Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Chapter4

Chapter 4: Hibashi-sama @ Vanishing Canal

Part 1

1. Tear a murderer into eight pieces and squeeze their lifeblood into a container.

2. Prepare a pair of rusty metal fire tongs by soaking them in the container until colored black.

3. Heat the blackened fire tongs in fire.

4. Use the red-hot fire tongs while burning yourself to remove or knock down the nameplate on your target’s house.

5. During the ritual, you must not be seen by anyone or drop the red-hot fire tongs.

Part 2

After school, the detective and the online shrine maiden held a conversation.

“We have a job related to a Malign Spirit.”

“Go on.”

“The client is the manager of a factory on the manufacturing float along the city’s outer curve. Are you familiar with First Icemakers?”

“Aren’t they the biggest name in the ice and ice cream industry? I doubt anyone in the tropical New Sea City doesn’t use their products. That said…”

They were discussing a dangerous topic, but they weren’t in the usual(?) detective agency.

They were in a seaside restaurant.

Which was also the gyaru sister and straitlaced sister’s home.

It was of course on one of the many megafloats. The seashore and the sandy beach were entirely fabricated. Everything meant to remind one of the summer sea was. It was a real testament to human technology.

They were seated on the floor using rush mats which had to be there for anyone who was wet from the ocean. And they sat around a low table…maybe about the size of a tea table?

Hisame Kouga, with his silky blond hair and his nice (but actually extremely cheap) suit, stared into the middle distance as he spoke.

“The office’s rundown old air conditioner just had to die on us now, didn’t it?”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had bought a new one. You were losing money on the power costs every single day you kept that thing.”

“You could have warned me before it came to this!”

“I’ve been warning you every single day lately, but someone refused to listen.”

And so they had evacuated elsewhere today. To the seaside restaurant. It was at least a better choice than making a noisy nuisance of themselves in the neighborhood library or museum.

Of course it was a grownup’s job to pick up the tab. And Hisame Kouga was the only grownup here!

“Heh heh heh. Today, I’ll show you I’m the kind of gyaru who can cook.”

Betsuzaki Rainy was happily working a pair of spatulas at the steel plate.

In a swimsuit.

A gyaru cooking food in a bikini tied with a bow…may have been a draw for customers. Her usual sunglasses were hanging from the thin string linking to the bikini’s left and right chest. Was that meant to draw the eye to your cleavage, gyaru sister? Now that was a pro level technique!

Before, she had been complaining about helping out at home, but she may have been the type to really get into something once she actually started. Which explained why her parents would yell at her to force her to take that first step.

“Okay, okay. Order as much as you want! Yakisoba, takoyaki, okonomiyaki – I can make just about anything made with flour! Mister, you’ll support the local economy by spending big here, won’t you?☆”

The way she mixed in some chopped-up fish sausage and square croutons was the New Sea City style.

Yahirodono Tsumugi sat politely at the table in her school uniform. As a shrine maiden, she could sit in the seiza-style for hours without her legs falling asleep, which was something only experience could bring.

“Does you sister also cook in a swimsuit?”

“My flawless sister who’s preparing for her entrance exams, helps out at the school library, and frequently visits the TV station? No, she gets special treatment. Don’t you think parents should treat their kids equally? But our terrible parents are always forcing me and only me to work at our FtP house.”

The detective suddenly froze in place with his eyes on something.

Tsumugi breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that something didn’t appear to the gyaru sister’s bikini cleavage.

“?”

After grabbing a cold paper cup in both hands and taking a sip of melon soda through the thin straw while tilting her head, the online shrine maiden noticed it too.

The menu posted on a nearby column included the prices.

Based on the paper pasted there, this M-size soda in a paper cup cost 800 yen and the yakisoba, which sounded cheap, was more than 1200 yen once a few toppings were added.

These were inflated tourist prices. The poor professional detective had failed to observe his surroundings when he arrived. Now, what was more economical, the price of an air conditioner during midsummer, or spending time at this seaside restaurant?

Tsumugi stuck out her tongue a little.

“Since the grownup said he’s paying, I don’t have to worry about that.”

“I’ve already been betrayed, have I?”

Yet she knew he would insist he could cover it if she did say something. Even if she offered to pay for her own, he would have refused.

Yuhi had been seated at the same table staying as quiet and unobtrusive as possible this whole time because this was her home yet he had bought her a Ramune and a small pancake. She was as straitlaced as a middle schooler could get, but she had realized her position here was a lot like a hostess being bought some wine.

Tsumugi pointed at something on the table.

“What’s this?” she asked with a tilt of her head.

“Hm?” said Rainy. “A prize for the Commerce and Industry Association campaign. You get one for every thousand yen you spend.”

It was a cartoony hermit crab acrylic stand attached to a phone charger.

It was apparently compatible with Plasperia phones.

“I’ll take one then.”

“Are you sure you want the hermit crab one? There’s a seal, a polar bear, a crab, a whale, and lots more. Eh, that cardboard box back there is crammed full of them, so pick out one you like. And given how much Kouga-san’s gonna be paying, feel free to take like a dozen of them.”

The usually dazzling detective actually shrank down and started trembling for once.

The online shrine maiden held the cheap acrylic stand charger in both hands.

“Thanks, but I like this one best.”

This was a form of selfishness.

A little way for the shy girl to have her way.

The straitlaced sister smiled gently.

“If that’s the one you like, then go ahead.”

“Well said, my sister.”

But now it was time to get down to business.

