Vol 3 Chapter 6 (1/2)

Part VI: Records in Oblivion

Beyond the briar’s thorns there once was a deep forest, wrapped in fog

Froreen and the tiny whispers of insects

And deep into it, I passed

And further still did I walk

Until I chanced upon a knoll untouched by our sun, where I found myself in

the company of children

And finally I did co the lateness of the hour,

resolved to press home

“But you needn’t go home For here, your eternity awaits”

The forest children began to sing

And I wondered what eternity was

“It is when you linger”

“It is when you are unchanging”

The chorus of cradles recited in melancholy unison

Starlight shone quietly on the grass of the mound

The fog flowed together like purest milk behind me

And over my shoulder, the path home had been lost

I know little of this eternity

I try to hurry home

To a home far from this place

A home far from the children and the forest

And wrapped in the sreen and the tiny whispers of insects,

Inside the deep forest, wrapped in fog beyond the briar’s thorns,

They denied me home for an eternity

4 • KINOKO NASU

Records in Oblivion - I

December this year was less cold than I had anticipated, but was still

enough to bring a white cloud of breath with every whisper Nevertheless,

yesterday was its final day, and with it, the final day of the year Today is

a new year, my sixteenth one Surely, for many people around the world

today, they are greeting each other in a war

the one chance in a year they can share the warmth and sense of new

opportunity with other people

Not for h In fact, New Year to me has become the time of the

year where I want to chide myself for my stupidity, a time when the pillows

in ainst the wall and

stomp on them to vent; a time where I just want to will the rest of the day

away Sadly, hus

And so it is with a certain glumness of spirit that I hurry and make my

preparations to go to Miss Tōko’s office

Though I belong to a thoroughly pedestrian household, my family still

Insists that I dress in a kimono for the first shrine visit of the New Year

Indeed, they’ve already lain it out for me in my bed Still, I’ve never been

one for the traditional clothing, so I ignore it and head out of my room to

go downstairs

“Oh, Azaka dear, are you going out?” my mother asks as I climb down

the stairs

“Yes Just going to meet someone who I owe a favor to I’ll be home

before dark,” I say with my best smile as I depart from the Kokutō residence—my

household

The sky of the early afternoon day is filled with clouds, and not too

friendly ones, it seems Still, I think for a while that it reflects my mood

perfectly, and just that little bit of acknowledgement (by the world no less!)

