<- Back to Chapter 5 | [Back to the Table of Contents] | Forward to Chapter 7 -> Chapter 6 The Flowers of Muenzuka Higan The deep red poison of the Higan flowers blocked the way. These grounds were protected by these strange-looking Higan flowers, beautiful and fleeting, as if they were not of this world. I thought that certainly, in this place, the inside and outside of the Border, and even yet another world, are mingled like an "impossible intersection of borders." Items that I've never seen might fall in a mysterious place like this. "This is certainly a mountain of treasure." When the autumnal equinox comes, I always go out for grave visiting. But even so, the place I go to is not a normal cemetery; it is a place where the humans with no relatives in Gensokyo - the nameless dead - go to rest. Yes, I go to the Mound of the Nameless in Muenzuka. And as for why there is such a place as Muenzuka in Gensokyo, where the number of humans is small: it is an effect of the present balance between youkai and humans. There are no longer any humans who exterminate youkai completely, and there are hardly any youkai who attack humans anymore, either. It would be a problem if the number of either youkai or humans were to increase, and it would be a problem as well if it decreases. If a corpse is neglected, it will usually end up being eaten by some youkai. And having corpse-eating youkai going around is not sanitary. Disease would spread, which is not good for humans. Plus, humans could become youkai after death. If the number of humans decreases, and the number of youkai increases, the current state of equilibrium would be ruined. Because of that, as of late, not even the remains of the nameless go neglected in Gensokyo. The remains of those are cremated, and put to rest here. Thanks to that, you can say that the dead humans of Gensokyo really leave their bodies behind to become ghosts. Even those dead without relatives are cremated, and their ashes buried here. As for why I am in this place, obviously, it's for mourning those nameless dead. I most certainly am not here to pick up the "unworldly rare" outside items that came in with those nameless dead. Yes, most of the nameless dead without relatives in Gensokyo are people from the outside. This wall between this place and the Netherworld is thin, and, as a consequence of that, this place is also close to the outside world. People, ghosts, and even mysterious items fall in here. "Thanks to the red poison of the Higanbana, this place is unharmed. It is just like a treasure mountain." Right from the start, I find nothing but interesting items, such as a bottomless ladle and a soul lantern that glows with the light of ghosts. Are those outside world goods, or maybe they are from the Netherworld? I'll say it as much as necessary, I didn't come here to pick up rare items, I came to pray for the nameless deceased. The outside items I am frantically picking up are just a reward for praying for those nameless dead; that's the only reason that I'm collecting them without hesitation. However, this merry feeling was crushed by an incomprehensible incident. When counting the number of bones after cremation, somehow the number of bones and the number of bodies before cremation didn't match; and it wasn't like there was merely one corpse too many. For some reason, only part of a body was in excess. Well, since there weren't any family members to retrieve the bones in the first place, the fact that there were too many wasn't exactly a problem, but still... "Were there that many nameless dead, Mr. Rinnosuke?" Without solving this inexplicable puzzle, I went back to my store, Kourindou. However, while its owner - myself - was away, the always selfish shrine maiden and the usually selfish magician had selfishly made themselves at home in my shop. That almost always happens. "Ahh, the nameless deceased were mostly all humans from outside. As you know, Reimu, there are very few unrelated people in Gensokyo. But as there are some people from outside that escape from being youkai food, yet lose their way here, there are always some dead in Muenzuka." "And what's that junk you're carryin'? Ya always got a lot of weird stuff." Marisa was the one who said that. If anything, she seemed interested in what I had collected. "These? These are what had fallen in Muenzuka, Marisa." "Graverobbin', huh?" "Graverobbing indeed. How awful." "Graverobbing? These were not offerings. Who in Gensokyo would leave offerings at Muenzuka anyway? Those items were most likely thrown away by some rude folk, and ended up drifting there." "So, what, it's just trash? Nobody'd buy that." "I'm not selling it; not right now, anyway." It's just a matter of time before trash becomes tools; it's the same as the cycle of death and rebirth. To end any further discussion, I changed the subject, trying to relate it to that mysterious extra bone from before I was now carrying. "By the way, Reimu, has there been any major incident in Gensokyo lately?" "Well, yes. There was this big incident - but it wasn't anything important." "As always, you don't seem to know if it was actually big or not. Well, whatever, it's just that something strange happened..." I tried explaining to the two of them about the bone that was bothering me. "Huh...what? You wanna eat sushi or somethin'?" Marisa was saying nonsensical things, so I just let her be. "Is that true...? One bone too many..." "Indeed. Look, here it is." "Ack! How come you brought back something like that?!" "It's a right arm