After she became captain, it was nothing but relentless overwork.
When there was a major mission, she had to take the lead, rally the members, and stand at the front herself. Approving reports, subsidy requests, and all sorts of miscellaneous paperwork was also her responsibility.
She forced her way through it so stubbornly that she got used to it quickly, but sometimes, when she was left alone in the office, she felt a pang of loneliness.
Once, back when she was still a member, she had seen a street scene bathed in sunlight during a mission.
Every time she saw people dressed in bright finery, mingling and strolling down the street, a sticky feeling would rise up inside her.
Jealousy? Inferiority? Not those common, overused emotions. She had grown too numb to feel something so simple.
If she had to give it a name, it would be hatred.
While girls her age played with dolls, she had to learn how to drive a blade into a vital point.
While they received birthday gifts from their parents, she had to bring back the heads of enemies as offerings to Fujiwara.
Even when they grew up and were betrothed and changed their surnames, she still had not been given a proper name and had to be called by a number.
Craftsmanship instead of martial arts.
Tea ceremony instead of the dark path.
What [Roku] had to tear away from her life, they held in their hands and enjoyed as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
She wondered what the difference between her and them was. Was it because they had been born to better parents? Or because she had not been born with power that others would covet?
All of that was wrong.
There was no real reason.
She was simply unlucky, and they were simply lucky.
She could have been the one in that place, and that elegant young lady could have been the one killing people with her hair flying wild in [Roku]'s place.
When she thought about the cruel fate that had followed her since she was five, that was the only answer.
Once her thoughts reached that point, tears welled up a little.
Now I’ve become someone who feels nothing even when I kill someone.
Now I’ve become a filthy person who suits darkness better than light.
Thinking that she had coveted something she could never reach from the start made her feel miserable.
But once she accepted it, her heart felt much lighter.
Since her hands were already dirty, she would walk her own path even if everyone pointed fingers at her. She would become a darkness that shone brighter than anyone else in the dark.
[Roku] was no longer a five-year-old girl crying her eyes out because she had lost her family. She was the captain of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, a woman who inspired fear and respect in equal measure.
To prove that to herself, she fought and fought again.
As if there were no rival in all under heaven, her advance showed no sign of stopping.
It was around this time that she mastered [Cursed technique reversal] and [Domain Expansion], things she had once thought belonged exclusively to "someone else."
By then, there were only a handful of sorcerers across all of Japan who could stand shoulder to shoulder with [Roku].
The reputation of the "important person" who had taken her in also rose higher and higher,
and when the name [Roku] came to mean death within Fujiwara,
a mission was assigned.
-For this mission, go out together with [Oheojeang].
[Oheojeang] was Fujiwara’s private soldier unit.
Unlike the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, which handled the work of the shadows, it was a formal group active in the light.
[Roku] had seen them from afar a few times, but this was the first time she would cooperate with them.
Her heart had barely had time to flutter at receiving an official order for the first time before doubt began to rise within her as soon as she grasped the scale of the mission.
An unprecedented large-scale extermination coalition had been assembled.
Led by two Fujiwara direct units, even the [Jeolchiljinmu Unit], made up of Abe’s elite and the remnants of Sugawara, had joined in.
Private armies from powerful families famous across the country gathered in one place and marched toward their target.
And then, for the first time in her life, [Roku] witnessed it.
A calamity wearing a human skin.
[Two mouths. Four arms. Four eyes.]
[Shinmugae and Bicheon.]
It was the moment [Roku]’s deeds were recorded in history for the first time.
---------------------------------------
"Why did I join the Culling Game? Because I still had regrets about my first life, obviously. To you guys, it might look like I just popped up and started causing trouble, but to us, this is resurrection. If it weren’t for that, I never would’ve accepted Kenjaku’s offer."
"What kind of offer, specifically?"
"I wanted to live this life for myself. Not hiding, but living openly like everyone else. I never had time to invest in myself."
"This might be a sensitive question, but did you perhaps have a job that’s a little hard to talk about?"
"At this point, there’s nothing left to hide. I was an assassin. For Fujiwara’s direct unit. And a pretty high-ranking one at that."
Across the table’s width, Uro and Junpei met each other’s eyes.
Junpei nodded, but his expression was still impossible to read.
He seemed sympathetic, yet also like he was careful not to say anything too carelessly.
Well, that was only natural. Even for sorcerers, an assassin was a far-off concept that modern people only saw in movies or comics.
"An assassin?"
"There was a group called the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad. They collected talented orphans, remade them however they pleased, and shoved them into the line of fire. If you survived by luck, you got inducted. If not, you died on the spot."
"I know Fujiwara. They’re the family famous for their regency politics."
"That would’ve been around the time I was active. Fujiwara was notorious even back then."
"I had no idea they went that far."
"Fujiwara was especially harsh, but the other powerful houses probably had direct units too. It was a brutal era. I can’t even tell you how much I laughed when I found out they’d all gone to ruin."
Uro chuckled softly and leaned one arm down to rest her chin on it.
