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Tsumugi was the one who found the body in the forest. She had been watching for Banri’s return for days; she was thirteen, and swollen with it, and it had been for her sake that Banri had left them in the first place: her fury at being ousted from the castle that had been her home and the life that had been all she’d known had wrapped itself around and focused on the loss of her crown, a delicate thing, wrought silver and flawless gemstones, fashioned when she was an infant and still a little too big for her head, and though her father had wanted her to accept it, to let go of everything they’d lost in the coup and move forward into their new lives, Tsumugi had not been able to, and so Banri, who had once been the most loyal of her father’s knights and was now a wanted criminal and traitor to the throne, had agreed to break into the castle and steal it back for her. Father had been upset with them both when he found out, but it was too late: Banri had already left, and neither Tsumugi nor her father could go anywhere near the city unless they wanted to be beheaded.
It’s an unnecessary risk, Father had said, for the first time in her life really, truly angry with Tsumugi. You don’t need a crown to live, Tsumugi. It’s just a trinket, nothing more—it’s worthless compared to your life or to Banri’s!
They had gotten into a shouting match about this—as far as Tsumugi was concerned, that crown was worth her life, was the entire life she’d had stripped away from her wrapped up in silver and jewels, and she said that she’d rather die young with the crown on her head than live a hundred years without it. She was thirteen: she knew nothing of living, other than the fact that the life she’d known was gone forever. She was thirteen: she had not yet realized that, even if she got back the physical crown, she would never have the happy life she’d known as the princess of the realm again. She did not even think about those things; instead, she walked through the forest and looked out for Banri’s return. She and Father were angry at each other, but Banri wasn’t angry at her—Banri was spoiling her as always, had gone back to the kingdom they’d fled and would be home soon with the crown to show for it. And he’d probably be able to calm Father down, too. In the past, Banri and the king had always been on the same page about spoiling Tsumugi completely rotten; now Father said that Tsumugi couldn’t afford to be a child anymore and Banri talked about necessary sacrifices and small comforts, but usually they agreed on things when they talked them through and usually those things were good for Tsumugi. Banri had looked after her since she was little; even though they weren’t related, he was family, and as far as Tsumugi was concerned he was her older brother, and she knew he would be bringing back her crown, and she couldn’t wait for him to come home.
So she was the one to find the body, laid out next to the main road, a sack of broken bones in a rotting bag of flesh. His chest was torn open and his bones were all sticking out, and his face was puffy and he stank to high heaven, and before she saw the body Tsumugi turned to avoid the smell, and then she heard screaming from the road, and though she’d been told time and time again to avoid any and all people she might meet she investigated despite herself. Maybe she would find someone important, like an ally. Maybe they would carry news that the coup had been a mistake and they could all go home now. Maybe Father and Banri were overreacting about the dangers of the kingdom they’d all called home.
The person screaming was a castle guard, and a castle guard whom Tsumugi had known well. His name was Sunohara Momose, and he’d used to be Banri’s squire, and he’d been one of Tsukumo Ryo’s strongest supporters, and Banri had refused to speak of him after they’d fled the city. His name was Sunohara Momose, and he was kind and funny and always smiling, except he wasn’t smiling now, he was screaming and screaming as though his world had ended, on his knees next to the rotting sack of flesh that had once been Ogami Banri, identifiable only by the clothes he was wearing and Father’s crest which he wore around his neck—typically tucked under his shirt like a charm, but now out, lying in the dust on the side of the road, stained with blood but still glinting in the dappled sunlight.
Someone’s stolen Banri’s things, Tsumugi thought.
That’s a dead man, and he is wearing Banri’s shirt and Banri’s pants and Banri’s boots and Banri’s crest, Tsumugi thought.
That’s a dead man, and Sir Sunohara has killed him, Tsumugi thought.
That’s a dead man, and he is Banri, Tsumugi thought, and then her screams joined Sunohara Momose’s, and she rushed out into the road and shoved him away from the corpse and shielded it with her body and screamed, “You’ve killed him, you’ve killed him, you’ve killed him!”
Sir Sunohara stared at her, and for a moment there was nothing but blank devastation in his eyes, and then he retorted, “I never!” and tried to shove his way past her, and succeeded, because Tsumugi was a thirteen year old girl and Sir Sunohara was a grown man, almost. She fell into the corpse and screamed, and for a moment it ceased to be Banri at all and was only a collection of stinking goop that clung to her hands and dress and hair worse than the dirt of the forest had done, and for a moment her tears were not for Banri’s death but rather for the fact that she had not had a bath in months and likely would not have one for even longer and now she was covered in this gore. And then she remembered that the gore was Banri, and she cried harder, because whether she had a bath soon or never again, he was gone forever and this was all that was left of him.
