Chapter III - Being Fair

“Wakey-wakey!” Eiri, speaking under her breath, reached towards the lukewarm, soapy water Harry slept in, and unclenched her fingers, making the white rings floating around her forearm all clash forward, infusing into her hand, and releasing into the water. Small pieces of ice crystals formed, but then sank alongside the colder water towards the bottom of the bathtub.

A small grunt came out of Harry, still asleep. His body shifted around uncomfortably, then next came a bout of shiver. Suddenly, he opened his eyes to a blonde lady with green eyes who was bent forward, with her hands on the bathtub, staring him down with a grin. He defenselessly backed away towards the window.

“What gives? Are you trying to use your soul death as an excuse to woo my little Sora?” Eiri stood up, washed her hands, then grabbed a towel to dry them.

His teeth chattering, Harry shivered again as his body hair stood up. “I—no—I did not—huh huh—try—”

Eiri interrupted him, as she wore her yellow gloves. “—wash your hair already!”

Harry curled up, hugging his knees, he tried to save some body heat. “But—the soap.”

“Don’t you know how to rinse or what? Do it. Take a dip!” Eiri stood up by the bathtub, blocking his way out.

Harry followed suit, taking a deep breath, he submerged.

Eiri, meanwhile, grabbed a small rod with a fishing hook in one end from a drawer, and stuck it into the bathtub, causing a loud grumble to ensue when she fished out a big cork.

Harry, trying to remove the soap in his eyes, sat up in the quickly draining bathtub, but the sheer amount of soap made it impossible to get his vision back.

“You ready?” Eiri put the rod aside and grabbed the water handle attached to the pipe.

“What?” Harry, apparently still unwilling to open his eyes, blindly looked towards Eiri.

“Hehehe—” Eiri pulled on the water handle, letting the cold water splash Harry.

“Haaa!” A squeamish call came out of him, trying to keep the cold water at bay.

“Rinse yourself! Yeah! There you go! Get closer! There is still some soap on your hair!” Eiri, controlling the water handle, helped Harry rinse—or haze depending on who’s asking.

The gushing of water stopped, and with it the hazing rinse. Shivering as he sat up in the bathtub, he opened his eyes to the same blonde girl, opening a nearby drawer, and pulling out a blue with gold accented towel. Harry stood up with his hands in front of his privates, hiding the little that he had left to hide.

Eiri, on the other side of the bathroom, held the towel with one hand near her head, ready to throw. “I’ve seen those before—you got nothing to hide. Here. Catch it!”

Harry’s hands moved on their own to catch the towel going above his head, leaving exposed his shrunken manhood.

“Haha—so you’re a grower, huh?” Eiri placed her hands in the direction of the shriveled jewels, right before they disappeared again behind a fancy towel.

Harry, hiding most of his body behind the towel, was frozen in place. No words came out of him.

With a smile, Eiri blew off Harry with her hand. “I’m just kidding—anyway, I’m Eiri—Sanbi’s King-Maid.”

“Hi—I’m Harry.” With a defensive tone, Harry replied, still shivering as he took solace in the protection of the towel.

“C’mon. Don’t be shy. Both Maiara and Sora prefer men with more confidence than that,” Eiri called Harry with her hand. “Put the towel in the basket then come over here.” Eiri, now in the bedroom, peaked around the clothing drawers, looking for something. “Where did she put it? Ahh! There you go!” Eiri picked up a set of blueish clothes, with golden accents, plus black underwear, blue socks, and brown social boots. She turned herself towards the bathroom door, where Harry stood up there, still hiding himself away in the towel, squinting his eyes back at her. “All right. Here!” Eiri mashed the underwear into a ball, and threw like a professional pitcher towards Harry.

With his bad eyes, and reaction time, Harry’s hand failed to catch it mid-air, but lucky for him, it unfolded, and landed on his chest, then plopped on his feet.

“That might be a bit tight for you, but that’s what I have right now. Sorry, I was told you would be leaner.” Eiri saw Harry hide away in the bathroom, with underwear in hands. “Sora told me about you—I heard of near soul deaths cases before, but people only lose memories, rather than them suddenly asking weird questions.”

Harry, in nothing but a pair of black underwear, appeared at the door, showing off his hairy gut. “Weird questions?”

“Yeah—like Itagiba told me what you remembered, so like—you know what this is, right?” Eiri gave him a pair of blue pants that looked a bit tight for his butt.

