Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Chapter1

Chapter 1: The Ghastly Crusher @ Mincemeat Drawbridge

Part 1

They were in a high school girls locker room.

“Hey, Yahirodono-san. Since you’re last, can I leave the door key with you?”

Yahirodono Tsumugi answered the taller girl by waving the drier in her hand.

“Um, yes. I-I want to make sure my hair is dry…”

“Yeah, hair that long must be a pain to care for. Anyway, make sure you lock up.”

“Chatty,” called a voice from the hallway and the classmate’s head sticking in through the door withdrew. Tsumugi seriously hoped that was a nickname and not a truly unfortunate real name…

Once she was alone in the large locker room, the 1st year high school girl breathed a gentle sigh. Now she could relax. Her long black hair was actually already dry. It really was a pain to care for, though. She first created a large loop at the back of her head, lowered that, and used a large piece of hosho paper to tie it back by wrapping the base in a tube. With that thick wrap in place, the rest of her long hair flowed down her back and spread out.

Then she pulled out her phone and leaned back against the row of lockers.

Quiet surroundings always helped her concentrate on her work.

She called up a site that couldn’t be reached by an ordinary search engine no matter how hard one tried. Specifically, the official site for Kagebarai Tanebi Shrine. Even more specifically, the hidden editing page for the administrator.

It was hard to tell in the short-sleeve sailor shirt and blue miniskirt of her summer uniform, but the short (but busty) girl with her long black hair tied back was a shrine maiden.

(The fortune telling corner for light users is doing well and the regulars on the message board are the same as ever, but I want something more.)

She muttered to herself as her slender fingers moved rapidly along the screen. She eventually decided the small screen was too restrictive and unfolded the phone like a trifold mirror. It transformed into a notebook-sized tablet in no time.

(The number of views is slightly up, bu I can’t get stuck in a rut. Each individual visitor stays a while, so a lot end up sticking around. Are they looking for a sense of closeness? If I want to get closer to them…yes, it might be best to push the advice column.)

Then she was interrupted by a social media message. From the usual suspect.

“Detective> What kind of souvenir do you want?”

“Online Shrine Maiden> Aren’t you in Tokyo? I don’t even know what counts as a local specialty there.”

“Detective> Then that’s one more thing to look forward to. I’ll have a surprise for you when I get back.”

A friend. Although sometimes it felt more like playing house.

Tsumugi chose not to say anything at all at times like this. She simply gazed fondly at the screen. She sensed a human connection in that collection of text and stam-

“Hey, uh, this is getting really awkward, so should I just introduce myself already?”

“Nyuwah!?”

The high-tech shrine maiden jumped straight up. More than 2cm.

The large chest that contrasted her short stature jiggled.

The voice came from directly behind her. Even though she had her back to the tall lockers dividing the room in half.

Tsumugi hesitantly turned around to look.

“Does the name Betsuzaki Rainy ring a bell? You’ve got the kinda super introvert aura that makes me think you don’t know the names of your own classmates.”

Someone was there.

On top of the tall lockers lined up like bookcases in a library. A gyaru was curled up like a cat on a wall!? Had she wanted to spy on Tsumugi’s phone that badly!? Did that make her a peeper in the locker room? How indecent!

Rainy (was that her real name?) was smiling as she spoke and her appearance could be summed up with the word “gaudy”. Her hair was dyed a bright blue and silver and it was heavily equipped with scrunchies and hairpins. Her extremely short skirt had to be folded at least three times and her short-sleeve sailor shirt had been heavily modified, including a triangle cut out of the bottom center, leaving her navel bare at all times. She wore two or three belts decorated with lamé around her hips and, for some reason, she wore a mysterious belt around her right thigh.

“You’re always over by the wall messing around on your phone in the classroom or the cafeteria, Mugikko, so I was curious.”

“I-it’s none of your business… (whisper)”

“Yeah, it’s just so awkward. Every once in a while, the wall behind you’s so shiny it reflects your phone and I can see everything on the screen, which just makes me more curious. Like that online shrine or chatting on social media with a grown-up.”

“Nyuwah!?” Tsumugi jumped straight up. More than 5cm this time. She felt like she had just realized she had been walking around with her uniform’s skirt caught between her back and her boxy school bag. For an entire month.

The gyaru slid down from the lockers.

“I just thought I should tell you sometime. Is now good?”

She couldn’t focus anymore, so there was no point in continuing. Tsumugi left the girls locker room with Rainy and locked the door. Apparently shrine maidens and gyarus both got hungry during the lunch break. The hallway windows were bright and provided a view of a high-tech city that was only three years old. The buildings outside all sparkled brightly.

“I gotta say, an online-only shrine is pretty weird. You really like it that way or something?”

