The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume4 Chapter 4

Status: Incomplete

7/16 parts completed

   

Chapter 4: ??? /// ...The Timeline Collapses

Part 1 (3rd person)

When had the incident begun?

Late at night, the large Japanese-style living room of the old thatch-roofed Jinnai residence was filled with silence and darkness. The moonlight entering through the sliding door was only enough to see the faint outlines of objects. A large German grandfather clock that looked straight out of a nursery rhyme made a rhythmic noise with each movement of its seconds hand.

This was different from complete emptiness.

That faint stimulus increased the impression of stillness and darkness.

With the entire family asleep and the liveliness created by human beings gone, the tranquility almost felt cold.

But a Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata stood within that room.

And she was not alone.

Someone else faced her.

A brutal and deadly Youkai calmly stood there and was clearly out of place in the scenery created by the thatch-roof house.

“It’s been a while,” he said in a hoarse voice.

His expression was hidden, but not just by the surrounding darkness. He was dressed like a farmer and he had a habit of hiding his face with the conical hat that had a single large eye drawn on the top.

“I haven’t seen you since that incident, that child organ trafficking Package that was unleashed here in Noukotsu Village. You must remember. So how has Jinnai Shinobu-kun been since then?”

His voice seemed to permeate or corrode.

It seemed to desecrate not the people who heard it, but the very realm it filled. The voice alone was enough for the Zashiki Warashi to twist her eyebrows in displeasure, but this was not the same as the unpleasant feeling brought by scraping glass. She then spoke the very first thing on her mind.

“I have no idea what incident you’re talking about.”

The deadly Youkai known as an Aburatori laughed beyond his eye hat.

Two Youkai calmly faced each other.

And a certain question once more reached the Zashiki Warashi’s mind.

When had the incident begun?

Part 2 (Jinnai Shinobu)

Don’t act like we’re lovers just because we kissed a bit and you touched my breasts, you idiot.

“H-huh? What?”

Two minutes after that shocking turn of events, I was still unsure if I should cry or get mad as I returned to my classroom with a hand on my stinging cheek.

It was the end of our midday break.

Lunch time and fun time had passed and the hastier straight-A students were already preparing their textbooks and notebooks on their desks.

Just like always, Kotemitsu Madoka-chan was messing with her cellphone instead of joining in with the rest of the class. In order to get a conversation started, I threw myself onto her desk.

“Ahhhh! Madoka-san, please console me!!”

“Romance advice is too high a hurdle for a lonely beauty like me.”

“Sorry, but that romance just ended! That’s why I want you to console me! C’mon, c’mon. Will you pet my head? Or you can try something a little more indecent if you like.”

“From that, I take it you’ve thrown me in the ‘complete lost cause’ category.”

“Now, now, Madoka-san. Let’s not say anything sad like that. A-and wait. Does that mean you are an option? Why didn’t you say so sooner!? (Rummage rummage)”

“Now you’re searching through your wallet for a condom right in front of me? I’m in the joke category for you, aren’t I!?”

Madoka, you fool.

Going for a lady-killer aura here would only make the girl put up her guard. I have to make her think it could never happen so she lowers the hurdle. Then as the conversation continues, she suddenly realizes she’s taken a step beyond simple joking! You fool, this is already a romantic minefield!!

There’s no point in holding onto love that has already ended. I, Jinnai Shinobu, will continue on to the next stage not three seconds later!!

Meanwhile, Madoka gave me the same look she would give an investment fraud pamphlet titled “Always Make 100% Returns, Guaranteed!”

“And don’t you already have someone for this kind of thing? Y’know, that something-or-other Nagisa.”

“Y-you idiot! How clueless can you be!? She’s in the top three of the world’s yandere rankings. Bring her into anything remotely related to romance and you’ll end up with flying blades and shed blood no matter what you do!!”

“Hee hee hee. You rang, Shinobu-chan?”

A quiet voice snuck up directly behind me and my entire body jumped as if I were in an electric chair.

I very hesitantly turned around and found that love monster’s grinning face.

She was known as the scissors girl, the knife girl, the katana girl, the hammer girl, the wire girl, and…what else was there? She had too many dark nicknames to remember them all.

“What’s this, what’s this? A love story? Romance advice? Love is so wonderful. Shinobu-chan, you can ask me anything. What seems to be the problem? Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.”

