Chapter Text
“Just you wait…”
He seized his fading consciousness, pulling it desperately back around to buy a bit more time.
“I’m going to…”
—find a way to save you.
In the next instant, he—Subaru Natsuki—lost his life...
“So that means you’re flat broke, huh? Quit interfering with my business!”
The air smelled of roasting meat and unfamiliar spice. Cobblestones worn smooth by generations of boots stretched in every direction. Somewhere further back, a large creature that was decidedly not a horse was tethered to a post and eating from a bucket with slow, bovine indifference.
He hadn’t realized his eyes were open. The world slowly assembled itself in pieces. He heard a familiar voice, the appa guy presumably, harshly talking to someone else nearby. For some reason, he couldn’t feel his legs all too well. The force felt from standing on the ground seemed not to exist in that moment, as though the cobblestones beneath him were just a suggestion and gravity hadn’t yet committed to him. The bag he used to carry his things was missing, too. Maybe he dropped it somewhere.
All around him, the hustle and bustle of the marketplace continued, unbothered by the presence of the boy wearing such strange clothes. Customers bargained and bickered at open stalls. The whole bazaar smelled of wood smoke, pickled things, and something sweet that Subaru couldn’t name but found oddly comforting.
“Wait a minute...”
Turning to his left, he saw a rather peculiar scene, like looking into a mirror that distorts only the emotions on your face. The figure wore his exact clothes—same tracksuit, same sneakers—but everything about him was... wrong... just wrong.
Whereas he was sure he held a tired and mildly surprised expression, this other version of himself stared back in nothing but shock.
His counterpart reached a hand forward. He almost wanted to move away, but regular and unaggressive human contact was something he wanted to feel after so long.
To his surprise, and not so much to the other’s, the hand phased right through him.
“What...?”
“Oh!” The physical Subaru exclaimed as he retracted his hand, “I forgot what this trope was called, but are you like a spirit that tags along or something?”
“Huh?” He had a stupid expression that he continued to stare with, still not understanding a single bit of what was going on.
“Hmm, or maybe you’re a me from the future who projected himself to the past to warn me about what’s about to happen and tell me about my powers.” The other Subaru continued to ramble.
“Spirit...?” And the first of the two was still only stuck at a point several seconds back.
“Yeah, Spirit! You look so... Spirity. And not too much older than me either. Did something really bad happen so soon in the future?”
“Oi, kid! You hit your head or something? Who the hell are you talking to?”
He slowly looked down at his hands. They were translucent in the daylight, the faint glow around them almost invisible against the brightness of the sky above. He could see the cobblestones through his palms. The lines of his knuckles rendered in pale light, like a drawing of a hand rather than the hand itself.
His face twisted in horror at what he saw.
His mouth wouldn’t utter the words he wanted to say.
“You mean you don’t see him? Not that I’m surprised, but that’s good to know.” Subaru finalized after a short while of bantering confidently.
“Scram, kid! Talking to you is making me look like a weirdo! I gotta sell to customers too!”
“Alright, alright.”
He turned around, but was taken aback by what he saw.
His ghostly version only continued to stare at his own hands, repeatedly clenching and unclenching them. Their face, twisted into a mix of intense sorrow, horror, and disgust, held more emotion than any living person Subaru could imagine.
“Hey, you ok?” he asked the only question he could think of. In that moment, many passersby had taken note of the strange boy seemingly talking to nothing. Some ignored his antics, while others stared and commented in whispers.
“Mommy! Is he talking to spirits?”
“I don’t know, sweety, but don’t point at strangers like that.”
Subaru sweatdropped, “I think we should get out of here.”
He looked at the ghost still standing in shock. He thought perhaps this wasn’t what he had imagined.
Maybe he’s a mimic sent out to distract me from... I don’t know, whatever my mission is after being summoned.
“Uhh, if you wanna tag along, I won’t stop you, but I gotta explore this place a little more so...”
He turned to leave, but he took no more than 10 steps before Ghostbaru popped up out of nowhere in front of him.
“Whoa, what the—“
He still had that horrified expression on his face, except slightly more aware of his surroundings. He looked around rapidly before facing Subaru.
“W-what’s... happening?” He asked meekly, “Why’s my body like this?” He hugged himself in an attempt to seek a false sense of comfort. “Why do you look like me?”
Subaru took a step back upon hearing the stream of questions, but decided this wasn’t the place to keep talking.
“If my guess is right...”