The detective rejoined the conversation. Hisame Kouga could pull himself together when it came to work.

“First Icemakers’ factory is open from 9 AM to 10 PM five days a week, but a worker went missing there at closing time one night. He punched his time card, but he never returned home and hasn’t been heard from since. Since he has no family at home, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when he disappeared.”

“So this happened on his way home rather than inside the large factory? Yawwwn.”

Tsumugi accidentally let out a yawn.

The detective’s briefings were necessary, but they tended to be stiff and lengthy. She ended up reaching up and stretching where she sat.

“Nhh.”

“Hey, hey, hey! I’m the one wearing a bikini here so quit stealing my thunder without even meaning to! I’m talking about your chest!!”

“?”

“Whoa, they really are huge,” whispered the straitlaced sister.

Only the detective maintained his usual unconcerned look.

“Yes, it happened on his way home. Maybe he disappeared, maybe there was an accident, and maybe he was abducted. There are plenty of possibilities, but I have found something of interest. The path the workers take when leaving the factory crosses the Otsugo Water Level Control Canal.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. That’s the haunted Vanishing Canal that Chatty was going on about.”

The gyaru sister joined the conversation while serving them some thick and unhealthy-looking bacon (which no one had ordered).

Was Chatty still interested in haunted locations after her bad experience?

“It’s a small seawater canal that flows below a big elevated street, but they say you should stay away from it at night. There are all sorts of rumors about bad things happening there. But Chatty said the scariest part is it isn’t clear what kind of bad things those are.”

That allowed room for “positive imagination”, like that it was the work of a chainsaw-wielding maniac who could be stopped with a gunshot to the head or heart. Whether or not that would actually work, that thought would rid some people of their fear.

There were only vague rumors about “bad things”.

Someone had actually gone missing, but nothing could be done if the actual cause remained a mystery.

These stories were common when it came to mysterious little shrines or jizo status that had their faces or names carved away and no one knew where they came from.

Hisame Kouga nodded before placing a voice recorder on the small table.

That was the detective’s secret weapon. He would switch off his phone to put someone at ease while actually recording it all from his pocket.

“A total of seven factory workers have already gone missing. Their fate is unknown. And while I haven’t confirmed it, I have heard that a few delivery drones have been seen crashing near the Vanishing Canal.”

Yuhi tilted her head while holding her Ramune bottle. (She must have felt it would be rude to not drink any of it at all.)

“That means electronics have been malfunctioning around a specific location.”

“Due to a Malign Spirit’s Groan?”

The online shrine maiden frowned as a voice spoke from the recorder.

It was the deep voice of a middle-aged man.

Probably their client. She couldn’t see him, but she could tell how badly weakened he was.

“This is happening outside the factory, but it happens when we get off work. The amount of worker’s comp they get depends on if they intentionally vanished or if something happened to them. I don’t know if they’re alive or dead, but even in the worst case, I want their families to get as much as they can get. This can’t just be written off as a mystery. I’m sorry, but will you get to the bottom of this?”

“The seven known victims are only the ones who worked for the factory,” explained the detective. “If people are vanishing due to a Malign Spirit, we can’t just ignore it. We can’t let even one more person fall victim to it.”

“I know that.”

Tsumugi stabbed a thin metal spoon into a lavish serving of shaved ice with a scoop of ice cream on top. Yes, nothing was sweeter than a treat bought with someone else’s money.

“I will settle this before it’s too late.”

Part 3

The station was nearby, so the three of them walked.

The gyaru sister spoke in the lazy afternoon with a police patrol drone flying by overhead.

“Is it true the government will pay you a fortune if a gust of wind sends one of those tumbling down onto your head? According to Chatty, it has to actually hit you.”

“I-I don’t like that kind of painful talk…”

Rainy was probably more enjoying the very act of talking then trying to convey any kind of information.

When she realized the trembling wharf roach shrine maiden wasn’t receptive to that topic, she immediately changed topics. With the speed of someone playing a falling block puzzle game.

“So First Icemakers, huh!? They’re huge!!”

“Do you buy a lot of their products for your restaurant?”

“Yes, but that reminds me what Chatty was saying. Apparently there’s a way to tell which of the popsicles is a winner.”

The online shrine maiden bought a fair number of those, so this was a decently interesting topic for her, but she doubted it had anything to do with the Vanishing Canal.

They boarded a train to cross a few of the kilometers-long megafloats to arrive near the large First Icemakers factory near the outer edge. Tsumugi had already changed into her shrine maiden outfit.

The gyaru sister, who had won the right to take the only open seat in a game of rock-paper-scissors, kicked her legs and spoke.

“Oh, it’s already the next station. Mugikko, grab my bag for me.”

“Ugh,” groaned Tsumugi.

Why did Rainy have to put her bag in the rope shelf overhead?

Tsumugi was so short she couldn’t reach it even when she stood up on her tiptoes and stretched. But she didn’t want to admit that out loud, so she leaned forward and tried to reach anyway.

“Nhhh…”

“Hold that pose. And…snap! Got a photo of those huge boobs☆”

“Nyuwah!? Wh-wh-wh-why are you taking a picture!?”

“Look how they’re looming over me. Wa ha ha! It’s like they’re popping out of the screen!!”

Apparently Rainy didn’t care at all that Tsumugi was blushing, teary-eyed, and trembling.

She fanned her overheated face with a hand as they stepped out into the station.