Sir Sunohara pulled out his sword and leveled it at Tsumugi’s neck, and she sobbed and tried to glare up at him like a regal princess instead of a scared thirteen-year-old girl sitting in the remains of a family member.
“You k-killed him,” she choked out. “He loved you. And you killed him. Are—are you g-going to kill me like you killed him too?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sir Sunohara. “You don’t know who I am! I didn’t kill him!”
“You did !” Tsumugi screamed, even though a part of her knew that Banri had been dead for a long time before Sir Sunohara found the corpse and started screaming and drew her to it too, and that whoever’s hand had done it didn’t really matter because he’d died because he was trying to get her crown back to make her happy, so really him dying was her fault and no one else’s. “You did, you did, you did, and I do too know who you are, you’re Sunohara Momose and you were Banri’s squire and he called you Momo-kun and he loved you and you killed him!”
Sir Sunohara stared at her, his eyes wide and red-rimmed, and he said, “How do you know tha— Hang on. Princess Tsumugi?! Aren’t you dead?!”
Which meant that she hadn’t been recognized before this, which was maybe a good thing but mostly an extremely awful one because she’d been recognized now and she was going to die and leave her father all alone and it would be all her fault because she sent Banri off to get killed and now she was next.
“I will be soon, ‘cause you’re g-going to kill me just like you killed Banri,” she sniffled. “Right? You betrayed him and you broke his heart and then you k-killed him!”
“I didn’t!” said Sir Sunohara. “Ryo didn’t mean for things to go that far, I swear, he was just—”
“Shut up !” Tsumugi screamed. “I don’t care! You killed Banri!”
“I didn’t! I tried to save Ban-san, I swear!” Sir Sunohara shouted back. “I don’t know who did this, I just found him now—I was going to try and bring him to a machinist to see if there’s anything they can do, but…” Sir Sunohara’s eyes sharpened, and he sheathed his sword and crouched down so that he was at Tsumugi’s eye level. “Say, little miss princess…if you’re alive, is your dad alive too? They say that he’s an exceptionally powerful machinist, that his reanimations are second to none—that it’s almost like it’s the real living person again, instead of just a heartless husk. He could probably bring Ban-san back—the real Ban-san back—right?”
Tsumugi shook her head wildly. “You don’t really believe that!” she said. “You just—just want to kill my father! Like you did Banri! But—it’s too late, Father’s dead too, it’s just me.”
Sir Sunohara looked at her for a moment as if he knew she was lying—hope had transformed his face into something wild, something feral, like a dog straining for its master at the end of its chain, but his eyes were still sharp and intelligent. He reached down and took Banri’s dead rotting hand and pressed his nose and lips and chin to it, squeezing his eyes shut and remaining like that for far too long, and then he put it down and stood.
“I’ll be back here in three days’ time to take his body to a machinist,” he said quietly. “If he isn’t here, I will assume that you performed the reanimation yourself. I won’t pursue you or threaten your life or let anyone know that I saw you here. You know…I’m not loyal to you or your father. I never was. I’m happy that my friend Ryo is on the throne. But Ban-san means everything to me. I’d do anything for him, so if you’re the one that brings him back I’ll owe you a huge debt. And I’m gonna let you have the first shot at it, too. You’re more likely to be able to find a machinist than me, after all. Okay? So don’t worry. You aren’t in any danger from me.”
Tsumugi scoffed, but Sir Sunohara didn’t say anything else, and he turned and walked away without looking back. This didn’t mean that he was really gone, of course, and so Tsumugi waited for the better part of an hour in the shattered remains of Banri’s ribcage before getting up and dragging his body away into the underbrush. It was hard; human bodies are heavy and unwieldy, and Tsumugi was still a child, hauling the limp rotting sack of meat that once was Ogami Banri through the woods to the place where she and her father had made camp. It took the better part of two hours to make it back, and before she reached the camp her father heard her coming and left to meet her. He was holding a sword, which he put away when he saw that it was Tsumugi and not royal soldiers sent to drag the deposed king and his daughter back to the castle to be beheaded.
“Tsumugi,” her father said, sounding so worried, not angry at all, “what happened? Are you alright?”
That was more than she could handle; Tsumugi crumpled into tears again, gasping words out past and through and around them. “I’m sorry—it’s all my fault—Banri died because of me and it was his friend who killed him and it was all my fault I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry he died he’s died he’s dead I killed him, Daddy, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, and it’s been too long, the body was cold when I found it it’s too late I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—”
She repeated this for a while into her father’s shoulder as he hugged her tightly, until she was just sobbing, incoherent from the grief and the guilt. Finally she exhausted her tears, but didn’t move, clinging tightly to the back of her father’s shirt.
“It was all my fault,” she whispered. “Because I was selfish and made Banri go back for my crown. It was all my fault, Daddy, he died because of me!”
