No.6 Reunion #3 Chapter 1 Summary
As promised, I will be writing up summaries of No.6 Reunion #3. The book has four chapters, and this is a summary of chapter 1. Any errors are my own. I will link this summary on my masterpost for future reference. Spoilers in abundance—beware!
Chapter 1: Here the Wind Shall Change
Because it is something I gave to the human beings it is now theirs, and so if the human beings, using sickles and using axes, poke-poke and scrape-scrape their own possession, doing whatever they like to eat it, what is it to me? — Ainu Mythology, ed. Chiri Yukie. Trans. Sarah M. Strong
The chapter opens with Nezumi standing beneath a tree by a small spring in the midst of a red plain, barren of vegetation except for scattered trees. Night is about to fall soon, and thinking about this causes him to recall how beautiful the pitch blackness of West Block nights had been, but he tries to shake off the thought. He needs to forget No.6 and the days he had spent with him there—Nezumi had left No.6 precisely so that he could free himself from his past.
Maura, a tanned man with a thick black mustache and wearing loose clothing and a white turban calls out to him, using the name “Eve,” not “Nezumi.” Maura warns him that it’s going to rain soon.
It was ten days ago that Nezumi had started traveling with Maura’s group, a caravan of about twenty people. Nezumi doesn’t know or care much about him beyond that, but thinking about how little he knows about Maura brings Nezumi’s thoughts back to Shion—his intense curiosity especially—again, and he grits his teeth to stave it off. His memories of Shion are always as vivid as the day they happened, which bothers him. Maura breaks Nezumi out of his thoughts, however, by telling him to get in the tent to avoid getting drenched. Nezumi does.
The narrative switches into an extensive flashback of the day Nezumi met Maura and his group. Maura he had approached Nezumi at a spring, saying that he seemed familiar—had he seen him around No.6? Maura hadn’t seemed to have any ill intent, but Nezumi had still been on guard, and refused to shake Maura’s outstretched hand. Maura explained that he was part of a traveling troupe and was a magician by trade, and did a magic trick with some colored balls as an example.
Still in the flashback, as Nezumi thinks about traveling bands like Maura’s, his inner monologue exposits about the geography of the six cities: No.1 is in the northern mountains, and No.2 and No.5 are seaports in the far east—Nezumi’s not sure if any of those three cities can be reached by foot. Travel between No.3, No.4, and No.6, on the other hand, is possible by foot.
Nezumi’s train of thought continues further: he remember the other two times he met travelers like Maura. The first (outlined in more detail in the second chapter No.6 Beyond) was a musician on a horse who had praised Nezumi’s singing voice and asked if he wanted to join him, saying that Nezumi was a wander like him. The second (in the same chapter of No.6 Beyond) was a musician he had met in the West Block and, on a whim, Nezumi had sung along to the song he had strummed on his instrument. That man had asked him if he, too was the wind, and also what was keeping him captive here.
Nezumi still didn’t know the answer to those questions. Could he become the wind now? He wasn’t sure.
Nezumi had made to leave—he didn’t want to spend the night at a spring with strangers at it—but Maura stopped him, asking Eve to teach a mute child in his caravan a song. How did Maura know how to call him Eve, though, if Nezumi hadn’t given his name? The answer quickly comes: the mute child had heard Nezumi singing when their caravan had arrived and spoken the first words Maura had ever heard him say: that’s Eve’s song.
The song in question was a folk song Nezumi had been singing about someone wishing for the return of their soldier beloved from the battlefield. The lyrics are as follows:
Oh gods, transform me into the windSo that I may embrace my beloved.Oh gods, transform me into a flowerSo that my beloved can catch the scent of home.Oh gods, transform me into a birdSo that I may alight upon my beloved’s shoulder.
Time passes.The sun rises, the sun sets.Rain falls, the earth shines,Strewing out radiance.The long night ends,Welcoming the morning.
Countless nights,Countless mornings,Countless dawns.
Oh gods, transform me into a tree.Oh gods, transform me into a green stone.So that I may wait for my beloved forever.
