Shikigami Selection (1)

A newborn's days are monotonous.

Eat, sleep, soil myself. Those three things make up the whole of my schedule. Add to that the occasional peekaboo from a wet nurse, and Mother dropping by whenever she can spare a moment. A body that once unmade the balance of the world now can't even control its own bowels. Dignity is a luxury I no longer have.

But I had one more item on my daily agenda that nobody else knew about.

Study.

"Oh my, Young Master. Looking at that book again?"

A young woman sat down beside me with a peal of laughter. One of the handmaidens Mother had assigned to me.

A book lay open in front of me. More precisely, I had crawled over and opened it myself. I'd found it rolling around the archive a few days ago, and I came back to it every chance I got.

"You can't even read yet. Do you like the pictures that much?"

…It's not the pictures.

I opened my mouth to correct her.

"Uuh."

"Hoho. Yes, yes. You like it very much, don't you."

…Right. Of course you would think that.

This was the limit of this body. In my head I had enunciated, clear as a bell, I'm reading, you know — and what came out of my mouth was a single "uuh," complete with a string of drool. The handmaiden took one look and dissolved into giggles again. Apparently a pink little scrap of a baby putting on a serious face in front of a book page was just that adorable.

Adorable, nothing. I'll have you know I'm mid-close-read here.

She was half right. A newborn of this era couldn't read. Of course not. But I was the exception to that "of course."

I could read these letters.

Call it a reincarnator's cheat, if you like.

Strictly speaking, it barely even counted as a cheat. I was never a man of this age to begin with. I had been a man of a far later, dwindling age — an age when sorcerers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had gone soft — who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spent his life digging through old records, then digging deeper still. The language of Heian. The script of Heian. The documents the sorcerers of Heian left behind. I had lived with them pressed to my chest for a lifetime.

Where others groped their way through texts already translated into the writing of a thousand years later, I read the originals. So to my eyes, the pages of this era might as well have been my mother tongue. The real problem was that a newborn's eyes were dim and the letters a little blurred — not that I couldn't read them.

In short: this body was a pink scrap of a baby who couldn't read, and the me inside it was a specialist in the literature of this very age.

So not reading would have been a waste, wouldn't it?

I squeezed force into my hazy eyes. The characters on the page slowly came into focus.

…Oh. Jackpot.

A Registry. A record of shikigami. A kind of catalog organizing the spirits the Aeryeong House commanded, sorted by branch. I'd grabbed whatever was lying around in the archive, and of all things, I'd landed on this. Luck was on my side.

Turning the pages took forever. As if a newborn's fingers ever listen. I licked a fingertip and wrestled each leaf over with a grunt of effort. Still, I turned them. The obsession of a close-reader.

Interesting from the very first page.

The higher the rank, the denser the writing became. A Lesser Spirit was dismissed in a single line; the further up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the page climbed, the longer the sections on how to bind them, how dangerous they were, what precautions to take. Then, far toward the back of the book—

From there on, even the names were not written freely. There were a great many blank spaces.

I smacked my lips at those empty lines. In practice it came out as babble, but still.

"Uuuhngh……"

Look at that. The higher the line, the more deliberately they had left it blank — which meant those things were that rare, and that dangerous. Things that would bring disaster if written down carelessly. If a house of the Aeryeong's standing wouldn't even pin a name into its own catalog…

…So things like that can be kept at one's side?

My heart hammered.

I thought of my previous life. I had never been able to keep anything near me, not for a single day. Reach out a hand and everything shattered. People, objects, spirits. I had lived forever alone in a world of glass that broke at a touch, always hiding my hands behind my back.

Having a spirit at my side had been a distant story to begin with. That was the work of bloodlines like the Aeryeong. Taming and commanding spirits required a born right, and I, who carried the blood of the Gye, had never even had the standing to try. It wasn't that I couldn't keep them near. I had never held the right to keep them near in the first place.

But here.

Those high-ranked things whose very names this catalog refused to write — people said they could be tamed, kept at one's side, and driven as servants. Without fear of crushing them. Without fear that my own hands would break them. And the man who in his past life had not even held the right was, this time, born into the bloodline at the very pinnacle of that art.

"Hiyah……"

Babble slipped out of me. Without meaning to, I was smiling.

I wanted to grow up fast. I wanted to handle spiritual power with this body as soon as I could, and fill the empty space at my side — one by one — with the blank-name things from the back of that book. That side of me that had been empty my whole life.

Once the thought reached that far, I couldn't stay still.

It was that night.

After the handmaidens had withdrawn and Mother had come and gone, in a room lit by a single guttering lantern, I opened my eyes where I lay in the cradle.

…Shall I try?

Cultivation of spiritual power.

For an Aeryeong bloodline, before one could command spirits, one first had to grow the spiritual power within. So the front matter of the catalog had said. Spiritual power was the cord that bound a shikigami, and the thicker that cord, the higher the rank of spirit one could keep at one's side.

Of course it was absurd at this age. I knew that. I couldn't wait.

