almost missed the opportunity for another pressing question that had crept up from the corner of my subconscious where I had banished it to due to its implications. It was the striking resemblance between the blonde before me and the one I had left behind in the outside world. However, I did not find the right words to voice the nagging thought that there might be a connection between them in one way or another. Maybe there was a bond of karma that connected their existences in an inexplicable manner, but it was not something I, a mere human, was able to perceive. It was strange how quickly I accepted the possibility of such metaphysical concepts, considering that I grew up in a world that was going down the path of science as the only valued, and thus considered valid, explanation. When I reminisced about the common sense that I grew up with, I understood that not knowledge but in fact ignorance had stifled the people's imagination and led to the decline of acknowledgement of the supernatural that permeated the world. Trusting in science's "there is a rational explanation for everything" blindly led to an arrogant and self-imposed limitation of the people's receptivity to things that could not be explained by it. This was successful in diminishing not only the cultural worth held by folklore but also the very spirituality that had defined the Japanese people.

However, the latter part was but a thing of the past and people who believed in something other than science were shunned by society at large. Even I, who studied the supernatural solely out of my sheer interest in them, had not believed in their existence. I had to admit that they held a bigger part in my life than just interest, but I had no illusions about the fact that they were stories to explain many formerly inexplicable phenomena. Yet, a part of me had been holding onto the dream, that maybe there was some truth to the stories. This small, but considerable part, had ultimately led me to where I stood now; I could finally see that common sense dictated and muddled our perception of reality. Thus, I took Yukari's words to heart and decided that in the circumstances I had found myself in, common sense was but a shackle of the outside world.

"There is one more thing, but I don't know how I should put it," I started, unable to formulate the issue that I felt was an intrusion into Yukari's privacy. "Do you know a person called Maribel Hearn? She told me that she came here a few times already and sometimes brought another girl, Usami Renko."

"Yes, what about them?" Yukari's expression revealed nothing upon answering with what seemed to me was a rebuttal. "I have watched their conduct but they have never caused any problems before, so I did not find it necessary to do something about them." It may have been just my imagination, but it seemed that she was not interested in discussing this topic any more. I decided not to press the matter and simply put it into another corner of my mind; I would find out whether there was any relationship between the two or not when I would.

"Ok, then we can go," I concluded and held my hand out to Yukari. She looked at it with a smile and took off her white glove before taking hold of it, as I closed my eyes upon the sensation of her soft hand. Once again, all I felt was a slight tremor, before my guide's voice reached my ears to tell me that it was ok to open my eyes. I found myself on an engawa, the veranda spanning the outside of a traditional house, and was looking into a perfect Zen garden with streams made of white pebble. The sun hung high in the blue sky dotted with the occasional stubborn white cloud. Tranquility was the first word that came to mind upon beholding this scenery in the glory of its purity, untarnished by anachronistic appearing gadgets such as a rooftop dish or electric lights. There were no brightly colored plastic-looking items that caught one's eye, making the sight calming to the modernity-ravaged mind of a person who grew up in a big city of the present.

"This is the Hieda residence," Yukari remarked and turned around to open the sliding door before which we had appeared. It revealed a young girl in a kimono, sitting in seiza at a table and writing with a calligraphy pen. The blonde entered the room and I followed, upon which I got a closer look at the girl; she had purple hair and wore a flower ornament in it. My guide sat down on something I could not identify without losing some of my restored sanity and I proceeded to sit down formally, across from the girl who seemed to be engrossed in her work.

It took a few more minutes and many elegant pen-strokes before she finally put down the calligraphy pen and sighed while turning her purple eyes to us. I thought that there was a similar glint to Yukari's in them, but they seemed to reveal wisdom rather than mystery. She appeared to be in her early teens, yet her eyes suggested that she was much older than I was.

"Yukari-san, what do you want from me this time?" The girl's bell-like voice rang out and addressed the blonde beside me, who hid her lips behind her folding fan. "I know your unreasonable ways, but at least knock before entering a person's room. More so if you bring a man with you." Her gaze turned to me and scrutinized my appearance before returning her attention to Yukari, who paused before responding to her inquiry.

