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It opens its eyes.
And immediately closes them again.
The world is bright. Brighter than it is beneath its eyelids, anyhow.
It opens its eyes once more, slowly this time, so that it might acclimate to the light.
That’s better – now it can see its surroundings. A room of maple trees, light filtering in through the windows. Of course, it doesn’t have the vocabulary to describe any of the things it sees, nor does it have the experience to compare its home to anyplace else.
It leans forward to try and get a better look, and suddenly the ground comes rushing up to meet it.
It lets out a frustrated grunt – oh, it can make noise itself – and manages to disentangle its limbs, which it apparently has.
It looks down and gets its first proper look at itself. A pale body clothed in little more than a white linen garment. There’s some weight in one of the pockets, it notes, and so it reaches in and pulls out a gold ornament.
It drops the ornament on accident – its fine motor skills perhaps have some room for improvement – but picks it back up and quickly returns it to its pocket. It doesn’t have much understanding of the concept of identity, not yet anyway, but the beginnings of its intuition tell it not to lose this part of itself.
It stumbles to its feet and half-walks, half-crawls forward. It awkwardly explores the room it’s in, breaking tree branches and kicking over lanterns as it tries to get its bearings.
Then it leans against what it thinks is a wall, and what is actually a door opens and the puppet tumbles further into the abyss.
—
It starts as a normal day for Katsuragi. Of course, that’s always how it goes, isn’t it? You think life-changing events ought to be heralded by extraordinary circumstances, but in reality they come when you least expect them. They’re less thunderstorms signaled by high winds and darkening clouds, and more singular bolts of lightning that disappear as quickly as they form, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake.
But then again, even lightning gives warning in the moments before it strikes through tingling nerves and the taste of ozone.
As the Electro Archon’s loyal servant, Katsuragi really should know when such a bolt is about to come down. He should know better than to put himself directly in the lightning’s path.
Alas, his heart is kinder than his brain is wise, and thus his own goodness will bring about his downfall.
Katsuragi is on patrol, as he often is. Being the Inspector’s deputy actually isn’t a bad gig. His main duty is to guard Tatarasuna, which means most of his days are spent fending off crooks trying to steal weaponry (some of his coworkers fancy that this makes them Inazuma’s heroes, because Archons know what kind of destruction those weapons could wreak in the wrong hands). It’s a tiring job, but a rewarding one – especially for a person like Katsuragi, whose only wish is to help others.
Today, fortunately, has been slower than most. So, with some time to spare, he takes care of various chores, checks up on the workers’ families, small things like that. By the time he’s finished, he feels very productive indeed.
After checking the time, Katsuragi finds that he still has some hours of patrol left ahead of him. He takes a rest on some rocks on Nazuchi Beach, eyes scanning the trees in the distance as he tries to decide what to do next – and suddenly, he recalls a rumor that’s been making the rounds among Tatarasuna’s smiths.
For weeks, reports have been coming in about a mysterious noise coming from the shadows of Kannazuka. Workers in the forge often complain about how their families feel unsafe, thanks to the… vengeful spirit, walking corpse, evil demon – the specifics vary depending on who’s telling the tale, but the bottom line is that people are spooked.
Katsuragi usually dismisses such rumors as nothing but urban legends, but seeing as he doesn’t have any pressing business to attend to, maybe it’s worth looking into. If he finds nothing, maybe he can set people’s minds at ease, and if he does find something… well, it’s his job to dispose of any threats to the safety of Tatarasuna.
So he spends the rest of his shift combing through the (relatively sparse) forests of Kannazuka to no avail. He’s about to write the whole thing off as a ghost story and clock out for the day when his foot catches on some loose rock and he stumbles a bit.
That’s right – there'd been a landslide here recently. The hill had caved in as a result of overzealous crystal marrow farming. It hadn’t been anything too serious – the only people in the vicinity at the time had gotten away with just a few scrapes and bruises, nothing more – and after securing the area, Katsuragi and the rest of Tatarasuna had gone on with their lives.
If the spooky sounds people had been reporting were real and not just the result of paranoia… perhaps there was still some instability causing the rocks to shift and groan. Katsuragi isn’t sure he’s equipped to handle a ghost, but if the origin of the noise is a tangible safety hazard, then he’s duty-bound to investigate.
It takes some effort to push aside the boulders blocking the entrance to the mine, but Katsuragi’s always had more physical strength than most. He’s careful to not be too overeager, lest he trigger another collapse. The initial landslide was relatively small and didn’t leave too much in the way of debris so they hadn’t bothered to clean up everything, but if it had damaged the integrity of the hill as deeply as Katsuragi worried it had, then one wrong move could send Katsuragi to an early grave of rock and sediment.
He clears a large enough space for him to squeeze into the mines and spends the next few minutes poking around and knocking on support beams. Nothing seems obviously wrong from his initial inspection, but he’s a deputy, not an engineer. He might just have to come back tomorrow with someone more qualified.