They walked to the site from there. This area was on the outer edge of the city. A few cruise liners were visible in the distant ocean. The tourist population fluctuated based on the season and events, so when New Sea City didn’t have enough beds available, ships would be anchored out at sea to provide more. The tourists would travel to the city on mid-sized aquatic buses, but those only ran at certain times, which had to be inconvenient for the people staying on the ships.

The street was still brightly lit as the gyaru sister spoke.

“Hey, Mugikko. How’s the Shrine Restoration Project going?”

“Call it Shikinen Zotai.”

“What’s that?”

“A system for Shinto shrines to be rebuilt every twenty years. There are less strict versions, like with larger shrines where it only applies to the main shrine that holds the shintai. But if they’re designed with a cycle of construction and destruction in mind, you would think they would have ways of building them cheaply…”

In reality, typing out the cost on a cheap calculator would end up with a glitched(?) output.

“If it’s that hard to raise the money on your own, wouldn’t it be faster to regain the shrine’s religious corporation status?” asked the straitlaced sister, sounding sorry. “Then the government would give you some kind of financial support, I think.”

“Hm? My sister, what in the world is a religious corporation?”

“Shh.”

The online shrine maiden motioned for the sisters to halt their conversation. Apparently the time for talking had ended.

It was in view.

The haunted Vanishing Canal.

The Otsugo Water Level Control Canal was actually a seawater canal running between two megafloats. It was long, but only about five meters wide. An elevated passage, likely for the railroad they had just been using, crossed it overhead. That might not sound like much, but it crossed between two floats that were constantly rocking in waves too small for people to even notice. Ensuring their heights matched had to involve precise sensors, adjustable bridge piers, and plenty more advanced tech.

The space below the elevated railway appeared to be a parking lot rather than some kind of shop. It was surrounded by a construction fence and soundproofing sheets and it looked like there were large trucks parked inside. There was a gap between two of the fences covered by soundproofing sheets. Peeking through there, they saw a prefab hut that may have served as the supervisor’s room.

A quick glance around didn’t show any vases of flowers or pairs of shoes neatly placed side by side.

Tsumugi gave the whole scene another look.

“The control canal is long…but this would be where a First Icemakers worker would cross it on the way home.”

“Hmm, looks like a normal street to me. Is this place really haunted? It’s daytime and sunny.”

The gyaru sister’s carefree comment made the online shrine maiden sigh.

“Have you still not figured out it’s dangerous to assume paranormal phenomena only occur at night? The sun doesn’t burn Malign Spirits or anything like that. You’re thinking of Western vampires.”

“Mhh.”

If there was a Malign Spirit here, Tsumugi had to find it, but when she didn’t know what conditions led to the disappearances, it was safest to investigate while it was light out and she could see everything.

“But can we really believe the stories about the Vanishing Canal?”

“Whaddya mean, my sister?”

At Rainy’s prompting, the straitlaced sister held a hand to her chin and…

“The factory’s time cards only record a time. It doesn’t actually tell you who punched it. So isn’t it possible the people disappeared before leaving the factory’s grounds and not on the way home afterwards? Looking at it that way, doesn’t the factory manager sound awfully suspicious?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” said the online shrine maiden, waving her trifold phone.

No signal. Which was highly unnatural on this collection of artificial megafloats.

The sisters gasped in sync with each other.

“If our phones are dead…”

“Th-then this is the place. One of those Malign Spirit things is making that ringing sound!”

Part 4

Back in the seaside restaurant, Hisame Kouga sat alone at the low table researching something on his laptop when a sexy adult woman began bringing him all sorts of things.

“Here, have an iced coffee.”

She was the restaurant’s manager. In other words, the gyaru sister and straitlaced sister’s mother.

She had a lot going on. How did she make a perfectly ordinary apron look so sinful? Apparently the sum of the gyaru sister and the straitlaced sister did not give you a normal person.

“We also have waffles, pancakes, donuts, and fries. We’ve started focusing more on frying instead of just using the griddle.”

“I can’t eat all this.”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay. It’s all on the house! Really, I should be giving you even more. Hee hee. As thanks for protecting those ultra complicated daughters of mine!!”

Uh. oh. Now this was awkward in a very different way.

“Wow, I this your work?”

As soon as the dangerously sexy adult girl(?) left, a different girl entered.

An elementary schooler. The landlord’s daughter, Hanagushi Temari.

“Getting some work in outside the office? You grownups have it so easy. Oh, and if you are going to buy a new air conditioner for your office, make sure it uses the same hose size. If it ends up leaking, I will slap you.”

For how much she complained, it didn’t take her long to take a seat on the detective’s lap.

Just plopped on down there.

But with the low table, she couldn’t fit her legs underneath very well and ended up squirming.

“What the heck? Is this a hermit crab charging stand? That’s so lame. But I’d feel bad for the poor thing, so I maybe I should give it a home.”

“I’m not giving it to you.”

“…Ohh? Fine, whatever.”

Temari sensed something more to that flat refusal, which seemed to amuse her.

“Now, what is this poor slacker looking at?”

The landlord’s daughter checked the laptop’s screen and sighed.

Apparently the concept of privacy was beyond her.

“Yeah, you should be careful around the Otsugo Water Level Control Canal. That area is being managed.”

“…?”

After a moment of thought, the detective caught on.

His landlord’s family owned a lot of land and buildings across New Sea City. And now Temari said to be careful and that that area was being “managed”.

“Don’t tell me.”

