“What did you say?! Kagetora is—?!”
Kadowaki Ayako was using a public telephone at the entrance to a café, and her raised voice reverberated within. She had just learned of the battle at Katou Shrine
after making contact with Chiaki Shuuhei.
“Oh no...and what’s his condition? But at least he’s going to live? ...You don’t know?! I can’t believe you! Why aren’t you with him?! What the hell are you doing?!” she bellowed; then, when she heard of Akemi’s kidnapping as well as the situation in Kumamoto, Ayako’s face grew rapidly grimmer and fiercer. “...All right. I’ll cut things short here and come to Kumamoto right away. I’ll stay with Kagetora... You concentrate on what you’re doing. No...it’s fine. I’ll leave the rest to Yagami.”
She exchanged a few more words with him and hung up.
Ayako’s face was filled with tension when she returned to the table. Yagami hurriedly inquired, “What has happened, Kakizaki-sama?”
“I need to leave for Kumamoto right away. Kagetora was taken to the hospital with serious injuries...”
“Kagetora-sama...! What happened?!”
“His opponent must’ve been really something if he was able to beat Kagetora up like that. Then again, his «power» has been unstable...”
“He was fighting?! With an onshou?!”
“He’s in critical condition... He’s unconscious. This is why I told them it was too dangerous for just the two of them to take on Kumamoto!” Ayako struck the table violently. The cups jumped and spilled their coffee, but Yagami didn’t react. He had paled at the seriousness of the situation. “But... but Kagetora had to go and...”
Ayako and Yagami were currently in Hakata in the middle of their investigation into the disappearances of the Himuka cultists. After visiting the sites of fires in Tokyo and Beppu, they had inspected a third site here, and had also inquired at the faith’s headquarters in the residential district of Sawara Ward.
The cultists called their headquarters ‘Oyashiro’ [the Shrine]. It was a snug-looking single-story wooden house with narrow cramped rooms, among which were worship halls called the ‘divine seat’ and ‘worship seat’, each six tatami (~107 sq ft) in size.
An elderly worshiper had acted as their guide. In the Himuka cult, the representative of the worshipers—the chief priest—was called the ‘Faith-Protector’. This elder took care of the Faith-Protector’s daily necessities and lived in the house. However...
“He passed away?” Ayako automatically repeated. “What happened?”
Ikeda Katsuya, Himuka cult Faith-Protector, had died a week before believers began to go missing.
Given that he’d been 80 with a failing heart and had been going back and forth between the hospital and his home (the same Oyashiro) for the past six months, his death had not been a suspicious one... However, the fact that their young believers started disappearing a week later bothered her. Were the two related?
She asked about the four missing persons.
“They were very earnest individuals,” The elder said, smiling. “Every month on the day of the ‘Feast’ they would come to help everyone out. Our believers are scattered far and wide, so they don’t always come, but the young ones were unusually enthusiastic and would participate every time. Especially Masamichi-kun...”
“Masamichi?” Ayako recalled that he was one of the missing. “Do you mean Enoki Masamichi-san? Who lives in Hakata?”
“Yes. Both his parents passed away in high school in an accident. He has experienced much hardship despite his youth. Perhaps it was due to that that he became much attached to the Faith-Protector, and I believe the Faith-Protector, too, thought of him like his own grandchild. He cherished him very much.”
“Excuse my rudeness, but what about Faith-Protector Ikeda’s family?”
“He had none,” The elder said, smiling. “He never married; to the Faith-Protector, the devotees were his family. He was a very gentle and kind person.”
Ayako and Yagami looked at each other. To be sure, the portrait of the deceased placed on the humble altar in the divine seat looked more like a ‘neighborhood uncle’ or ‘good-natured retiree’ than the founder of a religious cult.
“Do you know anything regarding the fires and disappearances? Any signs or omens?”
“Well,” the elder answered after having accommodatingly wracked his brain for a moment, “I believe they must have been summoned by the god of fire.”
“God of fire?” True, the Himuka cult worshiped fire, though it was not a large religion like Zoroastrianism. Large fires in residential areas was disallowed, but the cult kept an undying flame, a ‘sacred fire’ within a glass case on the altar, which was used for worship and during festivals.
Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, its enshrined deity, was said to be the god of the Aso volcano caldera.
(God of fire? ...Does he mean Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto?) was Ayako’s interpretation.
The elder didn’t look particularly grave when the disappearances were mentioned, and when told ‘they flew off into the sky’, said straightforwardly with no appearance of concern, “That’s possible if they were summoned by the god.”
Ayako deflated. Kotarou had called it secretive, and she’d had a murky image of some underground organization, but that wasn’t what she was hearing. It felt as if an old lecture and mutual assistance association had been labeled a religion. It was probably the feeling given off by the genial elder’s courtesy, but for now the Himuka cult itself seemed unproblematic.
“Given that, I think I can leave investigation of the Himuka cult to you,” Ayako told «Nokizaru head» Yagami as she frantically swung on her coat. “I’m heading to Kumamoto immediately. I can still make the limited express.”
“I’ll come with you!”
“No,” Ayako immediately snapped. “Possessor spirits are being hunted down right now in Kumamoto.”
“But Kotarou...!” Yagami objected angrily. “I mean...it’s just that Kotarou-dono’s gone to meet Kagetora-sama in Kumamoto, hasn’t he! What a Fuuma can do, but the «Nokizaru» of the Uesugi cannot, is...!”
“He—” Ayako’s lips twisted bitterly, “He’s special.”
“My abilities are not inferior to his. How long will Kakizaki-sama leave a Fuuma with Kagetora-sama like this?! Someone like that cannot protect him. In fact, he jeopardizes Kagetora-sama’s life...! We «Nokizaru» should be the ones to protect him!”
“We have no choice! You know as well as I do that to Kagetora, Kotarou is Naoe right now!” Ayako yelled back hysterically. “To Kagetora, he’s Naoe in every way! Even when he’s obviously not, despite trying to imitate him! Even when his face is different and his voice is different...Kagetora’s so convinced he even disregards the fact that Kotarou’s a possessor spirit!”
“Then hurry and return Kagetora-sama to normal!”
“We’ve tolerated it for two years precisely because we can’t.”
“...” Yagami closed his mouth in frustration.
Ayako knew that this newly-appointed head of the «Nokizaru» burned with a sense of rivalry towards Fuuma Kotarou. He felt a deep and abiding mortification at the fact that Kotarou, an outsider ninja, had been made his beloved and admired master’s right arm.
(Though I completely understand how he feels...)
Ayako knew very well how much Yagami revered Kagetora. It was an esteem that bordered on adoration. He worshiped him as he would a deity, and expressed not the slightest doubt or censure towards anything he said. Ayako herself trusted Kagetora to a high degree and so sympathized with Yagami, but even she was a step or three behind him in that regard.
Having to soothe his indignation over Kotarou was rather a task.
“In any case, continue your investigation of the Himuka cult for now. We don’t have any conclusive evidence of people flying through the air just yet.”
“Kakizaki-sama.”
“Just do it. It’s Kagetora’s command...too...so...?”
The odd wrench she felt at the end of that sentence came from having discovered a crucial keyword in what she’d just said. Ayako pressed a hand against her mouth.
Why hadn’t she noticed it immediately?
“What is it, Kakizaki-sama?”
“Flying through the air. I said ‘flying through the air’ just now. Flying through the air.”
“The witnesses all said something strange,” Chiaki had revealed during their call. At Katou Shrine people had descended out of the sky like angels to save Takaya.
(People descended out of the sky like winged angels.)
That sounded similar to the odd testimony from the eyewitnesses of the fire in Kurume. The missing Himuka cultist Saeki Ryouko was said to have flown into the sky—soundlessly flown as if she’d sprouted feathers.
(They came down out of the sky.)
“They’re attending Kagetora now at the hospital.”
Ayako’s breath hitched. Could the wingless angels who’d saved Takaya be—could they be...
“The Himuka cult’s...!”
“Huh?”
Ayako snatched up her purse and sprang up, kicking her chair over and thrusting people aside in her haste to get to the public telephone again. She slammed her telephone card in, begrudging even that delay, quickly punched in the number for the hospital Chiaki had given her, and snapped into the receiver, “Hi...hello?! A patient called Ougi Takaya was brought to your hospital...! I’m family. Yes, that’s right! That’s correct! What’s his condition...?! Were you able to save him?!”