I called up the most basic breathing method written in the catalog. Steady the breath, sink inward, and feel for the seed of spiritual power sleeping somewhere in the body. Whether it would even work in a newborn's frame was anyone's guess — but I was going to try. The wish to fill that empty place beside me had already run ahead of me.

Hoo. Uu.

I slowly inflated my small chest. Draw in, hold, release.

At first there was nothing. Just a newborn breathing. Still I refused to give up, again and again. Inward, deeper inward. Feeling, and feeling again.

And then…

I touched it.

Something very small, like a warm ember, deep below the solar plexus. So this was the seed of spiritual power.

The problem was what came after. I could touch it — but how was I supposed to move it? The catalog said, Feel the energy and circulate it through the whole body, but that "feeling" was maddeningly vague. It wasn't something the eyes could see, or the hands could grasp. The Aeryeong bloodlines spent a lifetime learning this sense, and I was starting to understand why. It was a blank wall.

That was when it hit me.

…Wait.

A familiar sensation surfaced all at once.

In my previous life I had spent every day handling space. The distance between here and there. The gap between hand and object. I had been the one who converted everything in the world into distance, who drew it, stretched it, and closed it. Even with my eyes shut I could measure the distance of everything in a room. That was the Gye sense — the power with which I had unmade the balance of the world.

I could feel that sense still lingering, faintly, in this body. On the first day of reincarnation I had confirmed my abilities were at zero — but ability was one thing, and the sense was still alive somewhere.

What if… this works too?

Nothing to lose. I carefully drew that old sense out and set it against the ember below my solar plexus. As if measuring a distance. Wondering whether the space of spiritual power itself might become visible.

…It did.

Gooseflesh rose along my skin.

I could see the flow of spiritual power. More precisely, I could feel it. Which grain it wanted to follow, where it meant to go, where it was blocked and where it was empty — every interval, every distance. The vague "feeling" that others spent a lifetime groping for translated itself, for me, into distance, and snapped into sharp focus.

This was it. I had taken the eye I had spent a previous life honing and applied it at the scale of spiritual power. Reading the intervals of spiritual energy with a sense trained on distance meant cultivation was no mystery at all — I just had to look, and follow, and turn.

…Crazy. Isn't this broken?

My heart hammered. With this sense alone, my spiritual cultivation would run several times faster than anyone else's. When I commanded shikigami, their rank and grain would be laid open to me as well. Aeryeong blood, plus this eye from my past life. Was that combination even legal? At the thought that I could fill the empty place at my side several times faster than anyone else…

I got carried away and turned the spiritual power a little harder along the grain I could see.

Looking deeper into the intervals of spiritual energy with that distance-measuring sense.

That was the moment.

Something… slipped out of true.

As I raised the spiritual power, the distance-sense drove one step deeper into it. To see the intervals more clearly. To measure more precisely. The way it always had, in the life before.

But that was the mistake.

The sense that "measured" distance was, at its root, a force that opened the space between. The eye of the Gye did not simply look at the world — in the looking itself, it drew a line through the interval and cut it apart. To recognize distance was to create distance. That was the essence of the power that forced a gap between ranks of things.

And spiritual power was the exact opposite.

What spiritual power wanted was to take distance to zero and fuse it shut. To pull a spirit to one's side and bind it as if of one body. A force that erased the interval.

An eye that opened. Spiritual power that closed.

The two of them collided head-on inside a single body.

In the instant I raised the spiritual power. In the instant I pushed the eye deeper to see the distance more clearly. The force that cut and the force that joined locked together in the same place, and through the seam between them, something tore.

The thought had not even finished forming.

Crrk—

A sound went off inside my body.

"…….!"

I couldn't even cry out.

Pain that began below the solar plexus split my whole body in a single rush. It was neither hot nor cold — only the pure pain of being torn. Something inside forced open. Two powers pulling in opposite directions, ripping the flesh between them.

I tried to pull the spiritual power back. It wouldn't come. Once it had started turning, it wouldn't stop. The distance-sense wouldn't withdraw either. For as long as the spiritual power turned, it kept cutting the interval. The more it turned, the more it tore; the more it tore, the more it turned.

In the cradle, the small body arched like a bow. I opened my mouth and no scream came. A newborn's lungs couldn't make a sound that size. Just a silent, gaping mouth.

The world flashed white, then blacked out.

At last — at last — the spiritual power ebbed. Only when it had spent itself and scattered. A long while later.

I lay limp, breathing in ragged gasps.

Cold sweat had soaked the swaddling cloth through. The pain had receded, but a chill aftertaste remained where it had been. The place that had just been torn still throbbed, raw.

…What was that just now.

My head was clear. Which meant I could turn over what had just happened all the more sharply.

Setting the eye of my past life against the spiritual power in order to circulate it — that had been the seed of the disaster. An eye that saw distance opened the interval; spiritual power closed it. The moment the two locked inside one body, the place they met had torn.

They were opposing natures.

This body's spiritual power, and the eye of the previous life that remained inside me. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blood of the Aeryeong, and the remnant of the Gye. In a single vessel, they were trying to kill each other.

My mind raced. A specialist's mind. The conclusion came quickly, and that conclusion put a chill down my spine.

