Chapter 2: Reincarnation/Soulshift

Have you ever wished you could fly?

Or to turn invisible and play pranks, or try talking with animals?

Most of those age-old human dreams have been solved by science.
From the Wright brothers’ first powered flight, aircraft evolved into rockets with ion engines, and even personal flight units have become reality.

Optical camouflage—though military—has already matured, and in modern combat, detection using ether is said to be standard.

Conversations with animals lacking language-level intelligence are still little more than a joke, but high-performance translation devices have already consigned language barriers among humans to the past, and cultural exchange has even begun with bottlenose dolphins, some squid, and chimpanzees.

These past hundred years could well be called the age of omnipotent science.

However.

Even so, I could not let go of my longing.
A crystallization of the mysterious, the very essence of the uncanny, an unknown concept.

In short: a yearning for magic.

I no longer remember what first set me on it.
Perhaps there never was such a trigger.
By the time I realized it, I was deeply drawn to the very idea of magic, enamored of all things not of this world, and from boyhood on I chased after what science could not prove.

Rune magic, seiðr magic, gandr magic; astrology and alchemy; witchcraft and sorcery; Taoist arts; Shugendō, Esoteric Buddhism, Onmyōdō. I studied every art of magic from all ages and lands and practiced their methods of mastery.

My interests were not, of course, limited to magic.

Yokai, ghosts, cryptids, psychic powers, gods and demons. I dug through myths, folktales, and legends the world over, and if I heard of a psychic or a spirit medium, I used any means to go meet them.

Before I knew it, I’d become known as a world‑famous occult researcher.

Time spent: eighty‑nine years.
And after devoting my entire life to the pursuit of mystery, the conclusion I reached was this:

There is no mystery in this world—none.

The world was too solid, too robust.
Everything is as it should be; there is nothing truly strange, and when something seems so, it is only human misperception.

Of course I couldn’t prove everything, and there were things that could only be called strange.
But even those were nowhere near something one could call “mystery.”
I felt that, in time, they too would be laid bare by human hands and topple from their pedestal of the uncanny.

I don’t know how others will judge it in later years, but to me, my lifelong efforts were utterly in vain. I chased after what was not there, had neither wife nor child, and ended my life.

It would be a lie to say I had no regrets. If anything, there were countless.
But I never once thought I should have lived differently.
If I were born ten times, I would live the same way all ten.

Besides, I had saved one last enjoyment for the very end.

Nine times out of ten I would be disappointed once more. But this time I needn’t fear disillusionment. For by then, the very existence called me would already be gone.

I surrendered myself to the fading consciousness and slowly closed my eyes.
The world was wrapped in darkness.


I died.

—Strictly speaking, I should have died.


* * *


When I next came to, it was pitch‑black around me.
I was aware that I had died. Was this what they call the afterlife?
For that, the rushing sound was oddly loud in my ears. If death is nothingness and there’s nothing to see, shouldn’t it be quieter? That was my vague impression.

And it was strangely cramped. When I stretched out my hand, my fingertips pressed into something soft and yielding. I couldn’t see it, but something was there, keeping me from stretching out my limbs properly.

How odd, I thought. My body felt light, as if in zero‑G, yet I couldn’t move it well. Even aside from the lack of footing to brace myself, something was off.

At any rate, I had to get out of this tight space. As I flailed about, a voice reached me from somewhere. I couldn’t hear it clearly, but I could tell it was in a language I’d never heard before.

Even so, I somehow understood the tenor of what was being said.
And at the same time, where I was.

Apparently this wasn’t the afterlife. On the contrary, it was the exact opposite. I gently stroked the wall I’d been shoving so rudely a moment ago.

The voice was a gentle woman’s—concern for the child in her belly.
In other words, it seemed I was in the world of the living.

Alone in my mother’s womb, I trembled with emotion.

Reincarnation. And with memories of my former self intact from the fetal stage.
What fuller experience of the mysterious could there be?

To be honest, I had scarcely believed in an afterlife or in reincarnation. I thought that once I died, I would become nothing, and the thinking self that was me would cease to exist.

Finding this first loose thread in the fabric of the world, I couldn’t deny a faint twinge of disappointment. The world had been so steadfast, betraying me all my life; it was my worthy rival, so to speak, and part of me wished it had held out a little longer.

But the joy filling my chest far outstripped such trifling disillusionment. That disappointment was, if anything, a victor’s indulgence. Perhaps my memories would fade as I grew, but so be it. I would make my exit with a clear win.

But first, I had to be born safely. …Well, even if I pumped myself up, there was nothing I could actually do. I could at least try not to end up breech. And avoid the folly of strangling myself with the umbilical cord.

At that thought, I realized I didn’t have an umbilical cord. Nonsense. What was going on!?
I hastily rubbed around my belly, but there was nothing. I tried spinning my body round and round, and found I could turn endlessly. Completely wireless. What on earth was this?

As I flustered, the pressure around me suddenly rose. Before I could even think “no way,” my body was yanked somewhere. With a fetus’s strength, I couldn’t hope to resist; I was carried along helplessly.

My pitch‑black view burst into light, so bright I squeezed my eyes shut. Then, with a sudden slick tug, I was pulled free and dropped to the floor by gravity.

It seemed I’d managed to be born safely. Come to think, I wasn’t quite sure of proper newborn etiquette. Was I supposed to cry or something?

As I entertained that inane thought and cracked my eyes open, I saw both my arms dyed a deep red. They call babies red, but this was far too red. I’d been single in my past life, but I’d at least seen my sister’s baby. No way they’re this red. That’s how red I was.

What on earth, I thought, and tensed my body; something damp sounded from my back. Still crouched on the floor, I peered over my shoulder.

That too was red. No—the color didn’t matter. Far more important was the unfamiliar organ there. It looked like wet clothing. The wetness was no doubt from having just left my mother’s womb. But to my knowledge, no creature is born wearing clothes.

As I gaped, something slurped across my cheek. I reflexively looked up to see a face many times the size of mine staring intently down at me. Its mouth opened, and a familiar voice rang out clearly—the one I’d heard in the womb. In other words, she must have been my mother.

A long, narrow face with golden eyes. Bat‑like wings, sharp claws. A long tail and scales covering the body. I probably had the same parts in miniature. I knew that form well.

Even without my lifetime of studying every last so‑called mystery, anyone would know this being.
A dragon.

Until just moments ago I’d thought, what could surpass reincarnation as an experience of the mysterious? But belatedly I understood how wrong that was.


Now, I myself was a lump of mystery.