http%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2f2tRUkNl.png [http://i.imgur.com/2tRUkNl.png] he first thought that crossed my mind was to return to the Myôren Temple and tell them about what I just witnessed. Considering the occurrences from earlier maybe it was no mere coincidence for several Yôkai with violent tendencies to appear in the village in quick succession. Hurrying back in a more direct way than how I had come to the bridge, I ran, noticing that a month earlier I would have been short of breath after only a few hundred meters. Maybe it was due to the air in Gensôkyô, which was much cleaner than anything I had ever breathed before, but once again I had to wonder what other kind of physical changes the condition of my soul had brought with it.
Thus, I soon returned to the front gate of the Myôren Temple and found it deserted; Ichirin was either still out to call the carpenters or inside and helping with cleaning up the mess Senka had left behind. From the outside, the temple did not seem to have experienced any disturbances just recently and a false sense of tranquility lingered. Just as there had been no indication as to what had transpired on the bridge, as no tension or anxiety hung about the people of the village, there was no busy bustling around the temple either.
Maybe I was simply too used to modern society, in which information travelled faster than the feet and voice of people. If something had happened in a temple of the world I came from, minutes later the police would have arrived, along with a crowd of curious onlookers, journalists and photographers. On the inside I felt that I preferred this kind of place, where everything was less busy and more personal. I had planned to move to the countryside to concentrate on my research and studies after graduating from university.
Then I reconsidered the nature of the temple before me and thought that maybe this was simply due to the fact that not many humans would visit it and even fewer would think it strange that Yôkai were running wild inside it. As I proceeded through the gate with this line of thought, a feisty sounding voice called out to me from behind. I turned around to see two girls approaching, one carrying what seemed to be a giant anchor. The former had dark blue hair and ultramarine eyes and wore something I would describe as a parody of a Japanese white navy uniform, with short sleeves and shorts instead of long pants. However, unlike what her clothes suggested, a captain's hat adorned her head, denoting her status. I only had to wonder if that was simply a costume worn as a hobby, since from the records of Gensôkyô at the Hieda estate I came to understand that it was landlocked. From the fact that she was casually carrying an anchor I assumed that she was no human.
The latter had an even more striking appearance, as although the gray dress she wore was nothing outstanding, two big ears I could only describe as belonging to a mouse protruded from her silver-gray hair. When a naked tail balancing a basket near its tip came into view as she moved, I had certainty that this was indeed a non-human being and most likely a mouse Yôkai.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" The girl in the sailor uniform, the owner of the voice that had called out to me initially, asked as she readied her anchor in case she was not satisfied with my answer and deemed me an intruder.
"I just came back because I forgot something here," I answered, unsure of the alignment of those two before me. Maybe they were also beings of a violent disposition, so I had to be careful, but in my response I assumed that they were the two other permanent residents Mamizô had mentioned after I met Nue for the first time. On the other hand, she had said that they would not be back for the day, which was a discrepancy in facts I could not simply overlook.
"Oh, you are familiar with the temple then. It was just because I have never seen you around here. My name is Murasa Minamitsu, I'm the captain of the Myôren Temple. Who are you?" The girl in the uniform dropped the anchor with a heavy thud and a clearly perceivable vibration, making me wonder just how much it weighted. I also was unsure about her statement that she was the captain of a temple, but decided not to think too much about it; I had to ignore common sense when it came to this world, after all.
"I'm Kagami Kyôma. I'm new to Gensôkyô and came to the temple for guidance earlier. I was on my way home when I encountered a Yôkai in the middle of the village and came back here to report it... since there was an attack here earlier," I introduced myself and explained the reason for my presence. Upon my last statement, Minamitsu's expression changed to one of worry, as she excused herself and ran inside the temple, leaving me with the mouse Yôkai. "And who are you?"
