Chapter 13: Confessions

Have you ever known a truth, a truth so bad, you’d do anything to keep it secret. A truth that does more harm than good. A truth so toxic you actively try to forget it as hard as you can? There are moments where truth is stranger than fiction. Where a single confession could warp your worldview in an irreversible way. You can never return to ignorance, there is no going back. But faced with a truth so difficult to accept, you're basically asking to be frozen in place. The only way forward in acceptance, and acceptance could very well be the most difficult trial yet. But where there is a will there's a way. And with friends at your side to help you come to terms, there’s nothing too difficult, it just becomes a matter of time. Time… and patience

Chapter 13: Confessions

When Kaiji finally made it home, his heart filled with emotion. He didn't think he'd get to see the old house ever again. He was so relieved to be able to walk its steps again that he couldn't help but smile. But the brief respite was short-lived as he remembered what he came back for, why he rejected the offer, and that he stayed out all night. No matter how he looked at it, he was in for a world of trouble one way or the other. First, they'll fight with him for staying out all night. Then they'll realize he was fighting phantoms again when they see his injuries. Then he’ll get another lecture as soon as he tells them about what happened. He said to himself as he ran through the mental checklist of all the things that were coming his way.

But when he opened the door, he wasn't greeted with a flying book or a sandal, there wasn't an execution block waiting for him to present his head, nothing, the house was completely silent. You'd say it was because it was a Sunday morning, but even then it was quieter than usual. His grandma was in the kitchen cooking breakfast when she heard him walk in.

“ah Kaiji, your back! Here take this to your grandfather, he's in the zen garden.”

She held out a plate of watermelon slices and lemonade. When he was younger that was what they would always have after a hearty training session. He didn't even think about it. his mouth started watering just at the sight of it. He grabbed it from his grandmother's hands. “sure thing Obasan”

As he walked through the outer deck of his grandparents’ house, he could see in the distance his grandfather training alone in the garden.

“Basan says that's enough! It’s time to eat!” he yelled

His grandfather was surprised to see him. then he smiled at him “it’s about damn time you showed up! I was about to pass out!”

They took a seat at the edge of the Zen garden along the edge of the patio under the shade.

Kaiji was a bit confused, it had only been a couple of days since their fight, but here they were acting like it never happened. I mean, he wasn't that surprised, that was the tradition in this house; if it doesn't matter, it never happened, but he thought it was such a big deal at the time so what gives? But he didn't want to ruin the peace just yet so he sat there and enjoyed some quality time with his granddad

Once the melon slices were rendered to nothing but rines and the glasses of lemonade left empty, Kaiji looked at his grandfather and couldn't muster the courage to bring it up. He felt the words pool in his throat as the silence went on and on. Eventually, the words reached his mouth and he was able to blurt out the two words that would get this party started.

“hey, Jisan…”

his grandfather looked at him, giving him his full attention.

“there’s something I have to tell you…”

then Kaiji proceeded to tell his grandfather all that had happened. he explained it from the very beginning since they had that fight that one morning, how he fell off the waterfall, met aurora, and how he’s been fighting ghosts ever since, how he made some friends, and how he tried to respect his wishes about not fighting but then he ended up stumbling into a major phantom that nearly took his life. How they offered him to be a part of the demon-hunting corps and how he couldn't accept without talking to them first. He told him everything.

And Kaiji's grandfather rubbed his chin as he pretended he had no idea what was going on.

“I see…”

Kaiji waited in anticipation for his grandfather’s reaction.

“I’m glad you told me, son.” He said “I already knew something like that must have been why you didn't come home. I’m just glad you came back to us safe.”

“Wait, so you’re not mad?” Kaiji said

“Why would I be mad? You manned up and told me the truth, that takes a lot more courage than facing down a wicked phantasm”

Kaiji couldn't believe it. surely this isn’t real. not even a single lesson to be lectured. Who was this man and what did he do to his grandfather?

