Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

Tomoka took my hand the moment we stepped away from the table.

Not casually either. Not in the vague accidental way people brushed hands while walking side by side. She laced her fingers through mine with a strange complete certainty and started leading me back through the brick arcade as if this had already been decided for both of us.

My lip was still split where she hit me and my body ached a little wherever she cleanly landed hits.

I nearly stumbled.

“Tomoka.”

She glanced at me. “Yes?”

“Why are you holding my hand?”

“Because I’d like to.”

“... That’s not a normal reason.”

“It’s how I feel. Do you hate it?”

I didn’t try to pull my hand away from hers.

The crossbreeze still moved through the old brick space, cooling the sweat that remained on my skin from our sparring match, but it did nothing for how warm my face felt now. People glanced at us as we walked. A young couple sitting near one of the cafés that were starting to open up now looked up, then away, then back again with obvious curiosity. Tomoka did not care. If anything, her grip tightened a little when I finally tried to pull my hand free out of embarrassment. She wasn’t Reiko, after all. She didn’t let go.

“You do not get to act shy after kissing me back like that,” she said with an arched eyebrow.

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Fair.” She looked ahead again. “If you insist on acting so cute and shy, do it while holding my hand.”

I gasped, stared at her profile, at the calm line of her jaw, at the little softness still left in her face from the kiss and the fight and everything she had just learned, and I could not think of any response that would not make me sound more flustered than I already was, so I didn’t reply.

So I let her keep holding my hand.

We left the brick arcade, crossed back over the bridge, looking at the river as we walked over it, and headed along the road toward the station again. The city had shifted as noon came and passed. The day was heating up, but since it was November, the air stayed cool. Shadows shrank with the sun almost directly above us in the sky, resting entirely under the rail lines. People were walking everywhere, but the pace had picked up, growing more brisk. Tomoka moved through it all with that same practical confidence she had on the station platform, her steps direct and graceful, her shoulders relaxed, and me at her side like she had already claimed responsibility for me.

I hated how much that affected me.

Or maybe I did not hate it enough.

We turned around a corner into the first block near the station and stopped in front of a little hardware and convenience shop with a machine inside for copying and cutting keys. Tomoka finally let go of my hand only to reach into her messenger bag.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

She held up the keyring again. A metal key flashed between her fingers.

“You’re going to need one of these,” she said. “I’m not going to give up the key that Reiko trusted me with just like that.” She winked at me as she unclipped that key from the ring and held it up between her fingers. I looked at it, feeling a strange little jolt go through me. It was very plain-looking. The color was silvery and it was worn over the course of years of use. 

Tomoka stepped inside the shop and gave me a small nod to follow.

A bell gave a dull little jingle over the door. The man behind the counter looked up from a magazine, took one glance at us, then at the key in Tomoka’s hand.

“You need a copy?” he asked.

Tomoka nodded and set Reiko’s apartment key on the counter between us. “Just one.”

He held out his hand. Tomoka passed it over, then reached for her wallet while he moved to the machine without another word. I stood near her shoulder, watching the little metal blank get fitted in beside the original.

The cutter dropped.

The machine bit into the key to be with a harsh metallic whine, shaving out bright curls of metal that fell into the tray below.

Tomoka folded her arms loosely while she waited, but her eyes never left the machine.

When it stopped, the man snapped the new key free, set both keys on the counter, and gave the price. Tomoka paid at once, picked up the copy first, then the original, and turned them both between her fingers, checking the cut edges against each other with quick glances.

 “Do these seem the same?” she asked the man. “We’re taking two trains away from Akiba. We don’t want to have to come back.”

“Hmmm…” the man said as he picked up both keys and held them side by side under the light. He ran a thumb carefully over the fresh edge of the copy. “The teeth match. It should work fine unless the lock itself is worn in a particular way. I can’t promise that until you try it in the real door.”

Tomoka nodded, offering him a smile. “Thank you.”

When she turned back to me outside the shop again, she pressed the fresh key into my palm and closed my fingers around it with her own hand.