Harry walked over to closely see what Eiri was holding, then grabbed it with both hands. “This one, yes, they are pants.” Amidst the struggle to put them on, he squirmed a few words. “Actually—I do know some things—but many of them feel weird, like the toilet.”

“Toilet? How so?” Eiri’s curiosity peaked.

“I don’t know. I thought you would press down on the top, or like a lever thingy on the side, but it’s not that.” Harry pressed a fictitious flush button. “Also, they aren’t supposed to be this boxy. I thought they would be more like an oval or something. White too.”

Eiri watched the one-man show of how to flush a toilet with intrigue in her eyes. “Never heard of that—that’s odd. I’ve heard of adventurers who were dead for like a month, losing pretty much all memories when they were revived—I heard one case where an amethyst adventurer basically became a baby! He couldn’t speak, stand up, and he even crapped his pants too.” Eiri chuckled, shaking her head as she unbuttoned a blue dress shirt with golden accents. “Like—can the person even be considered alive at that point?” With a wrinkling forehead, and a small sigh, she got closer to Harry. “Extend your hand.”

Harry, doing as told, saw Eiri’s yellow-gloved hands help put on the shirt. “So I was an adventurer instead? Itagiba said I had a near soul death, too, but I don’t even remember being in the slum—I do know what it is though—I think.”

“Gabiro would know. Ow? You haven’t met him? Not even Kibe?” Eiri saw the deadpan look in Harry’s eyes, hearing what appeared to be two completely foreign names.

“Nooo—? At least I don’t remember meeting them?” Harry looked at Eiri, as he struggled to close the buttons. “Actually—I don’t remember being from the slums at all. I thought I had my own home, and—and—car! Yeah. I had a car! A black one!”

“Pull it in!” Eiri softly slapped his gut, contemplating with serious lips. Here he goes again talking about strange things.

Pulling as far as he could, Harry gave just enough way for Eiri to tie in the buttons. Relaxing his gut afterwards, his stomach barreled against the buttons. The buttons themselves held firm in place, but the sewing around them was moments away from tearing and launching them into orbit, possibly on an escape trajectory.

Julia really did a good job with the sewing. Eiri, glancing at the nearly ripping fabric, spoke seriously. “So you're saying you had a car—what is that?”

“I can’t quite remember it either, but I knew I sat on it with my hands like this, and if I stepped towards the right it would accelerate, and the middle would brake. There was this thing sticking out on the left that you would flick up or down, but I can’t remember what it did. I mean I know there’s more, but I can’t really remember it.” Harry performed another one-man show, with his hands stuck out front, including stepping on fictitious pedals.

Closely observing how Harry portrayed driving a car, Eiri tried to imagine him in the top of a wagon, directing an egua—a horse-looking mammal, but bigger, and with tons of hair around the hoof region, but in her mind she couldn’t quite fit it together. “I have never seen a wagon, or carriage like that—I knew Sora told me the truth, but hearing it for myself really puts it into perspective.” Eiri’s lips thinned out, and her eyes dropped. “Did you sign a contract already?”

“Contract? No? I—I don’t think so.” Harry responded openly to her tone growing serious.

“Do you even have a badge?” Eiri’s tone was one where she was no longer playing around.

Harry touched his chest, “Did I forget mine? Wait. What was the company badge again? It had my name—I think.”

Eiri slowly opened the blue bedroom door, and spied out towards the stairs, confirming nobody was there listening in. She closed the door, removed her yellow glove, and stuck her pink finger out. “Promise not to say this to anyone, okay?”

Eiri firmly grasped Harry’s slightly cold pinky. He initially was soft in response, but then he grasped her pinky in a reciprocal strength.

“Pinky promise! I know this!” Harry ecstatically replied, looking Eiri in her green eyes.

With a deep breath, she let go of his pinky, and wore her yellow glove again. In her mind, a picture of a past meeting between her, Itagiba, Neferteri, and Gabiro flashed by. “You know how they told you were from the Sanbi slums?”

Harry nodded, eagerly listening to everything she was saying.

With her arms crossed, Eiri rested herself against the blue door. “Something is clearly off. Two Freedays ago, in the meeting with all four, Itagiba asked Gabiro to create a new fake skin that matched what Maiara wanted—apply it on a random hobo, and see if Maiara fell in love with him, but earlier today I saw with my own two eyes they were doing something else. I don’t know exactly, but it all seemed odd from the beginning. I refused to accept it on the grounds that it would basically be a loveless marriage—but now seeing you I realized this might have been unfair to you as well.”

