章 1: Chapter 1: The Meeting
Ichikawa Karin opened her eyes and found herself gazing at the starlight skies, encompassing of large and small worlds and galaxies. Confused, Karin tried looking around when suddenly, her head hurt. She placed a hand on her forehead to try and numb the pain.
"Hello Host," a child-like male voice happily greeted her.
Startled, Karin turned toward the sound and found a glowing blue orb floating next to her.
"… System?" Karin questioned with uncertainty.
"Hey! How rude, I have a name, you know," said the orb, annoyed.
"Oh…" said Karin, realizing that the Orb is a technological intelligence system created by the technical department to help soul reapers with the collection of aggrieve souls. Knowing this, Karin concluded that she is in the Dream Scape, but she can't seem to remember how she got here. "And what is your name then, my new partner?"
The orb was silent for a moment before saying, "… I don't have a name."
Karin's brows crunch together in puzzlement. "But you just said-"
"Why don't you give me a name, Host?" The system interrupted happily in excitement. "Come on, you can call me whatever you like."
"System, then."
"Except that." His voice dropped, and Karin felt as though she was being glared at by this seemingly faceless flying object.
Fidgeting a bit under his invisible gaze, Karin tried to think up of a fitting name for this system, who probably wanted a human name instead of being referred to by its creation number and prototype.
"… How about 'Sho' then?" Karin inquired, finally deciding on a name after analyzing the floating blue orb.
"Sho?"
Karin nodded. "Sho," she repeated, drawing the character in midair with her pointer finger. "Sho, meaning 'soar' or 'fly'."
The system was silent.
Karin raised an eyebrow. "... Or we can go with Aoi if you like."
This seemed to knock the system out of whatever thought he was in, as the orb light up in happiness and the child-like voice joyfully reply, "No, no!" Karin imagined a cute round child shaking his head as the orb moved back and forth. "Sho! I like it! Thank you, Host." He sounded quite satisfied.
"So, I'm in the Dream Scape, right?" Karin looked around the place, wondering if she had upgraded or something, as the scenery had changed from its usual scenery into a picture of the galaxy instead.
Usually, when she enters her Dream Scape, Karin is greeted with a plain white room that consisted of a white table with two white chairs for the reaper and the soul client. On top of the table, Karin normally has her black tome with the names of the client and their information on it, a white vase filled with two daffodils in it, and a fruit basket with knives, forks, and plates made ready for snakes.
"Where's my other partner? And how did I get here?" Karin voiced her curiosity.
"Actually Host, this is not the Dream Scape," Sho answered.
"It's not?"
"No Host, you're actually in the World of Three Thousand."
"The World of Three Thousand?" Karin questioned in amazement.
The World of Three Thousand, which compresses of all possible worlds and dimensions in the entire universe, is similar to the Dream Scape, an illusion world created based on the real world in the Realm of Three Thousand in order to recreate the events that happened in that world without affecting the real world. Although soul reapers do get to travel through the World of Three Thousand to go collect willing souls who have no grievances, but those cases are rare, as soul reapers are stationed in all the realms and does not need to interfere with each other's regional ruling as long as they obey and maintain the universal law. Usually, only high-level soul reapers sitting in the realm of kings are allowed to travel between worlds. And even then they rarely do it due to the fear of getting lost in between dimensions.
On the other hand, the Dream Scape is a parallel dimension created and controlled by the 4th Division, also known as the I & T Division or the Engineering Divine, for soul reapers to help clear the grievances of the souls for easier collection. Thus, events in the Dream Scape may differ from that in real life, but will not affect the development of that world and cause a raft in time, which would give more headaches to the 4th and 11th Divisions responsible for fixing it. The Dream Scape was created to prevent too many souls from lingering in the Middle Realm for revenge and creating more problems. Instead of collecting souls right after their death, there are soul reapers assigned to clear the grievances of the body to successfully take the soul away from the Middle Realm for judgment. In this way, soul reapers usually work in pairs, with one person responsible for clearing grievance with the help of the system, while the other takes the soul and ferries it to the Spirit Realm to wait for judgment.
The job of a farrier is one of the easiest, but it is also one of the most boring job to have. Although there are occasional battles here and there with the residents of Hell who wants to devour the souls, and the risk of serpent attacks or soul escape or replacement if a soul gets pulled into the Acheron River to replace another. However, most of the time, it's all just ferrying back and forth between realms. On the upside, it is the most relaxing job to have, as long as you don't get pulled by the 11th Division to help fill out the paperwork and write soul records, which are provided to the system if the soul holds a grudge.
"How did I-? Ack!" A sharp pain rain through her head and Karin saw a flash of light. "Was… Did I get hit by a car? Or did someone cast a killing spell on me?" Although it was unlikely for this to happen in the Mortal Realm, but Karin wasn't about to rule out this possibility.
"Correct, Host," Sho answered. "You were hit by a car. And not only were you hit, but your mortal body is in a coma due to your unstable seal."
