Curse-Drenched
Those who approached it carelessly, thinking it was only a child, died the moment it saw them. Those who carefully kept their distance and attacked from afar died the moment they made the decision to strike. The animals died, the birds died, the insects died. Anything that lay in its path died.
It was hollow. No one knew what it wanted. All they knew was that death was continuing to spread. After annihilating the cult hidden in the mountains, it just staggered onward. Returning to the wilderness, it was walking around without a goal.
◇ ◇ ◇
Wearing the robes of a Buddhist priest, a bald man with an exaggeratedly large headset walked through the mountains. Dougen had come to the place where the boy spreading death was supposed to be. The sun was still bright in the sky, but everything around him was strangely quiet. The sounds of birds and insects were gone. All he could hear was the gentle sound of plant life swaying in the wind.
“So how about blocking its path? If we surrounded it with barricades, we could at least stop the damage from spreading.”
Dougen was suppressing his presence. Halfway up the mountain, there was still a significant distance between him and the boy, but he had heard that anyone the boy saw died. There was no such thing as being too careful.
“It would be nice if it were that easy.” The woman at his side had hidden herself as well, the only sign of her presence being her voice. She was a fox youkai. If she was capable of hiding herself like that, he didn’t know why she hadn’t done it from the start instead of walking through town, flaunting her bewitching form.
“It would have to be a pretty wide area, so you’d need a lot of manpower,” Dougen admitted.
“It isn’t very realistic, is it? Acquiring such manpower and materials and constructing something so quickly on such short notice.”
The first group had already been wiped out. On top of that, their own group consisted of those specialized in dealing with the supernatural, and bounty hunters. It was hard to believe such people would be very useful in constructing a barricade.
“First of all, what is our actual plan here? Are we just supposed to kill it?” Dougen asked.
The Restricted Territory Disaster Management Task Force hadn’t explained that part very clearly. He and the others had simply been given the headsets for communication and then told to get as close as they could.
“Not at all. Nothing as dangerous as that,” the fox replied. “It’s not like it’s possible to kill the boy anyway. I suspect we are supposed to calm him down somehow.”
“Calm him down, huh? And that branch family said they know some way of doing it?”
Entering the boy’s field of view would cost you your life. Merely getting close to him was difficult enough.
“It’s kind of dangerous that he seems to have lost his mind, but perhaps that is better in the end.” The boy was wandering aimlessly. It didn’t seem like he had a clear intent to kill anything. “Shall we start by making a pit?”
“Can you do that?”
“I’m pretty good at moving dirt around.”
As the fox said that, the ground in front of Dougen suddenly opened into a trench, which widened into an enormous hole. It continued expanding to the sides, swallowing trees as it grew into an enormous chasm.
“If I keep going like this and surround him, maybe I’ll be able to keep him from getting out.”
Dougen gulped. Seeing her so casually change the landscape around him really demonstrated the meaning behind the title of Greater Youkai.
“Foxes are associated with the element of earth, aren’t they? I suppose something like this is nothing special to you.”
“Those five elements are something you all made up on your own,” she commented.
After a while, the chasm had reached all the way back around, connecting with its starting point. It was about five meters wide, encircling the entire side of the mountain. A child who wasn’t even ten years old wouldn’t have a chance of jumping across it.
“Did you get him inside?”
“If I look too closely he’ll probably notice me, so I don’t know exactly where he is, but he’s definitely somewhere on the mountain above us. I think this should be fine.”
“What if we just left him like this? Would he eventually exhaust himself?”
“I wonder. He does normally love his sleep.”
“Lord Okakushi’s power is limitless. If left as he is, he will continue wandering forever, I’m sure.”
A voice was coming through the headsets they wore. It was the head of the Task Force, Masamichi Shidou.
“You told us to get close to him, right? Do you have some plan if we can do that?”
“I didn’t want this to become public knowledge...but since you are the only ones left, I suppose it’s all right. There is an ancient covenant between Lord Okakushi and our people. To put it simply, there are rules in place to make him listen to our requests.”
“If that’s all it takes, why didn’t you tell us that from the start?” If they had known, they might have been able to avoid some of the deaths.
“You may not think much of it, but the fact that there is a way to make Lord Okakushi listen to our requests is absolutely secret.”
“I suppose it would be a big deal if people knew a power like that could be controlled.” Dougen recalled his experience of visiting the village a few years ago and the overwhelming fear he had felt towards the thing hidden within the darkness.
“I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say we can control him. In the end, it’s no more than making a request of him.”
“So, what are the rules, then?”
“I can’t tell you. Just get closer for now.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“This much has to remain a mystery.”
“Then why don’t you go yourself?”
“I am an ordinary human. I would be killed long before I could get close to him if he has gone berserk.”
“You said we only have to get close to him, but doesn’t anyone who sees him die?”
“I did hear he possessed a power like that.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do, is there?”
“We have a number of reports of people who have observed him, so it doesn’t seem that is the case at the moment.”
It was no more than conjecture, and even if it were true, they had no idea how long it would last. But they couldn’t just sit there and wring their hands forever.
Dougen resolved himself. Getting a small running start, he leaped over the chasm.
“Oh, you can jump quite well, can’t you?” The fox’s voice was right beside him. Apparently, she had come along.
“Do you know where he is?” he asked.