Spiritual power was as natural as breath to an Aeryeong bloodline. To command shikigami one had to circulate it, and even without commanding them, as one aged it would grow and turn of its own accord inside the body. It was the destiny of this bloodline never to go a lifetime without circulating it.

But every time that spiritual power turned, the eye would wake and cut it. Every turn meant a tear. Like today. And the older I grew and the thicker the spiritual power became, the larger and deeper the tear. If it was this bad as a newborn, then when I was grown and the spiritual power ran like a river through me…

…I die.

The word dropped into my head with perfect clarity.

I had wanted something at my side. In this life I had wanted to fill the place that had been empty forever. But the very force I meant to keep there was trying to kill me. In the previous life, reaching out a hand had crushed everything, so I could keep nothing near me. This time, reaching out a hand would have that hand crush me.

…Still, it seemed, whenever I reached out a hand, something broke. This time, the only difference was that the something was me.

Sleep rolled in. After a catastrophe like that, a newborn's body had no chance of holding. Regardless of will, my eyelids came down like curtains.

The problem was that I was not the only one who knew what had happened that night.

The next morning a handmaiden barged into the room, saw me limp and soaked in cold sweat, and screamed. A physician was summoned, and the so-called elders of the house filed through one after another. The traces of spiritual power having been stirred, the split spirit meridians — to eyes that could see spirits, what had happened in my body was apparently written plain as day.

And from that day on, the way they looked at me changed.

I already knew what kind of place the Aeryeong House was. I had read it in books, in my previous life.

On the surface it looked like a clean great house that neither shunned the outside world nor cared for anything but the pure pursuit of ability. Inside, it was different. A house that had reigned at the pinnacle for a thousand years carried a pride that scraped the sky, and that pride was also a measuring stick. A merciless stick, for anyone who could not command spirits.

In the Aeryeong House, a person who could not command spirits was not a person.

A direct heir whose spirit meridians never opened was sent off to some lesser branch house somewhere. They put the name "adopted son" on it. Adopted son in name; discarded goods in truth. The name was struck from the genealogy, and the very fact that one had ever been of the Aeryeong was erased. Born of the pinnacle's blood, and ending as a single line in the household register of some house no one had ever heard of.

When I read it in a book, it had been some other family's scandal.

Now it had become mine.

A genius born of the Aeryeong's pinnacle blood. A child born with the right to keep at his side spirits whose very names could not be written freely. Overnight, that child had become a "defective product" who couldn't even command a single spirit — who only tore his own body if he tried to circulate spiritual power.

Even a newborn's ears caught the elders whispering.

"Opposing natures in the spirit meridians… I've never seen a bloodline like this."

"Born of the pinnacle's blood and still can't command a spirit…… tsk."

"Keep him and see if there's any use for him."

Use. Right. Use.

They meant, is there any use for him as a tool. Even born of the pinnacle blood, the moment I couldn't command a spirit I had become an object whose usefulness had to be weighed.

……Have I been completely abandoned?

Staring up at the ceiling, I thought dully.

It wasn't even funny. In the previous life I had been alone because I was too strong. In this life I had finally been born into a good bloodline and thought I might at last keep something at my side — and that bloodline had turned into a defect, and now I was about to be thrown out by my own house.

Previous life or this one.

I was alone again.

A few heavy days passed that way.

Even Mother's footsteps seemed to have stopped. The woman who used to drop in whenever she had a spare moment hadn't come once since the night of the searing pain. Well — with the house's measuring stick the way it was, clinging to a defective child would only cost her standing. That was ordinary enough for the mothers of this world.

…Fine. Whatever. I hadn't expected anything anyway.

I was telling myself that, staring at the ceiling, on a gray afternoon.

There was a stir outside the room.

Several unfamiliar sets of footsteps. And mixed among them, a scent my ears — my nose — already knew. Mother's scent. But the other presence riding beside it was strange.

Eyes that could see spirits caught it.

It was not the aura of this house. A cold, sharp presence that cut intervals the way the Aeryeong's spiritual power never did — the exact reverse of its grain. Not pulling spirits close, but measuring and dividing the distance of the world…

A sense I knew far too well.

……The Gye Clan.

Gooseflesh rose. People who shared the same grain as this eye inside me were standing outside this room right now. The thousand-year rivals of the Aeryeong, opposite in nature. Why would someone of the Gye be here.

It was real. This eye was truly of the Gye.

My head was still reeling from that realization when a voice came through the door.

A trembling voice, as if swallowing tears.

"Please…… I beg you. Please……."

Mother.

"……He's my son. Please. Just once……."

To the thousand-year rival. To people of an enemy house of opposite nature. Mother was bowing her head to the floor.

Her footsteps hadn't stopped. These past few days, this was what she had been doing. Going against the measuring stick of her own house. Whether her standing was cut down or not. The lady of the Aeryeong House had been hunting down the opposite clan and begging them — all to save one child who had become a defective product.

……And I said I hadn't expected anything.

The eyes that had been fixed on the ceiling stung, somehow. Maybe because this was a newborn's body. That was all it was, I told myself, and blinked once.