“No. The actual shrine isn’t around anymore. The official site just never got taken down.”

“Oh, hell. Is this a touchy subject?”

“Why would it be?” Tsumugi herself sounded puzzled. “Life is a lot easier when you have a clear goal. I will find a way to rebuild that shrine. See, isn’t it nice to have a dream for the future?”

Part 2

It was only May, but the temperature was well above 30 degrees.

But that was just what happened when you were at sea more than 500 kilometers south of Tokyo. The massive terminal station platform was supposedly an air-conditioned indoor space, but he already felt the heat when getting off the linear motor train with phone in hand.

“We have arrived at New Sea City’s Terminal Float Station, the final stop on the Greater Tokyo Area South Islands Line. We appreciate your business. Please confirm you have all of your baggage before disembarking.”

He was a young man with silky blond hair and a tasteful deep chocolate brown suit.

He worked as a detective.

He carried no luggage…but that description was misleading.

Two suitcases were tracking his location and following him on their own. Like baby ducks.

As soon as he passed through the ticket gate, a thick heat crashed into him.

The blazing sun and the salty sea breeze.

The vivid green he saw was a row of giant palm trees lining the street and a well-maintained lawn. The city resembled a tropical golf course with plenty of fine white sand. The high-tech buildings lined up to the left and right and the large street brightly reflected the sun, making the entire scene dazzlingly white. As if to say it was all new and pristine.

(It feels like home.)

Hard to believe this too was part of the Greater Tokyo Area on paper. The detective checked his phone with its folding screen. It was May 13, the temperature was 35 degrees, and the weather was again sunny on the fan-shaped collection of megafloats that acted as a testing ground for new drones, self-driving cars, and more. The pet dog out on a walk barking at a disk-shaped lawnmower robot was just one more charming part of the scene.

It was midsummer year round in this metropolis. Which meant it was stuck in the season most suited for ghosts and the dead.

“…”

Part 3

After school, Yahirodono Tsumugi tilted her head after swapping her slippers for her shoes at her school’s shoe lockers.

The gyaru was with her.

“W-why are you following me? (tremble tremble)”

“I heard you don’t have an apron for cooking class tomorrow. That sucks, but – heh hehh – that just means it’s time for some shopping! Betsuzaki Rainy is here to save the day!!”

She’d heard? What careless idiot let that one slip out?

“It’s not that I don’t have an apron at home. It’s just stained with oil, so I can’t use it.”

“You spilled oil? Mugikko, do you make your own mayo or something? I do that too☆ The store mayo is way too oily and doesn’t go well with lightly-seasoned fish sausages.”

With Rainy hanging around, more gyarus began to gather. Soon around three of those dazzlingly extroverted angels or devils were chatting excitedly. With no concern for what Tsumugi wanted.

“So where’re we going to shop, Rainy?”

“That’s the thing, Chatty, I haven’t decided yet. But y’know, I was just thinking wherever has the most selection.”

“Rainy, that’s a bad plan cause then the best option is just shopping online.”

“Okay, Chatty-han. If you have no other plan, why not go to a big mall? Like the Satellite Mall.”

…Was no one going to ask what Tsumugi wanted? This was all about buying an apron for her after all. Also the third girl who had joined them after Chatty had silver hair and tanned skin. They called her Rie, but it wasn’t clear if that was her real name. The way she talked strongly suggested she was from Kyoto, yet her hair and skin were full gyaru. Was that her way of rebelling against her parents?

Rainy, the instigator of all this, was doing something at the seawater canal harbor.

“Just wave my phone here and…heyyy, over here!”

This was a unique city with land and water routes complexly intertwined, but when you had enough people, it was cheaper to split the cost of calling in a self-navigating yacht taxi than for each individual to rent their own electric scooter. Tsumugi ended up dragged in along with the group.

A 2D maid smiled from the 15-inch LCD screen in the yacht.

She was inexplicably wearing a collar.

“I will accompany you wherever you wish to go, milady. Where to today?”

“Whose filthy search history made the algorithm choose such a fetishy virtual operator?” asked Chatty. “Okay, everyone, on three: one…two…”

“Rainy for sure.” “Rainy for sure.” “Rainy for sure.”

After all the gyarus but the culprit answered in unison, they provided their destination and set off.

Rainy herself only bashfully scratched her head. Even though that hadn’t been a compliment.

The yacht had no engine or propeller, but the navigation was done entirely by a program. Several reels took in thick wires to deftly manipulate the tall triangular sail. The yacht wouldn’t admit defeat and start its emergency motor to operate its water jets unless there was truly no wind at all.

“It’s so hot… It’s a real shame this brand new city doesn’t have a subway. The direct sunlight is too much!”

