The horrible sight left Chiaki Shuuhei lost for words.
What had happened within the not-exactly-spacious grounds of Katou Shrine
? It looked as if it had been hit by both rainstorm and earthquake. The main shrine was half aslant, its roof torn off completely; downed trees lay on their sides, and the ground was pockmarked with huge depressions.
(This...)
A serious fight had taken place here—though he’d known that before he’d arrived. The psychic collision had been perceivable from some distance away. The more violent, the clearer it could be felt—and that had been true of this fight as well. He’d sensed almost immediately that Takaya was locked in a struggle with an opponent of no ordinary caliber.
While still at the school Chiaki had learned that Takaya had clashed with members of the executive office during the chaos surrounding care for the collapsed students. He’d been about to set up defensive measures against Mikuriya when the commotion had started. He’d ditched his class and come running, but he’d still been too late.
(Where’s Kagetora...?!)
Ambulances and police patrol cars arrived in a steady stream with sirens blaring. Chiaki pushed through curious onlookers to the scene. Injured tourists caught in the crossfire sat there in blank amazement. He didn’t spot Takaya among them.
“Kagetora... Kagetora, where are you?!”
“You’re not allowed in here!”
Fending off the police officer holding him back, Chiaki forced his way into the grounds. The back was crowded with people. They were about to carry the wounded out on stretchers—among whom was someone in a school uniform.
(Kagetora...!)
“You, step back!”
“You’re in the way; stay back!”
Though forcibly restrained by police, Chiaki was unwilling to back down; he yelled, “You’re the ones in my way! I’m family!”
As they wrestled, the stretcher bearing Takaya was loaded onto an ambulance. Two young persons unfamiliar to him climbed in with Takaya as if they were acting as his chaperon.
“Kagetora!”
The ambulance’s revived siren drowned out his cry as it crossed in front of Chiaki and down the road.
“It was them! They’re the ones who came out of the sky; they were flying!” a woman exclaimed behind him.
(What...?!) Chiaki turned in surprise.
She was one of the tourists who’d witnessed the scene. She’d been sitting beneath a tree and had received medical treatment for her injuries, but was shouting in her excitement.
“We saw them with our own eyes—they came out of the sky! It’s true! Those people...those people came down from the sky!”
(From the sky?) Chiaki rushed over to her. “What did you mean just now? When you said they came out of the sky—what did you mean by that?”
“We saw them—everybody saw them. Those people...flew over the castle and landed here!”
Chiaki looked to where she was pointing. She meant the young people who had surrounded Takaya earlier. They’d looked completely ordinary. They were looking his way.
(They flew through the air...?)
That’s crazy, he thought, but the other tourists were all excitedly talking about the same thing. The young people exchanged a few words and set off for the path on the opposite side, avoiding the crowd.
Chiaki saw among them someone wearing the uniform of a high school student. He recognized that face: it was Nezu Kouichi.
“You...!”
He tried to run after them, but a throng of police officers stamped in and blocked his way. In the meantime the youths disappeared into the crowd.
“Shit...!”
There was nothing he could do. And in any case he was worried about Takaya’s condition—given the serious injuries he had probably sustained.
Chiaki tsked and briskly walked away from Katou Shrine.
He passed an Old Castle High School student on his own way to the site of the commotion: Miike Tetsuya.
His fifth period had coincidentally been taught by Chiaki, but due to the uproar inside the school and the impossibility of calming the students down, the class had started twenty minutes late...and now what was happening?
Chiaki-sensei had abruptly cut the class short, ordered the students to study on their own, and rushed out looking quite strange.
(He’s acting oddly...)
And Ougi Takaya was missing. He’d heard a sound like a far-away earthquake. After that was when Chiaki-sensei...
Tetsuya had left the classroom alone, leaving his murmuring classmates behind—chasing after Chiaki. They’d arrived at Katou Shrine.
(What the hell...?)
What had happened here?