"I am Nazrin, the strategist of the Myôren Temple," She introduced herself after what I perceived to be an unnecessarily long and awkward silence. Once again, I wondered why a temple needed a strategist, additionally to a captain, but decided that thinking about it too much meant it was my loss. Nazrin proceeded to enter through the gate and I followed. We walked into the main hall to find it bustling with men erecting a scaffolding to patch up the wall, while others were fixing the hole in the ground. Byakuren was overseeing everything and Shô was talking to Minamitsu, when they saw us entering. Nazrin approached the disciple of Bishamonten and started talking to her, as Minamitsu excused herself and left for the residential building.
I decided to talk to Byakuren directly, as she was the head priestess of the temple, and walked towards her, under the watchful eyes of Shô. If it was a surprise to her that I had returned after having left only a little earlier, she did not show it and only displayed the same kind of firm but expressionless face as always. Byakuren turned around to see me and the surprise was clearly visible on her face, making me wonder whether Shô was simply bad at expressing herself or just did not care about the material world, considering her divine status.
"Kyôma-san, I did not expect you back so quickly," Byakuren said, but she did not look troubled by my sudden return. "Did something happen?" Her intuition was astounding, as I was sure that nothing was showing through on my face. Thus, I proceeded to explain to her what I had just witnessed at the bridge and told her about my previous encounter with the supernatural being that fixed shoes to the ground, who had been abducted so abruptly. I thought that maybe there was a connection between the cause for the carpenters' presence in the temple and the sudden Yôkai attack in the middle of the day.
"Maybe something bigger is at work here. Surely, it is no mere coincidence for two, possibly more, unaligned Yôkai to appear in the human village," The head priestess contemplated and turned to look at Shô, who was still talking to Nazrin. The image of a tiger talking to a mouse was a strange one, but I shook off the thought and returned my attention to Byakuren. "I will look into it. You should be careful, Kyôma-san. If that Yôkai with the wheel had attacked you..." She looked apologetic, maybe because she felt responsible for what Yôkai did in the human village, even if they were not members of her temple. "You do not know the rules of engagement here in Gensôkyô yet, so you cannot defend yourself. The human village should be safe, but with things as they are now, we of the Myôren Temple will have to send out patrols to protect the people."
While my understanding of Buddhist temples had always been just about the fact that they distanced themselves from worldly matters, I assumed that because of the special nature of this particular temple traditions did not apply to them. I understood that along with the wish to protect the people, there was also a reputation to uphold, considering that there were Yôkai at this temple and the attacks could be mistaken as being conducted by them. For now, I felt the need to know about the mentioned rules of engagement, so that in case something did happen, I would not be completely helpless. In the outside world, with humans the only potential everyday threat, there was the option to just run away and lose them. I understood that Yôkai and other supernatural beings had a different concept of fatigue and would be able to pursue their targets as long as necessary, while others possessed great speed and simply captured their prey without giving them a chance to run in the first place.
"Can you teach me about the rules of engagement? I want to be able to protect myself," I inquired and earned a worried expression from Byakuren. Maybe she did not want to involve me in any possible strife between Yôkai, but I had to do something and tried to show my conviction. She looked at me for a while in silence before she finally sighed and turned to Shô and Nazrin, who had finished their conversation.
"Nazrin, can you please take Kyôma-san to the Hakurei Miko today? He needs to learn about the Spellcard Rules," Byakuren requested of the mouse girl, who nodded wordlessly and turned her attention to me. I bowed to her in thanks, but when I straightened myself again, my eye caught view of a strange occurrence, behind the two Yôkai before me. I stared, while my brain tried to comprehend it, alarm bells going off in my mind at the same time as the warning not to take everything in Gensôkyô at face value resounded in it. Nazrin was the first to notice my stare and turned in the direction where I was looking, only to see a cloud with the face of an old man floating up the stairs. As the mouse Yôkai was more than a head smaller than me, she did not yet see what I did; accompanying the cloud was a woman in nun robes, Ichirin, as well as another person. Two gray mouse-like ears protruded from that one's silver-gray hair and she wore a simple gray dress that would not leave a deep impression. On her naked tail she was balancing a basket.