"He came from the outside world, but I think he should introduce himself," The blonde answered, completely disregarding the purple-haired girl's remonstration. With these words, the latter once again turned her eyes to me, awaiting my self-introduction with an expression I could not read in the slightest.

"My name is Kagami Kyôma," I gave my name and bowed to the girl. "Yukari-san told me that you would be so kind to provide me with temporary lodgings. It is nice to make your acquaintance and I shall be in your care." The girl's eyebrows curved up into a light frown and she turned to Yukari with a clearly displeased expression.

"I would appreciate it if you informed me of such things before deciding on it," She said and her frown became more definite. "This is not an inn."

"Then you will not accept him into your needlessly expansive mansion?" Yukari asked with a rhetorical undertone so distinctive that it could not be called an undertone anymore. Upon those words, the girl sighed and turned back to me, her purple eyes now piercing me as if to see directly into my soul.

"I am Akyû of the Hieda. I am the Chronicler of Gensôkyô's history and it appears from today on also, once again, an inn-keeper," The girl introduced herself with an ironic remark, but I felt no animosity from her, as it seemed that all of it was either swallowed in resignation or, in all its impotence, directed at Yukari. "I will have a servant show you to an empty room later." With these words, she bowed slightly before me and returned to write on the scroll she had been working on before our disturbance.

Yukari gestured for me to follow her and we left the room and the young girl behind, and walked through the expansive mansion. Its size reminded me of the house of my grandparents way out in the countryside, in a village of fewer than a thousand souls. In fact, the lack of modern technology and the well-kept ornamental paper sliding doors were almost the same. We soon walked through the entrance area and opened the front gates, upon which the sight of the village opened up before me.

My first impression was that it was clearly bigger than the hometown of my grandparents, but it could not be called anything else but a village. The buildings looked like those seen in photographs of the early Meiji era, when foreign influences had not yet begun to influence Japanese architecture. It made me think that the whole of Gensôkyô was suspended in a time before the Black Ships under Commodore Perry appeared in the bay of Edo and while Japan was still culturally isolated from the rest of the world.

The Hieda estate was located at the edge of the village and on a slight elevation, so I was able to see the entirety of what the humans had built in this fantastic world. There was a palisade wall surrounding the village and a small river ran through its center, giving me the impression that I now found myself in the Sengoku period, when many villages had built fortifications against raids from deserters and bandits.

"What do you think? This will be your home from now on," Yukari said and closed her fan. Her eyes showed a hint of weariness as she let her gaze sway over the village, witnessing the bustling life of humans in their natural habitat. "Now, if you would excuse me, but I do need my beauty sleep."

"So that's the secret to your otherworldly beauty, huh?" The words slipped out before I actually thought about them and I turned my gaze away from the blonde. I felt her eyes on me and was pressed to look back, astonished to see a slight blush on Yukari's cheeks as she covered her lips with the fan, her eyes smiling at me. "Th-thank you for bringing me here, Yukari-san. I hope I can see you again." I stuttered away to avoid an awkward silence between us. Finally, she lowered the fan and gave me a heartfelt smile, one so bright that I could only stare at her, bewitched by her beauty.

"You will, Kyôma-kun," Yukari stated mysteriously and took a step towards the village. In the middle of it, she simply vanished. I could not comprehend how she had done it, as I had not blinked. When I shifted my point of view slightly I was just able to see a rift in space as it closed before my eyes. I sighed and smiled, feeling that the rightness of my choice to enter a world of the unknown which could astonish me on so many occasions had been confirmed once again.