Tetsuya couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the tragic scene presented by the crumbling shrine. As if the typhoon of a few years ago had passed through again, tossing trees to the ground. There were hollowed-out depressions with their sediment displaced a small distance away, such that the ground bulged strangely. The underground destruction had been so intense that it had brought down the stone wall of the inner moat.
(What the hell happened here...?)
Something out of the ordinary had obviously occurred. But what? And what about earlier? The commotion in the broadcasting room; the odd damage to the asphalt in front of the school gates next to the sports grounds; the students who’d sudden fainted—
(There’s something weird going on.)
A shiver whose cause he could not name ran through his body.
(What the hell is going on...?)
Tetsuya had the feeling something very much out of the ordinary was happening around them, and he was seized with an overwhelming fear. It was as if the ghastly, disastrous spectacle before him was emblematic of that; he couldn’t help but shrink back.
And at his feet—he had stepped on some small rolling object. When he lifted his foot in surprise, he saw that a peculiar key ring had fallen to the sidewalk. He caught sight of the word ‘SEEVA’.
“? ...This...”
It looked familiar—hadn’t it been hanging from Inaba Akemi’s bag? Which was banned, but she’d probably loved it too much. She’d only taken it out when the patrollers weren’t looking, while hiding it inside the zipper otherwise. Tetsuya picked it up, frowning.
(But if it’s hers, what’s it doing here...?)
“You go to Old Castle High School, don’t you?”
His head jerked up at the sudden address, and saw someone who looked like the shrine’s head priest next to him.
He’d probably guessed from his uniform.
“A boy who looked like a student from your school was carried out earlier with serious injuries. I don’t know if they’re contacting the school. He was in a bad way—vomiting blood, which probably means a rupture in his internal organs.”
“A student from my school?” Tetsuya’s eyes widened. (Could he mean...)
Tetsuya had a sudden bad feeling. He was the first person that came to mind. It was completely baseless, but this horrible sight gave Tetsuya the feeling of an eerie coincidence, as if it were a sign.
“It couldn’t have been Ougi, could it?”
“Eh—...?”
“Was it Ougi Takaya?!”
Of course the priest didn’t know. But that was Tetsuya’s hunch. And he was convinced. His intuitions of this kind were never wrong.
(Don’t tell me this had something to do with Ougi too...?)
What had happened here?
What was going on?
Chiaki half-menaced a paramedic to learn Takaya’s destination and immediately headed for the hospital.
He raced down the corridor gasping for air and found waiting for him a young man and woman, neither of whom he recognized. The young man was dressed in a moss-green felt suit, the young woman a navy blue half-length coat and pink pants suit. —They were the ones who’d ridden in the ambulance with Takaya, he was sure of it.
Behind them the emergency room’s ‘In Operation’ red sign was lit.
“Kagetora...”
“... He’s in critical condition.”
It was the young man, who seemed the older of the two, who addressed him as if he were answering the question Chiaki wanted to ask. Chiaki looked at him, startled, and the young man informed him as a doctor might, “He’s undergoing an emergency operation in there to relieve his critical shortness of breath. I hope he’ll pull through.”
“...!”
Takaya’s condition was more serious than he’d thought. As the damage to the surrounding area had attested, the fight had been exceeding violent. His injuries had been serious enough to render him unconscious.
Chiaki bit his lip and scowled fiercely at the pair. “Who the hell are you?”
“...”
“Do you know who did this to him?”
“We’re only here to help him.”
“Help?”
“Yes. He was nearly killed. But with our assistance such a thing became impossible for the enemy, and he fled.”
“Who are you people?”
Based on their appearance, they were not possessor spirits; nor did they appear to be kanshousha. But their presence was distinctly different from that of ordinary people. They had to possess a not-inconsiderable amount of psychic power themselves to have been able to extract Takaya from that battle.
What if, Chiaki caught his breath.
(They came down from the sky? Could they be the ones who flew out of the sky...?!)
“Was it you?”