A moment later, Nazrin before me saw that anomaly, too, and her eyes grew wide, compelling Shô to turn and look as well. From where I stood, I could not see her face, but surely it was showing surprise. When Ichirin and the other Nazrin finally climbed to the top of the stairs, they noticed us and the latter instantly recognized herself at Shô's side. The symbol of veneration turned to look at the one by her side, then the one by Ichirin's, but seemed unable to figure out the difference by looks alone. In the meantime I processed in my mind the possibility that this was just Mamizô, who, as a Bake-danuki, had the power of transformation and was either playing a prank or tried, unsuccessfully, to use a disguise to avoid Byakuren's wrath at having indulged in alcohol in the temple.
"Who are you? You are not Mamizô!" Both Nazrin said at the same time, further adding to the confusion, as they not only sounded the same but had the absolute same expression and demeanor. Byakuren turned around at the voices and noticed the two mouse-Yôkai staring each other down. Shô and Ichirin were unable to react at the bizarreness of the situation, alternating their glances between the two, of which one surely was a fake. Everybody watched, unsure of what to do, as the two Nazrin were confronting each other.
I noticed that the sound of the carpenters had disappeared and when I looked around, some were staring, while others were inching away. Maybe they felt that the situation was loaded and may explode at any moment, so they were trying to leave unnoticed, before a battle broke out and turned them into collateral damage.
From the way both Nazrin had been talking to the members of the temple without either noticing anything faulty about their behaviors, I surmised that maybe even questioning them in turn would not yield any results. Surely, the fake one had done her homework and knew everything there was to know about the person she posed as. I knew that I would not be able to help in this situation, since I met Nazrin only a few minutes earlier. It would be up to the people who knew her longer to find out who the real one was.
"Neither of you move!" Byakuren said with a firm voice, which compelled Ichirin and Shô to take action at the same time; the former took out her golden rings and readied herself against the Nazrin next to her, while Shô pointed her spear at the one at her side. Both mouse Yôkai looked shocked at how quickly their companions had turned against them, upon which the cloud with a face, behind Ichirin, circled around and spread out to stop either from leaving the temple hall. The tension that had suddenly spread due to the situation was almost tangible, as I could feel an unknown pressure filling the air.
I was unsure of how this situation would be resolved and could only watch as the two Nazrin relaxed their stances at the same time, while Byakuren walked up to them. Wondering how she would determine who was the real one, the head priestess motioned for both to come to her, before she told them to sit down facing Shô, and start meditating. Following her order, both Nazrin sat down and closed their eyes, as the symbol of worship stood before them with the spear in one hand and the jeweled pagoda in the other. I guessed that their devotion to the religion would be the determining factor, since malevolent Yôkai shunned Buddhist rituals and sutras, to the point that they would feel physical discomfort and pain upon hearing them.
As I had expected, Byakuren started to chant a sutra in a language I was unable to identify. However, it had no effect on either Nazrin, as they kept their eyes closed and their bodies unmoving. Ichirin came up to me and whispered to me to watch the two closely for any reaction, before she sat down right behind the two, leaving enough space for Byakuren to pass between them. Shô's piercing eyes did not miss even the smallest motion in the two mouse Yôkai, whether it was caused by their breathing or their heartbeats, as the head priestess' voice became more entrancing with every passing second.
I did not understand what exactly Ichirin meant, since surely the other people present would be much more qualified to judge who was the real and who was the fake one, but I obeyed and did not avert my eye from the two mice. The pressure seemed to grow stronger, as Byakuren's voice was lost in the silence that laid itself upon the temple; everything seemed to grow distant, as if put in scale with the result of a cataclysmic event that had shaken the very earth just moments earlier. It reminded me of the apocalyptic vision which had caused my left eye to close itself and half my hair to turn white.
Suddenly, within this intense atmosphere, as my right eye remained closed, my left eye forced itself open on its own. What I saw was hell.
Unable to move, I was forced to see chaos, the walls of the temple all but replaced by translucent sparks in shades of black and white. The people before me were undressed down to their bones in one second and turned into discolored parodies of their normal appearances in the other, as everything was in motion while staying still. I could see life and death in everything, the pulsating hearts of dead matter, the aging of the world lying bare in all of its twisted miserable glory. I could barely make out the five figures before me, the one standing and holding a pulsating light in one hand surely belonging to Shô. I fixated on the light as it was the only constant in this ever-moving world. Slowly everything around the single unflinching light calmed down to a level that did not eat away at my sanity.