“The city’s made of kilometers-long megafloats, so they can’t build anything too deep. Here, I have a fan.”

Tall Chatty sounded exasperated but still provided some help. She was apparently one of the more clever gyarus.

The canal was lined by coconut palms and shiny glass-covered high-tech buildings that absorbed the blue of the sky.

The girls sat on the edge of the yacht to enjoy the view. This had been Rainy’s idea, but she was already wilting. She didn’t even seem aware of the delivery drones flying around overhead.

“Oh… While we’re here, everyone, any ideas for giving this girl’s lackluster site an explosive boost?”

Here it comes. Why can’t they mind their own business? And it’s got plenty of luster already!! (Tsumugi’s inner voice)

The gyarus were swift to respond.

“Strip!! She’s got huge tits, so she might as well show them off.”

“Dance!! With boobs that big, she needs to put them to good us.”

“Hmm, the results of our impartial survey tell us the quickest way to gather visitors is sex appeal. Like those nasty late-night dramas where young guys and girls are all over each other and sharing the scent of their perfume.”

“Th-that is out of the question.”

Were they not aware this was for a shrine? And the black-haired shrine maiden had another question.

“Also, I know it comes up in dramas a lot, but can you really pick up the scent of someone’s perfume that easily?”

“Well, Yahirodono-san, how about I share some of the crazy stuff I bought at the Satellite Mall recently☆”

“Gwahhhh, not in this sweaty heat!!”

That was Chatty using her long limbs to hug Tsumugi from the other side and rub her cheek against her. Tsumugi screamed.

Rainy laughed (while subtly keeping her distance).

“Ah ha ha. We call her Chatty because she has to make herself a part of every conversation. But not in too annoying a way. She’s an acquired taste, but once you’re used to it, you miss it when she’s not around.”

“Did you just place me in the same category as some crazy squid shiokara? Take this! Special Attack: Ghost Vid-”

“Whoa, Mugikko’s boobs are huge! They’re going wild while you scramble around!”

“Oh, dear. That size hardly seems fair when she’s the shortest one here.”

Tsumugi wasn’t fond of this topic, so she stayed silent.

She was more interested in this Satellite Mall they were going to. While pushing the talkative one’s face back with a hand, she unfolded her phone like a trifold mirror to turn it into a notebook-size tablet. For someone shy who found it stifling to be surrounded by unfamiliar people, she liked how it gave her something safe to look at, so she checked a map app on the large screen. Unfortunately, Betsuzaki Rainy noticed.

“Mugikko, I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s with that phone? I don’t remember Plasperia having a trifold version. I only know about the normal folding ones.”

“They showed this model off at a corporate conference, but they never developed a general commercial model because the production costs were too high for it to be profitable.Someone I know gave it to me.”

“A one-of-a-kind event display model? What kind of connections do you have?” asked Rie.

“This girl’s the real deal. Look at her fingers flying along the screen. Hard to believe that’s the same app we use.”

Rainy leaned in from the side to get a look at the screen. Did she have to get so close?

Then a large shadow passed by overhead.

“Ohh!” “Ohh!” “Ohh!”

Those noisy gyarus actually gasped and fell silent.

A 50m metal bridge had split in the middle with both sides lifting diagonally. In other words, it was a drawbridge.

It seemed unlikely there were any true bridge nerds among the gyarus, but humans tended to be awed by any unimaginably enormous structure staring down at them. The torii at Shinto shrines and the large Buddha statues at Buddhist temples were partially meant to take advantage of that psychological effect.

They passed below the raised bridge along with a mid-sized passenger cruiser. Even their yacht was more than 10m with the tall, sharp sail, so apparently they did need the bridge raised.

“That’s the Overlook Bridge, right? Anyway, I need a photo of this.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Rainy. You might catch something scary,” said Chatty with a grin.

Their self-navigating yacht taxi arrived at a harbor. They had the yacht split the bill between them. They didn’t have to do anything themselves. It used facial recognition to automatically charge it to their phones.

As they crossed the crosswalk in front of the parking lot, Chatty pouted her lips.

“Rainy, don’t stare at your phone while you cross the road.”

“Don’t worry. There are bars down on either side of us like at a train cross-”

“But one of the retractable spikes linked with the crossing gate could pierce right through the sole of your shoe…”

“Yikes!? That’s a metal spike!” shouted Rainy, quickly dodging out of the way of something like a giant’s comb growing up from the ground.

The cars waiting in front of the crossing gate didn’t appear to have anyone in the driver’s seat, so they didn’t have to worry about getting honked or yelled at to hurry up. They continued on to a giant glass-covered building. The odd place had been absorbed into the base of an exceptionally tall skyscraper.

