Yamanote… but I’d mostly forgotten why I shouldn’t hurt you.

My anger exploded.

I don’t know what to say to you, Reiko-chan…

There had to be a better way to cope. A different way.

But I don’t know how. I lost my way too.

I know.

I understand now… how you must have felt.

I broke in my own way.

Your way was to shut down and hide from the world.

You can’t really understand…

I can.

Finally… finally, I can see your mind.

Me too.

Damn it… gender really means nothing, does it?

You’re the best person I ever met besides…

Rui-chan?

Yes… she’s violent like me, but she would never do what I did.

You were so bitter and angry…

I know.

There’s no excuse!

You can’t just forgive…

Yes. I can.

I remember the you I loved the most… the one person who had the courage to sit beside me on the swing. The one who saw through my face and didn’t run.

There isn’t anything…

Yes… it’s special.

But… I love you. I always will. No matter what.

No matter what…

RUI!

Don’t obsess over such a ruined…

I won’t, but I will always love you.

I… care about her.

We both do.

You deserve each other.

Make sure you…

Take good care of her…

… I will.

Let’s take that bastard down.

He has to pay for everything he’s done to us.