Harry stood there, with a slightly open mouth, apparently not being able to take in all the info dump.

With a heavy breath, Eiri continued. “Like—I refused to allow it, but three against one means I had no choice but to accept defeat. Then Gabiro talked back saying he didn’t have time for this Sanbi shit, but soon after he suddenly changed his tune, and just asked when, to which Itagiba said it would be by next Gannday—today.”

With a loose jaw, and furrowed brows, Harry understood the words she was saying, but the meaning of it all was somewhat of a blur, just like his vision. He closed his eyes, and massaged his temple, “So I’m a random hobo from the slums? Then—then what fake skin is?”

Eiri went back on her feet, and walked to the writing desk where she pulled out a single nari stone encased in green wood. “You grind this down, mix with someone’s body part, parts, or even pieces of the whole body, and that’s about it—or if you are smart enough like Gabiro, you can even customize it by mixing multiple people, or things. Then if you drink it, your body will change.”

Vaguely blinking, Harry spit out, “Wow—for real?—but then, how do you know what someone really looks like? What do I look like?”

Eiri pulled out something from between her chest. An artifact about the size of a credit card. It had a green wood texture, with iron balls at the corners. The name Eiri Sanbi was written out in one line and Sanbi Royal in the next. Below it, there were two mercury thermometer-like apparatuses covered in dark grainy red. One was thinner, and displayed numbers 1 through 5 on its side, and the other was far thicker, and displayed numbers 6 through 10. The numbers from 1 to 5, and 6 to 10 were spaced using a rather precise logarithmic pattern, as if the space between 4 and 5, and 9 and 10 were much larger than 1 to 2, and 5 to 6. Eiri placed her thumb at the base of the pseudo thermometer, and like blood dripping and oozing onto a paper, a red bioluminescent light oozed itself from the base of the thinner thermometer, and propagated itself until somewhere around the halfway point between 4 and 5. “This is how you really know. A badge from Forway—which if I were to guess, you never had one either, right?” Eiri handed over the badge.

Harry was quietly mesmerized by the credit-card-sized object, feeling the remnants of warmth from being tucked away close to Eiri’s body. He felt the polished wood texture of the badge, and the indentations left behind by the wood carvings. He felt similar indentations on the back, and flipping the badge, he saw a circular logo stamped with fire. The logo was divided in four sections, each with a logogram. The top left was a mountain, then a grain, then the familiar looking fish, and finally, what appeared to be a weird horizontal genealogy tree. He pressed his thumb in the same base of the thermometer-like apparatuses Eiri pressed on, but no bioluminescence showed.

Eiri placed back the badge in the depths between her breasts. “Anyway—you still remember the room you woke up in?”

With a firm nod, Harry looked serious in his confidence.

“I was a floor below doing my weekly check when I heard an explosion—” Eiri noticed Harry’s eyes dilate like a deer about to be hit by a truck. “—yeah. It sounded like one, but the building itself didn’t blow up. I rushed in, and I saw you unconscious on the table while Kibe was dead by the window, and Gabiro was on the grass outside, flat as a pancake—”

“Ohh! So that was their blood!” Harry interjected, with a sigh of relief.

“Yep. You were out cold, but alive, so I revived Kibe, and then we tried to revive Gabiro, but—” Eiri felt a tight chest. Holding one fist close to her chest, and a pained look on her face, she softly spoke, “—That’s when things went south. Gabiro somehow lit up in white fire, maybe soul fire, and then turned into a Fanchaki. Ahhhhh—Kibe still has no idea what happened, or how to turn Gabiro back. I had a suspicion they were messing with your soul, but right now I have no way to know what actually happened.”

“But—but what should I do?” With a vague look in his eyes, Harry looked back at Eiri as if she was his savior, or a friend—maybe both.

“I don’t know either!” With pouting lips, a sad tone slipped out of her mouth. “I got out-voted in the end. Just consider things carefully. If they offer you a contract, just read it thoroughly. Make sure that’s what you want. You can try to bargain for things, too.” Eiri placed her hands on the doorknob. “That’s all I have to say. For now, stay here, read a book—I recommend ‘Fanged Love’ if you like romance, or read ‘Prosperity Treaty’s Heroes’ if you like history—or maybe ‘The Sapphire Counter’ if you like accounting. I can even teach you some tricks of the trade if you do enjoy that book!” Eiri winked. “Any last questions?”

Harry aimlessly looked at the plethora of books in his room. He let out a long soft hum.

“I know. I know. Take some time to think about it. In the meantime, I will ask a maid to stop by with some tea. Any preferences?”

