Chapter 1: The End of an Abandoned Old Man

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I am an old man nearing the end of my natural lifespan, soon to turn 168.

For some reason, I have outlived my allotted years, a being no different from a living corpse that has remained alive to this very day.

In the living room of an old, shabby wooden house, I am surrounded by relatives in mourning clothes, their cold glares fixed upon me.

And then—

"Great-Grandfather. We cannot do this any longer. Please... sever your ties with us."

A middle-aged woman bowed deeply, her forehead to the floor. My great-great-granddaughter, nearing forty, had asked me to leave the house.

Today was the first anniversary of my great-grandson’s death. The stale scent of incense filled the room, lending it a grim atmosphere.

They were telling an old, frail man to leave his home.

Everyone in this family wished for it.

It had once been my house, but I had passed my property down one piece at a time to my grandchildren and relatives. I had even handed the deed to this, my only remaining house, to my great-great-granddaughter. I lived here, but I was no longer its owner.

Perhaps it was only natural for me to resent my family for glaring so harshly at an old man whose sole remaining possession was his decrepit body, telling him to get out.

But perhaps this reaction was only to be expected.

Since my grandson died, I had been nothing more than a ghost living off this family’s tolerance, constantly watching their moods.

"Very well. I shall leave at once."

I knew full well that no one in this family liked me... or at least thought of me as family.

So, without a word of complaint and without taking anything with me, I leaned on my cane and left the house.

"Whew."

I left the house, where the memorial service was still in progress, and settled onto a bench in a small vacant lot near the shopping district.

All I had was a wooden cane that had been with me for ages, a pack of cigarettes, and a paper matchbook with six matches inside.

One might say it was hardly anything... but these were the sole and irreplaceable assets that I, an old man who had survived the direct, monstrous blow of time itself, had carried close since my youth.

"I have lived quite a long time indeed."

I put a cigarette between my lips and struck a match.

Drawing in the curling smoke as though sipping a drink through a straw, I looked back over my life.

I had not been born into a wealthy family.

I was a commoner, but I walked the path of a warrior because I wished to wield a sword for the sake of my own justice.

As a result, I became a retainer of a domain and worked for a stipend. But after the shogunate disappeared, I spent my life as a police officer in the newly opened nation of Japan.

I was a civil servant who lived on a steady salary, but I had no talent for gathering or increasing wealth. I never expected to live in comfort.

From the final days of the shogunate, through Meiji, Taisho, Showa, and now Heisei 24, one era had ended and another begun. I watched the nation teeter on the brink of collapse, and what little I possessed gradually dwindled away.

Perhaps it was because of the convictions within me.

Even without a sword, I was a warrior.

I had resolved to live by honing the bushido within myself to the very end.

A warrior does not covet riches and lives modestly.

Perhaps because of that way of life, though I had personally witnessed scenes of history, I never sought fame by publishing my recollections in books or appearing on broadcasts.

If anything, I had more often lost money or brought threats to my life upon myself.

I never did anything that would bring profit into my hands.

Even during the height of World War II, I opposed invading other countries simply because we were blinded by power, and I was branded an unpatriotic citizen.

It was wartime then, so not only were unpatriotic citizens deeply despised, but it was commonplace for them to be beaten to death.

Branded as one of them, I lost my wife and both of my sons and their families.

Even so, I steadfastly remained in my hometown. No matter how others pointed their fingers at me or how viciously they beat me, I did not believe I was wrong.

In the end, was this retribution brought upon me for accumulating so much karma?

With the atomic bombs dropped by the United States, the war came to its miserable end in Japan’s surrender.

After the war, I held my young grandchildren close, crossed beyond Fukushima, and came to Tokyo, where I threw myself desperately into work.

There was not much an old man could do, but I worked diligently and raised my grandchildren.

I put down roots in Tokyo. I watched my grandchildren marry and have great-grandchildren, and watched those great-grandchildren marry, have great-great-great-grandchildren of their own, and raise them.

As time passed, numerous scholars sought me out through every possible lead, wishing to learn about the history and the stories of the days when I had been a warrior.

At first, I told them about what I had experienced, hoping they would record it from an objective standpoint.

However... that was the beginning of the discord.

Historians spread word through newspapers and broadcasts of my story, and of the fact that I was still alive. Soon, not only scholars but all manner of people began coming to see me.