"Seal?" Karin spoke up in suspicion. "The seal on my powers? Was something wrong with it?"
"…There was nothing wrong with it," Sho answered. "But it's just that it wasn't right for you."
"Not right? What do you mean?"
"Unlike other soul reapers, even without training, your powers kept growing inside your body," Sho explained. "And without a proper way to contain it or let it out, the power began to slowly affect not only your mortal body, but also your soul.
"Usually, when this happens, the growing power would slowly destroy the seal, and that was what yours was doing, but… something happened, and your body suddenly had a large surge in spiritual power, and that surge not only damaged your soul, but also made it so that you can't return to your body. In order to save you, you were pulled in here. Here, in the World of Three Thousand, the aura is richer, better for spiritual recovery and repairing your damaged soul."
"…Recover?" Karin looked up in doubt and confusion. "Did my soul take that much impact? How is that possible? Why don't I remember…" Her eyebrows quince together in puzzlement as Karin thought back to what she was doing before to end up in this situation.
She remembered that she was going to celebrate her 21st birthday party with her friends and colleagues at a night club. Usually, this day would have been celebrated along with her twin sister, older brother, and father, but all of them were in the Spirit World while she was caste out. Karin gave a weak smile as she was reminded of why she was caste out and was forced to live in the Mortal Realm all by herself for the last four years.
Originally, Karin's father, Ichikawa Saito, is a Soul Reaper and her mother, Tsuchimikado Yayoi, is a talented onmyoji and the only pureblood princess of the Tsuchimikado Clan. Yayoi disturbed Saito's soul ritual, and accidentally sealed his powers, making him become a mortal by mistake while on a mission. Because of this mistake, Saito lost his memories and Yayoi, never realizing who he really was, took care of Saito due to the guilt of having involved him in her fight and injured him. The two fell in love as time went by, which resulted in the birth of three children. But their marriage was looked down upon though, as everyone thought that Saito was a mortal and the family valued purebloods. Thus, Yayoi lost the right to succeed the family to her older cousin and then-fiancé, Abe Kamui.
The children grew up trained as onmyoji. When Karin was 7, their mother died while protecting their brother from a demon and the family lost contact with the Tsuchimikado clan then, as their father took them to settle outside the clan. Finally, when Karin was 11, the soul reapers found them through her older brother, and the children found out that their father is a soul reaper and one of the governors of the Spirit Realm tasked with the judgment of the souls.
Saito had regained his powers when their mother died and had hope to hide them from the Spirit Realm to avoid punishment and his father's control, but because of their older brother, Tatsuya's, talent and service to Court, the Emperor decided to pardon him of his crimes and ordered Saito back to the Spirit Realm to stay until the day of his reincarnation into the Middle Realm. Thus, the family moved to the Spirit Realm and the children met with their strict grandfather, Ichikawa Houshou, and Saito's fiancée, Inohara Ayaka. Houshou forced Saito to marry Ayaka, much to the dissatisfaction of the father and children.
As time passed, Harumi, Karin's younger twin, became closer to Ayaka, Saito become more unrecognizable to Karin to the point of avoiding each other, while Tatsuya, upset with Saito's betrayal to Yayoi, rarely returned to the clan. Because of this, Karin became the next person to be control by Houshou, and he set her to marry the genius adopted son of the Fumi Clan, Matsuoka Tomohito.
At first, the two got along fine and as time passed, Karin really did fall in love with Tomohito, the man who listened to, comforted, and protected her during the time when there seemed to be no one by her side for her to lean on. He helped her review concepts to catch up with her classmates, and practice spells and fighting skills in order to impress her grandfather. He was her best friend, but he ended up betraying her and became the person who hurt her the most.
Even though he was engaged to her, Tomohito was actually in love with his adopted older sister, Fumi Yuna. Before being banished, Karin found out that Tomohito got close to her with the intention of using her to forget his feelings for Yuna, who was engaged to be married to her crush at the time, but that all fell when Yuna's heart was broken by the man and she came running back to Tomohito just months before Karin's 18th birthday and their marriage date. Because of Yuna, their marriage agreement broke, and Karin became a sinner branded with the crime of intentional murder.
At that time, Karin was at her lowest, and the only ones who trusted her plea of innocence were her father and older brother. Everyone else shunned and degraded her, calling her a vicious child killer and a jealous woman, appealing for her banishment. Knowing the reputation of the Emperor as being a seeker of truth and never handing out the wrong punishment, Karin believed that she would be saved, but she ended up faced with Yuna's smug look instead. The weak Yuna, who was clad in white to mourn for her lost child, acted pitiful and let out crocodile tears in front of everyone while being protected in Tomohito's embrace. His hateful and disgusted eyes and heart winching words still stings Karin to this day.
Back them the pitiful Yuna was surrounded by her self-proclaimed guardian protectors, one of whom was Karin's own sister, Harumi, as they all watched the disgraced Karin being sent back to the Mortal Realm to fend for herself, her powers sealed, and she became a mortal who is only left with the ability to see into the supernatural world.