“With that being said, you’re incredibly reckless. How could you jump off the top of a waterfall like it was your typical diving board?”

and there it was…

“nearly getting encased in stone, run over by a giant lizard, having your soul stolen by stumbling into a haunted house based on some rumor you heard at school? Kaiji, you're smarter than that! Use your head boy.”

He stood up and extended his hand to help Kaiji up as well

“if this is the path you're gonna follow, you need to wise up. You need to know the true risks. It’s not just dying, or being forgotten. Your actions affect more than just your life you know? It's time you learned the truth.”

“Kaiji had no idea what his grandfather was talking about. They walked together to the dining hall and sat together, him, his grandmother and his grandfather all sat together in a circle.

His grandfather started narrating

Over a hundred years ago, demons ran amuck around this land, people would die in droves, devastation was rampant and people lived in constant fear of being devoured. Until one day, the village's strongest banded together with blessed weapons and fought the monsters back.

They were henceforth known as the Demon corps. For generations, they fought back against the ghouls and ghosts, until people started forgetting their very existence. Society moved on forward with zero regard for their safety because the corps was so efficient at protecting them. and in time they moved from the limelight to the shadows. Knowledge is power, and when people stopped thinking about the threats that bind them, they stopped worrying about them, and when they stopped worrying about them, the threat became less real. now there was no need for an army of demon hunters. With just a hand full of them you could feasibly maintain the balance with no trouble at all. 

There was a time where there were only three. They were known by those who were aware of the spirit world as the “big three.” warriors so powerful they dwarfed all who opposed. The latest in a long line of hunters dating back to the very beginning. They were a family. A mother, A father, and their son. But one day, they were sent to complete an impossible mission and paid for it not with their lives, but with their youth. The monster emitted some sort of radiation that rapidly aged those hit by it. Their clothes deteriorated and their hair turned silver in a matter of seconds. The son saw what was becoming of his parents and sliced the monster's head clean off hoping it would reverse the effect. But it did not. When they got back they were given the chance to retire and leave it all in the hands of their son. They really had no other option, they could no longer fight. So they conceited. Then one day, the son disappeared. He ran away to demon world breaking the chain of guardians. He never said anything to anyone about it, one day he was just gone. all he left was a spellbook marked on the page that instructed how to create a portal to hell. Since then, supernatural awareness has spread more and more making the balance harder to keep.”

“Wow” Kaiji said “that's so sad… I'm glad you told me. I'm sorry. I'll take this job more seriously from now on.”

“That wasn't the end of the story, Kaiji” his grandmother said. “the son who ran away wasn't their only offspring. There was another, a boy who was no older than 4 years old when all of this happened and couldn't possibly remember his life before the tragedy. That boy was you Kaiji”

“what? no. no! I’m… my parents were… I have a brother? wait when I was four… does that mean.. then my parents, what happened to them? where did they go?” Kaiji asked desperately for answers

“they’re actually a lot closer than you might think” he said looking at his wife Himiko

“we’re right here, kaiji” she said

“basan, Jisan, you…”

his grandfather gave a solemn nod. Kaiji's parents never died, in order to protect him from the world of demons, they fabricated a life to keep him safe. Made him believe they were his grandparents. But in reality, they were his parents all along.

He tried to fight it but he couldn't stop himself from crying. He felt a surge of emotions. Although later he would become conflicted on the fact that his childhood was built on a lie, right now, he was just happy to know that. throughout his whole life, his parents were always by his side.

...

Later, he was in his room when the thought first crossed his mind, he didn't want to do this anymore.

His parents paid the ultimate price because of this, and in a way, he already had as well. He was lying in his bed looking at the rays of the sun shining in through his window when Aurora called him. He didn't pick it up. It rang again and again but he just tossed it aside.

“Kaiji!” the scarabs hologram lit up anyway “I never got the chance to tell you, what you did last night was amazing! You did something that no one has ever been able to do for centuries. You have a real knack for this spirit boy! And to think you did it all with only the basics under your belt! In time I have the confidence-” but before she could finish Kaiji cut her off

“It's over aurora, I'm done.”