“But c’mon, we’re schoolgirls. If we’re gonna advertise a site, it has to be singing and dancing! So just go for it and make a 90 second video of low angle shots intercut with the site’s best features and upload it to TikTop.”

“D-don’t break down traditional Kagura to nothing but its BPM. And no speeding it up or reversing it either.”

Once inside the large shopping mall, they were met by the blessings of air conditioning.

Chatty must have just liked to be helpful because she explained things for the first-timer shrine maiden.

“The Satellite Mall started out as a TV station’s tourist floor but it’s developed into a giant commercial facility. So it’s just an extra tacked onto Waterfront TV. The number of stores is crazy. I think there’s around 500.”

“Rumor is you can find comedians searching through the party goods here hoping to find new material.”

That lazy voice from the side sounded unfamiliar and Tsumugi looked over to find the number of gyarus had grown at some point. And this one was wearing a different uniform. Shy Tsumugi pulled her head down like a turtle, but Rainy moved in to shield her. Completely subconsciously.

“…Y-you have friends in other schools?”

“Why bother dividing us up between schools, Wharf Roach-chan? We’re all connected on social media anyway.”

What was Betsuzaki Rainy’s gyaru power? Her mysterious aura overpowered a random man, forcing him to step out of the way to let them through. Tsumugi could sense that he was a fellow introvert.

A girl in a short-sleeve shirt and a pink miniskirt tilted her head.

She had a decoration similar to rank insignia pinned to her shoulders. Did that indicate her year or was it related to a club or committee she was on? Her hair was black and tied in two bundles that fell down the front of her shoulders, giving her a more mature look.

She seemed straitlaced, but she must have been careless too because her bright-colored bra straps showed through her shirt.

“Onee-chan, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, and this is my sister, not a friend. She’s in the third year of middle school. Now you’ve met both sisters☆”

So the gyaru was a gyaru sister.

Miss Straitlaced, the younger sister, tilted her head again.

“Are you causing trouble again?”

“What do you mean again, Yuhi?”

That the gyaru sister could look at this situation and not know what she meant was answer enough.

But then focus shifted to Tsumugi. These gyarus from other schools were so unpredictable.

“By the way, why do Chatty and the black-haired one smell the same?”

“Wait, she smells faintly of her perfume. Does that mean the two of them are…?”

Some false suspicions were growing between the gyaru from another school and the little sister.

Apparently, that had been a time-delayed attack. Tsumugi hung her head and trembled while speaking with a shadow over her face.

“Oh…so this is Chatty’s power. I see what you mean about her being an acquired taste!!”

“Right? But it’s never enough to get really mad about it and refuse to speak with her for it. She’s found just that right level that makes her addictively charming once you’re used to her! Like wanting to pick at a healing scab!!”

But why did Rainy sound so proud about it?

Regardless, they were here for an apron. The one Tsumugi had stained with oil was actually handmade with a sewing machine, so she didn’t know where to look. She doubted there was a shop just for aprons, but they ended up taking her to a shop for cookware and household items. The place seemed more about helping you cook snacks than meals, but there was a section with potholders, aprons, and the like.

“So what kinda apron were you looking for?”

“Eh? As long as its plain and made of an easily washable material, I don’t really ca-”

“Okay, everyone!! It turns out Mugikko came in suicidally unprepared, so it’s up to us to find her something cute!”

Rainy silenced her with a smile. With “this is a threat to your femininity” written large on her face.

Then the group of unfamiliar gyarus huddled together and began discussing the matter without consulting Tsumugi herself. They spread out samples between their hands and searched the in-stock options on their folding phones despite being inside the store already.

“Okay, this would be the basic apron. It’s not very exciting, but it’s powerful when worn over a school uniform.”

“Hey, Chatty, how about adding lots of frill and lace to give it the young wife look?”

“Absolutely not, Sakuranamiki Rie. That kind is meant to be worn with nothing else on. But the range that girl could pull off is crazy. With her traditional black-hair look, I bet she would look right at home wearing a kappogi.”

“Hee hee. But Yahirodono is so short she might look like a kid on cafeteria duty. Kinky.”

What are they going to do to me?

While Tsumugi trembled, Rainy returned from somewhere carrying something. She spread it out between her hands.

“Check out what I found. Don’t you think this would be best?”

“Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Yeah.” “Yeah.”

“Oh? And I thought I could make this more exciting by having a vote or play rock paper scissors to decide the winner, but it’s unanimous, huh? Okay, Mugikko, c’mere. Your big sis will help you change.”

In this case “changing” only meant putting an apron on over her short-sleeved sailor shirt, so they did it right there. Rainy circled behind Tsumugi and crouched while Tsumugi raised her arms a bit to let her do it.

“…You chose an apron that only covers my hips?”

“Yep. I don’t know what they’re actually called, but the pink frills are pretty powerful, don’t you think?”