Ignoring his laptop, the detective snatched up his folding phone from the table, but he couldn’t get through using social media, ordinary email, or even a phone call.

The girls must have already entered a haunted location because he couldn’t reach Yahirodono Tsumugi’s phone.

Part 5

“Hey, Mugikko.”

“?”

“Stop getting so far ahead. This place is terrifying, so shouldn’t we be working together to make decisions?”

“…Is what happened at the Rending Pool still bothering you?”

Being bound to a child ghost and nearly killed couldn’t have been fun.

In the real ghost industry, there was no room at all for feelings of pity when it came to a Malign Spirit of a headless child or something.

“Detective Onii-sama Kouga-san said we’re your chance at survival if you end up passing out at a haunted location!”

“That won’t be happening, so it isn’t necessary.”

They couldn’t find an entrance to the parking lot. The metal fence covered by soundproofing sheets surrounded it on all sides, but it was more like a sequence of fences with a set length. That meant there were larger gaps in places. It looked like they could slip through there and avoid having to climb over or do anything weird.

“Mh.”

The online shrine maiden turned to the side to slip through, but part of her still caught on the fence.

Her chest.

“…Curse these things.”

Otsugo Water Level Control Canal.

Also known as the haunted Vanishing Canal.

“Wow,” gasped Rainy when she got a good look.

This urban blind spot was located below the giant elevated railway. Rusty, abandoned cars arranged in rough lines, piles of unidentifiable scrap metal, and a single prefab hut. The nearby seawater canal was only 5m across, but it still provided a powerful salty smell. The smell was somehow rawer than a tourist beach.

“So this is a haunted location where at least seven people have vanished,” muttered the online shrine maiden.

The sunlight combined with the elevated railway overhead created a harsh contrast between light and shadow.

The shadows seemed almost solid, making the space below the railway seem all the more mysterious. It felt like a different world cut off from the ordinary city, as if it were surrounded by “keep out” tape.

“Th-the vibes here are bad. The air feels so solid and heavy. Even though it’s still daytime…”

“If a place is haunted, the ghost will appear even in the bright summer sun. Like the Kunekune, or the many white hands extending from the sea.”

The dazzlingly white light reflected off the ground and the thick dark shadow of the railway.

Domed security cameras were installed on the railway’s bridge piers, but they were cracked. Probably broken.

“…”

The parking lot appeared to be divided into a few different areas. More fences covered with soundproofing sheets cut through the inside too. There were no gaps there to slip through.

“What would you do, Mugikko? If you were alone?”

When Tsumugi groaned, the gyaru sister placed her hands behind her head and grinned.

“Muh hee hee. Now do you see why having a team is important? Okay, Yuhi. Does that area have a different exit? Or does the fence open somewhere?”

“Let me see. Hmm.”

Yuhi, who apparently frequently visited the TV station, nodded a few times.

“No barbed wire on top, so if we could… Hey, Onee-chan, push that wooden crate over.”

“Eh? Why me, Yuhi?”

“I’ve seen the prop people doing this. Are you going to make Yahirodono-san do all the work?”

Oh, so she already assumes I’m doing it, sighed the online shrine maiden even as she obeyed.

By pushing and stacking the crates according to the straitlaced sister’s instructions, they ended up with a three-step staircase which looked sufficient to clear the tall fence.

They jumped down on the other side.

The online shrine maiden looked back.

“How do we get back?”

“We can just stack something else.”

This was also a parking lot, but the vehicles here were different. They were all shiny black luxury cars.

(Hm? Why would these be out here in the salty sea air?)

“Dwah!? What’s that huge bug on the sideview mirror!? I-it’s the size of my palm! Is that a paranormal phenomenon!?”

“Onee-chan… That jumbo dragonfly is fake. Have you never seen a bug repelling product before?”

Setting it up in such a conspicuous spot seemed like a lot of trouble. There were also some reflective cards suspended by strings.

People had disappeared. Several of them.

That knowledge made the prefab hut look creepy.

“Oh, god. Another fence with soundproofing sheets?”

Why divide the space up so much? And there didn’t seem to be any crates or tires to push and stack here…

“Climbing over would be tough in that shrine maiden outfit, wouldn’t it? It has a lot of loose cloth and it looks big and heavy.”

“Ghh…”

“Okay, that’s enough of that. Onee-chan, can you handle it?”

‘Sure thing.”

With a short approach run, the gyaru sister planted her shoes on the middle of the building wall and grabbed onto the base used to hold the air conditioning unit on the roof. In a flash, she had climbed to the top of the prefab hut. Was this more of her taking advantage of obstacles like in climbing and skateboarding? She easily made it up the height of three meters. Soon a yellow and black rope, which she must tied on somewhere, dangled down. The hut was located alongside the fence, so they could jump to the other side from the roof.

In theory anyway?

“O-Onee-chan, you grab Yahirodono-san’s hand and pull her up… I’ll push up on her butt from down here.”

“No fair, Yuhi! I want your job!!”

The online shrine maiden’s face rapidly heated up, but she had no choice but to go along with it.

Tsumugi fought deadly Malign Spirits all the time. She was confident in her ability to move around in the horizontal direction, but she was a master of the Japanese-style shuffle. She wasn’t used to moving much in the vertical direction.

Really, how was she supposed to climb straight up with only a thin rope!?

“Teamwork, Yahirodono-san, teamwork. Mgh.”

“Is it just me or are you two trying to humiliate me?”

Eventually, all three of them dropped down on the other side of the fence.