He continued to walk through the streets, and just as he had suspected, the ghost continued to follow his trail by popping up every ten to fifteen steps. It was obvious the ghost didn’t do it of its own intention.
Every teleportation seemed to bring back more of Ghostbaru’s senses. Each blink of displacement—one moment at the fruit stall, the next at the corner of a cross-street ten paces on, returned more memories to him, like colour bleeding back into a washed-out painting. He would have started crying earlier, but his eyes seemed to have lost the ability to produce tears, and that had hurt him even more.
“Oh shoot.”
He lifted his head, floating above the ground—hovering a few inches without effort or intention, and tagged behind his physical self; he saw a rather familiar scene. An alley, wide enough for 5 people abreast, its walls of dark stone slick with moisture, leaving most of it in a murky half-dark that suited the three figures blocking the path just fine.
“Oi, cough up everything ya got, and we might let you off easy.”
The gears in ghostbaru’s head had begun turning just a little. His earlier quivering ceased to a certain degree as he analysed the situation.
“This must be a compulsory event!” Subaru jeered, “I don’t suppose you’d have any advice?” He aimed his question at the phantom only he could see, irritating the three thugs even further.
“Who the hell are ya talking to, brat?!”
Ghostbaru looked at them and then at Subaru.
“Go for the middle one first, and the tiny one last.”
“Gotcha! RAAA.” And he swung with a speed and force that shocked all three, landing a punch right on the middle one’s nose, and probably even breaking it. The crunch of cartilage cut cleanly through the alley’s silence as the man’s head snapped back. The phantom sighed in relief, remembering this like a scene out of an anime.
The next punch landed similarly on the largest one, effectively disorienting him, causing him to fall to the ground. With a final kick across the entire body, the midget was blown across the alley, clutching his stomach in pain.
“Alright! How much experience did I get? Did I level up?” The Japanese boy celebrated as he asked Ghostbaru for the rewards of battle.
“I... have no clue.”
His arms slumped, “Bummer. Thanks for the advice, though. Looks like that guy had a weapon on ‘em. Would’ve been ugly if I left him for last.”
He looked past Subaru’s head to see the shiny gleam of a knife fallen out of its scabbard, “Yeah... Good job. You should, erm, get out of here now.”
“Is he talking to a sp-spirit?!”
He turned to look at the thieves making a run for it.
“You haven’t seen the last of us, bastard!”
“Right.” Subaru shrugged, “We should find a place to talk things out, too.”
He exited the alley, dusting his clothes. Only Ghostbaru noticed a flash of yellow hair jumping up the building while Subaru’s head was turned.
“What’s the next mission? I’m kinda starving right now, honestly.”
The ghost shook himself out of his internal debate.
“Yeah, uhh, turn over here.”
For the next few minutes, he guided Subaru towards finding a lost little girl with green hair crying her eyes out, calling for her mother.
“I don’t know how this helps me, but I don’t mind a few side quests.” He hummed in joy, “So, anyway, what’s your deal?”
The ghost didn’t answer, merely choosing to float along while Subaru followed.
“Who are you talking to, mister?”
“Huh? Oh, uhh—“
“A spirit,” Ghostbaru spoke, urging him to repeat the answer.
“Oh, it’s umm a spirit.” He spluttered, “Only I can see him.”
“Him? It’s a boy spirit?”
“Yeah, he... looks like a guy.” He didn’t know why he even hesitated to answer that.
2 hours later
“Thanks for the appas!”
“No problem, kiddo, it’s the least I could do for finding my precious daughter.”
He smiled as he waved the appa guy and his wife goodbye, “Guess that wasn’t actually a side quest after all.”
“Mhm.”
“You should really talk more. I don’t really have too many options here, y’know?”
They continued to walk. The sun had already set, and the city was blanketed in the night. Higher up, where the buildings narrowed and the rooftops disintegrated, the sky opened into something neither of them had words for. The stars shone above like little lights, far brighter than anything either Subaru had ever seen in the dust-filled skies of their home world.
“Where are we staying, though?”
The ghost halted in its tracks.
I... I never got this far last time, did I?
Before I d-
“Snow?”
He was brought out of his reverie by Subaru’s surprised voice, his hand reaching out as a snowflake softly landed on it. The sky had now darkened with clouds, completely erasing any sign of the dazzling stars they had seen mere seconds ago.
Then more snow followed.
Then even more.
“Weird... It didn’t feel like snow season in the day.”