“It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart,” said her father. “It’s okay…”
“It isn’t.”
“I know.”
“…Sir Sunohara said something about finding a machinist, but isn’t it already too late?” whispered Tsumugi. “His…his body was there for a long time before either of us found it. So isn’t his spirit already gone? And we couldn’t bring him back, just a husk?”
“His spirit can only leave if his body remained intact,” her father reminded her. “Remember? And if the killer took his brain or his heart out before his spirit left his body, his spirit will have lingered in the hopes of the body becoming complete again.”
“But what if they didn’t?” she whispered. “What if he’s really gone forever for real?”
“Death is a natural part of life, Tsumugi,” he said, “and we can’t risk anything right now. If his spirit is gone, as it likely is, I’ll do what Banri would want me to do: bring him back as a husk, and do whatever it takes to get out of here and get us to safety.”
The coup had started because people started to say that it was wrong to bring back the dead, whether they were made into a Heartless or a husk. They called it evil, disgusting, monstrous; they said that it was magic that should never be cast. After the coup, Banri said that all machinists had been banished, that bringing back the dead in any form had been forbidden. The husks had all been destroyed; the Heartless, well aware of the direction the wind was going, had all vanished into the ether. A Heartless, after all, was as inhuman as a husk; dragged away from death, they no longer had any care for life or anything in it. Family or stranger, it was all the same to them; a truly talented machinist working with a complete spirit could bring back a few emotions, but even then it hardly made any difference. The Heartless, as a group, only had two things they truly cared about: they abhorred death, and they honored contracts. The coup had called it inhumane. Tsumugi thought they were crazy. At the time, she had been worried, had wondered if they had a point since so many people were agreeing with them—now she just wanted her brother back, even if he was a husk.
They brought the body the rest of the way back to their camp together, but Father said that they couldn’t reanimate him just yet. Even if Sir Sunohara stayed away for the full two days, he still knew that they were in the area, and that was danger enough; besides, now that they had Banri’s corpse, there wasn’t exactly any time crunch on bringing him back. Tsumugi disagreed—she wanted him alive again as soon as possible—but she didn’t fight it. The last argument they’d had, Banri had taken her side and come out of it dead. She didn’t want to lose her dad, too.
After five days they pitched another camp; it was far from the other one, and they hadn’t left much of any discernible trail, and Father thought it was safe enough to work on Banri—or, at least, safer than lugging a corpse around with them. He let Tsumugi help, which was more than she thought she deserved. She had been the one to get Banri killed. There was no reason she should be allowed to bring him back.
Still, though, she knelt beside her father and stretched out the smashed, rotting corpse, and carefully pushed each bone into alignment. Once that was done—or done as much as it could be, given the shattered state of many of Banri’s bones—they wound silver wire through his body, surrounding and replacing each one of his veins, ending in his empty chest. His heart was already gone, which was a hopeful sign—but also, Father reminded her, a dangerous one. Whoever had killed Banri, however he had died, the murderer had ensured that he could be brought back as a Heartless—but why?
Father removed a silk-wrapped bundle from his back and opened it up to reveal an intricately-carved wooden heart. He had made it himself over the past few days; Tsumugi had not been permitted to even touch it, and she had not tried. She did not touch it now, as her father placed it carefully in Banri’s hollow chest and twisted the silver threads into it. As each of them touched the wooden heart, there was a sizzling noise and the silver fused itself to the wood; when the last of them was connected, Banri turned his head on his own and closed his eyes, his breathing returning evenly, as though he were simply asleep.
He wasn’t, of course. He was still dead. The spell wasn’t completed, and even when it was he wouldn’t be alive again, not like he was before. Still, though, it was a relief, and Tsumugi’s hands trembled with it as she helped her father pull Banri’s flesh back over his exposed veins. Wherever they did so, there was another sizzle and silver metal would appear to stitch his body back together; soon, his body was good as new—better even, with the metal running through it and the wooden heart that would never, ever stop. The only remaining injury was a gaping slash on his forehead; the silver did not touch it, and when Tsumugi tried to close it herself, her father stopped her.
“Leave it,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”
“It is?” said Tsumugi. “Why?”
“The magic can’t touch it,” he said, “so whatever caused that injury…all the emotions within it will stay within Banri. He’ll retain that part of himself no matter what condition he’s in when he wakes.”
“Oh…that’s good,” said Tsumugi. “That’s really, really good. He’ll be okay, then? He’ll still be himself?”
“He’ll be himself,” said her father, “but he won’t be okay. Remember, Tsumugi, Banri’s a Heartless now. Things are going to be different. We don’t know what he will or won’t remember or feel when he wakes up, so we need to be patient with him, okay? He’s not going to be the Banri we knew anymore.”