“We just need to go straight from here.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you went ahead by yourself, invisible?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t really know how this device works.” She must have meant the headsets they had been provided with. If she couldn’t use it, she would have no way of communicating with the task force.
“Even though you’ve got a credit card?”
“That’s different. All you have to do is hand it over and sign something. Anyway, I’ll help you where I can.”
Hiding among the trees, Dougen carefully made his way up the mountain. The boy was likely still quite a distance ahead of them. If he noticed their presence, it would be all over for them, so Dougen paid the utmost attention to keeping himself well hidden.
As they proceeded, a restless feeling began to fill the area. It was a clearly evil presence, like a kind of miasma in the air.
“This is strange,” the fox mused. “That boy doesn’t normally give off something so easy to notice.”
“You’re right. Does that mean something else is up here?”
Being noticed by whatever was causing it could also be a problem.
This is bad, Dougen thought to himself. As they headed towards the summit, the tree cover was becoming sparse. His method of keeping himself hidden was to blend his presence in with the natural world around him. If there were fewer trees around, the effect would diminish. And it wasn’t such a powerful ability that it could make himself invisible in a place with no cover. Even so, he continued as far as he was able to go. Then the treeline came to an abrupt end, and the boy suddenly appeared in his field of view.
Dougen felt a chill run down his spine. Even though he knew merely seeing the boy could be his death, he had encountered him entirely unprepared. Luckily, he wasn’t dead. It seemed the boy wasn’t killing anyone who could see him for now.
The boy was staring blankly up at the sky. Bizarre creatures were falling all around him. They weren’t people or animals or insects. Creatures that seemed to defy all classification, like they had been built with parts from various animals, lay scattered around him.
“Are those the people from the West?”
“I suppose those are what they call devils.” The bizarre atmosphere must have been caused by them.
Dougen looked around. The summit was covered with nothing but grass, so if he continued any farther, he would be plainly visible. He moved around to get behind the boy. Using the trees as cover, he moved slowly and carefully. The boy wasn’t moving, so maneuvering behind him wasn’t too difficult.
“I’m right near him. What do I do next?”
“Could you put this headset on Lord Okakushi?”
“Why didn’t you just say that earlier?” He had thought that the task force would finally step in at this point, but now they were telling him to get even closer. He couldn’t help but complain.
“We needed to keep it a secret for as long as possible.”
It didn’t seem to him like there was much point in keeping it a secret, but he couldn’t turn back now. However, what Shidou was asking of him was incredibly difficult. Put a headset on a boy standing in an open field without him noticing you. If he noticed you, you would die. It wasn’t something anyone sane would try to accomplish.
“I suppose if you have no hostile intentions, it should be possible.”
“Fox, could you do it?”
“My very existence could be seen as an attack on a human. There’s a limit to how much I can keep myself hidden. I suppose there’s such a thing as being too strong.”
Just because he couldn’t see her didn’t mean the fox had completely erased herself. Just having her nearby gave him a vaguely uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling.
“So I’ll have to do it myself?” This mission was absurd. If he turned and ran now, no one would have a right to complain. But Dougen was a man who fought for the sake of saving the world. Risking his life for his mission was to be expected.
“Now while he’s distracted is a good time, don’t you think?” the fox suggested. The boy wasn’t doing anything in particular, just staring at the sky. There was nothing up there that he was looking at, though. At most, there were clouds slowly drifting by.
Dougen removed his headset and held it in one hand. “I’m going now. Don’t say anything.”
He carefully began walking. The grass at the summit came up to his knees. Any amount of movement would shift the grass as well, and of course make sound. So he moved slowly and carefully, matching his movements to the sound of wind blowing through.
It was irritatingly slow, but he couldn’t rush it. He paid close attention to every trifling detail, suppressing his presence as much as possible. After what felt like an eternity, he was finally one step away from the boy.
But once he got that far, the boy moved. He stopped looking up at the sky and looked forward.
Dammit! You choose now to move?!
Dougen had made it this far, but it was all going to be for nothing. He hesitated, considering jumping forward and getting the headset on him immediately.
Then the boy began to turn. Dougen hadn’t been discovered yet, so the action was likely random. But that put him in a predicament. He had nowhere to run. No matter how much he covered his presence, there was no way he could avoid being seen there. Even if he ran away, he would be seen. There was nothing he could do but jump forward.
The moment he made that decision, something exploded in the distance. A torrent of sand and earth burst into the air like a spring of water, catching the boy’s attention. He returned his gaze to something straight ahead. The fox must have created a diversion to draw the boy’s attention.
Dougen quickly closed the remaining distance between them and placed the headset on the boy’s head from behind. He couldn’t get the ear pads on him perfectly, but that was the best he could manage. Leaping backwards, he retreated, keeping the boy in his sight. He couldn’t bear to look away.
A sound began to play from the headset, a stream of syllables enumerated in a human voice. It sounded like a sutra of some sort, but despite being a priest, he wasn’t familiar with it. It must have been some sort of spell for calming down the boy known as Lord Okakushi.
The boy turned around. This time, he was clearly turning specifically to look at Dougen. There was no way Dougen could suddenly jump back or escape.
The boy saw him, and the emptiness in his eyes sent a chill down the priest’s spine. He prepared himself to die. If it was an instant death, then he wouldn’t suffer, but he had no idea how that death would be delivered.
For a while, they stared at each other. Nothing happened. Perhaps the task force’s secret technique had worked, as the boy suddenly collapsed where he stood.