The atmosphere had changed. Growing heavy.

“Um…we’re pretty far in, aren’t we?” whispered the straitlaced sister. She may have been anxious.

Tsumugi looked around and let Yuhi handle yet another fence up ahead. The chain-link door had a lock, but the straitlaced sister picked up a permanent marker someone had dropped nearby and, stuck it through the chain link, and pushed on the knob on the other side of the door.

Through there, they found large trucks and windowless work vans.

“Th-this is the Vanishing Canal. We know there’s something going on here. Let’s take a look around. The missing factory workers might still be ali-”

Rainy stopped mid-sentence.

Because she heard a muddy splash.

It was too viscous and heavy to be a wave.

Wooden pallets for forklifts were stacked up near a large truck and they all chose to hide behind them. The sisters stood up on their toes to peer over the top, but the online shrine maiden had to peek out from the side. She couldn’t stretch high enough to see over the refrigerator-sized stack.

Something was there.

No, someone. Not a Malign Spirit.

“(People?)”

Some men had their backs to the girls. They were all large, but they didn’t look like a parking lot supervisor or cleaner. Maybe it was sweat, but the backs of their white dress shirts were wet enough for the Japanese-style tattoos below to show through. And the muscular men had rolled something heavy from the back of a truck before lowering it to the ground and dropping it into the 5m-wide canal. Hence the splash. It was a metal drum. Since it didn’t float back up, it must have been filled with heavy concrete or plastic.

The gyaru sister nearly cried out, but the straitlaced sister reached from behind and covered her mouth with a hand.

“What…is that?”

But Yuhi still asked a trembling question. Her tone suggested she already had a very good guess and was desperately hoping to be told she was wrong.

Were these men simply dumping a metal drum?

Of course not.

“I thought this was a haunted location where a Malign Spirit’s Groan keeps phones from working. I thought it was a ghost making people disappear.”

“There are other explanations.”

People walking by the Vanishing Canal kept going missing.

Delivery drones frequently crashed in the area.

The online shrine maiden’s trifold phone had unnaturally lost its signal here, but…

“This was my mistake. I should have examined it more carefully. A Malign Spirit’s Groan isn’t the only way to keep a phone from receiving a signal. You can find jammers for use in conference rooms in the office section of any electronics store, or someone could physically break the antenna for the closest tower.”

The security cameras on the elevated railway’s bridge piers had been destroyed too.

Physically, not by the Groan.

Also, the adjustable bridge piers were still functioning since the bridge above hadn’t collapsed. The adjustments were being made.

“Wait a second, Mugikko. Are you saying…?”

“Haunted locations with unpleasant rumors might look like abandoned ruins at first glance, but it’s not uncommon for them to be private property. Or to have been confiscated to pay off an outstanding debt.”

And the Vanishing Canal was a parking lot.

As creepy as it was, someone likely did own it.

“Businesses tend to fail in deserted areas. And property taken by criminal groups will be patrolled and guarded by members of the group. Sometimes people will jump the fence or break the lock on the door as a test of courage and get into trouble for it.”

“Criminal groups…hold on, shrine maiden. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You must be joking. You don’t mean…?”

“That is exactly what I mean.”

Tsumugi was sweating now.

She wanted to call the detective right away. No, she was willing to skip that step and call the police. But her phone wasn’t working. To an unnatural extent.

There was something here the criminal group wanted very much to keep hidden.

Like that metal drum.

It had looked just the right size to fit a human if their limbs were folded up.

“The people passing by here late at night must have seen something. Something worth intentionally jamming communications to prevent it from being reported or streamed. So once those people were noticed and caught, they were eliminated using the same cover-up infrastructure.”

No, it didn’t even matter if the victims had actually seen anything.

Maybe they had simply been looking at their phone as they walked by. Even if the passerby hadn’t noticed what was happening, the criminals might suspect they had snapped an incriminating photo. And they might launch a preemptive attack before the passerby left the jamming area and their photo could be backed up to the cloud or posted online.

Daytime wasn’t necessarily safe either, but maybe the First Icemakers employees kept vanishing on the way home at night because their phone’s backlight lit up their face in the darkness.

The true identity of the Vanishing Canal was obvious now.

The Otsugo Water Level Control Canal was a gap between two neighboring megafloats. And New Sea City floated atop the ocean more than 500 kilometers south of Tokyo.

This wasn’t an ordinary seawater canal. It might look like a small river, but it had a true depth of thousands of meters.

New Sea City was home to all sorts of leisure, including cutting-edge drone shows and amphibious aquamobiles, but this was why diving was generally forbidden.

What would happen if a metal drum packed full of heavy concrete or plastic were dumped into the sea like this?

It would never surface again. No one would ever find it.

Moving now could give away their presence. Ducking behind cover, the online shrine maiden muttered bitterly.

“This is a yakuza body dumping site.”

Part 6

The luxurious residential area was perhaps the nicest in the city.

The entire megafloat was intentionally given a limited number of entrances and there were guards posted on either end of the bridges.

The largest of the properties there contained a Japanese-style estate that looked like an antique. Of course, that was all an illusion. New Sea City was only three years old.

In a waiting room of more than thirty square meters, men in black suits were speaking in hushed voices.

“Is the boss still busy with his hobby? But the paperwork is piling up.”

“Sh. You know how unmanageable he is if you interrupt his hobby.”

“His love of collecting 16mm films is on another level.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Do you want to end up stuffed in a drum like that secretary who decided the message couldn’t wait?”