At first startled by the explosion of action, Yagami quickly snapped out of it and rushed over to Ayako, whom he watched breathlessly for a reaction. She herself was awaiting a response, hand white-knuckled around the receiver.
(If there’s a connection...)
Her heart beat so hard it felt as if it might pound right out of her chest.
(If the Himuka cultists have a connection to the «Yami-Sengoku»...!)
Ayako finally received her answer after an interminable wait.
“He’s...dead...?” Yagami heard her repeat slowly.
He gasped.
Ayako muttered in blank disbelief, “That can’t be right...?”
It was very cold in Tetsuya’s six-tatami studio apartment.
There was a single free-standing fan heater in a corner of the room, but it wasn’t on. Maybe Tetsuya didn’t notice the cold.
He was seated, his face pale.
“Everything’s been crazy since that day,” he haltingly began telling Chiaki. “Everyone went crazy after the bonfire festival.”
Five years ago, in the early autumn when Tetsuya had just turned twelve...
His younger sister had been chosen as the bonfire maiden.
“Bonfire maiden?”
“Yeah,” Tetsuya confirmed in a gloomy voice. “My house is at a place called Yakuin Field in Aso Town, and at the shrine of our guardian deity, Frost Shrine [Shimo Shrine], there’s a bonfire festival every year that’s been passed down from ancient times. It lasts from August to October. For those two months every year, a girl is chosen to be shut up in Bonfire Hall [Hitaki Shrine] to tend the fire for the god.”
“And that’s the bonfire maiden.”
Tetsuya nodded. “The ritual bonfire keeps the god of Frost Shrine warm so he doesn’t get cold and bring an early frost.”
The girl was also called the little bonfire girl. She had to be younger than fifteen, and no one else was allowed to enter Bonfire Hall. The attendants who looked after her must be men, or women middle-aged or older who shared blood ties with her. The body of the deity was transferred from the main shrine and installed on bamboo stretching across the ceiling; the maiden tended to the bonfire in the pit beneath it. If an early frost descended during these two months of ritual, it was blamed on the maiden’s bonfire abating.
“But...when Hokage tended the fire, things got weird,” Tetsuya told Chiaki as he recalled those events.
That year, when Tetsuya’s sister Hokage had been bonfire maiden...
Odd happenings had followed one after another in Bonfire Hall.
The bonfire had assumed the shape of a demon’s face and spoken to Hokage, for example. It had raced across the sky in the shape of a dragon. Something that looked like golden sand had fallen into the hall. They’d heard a voice in the middle of the night like a man singing. —Tetsuya’s granduncle had seen things. So had his grandmother. Both the festival steward and the priest had heard. In any case, extraordinary and mysterious phenomenon had followed in succession.
“Something terrible is going to happening during the night-crossing this year, I’m sure of it.”
Just as the rumors circulating among the adults had predicted, something completely unbelievable had happened on the last day, during the night-crossing which had brought the festival to an end.
“A serpent... of fire...”
Chiaki’s eyes grew wide at Tetsuya’s tale. Tetsuya nodded.
At the finish of the night-crossing festival, while Hokage had been walking across the fire, the flames had violently flared, turned into a great serpent, and soared into the sky.
“You probably think I’m just making it up,” Tetsuya groaned, eyebrows drawn. “But that was when it all started. After seeing that serpent, my relatives’ attitudes towards Hokage changed drastically.”
“Changed?”
“Yeah. They started calling her ‘Hokage-sama.’ As if she were a princess or goddess. They’re all ridiculously polite towards her, mincing, like they’re touching a boil: ‘Hokage-sama’, ‘Hokage-sama.’ Even the people who talked shit about us before suddenly completely changed their attitudes—an onlooker would’ve thought it uncanny.”
Soon after, Hokage had been taken from their granduncle’s home, a branch family of the Miike, and received into the head house: the home of Tetsuya’s uncle Miike Haruya.
“...And your sister went missing about a year ago?”