Tsumugi was reminded of when the shrine was still around and the older shrine maidens had looked after her much like this when they made rice balls or rice cakes for everyone. She was fondly looking back on those times when the apron’s strap suddenly tightened.

She immediately gasped. And her face flushed.

…Wait a second. Why does it feel so tight all of a sudden?

Tightening the strap around her waist naturally tugged her short-sleeve sailor shirt downwards. Strongly. And this pulled the shirt more tightly around her large chest than before! Making them look enormous!!

“Nyuwah!?”

(They’re all staring. I-I want to hide in my phone…)

The girl who had known exactly how this would turn out was grinning. With a “mission accomplished” look on her face.

“Yeah, it’s gotta be the titty apron for her, right!?”

“A normal one. I just want a normal one!!”

“Fine, fine. But I’m just not sure what a big grown-up like you means by normal☆”

Part 4

Flowers of light blossomed in the distance.

But then those points of light began moving to the side like a school of little fish. This wasn’t a fireworks show. Hundreds of LED-equipped drones were performing coordinated acrobatics. They didn’t produce a boom like fireworks did, so they were free to perform even late at night.

In this case, that meant past 2 in the morning.

Despite both existing in the middle of the night, this area felt like a completely different world from the distant beer garden.

“Dammit, Rainy. I worked hard getting that ghost video and then you have to upstage me… But maybe I never had a chance against those boobs. They do say sex always wins out against horror.”

Chatty was chatting to herself, not because she was afraid or lonely, but because she had a video app running on the phone currently in her short-sleeve sailor shirt’s breast pocket. She had heard rumors that girls with big enough chests couldn’t store their phone in that pocket, but was that really true? Thinking back, she thought Yahirodono-san had kept hers in her skirt pocket.

“I need something better. Some legit horror.”

So she was visiting a haunted location. However, she had not chosen a creepy abandoned hospital or run-down cemetery. It was a location they had seen from the yacht taxi during the day: Overlook Bridge. This time, she had arrived on the high-tech drawbridge from the land route. However, the 50m movable bridge was known by another name on the darker parts of the web.

“Mincemeat Drawbridge, huh? Whew, that’s crazy… Is it cause of the poor lighting? It does look creepy at night. Anyway, I’m here at the rumored Mincemeat Bridge tonight. In the past three years, five people have been caught in the bridge’s moving parts and crushed by its 130 horsepower, so now it’s said to be haunted. Got that?”

For Chatty, it didn’t really matter if there was really a ghost here or not. She just wanted some proof to show that she had gone to the supposedly haunted place to check it out for herself. She wanted to be able to talk about it as someone who was there, not something she had heard from a friend of a friend. She wanted to be able to say with confidence that it wasn’t just a made up story. Hence the video taken with her phone. Even if there wasn’t a ghost, just catching a chips bag blown by the wind or a black cut cutting by in front of her would be scary if it happened without warning. Then they could all gather together during lunch to watch it and freak out.

Or so she thought.

“Huh? What’s the deal? My phone’s not working.”

She didn’t feel the gentle warmth she normally did when her phone was in her breast pocket.

Puzzled, she pulled her phone out and found it wasn’t just the app acting up. The entire phone wasn’t responding. She opened the foldable screen and tried tapping it and speaking to it. She tried to remember how it was done and then pressed both the rarely-used buttons at once, but still nothing. It was frozen and wouldn’t do a thing.

She didn’t understand.

Something she had taken for granted suddenly wasn’t working. That alone made unease grow rapidly within her.

She suddenly realized she was standing all alone in the shadows late at night.

She heard something like a ringing in her ears. It was quiet, fine, unsteady, and shrill…

And as she panicked, Chatty looked up from her phone to see…

“…Huh?”

Part 5

The next day.

Cooking class was next. Yahirodono Tsumugi couldn’t stop sighing heavily in the middle of the classroom. She didn’t want to go to the cooking classroom because of that apron.

She had expected Rainy to tease her about it, but she came at it from an unexpected angle. Gyarus were too unpredictable.

“By the way, if you’re serious about rebuilding that shrine, how much is it going to cost you?”

“…The land is still there. But just the land.”

“So you just need the building? Then will it not be that bad?”

“The torii out front will cost 20 million yen.”

The smile froze on the gyaru sister’s face.

That was actually on the cheap side for a one-of-a-kind traditional craft that required work from many different types of craftsmen.

And it didn’t end there. The shrine maiden wilted as she counted them off on her fingers.