On the other side of a thick soundproof wall and a locked door was a home theater.

In there, a man had slipped out of his leather chair.

Hisame Kouga stood in the windowless home theater. The detective precisely operated the handgun he had collected from the floor, loading the first round and aiming it at the large man’s face.

He made the motion look natural.

Both his hands were covered by gloves despite the midsummer heat. A pro would understand exactly what that meant.

“W-wait…”

“No. I want to keep this quick. There isn’t a moment to spare.”

“I never would have done a thing if I knew a monster like you was involved! Surely you know that!!”

The large man trembled as he reached for the landline phone, but he wasn’t going to call his troops into the windowless home theater. He could if he wanted, but that would only mean more dead bodies to dispose of at the end of the day.

“It’s me. I have a question about the Otsugo Water Level Control Canal matter. What’s going on there right now!? Listen, if you find anyone there, do not touch them. You hear me, do not!! Hey…”

Apparently something wasn’t right. The yakuza boss shouted angrily into the receiver a few more times.

Until he heard a metal click.

The click of the detective’s thumb raising the handgun’s hammer.

“Trouble?”

The boss was trembling.

And dripping with sweat. Anyone could tell he was in no position to play games.

Which could only mean…

(Something really has gone wrong?)

“I-it wasn’t me.”

“…”

“Something’s happened. We’ve lost control of the site!!”

Part 7

Flames gulped down oxygen with a deafening roar.

Yes, flames.

The muscular man who had been standing next to the metal drum (presumably filled with a dead body) had burst into scarlet flame. His flailing arms weren’t the result of the heat or the pain. His eyes had boiled, leaving him suddenly blind.

A few more of the surprised men spontaneously combusted.

These people were dying.

It happened so suddenly the girls seemed to forget to scream.

“Hey…Mugikko, is this some kind of trick too?” asked the gyaru sister, pale and curled up behind cover, not daring to move.

“No!!”

Hee……..hee

Hee hee…………hee

Hee hee hee…

They heard laughter.

The hellfire produced female breaths expressing incongruous joy.

This wasn’t like the other burning people.

This one person was clearly enjoying it. Her body shook with joyous laughter. She didn’t seem to feel any heat or pain from the fire. She looked like a long-haired woman in burial clothes. But, while the flames made it hard to tell, a closer look showed her head was extremely long. Vertically. And her waist was twisted all the way around, making the term “hourglass figure” a little too real.

She held a metal object over a meter long in her right hand, but it probably wasn’t a sword or club. It was thinner than an arrow. When heated red by fire, the tool made of two pieces was more reminiscent of something else.

Of red-hot metal fire tongs.

“Is that…a Malign Spirit?”

The straitlaced sister sounded dazed.

She didn’t see this as salvation. Even now, the large men were engulfed in flame and, unable to bear the pain, throwing themselves into the canal. Even though they had to know applying seawater to serious full-body burns would mean death by shock.

A faint, ever so faint, ringing flickered in and out of hearing.

The Groan.

“Hold on. So the Vanishing Canal case wasn’t just a trick set up by the yakuza, Yahirodono-san!?”

Yuhi screamed right into the online shrine maiden’s ear, but she didn’t respond. She was frozen while staring wide-eyed at that thing. She was sweating profusely and unable to control her breathing. Even she could tell her heart was hammering wildly.

The memory came rushing back.

It appeared in Yahirodono Tsumugi’s mind in brutal vividness.

“No.”

The cause of it all.

The one she was trying to track down.

The giant shrine burning down in real time.

The priest and shrine maidens seeking help and flailing their limbs but failing to escape and being scorched black.

The torii roaring with fire.

And the figure standing calmly below it.

The online shrine maiden tore herself away from the flashback and shouted.

“I’ve finally found you… The worst and most heinous Quadruple Dread Star: Hibashi-sama!!!”

Part 8

1. Tear a murderer into eight pieces and squeeze their lifeblood into a container.

2. Prepare a pair of rusty metal fire tongs by soaking them in the container until colored black.

3. Heat the blackened fire tongs in fire.

4. Use the red-hot fire tongs while burning yourself to remove or knock down the nameplate on your target’s house.

5. During the ritual, you must not be seen by anyone or drop the red-hot fire tongs.

This ritual will eradicate an entire clan to their most distant relative, burning them with fire.

This is a calamity based in wisdom and the most hideous of attacks from which none can escape.

It is known as the Secret Ritual of the Deepest Hibashi-sama.

Part 9

Betsuzaki Rainy was trembling behind cover.

Something was happening.

In this bizarre situation, she could hear living human beings being cooked like fried chicken.

That Hibashi-sama(?) woman enveloped in fire was strange. And not just compared to living humans. There was something different about her compared to the Malign Spirits that Rainy had seen.

In that hell of fire, heat, and death, the gyaru sister asked the online shrine maiden a question.

“Wh-wh-wh-wh-what do we do? C’mon, Mugikko, pull out your lighter and-”

She trailed off.

After taking a powerful step forward, the online shrine maiden staggered backwards.

No.

The Malign Spirit was melting the asphalt by her mere presence. The many embers erupting from her body rode the wind down to the seawater canal, where they instantly boiled the water’s surface, causing it to erupt.

Tsumugi went limp and stopped moving.

A tremendous wall of noise rattled the sisters’ eardrums.

“A steam explosion!?” shouted the straitlaced sister.