“Seems like he’s asleep. Maybe he was just tired?” At some point, the fox had appeared beside him.
Dougen dropped to the ground. He didn’t feel like moving for a while.
◇ ◇ ◇
At the Independent Higher Order Lifeform Research Institute, in the wilderness near a certain city, in a certain prefecture, Asaka Takatou sat across from her boss, Shiraishi, in one of the modern facility’s meeting rooms, giving her regular report.
“What happened after that?”
“Oh, nothing that impressive. They couldn’t just take him back to an empty village, and certainly couldn’t just leave him on the mountain. So they brought him to this facility. It was already equipped to lock up—er, to research people like him, who were completely beyond our understanding.”
“Even after correcting yourself, you still make this place sound like an evil laboratory, don’t you think?”
“While we certainly do keep them imprisoned here, they aren’t exactly people we can just let roam free, are they?”
It was true, everyone held at the facility would cause chaos if released into the world, so even if it happened outside the bounds of the law, it was hard to argue that it was necessary to keep them under control.
“Now that you mention it,” Asaka said, “there were those people from the branch family... Why didn’t you have them look after Yogiri?”
“You mean the Shidou family? Unfortunately, they all died.”
“I don’t remember that being part of your story!”
“The secret ritual they performed takes the whole family, and they all died after it.”
“You’re talking awfully lightly about something that seems to be a huge deal!”
“I mean, it’s not like chanting a spell would be enough to stop him when he’s on a rampage.”
“But that branch family was set up as a last resort, wasn’t it?” Asaka asked. “Are there any others?” The branch group had been created in case the main family was wiped out. Considering how much trouble had been taken, it wouldn’t have been surprising if they had prepared multiple backup families.
“There are a number of them. But the news had already got out that such a dangerous being was hiding in the village in the Restricted Area. Trying to leave everything to civilians now would be impossible. While the other families are working with us, the state needed to take control of the situation.”
“A lot of people died, so I can understand why they didn’t just send him back to the village...but Yogiri wasn’t conscious at the time, so it’s not like he can be held responsible.”
“Applying human laws and ethics to him doesn’t seem appropriate to me in the first place. You can’t really use the same rules for a being that can kill with its thoughts.”
“So you’re saying he’s more than human?” Asaka remembered a science fiction novel she had read long ago. That novel spoke of a group of people, the Homo Gestalt, who had transcended humanity. For them, maintaining the same ethical and moral codes as humanity was meaningless. She felt like that story was applicable to Yogiri’s situation.
“Theodore Sturgeon, wasn’t it? That’s a nostalgic name,” Shiraishi said. “Wait, isn’t that book out of print?”
“Getting a hold of old sci-fi classics is hard, even though the nerds always act like it’s required reading...”
“Do you read a lot of sci-fi?” Shiraishi asked.
“I was a literature girl, after all. I’ve read it all.”
“A literature girl?”
“There was a time I was just a girl!”
“No, I only meant I didn’t expect you to be so fond of reading.”
“That’s also kind of insulting!”
“I am technically your boss, remember?”
In spite of the warning, Asaka had doubts about whether she had been given an actual position in this unorthodox organization.
“Speaking of which,” she said, “the underground village was made for Yogiri, right? How did you guys build it so quickly?”
“The space had already existed as a giant empty pit. Since he was used to living in such an old-fashioned place, we didn’t think that suddenly thrusting him into the modern world was a good idea, so we replicated the village he originally lived in. We actually just moved the entire village underground, so it wasn’t especially difficult.”
“What do you mean, moving an entire village underground wasn’t difficult?” Technology in this hidden world seemed to be on a completely different level. Ordinary people only saw the tip of the iceberg. “Oh, that being said, his simple life has kind of fallen apart...”
Yogiri often played video games, read manga, and ate instant food. One could hardly call his lifestyle simple and healthy anymore.
“I think that’s fine,” Shiraishi said. “It’s not like we were trying to keep him clean and pure or anything.”
Part of Asaka’s job was teaching Yogiri how to live in modern Japanese society. All of the things he did were parts of Japanese culture, so there was no issue with them.
“By the way, Miss Takatou.”
“What is it? The way you said that is giving me a bad feeling.”
“Apologies in advance, but it seems like you will be having another visitor soon.”
“Again?! Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re supposed to be keeping Yogiri isolated, aren’t you?”
They had put him in this mysterious underground village so far below sea level to keep the threat to the world that he posed as far from prying eyes as possible. Having people come and use the space whenever they found it convenient kind of defeated the purpose.
“That’s true, but once again, these are orders from above.”
“So what royalty is visiting us this time?”
They had previously been visited by someone calling himself a “king of the world,” so Asaka figured it would be someone similar.
“They’re from Japan.”
“Like the Prime Minister?”
“One of the people who lead the world from the shadows, the head of the Sumeragi family.”
“Ahh...I’ve heard that name before. They were dark fixers or something, right? And they called him something like ‘my lord’?”
A girl had once visited them: Enju Sumeragi. She had been brought down there thanks to the Sumeragi family flexing its authority.
“This time our visitor will be the lord himself, Kisasage Sumeragi. He is Miss Enju’s grandfather.”
“That wouldn’t happen to be like a yakuza family relationship, would it?!”
Asaka couldn’t help but feel that would definitely be a bad influence on Yogiri.