“What?” she said

“I’m through fighting ghosts.”

“Kaiji.. what’s wrong?”

“I… I just can’t right now, okay? Leave me alone!” he yelled at her.

Kaiji was the kind of kid that lashed out as a cry for help. And she knew that.

Her hologram walked over and sat beside him on his bed. She put her hand on his head.

“Kaiji… what’s wrong?” she repeated

He was shocked to see her still there. so he opened up.

“It's my parents, they told me what happened to them.”

“oh, I see” she sounded like she already knew about it thought Kaiji

“I’m sorry. I know it must be difficult right now but it’s just a matter of time, Kaiji, you’ll see.”

“I don't know, it feels like this moment will never end. These feelings… they'll never go away. I don't think I’ll ever get back into demon hunting. I’m just really overwhelmed right now and I don't think I can take it for much longer.”

Aurora looks at Kaiji for a moment and remembers, as gifted and as reliable he is, he’s still just a kid. And kids sometimes need a little help.

“hey,… it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. Sometimes the water gets up to our necks and we can’t breathe as easily, and sometimes it feels like we're carrying an 8-ton weight on our backs every single day. It’s easy to forget how to take care of ourselves.”

She looked at Kaiji and how his gaze didn't stray from the ceiling. She wasn't getting to him. She pressed her lips together, pensive about what Kaiji was saying. When suddenly she got an idea. Then, she resigned herself and the hologram disappeared.

His first thought was that she gave up too easily, he whispered under his breath “no one ever cares, when push comes to shove, no one ever really pulls for you”

He wasn't sure why he said all that, but he just couldn’t think about the prospect of spirit battles right now. A  nd the thought of jumping right back into it, he just couldn't deal with it and it made him lose his temper.

But he wasn't happy about yelling at aurora “I’ll have to apologize for that next time I see her” he thought to himself

“Is that really what you think?” Aurora’s real voice rang across the room. It spooked Kaiji enough for him to jump out of his bed. He was shocked to see her, he hadn’t seen her in person since he died.

“You’re so focused on brooding in your room about how ‘no one understands me” she said in a mockingly comedic low gravelly voice “that you didn't hear me pop in to help you in person.” Kaiji stammers and he defensively retorts “I-I didn't say that!”

Aurora smiles and rolls her eyes at the helpless boy and extends her hand

“C’mon, I wanna show you something”

Kaiji looks at her hand and then looks at her face. He sees the sincerity in her eyes and reaches forward grabbing her hand. But when she grins, all at once Kaiji knows he made a mistake. She grabs him with both hands and shouts “hold on tight” before pulling him into a wormhole. it didn't feel like falling. It was more like the feeling after a dive when you're rising towards the surface. The hole wasn't a hole but more like a tunnel filled with purple and green light and you could see the night sky in the distance.

“Where are we?” he finally asked

“we’re in the space between spaces outside of the realm of the living… and of the dead, it’s how us gods get around. It would take way too long to walk or fly everywhere we need to be, so we use these tunnels.”

“whoa so it’s like a shortcut?” then it hits him, “wait a minute, then why haven’t you used this on me before? If you have a power like this, why am I always running around on foot?”

she looks at him, narrowing her gaze.

“because your only running around the block, a power like this would be wasted on such a short journey”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Bending space over such a short distance would be futile, it would take just as long if not longer to go through here as it would to just run, plus it requires a lot of energy so I can’t do it too often too quickly which Is why I reserve it for long flights.”

“oh I see… wait, if you only use this power for long trips, where are you taking me?”

Aurora smiles, “I thought you’d never ask, we’re going to one of my favorite spots in otherworld.”

“Why didn't you just use the scarab hand thing like you always do?”

“you’re the one who threw it across the room, dummy!” she said

“oh… right…” he sounded guilty

“And besides, this way’s more fun! Oh look! We’re here!” then something snapped, aurora realized something she never told Kaiji and thought up a twisted plan, she put her hand over her mouth to cover her sinister grin, she pulled Kaiji closer and said “here we GOOOOOOO!” as she tossed him out the wormhole to a fall of nearly 30 meters.

