Semblance of Remembrance

Chapter 8 - First Confrontation

Orin's Perspective

After I parted with Ayaka, I headed into the kitchen to clean the plate that she ate off of. I'm glad that she seemed to enjoy it.

'I knew that she missed her absent parents, but I wasn't aware that it was to that extent. I certainly wasn't expecting her to start crying because she noticed my cooking tasted like her mom's. I also wasn't expecting the sorrow of her mom's disappearance to resurface in me like that. I didn't know that those feelings were still greatly affecting me. Well, at least that conversation made us grow closer. She seemed to be less reserved when she talked to me and she opened up to me, to the point that she felt comfortable enough to rely on me to console her.' I reflected on the talk with Ayaka.

As I finished my reflection, I put the finishing touches on cleaning the plate by rinsing off the soap on the plate. After finishing that, I decided to head back to my room in the royal chambers. On the way there, I met Miss Koishi in the Great Foyer.

"Ah! Orin, where's lil sis?" She asked me while showing me a wide smile.

"She's in the library, but I still think it's best for you not to disturb her right now," I answered.

"Okay! I'll go play somewhere else then!" She energetically replied before disappearing before my eyes with her ability.

'Miss Koishi always seems to have unlimited energy, it's too bad that she can't make friends anymore because her ability causes anyone to forget her after they take their eyes off her. When she was younger, she was very keen to befriend some of the other youkai in the Underworld, but it always failed no matter what type of youkai she met. For some reason, every youkai that she talked to hated her both implicitly and explicitly all because she was a satori, as in some showed blatant hate through their words, while others through their words, as Miss Koishi has told me. They think that it's a choice for satori to read other's minds, but that's not the case, satori don't get to turn off their ability. They are forced to even if they don't want to. Because of this, Miss Koishi had to experience many unpleasant thoughts when she was young. Miss Satori was also affected by this, but to a lesser degree as she had gotten used to the hate since she had her mother there to help her when she heard negative thoughts. Unfortunately, their mother disappeared when Miss Koishi was very young. While Miss Satori tried to help Miss Koishi deal with this issue, she was less experienced as their mom was, and could not help Miss Koishi fully cope with the negativity.' I reminisced.

'I remember one incident that particularly affected her, it was when we visited what we now call the Former Capital of Hell for some important business. Back then, it was full of residents of all kinds of races, but now it is inhabited by only oni and vengeful spirits. In the streets, we saw a dying man who was lying on the floor. Miss Koishi ran up to him to try to see if she could help him. Before she got to him, the man turned his head slowly and stared at Miss Koishi before opening his mouth. I could not hear what he said, but I knew he said something because I saw his mouth moving. While the man was still talking, I moved towards Miss Koishi. When I reached her, the man had already died and Miss Koishi had an indescribable expression on her face. It was full of sadness, guilt, and grief. She later told me that what the man had said was "It's...your...fault" in a voice laced with poison. She also told me that his mind was thinking 'It's all the fault of those satoris. They must have given me this illness because they thought it would be funny! Those despicable satori, they must be the cause of all that is bad in the world! They must be the devil's spawn.' Unacceptable, truly unacceptable. Even just remembering it now fills my body with rage. Why did the satori have to be hated to this extent just because they had the ability to read minds?!' My body started trembling in anger as I remembered that incident.

'For days after that incident, Miss Koishi was depressed and felt completely destroyed. Although she tried to hide it by smiling whenever she talked to us, Miss Satori and I could easily tell that she was hiding her true feelings. I remember multiple times when I could hear a crying sound from her room when I was walking down the royal chambers hallway. Miss Satori and I tried our best to comfort and console her, but it wasn't enough in the end. One day, she decided to try destroying the mind-reading power that had caused her so much pain by closing her third eye. Doing that did disable her mind-reading ability, but it also had unintended side-effects. She lost the ability to form conscious thoughts and motives, but in return, she gained an ability to manipulate the unconscious. Luckily, she retained the ability to form emotions as I have seen her facial expressions shift. She once again put up a happy facade, but I knew she was still feeling lonely as the only people she could talk to were the three of us in the mansion. However, that facade ended when Ayaka arrived. Since she's been here, Miss Koishi has been much more cheerful and energetic than before. Obviously I am thankful for that, but I still want Miss Koishi to meet other people who aren't affected by her ability.' I sighed as I thought of the nearly 0% likelihood of that happening. 'Well, that probability was based on the past, hopefully it will be higher now.' I concluded my recollection of the past. As I finished, I noticed that I had arrived at the royal chambers hallway.