As he gets ready to leave, Katsuragi’s eyes catch something a bit odd. A few rays of dying sunlight stream into the cave through the hole Katsuragi entered through, and they’re shining on something near the cave-in. It could just be the glint of mining tools left behind, but the object almost seems to be glowing with its own light. Maybe it’s some crystal marrow that wasn’t saved from the landslide.
Katsuragi can’t just leave something as valuable as crystal marrow laying on the floor of an abandoned mine, so he leans in to take a closer look.
What he finds isn’t crystal marrow at all, but a door. The entrance to a domain, by the looks of it. Katsuragi doesn’t know much about domains, but he does know that no one ever reported there being one in this area. Considering that much of it is still covered by rock, it must have been hidden in the hillside for quite some time, the door only becoming visible now because of the landslide.
He considers going back and telling someone about this find, but curiosity gets the better of him, and Katsuragi enters the domain by himself.
He’s immediately impressed by how massive it is. How no one had found it before – or at least, never bothered to mention it to him – is a mystery beyond Katsuragi’s understanding. The construction is far too ornate to be the work of a motley mining crew, and far too well-preserved to have been abandoned for as long as the overgrowth around it would suggest.
He turns into a hallway, and trips over something for the second time today.
Only this time, instead of some loose gravel, it’s… a person.
Katsuragi jumps back a bit. “There’s… someone passed on the ground?” He wonders, out loud.
To his surprise, the figure on the ground moves. Slowly, as if it takes a great effort on their part, they push themselves into an upright position. “...who are you?”
(The puppet’s first emotion, though it doesn’t have a name for it yet: curiosity.)
Their voice is stilted, with an odd accent that Katsuragi can’t quite place. There’s something in the length and shape of their words that makes it seem like they are consciously thinking about each sound as it rolls off their tongue.
(The puppet does not have much of what one might call memories, but it does have some limited knowledge of language. It’s never had to use this function before, so this information is new and foreign to it.)
“Y-You’re awake?” Katsuragi says, a bit flustered – he hadn’t expected to find a living person here. This place seems to have been sealed up for years, at least. How long had they been here? Oh, Archons, how had they even survived? “What happened? How’d you get stuck here? Are you injured?”
He crouches down to get a better look. The stranger moves back somewhat, wary of Katsuragi, but they don’t react otherwise.
(It’s not quite sure of this… thing’s intentions, but its limited emotional faculties don’t sense any animosity.)
He’s a touch shocked by their appearance. They couldn’t be more than a teenager. Long, deep blue hair hangs in a tangled mess from a porcelain-white head. Indigo pupils stare at Katsuragi intently, and he’s not sure he’s seen them blink once. They wear clothes that, from appearance alone, seem to be made from the finest white silk – so fine, Katsuragi’s not sure he’s even seen such luxury clothing before. There’s a bit of grime on the kid (they feel almost… dusty, like an item left to sit on a shelf for too long), but none of the odor that one might expect from a teenager with no resources to bathe.
All this is startling, but despite the fact that this kid must’ve been here for years, they at least don’t appear physically harmed at all. Katsuragi breathes a sigh of relief. “Not a scratch… but these fine clothes…”
The expression on the kid’s face hasn’t changed. Their mouth stays pressed in a thin line, and their eyes are wide and unblinking.
“Ah, sorry,” Katsuragi says, fumbling for his words. “What’s your name?”
The stranger stares in silence.
Okay, this could be going better. But, Katsuragi thinks, maybe the kid isn’t used to conversation. If they’d been locked up here for years, that would explain their strange accent and the lack of understanding in their… still unblinking eyes. They might not have the best grasp on language, and that’s okay – Katsuragi’s sure he can coax some information out of them with enough patience.
“My name is Katsuragi.” Katsuragi points to himself.
The kid follows suit, lifting a finger to point at the man in front of them. “Katsuragi.”
“Yes, that’s my name.” Progress! Katsuragi feels like he could shout with joy, but he doesn’t want to startle the kid. He turns his pointed finger to the stranger, and speaks slowly and clearly. “What’s your name?”
The kid turns their finger on themself. “My name?”
Katsuragi catches a flash of understanding in their eyes as the kid begins to shake their head.
Do they not… have a name?
Archons, this is going to be difficult.
Katsuragi lets out a deep sigh. “Alright, well… a kid like you shouldn’t be out on their own in a place like this. You can stay with me until…” Until I figure out who you are.
He reaches out a hand. The kid stares at it, unblinking eyes showing a hint of surprise. They don’t move.
(The puppet is not opposed to going with this strange thing, but it lacks the context to understand what the outstretched hand means.)
Katsuragi sighs again and reaches down for the kid’s cloth-wrapped wrist. As soon as their skin makes contact, the hair on the back of Katsuragi’s neck stands up. It’s as if every fiber of his being tenses, and he swears he tastes metal in the air, and instinctively he knows that he’s just stepped onto ground zero.
It’s ominous enough to give him pause, but he isn’t about to leave a lost child to fend for themselves in the middle of an abandoned domain just because of a flash of intuition.
“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” As Katsuragi leads the small teenager by the wrist, he can’t help but think:
What in Celestia have I gotten myself into?