“Y-you’ve got it all wrong, Nagisa. Nothing’s going on that warrants you showing up. If you interfere, it’ll lead to nothing but pain and trauma!!”

The next thing I knew, Madoka was enthralled in her cellphone. She had probably gotten sick of dealing with me and thus called in someone even harder to deal with.

At this point, there was nothing I could do.

I had to send an SOS to a specialist in this kind of battlefield.

“Nooo!! Help me, Love King!! I’ve been sucked into a crucible of fear and you’re the only one who can help me escape!!”

“Shut up, Jinnai. ‘Before it starts’ and ‘after it ends’ are outside my expertise. Come back later.”

That annoyed comment came from an odd neighbor who was exclusively an expert in love advice for the lovey-dovey couples going through a messy soap opera.

“And whatever latent factors might have been inside Nagisa-chan, you’re still the one that pulled the trigger. Y’know, that legendary incident from middle school that ended up in a fight with actual swords.”

“Cough cough!! D-don’t bring up that spectacular failure right now! I swore I would never again go for love that takes the ‘ero’ out of ‘ero guro’!!”

Part 3 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)

“What? A questioning?”

As I made a revolutionary new kind of egg zosui by dumping plain salted rice balls in a convenience store egg soup cup and mixing in hot water, the chief of Investigation Department 1, Mezu Gen, gave me a disgusted look before telling me the following.

“The suspect is from a group that accessed abandoned SNS accounts – that is, ones with no logins for over a year – and started posting things both true and false. At first, we thought it was meant to influence the stock market or the futures market for Intellectual Village brand crops, so Department 2 was handling it. But it looks like things have changed. …And that attempt at zosui is disturbing.”

“But why is Department 1 getting involved? Did they post about a murder they were going to commit or something? …And someone whose wife makes his lunch every day has no right to mock a failed attempt at securing sustenance.”

“I don’t know the details, so go ask that career employee in Department 2. Y’know, the kid in glasses. …And I put in plenty of work to hold my household together. I don’t want to hear anything from someone content with single life.”

“Why do you hate the career employees that much? I do understand being jealous, though. …And what do you mean you put in plenty of work!? You aren’t threatening a young woman with that face that would make a hardened criminal piss himself, are you!?”

He threw a thick case file at me and I fled with the homemade egg zosui cup in hand. To reach the interrogation room on a different floor, I first ran to the elevator hall.

The automatic metal doors opened to either side and I saw a familiar face inside.

It was Chief Superintendent Mishima, one of the highest members of the National Police Agency.

How high up was he, you ask? The only positions above him were the Senior Commissioner and the exceptional positions like the Superintendent General and Chief of Police. To someone stuck in a dead end job at the second rank from the bottom, he seemed above the clouds.

But what did a VIP of the NPA that dealt with the entire country want with the Metropolitan Police Department that only protected the peace of Tokyo?

With that question in mind, I stepped onto the elevator with him and pressed the button for my destination floor.

Once the door closed, he watched the floor indicator light and spoke.

“Are you on your way to a job?”

“I am always working.”

“This questioning sounds difficult, but do your best. I have high hopes for you, Uchimaku-kun, so I put in a good word so you can do your job more comfortably.”

“What kind of support are you talking about?”

“That’s quite something you’re eating there. It’s a blasphemy toward egg zosui. Oh, are you going to give that to the suspect to get a confession? Like an opposite of the usual katsudon?”

“This is a treat for myself!! And more importantly… Ah, wait!!”

The elevator doors opened and he quickly left.

Just before the automatic metal doors closed, he glanced back toward me.

“You need to assume this is the last time you will receive any help that comes at such a loss, okay?”

I was left alone on the elevator with that ominous comment.

I felt like I had been placed on some strange track without even realizing it. Just like with a surprise birthday party, everything around me started to seem suspicious.

However, the Metropolitan Police Department did not offer enough freedom to let me abandon my duty over a bit of suspicion.

I arrived at my destination floor and made my way to the interrogation room.

Waiting near the door was a rich guy in glasses whose appearance practically screamed “In summer, it’s cool biz! In winter, it’s warm biz! In other words, I have different expensive suits for different seasons!!”

We had joined at around the same time, but he was already a superintendent. Rank-wise, he was already higher than my department chief. I just couldn’t stand it.

His name was Gyoutani Jouji and this was the first thing out of his mouth.

