Yanbai listened carefully until Sasori finished. Without pausing for long, he replied, "Sasori, you've got one thing wrong. Even I can die."
At that, Sasori narrowed his eyes.
Yanbai continued, "Everything eventually fades away and dies. I'm no exception. Time simply passes differently for me than it does for ordinary people like you."
"But no one in this world can kill you," Sasori countered despite himself.
"No, Sasori, I can be killed too. No one can kill me because none of you are strong enough." Yanbai set down his chopsticks, seemingly lost in memories. "Long ago, I couldn't truly die in this world. But in this lifetime, I faced a crisis unlike anything I'd ever encountered. To stay alive, to keep my consciousness from fading away, I did many things I never would have done before, all just to survive."
Sasori's brow furrowed. "You just... said 'this lifetime'..."
Yanbai raised his eyes toward the patch of azure sky outside the window and said softly, "Ah... this lifetime..."
Sasori stared at Yanbai. He seemed to understand something, yet at the same time, he didn't.
Then Yanbai continued, "And this time, I suddenly understood. It's because of 'death' and 'disappearance' that things become irretrievable, that people cherish them and don't want to let them slip away."
The instant those words fell...
Sasori felt as though someone had struck straight at his heart.
It was because his parents' deaths were irreversible that he didn't want them to truly "disappear."
People and things experienced two kinds of death. One was their visible destruction and demise. The other was the disappearance that came when they were forgotten after their demise.
Sasori had to admit that when his parents passed away, he had fallen into a state of profound fear of death.
That fear had driven