Politicians, television stations, newspaper reporters, and even civic groups began coming and going from my house.

Every one of them held a biased view and wanted me to serve as a witness to history.

In particular, they wanted me to offer favorable testimony about Japan during World War II.

They asked me to stand before the public and speak of the glorious days of militarism, and to claim that the things war criminals had done in the present had never happened.

I flatly refused their request.

The cruel and horrific dark side of Japan that I had witnessed with my own eyes was a fact we had to accept.

The truth that the shogunate had fallen and that Japan had suffered defeat in war would never change.

To ask me, a living witness to history, to speak lies was no different from asking me to abandon my own justice and my bushido.

But after I rejected their greedy proposal, terrible misfortune came for me.

They resorted to every kind of trick and threat to force lies from my mouth.

They had my relatives followed, used civic groups to relentlessly harass and gang-beat my family, who knew nothing and were merely trying to work and live their lives.

Even my young grandchildren began to be bullied at school.

Then, one year ago, my great-grandson, already well along in years, was struck in the head with a steel bar wielded by a young man from one of those civic groups and died.

The university student who committed the murder was released with a warning through the influence of a politician tied to the civic group.

They continued visiting my home and my relatives, harming them as though nothing had happened.

And today.

My grandchildren and relatives, unable to endure it any longer, came to ask me to accept those people’s demands.

I angrily declared that I would never bend my convictions.

An argument on the anniversary of my great-grandson’s death.

At its end, my great-great-granddaughter, unable to bear it any longer, pointed at her son, whose arm was in a cast, and poured out her anguish.

"Please, stop being so stubborn! Your stubbornness is hurting your grandchildren! Look! My child was bullied at school and had his arm beaten with a wooden club by other children. He started kendo because he wanted to swing a sword just like his grandfather, but now he can never do strenuous exercise again. Is your worthless pride so important that you would not only harm your grandchildren, but block their futures too?!"

At the sight of my great-great-granddaughter sobbing and pounding her fist against the tatami, my mouth clamped shut.

After crying for a long while and finally calming down, she bowed deeply and begged me to leave the house.

Not a single person objected to those words.

If I were not living in that house, they would not have to suffer such violent incidents.

That was what everyone seemed to think.

I accepted their wishes and left the house.

Come to think of it, I had lived far too long, well beyond even a full natural lifespan.

If I had entered eternal rest at a suitable age, none of this would have happened...

People say long life is a blessing, but to me, it was no different from a curse.

All those who had lived through the same eras as I had died and vanished into a page of history.

The comrades who had fought back-to-back with me, swinging our swords, had all left this world before I did.

Only I remained, unable to die, stubbornly clinging to bushido in this modern age.

And this was the result.

"When, exactly, will my time to die come?"

I had no regrets about refusing to bend my convictions.

Even at this very moment, I was living while upholding my own justice.

I was sorry for my family, but I could never abandon this way of life.

That was why I had come out into the streets—to die quietly and alone, without causing any further trouble.

On a desolate street where no one spared such an old man a glance, no one would find it strange if I died alone outdoors.

They would simply think that another homeless man had died.

As I smoked one cigarette after another, lost in these thoughts, evening arrived, and the red glow of sunset spread across the sky.

I had nothing else to do, so I tried to take another cigarette from the pack. It was empty.

"Have I smoked them all already?"

Now I had nothing left to occupy my lonely mouth.

The moment I rose from the bench to throw the empty cigarette pack into a trash can—

"Aaaaah!"

At the sound of a woman screaming near my ear, I abruptly turned my head.

There, at the end of my gaze, was a suspicious man in a black cap and sunglasses, threatening a young student with a weapon.

"Y-you fucking bitch! I-I... confessed to you... on SNS... and you—you ignored it?"

"I don’t know you! I don’t know anyone like you! Why are you doing this to me?!"

"Fuck! I fucking loved you! Y-you made a fool of me?! I-I... I won’t put up with it anymore."

"Don’t come near me! I said don’t come near me!"

"I-I’ll kill you... I’ll kill you!"

"Aaaaah! Someone! Somebody, please save me!"

Listening to their exchange, it seemed that a stalker had finally appeared in person after becoming obsessed with the girl.