“Whoa!! What the hell are you eating!?”

“Can I leave, four eyes?”

“That would be a problem. A huge problem. To be honest, we give up.”

“How could it be that bad?”

“Just get on in there. This is your problem now. Here’s the file. It has the suspect’s history, why they were taken into protective custody, and everything we want to ask them. Now get on in there.”

He shoved the thick pile of documents into my chest and pushed my back to almost throw me into the interrogation room. Is this suspect that horrible a person? I wondered while looking down at the file instead of the actual suspect. But that was when another question occurred to me.

Why they were taken into protective custody? Not why they were arrested?

That question was quickly answered by the suspect’s voice.

“Hi there, detective☆”

N-

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

“Oh, c’mon. Your future bride, Enbi-chan, is here to have some fun, so don’t scream like a college student running into an axe murderer at a campground. Boo boo.”

“Open up!! Open this door!! Why are you locking me in a room with this mystery freak? I won’t get mad, so just tell me the truth!!”

I pounded on the steel door, but the lock showed no sign of opening.

I did hear the exhausted voice of the glasses guy from beyond the door, though.

“I said we’d given up, didn’t I!? Every time we went in there, she insisted she would only speak with you. And when we threatened her a bit, what do you think she did? She started stripping!! She’s completely taking advantage of her position as a minor. She’s using the transparency system against us to embarrass us in court!!”

“C’mon, detective. You get the situation now, don’t you? If you don’t sit down and listen to what I have to say, it’ll be time for some baby-making with an audience beyond the one-way mirror.”

My headache was out of control.

When I sat in the chair across from the mystery freak and placed the thick file and egg zosui on the table, she frowned.

“What are you eating? Is that a sort of gentle suicide?”

“I’m going to eat this now, so talk as much as you want in that time. …For starters, you could tell me what you did to get arrested.”

“I was taken into protective custody, actually. This way I could speak with you while avoiding all the boring procedure. That’s how urgent the situation is. Do you get that?”

“And what exactly did you do to get brought here?”

“I wanted to get in here but they wouldn’t let me, right? So I had no choice but to start taking off my-…”

“I get the picture, so let’s get back to the main issue.”

“What’s wrong with the Metropolitan Police Department? If you’re a police station, you’re supposed to let the people speak with you.”

I made a mental note to buy a drink for Nakata-san, the guard at the main entrance.

“So what is this urgent situation?”

“It’s related to a Package. In fact, I had infiltrated the headquarters of the ones assembling it. Unfortunately it looks like things have changed there, so I had to contact you in a hurry.”

“You were infiltrating them?”

“That lecture can wait. Plus I’m a freelancer who isn’t bound by the police’s way of doing things. …Anyway, the problem is their Package. It’s dangerous. Really dangerous.”

“They’re building up a Package that frightening?”

“No, the opposite.” Enbi shrugged. “It’s completely out of control. Or maybe it would be better to say the Youkai has taken control of it. It was being assembled by an amateur group that was foiled by scamming countermeasures, but now the Youkai holds their lives in its hands and they have to do what it says.”

“So the Youkai is in control of anywhere from a few dozen to over a hundred lives?”

“And the Youkai can take every single one of those lives with a single fingertip. But after what they’ve done, they can’t exactly ask the police for protection. You can see this won’t lead anywhere good, right? It’s like amateur medicine. Trying to fix the problem without the help of an expert is just a bad idea. In this case, we’ll be lucky if it’s only the criminals in question whose lives are lost.”

I didn’t know what kind of Youkai this was, but if it said to kill someone, at least a few dozen people would act on that order. If it asked for a sacrifice, that many people would kidnap someone, and so on. That was definitely no laughing matter. If the people involved kept making the excuse that “it can’t be helped”, they could eventually stop feeling any guilt. If they were cut off from others enough, those few people could even trick themselves into thinking they were the majority that determined what the proper values were. It was similar to how bloody traditions could remain in an isolated village.

It was true something had to be done, but there were no laws to judge a Youkai.

This was yet another pain-in-the-ass case.

“So what kind of Youkai is it? And what kind of Package did they put together?”

“This one’s unprecedented. It’s a completely unprecedented crime, detective. Even if this had all gone as planned, there would be no law to judge them with. The world’s system would have fallen behind. This might be a crime that should have left its name in history.”

“What?”