“The head house did something, obviously,” Tetsuya stated flatly. “My family’s really weird, Sensei! My relatives are always whispering together like they’re discussing a secret! I’m sure they must’ve hidden Hokage away!”
“What do you mean? From whom? Why would she have to be hidden?”
“I don’t know. But it’s probably because,” he clenched his fists, “Hokage is ‘Asara’.”
“What?”
“Hokage is special—that’s what Grandma said. ‘Miike has produced Asara-hime.’ ‘Hokage is Asara-hime.’”
“You mean...! Then ‘Asara!’ refers to your sister! This letter is talking about your sister!”
“I can’t think of any other explanation.” Tetsuya’s fists shook. “It’s said Miike’s lineage descends from ‘Asara’s bloodline’...”
“‘Asara’s bloodline’...”
“I don’t really know what it means, but...that’s what Grandma said. Asara must be born for Onpachi-sama’s sake. The bloodline must never die out. The branch family Celebrants must serve the head family all their lives, and may someday need to protect them with their lives...!”
Tetsuya didn’t seem to comprehend the words that came tumbling out of his mouth.
Chiaki was silent. Things had taken a turn for the strange. The key to the mystery was hidden within the Miike family in Aso.
“All right, Miike. So this letter is saying that Inaba’s life will be exchanged for your sister’s. Any idea who the culprit is?”
“How would I know?”
“So you don’t know why, but if your head house did hide Hokage away, then they should know where she is now.”
Tetsuya’s head came up in surprise. “Are you going, then, Sensei?”
“A person’s life is at stake. I gotta go.” Chiaki extracted his car keys from his back pocket and glared outside. “I can’t let one of my precious students die without trying to do anything about it.”
“Sensei...”
“Leave it to me, Miike. I’ll put these lame losers who use kidnapping as a ploy out of business.”
But his lips were stiff around the words. From the look of it, his opponents weren’t your run-of-the-mill louts, but enemies formidable enough to have beaten Takaya.
(The Ootomo?)
If so, had Mikuriya taken part? Tachibana Dousetsu, Takahashi Jouun...the Ootomo had some famous commanders. Had Kaizaki revealed to them that Takaya was Uesugi Kagetora? Or...
(Oda? ...Was it Katou Kiyomasa?)
Chiaki didn’t yet know Nezu’s true identity. But even aside from these there were many onshou who wanted Kagetora disappeared.
And what was this Miike family that had caught the eye of the onshou?
“...I have no time. The life of the hostage takes priority. Show me the way to Aso, Miike.”
Tetsuya nodded, looking tense. They hurried out. It had already grown completely dark.
She hopped on the limited express at Hakata. It was already past 7 p.m. by the time she arrived in Kumamoto, after about an hour and thirty minutes on the train. Ayako found a taxi in front of the station and immediately headed for the hospital.
(It can’t be true...there’s no way it can be true...)
She couldn’t know for sure unless she saw him with her own eyes, Ayako told herself. She didn’t believe what the nurse had told her at all.
“I’m so sorry, but Ougi-san passed away a short while ago.”
(There must be some mistake...)
The nurse’s compassionate voice circled in her mind. She’d even told Ayako the time of death. But Ayako shook her head with all her might.
(I’m sure there was a mistake...!)
She wanted there to have been a mistake. For a case of mistaken identity.
She ran into the night entrance of the half-lit building. A nurse was on duty at the reception desk.
“Excuse me, there was a patient who was brought in today—Ougi Takaya. I’m his family...!”
“Ougi-san...oh, yes. You’re the one who called earlier?” It appeared to be the same nurse she’d spoken to on the phone earlier. “We tried everything; I’m very sorry...”
“Where is he?! Please take me to him, where is Ougi Takaya right now?!”
“The body?”
No! A desperate Ayako choked back the word. “You must have the wrong person! Are you sure it was Ougi Takaya? Are you certain it was him?!”
“There was no mistake. He was matched with the photo on his student handbook. It was him.”
“It can’t be!” Ayako screamed. “Where is he? Take me to him right now! I won’t believe it until I’ve seen him with my own eyes!”
“But...” the nurse was thrown into confusion, “his family has already collected his body to take it home.”
“What?!” Ayako’s face twisted. “That’s not possible. His family is in Matsumoto.”