“The front shrine will cost 130 million, the shrine office will cost 5 million, and the main shrine will cost 200 million. The shintai is a loom shuttle. Then there’s the hall of offerings, the food offering room, and the fence surrounding the vast grounds. And to truly return it to its former glory, there’s the impressive stone steps, the gravel out front, upkeep for the path to the shrine, and the stone lanterns. Oh, and let’s not forget upkeep for the pond and figuring out what to do about the sacred tree…”

“Here, have some water. I get it, just take this water and don’t wither away, you flower of a schoolgirl!!”

As she counted through it all with gloom in her dizzy eyes, she was gifted a bottle of water. A partially consumed bottle of water. When would she ever be able to rebuild the shrine? Maybe she could win first prize in the lottery eight times in a row or something?

Then Chatty (who seemed extra chatty today in cute thigh highs) approached them.

“It’s time. I managed to take a crazy and really staticky video. After grabbing your ginger pork meals for lunch, come join me in the locker room. We’ll have a ghost video party☆”

“What, is this something scary? …Hey, did you know Chatty’s the only one in our class who wears athletic bloomers for gym? Probably so she can talk about it!! But I just can’t get enough of her!!”

Tsumugi really didn’t need to know that. And the girl’s shouting voice echoed across the classroom.

“Oh, yikes! You think I like that the girl’s volleyball team the only one still wearing bloomers and knee pads!? …Who wants to be the next bloomers victim? You, come join the volleyball team!!”

She must have tripped during the excitement because Chatty herself fell to the floor.

It made quite a lot of noise.

“Ugh.”

“Hey, are you alright, Chatty? Is your right leg hurting you?”

“Want to use my cooling spray? As the beautiful manager who all the soccer team has a crush on, I know just what to do.”

After they sat Chatty down in a chair, one of their classmates knelt down in front of her and began removing her slipper.

Then Chatty seemed to realize something.

“No, wait, crazy wait!!”

She was a second too late.

Once the starch came out of the thigh of the long sock, it only took an instant. When the crouching classmate removed her friend’s thigh high along with the slipper, she saw it.

The right leg was discolored a bluish-black. Every bit of it.

And digging into the oozing wound like guitar picks were dozens of yellowed fingernails.

Part 6

“New ID: Did you see Chatty’s leg?”

“New ID: That’s really bad. She must’ve gone to Mincemeat Drawbridge, right?”

“aaaa: The Chatty stuff is real. It’s not a laughing matter.”

“1234: I saw her leg myself…”

“New ID: The whole thing was discolored. Maybe rotting? She’s so gross.”

“New ID: …Is occult stuff like that contagious?”

“New ID: I heard it was cause of her the upperclassman on our team got hurt!”

“Burner☆: That explains why the vending machine ate my change.”

“New ID: I don’t believe in that stuff, but would it be best to stay away from her?”

She couldn’t go to the classroom.

Everyone smiled and acted all well-behaved, but social media was full of one-time-use burner accounts.

But if she tried to stay home, her parents wouldn’t get off her back. And if a girl in her school uniform wandered around town during the day, the police would question her. She found herself stuck in the middle. She had to go to school, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter the classroom, so she wound up in the infirmary.

How many days had it been now?

She hadn’t gone to practice either. She knew she had to be getting out of shape by now.

She hadn’t even met Rainy. Because even seeing Rainy’s face felt like confronting how she was an outsider now.

Chatty wished she could stop counting the days.

The infirmary was an idyllic flower garden. Only for losers, but it was still comfortable. There she was cut off from all dangers and pains and she could tell it had been designed that way. This environment had not developed by chance. It had the unshakable comfort of a greenhouse.

“Don’t worry. I will always be here for you,” said the school doctor.

Yes. She alone hadn’t looked at her like there was something wrong with her. She had treated her like a human being instead of a freak of nature or vermin.

She was all Chatty had left in the school.

Only her.

“So I want you to listen to what I have to say and make a choice for yourself.”

That kind doctor looked Chatty straight in the eye.

And spoke.

“If you’re only going to trouble everyone else by being here, you can always stay home from school for a while.”

Her heart stopped.

Part 7

It was still morning.

So the entranceway was empty. Only Chatty stood there. With her thin school bag in hand and her slippers removed.

She had to toss the slippers in the shoe locker at this hour. And then take her leather shoes out.

She had been driven out of the small world known as a school.

Gently but undeniably. She had been told she would only be causing “trouble” if she continued to stay in the infirmary that had acted as her last refuge. That irritated rush job was still burned into the back of her eyelids.

“It’s not fair…”

Something spilled from her mouth.

She knew saying it out loud would only sound pathetic, but she couldn’t help it.

She couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“I know it was supposed to be crazy haunted, but all I did was go the place everyone was talking about. Other people went too!! I didn’t do anything and it’s just some weird mark that appeared on its own!! I tried to hide it under the thigh highs cause I didn’t want to scare anyone! So why do they have to get all creeped out and drive me out of school? Why only me!? Won’t someone…why...ugh…won’t someone help me!?”