eases my steps just a bit

I didn’t always hate this particular time of the year There was a time

when, just like any other person, I actually looked forward to it But it was

in 1996, exactly three years ago froed; my thirteenth

New Year when I went back to my real home for the holidays

The story truly starts with me, Azaka Kokutō, and the weak constitution

that rades in PE, and

everyone could tell the Tōkyō air was bad for my continued health And so

/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - I • 5

with that reason, the family packed me away to live with my uncle in the

countryside when I was only ten years old Since then, I only came home

during suo

back My uncle treated hter, and raised me

away from my family I preferred to keep it that way—even past the point

where my constitution eventually improved to become normal and render

the entire arrangement moot—for my own reasons

For you see, I have a brother, Mikiya Kokutō And I love him

To clarify, this is not, as you , the familial love between

close siblings, but the romantic sort of love between a boy and a

girl Of course, one ht suspect that a ten year old elementary school

girlto assume such a conclusion

But I was no idiot, even back then, and I knew better than most

exactly what sort of affection I was entertaining And though I can accept

e intelligence as a

comfortable lie I can tell s for Mikiya

are anything other than real Once I even harbored childish thoughts of

so him away from other people, never to let another see

his have since taken on a more sensible form, my

fondness for Mikiya never wavered I’ve known from the start that this was

a feeling never to be voiced, so as I grew older, I only waited, biding my

time for a chance

Even my retreat to the countryside was all part of my elaborate plan to

separatein him a propensity

to see inhis little sister I

don’t care what it says in the fao, and

I’ll only truly cootten me as a sister completely

Until then, though, I’d spend my days like a lady of manners After all, I

know exactly what Mikiya likes, so this was a fairly simple process It was a

plan so perfect even I have to enius

But then of course, a meddler had to make her Goddamned appearance

Pardon h school

days when I first explored the notions of love It was the winter holidays,

and I went back to the house when, of all the stupidest things to do, Mikiya

brought home a classmate of his It was clear for anyone to see that he

and this wo And when I saw this, I had

the curious and not altogether pleasant feeling of having baked yourself

a lovely cake, only for it to be beset by the desperate and hungry the moment

you look away The thought that my brother, who always seemed so

aloof before, would now be dating a girl, had never entered my wildest

6 • KINOKO NASU

is I mean, think about it He’d never even so much as looked that

way at any woman before, let alone had a relationshi+p with one!

I think I spent the next few days after that in a co

maybe, until I finally ca

after that when, still in distress over what to do about the girl, I got wind

of the traffic accident and coi And so Mikiya was

alone once again I must confess that when Mikiya told me the news by

letter as I sipped my tea on the terrace of my uncle’s house, that I sympathized

with the poor girl Even though I only met her once, I remember her

laughing heartily at what Mikiya had to say, her attitude full of energy But

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I felt soirl of

idle interest like shi+ki would ever catch Mikiya’s eye again All I need do was

graduate high school with recognition, and get myself into a sufficiently

reputable university Only a few more steps; a few more years—perhaps

eight—until the notion ofrelationshi+p with Mikiya was severed

But my enemy proved herself to be no common ken indeed, because

only last spring, shi+ki regained her consciousness Mikiya was beside himself

with joy at the news as he told me over the phone, but it only served

to harden s, but

only until I graduate froh school I would need to be frank with myself,

more so than before And from there, I picked up the pace My choice

of high school was perfect: a boarding school called Reien Girl’s Academy,

where tax bracketThis suited

a painter and artist, was only too

eager to ingratiate himself with potential patrons by my presence in the

institution And so I lodged there, to become a lady in their fashi+on

It’s been half a year sinceanother

accursed New Year, again re me of shi+ki’s continued existence I’d

actually planned to go to the shrine with Mikiya today, but that got soured

easily enough when shi+ki cae how

fickle such things tend to be in my life, and how she always seems to be at

the center of it all

I reat factories

serving as uide The old industrial area by the bay is still home to some

active steelworks, but by and large it is a place of rusted smokestacks and

cru brick walls, of old and abandoned warehouses, some of which

still have asbestos flocked within ceilings In the midst of it all stands the

shell of an office building, re eternally unfinished in its construc-

/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - I • 7

tion; no doubt the last hope to revitalize the district, only to falter and fail

My tutor in the Art of ot her hands on it

(through al), and made an office

of sorts there, for her “business”

When I reach the building, I go in and climb the staircase, each click of

e, and only Miss

Tōko herself knohat lurks in the second and third, and the fourth is

the office where me and my brother Mikiya often end up in; Mikiya as an

employee, and I as an apprentice I open the door on the fourth floor office

and announce

“Happy New Year”

“Muid

expression on her face

Somehow, the usual severity that Miss Tōko commands doesn’t seem

to diood looks at all In fact, in tandem with her white blouse

and black trousers, itWith her

glasses off, as they are now, you ht even doubt for a moment if she was

actually a woman

“Weren’t you planning to go out with brother dearest today?” she asks

with a characteristic lack of restraint from behind her work desk

“I was, but shi+ki calad

I’ about with Mikiya?”

“That I am I have some business to talk about with you, actually”

That’s strange It’s very rare for Miss Tōko to involve me in her business

I make her a cup of coffee, and whip up some tea for myself, before finally

taking a seat for myself

“So, what is it you wanted to speak to me about?”

She puts her hands behind her head and leans back on her chair “Just

wondering whether you’ve confessed to Kokutō yet”

Oh, for heaven’s sake I can tell from her tone that she’s not at all serious

about this

“No, I haven’t And it’ll be that way until after high school, at the very

least Now is there actually anything significant in my answer that made

you so anxious to ask me?”