“But the people who were with him claimed to be family. They’ve already gone through all the formalities; they left about an hour ago...”
“The people who were with him?”
Did she mean the man and woman Chiaki had spoke of?
“Yes. They stayed the entire time.”
Ayako was stunned. Her face twisted more and more, and for a moment she couldn’t get any words out.
(What the hell is going on?)
Her distracted mind was discombobulated even further, but she finally managed to rouse herself.
“You must have their contact address, then. Give it to me. I need their names and place of resi...” she was saying, when—
She looked sharply behind her at the sound of the automatic doors opening.
A tall man wearing glasses and a black coat rushed in. She knew him. Ayako gasped at this completely unlooked-for encounter.
“...Kaiza...ki...!”
For it was Kaizaki Makoto. He seemed in a great hurry, his hair most uncommonly disheveled and his breath coming out in panting gasps. This was the first time she’d seen him since E Island, though she’d heard from Takaya that he appeared to be allied with the Ootomo. Kaizaki stopped dead at the sight of her.
Something audibly snapped inside her.
“Was it...you guys...?” She demanded, lips twisting. “Was it? Did you attack Kagetora?” Without another word Ayako rushed up to the wide-eyed Kaizaki and slapped him in the face, hard. The force sent his glasses flying to the floor. Without a pause she seized Kaizaki’s collar, screaming, “It was you guys, wasn’t it, Satomi?! You allied with Ootomo and sent some weirdos after him!”
“...!”
“Murderer! Where did you take him?! Give him back—! You’re a dead man; I’m going to kill you all!”
“No, calm down...!”
“I’ll kill you! All of you!”
“I’m telling you to calm down!” He yelled back, seizing both of her shoulders and pressing down hard for a moment.
“Kaizaki...!”
“You can’t investigate when you’re this distraught! He’s not dead, just unconscious; I know he’s alive!”
(Wh...)
Ayako was befuddled. For a moment she doubted her ears. Kaizaki told her with a frightening earnestness in his eyes, “Reach out to him with your telepathy; if he is alive, he will respond. Sharpen your senses so you’ll be able to catch any response, no matter how faint. I know you’ll be able to hear it.”
“... Me...”
“The Ikkou Sect did this to him. Shimozuma Rairyuu is alive.”
“Rairyuu...you’re telling me Shimozuma Rairyuu...!”
“Yes. He didn’t die at Itsuku Island, and he’s here right now in Kumamoto. We’re in the process of locating him. Leave that to the Ootomo; your first priority is to locate Takaya-san.”
“...Right...”
“He is not dead. There isn’t even the possibility of it.”
Ayako was dumbfounded.
In her heart she unwittingly called a name: (...Naoe...?)
“All right?” he called her attention back. The man produced a business card from his pocket, quickly wrote his contact address on its back, and pressed it into Ayako’s hand. “If anything happens, contact me. I can be of assistance.”
Then he turned, the hem of his coat fluttering, and immediately retraced his steps back out into the cold wind. Ayako snapped to her senses, yelling, “Wait, Kaizaki!”
She chased him through the night entrance toward the parking lot.
And stopped abruptly.
(What...)
Kaizaki stood stock still. Beyond him were three men in a pool of light, obstructing his path. Ayako’s eyes widened at the strangeness of the atmosphere between them.
(That’s...)
“You’re Kaizaki, I believe. A descendant of the Satomi now in exile with Ootomo,” said a young man of average height, who appeared to be the leader. None of them were familiar. Kaizaki went on the defensive. All three men were carrying what looked like Japanese swords.
“What is it to you?”
“We heard that those busybodies the Ootomo have encroached into Kumamoto, which is ours. We are the vanguard sent to make a clean sweep.” From his large black eyes, thick eyebrows, and bold facial features, he was indeed a burly, strapping young Kyuushuu lad. He added in a deep dauntless voice: “Cursed Ootomo, do not flatter yourself just because you’ve taken Saga. Kumamoto will never belong to you. Leave if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“What?”
They were all kanshousha. And they were powerful.