The figure that was moving seemingly in slow motion belonged to Byakuren, as my vision passed through her clothes, skin and flesh to display her nervous system. The slightly taller one of the three figures sitting on what I guessed was the floor, was that of Ichirin, as I saw her blood stream and her heart pumping slowly. Then my eye finally took in the two figures next to each other, the real and the fake Nazrin, and I saw their exposed backs, vertebrae and spinal cords with the electric signals passing through them. Everything in the bodies of the two were identical, down to the very brainwaves and electric patterns running in their bodies. However, as I saw through the backs of their heads, I noticed an anomaly, or what I surmised was one, in the Nazrin that I had met when entering the temple. Something covering her face was completely still, in this otherwise disturbed world of restless immobility.
Despite the occasional nakedness of the subjects before me, I was too confused to feel shame or arousal. And even within this confusion, my mind formulated a clear thought in face of this anomaly: She was the fake one.
As suddenly as it had happened, it stopped. I opened my right eye at the very moment my left one closed itself again and stared at the back of the Nazrin that had displayed the anomaly. Byakuren, Shô and Ichirin did not miss my reaction and the latter instantly leapt forward to subdue the one I had indirectly pointed out, as the other readied her spear. However, there was a sudden explosion of hot steam, which filled the whole temple hall. If I had not seen it happen, I would have thought somebody threw down a smoke bomb like a Ninja; the fake Nazrin had grabbed her face and her whole body had exploded into this white steam.
Within the almost unbearable heat I glimpsed upon a person wearing a very short cyan Yukata, with orange hair and holding what looked to be a mask in her right hand. I assumed that this was the fake Nazrin, but before I could react and do anything, she turned around and exposed her completely featureless face. There were no eyes, no nose and no mouth, as a literally blank face stared at me with an invisible gaze. The sight was so disturbing that I could only open my mouth without formulating words. The steam shifted and I lost sight of her.
There was a sudden gust of wind, sweeping through the temple, that cleared the mist. The shapeshifter had disappeared and left behind Shô and Ichirin pointing their weapons towards the empty space she had been sitting in before. Everybody was stupefied by how this mysterious being had been able to disappear so quickly, when Minamitsu entered from the side entrance.
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"What happened here?" The captain asked when she noticed the situation, but Shô reacted quickly and leapt towards her, the tip of her spear pointed at Minamitsu's throat. The cloud with a face quickly appeared behind the captain to cut off her path of retreat, as Ichirin got into position next to the tiger Yôkai. At that moment I realized that shapeshifters in fiction were never using the full potential of their powers; their strongest card they could play, aside from infiltration and espionage, was to sow the seed of mistrust among people. Once it exposes its identity and disappears before everybody's eyes, the people present will start to doubt the identify of every single person they meet afterwards.
"What's going on?" Minamitsu squealed at the suddenness at which she had been subdued and looked genuinely confused. However, even that could be a mere act by the shapeshifter to deceive everyone, if it was prepared and had learned all the mannerisms of those it mimicked.
"Unzan, go search the temple grounds for Murasa," Ichirin said to the cloud, as she took its position behind the captain instead. The cloud with a face, named Unzan, disappeared through the side entrance. I turned to look at Byakuren, who returned my glance. I was wondering how she had known about the vision I experienced and why she had trusted that vision and my reaction to it to determine who of the two Nazrin had been the fake. However, before I could ask, she spoke up on her own.
"I knew you could do it," Was all she said, as she smiled. As I contemplated how she had known, Unzan, who apparently had spread himself out for the search, judging by the time he had needed, returned from the side entrance and floated up to Ichirin.
"Unzan did not find anybody else, so we will have to assume that this is the real Murasa," The nun commented as she stashed the golden rings under her robe. Shô lifted her spear and no longer pointed it at Minamitsu, who looked relieved. Then relief was replaced by indignation, as she turned around and chose her target wisely.