“There,” she said. “Now you won’t have to call me to let you in and out. I’m kind of sad that that’s one less reason for you to call me.” She laughed.

I looked down at my closed hand and her hand holding it.

“You’re giving this to me, just like that?”

Tomoka’s expression softened in a small way that hit me harder than I felt it should have.

“Who else should I give it to, mm?”

I swallowed and slipped the key carefully into my wallet, since I didn’t have a keychain anymore, unlike in Baku’s dream world.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Then, as if that settled everything, she took my hand again and led me back toward Akihabara Station.

“This is so absurd,” I muttered. She was so grabby… even more than Reiko had been.

Tomoka’s mouth curved. “A little, right?”

At the station we swiped through the gates and made our way down to the platform. The public-address chime sounded overhead. People lined up in neat loose rows near the markings on the floor in front of the yellow tactile stripe warning people away from the tracks. I felt more alert now than I had before the fight. Every group of men on the platform caught my eye. I worried that a second incident might happen if more men were like Koji and Iwabe. Two girls together might be even more tempting. Tomoka seemed to notice what I was thinking without needing me to say a word. She stood slightly closer to me than strictly necessary, still holding my hand, her body set so that anyone coming too near from that side would have to go through her first.

What is she doing?!

The train arrived in a rush of wind.

We boarded with the rest of the crowd waiting to enter through the same door and found some standing room near one of the other doors at first, but a few seats opened after the second stop and Tomoka guided me into one by the window while she took the one beside me. It was close enough that our shoulders touched lightly every time the train rocked.

She did not let go of my hand until she had to adjust her bag.

Then, a second later, she took it again and set our joined hands on her thigh as if we’d been intimate forever. She was the complete opposite of shy.

I looked at our hands and then at her.

DOKI-DOKI

No fair… I’m not interested in love… that part of me died with my wife and…

Tomoka kept facing forward.

I finally had to say something, “You really are persistent.” I wanted to take it back. What I said sounded too harsh, like I was trying to push her away.

“I know. I can’t help it.”

“You are not even pretending to be subtle. Even college aged girls are still bashful about these kinds of things.”

“I’m not like them.”

She absolutely wasn’t.

I could hear the smile in her voice without seeing her face.

The train rattled onward through the loop, the city sliding by in fragments through the window. Office towers, utility lines, rooftops, narrow alleys, sudden pockets of green, all of it breaking and reforming with each station. People got on. People got off. A schoolgirl across from us glanced down at our hands and then quickly at my face, as if trying to decide whether she recognized me. Another woman looked once and then politely away.

Tomoka shifted slightly toward me.

“What do you intend to do?” she asked.

“With what?”

“With your life.”

I breathed out slowly through my nose.

“It’s very complicated. But I’m focusing on living for now.”

Tomoka turned her head and looked at me directly. “That sounds kind of sad.”

I gave a tiny helpless laugh. “Yeah. I know how it sounds.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “You probably had a near-death experience for this kind of unbelievable thing to happen.”

I looked down at our hands.

“You’re right again. When what happened to us happened, we both died in a way.” The words felt strange in my mouth, too large and too plain at the same time. “But there was a way back and I succeeded. She didn’t have any more time, but together we can live.”

Tomoka’s fingers tightened around mine.

“That’s weird and too sad,” she said quietly. “Don’t you have any other plans? Reiko was getting close to graduating. Couldn’t you resume her life or your own?”

“I can’t be either of those people anymore.” I watched my reflection flicker in the train window over the darkening city outside. A girl with long brown hair, slightly messy from the wind and our sparring and green eyes filled with too many conflicting emotions, looking softer than the last time I’d seen my reflection. “I’m too different on the inside and outside now to be who I originally was, and I wouldn’t want to go back to that. While I could pull off being Reiko with amnesia, I’m really just myself, Sumire.”

Tomoka listened without interrupting.

“What will you do with your life then?” she asked after a moment. “The apartment costs money, you know? Do you have a job?”

“I don’t. Not yet. But I originally intended to find one as soon as I figured out where to live.” I glanced at her and felt embarrassed just admitting it now. “I was determined to live in parks, sleeping on benches as long as needed until I found one.”