—
The world outside is bright, and loud, and far, far more open than anything the puppet has known. The real world contains multitudes of information, so much so that all the puppet can do is allow itself to be dragged along by its new companion while it tries to comprehend this sensory overload.
It doesn’t take too long. As the puppet was created to be a vessel for the divine, its faculties are far superior to those of humans.
It is able to regain its bearings just in time to catch a glimpse of what it will soon understand to be called humans – the species its new companion belongs to, and the species that its own appearance was based upon.
It watches the people chatter, smile, and laugh. The puppet doesn’t understand what any of these actions are, but for some unknown reason, it’s captivated. It feels a desire to become like these people, to partake in their conversations, to laugh along with them.
Its companion seems to be avoiding the other humans, though. Like it doesn’t want them to see the puppet.
The puppet feels a twinge of disappointment (its second emotion) that it can’t meet all these strange new creatures right away.
It’s alright, though. If not now, later. The puppet has all the time in the world.
—
Katsuragi takes the stranger to his modest home on the outskirts of the forge, taking care not to let anyone else see them. He’s not trying to hide them, per se, but the day is turning into evening, the workers are heading home after a long day in the forge, and Katsuragi himself really just wants to eat some dinner and go to bed. Now is probably not the time to introduce the weird child he found in a sealed-off mansion to the workers – especially considering how the kid has barely said a word and… is still giving him that wide-eyed stare, Katsuragi notices with a shudder. Something is off about this whole situation, and Katsuragi would rather give the stranger some time to acclimate to their new surroundings before throwing them into a crowd of rowdy bladesmiths.
After cleaning the grime from his new charge, Katsuragi notices how… perfect they are. Despite living out on their own for Archons know how long, their skin is free from blemishes or scratches. Katsuragi isn’t usually one to have much of an opinion on beauty, but the smooth symmetry of the kid’s face is so flawless as to be unnatural. A bath and combing reveals that their long, dark blue hair is softer than silk, and shines with a purple tint in the light. There is an eerie perfection about them that reminds Katsuragi of the expensive porcelain dolls he’s seen on display in Inazuma City.
There’s also one other small detail that reminds Katsuragi of dolls — the kid has ball joints. He thought something seemed unnatural about their fingers before, but now that he’s gotten a closer look and removed the wrappings from the kid’s other limbs, he sees just how unnatural they are. The kid doesn’t seem phased that Katsuragi has discovered this, and they didn’t make an attempt to hide their unusual anatomy. In fact, they just stare at him in a way that would be serene if their eyes weren’t so wide, as if they don’t understand what’s so strange about their joints.
He asks about them, his words quiet and tentative, but he doesn’t receive an answer. Katsuragi resigns himself to the fact that he probably won’t get much information out of the kid. It could be a nasty case of amnesia, or maybe the kid has a reason for keeping quiet – regardless, Katsuragi doesn’t think it’s worth prying.
When a golden feather falls out of the kid’s clothes as Katsuragi goes to wash them, he feels as though he may have found a hint as to who they really are.
He doesn’t say anything about it, not yet, but he makes sure to slip it into the pockets of the fresh clothes that he brings for the stranger, who might be more important than Katsuragi ever imagined.
Regardless of what the kid’s true identity may be, and any connections to the Raiden Shogun that they may have, Katsuragi still found them completely alone in an abandoned domain. They could only benefit from a warm meal and a roof over their head, and Katsuragi is more than willing to provide.
Even if, based on all the evidence Katsuragi’s seen so far, his new roommate isn’t quite human.
He begins working on the warm meal as soon as he finishes cleaning the kid up. Unwilling to let them out of his sight just yet, Katsuragi sits them down at his kitchen table. Despite the barriers in verbal communication, the kid seems to understand what Katsuragi wants them to do.
(The firm but kind hands that guide the puppet into the chair are all it needs to understand the human’s intentions, but the spoken “Stay here, please” didn’t hurt. The puppet does understand human language, after all, it just isn’t quite used to social conventions yet.)
Katsuragi decides that a simple vegetable soup is agreeable enough that the kid shouldn’t have any problem eating it. (Whether they are even able to eat is its own question – Katsuragi would rather not ponder the implication of his charge’s strange anatomy.) As he sets the water to boil and begins chopping up carrots, he can’t help but glance over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure the kid stays in place. They do, keeping their hands in their lap and their eyes intensely focused on Katsuragi’s cutting board.
“Do you… want to help me prepare dinner?” Katsuragi says hopefully, gesturing to the already-chopped vegetables.
The kid turns their sharp gaze to meet Katsuragi’s eyes. Despite the severity of their eyes, there’s a trace of confusion there. At least, Katsuragi thinks there is. Over the hours that they’d spent together, the kid hadn’t shown much emotion, but Katsuragi feels no small amount of pride in the idea that he might finally be getting through to them.
Katsuragi beckons the kid over encouragingly, and they slowly rise to their feet to stand by his side at the counter. They seem a bit lost. Maybe they haven’t seen raw vegetables before – Archons know that would be the least odd thing about this teenager’s upbringing, from what Katsuragi has pieced together.