Just when I thought that, a gust of wind blew up the dust from the street before me and forced me to cover my eyes. Suddenly I felt the presence of a person and when I opened my eyes again, a girl with deep red irises stood before me, a victorious grin on her lips, a notebook in her left and a ball pen in her right. She wore relatively modern clothes, including a short-sleeved white shirt with an autumn-leaves print and a short black plaid skirt. The most notable features of her outfit were the single-toothed red Geta, which elevated her to my height despite her otherwise only medium height. A red armband adorned her right sleeve, reading "Collecting Material" and a red Tokin hat sat on her shoulder-length jet black hair. A reflex camera was dangling from a strap around her neck, as if to mock my previous thought about the time period this world seemed to be frozen in. Her appearance screamed to me "abandon your idea of this world to be a uniform place set in an age before Western influences", and only served to crush my initial image of Gensôkyô.

"First on site, like always! I'm the Traditional Reporter of Fantasy, Shameimaru Aya, and I'm here to write an article about you!" The girl introduced herself with an upbeat attitude before inching closer and staring me directly in the face. "Shall we start the interview right away? Please tell me your name, what you did in the outside world, how and why you came to Gensôkyô, and what you intend to do from now on." She spoke like the whirlwind she had appeared in and I noticed the professional glint of a journalist who found a scoop in her eyes, something I had seen a few times when I passed sites of accidents or other situations of interest. Up until now, I had never wasted a thought on such things, but now that I became the target of it myself, I felt like I wanted to avoid the whole situation.

"I... I'm Kagami Kyôma, nice to meet you," Was all I could muster up in my confusion. I was not sure if I should disclose anything to a person I just met, especially somebody who gave off a light aura of the supernatural such as her. From her appearance alone I would have only been able to say that she was human, but the windows to her soul, her red eyes, betrayed her nature. Alongside the professional glint, there was something distinctly otherworldly in them, which raised my suspicions as to her humanity. However, a wide innocent appearing smile, especially accompanied by the questioning expression on her face upon my continued silence as I scrutinized her, easily distracted from that fact. She looked like a girl who was having fun at what she was doing.

Still, I found that her pushy attitude did not sit too well with me and decided to subtly excuse myself and return inside the estate to ask Akyû or a servant to show me my room. Just when I was about to speak, I heard footsteps behind me and turned around to see a woman in a rather plain Kimono and a similarly plain face coming through the gate behind me. Her clothes suggested that she was not a member of the Hieda family but someone in their service, so I felt relieved when I did not have to make any excuses to Aya.

"Good afternoon, Shameimaru-sama. Thank you for always bringing us the newspapers," The servant greeted the journalist and beckoned her to come closer. I was astonished to see that this girl seemed to be well regarded in the Hieda household as the two started to chat away, completely forgetting about my presence. Basically, they were gossiping, but I noticed that the one named Shameimaru Aya was writing in her notebook occasionally without looking at it. I assumed that even when it was idle talk, her professional attitude did not easily change and compelled her to take notes, so that she may be able to find something useful in them later. It did not take them too long to finish their chat and both turned their attention to me, who was standing next to them in awkward silence.

"Kagami-sama, I am to show you your room as per Akyû-sama's orders," The servant girl was the one to speak up. Suddenly, Aya's eyes were beaming and she stared at me with rekindled interest, as if she had spotted a big scoop. "You are going to live here from now on? Could you have been chosen to be the head of the house's next partner to preserve her line of blood?"

I was completely taken aback by that question; not only was I unaware of the practices of the Hieda household, but I knew that Akyû was, despite her apparent age, the head of the house. Asking whether I and a girl in her early teens would...

"No, he is only staying here for a while, as he just came from the outside. Until he establishes a livelihood in this town, we will provide for him." I was saved by the servant as my mind deliberately derailed the previous train of thought to stop it from crashing into my rationality. "But who knows how the head will decide after a while?" That was an unnecessary addition, but I regained enough composure to change the subject while clearing my throat.

"Well, could you please show me to my room? I feel quite tired..." I said and did not even need to feign drowsiness; the outside world seemed to be in a different time zone, as it had begun to get dark when I had left there, while it was barely afternoon in Gensôkyô. Aya did not seem to be convinced, but let the matter go; however, she followed me into the house and continued to chat with the servant all the way until we reached the main building. There, she split up from us and proceeded in the direction of where I remembered the room of Akyû was.

