Jeffrey Castillo
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FG Chapter 29: Lost Soul
🕑 Added 2025-09-29 11:17:59 +0000 UTCAt the east end of the village, a few cottages sat behind a wicker fence.
In the yard, two figures—one big, one small—were building a snowman together. The little one, a girl in a floral padded jacket with a purple scarf at her neck. The older, a woman in a headscarf, was hefting her daughter to set a hood on the snowman’s head. From a distance, the snowman even looked a bit like Minamino Hirotomo.
“Shizuki, do you miss Daddy?”
“I do.”
The hood sat a little crooked, comically askew. The girl giggled. “Mom, look—Daddy looks funny!”
The woman rolled her eyes and laughed too; glancing toward the gate, she suddenly saw—
Roy, with Tanjiro beside him, standing quietly outside the fence. Startled, she set her daughter down behind her and asked, wary, “Can I help you?”
The hamlet under Mt. Sagiri was remote; with winter snows piling up, strangers were rare. Finding two or three unknown men outside the fence would make anyone cautious.
Roy, canteen in hand, glanced at Minamino.
Tears streaked the man’s face. His lips trembled as his upper teeth clamped down hard; he stared at the two figures—mother and daughter—lost for words.
“Nii-san…” Tanjiro couldn’t bear it. He turned his face away. He couldn’t imagine what his own face would look like if he learned Father Tanjuro had died.
“Hello, ma’am. We’re friends of Mr. Minamino’s. We were passing through and brought some things for him.”
Roy paused a moment, then stepped forward and set Minamino’s basket down in the snow.
Naoko had woven the basket herself, with rattan cut from Mt. Sagiri. She recognized it at once; relief softened her face. She opened the gate and let Roy and Tanjiro in.
“Naoko, who is it?” Hearing the noise, a white-haired grandmother who’d been washing clothes in the back poked her head out, smiling kindly.
“Friends of Hirotomo’s—they said they’re delivering his things.”
“Oh—then do ask the boys in for hot tea. It’s freezing; don’t let them catch cold.”
“Yes, Mother.” The woman took the girl’s hand and gave Roy a little bow.
Roy nodded back politely and entered with Tanjiro. Tanjiro dragged Minamino’s basket in after them.
“Mom, who are they?” The girl peeked out from behind her mother’s skirt, timid as a fawn.
Minamino, frozen in place, couldn’t help himself—he drifted out of the canteen and leaned down to embrace her.
A cold gust swept past—his torso passed straight through the child.
The girl blinked; her bangs fluttered, and for a heartbeat she looked dazed—something Roy did not miss.
Her soul is too frail to withstand a living soul’s impact. Best not try to hug her, Roy told Minamino via Nen, using the canteen as a conduit.
With Nen over his eyes, he could clearly see the girl’s aura suffer a brief “rejection” where Minamino’s soul overlapped her body—an ominous flicker, as if she might mistakenly recognize Minamino as the “host soul.”
So… is the soul the true substrate of Nen? Roy thought of Zigg’s notes. What he knew of the Hunter world matched them: Nen springs from the body’s “life energy.” If the energy has no vessel, it loses its footing and dissipates—bursting or fading, like an Emitter’s aura bullet. But Minamino’s existence cracked that view: life energy might sometimes persist, vessel-less, in the wide world—briefly, even long-term. Mt. Sagiri itself, where they were headed, held many such wandering souls.
“My fault… Shizuki—Daddy was too impatient…” Panicked, Minamino slapped himself hard. His soul thinned, edges fraying—on the verge of scattering.
“If self-harm solved problems, we’d have no need for whole people,” Roy said coolly. He crouched, took the bamboo hobbyhorse from the basket, and smiled to the child. “Shizuki, right? Look—this is the hobbyhorse your daddy bought you. He said…”
“Here—take it and play. When he gets back, he’ll be your big horse to ride.”
“And candy,” Tanjiro chimed in, fishing snacks from the basket and spilling them into his palm.
“Mom…” The girl clutched her mother’s leg and looked up, pleading.
The woman patted her head fondly. “Don’t be scared, Shizuki. They’re your father’s friends—your big brothers.”
“Big brothers…” The girl let go of her mother’s hem and edged forward—hesitant at first, then quicker—until she hopped up to Roy and grabbed the hobbyhorse.
Seizing the moment, Roy used the toy as a medium to pass a layer of Nen into the girl. To the naked eye, the aura Minamino had jostled loose settled back into balance under Roy’s “top-up.” Outwardly, the proof was plain: the dullness in her big eyes cleared; she was lively and bright again.
Minamino saw it clearly. As a spirit, his senses were sharper than Roy’s; the instant Roy withdrew his hand, he dropped to his knees with a thud at Roy’s feet. This time there were no words of thanks left—he’d said them enough these past days.
Roy left him be. He and Tanjiro took one of Shizuki’s hands each and followed Naoko into the cabin.
A brazier burned inside—a twin to the one Father Tanjuro always leaned against. A kettle of tea warmed on top. A grandmother, hands red from the wash, sat cross-legged by the fire and, smiling, poured Roy and Tanjiro each a cup.
They thanked her and took a sip.
Then they got to the point.
Roy handed over what Minamino had bought. “This cloth is from town—he said it’s for making clothes for you and Grandma.”
“The hobbyhorse and snacks are for Miss Shizuki.”
“And please keep the rest of the silver as well.”
“Child,” the grandmother said suddenly, “did Hirotomo say when he’ll be back?”
Silence fell over the room.