Tomoka stared at me.

“Wow,” she said flatly. “You’d catch a cold trying to live like that, especially in November. Winter’s coming and it could snow any time. Plus you’re too beautiful to stay safe after hours in a public place like that.” She shook her head once in disbelief. “I’m glad that I offered you Reiko’s apartment.”

The station platform from earlier flashed through my mind. The way those two men had boxed me in. The way I had been stupid enough to think determination alone made my plan workable.

Natalia-sama really had seen farther ahead and clearer than I did. That was probably the real reason she had pushed the card into my hand and told me not to be stubborn about essentials.

“Thanks, Tomoka,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking about the weather when I decided to do this. Being harassed on the platform made me much more aware that creeps would probably always chase after me. I’ll find whatever job I can, hopefully near Reiko’s apartment.”

Tomoka flushed faintly at the way I said her name.

“I don’t mind you using my first name,” she said. “Since you look and sound so much like her. But your voice is much softer and gentler.”

Then she lifted our joined hands and twined our fingers more tightly together.

“I’d like to get to know who you actually are,” she said. “I’m not trying to force you to be a Reiko replacement for me. I’m fine with whoever you actually are. It’s hard to share a kiss with someone and not have feelings after that.”

I looked away at once, my face warming again.

“It’s unfair that I know you so well already, Tomoka, when you barely know me. I just have to access her memories to know everything she knows about you.”

“Don’t just rely on that,” she said. “It would be fine if you learned about me over time as who you are.”

“I’m sure that memories will surface even if I don’t look.”

“That’s fine.” Tomoka’s voice went softer. “We were good friends, Reiko and I. I don’t think she has many bad memories of me.”

I smiled despite myself.

“I have to admit that you’re a lot like Reiko, but different. The way you kissed me reminded me very much of her.”

Tomoka’s brows rose. “Ah... so you were intimate? You were girlfriends?”

“Too perceptive,” I complained.

I blushed faintly, remembering the last week in the dream world where we acted like a married couple even while everything around us pressed toward the end. There had been so much joy in it and so much pain under the joy, because we both knew what was coming and could not stop it. We only knew to hold tighter, kiss deeper, speak more honestly, and make those last days count.

“We were married in our hearts,” I said quietly.

Tomoka’s eyes widened. “Even while she was having an affair with that rich man? Did you know about that?”

“Of course.” I looked down. “But our relationship was like a dream. That didn’t matter at all. We were deeply in love, even though we knew that it would end. That she would die.”

Tomoka turned her face away.

When I looked at her again, a tear had slipped free from one of her eyes that was running down her cheek.

“I wonder if I’d have been that close to her if I’d had the courage,” she said. “Unlike you.”

“Maybe.” I hesitated, then went with what I felt rather than what I thought would be safest. “I think she was fond of you. Given how she was, she probably would have given it a try.”

Tomoka wiped at her cheek with the heel of her free hand and exhaled.

“It’s silly to think about what could have been,” she said. “I’d rather think about the future.”

Then she glanced at me.

I felt the heat climb into my face again.

The train slowed into Ikebukuro.

We got off with the crowd, and the break in our conversation did nothing to make me calmer. Tomoka kept hold of my hand through the flow of people, guiding me up one set of stairs and down another toward the transfer platform. The station was louder than Akihabara had been. There were more bodies moving around, more voices overlapping.

The next train was not in the station yet, so we walked to a vending machine and got a couple of fresh drinks. First, I quickly drained the last of my warm ocha and dropped the bottle in a recycling bin next to the vending machines.

Then I got a refreshing yuzu drink that caught my eye and she picked a cold coffee.

After that we waited by one of the platform markers.

Tomoka leaned lightly against a pillar and looked at me in a way that made me want to check whether my hair was out of place. I used my phone’s selfie mode to adjust it almost on reflex, instincts that I’d learned in front of the vanity desk in my bedroom.

“Since you were practically born just a few days ago,” she said, “I feel guilty asking you this, but do you have a girlfriend or anything like that?”

I chewed my lip before I could stop myself.

