Tsukumodo:Volume 4 Shadow

There are people with subdued personalities who do not emit much of a presence and keep a low profile. In many cases, they are negative thinkers, introverts or lone wolves.

There tends to be at least one of them in every class. They're the poor devils who get forgotten and left behind on school trips.

However, a negative personality does not automatically weaken your presence; I know someone who's far from being cheerful, doesn't talk much and always keeps a straight face, and yet she somehow manages to make herself felt.

I would notice instantly if she wasn't around—because she's never far from me.

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They would often call me a "shadow" behind my back because my weak presence—although you could actually drop the "behind my back" since I heard them talking—and when they noticed me, they would walk away, embarrassed, blaming me for not making my presence felt on their leave.

However, they didn't bear me ill will; it was just a plain fact they stated. To me, it was not at all rare to be forgotten during roll calls, or to be skipped when it was really my turn to solve a problem, or to be the one who was left after the last exercise sheet had been distributed.

That being said, it's not like I didn't feel anything when that happened. On such days, I would always be haunted by the wish to vanish into thin air.

If I'm only bothering people with my hardly noticeable presence, then I would rather just disappear entirely. I would tell myself. If my become more and more unnoticeable, maybe I'll eventually disappear like a shadow?

Of course not.

Therefore, I would go to the art room on such days and squat in a corner without turning on the lights. The darkness of the room erased my presence, my shadow, entirely; there I could disappear.

There I could relax. Only then could I really feel at peace of mind.

I didn't like lit places; because they made even a shadow as thin as mine stand out when I really wanted to hide in the dark.

I wanted to disappear, to melt into the shadows. So that everyone could keep on taking no heed of me.

Because my parents were at home on Sundays, it was my routine to go shopping then. Not because I wanted to give them some peace from their jobs but because I wasn't alone at home; the complaints they made when they told me to clean my room and the sound they produced when they cleaned the house would unsettle me. It was not the noise; it was the sheer presence of other people around me that made me feel cramped.

Therefore I would go outside. Alone, of course.

I hated crowds but I wasn't too bothered by them because there were only strangers in them. However, in order to avoid coming across someone I did know, I tended to take side alleys with few people around. I especially liked the shadowy spaces between two buildings. Every so often I would find delinquents in such places, but they always ignored me thanks to my weak presence.

It was on such a day in such a shadowy street that, while thinking these things, I came across a small, stagnant shop. It was clear at a glance that business wasn't thriving.

Its resemblance to myself in the sense of being hidden and ignored caught my interest. I entered the shop.

There were a lot of curious, clearly one-of-a-kind things on the shelves of that shop: a European doll, porcelain tableware, an old wall clock, and so on. I assumed it was an antique shop. I certainly didn't dislike this kind of store.

"Welcome," the saleswoman shortly said while sitting still behind the counter. She was breathtakingly beautiful; her presence cloaked this place in a veil of fantasy.

To be honest, her presence was a tad too strong for my taste.

"Are you looking for something specific?"

"Um... maybe something accessory-like?"

"So an accessory it is?"

"Yes, I suppose... one that doesn't attract any attention if possible."

While I had only made that request on the spur of the moment indeed, I wasn't averse to wearing an accessory. But because I didn't want to stand out, I didn't like gaudy things.

Suddenly, something on the shelves caught my eye.

I had noticed two small, oval glass phials. There were little lobe-like handles attached on both sides and a protruding lid on each of them. They looked almost the same with the exception of one being transparent and one being black.

Something about their subtlety attracted me; I picked them up and examined them from different angles. Looking through the glass I noticed that there was powder inside. I tried opening the lid and confirmed that it was powdered paint.

"You can have one of them," suggested the shop assistant as she took note of my interest.

"Only one?" I would like both, but I guess their limited in number.

"Which do you choose?"

Wavering back and forth, my hand alternated between the two phials. I grasped at the transparent bottle, changed my mind and grasped at the black one instead, only to return my hand to its former position again, after which I switched to the black one yet again.

"So you choose this one."

In the end, I chose the transparent phial.

"The Relic named 'Shadow.'"

"Relic...?"

"Note that by 'Relic' I don't mean antiques or art objects . 'Relic' is the word we use for tools with special capabilities created by mighty ancients or magicians, or for objects that have absorbed their owner's grudge or natural spiritual powers.

"You've probably heard of it before: things like a stone that brings ill luck, or a cursed voodoo doll or a triple mirror that shows how you are going to die. The Shadow Relic is one of them."

"'Shadow'..."

Its name was "Shadow" despite being transparent. While struggling against the urge to ask about the black one, I exchanged the cash I had for the transparent phial.

"This Relic, Shadow, allows you to weaken your presence."

"Hm?"

"That's the special power it bears."

Is this one of those fishy charms or mojos? I thought at first, but if it was true, then it was a perfect match for me, since I felt uncomfortably in this world and wanted to disappear.

"It lies in our nature to contradict ourselves. It seems to me, however, that this tendency is relatively strong in you. This Relic will fulfill your desire in a sense, but it will not in another sense."

After saying so, she opened the phial I had bought and scattered some of its content in the air around her.

Before I knew it, I was alone and walking along a main street.

By the time I arrived at home, the neat shop and the pretty saleswoman had completely slipped my mind and, as contradicting as it sounds, had been degraded to a "lasting impression without any specifics."

And the fainter my memory of the woman became, the stronger my faith in Shadow grew.

This powder will dim your very existence—

Even though I'd forgotten her face and appearance, I could vividly remember the purpose of the phial I'd bought. As I gazed at my transparent purchase, the last thing she'd said to me crossed my mind.

She'd given me a warning, which was the single last thing that kept me here.

"Be careful: if you dim an existence too often, it will disappear altogether!"

If she was saying the truth, then this was a tempting opportunity to escape from this world—

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[in progress]