Just as Kaizaki came to that conclusion, the men unsheathed their swords. The pale-glinting blades, imbued with their will, glowed with a mysterious and ominous light. In the blink of an eye their blue edges began to glitter with a strong energy.
“All those who stand in our way will do us a favor by disappearing, Satomi!”
Letting out yells suffused with fighting spirit, the young men raised their swords high. “Cheeestoo—!”
They kicked off the ground and rushed at him with their swords held overhead. The speed of their downward slashes proved these were no average swordsmen.
“!”
Kaizaki just barely managed to intercept with a «goshinha». Sharp plasma scattered, and he was sent flying. Such spirit...!
(The Jigen style!) No, it was similar but different. This was... (The Taisha style!)
There was no room for thought, for now the remaining two were charging at him. A diagonal slash from the shoulder too quick for the eye to catch. Kaizaki desperately dodged and knocked his attackers away with his will, but they obstinately picked themselves back up and came at him again. They screamed their war-cries, their swords slashing down with lightning speed.
The Taisha style was a school of swordsmanship used by all the warriors of Kyuushuu during the closing years of the Sengoku. Death in one blow was its bloody creed, with the swordsman putting his whole power into a single diagonal downward stroke.
“CHESTOOO—!”
Kaizaki just managed to erect a «goshinha». But the single powerful stroke broke through even that.
“!”
He was hurled down to the asphalt. These three were strong. But that wasn’t all—there was something odd going on with Kaizaki himself.
“Feh...!”
Was he out of form? Was stress disrupting his «power»? Kaizaki narrowly managed to thrust away the re-surging enemy with «nenpa». But in the time he took to get to his feet they were on the attack again. As he evaded them, Kaizaki yelled, “Who the hell are you?!”
As they lunged with their swords with absurd speed: “My name is Iehisa, son of Shimazu Takahisa! Withstand the sword of a warrior of Satsuma if you can!”
The name left both Kaizaki and Ayako amazed. He was one of the four Shimazu brothers, heroes of Shimazu who had conquered the whole of Kyuushuu with the force of a tsunami, shoved aside the brave old generals of Kyuushuu and driven Ryuuzouji and Ootomo to the edge of destruction.
(Shimazu in Kumamoto...!)
“Guh!”
Iehisa’s blow shattered Kaizaki’s «goshinha» and knocked him unconscious. Ayako involuntarily cried out, “Kaizaki!”
“Finish him!”
Ayako’s «nenpa» managed to intercept Iehisa by a hair’s breath as he raised his sword overhead. The sword flew out of his hands, and Iehisa and his followers recoiled from the unexpected attack.
“Who’s there!”
“Someone who won’t allow you to do as you please!”
(A newcomer!)
A surprised Iehisa signaled his subordinates to withdraw. Ayako rushed over to Kaizaki. He was unconscious from Iehisa’s blow.
“Wait, Iehisa!”
The Shimazu had already taken to their heels. Ayako tsked and lifted Kaizaki in her arms.
“Get ahold of yourself, Kaizaki! Kaizaki!”
There was no reaction. Hospital personnel hurried over to them, alerted by the noise. Ayako bit her lip and glared into the darkness.
(They’re...!)
“I’m back! Agh, this is heavy!”
Koganezawa Kyouko opened the door and set her supermarket bags on the floor, catching her breath.
She had been good today and stopped to do the shopping on the way home from school. It had been hard work. In the bags were heaps of vegetables and meats.
“Welcome home, Kyouko. You’re back late today.”
“Yeah,” Kyouko answered as her aproned mother peered at her from the kitchen.
“I bought the ingredients for tomorrow’s bento.”
“Oh my.” Her mother’s eyes grew round at the overflowing shopping bags. “This is a great help. I don’t remember when you last cooked it yourself. Is this for the rugby club?”
“As if. This is for Chiaki-sensei. There’s gonna be a practice game tomorrow afternoon, and I’m gonna bring him the awesomest homemade bento ever—”
“Hmm...” her mother nodded. But immediately thereafter she looked as if she’d just recalled something. “That’s right. I had a call from Akemi-chan’s mother earlier. Kyouko, were you with Akemi-chan earlier?”
“Akemi? No, I don’t know where she is. I think she left school early today to go to a dentist appointment?”