I did not want to reject Tomoka. That was the problem. I genuinely liked her. Her kind of dominant behavior put me off balance and made my heart kick in that helpless way I had not expected from anyone except Aoi… Reiko.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “But there are others.”

Tomoka waited.

“One of them thinks that I’m number one in her harem,” I said, blushing harder now. “Although we’ve only ever kissed...”

Rui abruptly surfaced in my mind. Not only the teasing and bluster, but my first period, the way she had cleaned me below while I was too shell-shocked to think straight, then climbed up into my lap and kissed me completely. Rui had been kind of dominant then too. But Rui was not strong like Tomoka. If I ever really did not want to be kissed by her, even a little, Rui would not...

I stopped there.

Something uncomfortable turned over inside me.

Tomoka watched my expression change and started laughing, soft enough not to draw too much attention, warm enough that it still felt like I was being kissed all over again somehow.

“You’re too easy to read when you’re flustered,” she said.

The next train’s lights appeared in the distance.

Tomoka stepped closer while we waited, one arm sliding around my waist as if she had every right. The contact made my breath catch.

“That’s fine,” she said. “There would be some competition when someone is as beautiful as you. Even though I wasn’t sure that I was interested in women that way until I saw you on the platform fighting those two creeps, I’m sure that I’m interested in you, even if you aren’t Reiko.”

My stomach tightened.

“Is it okay if I take you from your other love interests?” she asked.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again because I had no idea how to answer something like that.

Tomoka leaned in before I recovered and brushed her lips against mine.

It was brief. Soft compared to the kiss in the arcade. That somehow made it worse.

Or better.

Definitely more dangerous, either way.

A couple standing a few steps away noticed at once. The woman smiled a little at us. The man blinked and then turned away with studied politeness. A student farther down openly stared until his friend elbowed him.

Tomoka did not care.

“Something about you makes it easy to do things like this,” she murmured.

The train slid in.

We boarded together and found seats near the middle this time, the car much less crowded than the Yamanote loop line had been. Tomoka still kept her arm around my waist for the first minute after we sat down, only moving it so she could take my hand again.

“You really don’t hold back when you set your mind on something,” I muttered.

“I did that for too long already. I lost a chance over being like that.”

That shut me up.

The second train felt somehow slower and quieter. Residential neighborhoods replaced the dense city outside. Buildings lowered. Streets widened in some places and narrowed in others. Shop signs grew humbler. Laundry hung off balconies. The sky had moved farther toward evening.

Tomoka sat close enough that our thighs touched lightly whenever the train rocked.

“I’m glad that I have your contact information,” she said, glancing down at her phone. She took a sip of the coffee she’d bought at the vending machine while we waited for this train to arrive. “I’m still surprised that you just got a phone and created completely new contact information just today. You completely reset your life. It has to feel a little disorienting, taking a new name and becoming a new person.”

“It’s not as hard as you think,” I said wryly. “I had enough time to get used to who I am. If you went through what I did, you’d be comfortable in your own skin too.” I remembered games of playing Uno au naturale at Sunashira in our room and bathing in the hostel’s onsen-style bath, surrounded by naked girls and women, including girls that I had feelings for. Living as a woman was no big deal after that, exactly as Natalia-sama had planned. “There’s no acting or anything. I’m just me.”

“You’re making me so curious about the details,” Tomoka said with a thoughtful expression. “I may ask you to tell me everything sometime. Not here, though.”

“I might tell you,” I said. “We’ll see.”

Tomoka laughed once through her nose. “You’re trying to be shy again. Don’t worry, I’ll accept whatever you tell me, however unbelievable. I have nothing to lose by accepting what you say as the truth.”

“Why would you believe something so strange without proof?”

She looked out the window for a second, then back at me. “Maybe that makes me seem like an idiot when you put it that way. One way or the other, you’re at least partially Reiko, and yet so different from the last time I saw her. If a person can change this much in a short amount of time, I can believe the rest. I still wouldn’t mind seeing some proof.”