Slowly shrugging, Harry looked back at Eiri, with another hum, but shorter this time.

“All right. I will get something from the top-shelf for you. I know just the right thing to lift your spirit.” Eiri opened the door. “By the way, if Sora works up the courage to come, can you please go easy on her?”

Harry nodded with a sad, busy smile splattered on his face.

Eiri stuck his pinky out as she was closing the door, “Remember the promise.”

With the door behind her, she took a second to catch a deep breath. Under her breath, she softly spoke, “That was the right thing.”

Feeling like something was stuck in the back of her throat, Eiri gulped, then slowly and rhythmically breathed. Okay. This is getting weirder. Sitting across from her, behind a large wooden desk was Neferteri, carefully reading a contract written in red ink, and signed in her own blood on the bottom left. Itagiba, to her left, lay back in his comfy red chair, with a relaxed brow, and a slight smile on his face. His eyes crossed paths with Eiri’s where they kept staring at each other for a few seconds, before Eiri deviated her attention to the meeting notes she was holding. Kibe, meanwhile, was nearly invisible in the room, like a chameleon on a tree branch—immobile and with a dead look in his eyes that zoomed around aimlessly. Eiri spoke up, interrupting a brief moment of silence. “Lemme see if I got this right. If he loses, then he’s gonna be five hundred sapphires in the hole, and will have to work as Sanbi-eye, which is basically going around listening to people’s complaints—isn’t that—like—the job of a guard? They already go on expeditions around the villages!”

“Eiri—Eiri—my girl—you're missing the point! Listen!” Itagiba, cracking his neck, continued, “We can market the term Sanbi-eye!”

“No! I know you two can market pretty much anything, but—the question is, why though? We could just have a guard do that, and name him Sanbi-eye. I mean, why are we going through all this hurdle when the person is not even close to what Maiara wanted? We should just let him be free, and be done with it!”

An elegant, yet sharp womanly voice contrasted Itagiba's chill vibes. “I will not allow a sunk-cost fallacy to be used in this context for there are still benefits that will be derived from employing him on said project.” Neferteri poured a bucket of ice water over the conversation.

“Why? He’s a nobody! He has no idea who he is! Why are you presenting him with a choice when he does not know any alternatives?” Eiri replied back in a similar sharpness. “By the way—tier one daily salary is close to twelve pearls, which first—that’s terrible pay for what amounts to a guard, and second— that would put Harry—” using her fingers as a rough abacus, she counted a few big numbers, “Thirty-eight? No. Thirty-nine years! That’s how long he would be stuck with this unfair contract! I refuse to agree with that!”

“Oh! we know.” Itagiba looked deeply at Eiri’s worried eyes with a cheerful grin, pulling out a paper from a pile of random papers he had on his desk. “I do have a copy of last meeting’s votes. See? Now we are just getting Kibe up to speed, and placing a vote on the amended contract before getting the Bagarisa guy to sign.”

Eiri evaded his obnoxious grin, and looked at the human-chameleon called Kibe. “You’re the new courtroom scientist! Don’t you think this is wrong?”

A shrug came out of him. “It’s not my fault. I was just following orders—”

Eiri cut off Kibe, her voice more intense than usual. “—But—but you are the courtroom scientist now! You have the power to stop this!”

A raspy voice, slightly above monotone, found its way out of Kibe’s mouth. “And do you think I wanted this?”

The same elegant voice from before cut through the ongoing conversation like a well-sharpened knife. “That’s enough. Our current topic is him—or am I wrong?”

Eiri swallowed her words, and gripped the meeting notes she was holding. “Yes.” A regretful tone slipped out of her mouth. This is not going anywhere. I need to do something—

With an aura of superiority, Neferteri spoke up clearly, “In regard to him, and our previous meetings, I did not divulge the finalized contract due to the wide range of possible mental states, and capabilities he could awaken with. Given that he does not possess a strong personality and lacks knowledge about himself, I decided to use him for the Sanbi-eye project.” Neferteri’s eyes struck like daggers towards Eiri’s. “He is a nobody that we have given a golden ticket. Do you fathom how many citizens would stand at our doors wishing for such a thing?”

Eiri felt a tingle in her chest, an energy that she contained for a while now rising to the surface. “YES—BUT—THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT RIGHT!” Eiri felt a stroke of genius as her eyebrows regained some vitality “What about Maiara? This is clearly not what she wanted! Have you shown her Harry?”