Luckily, Tatsuya was able to contact their 2nd cousin, Abe Asahi, and got him to protect Karin in his place. Karin experienced a bit of depression the first few months of being in the Mortal Realm, but with Asahi's attentiveness, which often reminded Karin of Tomohito due to their similar personality, and Hinami Risa, Asahi's girlfriend's, care, Karin began to open up and tested into a university in Tokyo.
To keep herself from remembering the past and avoid Asahi, who also had the job of reporting back to her brother and reminded her too much of Tomohito, Karin busied herself with her studies, joined the track team and girl's soccer team, made friends, and had just recently gotten herself a job offer after interning for a Chinese Company that just started up in Japan. Among the seven inters, two of whom were Karin's good friends, of the company, only Karin was offered a job as the president's secretary.
Originally, the group of 10, the seven inters and three more of Karin's friends, went to Bloody Luna to celebrate Karin's 21st birthday and congratulate her on her promotion, as well as intending to get Karin drunk and into the world of adulthood.
They were all sitting around happily, drinking and gossiping about hooking up with the people in the club and laughing at some of her friend's failed attempts when… When what? What happened after that? Karin pondered. Did I get too drunk and got into an accident?
Thinking that this is likely to be the case, Karin's eyes burned with flames as she vowed revenge on those friends who probably carelessly tossed her to the side in favor of hooking up with men and let her end up in this position.
"Seems like getting hit combined with the power surge not only made you separate from your body and cause your powers to be in a mess, but also made you forget the events leading up to your current position," Sho sighed, bringing Karin out of her thoughts.
"So, what do I have to do to get back to my body, exactly?" asked Karin.
"You are familiar with the concept of the Dream Scape, right?" Sho inquired.
"Yeah, the soul reapers sign a contract with the aggrieve soul and then wear their body into the illusion world, returning to a certain time period within the soul's life, which is reasonably chosen by the soul or otherwise default to system's choice, and the reaper must complete the wish on the contract in order to clear their worldly grievance and safely collect the soul," Karin explained.
"Right," Sho seemed to nod at her explanation.
Suddenly, the position in between the two lit up in flames, but neither party showed fear of it, nor did they take a step back to protect themselves. Instead, both stood silently in place and Karin then felt a sharp sting from her right pointer finger. She looked down and found that her finger was cut and watched as the small stream of blood was carried by a seemingly invisible blade and tossed into the ragging flames. Once the blood was mixed in, the flames gave off a whooshing as it rose higher and bigger, changing from the yellow orange color to blood red. After that, the flames swirled up and condensed itself into a shining red orb that was almost as big as the glowing blue orb that is now named Sho.
Once fully condensed, Karin heard the call of a bird and at the same time, saw the symbol of a golden phoenix appear before disappearing into the red blood orb. Then, Karin watched as the scarlet orb was sliced in half and the top half shattered into red feathers, before slowly dissolving into golden sparkle red dust, disappearing into the World of Three Thousands.
"What…?" Karin began, staring out.
"This orb," said Sho, bringing Karin's attention back to the sliced orb, "reflects the amount of damage done to your soul."
"… My soul is damaged by half?" Karin asked in disbelief.
"A little more than half, actually," Sho corrected.
Karin looked at him in bewilderment. "So, I need to fill this," she indicated to the red orb, "up in order to return to my body?"
"Correct! And to do that, you must go and collect those missing feathers scattered all across the Three Thousand Worlds."
"How do I even know where they are?!" Karin panic. "This universe is so big! If I have to go through every world to look for it…" Her face twisted into a look of horror. "It'll take forever!"
"Don't panic, Host," Sho tried to assure her as he floated around her head, letting out a cool air around him. "You have me. I can detect in which world the feathers are at, so don't worry. You won't be here forever."
Karin breathed a sigh of relieve as she calmed her emotions.
"However," Sho stopped in front of her, "as your soul is incomplete, you cannot directly enter the world, or you will be destroyed."
"So then… I have to wear?"
"Correct. You will have to wear the body of an aggrieve soul and help fulfill that soul's wish, not only as compensation, but also so that you can have complete control of the body and find the feathers. Otherwise…"
"The grievance left in the body will control and trap me, allowing the soul to become a ghost and cling onto me, I know," said Karin. "It's a similar concept to the Dream Scape."
"That would be the case if your soul is stronger than the original, yes."
"What do you mean?"
"You forget, Host, your soul is not whole," Sho reminded. "This is a disadvantage for you. It means that you are vulnerable and have a high chance of being devoured by the original soul, allowing them to live again."
"So, I have a high chance of disappearing completely if I don't complete the strong wish of the original left inside the body…"
"Yes… Do you need a minute to sort out your emotions before I send you to the first world?"
Karin was silent for a moment, looking down in thought, before saying, "Send me to the first world."
Just as soon as she said that, Karin felt her body being pulled forward by a strong force, and everything went black.
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