Had Tsumugi protected the sisters from the shockwave, knocking herself out in the process?

This wasn’t good.

They were helpless without their expert.

“Anyway!! Yuhi, we need to get out! Let’s take Mugikko with us and escape!!”

“O-okay, Onee-chan!”

They wanted to leave, but they couldn’t take a straight line.

If Hibashi-sama saw them and they drew her attention, their fate was sealed.

The parking lot was surrounded by tall fences and thick soundproofing sheets. A few young yakuza members tried climb over the fences, but the embers landed on them as they did. They immediately screamed. Those should only have been embers, but as soon as they touched their skin, they burst into flames like they had doused themselves in gasoline and lit a match.

It only took one. Misread how the wind would carry a single red speck and there was no avoiding it. And the density of embers was far too high.

They must have known today was a work day. Apparently their type didn’t always carry around homemade crossbows, electromagnetic guns, and other projectiles. They had turned violence into a business, but approaching this thing with only a knife or baton would be suicide.

“Are you serious? A single ember touching you is enough?”

“Onee-chan, it’s coming this way. We’re done for if she catches us!!”

Even with all the trucks and junk, this was still a parking lot. They couldn’t stay hidden for long.

It was time to make a decision.

They made their way toward the chain-link door while paying attention to the wind and the embers. First, they slid from behind the windowless work van to behind the prefab hut. The two sisters each grabbed one of the fainted online shrine maiden’s arms and dragged her with them. There was a fence blocking the way here too, but there was a gap they hadn’t noticed on their way in.

They ran into someone there.

He wore a sports brand track suit and a gold necklace around his exceptionally thick neck.

He had to be one of the yakuza members dumping the metal drum body.

The gyaru sister was wearing her school uniform, even if it was heavily modified. Being seen by him would normally be very bad indeed, but she had bigger concerns at the moment.

Before he could say a word, Rainy shouted over him.

“We can discuss this later! If you want to get out of here alive, you can’t let any of the embers touch you! This is crazy bad, but pay attention to the wind as you run and you can escape!! Probably!!”

“H-hold on, what the hell are you doing in-”

He was cut off by a series of explosive booms.

The unnaturally polished luxury cars in the filthy parking lot were detonating and launching themselves straight up. Probably along with someone turning the key in the ignition in the hopes of escaping. All that thick metal – yes, those were probably bulletproof cars – weren’t enough to shield you. Under the Groan’s effects, they were no more than metal coffins. Whether they ran on gasoline or lithium, they were now explosives. The twisted wreckage crashed down to the ground, spreading the flames further.

“Run for it!!” shouted the gyaru sister. “If you don’t want to die here, then run to the exit while keeping an eye on the wind!!”

Pushed on by her words, the young man nodded a few times and made a mad dash toward one edge of the parking lot.

The sisters didn’t have time to see if he made it.

They supported limp Tsumugi from either side and ran in a different direction to get out the way they had come in.

“Yuhi, what are we going to do about that fence!?”

“Oh, right. We built a crate staircase on the other side…”

If they were heading back the way they had come, they would run into that fence crossing the full width of the parking lot. They had pushed and stacked wooden crates to create stairs to get in, but it was still a flat wall on this side.

With that burning Hibashi-sama woman wandering around, they couldn’t afford to take their time pushing and stacking crates. Doing anything so conspicuous could easily draw her deadly attention.

They heard another explosion.

From a car. You couldn’t escape on foot or by car. It would be a miracle if the engine started at all during this disaster, but had the Groan caused it to malfunction, followed by a focused attack from Hibashi-sama?

But that blast caught the soundproofing sheets and knocked over an entire section of the fence.

Just as Hibashi-sama turned from the burning wreckage and directed her gaze this way, Rainy and Yuhi ran over the toppled fence. While dragging Tsumugi between them.

It was a mess.

Hearing a bloodcurdling scream, they thoughtlessly looked back. The woman in burial garb reached her arms around a man with a crew cut, causing him to instantly carbonize while a few men who seemed to be guards, frozen in fear, were hit by the storm of embers and burst into flames.

The sisters had no choice but to flee with all this going on.

When the gyaru sister spotted a man running aimlessly, she gestured to direct him upwind. When she ran across a large man fallen to the ground and too terrified to get back up, she pushed him behind a thick roadside tree to hopefully hide him. If avoiding direct contact from the embers was enough, then the leaves of a tree would be one way of staying safe.

Or so she hoped.

“Pant. Onee-chan, the exit, pant…is over there…”

“!!”

They pushed themselves through the gap between the fences to finally make it outside.

But that didn’t mean they could rest.

A nearby fence covered with soundproofing sheet seemed to distort before it glowed orange and melted.

“Sh-she’s not bound by the haunted canal? She can follow us!!”

“Run, Yuhi!!”

They had suspected this.

Hibashi-sama probably had nothing to do with the Vanishing Canal. She was a worse Malign Spirit.

That they had clung to some faint hope in the backs of heir minds showed just how close the sisters were to their limit. This was like arriving at the goal of an endurance race only to be told it was time for Lap 2. Nevertheless, they gritted their teeth and kept on running, dragging the online shrine maiden with them. Because the only alternative was death.

“How’s Mugikko!?”

“Pant, still unconscious. Pant.”

Look to the bright side. At least she wasn’t burned too badly to move and required immediate treatment.

Something.

Somewhere.

Just running wasn’t enough. Wasn’t there some kind of trump card that could defeat Hibashi-sama!?

