~Narration~
Wait, wait.
I SAID WAIT!
Ahem.
Sorry about that, I’m going to have to cut us back just a little bit… To show just how Soutarou ended up in this predicament or really how Soutarou miscalculated and landed in this situation… Where the universe is so, so, SO MUCH wider than Soutarou accounted for…
Let’s take it from the top… or rather the very beginning.
…
“Waah wahh…”
…
A bit too early?
Let’s try again.
…
*Schlurp*
“Why do you always get hungry at the worst times…”
…
Oops sorry wrong segment.
Wait a moment… Ah here we are.
*CLICK*
…
~15 Years Ago, Soutarou Takashina POV~
In front of a picture of a fairly average-looking man drifted the thin smoke of burning incense…
The photograph rested at the center of an altar of remembrance, surrounded by white flowers and offerings Soutarou didn’t recognize.
Standing before it was a small, pale-skinned boy with messy brown hair and hazel-golden eyes…
Tiny freckles of red scattered throughout his irises as they bored into the picture with confusion and an unknowing sorrow.
His hands rested stiffly at his sides…
His back was straight…
And there was a strange maturity in his expression that no child that small should’ve been forced to bear.
To the very short list of people gathered there, the confusion in the boy’s eyes appeared obvious.
A three-year-old child struggling to understand why his father had suddenly disappeared from his life…
A child too young to fully comprehend death.
When in reality…
It was plain and simple confusion.
‘Where am I?
Who am I?
What is this…?
A funeral?’
Soutarou’s gaze slowly wandered over the unfamiliar room…
Black clothing…
Downcast faces…
The overpowering scent of burning incense…
And rows upon rows of characters written in a language that felt familiar, yet remained completely incomprehensible to him.
‘Japanese lettering…?
Or is that Chinese lettering?
But why?
Wasn’t I just-?’
His thoughts abruptly stopped.
‘Wait…
Where was I…?
No…
No…
This can’t be…
I’m…
No….!
My memories are…
blurred?’
A faint ache pulsed behind his eyes as he tried to reach backward…
There was something there…
A life.
Years upon years of one.
But the moment he attempted to grasp any individual memory, it slipped between his fingers like smoke.
‘No…
I still have the basics…
I was American.
A proud one at that…
Though in retrospect what was there to be proud of?
I was born in South Dakota…
Then I moved to Florida before eventually settling in Texas…’
‘But…
Why can’t I remember the names of the cities I lived in?’
He could picture roads without signs…
Homes without addresses…
Faces without names…
He remembered having parents, yet couldn’t recall what even a smidge of either of them looked like.
Hell he even remembered attending school, working, watching shows, reading stories, laughing at specific jokes…
But the rest was buried beneath a suffocating fog…
‘What was my name?’
Nothing.
‘How old was I?’
Nothing.
‘How did I die?’
Once again…
Nothing.
A cold feeling spread through his small chest.
‘Why…?’
His tiny fingers slowly curled into the fabric of his black clothes.
‘No…
The bigger question is…
Why was I reborn…
and at that…
as a child?’
His eyes returned to the portrait before him.
The man in the picture possessed the same brown hair currently resting atop Soutarou’s head.
There was a resemblance around the eyes as well…
Or so he felt…
Not enough for them to appear identical, but enough that even in his confusion, Soutarou understood that there was a connection…
‘My hair color seems to be brown…
Just like that man in the picture…
Perhaps he was my father?’
The word carried an unexpected weight.
Not the grief of the life he had forgotten…
But the grief already imprinted upon this tiny body.
His throat tightened before he could stop it.
His eyes stung.
And yet…
no tears fell.
‘I see…
So then I’m an orphan…?’
Soutarou looked around the room again…
There were only a handful of mourners.
A few elderly people who seemed more like distant acquaintances than family…
Two men speaking quietly near the entrance…
A tired-looking woman holding a folder against her chest…
And a much younger woman standing farther away than the others.
‘I don’t see anyone who could be my mother…
Why is that?’
His gaze returned to the young woman…
She appeared far too young to be standing there with such a hollow expression.