"What was that all about?" Ichirin and Unzan were the ones to bear it, as respect or fear kept her from arguing with Shô. "Why was I treated like an enemy?"
"Because there a shapeshifter has infiltrated the temple. She already changed into Nazrin and disappeared when we discovered her identity," Ichirin explained patiently, causing Minamitsu to regain her composure.
"What tells me that it is not you?" The captain asked and earned a whack over her head with the broad side of Shô's spear. "Do not make things more complicated, Minamitsu," Shô said, for the first time raising her voice within audible range to me. It had a nice ring and a hidden firmness that befitted her position as the disciple of the god of war and the symbol of worship in this temple. "We need to find Nue and Mamizô. They will be able to identify the shapeshifter."
"You trusted my judgment, but how did you know I would be able to identify the shapeshifter?" I turned to Byakuren and asked. It was bothering me that without me knowing, I apparently had performed a supernatural feat.
"The sutra I spoke earlier is one that gives humans the ability to see through reality and falsehood, and will expose the true nature of things to those listening or speaking it," The head priestess explained, her statement suggesting that she was not human herself. "Unfortunately, it no longer works on me." I wondered what Byakuren meant by that; maybe it meant that she used to be human, but has since become something else. "... but I am sorry to show you such a disturbing sight. It is a sutra I personally do not like, as it relies on the human preconception that Yôkai are evil monsters. So when their true natures are exposed to a human, they will look like deformed monstrosities."
I noticed a discrepancy in her statement with what I had seen. The sutra had not caused the Yôkai before me to change in appearance, but given me something I could only describe as X-ray vision. It had also been the reason why the walls and even the floor had become translucent, although it would not explain why everything, including the non-living things, was pulsating as if filled with life.
I decided that it would be best to tell Byakuren that her sutra had not displayed its intended effect. Maybe the unexpected results were the cause of my strange condition, so just in case the head priestess planned to use me in such a way again with a different incantation, the outcome may be something similarly unexpected and possibly end in falsified results.
"Hijiri-san, that's not what I saw..." I started, unsure of how to properly express myself in a situation such as this one. "I could see through everybody's insides, their flesh and blood, and I noticed that the fake posing as Nazrin had something strange on her face, which the other didn't."
"What do you mean?" Byakuren asked, a concerned and wary expression replacing her usually warm features. "Maybe your mind only comprehended what you were shown in things you could understand." With this valid point, I was suddenly not so sure that what I had seen had been so different from the intended effect of the sutra.
Then I remembered something significant, that had slipped my mind so far; my right eye had been closed, but my left eye had forced itself open to show me what the head priestess now described as the result of the sutra. "Could you try to chant the sutra again?" I requested and pointed at my left eye. "This eye, in which I feel nothing right now, opened when you chanted the sutra, and my vision of everything turned strange."
"Everything turned strange?" Byakuren wondered with an astonished expression. "We can try, if you wish." I nodded and sat down before her, as she started to chant the sutra again. However, this time I did not feel the pressure from before, and when she finished, nothing had happened to my vision. I looked up to her and she returned the gaze questioningly.
"I didn't feel the same intensity as before," I said and stood back up. However, it seemed that a new problem had sprung up, as the head priestess was looking at me with an unidentifiable expression. "What did you see?" She asked, not immediately betraying the tension she must be feeling at the implications of the answer that followed. "Nothing, everything stayed normal," Was my answer, when I noticed that something was amiss. Shô, who had been watching, gripped her spear firmly as if in anticipation for any strange moves from me. I realized that being unable to utilize the sutra's effects meant that something fundamental had changed inside me. It meant that I was not human.
"Wait..." I could not explain myself, considering that ever since I had entered the temple, strange things had started happening. Even if it was but unfortunate coincidences, to a person holding suspicions they would appear to be clearly linked. And it seemed as if I was in the center of everything, as my appearance had caused the immediate exposure of not only one but two dangerous Yôkai. Even if they had trusted me previously, on the basis that I was visibly just human, now that this fact was being contested by the recent revelations, my position and possibly my very life was endangered.