“That Youkai hijacked the Package, the young people who assembled it, and everything else and it’s trying to do something huge. We have to stop this here.”

The mystery freak paused for a moment and then slowly continued.

“We must stop the Aburatori’s plan.”

Part 4 (Hishigami Mai)

Kenzan Village was an Intellectual Village at the base of the Japanese Alps.

However, its situation was a little different from the other villages. It was not making tons of money off of the brand name rural scenery through crops and sightseeing. In that case, what was the foundation of its industry?

“U-uuh… This place is kind of uncomfortable. It looks like a nice old farm village, but I feel like I’m surrounded by a concrete city.”

“That’s because people online call this place Accelerator Village. A limited express railroad tunnel through the mountains was abandoned after the opening of the linear motor train line, so they built a fifteen kilometer straight line particle accelerator there. Also, the plains were used to build a circular particle accelerator with a radius of eight kilometers. They even have a pure water pool underground to observe those neutrinos that are all the rage these days. They supposedly have plenty of other facilities too, so the nanotech and particle businesses are pouring research funding into them. It probably isn’t the best sightseeing spot for Youkai like you, Sunekosuri.”

“I thought the selling point of Intellectual Villages was how they turned the rural into a brand name product. If they aren’t producing any crops, what’s the point in registering as one?”

“What are you talking about? Academia is a world of brand names as well. How well a new theory reaches the world is entirely dependent on who proposes it. Start looking into what schools people went to and you’ll notice a trend before long. …But Kenzan Village has built up a brand that ensures your findings will reach the world regardless of who they come from. Just like owning the world’s #1 supercomputer, they can reliably produce intellectual property with their massive amounts of experimental data.”

“But the pamphlet said sightseeing is one of its main draws.”

“Well, it is the Accelerator Village.”

“Why do humans like to go look at giant dams and things like that?” The small canine Youkai cutely tilted his head. “By the way, can private corporations really reuse an abandoned tunnel like this? I thought railroads were considered public facilities and treated just like public roads.”

“First, this country’s railroads are privatized. Second, there are precedents for reusing abandoned tunnels. People have used them for wine cellars or as dark rooms to grow white asparagus. From there, it’s just an issue of the two corporations talking it out. Plus, I’m sure no one minds if they’re reused for something high-tech like this.”

“And we’re sneaking into that heavily-guarded facility?”

“It’s for a job,” I casually replied. “Due to their origins, Intellectual Villages dislike police involvement. I mentioned that before, right? That means they need to install cameras all over to protect their three hundred thousand yen grapes from wild boars and crop thieves. …But if you understand how all that works, you can find a way around it. It’s nothing more than a common security network using the same internet that connects the world. That means there’s an opening somewhere to get in. There’s no such thing as perfect security, after all.”

“But didn’t you say this isn’t like a normal Intellectual Village? It’s a giant experimental facility with several large-scale particle accelerators. Won’t it have a bunch of human guards?”

“Do you really think they’ll be faithfully carrying out the patrols listed in the paperwork? These devices slam together hadrons or positrons or whatever to break them apart. They’ll send radiation everywhere, so the hired guards won’t want to get anywhere near them.”

“Ah!!!???”

“It can’t escape the shielding. We’ll be sneaking inside that shielding, though.”

With that, we dashed right on into Accelerator Village. I’ll skip how exactly we managed it, but you can just assume it was a piece of cake.

After descending below the thick earth and concrete, we arrived at a giant pool surrounded in faint light. It was about fifty meters across and ten meters deep. We stood next to it, but it was more like an aquarium’s walkway than a poolside. Thick glass let us see inside the pool.

“What is this?”

“The pure water pool. A device in Kobe emits neutrinos and all sorts of data is taken here. It practically prints money in the form of patents, patens, and more patents.”

“O-oh. I don’t really get it.”

“If I punched this glass, it’d ruin a three trillion yen facility. Want me to do it?”

“I may not get it, but no thanks!!”

The area around the pool was large. It clearly didn’t need to be that big, but the more they dug, the more the contractor earned, so someone had likely interfered on their behalf.

“Ee…ee…”

I heard some stiff breathing that was not quite a voice, but I ignored it and looked around.

“The place is officially said to be under public observance, but it’s actually a giant sealed space. Yeah, this would be perfect for slowly and carefully assembling a shady Package. Not even the workers come in here except the maintenance required once every other year.”