◇ ◇ ◇
Those who knew him would call Kisasage Sumeragi the greatest villain in Japan. It was said the foundations of the world rested in his hands, a result of his wicked ways. He didn’t recognize what he was doing as evil. He only chose the methods that were most efficient to accomplish his goals. If someone stood against him, he had them assassinated. If he needed to control them, he took hostages. If he needed information, he would torture it out of them, and if they possessed something he needed, he would steal it. If he thought some way was the best method, he wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
That was who Kisasage was, and the rest of the Sumeragi family were no different. They ruled Japan from the shadows, so of course they were hated. On the surface, no one could oppose them. If anyone showed even the slightest sign of defiance, their whole family would be slaughtered. Everyone knew that if they tried anything, they would meet the same fate. So while they earned everyone’s hatred, people were forced to hide that resentment deep in their hearts.
One couldn’t extinguish something invisible like grudges held by the dead. The Sumeragi family was involved with the dark side of the world, and were familiar with the mysterious, the supernatural, and technologies that defied comprehension. They were well aware that something like grudges or curses posed a legitimate threat and were naturally prepared to defend against them. They knew full well how much they were hated and had taken the greatest measures to protect themselves from such curses.
That being said, their defenses weren’t perfect. No matter how careful one was, there would always be a slight gap in defense. There were the tiniest of cracks, through which the smallest of powerless feelings would be able to slip through. Most of it would be scraped off, broken apart, and rendered harmless, diluted to the point of being unable to affect people. That level of defense would normally be enough and should have been perfectly sufficient.
But the Sumeragi family had garnered too much hatred. The endless stream of resentment aimed at them gathered and persisted, no matter how diluted each emotion was individually. Little by little, the tiny shreds of resentment continued to accumulate, settling around them as an invisible curse. After being allowed to gather for hundreds of years, it took on a form that was impossible to ignore.
At first, it was just a bit of mold. At some point, impurities had started to appear in the tea that Kisasage drank. Of course, the servant who had prepared it had been executed, but it was still strange. It was obvious that such a thing would not be tolerated, so they should have taken the utmost care to ensure something so rude never happened again.
But it continued to happen over and over. Whether it was tea, alcohol, or water, anything Kisasage drank would have faint traces of mold appear in it. The tap water came out slightly dirty, and despite the air being perfectly filtered, a faintly unpleasant odor began to hang around him.
While it wasn’t something significant enough to threaten his life, it was clear that something strange was going on. He understood that it was supernatural immediately and so took further precautions to protect himself. But those ominous occurrences continued to occur. Faint sounds of moaning could be heard in the distance. Vague shadows began to appear around his mansion, wandering but otherwise doing nothing. The smell of rusted metal began to fill the air.
Each event was nothing important on its own, but these bizarre happenings followed Kisasage everywhere he went. With the aid of exorcists and priests, he was able to suppress them for a while, but that didn’t change the resentment aimed at his family. If the source wasn’t dealt with, the abnormalities would continue to return.
Kisasage was a determined, resolute man. Such events weren’t enough to unsettle him. As unpleasant as they were, he laughed them off as meaningless. But that only allowed the curse to slowly strangle him.
If you tried to strangle someone with a single strand of thread, they wouldn’t pay any mind. Even the slightest bit of strength would snap the thread in two. But those single threads were being layered around his neck continuously. Slowly but surely, they gained strength. At some point, they would bind him with a force that he couldn’t shake off.
Kisasage eventually found himself unable to laugh about it.
◇ ◇ ◇
“So, we’ll be having another visitor. This time it’ll be Enju’s grandpa.”
In the living room of their underground mansion, Asaka explained what she had learned on the surface.
“Is Enju coming too?!” Yogiri’s face lit up.
“I didn’t hear anything about that. He will have some attendants with him, though.”
It was the same as when Enju had visited. She’d come with a huge group of rough individuals who didn’t seem like they could be anything other than mafia or yakuza.
“They must be crazy to be coming all the way down here,” Estelle commented.
“Not very convincing coming from someone who’s doing the same thing,” Asaka replied. Estelle had similarly invaded their home. In the past, she had been kept drugged so as to be barely conscious, but now she was free to do as she liked.
“I mean, I’m also someone they’re trying to keep isolated.”
“I was told he was coming, but I don’t really know why. Enju came because she was hiding from a battle, but...”
Enju Sumeragi was a young girl, a little older than Yogiri, who had visited them before. Wrapped up in a battle to decide the fate of humanity, she had come down here to be protected from her attackers. This place had countless layers of security guarding it, making it likely the safest place in Japan and certainly the hardest to infiltrate. Enju had, in fact, been able to avoid her battle by hiding here.
“Anyway, this time I feel like we should avoid getting involved with them,” she announced. But without knowing why the guy was coming, she couldn’t say for sure that they wouldn’t be somehow dragged into it.
“When is he getting here?” asked Estelle.
“Right away. I wonder if they’ll come down the same way Enju did.”
As far as Asaka knew, there were two ways to reach the underground complex. The first was the official route that she used, and the second was to take the freight elevator. Enju and her companions had used the latter, so it was likely they would use it again this time.
“Let’s go take a look,” Yogiri said.
“What? Did you not just hear me say we shouldn’t get involved? I guess it would be weird to not meet them at all, though. Maybe we should at least go say hello.”