bone, isn't it? ...At the spring equinox, there was an extra right leg bone..." "Don't tell me you're trying to assemble the right half of a body piece by piece?" asked Reimu. "Not at all, but if that was the case, shouldn't I go for an entire body? Why would I stop at half of one?" "In any case, I don't have the least idea. Aren't those dead people mostly from the outside? If something weird is happening, wouldn't it be happening in the outside world?" "Funny to hear a shrine maiden callin' corpses 'those dead people'." Marisa was making fun of her. "That may be, but to think of a corpse entering Gensokyo piece by piece...I'd hope that no one in the outside world is up to no good." "But this bone...I'm pretty sure it's not human." Reimu started saying mysterious things again. "No matter how you look at it, isn't this a human bone? What kind of bone do you think it is?" "It's just that...there isn't any sign of its soul from when it was alive." "Huh? I never knew ya could see those kinda things, Reimu," said Marisa, appearing surprised. "Why, I am a shrine maiden, am I not?" *** The next day, I went to Muenzuka once again. For more prayer, of course. In the end, I couldn't solve the mystery of the extra bone yesterday. Conversely, the mystery only got deeper by the end of the conversation. I don't bother myself with things I don't understand, I forget them - a special ability that makes life easier....or so I wanted to. "Hmm...just as expected, but also surprising." Whoops. Seems that Reimu's way of talking is starting to rub off on me. What was just as expected is that today there's an extra bone here again. And what is so surprising is that the bone was identical to yesterday's - a right arm bone. I looked around to see if there was yet another right arm bone. "Today is the right arm equinox, I guess." Weird. If this bone is from a human from outside, then there must be a lot of people in the outside world losing only their right arms. But no, there's no way humans could do that. Even if one were to lose an arm in an accident, the connection between the body and the arm wouldn't be severed; even when separated, the arm would call for the former body, and the body would be under the impression that it has an arm. The human soul is lodged in the whole body, regardless of its physical condition. At this point, I started thinking about how the Border that surrounding Gensokyo affected things. About how it affected people's "thoughts." If a physical wall would be a wall that keeps the body from passing through, then the Border would be a wall that keeps people's thoughts from passing through. Going through the Border - in other words, to be "spirited away" - is something that happens when one is in a particular state of mind, where consciousness is hazy, and then your whole self would jump through. For only an arm to jump through the Border, it would mean the arm and the body have different thoughts. A human whose arm and body move with different wills? I don't think there is such a human, much less a lot of them. So maybe what Reimu said was right: this is not a human arm. ...But anyway, it's a beautiful bone; you can't see any signs of the daily hardships in it. The size is as big as an adult's, but it looks as if it's a baby's. Could a human have grown up so perfectly? Would one raised in a family apart from any discomfort become like this? While I was thinking of this, I stared at the Higanbana blooming by my feet. The stems don't have any leaves. This strange flower doesn't have any leaves on its stem; it grows straight from the ground as a big red flower. Without any leaves, and carrying a lot of poison, this was an appropriate flower for the grounds where the nameless dead rest. The impression I had was that its beauty was one unrelated to anything else. ...And then there was the body that severed its relation with this clean arm. I imagined a scenery of right arms growing in a row like the Higan flowers, and got an unsettling feeling from it. "...So, what's going on with the production-model right arms?" When I returned to my shop, the selfish-as-always Reimu and the selfish-as-always Marisa were waiting for me. "Ah, here's one." "Just because there's extra doesn't mean you have to bring them here," Reimu said, while holding her tea in one hand and biting into a rice cracker. "Hmm...there was something worrying me..." I went deeper inside the store and compared the bone I had found yesterday with the one I just picked up. "What's worrying you? Ahh, I didn't get this rice cracker from that shelf. I got it from the ones left on this one." That's not what I was worried about. The rice crackers I left on the shelf close to Reimu weren't the expensive ones. Reimu had the habit of not choosing and going straight for the best stuff I had in the store. So, the rice cracker Reimu was eating... "...No, wait. That's not what I'm worried about. It's about the bones." When I said that, Marisa put her book aside, looking a little upset. "Alright, enough of that. If ya wanna eat it that bad, I'll cook today," Marisa surprisingly declared, and went into the kitchen. Well, I don't know what she's so unhappy about, but knowing Marisa, it must be something simple. She did say she was going to prepare the food, so she shouldn't be that upset. Besides, we were talking about the bones. "So, what's worrying you about the bones, Mr. Rinnosuke?" "Ah, it's just that the right arm that I picked up yesterday, and the one I picked up today...if you look closely, they are