“She said fuck it!” Itagiba bent forwards, now using his arms to rest his weight on the table. Letting out a chuckle, he continued, “Or if you want a direct quotation, she said she would fuck him up the ass tomorrow.”

While Itagiba eloquently quoted the second princess Maiara, Neferteri tightly closed her eyes as the rest of her face kept its usual elegance. Apparently ignoring Itagiba’s verbiage, she spoke in a firmer tone, “With everything stated thus far, all agreed on the final contract?” Neferteri raised her badge—its bioluminescent thermometer-like apparatus felt like an ultimatum for the others to act upon. Itagiba went next, and last was Kibe.

Eiri crossed her arms, and looked back at them with a flimsily firmness, and a trembling corner of the mouth. She looked at the Sanbi king, Itagiba, and Sanbi queen, Neferteri. “Then tell me! What happened this morning? Why was Gabiro doing an experiment with the soul? Everyone knows how dangerous it is!”

“In regard to the events that unfolded this morning, that is the sole responsibility of the courtroom scientist. There is a reason we have the monarchy, soul energy, and economical departments. We make requests to one another, and we hold each other accountable through this very meeting.” Neferteri did not mince words, looking elegant, yet combative with her unwavering will on full display.

Eiri clenched her teeth, then asked, “Then why do you want to have full control over him? What if citizens have tributary questions?”

With a slight smile, and just as firm of a tone as before, Neferteri placed her hand on her husband’s desk. “We are the monarchy department, and it is our responsibility to handle the social interactions. Any tributary questions that may arise will be relayed over to your department as necessary.”

The words cut through Eiri like butter, then a voice came to her head: That bitch, and her secrets! Argh! The voice was of her mother, Coema. Crossing her arms tightly, a pouting expression shone through her. She glanced towards Kibe, “You’re worse than Gabiro.”

A smaller shrug came out of Kibe, but no actual response. His badge went down first, then the other two as a silence began building in the room.

Neferteri softly cleared her throat, carefully glancing at Eiri’s rhythmically shaking leg, then at the paper resting in her lap. Her eyes seemed to take keen note of the slightly crumpled nature of it, as if someone had held it a bit too tightly.

Eiri, using a feather, wrote yes three-to-one under Harry's final contract heading, then she read out loud the last heading in the paper. “The last topic is—Gabiro.” Eiri folded the slightly crumpled paper in half, and covered it with her hands, hiding it away from Neferteri’s prying eyes.

Neferteri pointed towards a small pile of books covered in fish leather, with a cyan fish logo painted on the covers. “Kibe, please give us a rundown of your attempts, plus an ETA.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything, and he did not write it down either. What do you want me to do?” Kibe appeared like a dog standing in front of an empty bowl, awaiting his master to throw him a bone—at least based on how he looked towards Neferteri.

“And you’ve attempted to revive him through all normal means?” Neferteri looked at Eiri’s reaction rather than Kibe’s.

“Yes? You wanted me to write those down? If so, Itagiba did not tell me to do that. I don’t even remember how many things I tried at this point. I even used Eori’s failed research on pickling,” Kibe pointed at Itagiba.

Itagiba sat normally, and pointed a fingerbang right back at Kibe. With raised eyebrows, and a smirk on his face, as if he was making a move on a girl in a bar, he cheerfully said, “You tried your best, right?”

“Yeah—” With a forced cringe smile, Kibe replied rather monotonically. His eyes looked back and forth between the king and queen. “So what do you want me to know? I already masturb—”

“Shhh—we're good, bud!” Itagiba waved his hand close to his own neck, telling Kibe to cut the conversation short.

Neferteri, slightly squinting towards her husband, took a deep breath. “For all we know right now, he has met the darkness, but publicly we will proclaim he is recovering from a lab accident involving breeding meatier Fanchakis. I will field the questions for a few weeks while Kibe continues to search for any hints on this matter. If nothing is found, then we shall publicly declare his soul died. Agreed?”

Itagiba raised his badge, then Kibe did as well. They all looked at Eiri, forcibly gushing out air from her nose as the corners of her mouth held back much to say.

Allowing time for Eiri to raise her badge, even though it was not necessary, Neferteri continued, “I also devised an initial handle of his situation as well. Courtroom scientist and king-maid, please notify your subordinates that he was in a lower floor recovering from the resuscitation, and that today’s events will not impact tomorrow’s.”

So that’s how this is going to be? Fine. Not like I have a better plan anyway. She took out hers from in between her breasts and showed it as well.