“Yuhi, there!!”

“What, Onee-chan? Phew, is there something there!?”

Rainy was out of breath. She didn’t have time to answer the question.

The two of them dragged the online shrine maiden between them as they crossed a narrow bridge. The concrete bridge was narrow enough two kei trucks would have trouble passing each other on it.

A sign for an electric scooter charging/parking station was visible on the curb across the bridge, but that wasn’t their goal. They had already seen cars malfunctioning or exploding. Besides, those electronic vehicles weren’t going to function with a real Malign Spirit after them.

And this was the worst of the worst: a Quintuple Dread Star.

Hibashi-sama, the burning woman in burial clothes, smiled within the flames.

Her long, unnaturally long, head slowly swayed side to side.

She was clearly in pursuit. Her original target must have been the yakuza group, so could she change targets on a whim? Or did no one else remain below the elevated railroad anymore?

“Onee-chan!!”

“We can still make it! We just have to get that ghost woman to cross a narrow pathway with no escape!!”

The gyaru sister pushed past her lack of oxygen to shout out her words.

Once across the bridge, she turned around, searched through the online shrine maiden’s large sleeves, and pulled out the old oil lighter.

She lit something. It was the size of a relay baton.

The Vanishing Canal…had actually been a yakuza body dumping site and she had found this item in that strange parking lot.

It was a construction explosive.

She tossed it like a long throw in baseball.

Toward Hibashi-sama who was approaching them from the center the bridge.

Boom!!!

It erupted.

The thick metal railings and guardrails were blasted outwards and the small concrete bridge itself bent.

“Pant…gasp…”

Rainy fell onto her rear and gasped for breath.

She had used the online shrine maiden’s oil lighter – the Imperial Exorcism Igniter. And this time she had lit a high power construction explosive rather than fireworks. The basic power had to be far greater. In fact, the gyaru sister who had thrown the tube had been bowled over by the blast.

It had definitely hit its target.

With the narrow bridge, the amateur gyaru sister had created a situation where even she was guaranteed to hit.

She had done everything right. This should have eliminated the Malign Spirit.

And yet…

Hee

Hee hee

She heard laughter.

The woman known as Hibashi-sama twisted in amusement while still enveloped in flames.

The gyaru sister’s eyes widened.

“No way. A blast like that didn’t even scratch her!?”

“But wait, Onee-chan. There’s something about her,” said Yuhi.

Hibashi-sama was certainly unscathed, but she remained on the opposite bank. She did not cross the damaged bridge or teleport directly behind them.

She and the sisters stood on opposite sides of the damaged bridge.

However, it didn’t feel like an invisible boundary divided them.

She could cross at any time, but she was entertaining herself by staying on that side.

It was unclear why that was, but the Malign Spirit showed no signs of frustration.

Her unnaturally long head turned away just once. Briefly. As if she had just remembered an appointment she was late for.

She was clearly enjoying this. Putting off her feast.

…Rainy still felt conflicted about what happened at the Rending Pool. About the coldhearted way the online shrine maiden had executed the small child’s spirit without asking anyone’s advice. That was true. But if it was a question of right or wrong, Yahirodono Tsumugi was right. Overwhelmingly so. The gyaru sister thought so. As an unpleasant sweat dripped down her face.

Malign Spirits were part death, so trying to converse with them or send them to heaven was suicide.

Any optimistic and convenient thoughts by living humans to that end were meaningless.

Hibashi-sama extended a slender fiery hand to point the sisters’ way with fire tongs over a meter long.

No, she was pointing at limp Tsumugi’s face.

L e t ’ s

p l a y

s o o n

Something exploded.

The flames and heat were dozens of times greater than the ones the gyaru sister had produced. They blasted up toward heaven like a fiery tornado. The girls hadn’t been directly hit, but they were sent tumbling backwards. If they had remained on the other bank, not even their bones would have remained. In all seriousness, the asphalt and concrete pavement melted red and flew up into the air.

The bridge fell.

This went beyond the fates of individuals. The scenery itself changed to display her rule.

Cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle cackle!!!

Leaving only hideous laughter behind, it all vanished.

To an unnatural degree.

Part 10

When Hisame Kouga slipped out of the yakuza’s Japanese-style estate unnoticed, he heard a burning sound.

Along with screams and shouting.

The threat that had attacked the parking lot must have moved here. Instantaneously.

“So that’s it.”

The young man in the nice suit noticed a splendid nameplate on the ground. It was over a meter long and should have been displayed on the large gate.

A portion of it was scorched an unnatural black.

(It would seem the bonds of criminal brotherhood are enough. The line for the front security cameras has been unnaturally cut. From the look of things, this one ritual will lead to countless burned bodies discovered all across Japan.)

If the dark ritual had been fully completed, flames would be tearing through the estate.

Completing that would have taken a fair bit of mental fortitude.

Hibashi-sama was a legendary Malign Spirit who was rumored to be behind nearly every disaster related to fire in the country’s history: from the Honnouji Incident to the Great Kantou Earthquake. There was no escaping her. Not even for the system of violence lurking on the underside of society. No, her power was all the more effective against those too powerful to be defeated by conventional means.

She was the only confirmed Quintuple Dread Star. That meant she was the worst sort of monster who had taken tens of thousands of lives. And that was only her known victims.

But no matter how horrific she was, Hibashi-sama could be guided with a ritual.

Which meant she did not act alone.

“Someone did this. And the key to it all is here in New Sea City.”

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