Work Text:
A forest.
I buried his corpse in a forest.
Last week, I buried his lifeless corpse in the middle of a forest. This forest. The one near Hazakura temple.
Why did I bury it in such close proximity to human life?
It does not matter. It was a rational choice, as are all my choices. Not once have I ever made an irrational choice, I was denied the right to do so long ago.
Everything I do or say was a calculated move with reason and logic behind it. Not once did petty human emotions interfere with my work, I never let them do so. Or perhaps I never had any to begin with, which would explain why I never felt the sensation of ‘guilt' crawl up my back like a spider to tear open my throat.
I could say, to tear open my throat just like the throat of the dead man who I am visiting. If I had the will to laugh I would have done so, but my mind conjured nothing of the sort.
The path to the center was dangerous and covered with vines and rock. The canopy of many trees loomed over my head as I walked on, making sure to not have my foot be caught in a stray vine or even a trap set up to catch me.
A trap to catch me. There should be no such thing. However the possibility of a man ready to blow the brains out of my head hiding behind a boulder was never zero, I must keep that in mind. There was always the chance that someone was waiting, just out of my field of vision, ready to snipe…
If I was to die, then I should die with honour. Not like this.
If someone was waiting for me then I would kill them first. A jab of my knife to their skull would do the trick.
If I was to die then I would die with pride, or whatever pride I was permitted to feel.
There was nobody waiting to kill me.
That was final.
…
If I thought of anything more surrounding this idea, then the knife which I carried would be jammed in my own cranium instead.
I should stop thinking. Stop thinking and continue onwards, to the place where I buried his corpse. I was close, I remembered where I marked the spot. Under a boulder beside one of the many streams in this area there should be clearly upturned soil, and once dug up it would reveal a body.
It was simple enough. It was written nowhere, to make sure nobody could trace my steps and find it. Nobody would find the body before I dig it up for proper disposal.
I should have disposed of the body like I did with the others. Dissolved it using the fine nutmeg-scented liquid I had so graciously been provided by my employers.
But I could not. Why?
Why could I not do such a simple task? There was a rational and understandable reason for it, one which was buried at the back of my mind. I buried it there, because questioning it would lead to my mind drifting from its task.
If I had to pinpoint the exact logic behind why I chose to bury the body instead of ‘erasing’ it, I would say it was perhaps due to who I had chosen to become.
I could hear the leaves crunch under my feet as I walked.
The man, now six feet under, would not have dissolved a corpse and left the individual to remain a ‘missing person’ under any circumstances. Hell, he would not have killed a man for his job, or at least would not have beaten a man’s face to cover their identity.
The body had not only had its face beaten into, however— the throat had been sliced open as the killing move. A hard object had been used to smash the victim’s face in, making it unrecognisable. Acid was used to burn all fingerprints, as well as toeprints, to prevent identification. The body had then been burned in an incinerator as a final measure against any possible recognition of the victim’s identity.
The woods were a good place to hide valuables, assuming that the residents of Hazakura temple do not try to find them.
My choice… made no sense to my ‘true self’. Though, when I took on the role of the man who I now was, it made perfect sense. The theory I formed in my head was, in the end, merely a theory and not fact. As my true self I could not understand why tossing a corpse in a vat of acid to ‘erase’ it would not suffice.
So, I suppose I could never truly understand the person I had been tasked to impersonate. How pitiful. My act was meant to be perfect, and yet the flaw of confusion…
…It would be my demise. I am prepared for my demise. My heart feels no pain from the idea of death— made of cold, hard rock, it's barely alive enough to pump icy blood through my body. My mind will only think of what it must, nothing irrelevant which may get me killed.
I had already reached the location where I must be, in the middle of these woods.
The canopy created by lush trees hung over my head.
I felt nothing. Only the sensation of cold wind blowing through my ‘hair’, gently caressing my skin. My heart, made of stone, is quiet and my hands work to dig out a corpse under recently upturned earth. Using a shovel, they moved on their own.
It is almost robotic how they seem to work on their own. My mind is a machine, it must remain as precise as one.
A single failure in calculation could lead to my demise.
Failure of your mission means permanent termination.
Failure of your mission means permanent termination.
Failure of your mission means permanent terminati—
Silence.
I cannot think such pointless thoughts. I understood the message the first time, no need to repeat it.
Do not repeat it. Do not think about it. Do not follow such a line of thought.
…
I could feel something.
I could feel the sensation of a touch.
I could feel something. I could feel dirt covered flesh touching me.
I felt it. The ‘disgusting’ sensation of rotting flesh at my fingertips. Once again my hands worked on their own to uncover the corpse, never pulling it out of the ground. It need not be taken out of the ground, my current task is to place and bury something alongside it.
In one hand I held my shovel, in my other I held a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were meant to be placed on his grave, but as he had none, it would have to be tucked right into his heart instead.
Why was I doing this?
Messing around with the shovel I managed to dig up a good portion of the dirt around his corpse. The rotting man had been covered with it head to toe, and if I was permitted to feel I would have thrown up by now.
I bent down to see his dirt covered ‘face’, but when I did I could only see what should have been my own reflection.
I brushed a patch of dirt from what was once his face. My face.
Who was I looking at?
I placed the bouquet in my hand in his chest, inside his ribcage. It contained daffodils asking for an apology, as well as black roses I dyed myself as a symbol of goodbye.
I once read a book about flowers. A long, 100 chapter volume on the best kinds of flowers for each occasion. I could not remember the details, and I had no right to. It was pointless for myself to remember the definitions of various flower types, and yet, and yet…
I took one of his arms and placed it on the man’s chest, so he could hold the beloved bouquet I left for him.
When I got up, I looked down at the corpse. My own corpse.
With the bouquet in my hand I looked rather peaceful, if you ignored the smashed face.
‘My’ face cracked a wide smile, white teeth gleaming. He would have done so, wouldn’t he? No wonder I brought flowers. I, the man in the grave, would have done the same.
The corpse in the ground used to be someone, and now it was nameless. And I, a nameless phantom, had adopted a new identity.
If I was someone else, I should act that way. My appearance would have been identical to the body beside my feet, and his— no, my face appeared completely natural.
It was perfect. I was him, and he was I.
I was the man in the grave, and he was a nameless corpse.
If the corpse in the ground was nameless, and I was the nameless corpse, then I suppose I still had no name for myself. A shame, really. A chance to gain a self that would give me some meaning to exist and yet it was just out of my grasp.
I felt no sadness thinking this. I had no will, right, or ability to.
From today on, I was no longer ‘myself’. The endless abyss that was me does not exist.
From today on, I was another man, considerably the opposite in terms of my ‘personality’, but someone else none the less.
I must act like the man as well.
My entire existence relies on the fact that I can become anyone and take their place without a single trace of anything being wrong.
So then, I put a hand to my head and gave a two-finger salute.
The man in the grave was a nameless phantom, and the nameless phantom who was me had been granted another name. One of the many I had stolen and shed.
He was another name I had stolen and will dispose of, nobody special, never will be.
I am him, he is me.
And this… is where we part ways.
“In justice we trust.”