Nezumi thanks Maura for complimenting his singing, then tries to leave again before being stopped by Maura yet again. Maura asks for the mute boy to come over, and a young girl of twelve or thirteen brings him over. He has brown skin and black hair and looks two or three, though he could be older due to hard circumstances stunting his growth, and his name is Hekiseki (meaning “green stone”), named thus because when Maura had found him, he had been holding a green stone, which he now wears on a cord around his neck. Nezumi recalls Shion’s dream of finding a green stone in the depths of the water.
Maura explains that Hekiseki is from the West Block (though Maura himself is not very familiar with the West Block beyond a show he and his father put on there a long time ago), and Nezumi postulates that Hekiseki—mute and orphaned as he is—must have been a victim of the Manhunt. Maura confirms this, calling Hekiseki lucky.
Nezumi doesn’t understand how Hekiseki is lucky. Hekiseki’s life is much harder because he had survived the Manhunt instead of perishing in it. That’s just how reality is to Nezumi: dying is always easier than surviving. Countering Nezumi with a smile, though, Maura says that to be alive is to be lucky. Nezumi looks away, examining Hekiseki. He looks like Maura has been taking good care of him, and his hair complexion remind Nezumi of Inukashi, though he lacks their cunning look.
Nezumi wonders where Hekiseki’s future will lead him. Will this world one day become one where it’s easy to protect small, fragile lives like his? He shakes off the thought, though—Nezumi doesn’t have the capacity or the heart to invest care in others like that. He tries to leave yet again, but this time Hekiseki speaks up, saying simply: Eve.
(Hekiseki reminds him not of Inukashi, Nezumi realizes, but of Shion—something lurks in the unseen depths of Hekiseki’s eyes just like it does in Shion’s.)
Hekiseki says he knows the song Nezumi had been singing—he had heard it with his mom and dad—and Nezumi asks if he had heard it in the West Block. Hekiseki doesn’t answer, and Nezumi barrages him with rapidfire questions about his parents, the Manhunt, and his family’s ultimate fate before Maura bundles up Hekiseki in his arms and angrily tells Nezumi to quit asking a child such horrible questions.
Nezumi realizes that Hekiseki’s good luck is how protective Maura is of him. Fate is nebulous as a concept and Nezumi would never surrender himself to its whims, but even he knows people can be saved by incredible miracles—just like Nezumi had been on that stormy night as a child.
Maura is still angry at Nezumi, but does acknowledge that he had managed to get Hekiseki to speak. The green stone around Hekiseki’s neck glimmers, and Nezumi begins to sing the same folk song as before.
An enthusiastic crowd asking for an encore has gathered by the time Nezumi finishes, but, putting on his stage face, he politely explains he needs to go. Before he does, though, Hekiseki collapses to the ground, weeping about his parents. It almost seems like he’s having a flashback to the Manhunt as he cries out that he’s scared and needs someone to save him. Before long, though, he returns to reality—the reality where his parents are gone, and he’s been burdened by terrible memories.
The girl from earlier helps Hekiseki recover, then asks Nezumi to teach him how to sing. Maura concurs, telling Nezumi to take responsibility for what he’s done.
Nezumi almost scoffs at the idea, thinking that this world would be a very different one if people were wont to take responsibility for their actions. As the wind blows in the trees, though, he remembers who waits far away in the direction of that wind. That person had chosen to take on every responsibility entrusted to him.
Shion, he wonders. How are you? Aren’t you all alone right now? Is there anyone at your side sharing your burden with you? Is there someone building the new No.6 with you? Someone you can rely on, who helps you, who supports you…?
Maura and Nezumi argue back and forth about Nezumi’s supposed responsibility towards Hekiseki. Maura says he made him cry, and Nezumi says all he did was sing. Maura’s logic, though, is as follows: Nezumi had awakened Hekiseki to the truth of his reality, so it was Nezumi’s responsibility to help him survive that reality. Hekiseki has a special connection with Eve, too, so if that means teaching him to sing, then so be it.
Nezumi concedes. The girl who had been comforting Hekiseki is introduced as Shalameh, Maura’s daughter, and Maura formally invites Nezumi to join their caravan. They’re first headed towards No.4 as it’s the closest city to here, then onwards to No.3 and No.6 after —the other cities are too difficult to travel to.