The girl begged for help in a trembling voice, but a group of students walking by took out their phones and filmed the scene. The women nearby merely whispered, "Oh my, what should we do?" and "What do we do? What do we do?"

At most, one young passerby was calling the police.

No one stepped forward.

It was not their problem, and they did not want to get hurt.

They seemed to think someone else would surely take care of it.

Had this not changed, whether in the old days or now?

Even those with the strength to fight would not step forward.

If everyone rushed him together, they stood a chance.

Even so, they would not step forward.

Because it had nothing to do with them.

At that moment, when no one else came forward, I leaned on my cane and approached the man holding the knife.

"Young man, how about you stop there?"

"W-who the hell are you?!"

"Surely you know that the knife you hold can kill a person. Then can you truly kill someone with it?"

"W-what?"

"From the look of you, you seem like a bookish fellow who has never held a blade in his life. Do you truly believe you can kill someone?"

"H-has this old bastard gone crazy?! I-I’ll kill you! I’ll really kill you!"

"Then go ahead and try."

"?!"

I glared at the young man and spoke in a low voice.

Judging by the way he clumsily held the knife, as though he had never even properly held a kitchen knife, I nearly laughed.

More importantly, the young man was merely angry. Since earlier, he had done nothing but wave the knife around the woman.

Surely he was afraid because he knew that stabbing someone with a knife meant killing them.

Then there was no need to fear him. A little intimidation would break his spirit and make him give up.

"What do you intend to do with a toy like that? You look no different from a little girl whining and throwing a tantrum."

"Y-you old fucker...!"

"There are still many things you wish to do, are there not? You were born a man, after all."

"Urgh."

"What do you think your parents would feel if you did this? If their son becomes a criminal, it is the parents who will be condemned. Do you truly believe it is right, as their child, to burden your parents? Do you think taking another person’s life will make you happy? Driving yourself to the edge of a cliff is a foolish ordeal, so do not do it."

I said all I could to persuade him, but—

"S-shut up!"

"?!"

Had my words failed to reach him?

His face twisted with rage. He turned the knife he had been waving at the woman toward his own abdomen, then charged at me.

I was helplessly rammed by the sudden charge of a massive man weighing around one hundred kilograms.

"Y-you!!"

"Ghk... ah."

"You said I couldn’t kill anyone?! Say it again, old man!"

"...Ah... ah..."

"Die! Die! Die, damn it! You still think I can’t stab a person?! Who the hell are you to start talking about my parents?! It’s because old fossils like you are still alive that guys like me suffer! So just fucking die!!"

With a dull sound, as though my body were being crushed beneath a heavy boulder, I felt the nauseating sensation of a long blade piercing through my flesh.

I was slashed to death by a fat young man whose name I did not know.

◆◇◆

I thought I had finally died, but my eyes opened of their own accord.

I instinctively frowned at a brilliant dawn unlike anything I had ever seen.

As my eyes gradually adjusted to the dazzling light, I realized that a young woman with golden hair was looking down at me.

The beautiful Western woman gazing at me with affectionate eyes was so stunning that she seemed like an actress who had stepped straight out of a poster I had once seen at a theater long ago.

Beside her, a solidly built, muscular man shook his head, his brown ponytail bouncing about.

"──XX──XXXX."

The woman looked at me, smiled as brightly as a flower, and said something.

It was a bizarre language unlike any I had ever heard in all my life.

It was not Japanese.

"──XXXXX──XXX......"

The man replied to her with a softened expression.

He spoke in that strange language I could not understand in the slightest.

I had no idea what they were saying.

"──XX──XXX."

From somewhere, I heard yet another woman’s voice.

Did that mean there were at least three people in this room?

I turned my head and opened my mouth to ask what was happening.

"Ooh... waaah."

An infantile babble came from my mouth.

My body would not move, either.

I could feel something at my fingertips, but I could not turn my head.

I could not raise my upper body.

No, of course I could not.

My upper body had been slashed apart.

At my advanced age, there was no way I could properly control my body after suffering injuries like that.

As I struggled to make sense of it all, the man held out the bundle he had been carrying toward me.

"Awoo. Awoo. Ahh."

A newborn baby reached out and rubbed my face with its hand.

What in the world is this situation?

In that incomprehensible moment, all I could think was that I was tired.

And on that day, I cast off my final name, Fujita Goro, and a new life began.

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