“These,” he points to the raw vegetables, “are food.” He brings a hand to his mouth and mimes taking a bite.
“Food.”
Katsuragi’s face lights up. That’s the first word this kid has said since they arrived at Katsuragi’s home. Looks like his attempts at communication have finally broken through. “Yes, food! Food is what you eat.” He grabs an onion from the pile and holds it out to the kid. It takes them a second to understand, but they do, bringing a pair of cupped hands up to take the onion from Katsuragi. They study it intently, as per usual.
“Can you peel that for me, please?”
The kid’s eyes make contact with Katsuragi again, and he internally scolds himself – the kid has been alone for Archons-know-how-long, they might have forgotten more specialized vocabulary like “peel.” Maybe it’s better if he just shows them how it’s done.
Before he can move, though, the kid takes a bite of the onion. Raw, unpeeled, as easily as if it were an apple. Straight-faced, they chew and swallow, eyes unblinking all the while.
Katsuragi’s a bit dumbfounded. When he was younger, his friends used to do things like that on dares - is this some bizarre show of dominance, or does the kid honestly like the taste of raw onion?
“Was that… good?” Katsuragi ventures after a moment of stunned silence.
“No.”
An actual response to a question, instead of just words parroted back – this is a monumental step, to be sure. He’s a bit proud to see their conversational skills improve so quickly. “You usually don’t eat onions like that. It’ll be sweeter once it’s cooked. Here, I’ll take care of the vegetables, and you can stir the soup.”
Katsuragi hands them a spoon and gently holds their ball-jointed hand as he takes them through the motions of stirring. When he lets go of their hand, they continue to slowly move the spoon through the broth, and Katsuragi thinks he can see a light softening their piercing eyes.
(The puppet’s third emotion: excitement. It is learning something new.)
The dinner preparations go surprisingly smoothly. The kid has to be told when to stop and start stirring, of course, but they listen well and seem to be happy to help. Katsuragi even entrusts them with putting some of the vegetables in the broth. They get to learn the names of different vegetables, and Katsuragi doesn’t have to do everything himself. Not that he’d mind, but it is nice to have some company.
Soon enough, the vegetable soup has finished stewing. Katsuragi pours a bowl for his guest and himself. He sits down at the table, and is pleased to see that the kid takes a seat themselves, without any prompting from Katsuragi. Even if they’re just copying what he does, they’re still acting on their own.
They seem to be confused by the utensils in front of them, though. They probably haven’t used a spoon before (if they’ve even eaten at all – at this point, Katsuragi has accepted that the kid doesn’t need to eat. How else would they have survived inside that domain on their own?).
Leading by example, Katsuragi spoons a carrot and some broth and brings the utensil to his mouth. He gently blows on the hot soup to cool it before taking a sip.
It’s quite good, actually. Nothing mind-blowing, but it’s salted just right and the vegetables are thoroughly cooked. Katsuragi had been a bit worried that something would go awry since the kid had been in charge of actually stewing the vegetables, but the final product is edible. Better than edible, in fact.
After a moment’s hesitation, the kid follows Katsuragi’s lead. Their hand is steady as they bring the soup-filled spoon to their mouth, but when they attempt to blow on it like Katsuragi did, they accidentally splatter soup on the table.
Their eyes shift from the spoon to the mess they’ve made, then up to Katsuragi. In this instance, their wide-eyed stare is less disconcerting and more endearing. They look a bit like a child who’s done something wrong and is hoping their parents won’t notice.
Katsuragi can’t help but laugh heartily at the thought. Even if the kid is some creature from beyond, they certainly don’t act all that inhuman.
The kid seems a bit bewildered by Katsuragi’s response. “It’s alright, I can clean it up later,” Katsuragi says with an encouraging smile. “Go ahead, try it.”
They refill their spoon and bring it to their lips. They spend a few seconds savoring the soup before swallowing.
“Well? What do you think?”
“Better than before,” they say after a moment, in that stilted accent of theirs.
Katsuragi grins. “Yeah, onions are pretty good when they’re cooked. You did a good job, kid – we might just have a future chef on our hands.”
(The puppet only barely understands what the strange human is saying, but it is enough for it to feel its fourth emotion: pride.)
(This one might be its favorite so far.)
—
It’s been a long day. Katsuragi will have to figure out how to introduce the kid to the rest of Tatarasuna, but that’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now, he just wants to settle in for a good night’s rest.
Katsuragi doesn’t have a spare bed in his small house, so he lets the kid take his bedroom while he grabs some cushions and a blanket and sets up camp in the kitchen. It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep.
And it doesn’t take him long to be jolted awake by the unshakeable feeling that he’s being watched.
He bolts upright in a cold sweat, as if from a nightmare, and finds himself looking directly into a pair of twilight-colored eyes, their whites shining in the limited moonlight.
“Archons –” Katsuragi just barely manages to hold back a string of profanities. “– hey, kid, what’s up? Can’t sleep?”