I thought about how to answer. What proof did I have if I shared everything with her? Would I show her my Maneki Neko Fist technique? Would I introduce her to SSDS and ask Natalia-sama and Akuchi to show off their ears and tails as proof that yōkai were real? That was all that came to mind, and if I showed her my technique, I’d have to worry about property damage or her getting hurt, so that wasn’t going to work.

“I don’t have any real proof of what I’m saying, but I might introduce you to some people. I think that would cause serious problems, though. The one that thinks that I’m first in her harem would probably attack you on sight.”

Tomoka stared at me for a moment and laughed.

“That sounds like fun. I wouldn’t mind sparring with a rival for your love.”

I sweated, imagining how that would go, Rui trying to fight Tomoka. It’d be like a repeat of our fight against Aika in Rui’s old office. Even if Tomoka didn’t hold her at arm’s length by her head like Aika had, Tomoka would completely kick her ass.

“She’s not like you and me. She doesn’t have any martial arts skills... plus she’s so cute and tiny.”

Tomoka ran that through her mind and laughed. “Well... there are ways to win without getting physical.”

“She’s very good with words. You might lose.”

Tomoka just laughed.

“We’ll see. Let the stronger woman win.” She clenched a fist and grinned.

Tomoka completely blew me away.

Why is she so into me? So much that she’d fight for me when we just met. She’s too much like Reiko. This is unfair.

She squeezed my hand and leaned her head back against the seat.

“It confuses me how close I want to be to you.” She shook her head as though she was finally reflecting on her own strange behavior. “I don’t know what to think about you, but...”

“That makes two of us,” I said, my heart fluttering.

The corners of her mouth moved faintly.

We rode the rest of the way in a quieter mood. Strangely, it wasn’t especially awkward. She hadn’t just broken the ice between us. She’d melted it. Too much had already been said and too much still hung between us for either of us to fill every silence. Once in a while she looked at me. Once in a while I caught myself doing the same.

Oh... damn it...

When we finally got off at Nakamurabashi Station, it was an hour and a half later than when we’d left Akiba.

Tomoka took my hand again as we left through the gates, and this time I did not even question it.

We headed north through quieter streets, farther from the commercial noise, into a residential area with weathered low-rise buildings, narrow lanes, and the sort of convenience stores that felt like they had been there forever. The farther we walked, the stranger the sensation in my chest became.

The area suddenly felt too familiar.

The feeling wasn’t coming from Reiko’s memories. I had a feeling that if I searched through her memories, I’d see it there too… but then again, I’d already scanned her memories to get pictures of what her apartment was like and had gotten nothing but what I’d seen in Baku’s dream world.

That was what made it so strange.

I slowed a little. Tomoka noticed at once and glanced at me.

“What is it?”

“I...” I looked around. “I don’t know.”

The street ahead narrowed just slightly around a vending machine and a middle-class apartment complex on the corner. My heart started beating harder for a reason that had nothing to do with Tomoka or the hand she held or the things she had kissed into confusion inside me on the train.

Then we stopped walking.

I stared.

It was Aoi’s apartment building.

Not just something like it. The exact same building. The same proportions. The same arrangement of balconies. The same stairs rising up from the entrance. The same vending machine by the front with that little jitter in its light. Even the fluorescent flicker over the stairwell looked the same, faintly uneven, as if nobody had ever gotten around to fixing it.

The building still looked exactly like the kind of place a student working while going to school could afford. It was clean and well maintained, not especially flashy on the outside, feeling broken in like comfortable shoes.

It was really the same place, people would underestimate this building until they stepped inside one of the apartments and realized they had been renovated and were kept up far better than the outside suggested.

I looked at the vending machine again, waiting to see whether my eyes were playing a trick on me.

The light gave the same jittery twitch.

It was weird that they still had not fixed it in the real world either.

My mouth parted slightly.

Tomoka was saying something beside me, but for a second I could barely hear her over the shock rising through me.

For a moment, I wondered if I was still in Baku’s dream world.

But I wasn’t.

Now I was standing in front of it for real.

Special thanks to PrincessArylin, ShinjiHinako, Assurbanipal II (Achan) for beta reading book three!