Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy
Reiji
In the room, a girl’s sad, shrieking cries echoed within.
“(sobs)… I’m sorry… Nii-sama, Nii-sama… I’m (sobs) sorry…”
Iris regained consciousness while Saul was cleaning her body and exchanging her dirty clothes, and started crying again, forcing Saul to hold her in place.
Something felt really, really wrong… that Yanagi would never have cried like this.
By all accounts, he was in no condition to keep up the “Iris” act. Then, who was this girl before me, sobbing and wiping the palm of her hands to remove the large tears that were overflowing one after another?
Was this really the Yanagi I knew?
No matter how I looked at it, I only saw a stranger girl, who was just entering her teenage years.
I couldn’t help but feel a bad premonition.
I lay Iris, who was exhausted from crying, down on the bed, and went out into the hallway with Saul. Saul, who had been pondering something earlier, spoke up first.
“After hearing what you said, and judging from Iris’ condition up until now, I could only think of one thing.”
“Really? What’s it?”
“…Multiple self-states. It’s not my area of expertise, and I’ve only seen bits of it, so I could be wrong.”
This was the conclusion Saul came up with.
According to him, people inherently possess multiple personalities that they use depending on the situation and the person they are dealing with. At the same time, however, our psyche is capable of holding multiple perspectives and emotional states in different states of self at the same time. Therefore, it seems that, for the most part, they are shared perceptions and memories. In other words, we all have multiple self-states.
However, whereas under normal circumstances the interconnection between each self-state is easily possible, this behavior may not take place in the case of traumatic events. When under intense stress or other stressful situations, the shared perceptions and memories are severed in order to protect the self, and an alternate personality is created to “escape from reality”.
“So what you’re saying is… the Iris who looked like an ordinary girl just now… was a part of the heavily damaged personality detached as a girl named ‘Iris’? Am I getting this right?”
“Probably so… I think the main part Onii-chan’s personality thought that ‘I used to be a man, this can’t happen to me’, and thus pushed the problem to ‘someone else’ to mitigate the PTSD?”
When I thought about it, that guy didn’t seem to be so concerned about the memory of “that time” when he was only with us without going outside. It was as if it was someone else’s problem.
“Then the situation just now… was because of the ‘Iris’ personality surfacing after extreme fear caused by being exposed to people’s gazes…”
“That explains the panic… But what about the other times? He must have been through a lot before his condition got that bad, right?”
“I think… it’s probably chronic at this point. After all, ‘Onii-chan’ has been tortured by PTSD for more or less a decade now.”
He said that although it got worse, that was still just an extension of what had been there before. In other words…
“This time’s just another newly added trauma on top of the pile, isn’t it…?”
Right after becoming a girl… that guy was seriously injured, even almost losing his chastity. Such a hopeless situation must have developed a new psychological trauma.
“If it’s really become chronic like you said… This is going badly.”
That guy’s behavior was concerning. If this became a regular occurrence, and his mind was always restless, it was impossible to know when it would reach its limits.
“Besides, another problem is that a large portion of the personality that remains ‘safe’ is the masculine part. But… even if ‘Iris’ hasn’t fully accepted it, his body is now fully a girl’s. All the bodily functions, maybe even all the chemicals exchanged in the body, are those of a girl’s. I think the more he gets used to his current body, the more dominant the ‘Iris’ side will become. What’s at stake, what’s unstable, is not the ‘Iris’ personality, Onii-chan’s supposed escape mechanism… but the ‘Kuga Yanagi’ personality.”
“So, if things keep going like this…”
“I think it’s possible that someday the personality called ‘Kuga Yanagi’
will either disappear, or become so small that it’s unrecognizable, and only the scarred ‘Iris’ will remain…”
A cold sweat ran down my back. It seemed like there was not much time left.
“Then what should we do?!”
“I don’t know! I wish I knew!”
Saul shouted in a fit of rage, as if to spit at me, impatiently demanding an answer. He looked really frustrated as he bit on his own finger until it was bleeding.
“…My bad, I’m just too worried.”
“Me too, sorry for losing my cool… But I can tell you one thing, maybe every time those symptoms show up, more and more of ‘Onii-chan’
personality will be swallowed up… that’s how intense the shock was for Iris.”
“Is there anything we can do to prevent that from happening again?”
The best we could do was to resolve the severance of consciousness and restore him to his normal state of mind, but the fear that one wrong step could be irreversible was too high, and we had no idea how we could possibly cure him. If that’s the case…
Iris/Yanagi Before I knew it, I was walking alone.
The building I was in had a crystalline texture, as if it were made of ice.
I had a feeling that the royal palace in the capital of the kingdom of Nordglacier looked like this.
A well-built, dignified man, late 20s or early 30s in appearance, was walking in front of me, escorting someone.
This person appeared to be a teenager, was she the daughter or little sister of the man beside her?
Their gazes turned to me unexpectedly as they walk in a friendly manner.
……
………
…………Why.
Why are you here?
She was much younger than I knew her, but there was no mistaking her.
You were stabbed while protecting me, and yet your face was still smiling to reassure me.
Even though hardly any memory of the incident remained, that image was still strongly burned in my mind.
Mom!
Why are you here, in this world?! Answer me!!
I walked frantically, but I couldn’t catch up with them walking together.
Mom was walking slowly, but for some reason, the distance between us was not closing.
And yet, they kept their position as if they were trying to lead me somewhere.
Where am I?
It seemed like a long, long spiral staircase down.
In the pitch-black darkness, there sat a little girl covered in scars.
She was clutching her knees and crying.
I’m sorry.
Why are you crying?
Because I’m going to erase you.
Me…? Who are you?
I’m…
I reached out to look at her face and suddenly realized.
I’d seen this hair before. It had a faint rainbow glow… Are you me, or “me”?
Then I noticed that the girl who was supposed to be sitting in front of me was not there anymore.
Is it me who’s missing? Or is it “me”?
“…Huh? This is…”
When I came to, I was lying in a room with a familiar ceiling. I could feel some liquid running down my cheek and wetting my pillow.
If I recalled correctly, on the way back home, I bumped into someone…
and my memory has been skipping since.
I think I was somewhere in a strange place,… but as soon as I woke up, my memory fizzled out and I could no longer remember anything.
“…You’re awake.”
“Reiji-san… and Saul-niisama too, what’s the matter, you two look so scared.”
Reiji tried to say something, but stopped. When I tilted my head at his brusqueness, he let out one big sigh and began to speak reluctantly.
“…We should take a break from treating the victims, starting from tomorrow.”
For a moment, I didn’t understand what was being said.
“What do you mean by taking a break?”
“We can’t afford not to do the requests at all, so we’ll be gone more often, but I’ve already told Mrs. Miranda that you will be resting for a while, Iris.”
Saul looked away and told me with a look of anguish. It seemed that they were already talking in that direction.
“W-Wait, why are you talking like it’s already decided?! Because I fell down yesterday? B-But, look, I’m already fine now!”
“The thing is… How do I say it…”
With clenched fists, the two of them told me what was happening to me.
…
I didn’t understand what they were saying. No, I did understand, but I refused to accept it. Was “I” going to disappear if things kept going like this?
“It’s just a possibility. Once you calm down, we can work together to find a solution… So please, take a rest for now… it’s for your sake.”
I could only nod my head in dismay at their words.
I’m sorry.
I thought I heard someone’s voice in my head.