“eh? What are you doiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing?!” he blurted out as he fell out the wormhole

it no longer felt like ascending to the surface, it definitely felt like he was falling to his death.

She slipped out the wormhole and gently floated down. She then calmly walked to where Kaiji landed

“Te-hee how do you feel?”

Kaiji pulled his face out of the dirt and screamed “how do I feel?! How do you expect me to feel? Thanks to you I fell nearly a hundred feet!” his face was imprinted on the dirt so perfectly, You could make a mold out of it!

She waved him off dismissively “yes yes that's good and all but how do you feel?”

“What?” Kaiji was confused and his anger subsided, then he realized he wasn't hurt at all, not even a scratch

“Hey what gives, that was one nasty fall, but I don't even have a nose bleed.”

“I forgot to mention this last time I took you to spirit world” she summoned a giant hammer out of thin air, “no matter how hard you try or how hard you get hit” she let the hammer go and it started tilting towards Kaiji, he tried to stumble his way out of danger but to no avail, the hammer fell on top of him nonetheless. She then lifted the hammer revealing a flat squashed Kaiji embedded into the dirt. Another perfect copy! But when he got up and checked himself he saw he was fine “you can’t get hurt.”

Kaiji, flustered, got up yelling “well you could have just told me that!”

“Now, now, where’s the fun in that?” She said

“Well anyway that's why demons are so focused on getting into the realm of the living, they can’t show off their strength if they can’t get hurt. So they go to your world to settle their grudge matches. And once they’re there they get a taste for power and stay.

“hm so they're masochists huh? No wonder” he cleans the dirt off his clothes and takes a look around. All he saw was a massive grassy field. It didn't look much different than home.

“So this is your favorite place in the universe? How come?”

Aurora shrugs her shoulders and holds her hands out “ehh I don't know yet but it’s well over one of my favorites so far.”

Kaiji looks around and for a moment he considers what she’s saying but all he sees is a plain of grass leading to the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. “I don't get it, what’s so special about it? it's just a grassy plain, there are millions of them on earth.”

“Yes but this one is mine” she quickly responds “we are standing in a world untouched by civilization, untouched by life, we are in a world where the only living things are the protozoa in the water and the greenery at our feet, it's a world devoid of eukaryotes.” She walks forward towards the cliff then turns and extends her hand to Kaiji “here, follow me”

he looks at her hand for a moment, he thinks about how silly it is to hold someone’s hand for such a short walk, plus, last time he took her hand she tossed him across the universe.

But nonetheless, he takes her hand and she pulls him up off the ground. Together they make their way towards the edge. As they get closer some shapes start to become apparent on the cliff's edge, “take a look around Kaiji'' he looks at the ground and sees a collection of rocks arranged in a circle, he recognizes them, well not them but something similar, he remembers the photo on his textbook from school, the Stonehenge, arranged by a civilization so old we know nothing about them. well, otherworld has a record but that's neither here nor there.

“You said no one’s been around here, but these rocks... they don't look natural. So what gives?”

“That's why I brought you here” letting go of Kaiji's hand, she manifests her trusty staff and walks towards the center of the rock formation, she takes a deep breath, swings up her staff, and bashes it into the ground cracking it beneath them. The shockwave throws him back into the air as the cliff starts to crumble and fall into the sea. But then, it stops halfway down, and… starts floating back up to where they were. That was when Kaiji realized, Time had begun to move backwards. As if someone had flipped the hourglass of time. Kaiji turned his head to Aurora distraught. “What's happening?”