“...”
“That crowd earlier was saying something about people coming down out of the sky—was that you? What is going on?! You were the guys with Nezu earlier—are you his friends too?!”
“You are Ougi Takaya’s friend, correct?” the long-haired woman standing beside him interrupted Chiaki.
(They know his name?)
“Then you should hurry back. Someone who appears to be your enemy has kidnapped a girl from his school.”
“Kidnapped a girl...?!” Chiaki bellowed, violently seizing the woman’s collar. “Did you see it?! Who was it?!”
“Once his demand reaches you, you will know who he is. In any case, please return quickly. Should her safety not be your top priority?”
“Exactly. Even if you remain, you’re only waiting for the operation to finish.”
Chiaki glared nervously at the young man. Both of them were calm.
“You can only trust in the doctors. We will watch over him. Please go back.”
“...Who are you?” Chiaki demanded, low. “What the hell is your deal?”
Their attire, etc., were no different from that of ordinary people. But the serenity in their gaze was such that they lacked all human warmth. Chiaki shouted, finally losing patience at their non-answers: “Who the hell are you and where did you come from? Tell me right now!”
The young man silently narrowed his eyes a little, but finally opened his mouth. “—We come from the renowned country of the priestess of fire. We’re its people.”
“...!”
“Its descendants. We revere the people of Hyuuga. Is that enough for you?”
It rendered Chiaki speechless for a moment.
“...What did you say...?!” he demanded, thrusting aside the woman and taking hold of the young man’s collar. “What are you talking about?! Priestess of fire! You’re telling me you claim to be descendants of the Yamatai Kingdom?!”
“You asked who we are, and we answered.” The young man didn’t move. “This is the only answer we can give you right now that you can understand. But you can be certain of one thing: we are not his enemy.”
“...You tell me something that ridiculous and you expect me to trust you?”
“You have no choice, do you?” the young man pointed out flatly. “You should go. Otherwise there will be another victim. You can entrust him to us. So please leave.”
Knowing that he would receive no further answers, Chiaki tched and shoved him back roughly. ...If it was true a girl had been kidnapped, then what they’d said made sense.
(I don’t have a choice.) He retraced his steps. (Don’t you dare drop dead on me just yet, Kagetora!)
The pair beneath the red-lit sign watched Chiaki as he receded down the corridor.
“Chiaki-sensei!”
A tense group of teachers, Yamaguchi among them, was waiting for Chiaki back at the school. Classes were already over, and Yamaguchi and 2-B’s homeroom teacher Kurokawa were in the math department lounge.
“What’s going on, Yamaguchi-sensei?”
“This is terrible! Earlier the school received—we received this!”
He was holding a white envelope addressed to the homeroom teacher of junior class B. There was something heavy inside. He opened the envelope to find a lock of black hair and the bulky Old Castle High School student’s handbook. The student ID stuck to the back of it had a photograph showing a schoolgirl’s rather childish face.
(Inaba Akemi.)
Takaya’s classmate.
The hair had to be hers. The springy, lustrous black hair was bound together with a string of twisted paper into a narrow bundle. Chiaki hastily opened the enclosed note. The succinct message was written with a brush in an extremely archaic script. Chiaki’s expression grew rapidly grimmer as he read.
He immediately lifted his head to ask, “Where is Inaba? Did she come to school today?”
“She had a dentist’s appointment and left early. Before fifth period, I believe.”
“Has her family been contacted?”
“Well...” Kurokawa said, flustered and shaken, “She has not arrived at home, while the dentist’s office says she left right after her appointment.”
“...”
Chiaki clenched his fist around the bundle of hair.
“Your enemy has kidnapped a girl.”
(So they were telling the truth?) He ground his teeth and steeled himself before turning to Kurokawa and Yamaguchi, game face on. “And where is Miike Tetsuya right now?”
“He left before the start of sixth period. According to his classmates, he’s probably skipped class and gone home.”
