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“You’re searching for something, right?”
“Will I find it if I go with you?”
“Whether you find it or not is solely up to you.”
“I’ve grown bored of this place, anyway.”
Ren opened his olive toned eye. He sat in the soft grass of the Realm of Eternal Twilight, staring up at the always golden sky. ‘Relaxing’ is how most people would describe it. ‘Peaceful’.
But most people weren’t three hundred year old katana swords-turned-humanoid-spirits who have spent two centuries living in the very limited space of this disconnected realm. Aside from that, he was too caught up in his own thoughts and memories to feel calm or content.
“What are you looking for?”
Honne Onna had asked him this shortly after he had joined the little ‘family’. It was prompted by her first inquiry: “Were you ever human?”
He had off-handedly mentioned that he had never understood the species, sparking her curiosity. She had been human once, he remembered.
“No,” he had said quietly, almost suspiciously.
“What were you?”
“….Tsukumogami.”
“Artifact spirit?”
Ren had nodded, wanting to leave it at that, but she looked at him, and by the expression on her face, he knew he couldn’t. He was vague and skipped over many details, but there was no way to pass over the conversation he had first had with their mistress.
When he was just a sword in a cracked stone, the lifeless bodies of men surrounding him, blood nourishing the ground. His master was among the slain, but it wasn’t like he had held any particular attachment to him.
He would always remember that feeling. When Ai had grasped his handle and allowed energy to flow through him, until the leather wrapped helve had morphed into a toned, human arm connected to a male human body with green eyes and black hair and a young, handsome face. He had been naked, but was not able to feel shame from it. Shame of one’s body is learned behavior that he had not been taught.
“What is it then?”
“Huh?” His head had snapped up, a dumb-founded expression upon his features, as if he had forgotten what they had been chatting about. After knowing the man longer, Hone Onna would now reflect, that he probably had.
“What are you looking for?”
Silence rang for about half a minute. “I don’t know.”
“Ichimoku.”
Ren looked up at the woman he had just been thinking about. She had changed quite a bit since their first meeting, when the lady had been near hysterical, mourning for the loss of her tragic life, which Ren still didn’t understand, personally. He had always felt that death should have been a welcome escape for her, but a human was a human, he supposed, even after their life had ended.
And he didn’t understand humans.
It had been an interesting first impression.
His mistress had returned to her beautiful cottage in the world where twilight never ceased with a beautiful woman in a too-revealing kimono. He knew enough about human culture at this time to recognize her as a geisha.
“Hone Onna,” Ai had introduced the woman as, “Formerly, Tsuyu.”
Bone Woman.
He found it odd that the young miss did not elaborate, but he spoke not a word of this. After all, it was no business of his.
“I am Ichimoku Ren.” He had decided that if this newcomer was going to be vague, he would be as well.
She had stepped forward slightly, and Ren had given a short cry of surprise as he jumped back. The skin and muscle from half her face had faded away in an instant, revealing the white bone underneath.
“I see where you got his name,” he had chuckled sheepishly, with a blush tinting his face, “It suits you.”
“Ichimoku.”
The man looked up; he had spaced out again. Damn. He was doing that a lot lately. Was there a reason? He had always known he wanted something, but he could never tell what. Surely it was more than the preservation of justice, or even family and friends, as he had managed to find all of these things within his companionship with the other residents of this realm, in his own strange way.
In the distance, he heard Kikuri screeching, but with delight or fury, he couldn’t tell. Goodness, that child never shut up!
“Maybe I’m searching for peace away from that girl?” he muttered to himself sarcastically.
“Huh?”
Hm. He had forgotten that Hone Onna was still standing there, staring at him with a puzzled expression on her attractive face. Ren saw why mortal men were always so taken with the bone woman, just as he recognized why mortal women were drawn in by his own beauty. But still, their relationship was no more than platonic to him, and he knew that she felt the same.
He had never fallen in love.
Never heard the music of poetry dancing through his veins at the sight of any woman, or man, for that matter. Never saw a human as delicate as a rose or as angelic as one of God’s faithful warriors.
Ren stood, still staring at the twilight. Honne Onna spoke, and he listened, but his thoughts, they wandered.
Maybe that’s what he was searching for. Maybe after seeing so many couples being torn apart by his own blade, and seeing how these people sacrificed themselves for one another without a second thought, he wished to know the eternal fire they held in their hearts.
Love.