The floor was littered with Buddhist ritual items that they had likely bought from a secondhand shop. I saw opened sutras, an altar decorated with gold leaf, an incense burner, a five-pronged vajra, rope, staffs, mandala, various talismans, and wooden tags with the five elements of fire, water, wind, earth, and void written on them. The tags may have been meant as a type of pagoda. People often thought of Packages as modern high-tech crimes, but it was all based on this. How well one broke down and reintegrated it all so it could be fused with a modern SNS, cellphone, AR, or smart house was where the assembler showed his or her skill.

“B-based on this equipment, I’d say they were Mikkyou followers.”

“Sorry, but no. Look more carefully. All of the equipment has been lightened and creatively modified to be taken apart or folded up. It looks like it was all made to be portable.”

“Oh, Shugendo! It’s all made so they can easily carry it through the mountains.”

“Correct. Shugendo linked Mikkyou with mountain worship, so maybe that was why it was so hard to notice. Conveniently, this Intellectual Village is at the base of the Japanese Alps, so they’re probably controlling a deadly Youkai with the rituals meant to praise a mountain god and suppress a vengeful spirit.”

“But…”

“They failed spectacularly. That’s why Hyakki Yakou caught wind of them.”

The breathing sounds that resembled a broken flute grew louder.

Annoyed, I looked over at the trembling fat man.

“H-Hya-Hyakki Yakou!? N-no… I n-never heard anyone that dangerous was coming!!”

“You didn’t think you’d run across them sooner or later once you went for a Youkai? That’s like having a loud party in their backyard.”

“But…we can’t do this! We’re already…already in over our heads!!”

“Yeah, this is pretty bad.”

With that casual comment, I turned toward the pool.

The large body of perfectly pure water had been prepared to catch invisible light waves or neutrinos, but at the very bottom were some objects that clearly did not belong. There were several dozen if not several hundred fist-sized objects. They were packed in plastic and piled up like stones on a riverbed.

They were all hearts.

Even though they were packaged like ready-made Salisbury steak and even though they had left their owners’ bodies, they were rhythmically pulsating. The researchers only checked the pool for their data readings, so no one would notice unless those readings changed.

“…?”

It didn’t seem the Sunekosuri had realized what the objects in the pool were.

Or perhaps he was subconsciously refusing to accept the abnormal scene and number.

“So you have to do what the deadly Youkai says because it has taken your ‘insides’ hostage? Pathetic. You want those ‘insides’ more than anything and they’re right there beyond the glass, but reaching your hand inside would alter the purity of the water and set off an alarm. That’s-…”

I trailed off as something caught in the back of my mind.

A deadly Youkai was threatening the criminals by removing their organs and the Youkai had taken over the Package.

Had I heard of an incident like that before?

“No, there was never anything like that.”

After rejecting that idea, another question came to mind.

It was unusual for me to hesitate over information related to past incidents which were always filled with grudges and resentment. If I could not instantly recall those things, I could be stabbed in the back or side at any moment.

“It wasn’t…it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dammit, how could this happen? I-I can only think that bastard was guiding us toward failure from the beginning. Otherwise, we never would have overlooked such a fundamental flaw!!”

“It’s too late for that now. You’re past the point where you can recover from this. Unless you can turn back time, there’s no hope for you.”

“Heh heh… Wh-what’s going to happen to us?”

“What do you think I was sent here to do?” I asked back. “Surely you don’t think the great Hyakki Yakou is in such desperate need for technology that they would ask me to bring back the technicians.”

“Heh heh… Heh heh heh!! Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!!”

The fat man looked like a broken doll.

I gave him an exasperated look and he spoke.

“Right, right. Of course this is happening. I had a feeling it would. No, I was certain it would. But there’s nowhere to run. That’s why I’m still here.”

“My condolences.”

“But this could still work out.”

“?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think I can turn this around. But…still… If I die here, things could eventually work out for me. That’s what I mean.”

After that nonsensical statement, a solid sound and a red liquid came from his mouth.

“W-wah!! He just bit his tongue!” cried the Sunekosuri.

“That isn’t enough to kill you. You watch too many dramas.”

He collapsed and writhed around in pain as I slowly approached. He was rolling around quite a bit for someone who was prepared for death and I looked down on him with utter contempt.