“Nah Just speculating on how calm your ansould still be if I asked

the same question with Kokutō present I suppose I still wonder how totally

different you both are yet you still find an attraction for him Maybe you’re

adopted Ever considered that?” The tips of her lips rise into that familiar

sly bend of a smile

“Now I really don’t know if you’re joking or not,” I reply, but holding in

8 • KINOKO NASU

the froas supposed to make at her As if she somehow still read this,

Miss Tōko chuckles lightly

“Ah, Azaka, you carry yourself with such scholarly grace, but sometimes

the purity in your answers is so refreshi+ng Forgive me and my stupid questions

I need to get it out of my system at least once a year, shouldn’t I?”

“Well, I’d say you’re off to a roaring great start to the year then Anyway,

as it you really wanted to talk about?”

“So about your school You’re in your first year in Reien Girl’s

Acade happened to class

D of the fresh about it, would you?”

Class D? I think I have a hunch what she’s talking about “The class with

Kaori Tachibana in it, right? Unfortunately, I’m in class A, so I know very

little about the goings-on in class D”

“Kaori Tachibana, you say? Can’t say I recognize the name Not on the list

I have, at least” Miss Tōko frowns, like she’s wracking her brain for so

sheif there’s

some miscommunication between me and her

“Er…what’s all of this about?” I mutter

“So you don’t know,” she sighs “Guess I should’ve expected it, seeing

as Reien Acadeirls in

class D would know more, I suppose,” she concludes “Anyway, let me tell

you what I know about it”

Miss Tōko begins to tell the story of a strange incident that happened

only teeks ago Just before winter vacation, two students of Reien

Girl’s Acadeument,

and in the end, tried to stab each other with box cutters For such a thing

to happen at Reien, which is, at the best of times, eerily still and silent that

it seems almost like a place hermetically sealed-off from the rest of the

world, strikes me as supremely odd Worse, I never knew about it, a fact

which I can probably bla each

class froht

paint a bad picture of the institution

“That’s horrible,” I say, after Miss Tōko is done with the story “Are their

injuries serious?”

“Nothing too serious I’m actually more interested in the fact that they

attacked each other at all”

“Yes, I see what you enerally not the place you’d find

the type of people who’d try a knife fight in the halls Whatever its cause,

itfar back in their past

Or both”

/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - I • 9

“Right The subject of their quarrel coer

tidbit here No doubt you’re wondering why you didn’t know about this

earlier Reien’s policy on these things can be blamed up to a point, but it

largely isn’t their fault this time It’s just that it wasn’t immediately reported

It was only when the school’s Mother Superior looked through the infirmary’s

records did she find the nairls, and the cause of

their wounds She suspected class D’s homeroom instructor of deliberately

hiding the incident”

That would be Hideo Hayama, once Reien’s only male instructor, and

one of the only two in its history But he’d already left, having taken responsibility

for the breakout of a fire last November He was promptly sacked

and replaced, not by a nun as per usual, but by…

“Mr Kurogiri? No way It can’t be hi

Miss Tōko offers a nod

“The Mother Superior said as iri

fellow took to the job well, and became trusted by everyone almost immediately

When the Mother Superior interviewed him about the incident,

he supposedly couldn’t recall anything about the incident happening

under his watch She had to go and recite the particulars of the incident

to evenout of Satsuki,

and he genuinely see Never

struck the Mother Superior as a man to tell stories Since he’d proven his

trustworthiness before to both the faculty and the students, the Mother

Superior had to let hio”

But how can aso important in only teeks?

It just doesn’t seem possible At the same time, I myself can’t see a reason

why Mr Kurogiri would have any reason to break the school’s trust in him

“As for the reason the students took a stab at each other in the first

place,” Miss Tōko continues, “all the other students heard about it, since

the two girls started arguing in the classroom just after class when people

were filing out in the halls Apparently they each someho of some

old secrets they were keeping from each other And here’s the kicker When

they were interviewed, they were both secrets that both of them had already

forgotten”

“What? That sounds—”

“Ridiculous, I know These girls were childhood friends The Mother

Superior described theether Somehow, this secret

got out and ruined all that I think they both said when they were questioned

that it was close to a ot a letter in the mail,

and at first they couldn’t figure out anything about what the letter was

10 • KINOKO NASU

referring to Then, of course, they later understood what it was about It

told of old secrets taht they both didn’t want the other to know They confronted

each other, and found out that both had been sent a letter of the

same nature before they busted out the box cutters and started attacking

each other”

I don’t knohat to say Forgottenmentioned

in a letter sent by someone who they didn’t know, somewhere in

the country?