"Hey, what's going on?" Came from behind me and everybody's gaze, except for Shô's, moved to its source. I dared not turn around as the tiger-like eyes stayed fixated on me, unwavering and undisturbed by the newcomer. "Nue, where did you go? You disappeared when Senka attacked and never came back," Ichirin asked, identifying the owner of the voice to me in the process; I was unable to tell from the fact that I had only heard it for a little before, and while my memory for names in association with faces was superb, I was bad at recognizing people's voices.
"I secretly followed her, but lost sight of her when she went inside the Forest of Magic," Nue explained behind me. "But more importantly, what's this tension? Did something happen while I was away?" I heard steps approaching from my rear, before something pointy poked me in the middle of my back, startling me. Finally, I spun around because I had to know what it was, only to see Nue pointing a trident at me, the thing she had prodded me with. "Who are you?" Was all she said, and I knew hell would break loose right then and there.
In the next instant, there was a little smoke explosion right behind Nue and I saw a fist coming down on her head. From within the cloud, Mamizô emerged with an annoyed expression as she grabbed hold of the smaller Yôkai's head to make her bow down. "She's just abusing this opportunity to play a prank on thee, Kyôma-dono," The Bake-danuki defused the situation as she identified me properly. "She knew what was going on, we have both been watching the situation for a little while now."
"So you are saying..." Byakuren started, but Mamizô interrupted her and finished what started as a question with an answer. "... that while our definition of his status as a human needs to be revised, this is indeed Kyôma-dono. There is more to thee than meets the eye, is there not." She did not avert her eyes from me as she kept holding Nue down, who was unable to complain at this point, considering that her mischievous nature nearly ignited the situation and could have cost me my life.
"This does not change the fact that ever since you came here, Kagami-san, strange things have been happening," The head priestess argued, as she relaxed slightly. "You will have to explain to us in detail where you came from and what it is that you seek to find at this temple." Shô's eyes continued to watch me closely, her demeanor not showing any tension even as she remained ready to strike if necessary. I sighed, knowing that Senka, in combination with the shapeshifter, as well as my own carelessness had all contributed to the act of planting a seed of doubt within all those present.
"He is just here to learn more about Gensôkyô and the rules that govern it. Ye can tell from his clothes and appearance that he is from the outside world," Mamizô defended me, apparently the only one among those present who did not view me with hostility, suspicion or indifference at this point. Maybe it was due to the fact that I had drank with her merrily before and that only in drunkenness one can find truth, as some say. Then again, I had not been drunk no matter how much I gulped down, something I thought would appear unfavorable in my case to prove that I was, despite everything, still feeling very much human.
"I know that everything looks very suspicious and I don't have any way to explain myself. But you have to trust me, I have nothing to do with those who attacked the temple," I tried to argue, knowing full well that in this situation the members of the temple had absolutely nothing to base this trust on. Byakuren's concerned expression remained, while help arrived from an entirely unexpected person.
"I can find no evil in him... but it is strange, because I also cannot find any good in him," Resounded the calm, almost monotonous voice of Nazrin in the silent temple, and I spun around to look at her. She stood beside Shô, holding what appeared to be dowsing rods in my direction, as they stood completely still. I was in no position to argue that dowsing - nothing but esoteric superstition and a way for people to make money off the gullible in the outside world - could not see into the heart of people, especially when the person holding them was a Yôkai with the ears and tail of a mouse, and stood next to a tiger Yôkai who also happened to be the disciple of Bishamonten. Considering the position I was in, any help was appreciated and I assumed that the other members in the temple believed her words.
"He doesn't look like a bad person," Minamitsu threw in, but was completely ignored.
"What did you come here for, please repeat your purpose," Byakuren ordered me, possibly because Nazrin's dowsing rods could now also act in the capacity of a lie detector. Since I had nothing to hide, I repeated what I had said when I first met her, and awaited the mouse Yôkai's reaction. She looked at her dowsing rods intently for a little longer before silently shaking her head, signaling that she had determined a result. Judging from the reactions around me, I concluded that it must have been a favorable one, as the tension finally dissipated.