“Suffering that won’t kill you makes you want to die a lot more actually dying, doesn’t it? …And what was that suggestive comment just now? I’m sure it’s related to this Package. If you can’t speak, then write it out, but tell me everything. You can use the blood you’ve scattered everywhere.”

“Cough, cough, cough, cough.”

“Just to be clear, I can’t save you, so don’t hope that I can. Even if the blood loss won’t kill you right away, biting your tongue lets you slowly suffocate. And it’s much, muuuuch slower than hanging yourself. …So if you tell me the truth, I’ll give you a quick death. What other compromise could I give?”

Part 5 (Jinnai Shinobu)

I deftly slipped past the questions asked by Nagisa-chan, hell’s love demon, and splendidly avoided the chisels she threw at me.

Oh, right!! Her current nickname is Chisel Girl!!

As the near-death experience brought back that memory, our timid homeroom teacher arrived for the afternoon class and I tried to solve the problem by getting her involved.

Unfortunately, she began to foam at the mouth and collapsed as soon as she saw the look on Nagisa’s face.

I had clearly chosen the wrong person to use as a shield, but I managed to survive by taking a new hostage. Nagisa’s current boyfriend Akechi-kun had just returned from playing soccer.

All of this was the standard midday scene for our class. Can you believe that?

Afterschool, I was mentally exhausted, so I decided to take full advantage of not belonging to a club or team by going home and taking a nap.

However…

“What’s that construction noise?”

“Oh. Let me be the first to welcome you home.”

The flat-chested Yuki Onna called out to me in the yard, but my eyes were glued to the thatch-roof house. Then again, that was no longer an accurate description.

“Why is the entire roof gone!? It looks like a convertible!!”

The answer came from the Nekomata who was using unshaved high-quality katsuobushi as a body pillow.

“The entire roof is apparently being replaced. They have to get all the work done on a single sunny day, so it isn’t easy for the workers.”

I noticed my family and the Youkai sitting on a picnic blanket in the yard with plenty of snacks prepared. They were clearly prepared to kill some time. However, this ruined my plans. There was no way I could get a good nap in with all these people moving around.

“I’m so tired. I want to sleep, but I can’t.”

I carelessly muttered my thoughts aloud and the Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata and the Succubus’s ears pricked up as they played handheld game systems.

“Shinobu. I’m sorry, but it’s one of my Youkai traits. Even if you aren’t in a futon, I might still sneak in with you.”

“Oh, is this a job for me? I’ll give you as many good or bad dreams as you want, free of charge!”

“Please stop!! I just want a healthy and peaceful nap! I don’t want some dangerous adventure!!”

I staggered through the yard and sat in the shade of a tree.

The noise was so loud that my mind wouldn’t calm down even when I closed my eyes. But when I tried to mess with my phone, my head felt heavy and my reaction speed seemed to drop, so I was definitely drowsy.

I tried to think while displaying different photos on the small screen. I had a lot of data because I had ben transferring it all over ever since several phones ago.

I found a shocking photo of the night I had spent in an abandoned house in the mountains. There had been a full moon that night and Nagisa had been walking around with a giant machete. Had that really happened? So much had happened with Nagisa that it could be hard to remember every little thing, but if there was a photo of it, it must have happened.

Ugh, when I stop moving, the drowsiness really gets to me.

But I had a feeling falling asleep then would lead to a nightmare of Nagisa chasing me around at her worst.

“Um, it looks to me like Jinnai Shinobu’s body is sinking further and further into that tree trunk.”

“Oh, my. The big Furutsubaki is trying to envelop him.”

What!?

I frantically pulled my head from the tree trunk that had gained the consistency of gelatin.

Th-that was a close one!! It may not count as a deadly one, but this thing’s still a Youkai!! I can’t let my guard down!!

I scrambled away from the large tree and a small girl in a kimono approached me. But this was not the Yuki Onna. Another Youkai lived in our house who fit that description.

It was the small Furutsubaki.

She had been involved in the previous incident with an Australian witch.

Currently, she held out a cup of barley tea.

“Here.”

“Eh? O-oh, sure.”

I was thankful, but why was she so brusque?

First the big one and now the small one. Do plant Youkai have a problem with me or something?

My question must have shown on my face because the small Furutsubaki puffed out her cheeks and explained.

“All the others don’t like you because you always support the cherry trees.”