The village wasn’t that big, so completely avoiding them wouldn’t really be possible. It was probably best to establish where they stood right off the bat.
“Okay, I guess we should at least go see what’s up.”
“I’m fine here,” Estelle said. “It would be a pain if any of them ended up falling for me.”
She called herself the most beautiful person in the world. When she’d first heard that, Asaka had thought it was a bit much, but apparently the woman’s beauty was so great as to be classified as a superpower. It seemed she could control it to an extent, but it was almost guaranteed that she could make any adult male fall for her. Asaka could imagine that meeting multiple people who had power and authority within the dark side of the world would be no small amount of hassle.
“Okay then. I don’t know if they’re here yet, but let’s go for a walk.”
“Okay!”
Leaving the mansion, they went to the outskirts of the village. There was a huge shaft there containing an elevator. The entrance of the elevator led out to a farm road, which was overflowing with people.
There were far more of them than Asaka had anticipated. She had felt similarly when Enju had come with trucks carrying her luggage, but it seemed the family were intent on outdoing themselves this time.
“Who the hell are you?!” A man in a black suit, whose only redeeming quality seemed to be his nicely put together outfit, had noticed them.
“Oh, I remember this from last time,” Asaka said.
“Is everything okay?” Yogiri looked worried.
“It’s fine. It’s not like they’re going to hurt us—”
But the men who had seen them immediately pulled out handguns and aimed them at her.
“I guess maybe things aren’t okay.” With Yogiri around, her safety was guaranteed, but that didn’t mean having guns pointed at her felt very pleasant.
“Cut it out, you idiots!” A man looking slightly more important than the three gunmen stepped in. “You’re Miss Takatou, I presume? Our lord has summoned you,” the senior-looking yakuza politely called out to them.
“Ah, that’s right. We should at least introduce ourselves.”
Asaka and Yogiri went with the man, who led them to a jet black luxury car. As they approached, a man in a Buddhist priest’s outfit stepped out of the passenger seat. For a moment, Asaka thought he was the lord the man had mentioned, but she soon decided that someone of such a high rank wouldn’t be sitting in the passenger seat. After he got out, another monk exited from the rear of the vehicle, followed by an old man in casual dress.
“Yo! Thanks for having us,” he said candidly.
This old man must have been Kisasage Sumeragi, the head of the family that led the world by the nose from the shadows.
“Ah, yes, welcome. Umm...what is it you want here?” Asaka asked timidly.
“They didn’t tell you? Well, I guess you’d call it a health thing. I’m getting pretty old. I wanted to relax for a bit, but up on the surface I’d get interrupted no matter where I went.”
In spite of the man saying he was getting older, it was hard to tell exactly how old he was. He certainly wasn’t young, but he didn’t seem anywhere close to being senile.
“Hey, is Enju coming?” Yogiri asked, not the least bit hesitant.
“Enju? Oh yeah, she was here before. Sorry, kid, this time it’s just me.” Kisasage replied bluntly, as if totally uninterested in his grandchildren.
“Oh, okay.”
“We’re going to be using a number of buildings in the village. You don’t mind, do you?” Apparently, Kisasage had only wanted to say hello, as after that his subordinate took up the conversation.
“It’s not something I can give permission for, so as long as it matches whatever you discussed with my superiors, you can do as you like,” Asaka replied.
The village in this underground space was filled with buildings that no one lived in. It would be a problem if they moved into the mansion where Asaka and Yogiri were staying, but besides that, she didn’t mind what they did.
◇ ◇ ◇
A few days passed after Kisasage’s arrival. There had been no change in Asaka and Yogiri’s lifestyle. Unlike when Enju had come, there was no contact with the other party, and without Enju around, Yogiri had no interest in her grandfather.
“But for health reasons... That seems like a strange reason to come all the way here.”
Asaka had her doubts. There weren’t anything like hot springs here, and even if it looked like a rural village rich with nature, it was almost all artificial. Though the air was clean, the atmosphere here was completely controlled, so it was far from natural.
“When are they leaving?” Yogiri asked.
They were in the living room studying. He was trying to answer questions that Asaka had made for him.
“I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything.”
If he was here for his health, did that mean he would stay until he was well again? But he didn’t look like he was having any problems with his health in the first place.
“Maybe after we’re done studying we can go take a look.”
Since Kisasage’s arrival, they had refrained from going to the village on their walks. But without knowing how long the visitors would be there, there was no point in avoiding the place.
“Okay!”
Even without going outside, they could pass the time easily enough with all their video games, so they had done exactly that for the last few days, but it wasn’t healthy to keep up that lifestyle for long.
Having filled out the answer sheet, Yogiri handed it to Asaka for corrections. He had gotten every question right. He seemed to have already reached an academic level surpassing his age. She had recently begun to raise the difficulty of the problems she was giving him, but he had kept up with them without issue. His academic ability was enough to qualify for the most prestigious middle schools in the country.
This is fine for his elementary school education, but what are we going to do after that? Asaka was worried about the next steps for him.
“Did I make a mistake?”
“Nope, you got them all. Well done. All right, let’s go for a walk.”
After cleaning up their study materials, they went outside. The moment they did, something already seemed off. Even though it was the middle of the day, everything was strangely dark. Looking up, the sky was clear, so it seemed the weather system was working fine.
“Huh. Maybe it’s just my imagination.”
As they walked on to the village, the worry slipped from Asaka’s mind.