she floats towards him to close the gap and explains “you said those rocks weren’t natural right? well take a look” she points him in the direction of the grassy grove where they stood. Kaiji watched as the grove grew patchy and brown as the ground started sinking into itself forming a small crater, then the crater started moving back further and further away from the cliff as more ground formed along the edge, or rather returned from the sea from whence it fell an unknowably long time ago. He saw as the crater moved back and back and as It moved the landscaper began to change, what was once a grassy plain by the edge of a cliff was now a vast stretch of dirt and rock, at the distance, you could see the beginnings of a desert where the ocean used to be. He saw how the sand came from the water and formed enormous dunes as far as the eye could see. It was a sight to behold. Aurora tapped him on the shoulder and said “turn around, you’re gonna miss the best part”

He turned to see the crater was as wide as a mountain and how a peculiar stone had risen from the ground; small, porous, and black like the night, and surrounded by fire. He saw how it began to glow red, then a molten yellow, then as dust clouds formed around it, it shot up into the starry sky, and from where that black porous rock sat, a towering mountain formed in front of them where the crater once lay. Then as soon as that rock flew out into space and out of sight, time once again began to move forward.

He saw as a comet crashed into the peak of that mountain top leaving a devastating crater in its place. He saw how it left a destructive mark in the face of this lifeless planet, he saw the grass grow around it, he saw the shifting seasons, the sun and moon endlessly rotating around this hunk of black rock, he saw the dunes fall into the ocean as the crater shrunk smaller and smaller over time, what was once an enormous abyss scarring the landscape was now merely a small blemish barely recognizable. The landscape recovered and the only sign of damage was once again on the edge of a cliff about to fall into the water and be forgotten forever. Kaiji and aurora gently floated back to the edge of that once great crater. Kaiji fell to his knees overwhelmed by what he had just seen. He remembered Kairi, Ben, Alice, his Oijisan and his Obasan, he realized just how small all of them were, and how little they all got to see of the big picture. And before he knew it, tears were streaming down his face. Aurora squatted down and rested her hand on his head as He cried for his family, for his friends and all the people he had ever loved. He cried for the deceased and all those that had suffered. He cried for himself and for the world. She let him cry there until there was nothing left to cry about. Then she helped him up and they sat on the edge of the cliff to see the sunset. 

They sat there in silence for a while until Aurora spoke up “I come here when I’m feeling frustrated and overwhelmed with all my duties.” She continued “with all the hustle and bustle and all there is to do in the spirit world I find it relaxing how peaceful this little planet is. I find comfort when I sit on this little space rock, what was once the cause of so much havoc, is now merely a small blemish in the face of it all. I admire how the grassy nulls recovered and took back what was once theirs. Even if it took time, a wound so ruinous had become nothing more than a minor imperfection. It puts things into perspective, it reminds me of my place in the world; how small we all are and how in our lifetimes we’ll never get to see change as great as this” she said while looking down at the space rock they were sitting on “That smallness… is oddly comforting.” Kaiji was taken aback by her words and shook his head, “no way aurora, you’re too important to be saying stuff like that, if it wasn't for you the real world and the afterlife would be a mess”

“Even so,” she continued “if I were to disappear one day, someone else would take my place. Now, I’m not saying they would do a better job than me. But eventually, we are all replaced and forgotten, some last more than others but the end catches up to us all.” She wags her finger at Kaiji, “it’s not like I’m the first guardian of heaven, just like you’re not the first spirit detective. sometimes, we get so swept up in the details we forget about the big picture, and when the time comes to make a decision, we freeze.'' These words shocked Kaiji. He looked at her like she was reading his mind. She continued “you must have your mind and heart clear, and at the moment of truth, when it’s do or die, you must have the conviction to take that leap of faith.” She leaned back resting on her palms “Life is about the choices we make and we have to commit, we can’t move forward if we’re always second-guessing or looking back at where we’ve been.” Kaiji looked out toward the horizon “I guess you’re right, why sweat the small stuff when you’re getting the job done?” Aurora looked at him with a hint of pride now that she had finally gotten through to him. “Atta boy” she playfully punched his shoulder

Kaiji knew she was right, he still had so much to learn and he was grateful that she was there to help him. “Thank you Aurora, I needed that kick in the ass” she closed one eye, snapped her fingers, and aimed a finger gun at him. “anytime spirit boy.”