"My name is Suzune Yôko, the housekeeper in charge. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me," The servant finally introduced herself when we were alone, and gave me a charming smile, which added several levels of beauty to her otherwise plain face. She seemed like a nice person and I felt reassured, knowing that she was just a human like myself. The reason for why I was positive about it was that she did not have any supernatural presence at all, something I seemed to have become sensitive to. "This is your room, if you need any special items, please feel free to request them. I will make sure that it is delivered to you as soon as possible." We came to a stop in front of a room facing the inner garden, right across the one in which Akyû was working. I could see the sliding door to her room closing, catching a glimpse of jet black hair and a fluttering plaid skirt before they disappeared behind the colored paper screen.

The room given to me was slightly bigger than the single-room studio I had lived in up until less than an hour ago. In proper Japanese fashion, the interior was pretty much empty and only minimalistic streaks of subdued colors adorned the otherwise white paper sliding doors and walls. A low table with a seat cushion stood at one end of the room, and I assumed that the oshiire, the paper sliding door leading to a closet let into the wall, housed a futon set.

"Thank you very much, Suzune-san," I thanked her, but she gave me a warm smile and corrected me. "Please call me Yôko." Surprised at the comfortable familiarity she asked for, I did as I was told and continued. "I happen to have a request already, Yôko-san. Could you bring me books about Gensôkyô? I heard that Hieda-san is a chronicler, so she should have many books that explain this world and its history."

"Very well. I will bring them over later," Yôko complied and stopped to ask me something of a different matter. "Have you already eaten lunch?" I was reminded of the time difference between Gensôkyô and the outside world once again and remembered that I had not eaten dinner before leaving with Yukari. In fact, I did feel slightly hungry, but the tiredness that had piled up on me due to all the occurrences so far was stronger.

"I haven't, but I'm really tired now. I would like to sleep a little." Even though I had slept before going to the bath house, after meeting Yukari and coming to Gensôkyô with her, the sleepiness had returned and been clinging onto me. I guessed that it was the effect of what Yukari had explained to be the pieces of my soul hanging by a tiny thread. Maybe I had to mend it through plenty of resting and by keeping the charm on me at all times; I put a hand to my chest where the little cloth bag rested under my shirt. "Could you wake me up before dinner?"

"As you wish. Have a nice rest, Kagami-sama," Was all Yôko responded with, not showing any thoughts about my choice to sleep during the day on her face. She left the room and closed the sliding door behind her and soon her exceptionally silent steps completely vanished down the hallway. I found a futon in the oshiire, as expected, and laid it out on the floor. I sat down on it, put my backpack next to me but felt too sleepy to take out a pajama set and change into it. I lay down and thought that since it would only be a nap there was no need to get changed. This was my last thought before my eyes fell shut and I slipped into the welcome darkness of sleep.

However, once again I did not find peace in slumber. I found myself wandering through a world of black and white plagued by gusts of wind that eroded my body and caused pieces of it to crumble away into dust clouds. When I became aware of my present situation, I understood the fact that this was nothing but a dream, which enabled me to keep my composure. My steps were slow but I felt like crossing worlds with every single one, crushing insignificant landscapes underfoot. However, I came to realize that size was truly just relative, as when I looked up, I witnessed the depths of space, with shattered celestial bodies and bright dots that signified a distant stars covering the sky. Their twinkling was too vivid to attribute to just increased activity and soon I noticed that some of them flashed up brightly once, before disappearing completely. The realization that maybe I was seeing eons passing within seconds hit me, as a celestial body came crashing down in the distance and shook the universe. Cracks ran through the ground I stood on and I felt them extending into my body, as worlds were crushed and ground to dust right before my eyes. An exceptionally strong blast of air blew over me, followed by a wall of dust that completely robbed me of my vision.

