Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [359]
Kaori Daimatsu.
Those black eyes. Always focused on something only she could see. A beautiful girl, without words or any other link to the outside world, shining hair falling haphazardly across her smooth cheek.
Wataru blinked and the vision disappeared. The small bird was looking at him.
This white bird—could this be Kaori Daimatsu? Well, not her…but her soul?
“Have you been in here this whole time?” Wataru hesitantly raised a hand, stroking the bird’s little head with a finger. “Did someone trap you in this cage?” Wataru kept patting its head, and the bird closed its eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it. Kaori’s soul was taken from her body and shut away here.”
There was no wondering why. Wataru could feel the joy radiating from the tiny bird. That was enough.
“You’re coming with me. Let’s go home together.”
With the little white bird on his shoulder, Wataru began walking again. When he reached the next room, he found another cage. Inside, another bird was waiting.
This bird was as black as the one on his shoulder was white. Even its beak was black. Only its eyes burned a fiery red.
Wataru stood for a moment, thinking. I wonder whose soul this could be?
The black bird opened its beak and croaked. Even though it was only the size of a canary, its cry sounded just like a crow’s.
A light went off in Wataru’s head. I know who that is! “Kenji! You’re Kenji Ishioka!”
He and his goons had surrounded Mitsuru in the haunted building—Mitsuru had summoned that creature, Balbylone—and Kenji had been left without a soul. Just like Kaori Daimatsu.
“So you were in here too.”
Wataru hurriedly opened the door to the bird cage. The black bird shot out like a bullet, flapping crazily around the room, smacking into the walls and ceiling with such force that more than a few black feathers fluttered to the ground.
“Hey, you’ll hurt yourself. Come over here,” Wataru said, offering his other shoulder. The black bird landed on his head, yanked at his hair, and made a horrible raucous cawing before finally hopping to his shoulder. “You’re a troublesome one, aren’t you.”
The bird pecked at Wataru’s ear in reply.
“Ouch! Knock it off.” Wataru laughed. It’s Kenji, all right. “Behave yourself, or I’m not taking you anywhere.”
The little black bird blinked dejectedly. Wataru cautiously patted it with his palm. He could feel it trembling.
Oh. “You were scared.”
Once again, a scene from the real world unfolded in Wataru’s mind. Mitsuru stood, teeth clenched, his cheeks flushed, gazing at the dark creature he had summoned with his magic. Kenji was cowering with fear, his face as pale as ash.
“It’s okay. I’ll take you home too.”
Here, in this crystal city sprawling at the base of the Tower of Destiny, Wataru had found two souls that belonged in the real world. Now they were riding on his shoulders.
He began to walk again, passing through the buildings from Tearsheaven, until he found himself walking down a street in the residential section of Lyris. He remembered when Branch Chief Pam brought him here and how shocked he had been to see the open discrimination at work in the town.
Eventually he came to a small park. There was a bench and some potted flowers. This must be a part of Lyris too. Everything was made of crystal, down to the delicate blooms in the planters.
Wataru happened to glance down at his feet, and stopped.
There was a pattern there on the ground, faintly glimmering. It looked as though something hard and sharp had been carved into the smooth surface of the crystal. The more he looked at it, the clearer its outline became.
Can I go back to the real world from here? Come to think of it, he had just gotten the fourth gemstone.
But he was no longer standing next to Meena with her piece of the Mirror of Truth. If he stepped on the sigil without the mirror, would it open the Corridor of Light all the same?
The white bird twittered