“Where does he live? I’m going to see him. If he’s already gone home, contact his parents—”
“Miike lives alone.”
What? Chiaki stared. “He lives alone? A senior high school student?”
“Yes. His family home is in Aso, but due to various circumstances he rents an apartment in the city and lives by himself. ...Actually, I believe he was raised by relatives—he started staying with them when he was quite young.”
This was the first time he’d heard of it. Tetsuya had apparently been a problem child ever since he’d started school here, and had caused the teachers quite a bit of grief. Kurokawa had a complicated look on his face.
“His father died early, and after that his mother left, abandoning her children. He went to live with his grandfather’s younger brother. This grand-uncle’s house is in Aso Town—a place called Yakuin Field. I visited them once.”
“What about his younger sister?” Chiaki asked, leaning forward. “He has a younger sister named Hokage, doesn’t he? Where does she go to school? Does she live at the family home?”
Kurokawa rushed to flip through the student transcripts. “Let’s see... She goes to a private school in the city. Since Miike lives alone, I think his sister probably lives at the family home.”
“More importantly, Chiaki-sensei, what do you think of this letter? What is Asara? Is it a prank? Or...”
“We should contact the police, shouldn’t we?”
Neither Kurokawa nor Yamaguchi knew that Miike Tetsuya’s sister—Miike Hokage—had been missing for about a year.
And then there was this letter... No, this was no ordinary letter; it was a threat.
(Who did this?)
This opponent of Takaya’s. Who in the world had whupped Kagetora so badly?
One of Mikuriya’s allies? Or...
“...” Chiaki crushed the letter in his fist. He glared at it and pressed his lips together tightly. “Kurokawa-sensei, would you leave his matter to me?”
“To you, Chiaki-sensei?”
“I will return after meeting with Miike.”
The one who had fought with Takaya must have been an onshou. They had sent this threatening letter to Miike Tetsuya. What did it mean? What was the motive?
The one student in this school who was not haunted.
(Miike Tetsuya...)
Chiaki glared into midair with a terrifying expression in his eyes.
Two people watched Chiaki Shuuhei from one of the school’s rooms as he hurried out of the school gates not long after returning.
They were Mikuriya Juri and vice president Ozaki—aka Yokote no Gorou.
“As we expected, they’re on the move—those kanshousha.”
“Something appears to have happened with 2-B homeroom teacher Kurokawa. He’s all in a lather and has shut himself in the teacher’s lounge with Yamaguchi and the other teachers,” Yokote no Gorou recited flatly. “I heard something was happening, and have just sent my subordinates to sound things out.”
“Very well,” Mikuriya Juri answered, looking away from the window. “What of the earlier commotion? What have you learned?”
Gorou answered, “There are indications nenpa from Ougi Takaya and Kiyomasa collided with someone else’s at Katou Shrine.”
Of course Mikuriya had also sensed the fight between Takaya and Rairyuu. She had immediately sent Yokote no Gorou to investigate, but he had arrived after the participants had already dispersed.
“Ougi Takaya appears to have suffered serious injuries. Kiyomasa left with people who appeared to be his allies.”
“Allies? He had allies?”
“Aye. Based on what I heard from witnesses, they all flew down out of the sky.”
“From the sky?” Mikuriya’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What in the world? Are you saying flesh-and-blood human beings flew? That’s impossible. Wouldn’t that make them angels?”
“It was probably some kind of illusion. They all looked like ordinary people, apparently. ...I have sent our men to track down Kiyomasa; they will contact me as soon as they’ve located him.”
Mikuriya pressed a hand against her mouth and pondered. “’Tis a mystery...”
“...What is your command?”
“Very well. Concentrate on your search, and notify Dousetsu-dono as well. The one Kiyomasa fought was obviously not Ootomo. Who is in Kumamoto other than Ootomo? We must find out,” Mikuriya said, the coldness returning to her eyes. “All the demonic serpents will be hatched within the next few days. Let all those who bear a hatchling begin their work as holy crusaders of the Ootomo. We must hasten the excavation of the «Golden Serpent Head». Let divine punishment immediately fall on those who would interfere. ...That includes the kanshousha called Chiaki Shuuhei, if he should get in our way.”