Tsumugi nodded, staring at the only remaining wound on Banri’s body, as her father cleared away his machinist’s supplies and carefully stored them in his pack. He returned with Banri’s bedroll, and they carefully tucked him in to sleep off the transformation. Tsumugi waited for him to wake for the rest of the day and all of the proceeding night, tucked against her father’s side, until she fell asleep as well; when she woke, Banri was still sleeping, and remained so until it was nearly afternoon. Then, finally, he shifted; his eyes blinked open; he sat up, raising one silver-tipped hand to the gash on his forehead.
“Where…where am I…?” he murmured, his eyes sweeping the area. “Yuki…?”
“Who’s Yuki?” Tsumugi whispered.
“He was a childhood friend of Banri’s, a young lord who was the subject of magical experimentation,” her father said softly. “Eventually he was imprisoned in a tower, and nobody heard from him again. I believe they last met when they were around five years old. However…by the time we fled the country, Banri barely remembered the boy. They hadn’t seen each other for many years, after all.”
“Oh…” said Tsumugi. “Is that a good sign?”
“I wonder,” said her father.
Banri was still looking around, face guarded. Eventually, his eyes alighted on the banished royals, and he said, “Who are you? Where’s Yuki?” and Tsumugi felt her heart sink.
“My name is Otoharu, and this is my daughter Tsumugi,” said Father, his voice gentle as though speaking to a spooked animal, and not at all surprised. “We’re in the process of fleeing this country. We found your corpse on the road, and…”
“…brought me back to life?” said Banri. “Then I’m a Heartless now. Thank you. I owe you a great debt.”
“You owe us nothing,” said Tsumugi’s father. “When you were alive, you were my knight, and you and Tsumugi were like siblings. Your death occurred when you were on an errand for our family, collecting a crown that once belonged to Tsumugi. This was the least we could do for you.”
“That crown…I see. So that’s why,” said Banri. “I’m afraid I don’t have it with me anymore. I was captured by the city guard, and it was taken from me then. I apologize.”
“That’s alright,” said Father. “The important thing is that you made it back to us.”
Banri smiled at him. The smile did not reach his eyes. “So I did what I was supposed to,” he said. “I did good, right?”
“Yes,” said Tsumugi’s father. “You did very good.”
Banri nodded. “In that case,” he said, “may I stay with you?”
Father smiled at him, though tears had escaped from his eyes and to his cheeks. “Of course, Banri,” he said. “For as long as you would have us. And if you ever choose to leave, that’s alright too. You can always come back.”
“I see.” Banri left the bedroll and carefully rolled it up, and then he deposited it next to Tsumugi’s father. “In that case, I’ll return soon.”
“What?” said Tsumugi. “Why?”
“I failed the last time.” He stood all the way up, tall and steady and serious and unfeeling. “I won’t now, though. There’s a crown I need to steal.”
“No,” Tsumugi choked out. “No—you can’t—”
“I can.”
“You died last time!”
“No, I didn’t,” said Banri. “I died because I killed myself. It was entirely unrelated to the crown. But this time I won’t make that mistake. I won’t despair. And I’ll avoid Yuki, too, so there won’t be any reason for me to die. It wasn’t stealing the crown that killed me, so I’ll be able to get it easily.”
“No, no, please, don’t go, Banri, please!”
“Why not?” said Banri. “You want it, don’t you? And I remember that it was very important to me to bring the crown back for you. I remember worrying about it.”
“You’re more important than my stupid crown!” said Tsumugi. “I don’t want to lose you again—please, Banri, please don’t go, please, I’m sorry I ever asked it of you!”
“I don’t understand,” said Banri.
“Banri, you are Tsumugi’s family, as you are mine,” said Father, “and she was the one who found your body. It was devastating for her—for us both. Neither of us want you in any unnecessary danger.”
Tsumugi nodded frantically. “I was being dumb and immature, but I’ve grown up now, I swear, I swear, please don’t leave us again, please, ” she said. “Someone could see you and kill you, you’d be in so much danger, please, we can’t lose you again!”
“Alright,” said Banri. “If that’s important to you, then I’ll stay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“It’s okay,” Tsumugi sniffled. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
Banri was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, “Is there any chance that I’ll begin to remember anything more? My memory currently spans—three to four days, give or take a few hours.”
“Hm. It’s possible,” said Tsumugi’s father. “Though it depends on how soon after your death your heart was removed, and how strongly your spirit clung to your body before the removal. We’ll have to wait and see what comes back and what doesn’t. It’s a good thing that the memories you do have are as strong as they are, though, and it’s quite impressive that you can remember how you felt during that time period.”
“I see,” said Banri. “That’s good, then. I’ll do my best to remember how I felt in any other memories I can, too.”
Tsumugi’s father smiled at him, and patted his head. “You’re a good boy, Banri,” he said. “Thank you so much for coming back to us.”