"There were no hidden intentions in his words. But even if you only looked at him, you would know that he is telling the truth," Nazrin explained before she stopped pointing the metal rods at me and turned to Shô to speak to her. Mamizô patted me on my shoulder as I slumped down slightly in relief; the situation had finally been defused in its entirety. "Although the question of what exactly you are still remains, Kagami-san," The mouse Yôkai proceeded to say as she turned back to me, instantly returning all the tension to my body. "You are no Yôkai, that much we can see. But you are no human either, or else the sutra would have worked on you properly."
"Maybe it has something to do with this," I suggested and pointed at the left side of my head, my white hair and closed eye in particular. "I woke up like this yesterday, and with the feeling and knowledge that half of my soul is gone." If this had been the outside world, I would have expected laughter as a reaction at best and people calling me crazy and beginning to ignore me at worst. Of course, I was now in a world of the supernatural and when I said something like this, people would not only believe it but also consider it in all seriousness.
"This would explain why we cannot recognize you as entirely human. This sutra was conceived by those with sound souls, for those closest to them in nature to utilize. That means only full humans," Byakuren conjured a possible explanation to why I had shown no reaction to the magic. But this did not solve the mystery of the first time, when my left eye had in fact displayed an usual reaction, regardless of how similar it had been too the intended effect. "With half a soul, you would be only half-human. With no other half to fill it up, your existence must be very volatile. Maybe the sutra still works on you under certain circumstances."
The matter was going in confusing directions and defied all common sense, something I had decided to abandon whenever it became necessary. I assumed that the effect's activation worked like a sensor that registered whether the recipient was human or not. In this case, as a half-human, I was like a barely readable barcode, which could be identified by the scanner only at a certain angle. I assumed that the strange activation the first time was when it properly registered me, but due to my half-assed nature, it only gave a half-assed result. The second time my nature could not be read, and thus nothing happened.
"Oh, I know of somebody similar to you," Nue said and everybody turned towards her. "Mamizô, you know her, too. That half-human, half-ghost that came here a while ago."
"I see, yes. But that one had a full soul, split in two visible vessels, which never truly separated from each other," The Bake-danuki said, apparently recalling who Nue meant. "Thou art a very peculiar case, Kyôma-dono. There is only half a soul inside thee and the other half is nowhere near. 'tis a miracle that thou art even alive in this kind of condition." As somebody who was not in particular religious and only knew about the various concepts of the soul in different religions because of his studies, I did not really understand why half a soul suggested inability to live. In fact, there was a story of a wizard who split his soul into several parts to attain a sort of immortality, which was obviously something straight out of fiction; however, when I looked around myself at this very moment, I was surrounded by existences that I had considered fiction until a few days ago. Sometimes reality was stranger than fiction.
Byakuren apologized as a representative for everybody present that they had so suddenly started mistrusting me, and once again welcomed me to the temple for any future occasions. Mamizô and Nue, the only ones who had remained friendly and indifferent respectively, stayed with me, while Ichirin once again left the temple, with the cloud named Unzan, to call the workforce that had run away during the tense situation involving the shapeshifter. Shô remained in the main hall with Nazrin, while Minamitsu left towards the living quarters of the temple inhabitants.
Suddenly I remembered that there had been two more members in the temple, who had not appeared ever since lunch. "Kyôko-chan and that freeloading umbrella haven't come here even after everything that happened," I voice my concern, earning a chuckle from Mamizô at the discrepancy in treatment of the two in the way I referred to them.
"If anything happened to Kyôko, we would have heard something. And the freeloader, she must be trying to find something to eat somewhere," Nue said indifferently without looking at me. "I'll go have a look, maybe I can snatch a meal from her."
"Thou art not honest," Mamizô said and smiled at the girl in black, which was returned with a blushing angry expression. At this, Nue disappeared, just as she had when Senka had first attacked, leaving behind an amused Bake-danuki. "Well, I don't think there will be any more disturbances today. Won't thee stay for dinner, Kyôma-dono?"