Attempts at Relevance
Kokutō learned quickly that doing nothing was not the same as being ignored.
The world acknowledged him in small, practical ways. Doors opened when he pushed them. Vendors took his money without comment. People stepped aside on sidewalks with the same unconscious courtesy they extended to anyone who occupied space with confidence.
He was not invisible.
He was… unremarkable.
That realization unsettled him more than the chains ever had.
In Hell, every step had weight. Every breath pressed against resistance. Even standing still required endurance, because the world there insisted that stillness itself was an offense.
Here, stillness was permitted.
Here, stillness was common.
Kokutō spent the morning moving through neighborhoods that had learned to expect trouble. The architecture bore the signs—barred windows, reinforced doors, walls tagged and retagged as if identity itself needed constant reaffirmation. He watched people who carried their tension openly, shoulders hunched, eyes sharp, voices tuned for escalation.
He thought: This is where relevance should be easy.
He entered a narrow alley where three men argued loudly around a crate of stolen goods. The words were sharp, laced with threat and frustration, the kind of verbal prelude that usually demanded blood.
Kokutō did not hide his approach.
One of them noticed him first and stiffened. The argument stalled, momentum bleeding away as attention shifted.
"What do you want?" the man snapped.
Kokutō stopped a few steps away. He let his presence settle, unmasked, unrestrained. In Hell, that alone would have triggered immediate response. Systems recognized defiance even before it was articulated.
"I want to see what happens," Kokutō said.
The men exchanged looks. Suspicion flickered—but it did not ignite.
"You looking for trouble?" another asked.
Kokutō considered the question.
"Yes," he answered honestly.
The honesty seemed to confuse them more than the threat would have. One of the men laughed, short and uncertain. "Man's crazy," he muttered, half to himself.
The crate was picked up. The argument dissolved. The men scattered in different directions, retreating without escalation, without confrontation.
The alley emptied.
Kokutō stood alone.
That should not have been possible.
He pressed his palm against the brick wall, feeling the rough texture beneath his skin. The sensation was vivid, real. The wall existed. He existed.
But the moment did not.
Relevance required resistance.
Here, resistance was optional.
He left the alley and walked until the city thinned again, frustration tightening his chest in a way that felt unfamiliar. In Hell, frustration sharpened into purpose. It fueled survival. It justified rage.
Here, frustration had nowhere to go.
By afternoon, Kokutō began to experiment.
He broke a window.
The sound was sharp, crystalline, drawing startled looks from nearby pedestrians. A woman gasped. Someone cursed. A phone appeared, raised instinctively to record.
Good, Kokutō thought. Reaction.
Moments later, a patrol car rolled up. Two officers approached, hands near their belts, posture cautious but controlled.
"Sir," one of them said. "Step away from the building."
Kokutō complied.
They asked questions. He answered them plainly. He did not resist when one of them took his arm.
The grip was firm.
Not punitive.
Procedural.
They wrote a report. He was fined. The paperwork took longer than the conversation. The officers were polite, even apologetic.
"Try not to do that again," one of them said, almost kindly.
And then they left.
Kokutō stood there with a citation in his hand, staring at the numbers printed at the bottom.
This was consequence?
Hell would have laughed.
He tore the paper in half and let the pieces fall. The wind caught them briefly before they settled, insignificant, on the pavement.
The world did not care.
Later, as evening crept in, Kokutō found himself near the river again. The water moved steadily, unconcerned with the weight of observation. It flowed because gravity insisted, not because meaning demanded it.
He watched reflections ripple and distort, thinking of the crater—of the way the ground there had seemed finished, as if motion itself had lost interest.
Absentious had not spoken to him.
It hadn't needed to.
It had shown him something Hell never could: that relevance was not guaranteed by suffering.
That was the cost of leaving.
Kokutō closed his eyes and did something he had not allowed himself in centuries.
He reached inward—not for power, not for resistance, but for memory unsharpened by pain.
He remembered laughter.
Not the bitter kind. Not the kind that mocked survival. Real laughter, once, long before chains taught him to measure breath.
The memory was faint.
But it was intact.
His eyes snapped open.
"No," he said softly. "That's not what you take from me."
He stood abruptly and turned away from the river, decision hardening into something unfamiliar.
If the world would not grant him relevance through pain, he would have to choose relevance through something else.
He did not yet know what that was.
But he knew what it was not.
He would not become a spectacle.
He would not beg systems that had lost jurisdiction.
And he would not return to Hell—not because he feared it, but because he understood now that Hell had already given him everything it could.
Relevance through suffering had a ceiling.
The city lights flickered on as night settled fully, the glow painting the streets in artificial constellations. Kokutō walked without destination, senses open, waiting not for resistance—but for a moment that demanded witness rather than response.
Far away, in a place where names carried weight, a monk paused mid-stroke, brush hovering above parchment.
The ink did not fall.
Something had failed to propagate.
The absence was subtle.
But it was enough.