When I could see again, there was only stillness, an infinite white plains under my feet and an unfathomable darkness stretching into eternity overhead. No wind blew and no motion occurred as far as I could see and even my own body seemed to have vanished, leaving only my thoughts in this duality of colorlessness. I closed my eyes and felt my body, seeing deep into myself as I followed the electric impulses running through my nervous system in stunning explosions of beautiful colors. Upon opening my eyes again, the duality had made way for an inverted landscape of twilight. The ground was pitch black and my shadow stood against it in pure white, as the dull white sky was adorned by a blindingly black sun. I felt that I was a part of this world just as much as it was part of me and closed my eyes once again, the scenery staying burned into my retinas.

Opening them one more time, I noticed that a rift had formed at the horizon, which was neither black nor white, but simple nothingness. It was that I simply could not grasp what it was and looking into it made me feel that it was looking back into me. Its existence was wasted on the human perception, as it could never be comprehended by beings that could only see the physical world. Nothingness was neither the colorlessness of white nor the extreme saturation of black, but rather the perfect center of either side, something that could not be understood by mere thoughts. As this rift grew bigger, the world retreated towards me, forming an island in the ocean of non-perception. I looked up to see whether it had happened with the sky as well and once again stared into the featureless face with my own eyes staring back at me. I felt familiarity emanating from it and my mind was tranquil, unlike the first time we had met.

There was no need for words, as I could feel my thoughts flowing into the one standing on the opposite plane of existence to my own. Similarly, its thoughts flowed into my mind, causing me to learn that it had a feminine alignment; alas, in this plane that concept was meaningless. She extended her arm and I did the same, and our fingers touched, when I suddenly felt something pull us down. The distance between us grew, the lingering feeling of having touched upon the soul of a lover separated by worlds remaining in our fingertips as we could only watch the nothingness close the gap between us and obscure our views of each other in impotence. Thus, we fell like drops in a mirror, the distance widening irrevocably as duality turned into singularity...

... and I woke up. I felt completely relaxed and my body and mind was cured of the weariness and sleepiness that had plagued both equally. However, when I sat up from the futon, I noticed that somehow my field of vision seemed to be smaller than I remembered, especially on my left side. I lifted a hand to my left eye and noticed that it was closed, and I was unable to feel the touch of my fingers, as if my nerve endings had stopped working. I was unable to will it open and it remained firmly shut. The eye was not moving under the lid, even as I moved my right one, suggesting that even the muscles surrounding it had ceased their natural functions. However, for some reason I did not panic at the apparent loss of an eye, as I still remembered my dream vividly. Maybe, I had lost something more important than half of my vision. When I lowered my hand from the blinded eye to my chest, I could not feel the presence of the charm Yukari had given me. Maybe it had come off in my sleep, but no matter how I searched, it was nowhere to be found. The loss of the charm would explain the revelations in my dream and the implications thereof; maybe the tiny thread that had held my soul together had finally snapped - in the visually most spectacular way I could imagine.

And I was still very much alive.

"Kagami-sama, are you awake?" Came the voice of Yôko from outside my room. "It is time for dinner, please prepare yourself." I could see the shadow of her silhouette through the sliding door's paper, as she stood there and waited for a response.

"Yes, I just woke up," I answered and was mildly surprised by how emotionless my voice sounded. In fact, it seemed that I was too calm for my situation, as if I felt no urgency even after losing half of my soul. On the other hand, I analyzed coldly that probably exactly because of this loss I had also lost half of my feelings. I stood up from bed and checked my hair by running my hands through it, making sure that it had not been disheveled in my sleep. I decided that I was presentable and opened the sliding door, before which Yôko stood. She looked up at me with a smile but it froze instantly when her eyes looked slightly above.

"What... what happened to your hair?" She asked and pointed at the hair on my left side. I assumed that it was sticking up and I had not felt it before, so I ran my hand through it again. "Does it look that strange?" I gave her an awkward smile, but she shook her head.

"No, the left half of your hair... is white."

