Chapter One - 3
3
“Did you talk?”
“Yeah.”
Kirisame and Miki were gathered around the front desk. Utamika wasn't there. It seemed she was in the back eating cake.
Kimiyo explained what she and Kito had talked about. Miki gave the occasional giggle. Kirisame listened in silence.
“A knight and a princess. This story just gets more and more dramatic.”
“She wasn't a princess. She was a lord's daughter.”
“There's no difference.”
“Yes there is.”
“They're the same.”
“...”
Kimiyo remained silent, and thus avoided a pointless argument. Miki affectionately drew closer.
“I don't know if the story's true, but that dagger in the storeroom could be evidence, couldn't it?” Miki asked, as though she were expecting something. “It's the only physical proof we have. However, the reason that dagger is kept in the library at all is a mystery.”
“It belonged to the librarian before Utamika. Apparently, he didn't want it, so he left it in the storeroom without permission. He said he got it from an art dealer in Tokyo.”
“I wonder if it really is cursed...”
“It looked like a regular antique to me.”
“Whatever. Let's get this show on the road.”
“Eh?” Kimiyo tilted her head. “Where are we going?”
“Isn't it obvious? We're gonna go smash that dagger. If it really is cursed to make you two reincarnate and kill each other for the rest of time, then I guess I'll just go break it.”
“That's awfully aggressive.”
“If it were that easy, someone would have done it already,” Kirisame said, holding out his hands. “The fact that the dagger is there in the storeroom today means nobody has been able to destroy it. If it could be removed from the world so easily, it wouldn't have gained such an exaggerated reputation.”
“Then let's just throw it in the trash.”
“Clever.” Kirisame patted her on the knee. “Miki, you're so clever.”
“Kirisame, you're making fun of me! Well, that's fine. Anyway, whether reincarnation really happens or not, we should just keep Kimiyo away from the dagger for as long as possible.”
“I wonder if that will really work.”
Kimiyo was skeptical. She was skeptical of almost everything that had happened today. Kito's words, the legend of the daggers, her own circumstances...
“By the way, how old are you now, Kimiyo?”
Kirisame was the one who'd asked.
“Eighteen.”
“I see, so the numbers work out. Kito said that he'd killed Kimiyo's past life in 1971. So that's the year the woman who was her previous life died. The current Kimiyo was born the same year and is now 18 years old. If she did reincarnate, then the math fits.
“What are you trying to say, Kirisame?”
“The problem is Kito's age. I don't know exactly how old Kito was in his previous life in 1971, but we know he was in college. So he must have been around 20. In his previous life, Kito – or whatever his name was at the time – was unable to resist his fate and killed his lover, Kimiyo's past life. He then died and was reborn. One can't be reborn without first dying. It's not hard to imagine how he ended up, but whatever the case, he must have died during or after 1971. If he had died in 1971, the reborn Kito would now be 18 years old. If he died after 1971, he'd be younger than that. In other words, Kito's current age must be the same as or younger than Kimiyo's age for this all to make sense. But what do you think? When I saw his face earlier, I didn't think he looked under 18. From what I saw, I'd say he's in his mid-twenties. How about it? You two agree, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So he lied about the reincarnation and the knights and all that?”
“I don't know. But simple arithmetic shows that what he said about your reincarnations isn't true.”
“...Who should I believe?”
Kimiyo muttered to herself as she stared at the end of her shoelace. The laces were still wet from the morning snow. The knot was slightly undone.
“You'll just have to trust your own judgment.”
“I'm not very confident in that.”
“But it's easier than trusting in someone else to make all your decisions for you.”
“Let's quit wasting time and look at the dagger already!” It seemed Miki was eager to make this an adventure. “We need to go to the storeroom. C'mon, let's go!”
Kimiyo stood up as directed, followed by Kirisame. Kirisame called Utamika from the back so that the front desk wouldn't be left unmanned. Utamika sat at the desk with a sleepy look on her face. Kirisame took a ring of keys from a small shelf. Utamika waved to them as Kirisame led them through the office into the work room, and from there to a door in one corner. The door was large and wide, and made of solid wood. Kirisame took a key and inserted it into the keyhole. The door was unlocked.
“Uwah, it's cold!”
Miki hugged herself. As she'd said, a dense chill flowed from the storeroom and spread quickly. Kirisame entered. Miki and Kimiyo, huddled together, followed him.
“Where's the light switch?” Kirisame muttered to himself. Eventually, he found it. “Here we are.”
The room was illuminated by dim fluorescent lighting, finally allowing them to see inside. A bookcase, a broken chair, scattered magazines, a cardboard box full of books, a broken light bulb, a small blackboard with squares drawn on it, a long-handled broom, a thick encyclopedia, an overturned table, a figurine of a frog, an empty glass case, a doll's hat, back issues of City Hall's official newsletter... The whole room was a mess. It was a strange other world. Kimiyo had been allowed a peek into the storeroom once before, but even then she'd felt as though she'd arrived somewhere else, somewhere far away. That feeling hadn't changed.
“There it is.”
The dagger lay haphazardly on the bookshelf. Kirisame took it in his hand and turned back to them. The blade was covered in gray and had a dull glow. It was covered in dust. The sharp point at the tip gleamed in the light of the occasionally blinking fluorescent lights. The handle was decorated with engraved metalwork. The dagger was less than 30 cm long. Kirisame turned back, dagger in hand. Miki and Kimiyo also retreated from the storeroom. Kimiyo coughed several times and cleared her throat. It might have been the dust.
Curious, Kimiyo wiped the dust off the dagger with her clothes several times.
“So this is the dagger that once belonged to a Headless Knight.”
But she couldn't remember anything from her previous lives, even when she saw the light reflect off the dagger's blade.
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