Mikuriya stopped and looked at Yokote no Gorou. He bowed deeply.
“I hear and obey.”
Tetsuya’s apartment was in a residential district about five minutes from the bus stop. It was a small wooden construction easily over twenty years old. It was close to Kumamoto University, and had probably been built with the students in mind. The majority of the inhabitants were indeed students at the university; Tetsuya was the only high school student living there on his own.
Wending his way past several motorcycles parked in random places, Tetsuya ascended the stairs to see someone standing in front of his apartment. Maybe one of the college students who were his neighbors, he thought, but that turned out not to be the case.
His face stiffened in surprise. “You...!”
“You sure took your sweet time, problem child. Where have you been wandering about?”
Leaning against his door was Chiaki Shuuhei. Given that Tetsuya had just been thinking about him and Takaya, the sight of him just about made Tetsuya’s heart stop.
“Wh...what the hell?!” He just barely managed his usual hostile tone. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Surprise home visit,” Chiaki said, approaching with hands in his pockets. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”
“Show me...?”
“Yeah.” Chiaki took out the envelope and handed it to Tetsuya. Tetsuya suspiciously emptied it out.
“! ...Wh-what is...!”
“It appears your classmate Inaba Akemi has been kidnapped.”
“Inaba?!” Tetsuya looked up at Chiaki in shock. “Why?! Why would someone take Inaba?! Who?!”
“I don’t know—that’s why I’m here. Read that letter.”
Tetsuya did so.
“It’s addressed to you. It says if you want Inaba safely returned, to bring ‘Asara’.”
“Asara...”
“You’re the target of this threat. I think you know what this ‘Asara’ is, don’t you?”
Tetsuya’s expression was quite odd. His lips were pressed into a straight line, and his usually narrowed eyes were wide and frozen as he stared at the letter.
“’In three days, on the 22nd at midnight, bring ‘Asara’ to the designated location. If you do not comply, the hostage’s life cannot be guaranteed.’ That’s Inaba’s hair, isn’t it? Her family received a similar threat by telephone, and Inaba hasn’t returned home yet.”
“I can’t believe it...” Tetsuya recalled the key ring he had found at Katou Shrine. Was that where Akemi had been snatched away...? “What the hell...”
“Miike.”
“What the hell is this?! I don’t get it! Why Inaba...? Why would someone take her?!” Tetsuya glared at Chiaki. “Who the hell are you people?! Things have been weird since you guys came to the school! No, before that—when Mikuriya came. At the school. And at Katou Shrine, too!”
“...!”
“Don’t tell me,” Tetsuya keenly noted Chiaki’s momentary change in expression. “Don’t tell me it really was Ougi that was seriously injured and taken away. That had something to do with him, too?! What did he do?!”
“... Who knows?” Chiaki said, forcing calm over his face. “If he’s lucky he’ll probably live.”
“—You guys...”
“And what about you, Miike.” The sharp eyes he suddenly turned on Tetsuya frightened him. This was the first time he had seen Chiaki so stern. “What is this ‘Asara’ from the letter? You know, don’t you? You’re quite the puzzle. Starting with: why are you the only one not haunted?”
“Haunted...”
“At that school all the students without exception are haunted by a variety of spirits; you’re the only one they won’t approach. It’s not just that you don’t carry a magnet—it’s like they’re avoiding you. Why is that? Why is some onshou expressly blackmailing you?!”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about...!”
“Your sister is missing, isn’t she? Why?! What does that have to do with spirits avoiding you?!”
“I...I don’t...”
“What is ‘Asara’?! What do you know?! What is it?!”
"I don’t know! I don’t know where she is either!
What. Chiaki stared. “What do you know about Asara...?”
