Click.
Click.
The room was silent, save for the rhythmic clicking of Go stones hitting the board.
My doppelgänger and I focused on the game, neither of us uttering a word.
The female Muzan had left the house to 'experience the artifacts of the future.' This place was supposedly a Mental Realm created from my memories, but I wasn't entirely sure how much of it had been realized.
Well, I'm sure she'll manage.
She said that no matter what chaos she causes in this mental world, it cannot interfere with reality.
But anyway...
Was Go always this easy?
I had never played it once in my previous life, yet the moves were as clear as day. I could see exactly where to place the stones.
Wait, was I actually a Go prodigy?
Just as that thought crossed my mind...
Click.
My doppelgänger suddenly made an incredibly strange move.
Wait, why would you put it there?
I wondered if it was a trap, but there was absolutely zero strategic benefit to that placement.
Thinking he might be joking, I looked at my doppelgänger's face, but the bastard looked intensely focused.
Maybe I wasn't particularly good; maybe my doppelgänger was just terrible at this.
I blinked at his blunder and made my next move.
Are those six eyes just for show...?
If one of my roommates has five brains for decoration, does the other carry around six eyes for the same reason?
Why are all my roommates like this...?
At this point, I started wondering if I was the one with a defect somewhere.
"Michikatsu..."
The doppelgänger suddenly called my name while fiddling with the stones in the container.
I suppose he was finally ready to ask what he wanted to ask.
"What?"
The doppelgänger spoke again as he made a move.
"By your side... there was a twin..."
Was he talking about Yoriichi?
"There was."
"Why did you not feel a sense of inferiority toward him...?"
Huh?
"What are you talking about? Why would I feel inferior to that guy?"
"I have seen your story... The story you have written in this world for seventeen years... It was quite a spectacle, but something kept catching my eye... Your twin..."
He saw all of that?
This crazy bastard is looking through my personal information without permission.
Well, I haven't done anything particularly weird while living here, but still.
The sense of shame was hard to stomach.
"Are you trying to say it's a failure of a story when a supporting character appears who is superior to the lead?"
The doppelgänger toyed with the Go stones in the bowl.
"Hardly... Though not a masterpiece, it was an entertaining enough tale... However... I could not understand it... Why did you harbor no inferiority despite being next to such a person...? You feared your twin, yet you acknowledged his existence... You viewed him as a path, but never as a destination..."
The doppelgänger continued as he placed a stone.
"That is what I cannot comprehend... Despite being closer to him than anyone else, why did you not despair at that distance? Why did you give up the thought of becoming him? I find that incomprehensible..."
So, what he was curious about was why I didn't feel jealous after seeing Yoriichi's talent? That was his question?
What? That's all he was curious about?
"To think the answer you wanted so badly—enough to set this atmosphere and even block Muzan—would be something so trivial."
"What...?"
I felt the tension drain out of me.
How was that something to be curious about?
It was simple.
I opened my mouth as I placed my own stone.
"When you see a bird and think you want to fly, do you expect wings to sprout from your own back?"
"What...?"
Yoriichi and I were in different leagues from the very beginning.
The guy was knocking out adult samurai in four moves at the age of seven. He was born with the Transparent World, the Slayer Mark, and Sun Breathing.
His grip strength could produce a Crimson Blade with a mere squeeze, and he possessed the skill to carve up a regenerating Muzan in an instant. Even Muzan couldn't easily regenerate from the wounds that boy inflicted.
Simply put, he was a monster born into a different tier of existence.
There is nothing more foolish than feeling inferior to a creature that possesses entirely different biological capabilities.
It's like staring at a bird and agonizing, 'Why do I want to fly but can't?'
Of course, a sense of inferiority isn't always wrong.
Didn't humanity eventually invent airplanes because they wanted to fly like birds?
But humans cannot truly fly like birds. They simply compromised by using the tool known as an airplane to achieve the same effect.
It's the same thing.
Why do I need to be Yoriichi?
Even if I'm not Yoriichi, I can still slay Demons.
Breathing styles, the Transparent World, the Slayer Mark, the Crimson Blade—I can achieve those things too.
"The very desire to become Yoriichi is what's strange. How could we ever be him? He is on a different level. There's a reason for the saying, 'Don't even look at a tree you cannot climb.'"
"So... are you saying you simply gave up...?"
"If you see a bird and desire flight, you should approach it with the idea of building something that allows you to fly like a bird. If you try to become the bird, you're just an idiot. Humans thought like the former and eventually created machines called airplanes, yet humans themselves still cannot fly."
"...."
"But humans were satisfied with reaching the sky. Their goal wasn't to become the bird. It's the same for me. I was satisfied merely by obtaining the skills that guy uses. There is an insurmountable wall between him and me as living beings."
"Is that so..."
"And besides, you punk. Feeling inferior to your younger brother would ruin my dignity. I'm the older brother, after all."
Click.
Suddenly, the doppelgänger stopped his hand mid-air as he was about to place a stone.
"Is that so... So that is how you thought..."
"Reaching for an ideal is good, but balancing that ideal with reality is just as important. It's foolish to let yourself be consumed by the ideal because of it. After all, admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding."
"I see... Then, what is the reason you fear him?"
Why do I fear him?
"How do you think it would feel if that guy snapped and hit me just once?"
"It would hurt..."
"That's the reason."
"Then, even while facing one with such power... you still viewed him as human. The reason for that is...?"
He sure has a lot of questions.
Why did I see him as human?
He's a person, so I see him as a person. What, should I see him as a Tyrannosaurus Rex?
"Only his abilities were different from ours. Even if he looked like a block of wood on the outside..."
I placed another stone.
Click.
"He knows how to cry, laugh, get angry, and enjoy himself. Having spent a long time with him and sharing many conversations, the being inside that shell was undoubtedly human. If a human isn't called a human, then what would you call him?"
"'Conversation', is it..."
The doppelgänger put the Go stone he was holding back into the container and smiled slightly.
"This side loses."
He suddenly declared his defeat. Apparently, he had received his answer, for he asked no more questions.
"Was that enough?"
"More than... My curiosity has been satisfied. I only hope that 'I' can also find an answer through this..."
He spoke in riddles.
What a strange fellow.
Just then, the sliding door burst open.
It wasn't the female Muzan returning; the door simply opened on its own.
The doppelgänger looked at the open door and spoke.
"It is time... If you step through that door, you will return to reality... Roughly three days have passed in the world outside..."
"That's quite a while."
Three days... I hope I wasn't buried alive or cremated while I was out.
Well, since she said I didn't die, the chances of that were probably slim.
I reached my hand out to the doppelgänger.
Since we were going to be sharing the same headspace, I figured I should say goodbye properly.
"I'll be in your care from now on. By the way, do you have a name?"
He stared blankly at my hand for a moment before realizing my intent and grasping it.
"No... I have no such thing as a name..."
"Still, man, it feels cold to just call you 'hey,' 'you,' or 'doppelgänger.' It lacks any affection."
I couldn't exactly call him 'Michikatsu Ver. 2'.
"Now that I think of it... Before you arrived here... the Muzan clone gave me a designation..."
That guy gave him a name?
"Kokushibo..."
"The Black Death? Jeez, of course that guy would give you a shitty name like that."
Who gives someone a name that sounds like the Plague?
"I do not particularly mind the designation... And, in a way, it is the name that suits 'me' best..."
Is that so?
Well, if the person himself likes it, I guess I shouldn't argue.
"Then I'll call you Kokushibo too."
Kokushibo replied with a faint smile.
"As you wish."
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