Yôko brought me a hand mirror and I finally gained certainty that I had lost more than just the vision in my left eye. The hair on my left half had turned completely white, leaving me with a black and white head, as if trying to go for a Yin-Yang style. I acquired more certainty as to my theory that the previous dream had not been just a dream but rather a vision from my subconscious, telling me that half of me was now gone. Even then, I did not feel strong emotions about that and was able to smile and reassure Yôko that I was, despite appearances, alright.

"If you say so... I guess it can't be helped," Was all she said and did not press further, as I returned her hand mirror. "Are you feeling well enough to eat dinner?" She continued with the original reason she had come to my room and added another not-so-indirect question regarding my well-being.

"Yes. In fact, I'm really hungry. I'm looking forward to your cooking," I said and smiled, earning a slightly bashful smile. "I'm not the one who cooks the meals, I only oversee the preparations." Yôko led me along the corridor towards the sliding doors on the engawa perpendicular to the one before my room, also overlooking the central Zen garden.

"Excuse us," Yôko announced us and opened the sliding door, revealing a relatively large dining room, which more resembled a traditional dining hall in which banquets would be held. However, there were only two present, both people I knew; Akyû sat in the seat of the host, while Aya sat to her right, in the seat of honor. The former noted my changed appearance with a raised eyebrow, while the latter stared at me with obvious interest.

"What happened to your hair?" Akyû was the first to speak up, instantly inquiring about the issue of everybody's attention. "I don't know, when I woke up, I was like that," I answered, hiding my hunch, which had almost become certainty due to all the evidence I had. For absolute certainty, I would have to ask Yukari about the details, but until then I did not want anybody else to know. "I guess this only adds to my character."

"What's wrong with your left eye?" Aya asked about the other eye-catching condition that had appeared on my features since our previous meeting. "It has been like that since I woke up, too," I proceeded with my explanation, and to my astonishment, she simply swallowed this answer and fell silent.

This silence lasted until we began our meal, during which Akyû became a little more talkative and explained her relationship with Aya, as a chronicler and an information-gatherer. She also explained that the latter was a crow Tengu of Yôkai Mountain, but came to the human village frequently to sell her newspapers. My whole picture of Tengu was shattered at that moment, as I knew them only as red-faced, towering men with long noses and sharp fangs. This modern girl in her short skirt was clearly not what I had expected a real Tengu to look like.

During our talks, Aya remained unusually silent, especially compared to when she had approached me the first time we met. I assumed that she knew something about my condition, but decided not to ask her directly, seeing how she did not seem to find a way to properly express her concerns. In fact, my mind was so tranquil and unbothered by my new condition - I wondered if it had anything to do with the possibility of only possessing half a soul - that I did not feel the need to concern myself with it at the moment. We finished our dinner accompanied by meaningless chatting and scattered to our rooms afterwards, with Aya following Akyû to hers.

I decided to explore the estate a little while digesting the abundant dinner, and walked through the garden as well as the long but empty hallways. I realized that there were only few people in the Hieda estate and that aside from Yôko and the cook who made the meal, there could be no more than three other servants. Akyû looked too young to live alone, but as the head of the house, it meant her parents were no longer alive. Her appearance suggested that she was only in her early teens, but her composure and eloquence belied her age. I guessed that there was something more at work that I could not fathom with my limited knowledge.

When I returned to my room, I found that there was a batch of scrolls and bound books on the table. Apparently Yôko had brought what I had requested while I was eating or during my stroll, giving me enough to read that I did not have to brood over the vision-like dream from before. On the one hand, thinking about it might cause me to realize the gravity of what had happened; on the other hand, I did not consider it something to lose sleep about. I found myself in good health and felt no ailments other than the slight lack of emotions, which in turn cause me to feel even less urgency about my situation.

I did not feel sleepy at all, even though night was falling over Gensôkyô and laid its blanket of darkness over the village illuminated only by candles and lanterns. This included my room, as it was illuminated by a paper lamp in one corner, which did not provide enough light for reading. Thus, I somehow came to the decision that I wanted to take a stroll through the neighborhood, and see more of the village.