“You’re thinking this is a new case, aren’t you, Miss Tōko?”

“Maybe The letters didn’t have anything else written on them No

threats, no deh

to even figure out the past that even they forgot about If there’s a e’s

hand in all of this, I wouldn’t be surprised I only wonder what the ultimate

objective is”

The o the da

contents of the letter, it , even funny, for you to

receive letters about your life at first and not knohere they’re co

froive it a month and see if you still feel the same way Letters

about you containing facets of your life that even you didn’t know about,

written by soure atches

you day in and day out The paranoia that gripped the two girls must have

eaten away at them It’s little wonder they were driven to such desperate

suspicion

“Have they found out who sent the letters?” I ask

“Yep Fairies, they say,” Miss Tōko states succinctly

“Pardon me Could you repeat that?” I don’t know if my astonishment at

what she just said registered in my voice or not

“Fairies, like I said What, you don’t know about them? Even when so

many students in Reien say they see theifted

with Arcane Eyes, but it’s sort of a fa the students

Fairies, they say, will play beside your pillow at night, and when you wake

up, you’d find soone

as cleanly as though they never happened If it’s true, and not just some

crazy ru the memories for some purpose My

gut tells me there’s a connection to this and the incident in class D,” she

explains patiently

Though I still study the Art under her guidance, and I’ve seen wonders of

thauht to behold, I still find the fairy

story hard to believe

“Do you think it’s true, then, Miss Tōko? This fanciful story about fair-

/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - I • 11

ies?”

“I can’t say anything about so I haven’t seen yet, but if there’s

any place for fairies to be, it’s got to be Reien Think about it It’s perfect for

them: Isolated in the sticks, where you can’t even hear the faintest whine

of a car engine, maintained by some of the sternest rules and quiet nuns,

that don’t permit the latest in youth culture to seep into the institution

they’ve built The forest that takes up the larger portion of the grounds

is deep and large enough to get yourself lost for half a day if you’re not

careful The air is tinged with fragrance sweet enough to make you stay

and pass the tiression

Sounds pretty much like a fairy freehold to me”

“Wow, I am surprised you know the campus so…intimately, Miss Tōko”

“Obviously I’m an alumnus there, after all”

This time, I make sure to have my voice sound truly astonished

“WHAT?!”

“Stop giving me that look,” Miss Tōko says with an eyebrow raised

“What, you thought Mother Riesbyfe would just mouth off the latest

school gossip to an outsider? She’s the one that contacted ht

to see if I could do anything to get to the botto in

there I don’t exactly run a detective agency here, but I couldn’t turn down

the Mother Superior either Now, I can’t go in there again, since I’d stand

out tooand

hard—” she draws the tords out with a smile on her face “—on who

could do it for me… Azaka?”

No I turn away from her I don’t want to hear what I think she’s about

to say She looks ateyes before she continues

“Oh come now, Azaka It can be fun! I mean, come on, what do you think

of when I say the word ‘fairy?’”

“Tinkerbell?” I quickly blurt out, as if this would somehow dispel the

topic, at which point Miss Tōko chuckles

“A coes who try to

e of fairies But unlike familiars, the true fae are

not creatures brought forth through the s

of varying species Such things oblins, redcaps, or the oni of our

own country shi+fty creatures, the lot of them In Scotland, there are still

stories of fairies causingpeople…even some stories where

they cause bouts of forgetfulness a children into

forests to spirit the them with identical fetches

Though their pranks vary, all fae share one unique quality: their lack of

empathy for the victims of their tricks They are simply incapable of it They

12 • KINOKO NASU

do it because they deem it fun, not out of malevolence

“The incident in Reien could be their handiwork, but the act of writing

a letter seems to be out of their style It indicates some kind of malice and

manipulation, doesn’t it? I fear, Azaka, that our culprit may be the first kind

of fairy that you mentioned”