Walking between the rice fields, the village soon came into view. When they got close, they noticed that security had become quite strict. Men had taken up positions around the entire village. The road was blocked, and they had set lookouts on top of the buildings. Obviously, they noticed Asaka and Yogiri approaching, so they turned their rifles on them. Since they were giving the impression that if the two of them got any closer they would be shot without warning, Asaka decided they should turn back.
“I guess we should take our walk somewhere else.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He’s definitely not here just for his health...
These people were obviously on guard against something. Asaka felt like things were going to get troublesome again.
◇ ◇ ◇
A few days later, Asaka and Yogiri visited the village again. While it would certainly be smarter not to get involved with them, if they didn’t go check on them every once in a while, they wouldn’t know if their visitors had ever left. They decided to go as far as they had the time before to see how things were.
“I wonder what’s wrong? They’re still on guard, but it doesn’t seem as lively...”
“I think there are less of them,” Yogiri offered.
“Ahh, I see.” There were clearly fewer people protecting the village now, the road and rooftops more sparsely populated than last time. They saw Asaka and Yogiri again, but this time their response seemed strange. Last time, it had almost seemed like they were daring her to approach, but now they looked afraid.
“I guess it’s nothing we can figure out from here,” Asaka mused. But something had clearly changed in the village. It was almost like a darkness was settling over it.
◇ ◇ ◇
Another few days passed. The lookouts were gone, and the village was silent.
“Did they go home?” Yogiri asked.
“I guess we should go find out.”
Asaka would have expected Kisasage to come and say goodbye, so she thought something might have happened to him.
They approached the village. The unpaved road was muddy, giving the unpleasant sensation of their feet sinking in as they walked.
“It hasn’t rained recently, has it?” Asaka asked.
“Nope.”
They did get rain down there, but as if out of consideration for the two of them, it was kept to a minimum, and things dried out again right away.
As they got closer, they noticed an unpleasant, rotten smell in the air. Though it was faint, it was undeniably off-putting.
“What the... What happened here?” asked Yogiri.
“I don’t know.”
As they stepped into the village, everything seemed to go dark. The buildings all seemed damp—and something was oozing out of the pillars. Looking into one of the old huts, Asaka saw someone inside.
“Sorry to bother you, but what is...”
She trailed off as she opened the door. No one was there. From the window, she had seen what looked like a person in the room, but when they went inside, it was empty.
“What’s wrong?” Yogiri asked.
“I thought someone was here, but...maybe it was just my imagination.” Since no one was around, that must have been it. “Maybe they did go home after all?”
When they looked into another house, she got her answer. The building was full of people. Bodies of men in black suits had been piled up inside.
“Stop! Yogiri, don’t look in here!”
Yogiri stayed outside while Asaka went in to investigate.
“What on Earth happened here?”
The men were clearly dead. The bodies had been mercilessly crammed into the room. There were quite a few of them, but none of them had any visible injuries, which meant she was facing a huge pile of dead bodies with no clear cause of death.
Asaka hurriedly fled from the house.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a ton of dead people inside! There might have been some kind of disease! We should leave right away!”
“It’s okay. I can kill germs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I’ll keep you safe, so don’t worry!”
“I see... I guess if we run away now, we won’t learn anything...”
They decided to look around the village a little more. Walking down the main street, they headed for the largest house. Asaka had the impression that was where the lord would have stayed. Barging in seemed rude, so she checked around the building first. She could hear the sound of voices, an unsettling chanting that seemed to be some kind of sutra.
Looking in through the window, she saw people inside. This time it definitely wasn’t her imagination. Priests were sitting in a circle, reciting sutras. At the center of the circle was the lord. Sitting with his legs crossed, he looked bored. She didn’t know what they were doing, but he was likely tired of having to sit around and listen to sutras he didn’t understand.
Asaka immediately stepped away. “All right, let’s go back.”
It didn’t seem like there was anything they could do there.
◇ ◇ ◇
A few more days passed. While they were studying in the living room, they heard a noise outside. Taking a look, they found a man in priest’s garb collapsed on the ground.
“Huh? Are you okay?!” Asaka hurried outside, running to the man’s side. He had fallen facedown so they couldn’t see who he was, but he must have been one of the priests staying in the village.
“Hello?! He’s obviously not okay. Ah, dammit! Should I call an ambulance? No, CPR, right? Do we have an AED here?”
“Asaka, he’s already dead.”
“What? No, even if it looks that way, we need to try to help him...”
As she spoke, she flipped the man faceup. His features had rotted almost completely away, deteriorating to the point where he was better off being dead.
“Something must have happened in the village...”
Asaka hesitated for a moment, then stood up again. Something abnormal was clearly happening. They couldn’t just ignore it anymore.
“Let’s go take a look.”
The two of them headed back to the village.
“Whoa, I really don’t want to go in anymore...” she said when they arrived.
A single glance at the village showed that something was clearly wrong. While it still had the same rough shape, it seemed almost entirely rotted through.
“But we can’t just stand here and do nothing.”
She covered her face with a handkerchief, and Yogiri did the same. Then they strode into the village, towards the building where Kisasage was staying. This time they went straight inside, not bothering to take their shoes off at the entrance. The floor was so sticky that they couldn’t bear to expose their feet to it. Walking down the hall, they headed for the room where the bizarre ritual had been held.