Her words wouldn’t get through to anyone.

No one would listen.

No one would reach out a helping hand.

And yet…

“Don’t worry. …What you saw was real and I will purify it.”

She gasped and looked up.

She had heard a definite voice. From the other side of the wall of shoe lockers.

She wiped away her tears and checked behind them, but no one was there.

Only empty space.

But hadn’t she just heard a girl’s voice?

Part 8

It wasn’t teleportation or anything like that. Yahirodono Tsumugi sighed softly after leaving the school’s front door ahead of Chatty.

This was really starting to irritate her.

“Detective> I’ve tracked down the past five victims from their phone location data. They encountered it while walking that bridge on foot between midnight and 4 AM when traffic is almost nonexistent. And this appears to be the kind that establishes a link.”

“Online Shrine Maiden> You mean it will still kill you even if you physically escape the haunted location?”

“Detective> Honestly, I’m amazed she’s lasted this long.”

Disheartening. Tsumugi replied with a wilted flower stamp.

“Detective> Contact with a Malign Spirit means death. It usually happens instantly, but it is sometimes delayed.”

“Online Shrine Maiden> So it caught her leg but she managed to escape. And now it’s only a matter of time?”

“Detective> It guaranteed a future death for her. Maybe she’ll panic at home and crush herself in a door or shutter, or maybe she’ll throw herself in front of a truck. However it happens, she will ultimately have her entire right leg crushed and torn off before she’s crushed to death. That much is fixed now.”

“Online Shrine Maiden> With a life on the line, I wanted to increase our odds of success as much as possible by gathering information first, but we can’t afford to delay any longer for preparations. It’s time I visited the location and eliminated the Malign Spirit.”

And just as Tsumugi returned her trifold phone to her skirt pocket…

“Hey.”

Someone called out to her from behind.

It was the gyaru sister, Betsuzaki Rainy.

“If you’re going to save Chatty, bring me with me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t bother with that. I keep telling them to knock it off in the classroom, but they won’t quit using those one-off burner accounts. It’s gotten so out of hand it might not just be this school’s students anymore. They’re all so damn irresponsible! But that’s not the main issue!!”

The gyaru sister glared fiercely at Tsumugi.

“Don’t underestimate a gyaru’s information network. The rumors about a shrine maiden saving the mother and child at the Apartment of Many Deaths – that’s you. I’ve known you’re the real deal since before I spied on your phone’s screen!! This isn’t about those silly burner accounts and gawkers. There’s someone here who can eliminate the real problem and bring back Chatty’s school life! And if there’s a way, I’m helping!!”

The online shrine maiden of an online shrine sighed.

She switched modes.

“Rank: Single Dread Star. The Ghastly Crusher.”

“…?”

“I’m asking if you even know what you’re saying. This brand-new city has only been floating in the ocean here for three years, but the Mincemeat Drawbridge is real. I have a general handle on the various conditions and it will appear to anyone who sets foot there tonight. Carelessly get involved and you will lose your life. Nothing good will come from the involvement of someone without the necessary knowledge and skills.”

“That’s all the more reason I can’t leave Chatty like this!!”

She didn’t even hesitate.

So that was her angle.

“Let me put it more simply: do you want to die?”

“How many times do I have to explain this!? Chatty’s facing that right now! So I can’t just leave her down in the depths! I’m going to save her! …A mysterious online shrine? A shrine maiden who fights real ghosts? I don’t know what your secret is, Mugikko! But that secret has nothing at all to do with me wanting to go save Chatty when she’s suffering right this second!!!”

Tsumugi slowly let out a sigh.

That much was true. She couldn’t argue, so she raised the white flag. The online shrine maiden had just one more thing to say.

“If you do this, you will truly be risking your life. It’s up to you to be ready for that.”

Part 9

Betsuzaki Yuhi was a straitlaced girl. So much so that she was on the library committee and continued serving in that role even during her third year when she also had to study for her high school entrance exam. She often worked after school until it was dark. Today, the librarian spoke to her.

“Betsuzaki-san, you don’t have to get it all done today. How about you call it a day here? That pile of books is heavy, so let’s work through it bit by bit.”

“Okayyy.”

Her phone vibrated. It was a social media notification, so she opened it.

It was from a high schooler friend of hers. Or rather, one of her sister’s friends.

“Zetsubi> Do you know where Rainy is? That girl slipped out midday and we haven’t seen her since.”

Cutting school? What was that stupid sister up to now?

Part 10

Night had fully fallen.

Yahirodono Tsumugi and Betsuzaki Rainy had arrived at Movable Bridge #38 – Overlook Bridge. However, few people knew its official name. Most people knew it better by a different name.