“Eh? That’s all? But if you’re gonna compare cherry blossoms with camellias…”

“That’s what I mean. That’s exactly what I mean!!”

“This goes so deep you had to say it twice!? B-but aren’t camellias supposed to be bad luck? They even say not to bring them to sick people.”

“Cherry blossoms aren’t much better. There are dead bodies buried beneath their trees!”

“That’s a literary expression. Burying dead bodies beneath them has no bearing on how pretty the flowers are.”

“It’s always cherry blossoms with you!! You always take their side!!”

I didn’t understand what the issue was, but it was apparently a big deal in the plant kingdom(?). Despite how she looked, the small Furutsubaki was a Youkai and could do serious harm if she reverted to her tree mode and performed a body press. I could end up meeting a similar fate to the monkey in The Crab and the Monkey.

So to calm the upset small Furutsubaki, I made some random concessions while taking the barley tea in one hand.

“Fine, fine. From now on, I’ll use shampoo with camellia oil and I’ll hold a flower viewing for camellias just like with cherry blossoms. Actually, when do camellias even bloom?”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

“Why is your face so red and why aren’t you saying anything? I can never figure out your reactions.”

The small Furutsubaki did not respond, so the Nekomata sighed and did so in her place.

“For a tree, the flowers are the organs that lure in insects with their colors and sweet aroma in order to promote the pollination between the stamen and pistil. In other words, the flowers are their reproductive organs. You just said you would drink sake while looking at them and wash your hair with the juices they produce. Try not to be such a pervert. It’s scary.”

“What the hell kind of culture gap is this!? I was just talking about some heartwarming Japanese culture, but you’re making me out to be some terrible deviant. Are you sure humans and Youkai can ever truly understand each other on a fundamental level!?”

Part 6 (3rd person)

Late at night, the once-a-year changing of the thatch roof was complete and the merrymaking to thank the workers was over. (As they served junmai daiginjo that cost fifty thousand yen a cup, far more workers would show up than necessary.) The dark house was now enveloped by a deep silence that was a stark contrast to the previous noise.

The residents could be heard breathing in their sleep.

The grandfather clock made noise.

Crickets were chirping outside.

Instead of blocking out the sound, the sliding doors and screens seemed to process it like a musical instrument. The softened sounds resembled harmonious ambient music that removed any fear from the darkness.

Or at least, it should have.

That was usually the case during nights in the Jinnai house.

However, the Zashiki Warashi keenly sensed the darkness pressing in on her from every direction. It felt like she had been thrown into the mouth of some giant beast.

“…”

It was complete coincidence that she discovered “it”.

It happened just after she left her own room to follow her Youkai trait and sneak into the sleeping boy’s futon.

But it may have been inevitable for “it”.

Lured in by a sense that something was not quite right, she walked through the house and reached the large Japanese living room.

The German grandfather clock sounded louder than usual.

For some reason, the wooden rain shutters were open and the moonlight shined brightly in from the porch.

She sensed a hint of the autumn wind.

“It” stood smiling with only its silhouette visible against the outside light.

“It’s been a while,” said a hoarse elderly voice.

He wore a deeply dyed kimono that was kept short to keep mud off. He wore leggings to protect his legs. He wore a conical hat with a large eye pattern that covered both his head and his face. He was dressed just like a farmer, but the murderous aura enveloping him was different. He was one who abducted and one who killed. Anyone could tell at a glance that he was deadly and did not belong, but everyone would overlook him until the disaster had already occurred. He was a collection of malice that ranked at the top of even the deadly Youkai.

When had the incident begun?

Once she saw the Aburatori, the Zashiki Warashi narrowed her eyes a little. She became strongly aware of forgotten pain, a lost part of her body, and the modifications Hyakki Yakou had made inside her.

Meanwhile, the symbol of abduction who was dressed as a farmer happily opened his mouth.

“I haven’t seen you since that incident, that child organ trafficking Package that was unleashed here in Noukotsu Village. You must remember. So how has Jinnai Shinobu-kun been since then?”

His words were unavoidable.

He was merely confirming something he already knew perfectly well.

It was the same as deriving pleasure from provoking and jabbing at the hurting hearts of a bereaved family.

The Zashiki Warashi remained silent for a while.

When she finally spoke, she did so slowly.

“I have no idea what incident you’re talking about.”

Silence followed.