Nezumi agrees to accompany them on the 12-13 day journey to No.4. Seeing as it’s Nezumi’s first time traveling the wilderness, Maura explains how dangerous the wilds are to navigate without knowledge of oases or the stars, as GPS doesn’t work out here. Nezumi says he has rudimentary experience reading the stars, privately remembering how the old woman had taught him how to do so as they had wandered together after the Mao Massacre. She had never wanted to wander—she had wanted nothing more than to return to No.6 to exact revenge. Nezumi wonders if she would have cackled and clapped her hands for joy when No.6 had fallen, or if she would have trembled as she wept. What about his parents, who had been burned alive in the massacre?
Pondering such things will get him nowhere. The past was past, and the dead were dead.
The narrative finally exits the flashback, returning to the scene ten days after Nezumi had joined up with Maura. Hekiseki, Shalameh, Maura, and Nezumi shelter together from the storm inside the tent, Hekiseki climbing into Nezumi’s lap. Just like Nezumi had promised, he had been teaching Hekiseki to sing, albeit only when he felt like it. Hekiseki is a stellar student, and Nezumi thinks to himself that it seemed Singers weren’t to be found exclusively within the Mao Forest.
Nezumi asks Hekiseki if he likes to sing, and if so, why? After a long silence, Hekiseki says it makes him happy. He grabs Nezumi’s cheeks with his hands, saying with a big smile that he loves Eve’s singing. Shalemeh is taken aback—it’s the first time Hekiseki has smiled since Nezumi joined their group.
Nezumi remembers the child Shion had saved from the Manhunt, and how Shion had had so much faith in Inukashi. At the time, Nezumi had thought that Shion had only been burdening Inukashi, but Inukashi, to Nezumi’s surprise, had accepted the responsibility. A few days before Nezumi left No.6, he and Shion had had a conversation about it where Nezumi had asked him why he had trusted Inukashi to take care of the child, and Shion had replied simply that it was because Inukashi is who they are.
Nezumi hadn’t understood this explanation and asked Shion to elaborate. His head always got into a muddle when talking with Shion, because though the world they experienced was the same, they had entirely different ways of interacting with it. Shion’s easy trust of others had irritated Nezumi constantly, though after No.6 had fallen, he had realized that what he had thought was irritation was actually fear. Shion’s ability to not only see into but illuminate a person’s inmost depths, had consistently set Nezumi on edge. He feared being seen right through.
He wonders how he looks to Shion’s eyes, and if Shion sees the chaos, fragility, and emptiness he so longs to keep hidden from him. Nezumi’s hatred of No.6 no longer had a place to go. What remained, then, after it had withered to pieces? Nothing?
He swallows down a sigh. Shion, he thinks. Here I am without the courage or resolve to see myself in your gaze.
He thinks of how terrifying Shion is because he can see right through everything—Shion’s own self included—and use the knowledge of what he sees to move forward. Shion was able to take on the responsibility of No.6’s future because he is who he is.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Nezumi asks Shalameh how far they are from No.4, and she says two days. He then teaches Hekiseki one final song: the one he sang to calm Elyurias.
Hekiseki tries to sing it, but is sad when he can only manage the first verse, so Nezumi sings the rest as Hekiseki follows. When Maura compliments Nezumi on his singing, Nezumi says Hekiseki is better than he is because he knows how to entrust the song with his heart, even if he doesn’t understand the meaning of the lyrics yet.
After some more conversation, Nezumi asks Maura if he intends to ply his trade in NO.4, and Maura says he does because it’s easy to enter the city, unlike No.6. Maura imagines aloud a carnival being held at the Moondrop plaza one day—what a way to show how far No.6’s restoration has come.
Nezumi changes the topic suddenly, remarking that the caravan had spotted a dead horse yesterday. He wants to know why the dead horse hadn’t had an accompanying rider. Maura isn’t sure, but speculates that the chances of its rider being alive were close to zero unless they knew the route to No.4 and had the supplies to make it.
They bid each other goodnight, but just before he turns in, Maura says Nezumi is in for a treat tomorrow.
The narrative moves on to the next morning as the group makes ready to leave. Nezumi looks around, seeing that their surroundings have completely transformed. Just what had happened?