He doesn’t get a response aside from a flash of what looks to be relief in their eyes. Maybe he should’ve stayed in the same room as them, to try and ease them into their new surroundings. He’d wanted to give them some privacy, especially considering how he doesn’t exactly know what sleep looks like for his companion. Katsuragi thinks they must have some ability to sleep (or at the very least rest) considering how he found them crumpled on the floor of the domain, but that doesn’t mean they’ll have an easy time falling asleep in a foreign environment.
With a sigh, Katsuragi pats the kid’s back and stands up. “Do you want to sleep out here with me?”
After a moment’s pause, the kid shakes their head.
“No? Well, let’s get you back to bed, then. We have a long day ahead of us.” He ruffles the kid’s hair a bit (an action they seem a bit surprised by) and leads them back to the bedroom.
Now Katsuragi’s sure the kid’s been sitting out with him all night – the bed hasn’t even been unmade. Patiently, Katsuragi pulls back the covers and motions for the kid to lay down.
They do so without hesitation. Katsuragi pulls the blankets up to their chin. “If you need anything, let me know, okay? Just… wake me up next time, instead of… staring at me. Alright?”
The kid nods, the motion barely perceptible. Katsuragi turns to go, but something in the kid’s eyes holds him back. They can be creepy, sure, when they’re staring at him in the middle of the night, but right now, they almost look… hesitant? Expectant? Sad?
Human or not, they seem rather young. To be alone for – well, however long they were alone for, and as a child, no less…
Katsuragi’s a big, burly man, and doesn’t have much experience being a caring figure, but he thinks he might be the first human this kid has interacted with in awhile – if not the first human they’ve interacted with, period. It’s no wonder they don’t seem to like seeing him leave.
Gently, Katsuragi brings his lips to the kid’s forehead and gives them a light kiss. “Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He doesn’t stick around long enough to see the kid’s reaction, but he hopes that they’ll at least sleep more comfortably.
—
The puppet does not like it when the strange human leaves it in the room by itself. The feeling is too familiar.
The puppet likes it even less when it finds the strange human lying motionless on the floor.
It doesn’t take too long for the human to move again, but the puppet will never forget the new emotion it felt so keenly – fear.
It thinks it likes this human. He says encouraging things and, though the puppet isn’t familiar with shows of physical affection, it likes the way the human playfully tussles its hair.
When it’s with this human, it feels a sense of belonging. After so long on its own, it’s nice to be taken care of by someone else.
It thought it’d never had a caretaker before – its memories were hazy at best, and all it knows with any clarity is the mansion in which it’d lived for years. But when the strange human tucks it into bed, it feels oddly nostalgic. It is a feeling it’d gone so long without, it had forgotten how much it missed it.
And when the human kisses it goodnight, the puppet’s eyes begin to leak.
It isn’t sure what to make of this phenomenon, this malfunction in its programming. All it knows is the feeling of intense relief that the human left before he could bear witness to the puppet’s greatest shame.
—
Katsuragi is relieved to find his new roommate exactly where he left them the night before. Their eyes, closed when Katsuragi first peeks his head in the door, snap wide open at the sound of his footsteps. He greets them with a “Good morning,” to which he gets no response, as expected.
They share a modest breakfast of rice and fish as the sounds of Tatarasuna waking up creep under the door. Bladesmiths call out greetings to one another, fires crackle to life, and metal clangs against metal. The kid seems… excited, almost, at all the activity. They press their face up against the window, eager to get a glimpse of this new world.
Katsuragi feels a little guilty when he pulls them back, especially with how their shoulders sag a bit in disappointment, but he doesn’t want people knocking on his door to ask questions about the strange teenager watching them like a hawk from his window.
He’ll take them to meet everyone else soon, but first, he has a few things he’d like to say. Katsuragi kneels down so that he’s almost eye-to-eye with his new companion, hands firmly planted on their shoulders.
He reaches into one of their pockets and pulls out the golden feather – right where he’d left it. The kid looks down at it inquisitively.
“Whatever you do,” Katsuragi says, his tone serious, “don’t let anyone else see this. Alright?”
The kid nods, though they don’t seem to quite understand.
Katsuragi weighs the pros and cons of saying more. He’s not sure how aware the kid is of their own identity, so it might be unwise to make assumptions verbally. But, well… Katsuragi isn’t one for scheming and deceit, even out of self-preservation. He’ll just speak his mind. “This gold ornament is of the Almighty Shogun. I don’t know what your relationship is to her, but please, don’t reveal it to anyone without good reason.”
After a moment, the kid nods again.
(The puppet isn’t quite sure what the human is saying, but the sentiment makes sense nonetheless. It, too, would like to know what its relationship is to this “Almighty Shogun.”)
Katsuragi sighs in relief. Well, that wasn’t too hard. “Great. I’m going to introduce you to my boss, and maybe to a few of the bladesmiths. They might be a bit… surprised by you, but please don’t take any of it personally.”
The kid perks up at the mention of meeting new people. Maybe Katsuragi is wrong to worry – they’re a bit eccentric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get along with everyone else.