Everyone inside was dead—the priests and Kisasage himself. Whenever they had died, their bodies were already thoroughly rotten.
“I guess we should report this.”
There was nothing more they could do.
◇ ◇ ◇
Returning to the mansion, Asaka triggered the emergency alarm.
“Well, this is certainly a disaster.”
They waited until her boss came down in person.
“Didn’t you say you were too high-ranking to come down here yourself?” Asaka asked.
“That was true at first, to prevent ΑΩ from being aware of us, but after he came up to the surface, he saw everyone anyway. There’s not much point in avoiding it now.”
The two of them sat across from each other at the dining table in the living room. Yogiri was outside playing with their dog, Nikori.
“All of them are dead,” Shiraishi continued. “That seems to be the situation.” He had gone to check out the village first. Other workers from the Institute were there now, cleaning up the aftermath.
“What exactly happened?” Asaka still had no idea what had occurred. Judging from the result, they had been caught up in something supernatural, but that didn’t explain much.
“It’s hard to say for now. If I had to guess, they came here in search of spiritual protection.”
“So wouldn’t coming in such a large group have been a mistake? Who knows what tagged along with them?”
Asaka recalled the time something had snuck into the underground space by hiding in her shadow. Although there were talismans, sutras, and idols set up to keep those kinds of things out, there were still ways for them to sneak in.
“Seriously, can we stop letting people come down here?” she complained. “Nothing good ever comes of it.”
“I agree, to be honest. But I can’t disobey my superiors.”
“He was the most powerful person involved in the dark side of the world, right? What’ll happen now that he’s dead?”
“I suspect it won’t be too chaotic. There’s a pretty solid system to determine succession, so I imagine the changeover will be quite easy.”
“Not that it’s anything for me to worry about... So what do we do next?”
“We’ll have to incinerate the village. Unfortunately, there’s no other option.”
It wasn’t the most satisfying conclusion, but that was the course they decided to take.
◇ ◇ ◇
Kisasage had come without explaining why, and the cause of his death was a mystery. After he was gone, things became peaceful again.
“In the end, it was just a bunch of yakuza who died.”
They were part of the criminal underworld, so it wasn’t hard for a respectable citizen like Asaka to write them off as being totally unrelated to her own life.
“I died again.”
Yogiri was playing video games in the living room. Asaka was resting her elbows on the dining table, munching on rice crackers as she watched him. He was playing an old school shooter. She had felt it was somehow better than having him play newer games, so she had pulled out a bunch of retro games for him to play. Shiraishi seemed to think it was all a matter of taste, but Asaka insisted that the old 8-bit consoles were invaluable in developing the imagination of a growing child.
“Maybe you should take a break,” she suggested.
“Yeah, I think I will.” Coming over to the table, Yogiri poured some barley tea from the pot into his cup. “Huh? There’s something floating in it.”
“Hm? Is there a hole in the tea pack?” Having put the pack in the pot, she had just put tap water into it and couldn’t be bothered to remove it afterwards, so maybe there was a hole leaking some of the contents out.
“What is it? It’s round and floaty.”
“Wait, is that mold? No way, I’ve been drinking it the whole time!” Asaka looked at her own cup in a panic. The fact that she didn’t see anything like mold left in it wasn’t particularly encouraging. “Let’s throw this out. But we just made it fresh, didn’t we?” She cocked her head in confusion.
After that, strange things continued to happen. The tap water grew dirty. A bad smell appeared out of nowhere. Nikori began fixating on empty spaces and barking. The floor and support beams began to feel sticky. They began to hear moaning coming from somewhere. Spiders and centipedes began to appear all over the house.
None of them were that bad individually, but with all of these things happening in quick succession, Asaka couldn’t help but think something was going on.
“Yogiri, do you feel like something’s been off recently?”
“Yeah, things seem weird.”
It was nighttime. They were lying on the floor on their futons. Asaka couldn’t help but feel like hers was somehow damp.
“Hmm. Maybe I should ask Shiraishi about it.” As she said that, she saw a shadow moving on the other side of the paper screen door. “Huh? We closed the doors, right?”
“Yeah, since the shadow people will come inside if we don’t.”
“Was that one of them?”
“I don’t think so.”
In this place, black shadows appeared at night. Neither of them knew what those shadows wanted, but if they closed the doors tight, the creatures wouldn’t come inside.
Asaka got up from her futon and opened the sliding door. No one was there. As she looked around, wondering where the shadow had gone, the phone rang. It wasn’t connected to anything, so it shouldn’t have been ringing. Not knowing that before, Asaka had once taken a phone call that had asked her to go out and had ended up getting caught up in something bizarre.
“Yogiri, can you come with me?”
“Okay.”
Although she was more than familiar with the house, something definitely felt off. Approaching the ringing phone, she picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
There was no response, but she sensed that someone was on the other end. She put down the receiver. As she did, she heard the sound of something crawling into the house.
“Oh, give me a break!”
She went back into the room and threw her futon over her head.
◇ ◇ ◇
As the days passed, the bizarre happenings began to worsen. The unpleasant odor grew stronger. The air quality inside became so bad that they felt they would develop a cough. Even when they opened the windows and sunlight streamed in, the interior remained dark. They could hear the sound of a baby crying somewhere. The floor and support beams felt like they had oil dripping from them. Fresh food in the refrigerator spoiled immediately. Rust came out in the water from the tap. Red handprints began to appear around the house.