As ever, Miss Tōko never misses an opportunity to teach me more about

the invisible world she seeh with so much ease And like

a good student, I’m only curious for more

“So you’re saying they’re fae?” I

ask She nods in satisfaction

“Yes, and the kind borne froe

is probably using the

with the e wizard

be so obvious in his work is almost uncharacteristically amateurish for a

e Or perhaps he doesn’t have such a complete command over his fairy

faenerally favor

other things over them But this rank amateur has showed his hand, and

I’ it will be a perfect test for you, Azaka And so I order you as

your ate the truth behind these incidents before winter

vacation ends Find the source, and do what you can to eliminate it”

There we go Miss Tōko finally says the words I suspected she’d been

to say all this time In truth, the task scares me a bit, since I can

sense her hidden iainst an

individual similar to me and Miss Tōko, able to manipulate the very threads

of reality with the Art And she expects me to root him out I try my best to

hide my trepidation with a confident nod

“Well, if it’s for the sake of uess I have

no choice,” I sigh as I answer Miss Tōko rises froive me

some documents on the details of the situation, but before she can hand

ling at me

since the moment I suspected what she would have me do “But Miss Tōko,

I can’t even see the fairies I don’t have the ht or Arcane Eyes like

you do”

Unexpectedly, she rin that has only heralded her own brand

of mischief

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that detail I think

I can cook you up soh she

struggles to hold her laughter in, she doesn’t tell me exactly what she

meant

/ RECORDS IN OBLIVION - II • 13

Records in Oblivion - II

I leave the faculty rooh school

depart

“You know, I’ve been thinking Maybe Tōko is actually an idiot and we

just didn’t notice”

January 4, Monday Past noon Skies partly cloudy

Walking astride“better than

a pair of eyes” The enemy

“Having you of all people to sneak into the school with me? For once,

you have reement”

“This sucks I definitely got the short end of the stick this ti to

put up this act that I just transferred here on the third term”

We try to avoid looking at each other as alk through a corridor

of the senior high school building The girl’s nai Like all

students here, right now she’s wearing the Reien uniform, a dress patterned

after a black nun habit that almost always looks weird on any japanese

person And yet shi+ki wears it like an old glove When I see her dark hair

still distinctly visible even against the black fabric of the dress, and how it

can’t hide her slender shoulders and the pale whiteness of her nape, even

I have to adirl,

which of course, she is anything but The entire thing gives

of disgust

“Azaka, those two girls were just staring at us” And of course, like an

idiot, shi+ki is staring right back at the upperclassmen we just passed as

well It hasn’t been the first time it happened today, and after a few looks, I

think I have an educated guess as to what could be so interesting to them

In an exclusive all-girls institution like Reien, the androgynous nature of

shi+ki’s appearance must be some kind of anomaly There are few people

like shi+ki in here, and her presence is bound to attract some kind of attention

The sairls that we just passed must have only wanted to talk

to her in some kind of childish attraction

“Don’t pay them any mind You’re a new face Transfer students at this

level are just rare, that’s all,” I caution to her “It doesn’t have anything to

do e’re investigating”

“There’s a surprising number of students for the winter vacation, don’t

you think?”

“Ugh It’s a boarding school, obviously A lot of these people live far

away, and would rather just stay here over the break Only the library on

14 • KINOKO NASU

the first and fourth floor are actually open, but since the dormitories are

well-stocked anyway, barely anyone heads to theUnless you

need to report to the nuns for violating some rule”

Rules which are very, very strict, and the violation of which enough times

is enough reason to expel you “Don’t go outside” being the htly

held one, and they won’t make an exception even if your parents themselves

showed up Still, h,

which I found true with my erstwhile friend, Fujino As a man of capable

capital who donated significant money to the school, Fujino’s father found

a way to get her out whenever she wanted As for me…well, certainly my

high grades helped, which led toemployed by Reien as a

painter (which coo

here) They were more lenient of my excursions after that

Reious veneer and Reien itself is little different from other