“My name is Shimada Koji, how do you do. I moved into the old Iwata house on the mountain pass two years ago. I’ve been passing by here every school day since but I only just heard that this was a book store in class today. Pardon my ignorance. I really love books and I’ve been stopping at the library two or three times a week since I moved in. I was hoping that you might have a book on repairing Shoji panels?”

The older woman sitting at the counter looked up as I entered the building and put on a warm smile. She was even happier when I told her that I wanted to buy something. I don’t really mind. I would prefer that people have a straightforward attitude about what they want from you than try to manipulate you into giving them what they want.

When I told her what I was after, she directed me to a section on self-help. She told me the repair section was just after that on the same isle and that she was pretty sure she had a book that covered traditional Japanese construction.

I looked around and found 2 books that were perfect for the repair projects I needed to do. Aside from the Shoji walls getting torn up in the last storm, my plumbing was starting to leak. I grabbed both books before making my way over to the Literature section and finding a couple books I liked. Dostoevsky’s books are hard to find in Japanese translations and I don’t read or write anything except Japanese, English, and French. You may be thinking that that’s impressive but I feel very inadequate when compared to my father who speaks 9 languages fluently and can read and write orders in 7 of them.

I suppose that being able to read, write, and speak in 3 languages is an accomplishment to most juniors in high school but not to me. I attend a very prestigious school. I had to work very hard to get in and a lot of the students there are far more impressive than me. I could have bought my way in with my family’s money easily enough. A lot of kids do that but I refused to take more than a living stipend from my father. I got into the school on my own merits and being in the top ten percent is also my accomplishment.

I left the store with a total of 6 books in my bag. The extra weight was going to make the climb up the mountain pass a bit more challenging. I still had to get groceries for the next couple days meals and after visiting the market my load was tripled. The weight wasn’t too abnormal so it wasn’t that much of an inconvenience. I was fairly used to walking this steep mountain path through the snow with my hands full. I had been doing so for nearly three years now.

You might wonder why a moderately wealthy son of a prestigious trading company owner would choose to live in the mountains in a small minka. You might further balk if you found out that it was in need of repairs all the time and had no access to TV or internet. There were good reasons I chose this place.

Mostly, I just needed a place that was low on distractions. You probably can’t relate but I can’t stand having anything that can get my attention if I am studying. I wanted to rent a place that was mostly free of people and the usual distractions that teenagers fall prey to. I realize that I should be able to prioritize my studies without secluding myself like a mountain hermit. The fact that I wasn’t sure I could do that is a little annoying to me but I have gotten used to the lifestyle at this point and could probably resist those urges now.

After about ten minutes of walking, I could feel the blank zen-like state of meditation setting in. This was something that also took some getting used to. I didn’t like to walk outside when I was in middle school and I had never even tried to meditate but after half a year of making the same hour long treck to and from school each day I found my mind could go blank quite easily. I learned from a classmate that he did his best studying after a few minutes of meditation and I gave that a try. It worked so well that I’ve been doing it since and have risen into the top ten percent of the grade listing at school.

A little way from my home is an old Shinto shrine that the resident priestess only visits on the weekends to clean. I am not a particularly religious person but I have been going to this shrine on the holy days to observe the rites. This isn’t one of those days but for some reason I feel a connection to this shrine. It only happens when I’m walking in a meditative state but I often feel as if there is a presence within the shrine despite the priestess who resides there being absent.

I was just passing this shrine when I felt a prickling feeling at the base of my neck. I could feel all of the hairs on my neck standing on end and this was a very eerie feeling. It was as if something very ominous was approaching. I began to loose concentration but just as I began looking around the whole world went white and not from snow. I felt almost as if I had gone back into full meditation but it was a little different.

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I became aware of my surroundings and in an instant, I was fully conscious but no matter where I looked it was all the same featureless white. There was nothing here in this bright white featureless expanse of cold. I was surprised that my breath wasn’t misting but then I realized I wasn’t breathing. I tried to breath in and only then did I realize that I couldn’t feel my body.