Katsuragi helps them into the cloth that hides their ball joints from prying eyes, and, with another ruffle of the kid’s hair, leads them outside.
Immediately, they’re accosted by a smiling man with red-streaked brown hair. “Hey, Katsuragi! Good morning! Who’s this fellow?”
The young man takes a step towards them, prompting the kid to scurry behind Katsuragi’s wide frame. They peek out from behind him, unblinking eyes watching the man with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.
“Morning, Niwa. This is…” Katsuragi trails off, trying to find the right words to say. He considers telling an elaborate lie, but once again, it dies on his tongue. Half-truth it is, then. “I found them alone in the woods last night. They don’t seem to remember their name or where they’re from, so I was going to take them to the inspector.”
Niwa nods thoughtfully. “Ohh, interesting. We have ourselves a little stray on our hands. Well, I was just headed to chat with Nagamasa about the plans for today. If you don’t mind me tagging along…?”
Katsuragi shrugs in assent. The kid, seeming to understand that Niwa is a friend, slinks out from behind Katsuragi.
“Well, little stray, I’m Niwa Hisahide.” Niwa holds out an expectant hand.
The kid glances at Katsuragi like they’re asking for help. In a way that he hopes is subtle enough to hide from Niwa, Katsuragi clasps his hands together. The kid seems to take the hint, for they bring their hand to meet Niwa’s.
The young bladesmith shakes the kid’s hand with fervor. “Pleasure to meet you!”
The kid, appearing a bit overwhelmed, just nods and responds with a quiet. “Yes.”
“Not much of a talker, eh?” Niwa says with a chuckle. “Some of the other guys here could learn a thing or two from you.”
The trio make their way through Tatarasuna to Nagamasa’s headquarters. Along the way, several bladesmiths give them greetings in passing, only to stop and inquire about the newcomer. It’s inevitable, Katsuragi knows, that they’d take note of a new face – especially one as pristine and doll-like as this. It doesn’t help that they carry themselves a little too properly, their gait a little too stiff to blend in with the rough-and-tumble crowd that lives and works in the forge. Still, it’s a bit exhausting to explain the situation over and over. The kid already looks a bit out of it – their wide eyes seem a bit unfocused, which is quite uncharacteristic of them – and they have yet to meet the most important man on the island.
(The puppet is eager to meet new people and form new experiences, yes, but while it does function at a higher level than a human, so much information is bound to overwhelm somewhat. Especially information as repetitive as names, faces, and introductions, when there’s so much more interesting activity happening in the forge around it.)
So, when the kid stops in their tracks right before reaching the main office, Katsuragi despairs a bit. Surely they aren’t going to refuse to go any further, right?
“What’s that?” The kid points off into a shadowy corner.
Relieved, Katsuragi follows their gaze just in time to see a large grey cat disappear behind a crate, a mouse tightly gripped in its jaws. “Oh, that? It’s a cat. They’re soft little animals. We keep them around the forge because they’re useful for catching rats.”
Lost in thought, the kid nods.
“We can look for another one later, if you’d like. They’re pretty cute.”
“This guy loves ‘em.” Niwa grins and elbows Katsuragi playfully. “Keeps feeding them scraps of food, so there’s always a ton of cats hanging out by his house. He has a fondness for strays.”
Katsuragi scowls to cover up his blush. “I just don’t want to let my extra food go to waste, is all.”
Accompanied by Niwa’s laughter, the three enter the main office.
Nagamasa is there, accompanied by a few other administrative assistants. He glances up from his work to incline his head in greeting. “Katsuragi, Niwa. I’ve been expecting you.”
Katsuragi pauses. “You have?”
“You’re the talk of the furnace today. Or, at least, your companion is.” Nagamasa’s eyes travel to the stranger between the two men.
Katsuragi groans internally. They’d been stopped so much on their way here that the news reached Nagamasa before they did. “Oh, uh, yes. I found this young kid in a cave that had been sealed off by a landslide – the mining cave-in, remember? – and they don’t seem to remember their name, or where they’re from.”
Nagamasa studies the kid, his gaze almost as piercing as theirs. “Well,” he says after an uncomfortable silence, “we have to call them something. I hear the workers have been calling them ‘Kabukimono.’”
Katsuragi is about to protest – seriously, naming them eccentric? Sure, they’re a bit odd, but isn’t that taking it a bit far? – when the kid says, in a voice that carries clearly through the room, “That’s fine with me.”
Any concern about the insensitive name flies out the window with that. Katsuragi’s impressed at how colloquial their speech sounds. Maybe the squabbling between Katsuragi and Niwa actually helped them learn. Katsuragi feels a touch of pride at how quickly they’ve picked things up.
Nagamasa seems satisfied by this answer, for he leans back in his chair and brings his attention to Niwa. “Niwa, I trust you can show our new friend the ropes.”
Niwa nods, and he’s gone in a flash, taking the kid – Kabukimono, now – out with him.
“As for you,” Nagamasa says, stopping Katsuragi before he can follow after them, “I’d like a bit more information on this landslide.”