"I lived as an assassin for quite a while before I was given a name. I thought they’d make me branch out, but that wasn’t it."
"No way."
"The reason my lord gave me a name was to pin the crime of kin-slaying he’d committed on me. He dumped the blame for an internal purge onto us, a group already infamous to begin with. And right when we’d failed a major mission too, he cleaned up the aftermath in one neat stroke. They were the kind of people whose brains always spun toward the nastiest possible solution."
"That’s awful."
"Hmph. Pretending to sympathize, are you?"
"No, I meant it."
"Anyway, after that I was framed, and just before I was executed, I met Kenjaku. He told me that if I made a contract with him, I could be reborn after death. I accepted without a second of hesitation. The rest is the story you already know."
She had considered talking about other stories that stood out to her, or about the time before she enlisted in the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, but she stopped herself.
It would be hard enough just to drag those emotions back up, and the story would get too long.
They still weren’t close enough for her to lay everything bare.
"Well...that’s how it is. I thought if I worked like a dog, I’d be rewarded, but that wasn’t how it went."
"You sure can talk about something tragic so calmly."
"Why? Was that story too dark for a modern young master? Should I have been sobbing while I spilled my guts?"
"No. It’s not that, but you don’t seem okay, Uro."
"......"
Had he noticed that she’d gotten a little choked up halfway through?
He really was annoyingly perceptive.
As expected, this guy was strangely irritating.
Whether he knew what she was thinking or not, he continued calmly.
"To summarize, you still carry resentment from your previous life, where you were used and then discarded, and you want to live this life solely for yourself."
"Yeah. Like you said, it’s an extremely selfish reason. Because of that, I crossed a thousand years, fought, killed people, and did all sorts of things."
"That does seem to be the case."
"I’ve got nothing else to say. Judge for yourself whether to kill me or let me live."
At this point, she no longer cared how it ended.
It had been half-forced, but after unloading the things she’d kept buried inside, she strangely felt relieved.
There were parts she hadn’t said, and their sensibilities were different, so he might not fully understand, but at least this guy had listened properly.
Uro leaned her head back and closed her eyes, waiting for the verdict.
And the answer she heard was—
"It doesn’t matter to me. Do whatever you want."
She felt dazed.
He was saying he’d let her live, but she wasn’t as happy as she thought she’d be.
The first thing that came to mind, before any other emotion, was confusion.
"...Why?"
"First of all, when I deal with sorcerers, I don’t really like judging them by good and evil. You’re like this, so you’re wrong. Therefore, you must be punished. You’re like that, so you did well. Therefore, you should be rewarded. People aren’t simple enough to be divided by that kind of binary."
"You’re saying something difficult again."
"Simply put, if someone has a conviction or will that transcends good and evil, I’d rather respect it as it is."
"I didn’t know my survival instinct would be rated that highly."
Uro, barely controlling the corners of her mouth as they kept twisting strangely, answered in a crooked tone.
Junpei tapped the table lightly with his fingers and smiled.
"Of course, I judge that standard according to my own convictions. My reach only goes that far, so wanting more would be greedy. Naturally, there are people I meet who are the opposite of me, and people whose values align well with mine, but do you know what they all have in common?"
"What?"
"They have a ‘narrative,’ in other words, a principle of action, strong enough to carry it through."
His closest friend, Itadori Yuji, was a perfect example.
Yuji had his grandfather’s death and Sukuna, and because of that he came to carry the mission of guiding many people to proper death.
Just as he could not imitate Yuji’s nature of suffering over pain beyond his reach, but could still cheer him on, the same was true of others.
"And in my eyes, Uro, you have enough of that narrative. It’s not something I have the weight to tell you to do this or that about."
"......What do you know?"
"There you go again. Everyone has one or two stories they don’t want to talk about and keeps them locked inside, don’t they? I’m much younger than Uro, but I’ve been through a lot, so I can kind of tell."
The age comment was a little irritating, but that wasn’t the important part, so she let it go.
Surprisingly, the boy had even guessed at the stories she hadn’t told him.
Uro, who had been enraged by his arrogantly sounding tone when they first met, soon realized that it had come from a genuine desire to consider her feelings.
"I...killed people. Not just one or two, but quite a lot."
"That’s exactly why I have no right to judge you in your place. Higuruma would have known that in his heart too."
"......"
"I can’t approve of the crimes you committed, but at least I think I understand why you did it....because I was the same."
Someone once said that however a person chooses to live is their own freedom, but for us to become better beings, a more elevated awareness is needed.
If you are prepared to shoulder responsibility, following where your own heart points—
"So I won’t deny you, and I won’t approve of you either. Congratulations."
-You are free.
Freedom, not license.
Within that indifference, she could find warmth and consideration.
Words that held not a trace of the will to interfere with or control someone else.
That was, in other words, the true establishment of identity she had desperately longed for, and a declaration of freedom.
Uro’s reverse eyes trembled violently.
"Ah....."
Ah, yes.
I.
The reason I wanted to become "someone" was.
The words I really wanted to hear were....
"Hngh....."
Uro Takako burst into tears for the third time since she was born.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register