I looked down and what I saw should have scared me but I somehow just couldn’t be afraid. I didn’t see anything, nothing but the ever-present white. I tried bringing my hands in front of my face but it was no use. Either I was a paraplegic or I had no hands. I tried looking around more and even though the white had no features to it I still had the sense that I was turning.

Suddenly there was a feature in the whiteness, or rather, a figure. The figure came into my view from my left until she filled center of my field of vision confirming that I was indeed turning. The figure had quite the figure too but not in the overflowing bust type of way. She was radiant and draped in a layered dress of pale blue, white, and silver. The edges of her dress at the cuffs and collar had a design that was reminiscent of snowflakes along with the gold trim and blue gemstones. Her hair was a glossy silver-white but not the same as an older woman’s as it flowed down past where her knees were under the dress. She had a captivating porcelain white face with frost blue eyes.

That was where her human-like features ended but none of the rest detracted from her beauty but somehow blended with it to make her look more charming. She had a strange pair of ears that looked almost as if they were very long fins with pale blue scales glimmering on them as they drooped almost to her shoulders. Above them were a pair of horns in a pearly white arc extending up in a graceful curve till they reached past the edge of her shoulders. Her horns had gold sheathes clamped around half of their shaft and she had very ornamental tassels hanging from loops of gold over her horns. Finishing out an entirely bizarre but alluring look was a long vaguely fish-like tail. While her tail did have the silver-blue scales of a fish it had more the shape of a snake with flippers at points along it. I almost missed the long, dragon-headed, gold scepter she was holding in her left hand.

I was captivated beyond the ability to speak. I had plenty of female classmates that I would have described as beautiful but this woman went beyond that. Her beauty was so ethereal that she could barely be compared to a human. She stared at me for what seemed to be an eternity and I didn’t mind looking back into her mesmerizing eyes in the least.

The spell was finally broken when she spoke to me. Not surprisingly in the least, her voice was just as beautiful as her appearance. “I am terribly sorry but it seems you have died. Some of my followers fired off a spell and it somehow managed to end up in your world and hit you. You died instantly and ceased to exist, along with a decent piece of your surroundings. The building you were near may have drawn the spell but you became its target. I cannot apologize enough for their mistake!”

The stunning beauty bowed her head and the tassels fell forward to hang down from her horns as her ears drooped even lower. The meaning of her words took a moment to settle in and I was left with a profound sense of loss. All I had ever worked for and all I had hoped to accomplish were gone, forever beyond my reach. I was set to enter a prestigious college and take over my family business. I was going to surpass my father and make our family’s trading company known worldwide. I had everything planned out, even the girl I wanted to marry and have children with. She was waiting on me to return from school so we could formally announce our plans to our parents and get engaged. That was all gone…

Wait, this beauty in front of me said her worshippers had killed me with a spell. Did that mean she was a goddess? If she’s a goddess then maybe she can just send me back. Maybe she can undo this mistake.

“I cannot. I am terribly sorry.” She bowed even lower but before she did I got a glimpse of the pained expression on her face and I felt I had to do something to change anything that would mar that perfect beauty.

It’s alright, I guess. Don’t worry about it I was just shocked is all. I don’t think you need to feel so responsible, it’s not like you were the one who cast the spell. You don’t need to bow to me, I’m nobody special. I wanted to scratch my head and look away but I couldn’t seem to do either of those things right now. Actually, I didn’t seem to be able to talk at all! What’s going on here?

Head still bowed, the possible goddess, boy she certainly looks like one, continued. “You can’t possibly speak because you have no body to speak with. As I said, it was vaporized and it was my fault for not keeping a closer eye on my followers. I cannot send you back to your world because I don’t hold any influence there and I am only a lower goddess to begin with. I can however do other things to atone. I shall reincarnate you in this world so just hold on for a moment.”

I was happy to see her lift her face to me again but then everything began to go white again…