Tokiko's Travelogues

A Brief Record of My Shikoku Pilgrimage

Timeline 8

The moon and sun are eternal travellers, so it is said. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift on a boat, or in old age leading one's retirement out into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is a home. From time immemorial, there have always been some who perished on the road. And if we were to take every home we make of ourselves as like being on a traghetto, as the gondola drifting leisurely through the canals, then perhaps it doesn't make too much of a difference where you perish. Still, I feel like I've always been drawn to this life of aimless wandering.

Lately, I've been thinking of such matters, perhaps as an escape from reality. Having hadn't had any rest nor room to breathe these past few months, I couldn't ask myself where I was headed to with all this. And when Madoka became a magical girl and became a witch and when I shot her once more, just a few days ago, I asked myself where we were headed to with all this.

Initially, I wanted to wind back the clock and go back to the beginning. But for some reason, I took Madoka's cold body in my arms and carried her back to where it was always safe: her family. They were all located at the evacuation hub somewhere within the Mitakihara Expo, to my relief. In the past few times I'd seen, the Expo managed to hold up against Walpurgisnacht. Of course, this was probably because it was near the outskirts of the residential district, away from the Walpurgisnacht's path of carnage. Most of the city wasn't so lucky.

What made me most sorry were those who had been caught in the crossfire of my battle. It was maybe one timeline ago, where in my delirium, I shot a child running in my direction. I had mistaken it for one of Walpurgisnacht's familiars. Running with the child were several other children. None of them had come to evacuate in time, for whatever reason there might be. I shot them down too. I'm not sure why I did that; I don't particularly want to remember either.

In the shelter, with the Kaname family, I mourned and waited for the storm to pass. In pockets of time alone, I penned down a small verse:

夕立に息浅く付く不如帰

As the sun sets,
my breath thins and I
think of home.

It must have been over a week until the skies cleared up to a golden sky. Walpurgisnacht had departed. Gazing at the wind-blown clouds, I thought of how much like a horrible dream it all was, and I sunk again into daydreams of a lifetime of wandering. The cicadas soon dug out from the underground and began crying, marking the start of summer. Deciding against going to Madoka's funeral, I headed back to what was left of my home and tried to salvage some of my valuables.

Then, after circling town once or twice, I looked at the faces of hope and despair on the survivors. I watched with some sentimentality businessowners scurrying together to fix up what they could and return to normal operations. And I realised that there was no more reason for me to stay here anymore. Since all transportation and communications were temporarily down, there was no choice but for me to simply go by foot. The sweltering heat might have made this impossible for me a year or so back, but I suppose I'd gotten used to the strain.

I bought a straw hat and a walking stick at one of the shops in the old market. The old lady shopkeeper complained to me that her son and daughter-in-law had died in the horrible storms, but there was no way to make any funeral arrangements since there were too many casualties. Apparently, it was the worst she'd seen since the Tokyo firebombing. "If I'd known it'd come to this," she said, "I'd have pestered them more to make me a grandchild, and maybe give me some money to start up a cremation business."

We chatted for a bit before I had to go. It was my first time talking to her, but I felt somehow attached nonetheless. It made me sad to think that this would be our last time talking in this timeline. With a fuzzy feeling in my heart, and a free bottle of water to stave away the heat, I made my way to the border between Kazamino and Mitakihara. There, there was a view I particularly liked. Standing on a hill was an old observation tower, with a vantage point overlooking the city. Now it was missing its roof and several upper floors, but that only made it look all the more charming to me. I thought Sakura Kyouko would have been there too, but no one was around when I came. And so, I left a note on the wooden front door to tell her I would be gone. It came to me then that Sakura Kyouko was quite like this door: old, rigid, flammable — but all the more precious for it.

Before I knew it, it was already late into the evening. Deciding against travelling in the night, I took watch at the old tower and felt the summer breeze through my hair, watching the sun set. Mitakihara had never been this dark at night before. Before tucking myself to a long awaited sleep, I could not help but think back to the days when Madoka and I would take late into the night at the hilltop gardens, back when both Mitakihara and I were still like sparkling jewels, spiraling from one pristine day to the next, journeying softly through the days. And, remembering Madoka's bright smile, I wrote:

この町や光があふれる遠くまで

O Mitakihara!
your light overflows
into the distance.