Incarnation Under the Moon: The Gospel of the Wild
The summer night air was heavy with a cloying humidity that clung to the skin.
In my village at the foot of the mountain, a strange rumor had been drifting for the past few weeks, refusing to dissipate.
“There’s a non-human girl who has come down to the world of men.”
The old women whispered on their verandas, and the young men laughed it off over drinks. But deep within the eyes of everyone who spoke of it, an identical, unfathomable “awe” remained etched.
I, Shinichi Tanaka, was attracted to that rumor with an irresistible force. Stuck in the tedium of farm work and the stagnant relationships of the village, I felt a sense of suffocation—as if, in my mid-twenties, I had already seen the “bottom” of my life. To me, the word “non-human” echoed like sweet, poisonous nectar.
Curiosity often easily overrides reason. I picked up a flashlight and crossed the old torii gate that marked the village boundary. The narrow beast-path leading halfway up the mountain was overgrown with trees so thick that even the moonlight could not penetrate them. A chorus of insects hammered against my eardrums, and the scent of vegetation hung thick in the air.
I must have walked for about thirty minutes. Suddenly, the sounds reaching my ears changed. Between the rustling of leaves, the sound of cold, clear water splashing began to mingle.
“…Is it there?”
Beyond a gap in the trees, a small but perfectly beautiful waterfront opened up. The surrounding trees seemed to recede in a circle just there, and the pale moonlight pouring from the zenith illuminated the water’s surface like a silver mirror.
And there, at the edge of that mirror, she was.
“…!”
I gasped, freezing in place, forgetting even to step on the dry branch lying at my feet. She was sitting quietly on a rock. Long black hair, looking as if it were spun from the darkness of night itself, slid down over a translucent white dress.
And on the top of her head…
Protruding from between her soft strands of hair were, unmistakably, “cat ears” with jet-black fur. Bathed in the moonlight, they would occasionally twitch—a delicate, animal-like movement.
She looked like a religious painting, severed from all the clamor of this world. In the moment I hesitated between calling out to her or leaving, she slowly raised her head.
Large, violet eyes. They emitted a deep brilliance, as if amethyst jewels had been melted into them. The moment my gaze collided with hers, something snapped inside my brain.
I was being sucked in. A physical illusion, as if my body were being pulled forward. Words wouldn’t come. My throat felt swollen and hot, as if blocked, and my lungs refused to take in oxygen.
She rose smoothly from the rock. In her movement, there wasn’t a trace of the human-specific “resistance against gravity.” It was an overwhelming elegance, like flowing liquid or wind changing its shape.
“Were you looking for me?”
It was a sweet voice. Accompanied by a fragrance like bursting ripe fruit, it was a voice that resonated directly in the marrow of my brain rather than the eardrums. Under the strange, coercive power contained in that voice, I could only nod deeply like a marionette.
She approached soundlessly. One step, then another. The hem of her white dress brushed the grass wet with night dew. As the distance between us closed, the sound of the insects faded, leaving only my heartbeat and hers in the world.
“Then… why don’t you become one with me?”
She stopped in front of me and smiled. The smile was like that of an innocent girl, yet also like an old sage who saw through everything.
There was no time to answer. Her slender, cold fingertips touched my chest—directly over my heart.
“——gh!”
An intense light filled my vision. It was a violent white glare, as if the sun had been burned directly onto my retinas. From deep within my chest, the very core of my existence was being sucked out. Memories, emotions, physical mass… they all became a single thread, flowing out to “the other side” through her fingertips.
My consciousness faded rapidly. The last thing that remained in my ears was a small giggle, like a child who had succeeded in a prank.
When I came to, I was lying on the cold earth. The sensation of the stones against my back felt abnormally sharp.
“Ugh… ah…”
I tried to push myself up, but a staggering sense of wrongness assailed me. First, my perspective was low. The shrubs I used to look down upon now overwhelmed me like massive walls.
And above all, it was my “ears.” Not from the sides of my head, but from the crown, an unbelievable amount of “sound” came flooding in. The sound of wind brushing the grass, the footsteps of an insect crawling meters away, the sound of a fish splashing in the distance. They shook my brain directly, unorganized.
“What… is this…?”
Hearing the leaked voice, I froze. It wasn’t my gruff voice. It was the transparent, girl-like voice—like rolling bells—that had bewitched me moments ago.
Fearfully, I looked down at my hands. What I saw were not the dirt-stained hands of a farm laborer. They were white, delicate, girl’s hands, neatly manicured to the tips of the nails. And over that skin, the fabric of a snow-white dress was layered.
With trembling hands, I touched my head. Between the hair, they were certainly there. Pointed protrusions wrapped in warm, soft fur. When my fingertips touched them, they reacted with a “twitch” independent of my will, transmitting a sharp pleasure and a sense of wrongness to my brain.
“No way… this can’t be real…”
In front of me, as I was overcome with despair, a man stood up. A cheap T-shirt and worn-out jeans. It was, without a doubt, “Shinichi Tanaka.” My own body. My own face.
But that “me” wore a provocative, sadistic smile that I had never made before. “I” touched various parts of my body as if to confirm them, purring with satisfaction.
“Now, at last, I can see the same world as you.”
Using my voice, she spoke. At that perverted sight, I could only shiver under the cold moonlight.
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