Tension filled the air like a thin thread had been grabbed on either end and pulled until it was about to snap.

However, her response had not been wrong.

A moment later, the Aburatori laughed.

“Ha ha.”

She did not know what was funny.

She simply knew that not knowing was the right answer.

“Ha ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! I see, I see. That would be right for you. Yes. Yes, it would. That incident never actually happened. …I did wield my power in the past, I did target Jinnai Shinobu-kun’s life, and you did stop me. But it was not a child organ trafficking Package. It was an entirely different Package, wasn’t it?”

“Are you only here to ask the obvious? To be honest, I’m a little displeased that you’re still around.”

“Ha ha. Now, now. That was a surprisingly important question.”

The Aburatori laughed in absolute pleasure beyond the one-eyed hat.

“After all, I have surpassed the restrictions of time, so my power can interfere with both the past and the future. Technically, some humans assembled a Package to that end using my traits as a Youkai. Yes, as I’m sure you have guessed, I snatched their organs and took over the Package for myself.”

“…”

“Yes. I was first observed in a mountain village of Tohoku during the Meiji period, remember? I would elusively abduct and elusively kill. It seems my trait of killing without anyone ever seeing me was interpreted as teleportation or time travel. Did they call it the theory of relativity? Well, I don’t understand all the tricky details about time and space and whatnot, but those humans constructed a technique to that end.”

“Enough bragging.” The Zashiki Warashi silently approached. “What are you after? I know you’ll only think about using this new technique to kill.”

“True. My first thought was to ‘harvest’ all the adults and old people back when they were young and at their most delicious. But when I thought about it more, I began to wonder if I could have even more fun with this.”

“In other words, you found something even nastier to do? And it involves contacting me?”

“Calm down,” said the Aburatori. “This should be quite obvious. I have surpassed time and space, so you might think there is nothing I can’t do, but there is still something impossible for me. Has it come to you yet? It is your specialty, after all.”

“…”

“You don’t want to answer? Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it. Even if I can surpass time and space, I cannot fight unavoidable destruction. Let’s say a giant meteor is going to hit in three days. What can I do? No matter how far back in time I go, I cannot change its course. And even if I escape to the future, I will only find an ice age after the destruction is over. And even if I try to escape through space, I have no guarantee there are any other planets as comfortable as Earth. See? I am still fragile. I may control time and space, but I am powerless in the face of overwhelming destiny. I am wholly powerless and that is terribly frustrating.”

However, he knew of someone with the power to oppose destiny.

He had seen it for himself just once.

“I want your power.” The monster licked his lips. “I want the power to not only bend destiny in my favor, but to create entirely new destinies.”

“Sorry, but I’m just a pile of junk now. You won’t find anything inside me.”

“I am well aware. And while those alterations were made by Hyakki Yakou, they have deteriorated quite a bit in the last century. Perhaps you could say they have been tainted by modern culture, but whatever the reason, I can no longer find the same level of skill there. Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi has been completely lost.”

And so…

“I will change the past. I will capture you during that fight before you were broken. That will truly perfect me. I will hold time, space, and destiny in my hands and I will become a being with no enemies.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Probably. I have repeated that fight fifteen thousand times now, but I always lose to you in some way or another. …But by redubbing that day again and again, the historical data has been torn to shreds. Before long – probably only two or three more overwrites – it will be unrepairable. Fact and fiction will mix together and I will have free control over the record of who won that fight. That is when it all begins and when it all ends. That is when I will gain everything I desire.”

“…”

“Now, how about I repeat the question? The meaningless dubbing will deteriorate the medium of your memories.”

If the Aburatori’s loss there was overturned, the Zashiki Warashi would have been unable to save the young Jinnai Shinobu in that past incident.

“I haven’t seen you since that incident, that child organ trafficking Package that was unleashed here in Noukotsu Village. You must remember. So how has Jinnai Shinobu-kun been since then?”

If she had not saved him, what would have happened to him?

How had the actual incident with the Aburatori ended?

“I haven’t seen you since that incident, that child organ trafficking Package that was unleashed here in Noukotsu Village. You must remember. So how has Jinnai Shinobu-kun been since then?”

………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………

Part 7 (Jinnai Shinobu)

And…

The Zashiki Warashi in the red yukata suddenly vanished.

Part 16

Back to Chapter 3

Return to Main Page

Forward to Blank Space