—
By the time Katsuragi is done with his work, it’s grown dark. He heads home, expecting Kabukimono to be waiting for him, but the house is empty. His calls reverberate off the walls in silence.
He wastes no time in finding Niwa, thinking that Kabukimono might still be with him – only for Niwa to say that he’d let the kid go home half an hour ago. “They’re fine, I’m sure,” Niwa says in response to Katsuragi’s panicked expression. “They look delicate, but they’re pretty tough.”
It doesn’t do much to ease Katsuragi’s fear, but Niwa has a point – Katsuragi knows they aren’t quite human, and don’t seem to be as affected by things like the elements or basic needs. Still, they have emotions, and that means they can feel scared and lonely just like anyone lost in the woods would feel.
He grabs a torch and combs through the dark island, just barely illuminated by moonlight peeking through the clouds and trees. A cool breeze tugs at Katsuragi’s clothes and raises the hair on the back of his neck.
It’s uncomfortably familiar.
He calls out the kid’s name to no avail. He’s about to head back home, thinking that maybe they’d returned while he was away, when a noise stops him in his tracks.
There’s rustling in some nearby bushes, accompanied by the distinct sound of tearing flesh.
Taking cautious steps, Katsuragi slowly pushes away the foliage to reveal…
…Kabukimono, finally, alive and well. A sparrow sits atop their head, but it promptly flies away as soon as Katsuragi comes near to get a better look.
On the ground in front of them lies what… appears to be a rat, its insides gouged out. Blood covers Kabukimono’s hands all the way up to their elbows, staining the clothes Katsuragi had lent them last night.
They turn their head toward Katsuragi in a single, robotic movement. The rest of their body stays perfectly still as their wide, indigo eyes stare at Katsuragi. Blood traces the edges of their mouth.
“Hey,” Katsuragi breathes once he remembers how to. “What… are you doing?”
The kid turns back to look at the eviscerated rat in front of them. They delicately scoop the corpse into their blood-covered hands.
Then, they offer it to Katsuragi.
“Um.” Katsuragi swallows the lump in his throat. “For me?”
Kabukimono nods, and there’s a light in their eyes that Katsuragi doesn’t want to dash. He accepts the mutilated rat corpse, trying to hide his disgust. “I appreciate the thought, but, er…”
The kid tilts their head to the side. “You don’t like it?”
“I… I like that you wanted to get me a gift, but it’s a little…”
“But…” Their shoulders slump almost imperceptibly. “You like the… cats. Niwa said.”
Oh. That’s what this is about. “Well… that’s different. They’re cats. You’re… a person.” Something resembling it, anyway.
Kabukimono seems to perk up at that. “People do not like to eat rats?”
“Not typically, no.” At least they understand. Hopefully this incident won’t repeat itself.
Katsuragi tries to subtly toss the rat corpse aside before reaching out a hand. It’s smeared in blood from the rat. When Kabukimono puts their own stained hand in his, he gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Let’s go have some actual food, alright?”
(As the kind deputy leads it away, the puppet glances down at the rat, discarded in the bushes. The human didn’t like the gift the puppet prepared for him. That’s fine. It’ll find another way to be useful.)
—
The puppet’s life is busy after that. It spends all its time learning – about humans, what they do, and how to pretend to be one.
The first thing it learns is how to forge weapons. All day, it toils away helping its newfound family create swords for their country and their livelihood. The puppet gets quite good at it, if Niwa’s words are anything to go by. Of course it is – it was created without the imperfections that make human work so clumsy. Its hands are always steady, its movements always precise. Once it understands the basics, it’s able to replicate the example Niwa showed, over and over and over again without fatigue.
It works tirelessly in order to be of use, but the praise it receives doesn’t hurt.
The second thing it learns is how to read. Spoken language comes pre-programmed and easier with practice, but the written word is foreign to it. After work in the forge is done, Katsuragi reads with the puppet late into the night. Handwriting, like forging, is simple for the puppet to master, but the combinations of symbols and sound take it a bit longer to learn. Still, it’s a fast learner. Soon enough, it has enough command over written language that it and Niwa can send notes to each other during breaks. Niwa proposed the idea as a way for the puppet to practice and, more importantly, to exchange gossip. It’s all very unnecessary and theatrical, but Niwa seems to enjoy it and the puppet is intrigued by the novelty of it.
The third thing it learns is how to breathe. None of the bladesmiths teach it this, and in fact, none seem to notice. But the puppet does. It knows that its chest doesn’t rise and fall, that no cloud forms from its lips in the cold air, that it never needs to pause to catch its breath after toiling endlessly in the forge.
If anything, the blacksmiths praise it. They compliment its tenacity, its stubborn attitude. They bemoan their own exhaustion and joke about the puppet gunning for their jobs.
The puppet doesn’t share these sentiments. It doesn’t enjoy being singled out like this, or being treated as extraordinary. Katsuragi’s words from before hang heavy in its mind – “don’t let anyone see this.” Don’t let them look too closely at its hands. Don’t let them see the joints beneath the wrappings. Katsuragi never specifies when the puppet asks, but it is perceptive enough to understand. It hears the stories the bladesmiths tell, stories of ghosts and demons and yokai, of mighty human heroes come to slay the things that lurk in the night, and it knows.