“But she hasn’t made it home yet.”
“Maybe she went shopping?”
“Maybe that’s it...” her mother placed her hand against her cheek. Kyouko handed her the shopping bags.
“Put these in the fridge. Geez, my shoulders are sore again. We’re not eating yet, right? I’m gonna go take a bath.”
She went up to the second floor.
To Kyouko, bathing was the most important part of the day. That she fussed over her appearance much more than others was a part of it, but she was also trying to cure the chronic stiffness in her shoulders. As she submerged herself in the lukewarm water, Kyouko massaged them.
“It hasn’t gotten better at all...”
Chronic though it might be, it’d gotten worse these past few months, and hadn’t healed no matter how much her mother helped massage them. So much so that there were days when she couldn’t lift her arms. She’d heard that bathing was good for blood circulation, and did so assiduously, but there’d been no improvement. People had laughingly called her an old woman, and she’d retorted that nowadays the young toiled away more than the elderly.
Still, the pain wasn’t getting better at all.
“Maybe I should quit the manager job?”
Kyouko, of course, had no way of knowing that her stiff shoulders was caused by being haunted by multiple spirits.
(Still...) She thought over her day. (What does it mean that Chiaki-sensei and the transfer student know each other?)
What Tetsuya had said had gotten stuck in her head. Were they related or something? Speaking of which, she’d heard a strange rumor from the girls in her class. They’d seen Chiaki-sensei entering the back door of the hotel near the castle after school. The girls tailing him had also seen Chiaki collect a key at the front desk. There had been excited speculation that he’d been there for a secret tryst, but Kyouko didn’t believe that for a moment.
(What was it Akemi said...?) Something about Ougi Takaya. That he lived in a hotel or something. (It couldn’t be the same hotel, could it?)
Suspicion welled up, and Kyouko’s brows drew in. Come to think of it, it was pretty strange that a new teacher would take up his post on the same day a new transfer student arrived. And it’d been Ougi Takaya who’d caused an uproar with the executive office, too. Apparently he’d been hanging out with Nezu Kouichi...
(Fishy...) What was the connection? She pursed her lips. (Alrighty, let’s see if I can pester a satisfactory answer out of Chiaki-sensei tomorrow.) she thought, clenching her fist in the bathtub—when—
“Huh?”
There came a low grumble from the pit of her stomach.
Maybe she’d exerted herself too much. “Oh boy. Now my stomach’s growling.” She pictured the dinner spread.
Guruguru...
Again the strange sound. It wasn’t just a rumble—it sounded like a low moan.
(Wh... Huh...?)
Something was not right.
At that moment, something moved in that same spot at the pit of her stomach. There was the sound of a slow creak and rip from the center of her body—and in her stomach a thick lump formed a circular shape.
“Yeek...!”
The wriggling grew more and more distinct, and she felt as if a live fish were writhing in her abdomen. It became more and more violent until the skin of her chest twitched and heaved.
“Agh...what...!”
Her skin bulged into welts. There were lumps of something living squirming right and left beneath her epidermis, crawling up to her head.
“Yeeek—!” She sprang up out of the bathtub. “Noooo! What is this?!”
Something was inside her...!
The screams gushed out of her.
“Noooo—!”
“What’s wrong, Kyouko?”
The bathroom door was flung open, and her mother burst in. Kyouko had collapsed face-down on the wet tiles.
“Kyouko...!”
As she stepped toward her, a black shadow flashed past. Her mother lifted her head in surprise to see many human faces emerging.
“Yeek...!”
They were the ghosts haunting Kyouko—four or five of them. They stared at her with wan faces full of hatred.
“Kyo...Kyouko? Kyoukooo!”
Her frightened mother attempted to raise Kyouko in her arms. Kyouko’s body suddenly jumped and then continued to do so several more times. Then it finally began to slowly rise on its own.
“K-Kyouko?”
Kyouko’s arm slowly shook off her mother’s hand, placed both hands on the tiles, and steadily raised her upper body. She lifted her head.
“...!”
Her mother’s eyes went wide. A glassy look fixed on her from behind wet bedraggled hair.
Out of snakelike eyes.
Finally her red lips curved slightly into a smile.