“I don’t know where she is! Nobody will tell me, so I don’t know!” Tetsuya shouted, holding his head, and Chiaki gazed at him motionlessly.
“Miike...”
The investigation at Katou Shrine appeared to have ended for today. Kumamoto Castle
was lit up as usual, while at its tower’s base the shrine’s corner alone remained dark and unilluminated.
A crowd of rubberneckers, attracted by all the excitement, had been here until just earlier, but now that it was dark the allure had gone out like a receding wave. The road in front of Katou Shrine was closed, and there were no cars. No Trespassing ropes stretched around the grounds.
Two men in coats stood in front of that rope.
“This is terrible...” Takahashi Jouun was stunned by the horrible sight. “Who in the world did such...”
The man in the cashmere coat standing next to him hadn’t said a word since earlier. —It was Kaizaki Makoto.
For a time Kaizaki gazed grimly at the destroyed shrine before finally ducking under the rope and stepping inside.
“Kaizaki-dono...!”
Kaizaki ignored him. Avoiding the depressions, he advanced deeper inside with careful steps. Jouun hesitated a little before following after him.
Kaizaki abruptly went down on one knee beside a fallen tree.
“Kaizaki-dono?”
Kaizaki quietly took off his leather gloves, reached toward the ground, and swept back and forth with his fingers.
Jouun didn’t know it, but this was where Takaya, having received a direct hit from Rairyuu’s will, had collapsed vomiting blood. Jouun didn’t see it in the dimness, but Kaizaki’s down-turned expression was full of mingled pain and fury.
“What amazing residual psychic energy,” Jouun muttered to himself, shuddering. “Given the amount of time that has passed, the fact that so much violent energy still remains is... No doubt two people of great power fought here.”
“...”
“Was it an Oda commander, since it was not Ootomo? But who in the world was his opponent...?”
“It was the Ikkou Sect,” Kaizaki answered, crouched.
“What?”
“The onshou who fought here was Shimozuma Rairyuu of the Ikkou Sect.”
“You...” Jouun was startled. “Shimozuma Rairyuu—the man called Kennyo’s trump card, the greatest of the Ikkou Sect? You know him?”
“Yes.” Kaizaki slowly stood. “I’m certain of it. It appears the Ikkou Sect’s kanshousha have started to move in Kumamoto.”
“Do you know his opponent, then? Someone from Oda?”
“His opponent was—...” His words cut off. He curled the fingers that had wiped away Takaya’s blood into a fist, so hard that his nails cut into the palms of his hand. The veins stood out a little from his temples as his fists shook.
“What is the cursed Ikkou Sect doing in Kumamoto? I will contact Julia-sama to probe deeper.”
“...The Ikkou Sect is allied with Akechi Mitsuhide. There are rumors Akechi has also recently entered into an alliance with Shimazu.”
“What?” Jouun lifted his head in surprise. “Truly?”
“Those reports are as of yet unconfirmed, but if they are true, we must take care. They’ll likely get wind of what’s happening at Old Castle High School.”
“We need to speed up the excavation of the «Golden Serpent Head», you’re saying.”
Kaizaki nodded and turned to him. His black eyes behind his glasses contained a dark glitter. “I have heard bring the Ikkou Sect under control is Uesugi’s most important challenge. Naoe-dono will seek to crush Rairyuu, I believe.”
“Then Uesugi intends to fight Rairyuu?! The man called the Ikkou Sect’s lethal weapon?!”
“Yes,” Kaizaki answered, quietly glaring into midair. “I will take Rairyuu down.”
“You—...”
“I will make you regret this, Shimozuma Rairyuu... I will make you understand the depths of your crime.”
Jouun gulped at the bloodlust on Kaizaki’s face. He was so quiet it was eerie—a quiet that seemed to reflect the depths of his inner murderous intent. A chill ran down Jouun’s spine.
Rage and loathing burned like a dark fire.
Kaizaki clenched his fists once more.