Long chestnut-brown hair fell loosely around her shoulders, lacking the care she had probably once put into it…
Her eyes were swollen and red, and the black dress she wore seemed slightly too formal for someone who couldn’t have been much older than a high school student.
But she wasn’t staring at the photograph, no…
She was staring at him.
‘Why is that lady so disheveled?
She looks sad…
But…
It’s not for the man in the picture…
She’s looking at me.’
The moment their eyes met, the young woman jolted slightly.
Her lips parted…
Then closed again.
One of her hands rose as though she intended to approach him, only to hesitate and fall back to her side.
‘She looks too young to be my mother….
Well, then again…
She could be…
But I don’t think that’s the case.’
Soutarou narrowed his eyes…
There was something strange about her face.
Something that pulled against the fog smothering his memories.
‘Hmm…?
She looks familiar.’
Very familiar…
The shape of her face…
The color of her hair…
Her gentle expression, even beneath the exhaustion and grief…
An image flickered through his mind.
A woman wearing an apron, a warm smile, a pair of overpowered swords and an absurdly maternal presence.
‘Mamako…?’
Before he could follow the thought, a soft voice spoke from beside him, “Soutarou-kun?”
The boy turned his head.
The tired-looking woman with the folder had crouched several feet away from him, lowering herself until she was closer to his height without invading his space.
Her expression was careful…
Gentle in the way adults tried to be gentle when they feared a child might break down…
She said slowly and softly, “My name is Nishimura, I’ve been helping take care of some things since your father’s accident.”
Soutarou stared at her…
Every word she spoke entered his ears as Japanese…
He knew it was Japanese or at least he assumed it was…
It sounded just like the subbed version voices of the animes he used to watch…
Just less dramatic…
And yet…
despite not knowing a lick of it…
he somehow understood her perfectly.
‘I can understand her?
No…
More than that…’
His lips parted and he murmured, “Nishimura…?”
The word escaped naturally.
The pronunciation wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than it would’ve been if his past self had tried.
The woman’s expression softened in relief and she softly affirmed, “Yes.
That’s right.”
‘So I can speak it instinctively…
But I can’t read it.
Is it because of this body?
Residual memories?
Muscle memory?
Something else to investigate later.’
Nishimura glanced briefly toward the young woman across the room before returning her attention to Soutarou and she softly tried to explain, “I know everything must feel very confusing right now…”
‘You have no idea.’
Nishimura continued hesitantly before forcing out softly, “Your father, Haruto Takashina-san…
Passed away five days ago.”
Haruto Takashina.
The name stirred something inside the boy…
Not a memory exactly.
More like an instinctive recognition left behind by the body.
And yet even before he could make sense of the feeling his voice croaked out, “He was…
Papa?”
Nishimura’s eyes briefly shimmered and she softly said, “Yes.”
Soutarou looked at the picture again…
Five days.
He’d apparently lost consciousness as one person and awakened inside the body of a child whose father had died five days earlier…
Or perhaps he’d only become aware now.
The distinction felt rather important…
But unfortunately he had no way to investigate it…
Or at least not yet.
Nishimura continued carefully, “Your father made sure you would be taken care of…
He left you his home here in Kuoh, and there is money set aside for your future.”
‘Kuoh?’
Something shifted…
The fog inside his head rippled as though someone had dropped a stone into still water.
Crimson red hair…
A school…
Devils…
But before he could seize the fragments, Nishimura continued, “You won’t be losing your home, Soutarou-kun…
But because you’re still very young, an adult guardian needs to live with you and take care of you.”
She paused, seeming to search for the simplest possible words before softly adding, “There are people who can care for children whose parents are gone.
You could stay with one of those families for a while.”
Soutarou’s little body stiffened…
The reaction came before conscious thought…
A different home…
Unknown adults…
No understanding of the world…
No memories he could trust…
His fingers clenched harder.
All of which Nishimura immediately noticed.
She added softly, “But…
You also have one relative who may be able to take care of you.”
Her eyes moved toward the young woman and added, “She came today because she wanted to meet you.”