It is something other, and the other is to be feared.
So it learns to breathe. It sucks in air and pushes it back out. It expands and contracts its torso to match. Soon, it’s trained itself to do this subconsciously, in a regular rhythm. It hopes no one finds it unnatural.
A gentler, kinder phrase from Katsuragi lingers in the distance. “You’re a person.”
It would quite like for that to be true.
—
Katsuragi had been worried that the bladesmiths would find Kabukimono odd, but to his great relief, they don’t.
Well, they do — they’d named them eccentric, after all — but they seemed to find their strangeness endearing.
Whenever they say something a bit… off, or stare at someone a little too long (though they’d been getting better about blinking lately), the bladesmiths just chuckle, make a joke, and give Kabukimono a hearty pat on the back.
Katsuragi watches as before his eyes, Kabukimono goes from surprised and confused at the bladesmiths’ antics to participating wholeheartedly themself.
In a matter of weeks, Kabukimono becomes a treasured member of the Tatarasuna family, like a lost kitten that had wandered its way into a warm, loving home.
It isn’t long before Kabukimono asks to be referred to as “he,” just like the bladesmiths he lives and works alongside.
A day later, Kabukimono asks Katsuragi to help him trim his hair. Katsuragi feels a twinge of remorse when he cuts the silken locks, their color so deep that it shifts from purple to blue and back again in the light, but it’s much easier to forge without hair getting in the way.
Besides, Kabukimono seems thrilled to have a haircut closer to that of his friend, the Niwa kid. Any complaints about something as inconsequential as a few inches of hair die on Katsuragi’s lips when he sees how happy Kabukimono is to show off his new look.
In short, Kabukimono is thriving. He’s got a family that loves him and a job he excels at.
He’s found a hobby outside of work that he enjoys, too. Katsuragi often sees his young roommate playing with the stray cats that make their way to their doorstep. Katsuragi doesn’t have as many leftovers to give them nowadays, but it doesn’t matter – he’s caught Kabukimono sneaking out some of his share after meals, and if anything, the cats are more well-fed than ever.
Katsuragi doesn’t say anything about it. Kabukimono doesn’t really need the food anyway, and if giving it to the cats makes him happy, then so be it.
Katsuragi watches from the window one evening as Kabukimono is swarmed by the furry creatures reciprocating his love. They rub against the young man’s legs and purr incessantly when he gives them head scratches. Kabukimono gingerly picks one up – a small orange tabby, just barely out of adolescence – and presses his lips to its head in a soft kiss.
(This is how the kind deputy always says goodnight to the puppet. This is how someone, long ago, once said goodbye.)
Another cat bumps against Kabukimono’s ankles, vying for his attention. Through the window panes, Katsuragi can hear his young friend’s laughter ringing out like chimes in the wind.
When Kabukimono smiles, his eyes squeeze shut in an expression of pure joy. It’s so unlike the wide-eyed, dead stare he’d given Katsuragi when they’d first met.
Katsuragi can’t help but smile, too, when he sees it. Premonitions be damned – rescuing this kid from that lonely domain was the best thing Katsuragi had ever done.
He might not be quite human, but that doesn’t matter. Katsuragi would do everything in his power to protect that smile.
—
The drink called “tea” is strange. The puppet likes the taste of it far less than Katsuragi’s cooking.
It’s warm, which reminds the puppet of the soup Katsuragi had made for him on the first night, but its flavor is bitter and almost a bit harsh.
Despite this, the puppet drinks the entire cup in one go. He shouldn’t turn down a gift.
And, besides, there’s not much else to do. This conversation is frightfully boring. Now that the puppet has grown more used to human life, the wonder in every word has gone. New information is still interesting, of course, but this particular discussion about transportation logistics is not something the puppet enjoys. He’s not quite sure why Niwa invited him in the first place.
The aforementioned Niwa glances at the puppet with a grin. He gestures one of the other bladesmiths over…
…and the cup in front of the puppet is refilled.
The puppet drinks it slowly this time, hoping that maybe a different flavor will come through if he savors it more carefully. It’s still bitter, right to the end.
Like clockwork, the cup is refilled. The puppet has nothing to add to the discussion, so to keep himself occupied, he drinks it.
The conversation slowly fades from logistics to more personal affairs. While the puppet sips the tea that he doesn’t especially like, the bladesmiths gossip about their coworkers, complain about their relationships, and joke at each other’s expense. The puppet doesn’t quite follow, but there’s a warmth to the atmosphere that eases the awkwardness of his silence.
The tea is bitter, but the chatter of the bladesmiths is sweet. They don’t seem to mind the puppet’s presence – in fact, they often include him in their jokes, even when he doesn’t understand. The puppet’s hard work must be paying off, because none of them seem to be put off by him.
Maybe this is what it’s like to be human.
It’d be nice, the puppet thinks, if this could last forever.