“Okay, this is definitely some sort of curse, right?!”
At this point there was no doubting it. Whatever attacked Kisasage Sumeragi was now attacking their home.
“What is this? Like seriously!”
“Asaka, are you okay?”
“Ahh, not really.”
They stepped outside. The ground was muddy and unpleasant. It was the same as what had happened in the village around Kisasage. The forest around them also seemed strange. The trees had begun to rot where they stood. When they went to check the rice fields, the crops had withered there as well.
They looked around the entire underground space, but it was the same everywhere. The trees, crops, and buildings were all rotting. The water in the irrigation ditches was stained red. Dead snakes lined the roads. They could see figures on the edges of their vision that disappeared when they turned to look, and it always felt like they were being followed. There was no safe place anywhere.
“This is too strange! We have no connection to the Sumeragi family at all! We didn’t do anything wrong! Or what?! Are we getting cursed because we talked to him a little?!” She didn’t know why, but it seemed the place itself had been cursed. “We can’t stay here like this.”
Asaka headed back to the mansion but gave up on gathering their things. All of their belongings seemed to have been contaminated, so it was pointless to bring them along.
“Asaka...” Yogiri looked up at her, worried.
“You’re coming too, Yogiri. They can’t complain about you coming up if things are like this down here.”
Yogiri was supposed to remain isolated, but they couldn’t leave him in a place like this. Taking their Shetland Sheepdog, Nikori, with them, they left the mansion empty-handed. She didn’t know if there was any point in running away, but they couldn’t live there anymore.
They hurried to the edge of the underground space. The air itself felt sticky and heavy. The muddy ground sucked their feet down, making walking difficult. A fog settled over them, gradually spreading out and blanketing the world in white. Before long, they couldn’t see anything and had lost track of where they were.
“Where did this fog even come from?!”
Unable to see where they were going, Asaka came to a stop. Nikori whimpered, afraid. They could hear moaning in the distance. Sounds like deep breaths, things crawling across the ground, and something dripping could also be heard.
They began to see figures in the fog. Distorted, vague shadows appeared all around them, slowly approaching from every direction. Whatever their intentions, they had soon surrounded the trio. Asaka had a feeling that touching them was a bad idea. She instinctively understood that touching them would mean the end of her.
“Yogiri, do you think you can do something about them?”
“I can.”
“Of course. There’s no way you could deal with something so— Wait, you can?!”
“Yeah.”
“All this weird stuff?”
She didn’t know what any of these things were, and each one was little more than slightly unpleasant. Asaka had thought Yogiri wouldn’t be able to target them.
“I’m sorry. I should have done something sooner.”
He stretched out a hand. As he did, the fog began to disappear. Starting from the area around his hand, the unsettling shadows, the aggravating moaning, and the nauseating odor in the air vanished. Of course the muddiness of the ground didn’t change, but it didn’t cling to their feet like it had before.
“What’s going on?”
It was all resolved in an instant.
“Sorry...”
“No, you don’t have to apologize.”
“I thought if I let things get worse, I’d be able to go outside.”
“Huh? Oh, is that what it was?” He must have thought that if they couldn’t live in the underground space anymore, they would have to leave. “Either way, that’s not something you need to apologize for. I think the methods this facility uses are not okay.”
There was nothing wrong with him taking an interest in the outside world. They couldn’t just leave Yogiri trapped down here forever. As far as she was concerned, eventually they would have to let him outside.
◇ ◇ ◇
Even though the bizarre occurrences had ceased, the aftermath remained, so it didn’t change the fact that they couldn’t live there anymore. They went up to the surface anyway, accepting temporary accommodations provided to them within the facility.
“I feel like my common sense has begun to degrade ever since coming here,” Asaka said.
“They say that common sense is just a collection of your prejudices, so maybe you could say it’s better you’ve become less ignorant,” Shiraishi offered.
“Not at all! I’d much rather have lived never knowing about these things!”
Asaka and her supervisor were in the same meeting room as always. Yogiri was playing in his living quarters, so the two of them were alone.
“What was going on down there?”
“I’m not too familiar with the occult myself, but according to the experts, it seemed to be something like a curse or a grudge.”
“I can understand why someone who led the world from the shadows would be hated, but things were fine up until now, weren’t they?”
“Yes, I guess they just finally crossed the threshold. Hatred or resentment aren’t enough to hurt an ordinary person, but the Sumeragi family has been collecting negative emotions for hundreds of years. After gathering up so much for so long, it began to overflow, eventually becoming dangerous...although that explanation still sounds strange to me.”
“But why would the curse affect us?” Asaka asked. “We had nothing to do with him.”
“What counts as ‘related to him’ is probably pretty vague from the curse’s standpoint. It could be just because you talked to him or because you were nearby.”
“Give me a break...”
Whether a collection of resentful feelings was conscious enough to make decisions as to who it targeted wasn’t clear either.
“So what do we do now?” she asked.
“That’s a good question. No other place has security even close to what you had down there.”
Even with the curse gone, the state of the underground facility was miserable and would take a significant amount of time to repair.
“Those buildings were originally brought down from the surface, so it’s not like there are replacements available.”
“It doesn’t really have to be identical, though, does it? While we have the chance, why don’t we get full air conditioning and a home theater?”
“I’ll take your suggestions into consideration.”
It didn’t seem like there was any chance of that happening.
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