the same in every detail! Even bones from twins wouldn't be this similar. It looks like they were duplicated." "So what's bothering you?" "Don't you get it? Simply put, this right arm and that right arm are from the same individual...I think." "Really? How mysterious. But it might be normal." "How's that senseless answer going to help?" Reimu looked like she was giving up as she put her tea down. "Didn't you say these were from the outside world? Whatever happens in the outside world is out of my control. Besides, I have no idea about what happens out there. These arms might as well come from a human with six arms." "Even if it was from a human with six arms, it's unnatural for only the arm to cross the Border. The Border is your area of expertise, isn't it? I thought you would understand that for only part of a body to cross over the Border - it's a sign of a youkai. The Border isn't just a wall, you know." "Really? That's very interesting." "Yes, really - wait. Are you sure you are a shrine maiden...?" "Someone I know said that there are those who can go through the Border with just part of their bodies with no problems...but, of course, she wasn't human herself." "That's what I'm telling you. This human arm couldn't possibly do that. What did they call this again? An 'Out of Place Artifact'?" "That's wrong!" I heard as a rebuttal from Marisa. No, she was in the kitchen, preparing the meal, so maybe that was just my impression. "This arm even looks artificial. And it doesn't show any sign of a soul living in it...I don't think this arm has experienced a normal life." Reimu put down her rice cracker, and took the bone for the first time. She was again with the tea in one hand, so she just exchanged the cracker for the bone. She looked so absent-minded that it seemed like she could bite the bone by mistake. "So this arm doesn't have any human feeling to it? So if it came through the Border, I could treat it the same as the other items that occasionally drift in here. But even so, it is clearly from a living thing. Even if it is from a human with only right arms. And by looking at it with my 'eye', this certainly seems like it's from a human. If I were to take a guess..." I was going to say "you could imagine someplace like a factory or a laboratory, where arms equal to human ones were produced like they were tools," but I stopped myself. These accursed creations would be such an insult to life that I reconsidered it; I'd rather not think that humans would do something so foolish. "I just hope that the humans in the outside world are not doing foolish things" was what I said. "But don't you make a living out of tools that come drifting in here once in a while? And aren't you always mumbling about the progress of the outside world?" "The body of a living thing...it's not a tool. This store doesn't deal in that." For a while, nobody spoke a word, so it was pretty quiet. Reimu was making munching sounds like she was biting into something; I was pretty sure she still had the bone in her hand, so I looked at her with a shock, but it was the rice cracker. Well...that was obvious. Speaking of which, it's almost dinner time already, so is it alright for her to be eating? "It's done. Today's chirashi sushi, just as you wanted." Marisa cheerfully emerged from the kitchen. "Chirashi sushi? Awfully extravagent, isn't it? So that's why it took so much time...what? 'Just as I wanted'?" Marisa had a look on her face like she was making fun of someone. "What, haven't ya been babblin' 'bout it since yesterday? 'Bout how much ya wanted to eat sushi?" So she said. "You really did say that," Reimu said while biting her cracker. "Even you, Reimu...did I say that...?" "It took s'long 'cuz I couldn't find a fan to cool down the shari [sushi rice]. I was using this hat to fan it till I 'bout almost dropped dead 'cuz it made no wind." Ahh, I see. So that's why Marisa was saying "Sushi, sushi!" a while ago...that's just like her. "What is it? If ya don't eat it soon, my chirashi sushi'll go cold." "Weren't you working hard to cool it down?" Reimu quietly put the half-eaten cracker back on its shelf while she spoke: "Sushi, huh? That joke was in bad taste, Marisa." "Hmph. Bein' told 'I don't want that' by a guy by who shows up in front of someone with shari [bone relics] in his hands. Get it? After people die, they become ghosts. Bones are empty shells. If ya got a problem, go ask it, and that'll be that about the ghosts. If ya want shari, the sushi rice is enough." "...I see. But, because I brought these bones, I got an unexpected banquet today. I wonder if this is for my good deed of going to mourn at Muenzuka as well." "Pretty bold for a graverobber, ain't ya." "My, this is delicious. But you should go wash your hands before you eat, Mr. Rinnosuke; you might have some Higanbana poison on them." "You're right. But you touched the bone too, didn't you, Reimu? Did you wash your hands?" "Of course I did." "But weren't you in here the whole time?" "Marisa, could you get me some more tea?" "What, again? Didn't you drink it?" Thanks to the sushi Marisa made, the shop regained its usual lively atmosphere - well, more like a noisy one. And, just as always, I could use my special skill to "completely" stop thinking about that bone. Maybe from tomorrow on, the Higanbana wouldn't look like a strange flower, but a beautiful one. That was what I was thinking as I washed the poison off my hands in the kitchen. <- Back to Chapter 5 | [Back to the Table of Contents] | Forward to Chapter 7 ->