Chapter 454: Real vs Fake

Sasaki Kojiro.

He knew about the Heavenly Tower. He told her that this world was real. He told her that he was aware of his own death—that he had experienced it.

Marta needed a second to breathe and think. A hand to her temple, she started thinking. “Hold on, hold on, so…if we’re in Yomi, an afterlife…and you’re the real Sasaki Kojiro who knows about the Heavenly Tower when that shouldn’t be possible…and…and…Izanami is allowing me, a foreigner, to take from her realm, then…then you were here. You were in Yomi and you were brought…here…?”

Sasaki Kojiro took off his mask. The bird features that had brought them here faded away. The wings, the feathers, everything. He was back to being devilishly pretty. “So it seems.”

“A bottomless pit…” Marta proceeded to creep over to the edge of the floating mini island. Up, down, left, and right, there was nothing but void. Somehow, she could still in this dark void. It made no sense. “A void…an end after entering a cave…”

The spectacled blonde glanced over at the white portal in the middle of all this.

“A piece of Yomi was ripped and brought here. On that piece of Yomi was the land we ventured, the monsters, and…you, Sasaki Kojiro.”

He shrugged. “If that is what it is, then it is. I myself cannot make sense of it.”

He was but a humble samurai. He swung his sword. He experienced life. The matter of gods and realms and dimensions? He did not have the slightest clue or concept. He was hardly literate from Marta’s understanding.

The Polish woman stroked her chin, continuing to think. “Gods are said to sponsor gates by offering up their essences. By doing this, the gate can recreate certain people, locations, and items. That’s the common consensus.” A deep pause and a blink. The spectacled blonde looked up at the samurai. “Wait, so did you actually even fight the Bake-kujira?”

“You doubt me? Ha! Of course I did! If it weren’t for me, this world would be a wasteland. And if it wasn’t for the fact that my soul is bound to Yomi, I would have killed it too!”

“Bound to Yomi…?”

“Yes, bound. I am dead, after all. The dead cannot live among the living. Even if a portal were to be opened, it could not be. My soul, you see, has been marked. Written by Izanami to stay here and nowhere else. If it was up to me, I would go and finish that monster off. However, the will of the gods has contained me. My soul and body have been…” He pointed to his missing arm and the burns. “This was not from the Bake-kujira. This was from the time I spent away from Yomi. A burning type curse from Izanami to those that leave her domain.”

“I-I see…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. For the powers of a goddess to stop my might should be an honour.” Kojiro smirked. “It places me as the greatest samurai.”

“That’s…kinda true. Miyamoto Musashi definitely didn’t have gods stopping him.”

The moment she mentioned his name…it was as though the void lit up.

“See? See?” She had never seen him perk up so much, nor felt his hands press and squeeze her shoulders. Gone was the teasing, arrogant smile. In its place was a smile of pure joy. “It seems you have learned something great in your time together. The greatest samurai in our history…you now know who it is!”

Marta, as much as she appreciated the praise and the lovely smile, couldn’t drift toward the mystery. She was a student at the end of the day. Thinking was what she did for most of her life. In Poland, in America, at home, on her computer…

“So the Heavenly Tower brought you here, huh? What does that mean exactly? W-wait, but most importantly, you know about the Heavenly Tower. How?”

“Hmph. The Architects, perhaps you know of them? They journey between afterlifes to find special individuals. Gods, demons, yokai, they ask any and all, and they ask for our blood in order to clone us for this Tower. I too was approached and I said no.”

“The Architects can travel between afterlifes and need to ask…”

“Ah, but I have heard rumours that I have appeared in the Heavenly Tower anyway.” He snorted. “Such a thankless bunch. I ordered them NOT to use my likeness and did so anyway.”

“S-so they disregarded you anyway? Why ask you in the first place?”

“I told you once and I’ll say it again. This world is not fake. It was not created. It is real.”

“Meaning…?”

“There is no higher meaning. It is real. As for the Sasaki Kojiros that appear in the tower’s gates, I do not know. I assume they are fake or clones or poor imitations.”

“But this…this Matsue can’t be real. We’re not time travelling and changing events in the past.”

“I do not know what this time travel is but whatever it is, it does not change this reality’s truthness. It has existed the same way any world does.”

“How do you know it’s real? How do you know you haven’t been brought to a constructed world?”

“Because I have been here for forty some years, that is why.”

“F-f-forty years!?”

“As I am dead, I do not age.”

“T-that’s not important here. You’ve been here for forty years! Isolated in this realm of Yomi that has been taken away from Izanami. Forty years ago…”

Sasaki Kojiro wasn’t lying. From what he was saying, dead souls could not live outside whatever afterlife they were assigned. Something happened, however, and the part of Yomi he was in separated. It separated and he could venture out to some extent. A battle against the Bake-kujira was too much and led to what he was now. But to peek and visit, that was allowed.

So…he wasn’t lying. He couldn’t be.

Something must have happened to the Heavenly Tower. At the Accelerated Program, the professor at the first lecture said this:

“The Heavenly Tower is a mystery. Do not bother to understand it. Only the great gods know and they keep their lips sealed. All we can say is that there are Architects and that the gods talk with these Architects. Anything else is but foolish conjure. No questions, please.”

Then they moved on. That was it, that was all they were told regarding the creation of gates in the Heavenly Tower. After class, everybody said the same thing: that obviously, the people of the Heavenly Tower were NPCs. Fakes. Nobodies. Worlds and creations intended specifically for the players and ended as soon as they were gone.

Marta Kowalski discovered evidence to the contrary.

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