Mincemeat Drawbridge.

The gyaru sister was already cowering and trembling. Her hands were tightly clasped to the online shrine maiden’s arm. A failed attempt at forcing a smile was frozen on her lips. This shifted the shoulder of Tsumugi’s clothes, so she really wished she would stop.

“W-wow… Is that meant to set the mood?”

“Why are you even here?”

“The shrine maiden outfit! I-I’m talking about the mood that sets!!”

It was true these were Tsumugi’s work clothes, so they naturally had a certain aura to them. And there was nothing at all odd about the pure red and white outfit when she was on her way to battle a Malign Spirit. In fact…

“Why are you dressed like that? You had plenty of time to change before we met back up.”

“A girl’s ultimate gear is her school uniform. Got a problem with that?”

Tsumugi had a headache. What was with that heavily modified uniform that left her navel uncovered? Tsumugi couldn’t even imagine what kind of bizarre items she might be carrying in that boxy school bag she was forcibly carrying on her back by passing her arm through the handle.

Well, going for lightweight and nimble over heavy and defensive was actually the correct choice.

“D-don’t worry, don’t worry! I-I can be useful! I-I-I-I-I mean, we live in an age when I can find photos of useful power spots on my phone if you ask me.”

“I can just use a voice command to run an image search. Besides, I doubt your phone will work anyway.”

Tsumugi breathed an exasperated sigh. Rainy must have found that comment curious because she pulled her phone from her short-sleeve sailor shirt’s breast pocket to check and found the screen frozen. Worry rapidly covered her face. Her phone wasn’t working and tapping at it with her finger failed to bring up any of the usual services. That was enough for her eyes to wander around erratically. The loss of what she took for granted had disturbed her mental equilibrium.

A phone was just an electronic device. But having that one ordinary item taken away was enough to isolate people from the world and make them mistrustful of everything around them.

A shrill ringing sound passed from right to left.

No…

“That’s the Groan.”

Tsumugi said nothing more.

For those in the know no more explanation was necessary and those not in the know shouldn’t have been here.

(Too late for that.)

Rainy had gathered her resolve. She was set on saving her classmate Chatty. Which meant thoroughly destroying the Malign Spirit haunting Mincemeat Drawbridge.

“Bwoah!? O-o-o-oh, it’s just a seagull. Don’t scare me like that, jeez!!”

“…”

She had gathered her resolve, hadn’t she?

“Anyway, isn’t this a touristy area? It’s a high-tech computer-controlled bridge. H-how does that became all creepy and haunted?”

“A drawbridge is an intersection between a land route and a sea canal. Which is something like an extra-large version of a railway crossing. That makes it a dangerous and possibly deadly location.”

For now, Tsumugi walked across the drawbridge to check it out. There were the occasional halogen lights like in a gym, but the shadows were deep. The gyaru sister asked a question while clinging tightly to her.

“Can we even see ghosts? I-I don’t even know that.”

“I’ll be using this.”

She didn’t know anything, did she? The online shrine maiden pulled a bundle of incense sticks from her large sleeve. She lit them with a well-worn oil lighter and slowly waved them side to side. Smoke with a sickly sweet scent thinly spread out.

“If they aren’t visible under ordinary circumstances, we just have to make them more visible. You know how the sun shining in through the gap in the curtain looks like a streak of light when it hits the dust in your room? It’s like that. …Of course, it seems to me a shrine maiden using incense sticks is the result of shinbutsu-shugo, or of inverted honji suijaku theory.”

“I don’t get the joke.”

“That wasn’t a joke.”

“S-so you’re saying there will be a real ghost here? We’ll see one? Ugh, that is not the kind of rainbow LR I want to pull…”

“No one can defeat it without finding it first.”

The railing on the outer edge of the sidewalk was a chain-link fence, but something was stuck between the wires. And not just one. The countless objects were all cheap origami dolls. Their age differed. Some were brand new while others were half dissolved by the rain and wind.

Rainy looked puzzled.

“Wh-what are these? Oh, they must be talismans to ward off the evil spirit! Now that’s considerate design. They’re like ammo in a zombie game. We have an unlimited supply of exorcism items in this haunted location, or HL for short!!”

“I wouldn’t look too closely if I were you.”

Tsumugi tried to stop her, but Rainy still took a look and then stiffened.

The origami dolls all had small writing on them.

“My target” “I beseech thee to kill” “I soaked this in a drop of my boss’s blood” “His soul is yours” “It was all his fault” “Kill, kill, kill” “Please kill this villain” “Revenge” “This is a just act, great ghost” “Crush” “Necessary evil” “I can never forgive that scum”

To repeat, there wasn’t just one.

They covered the entire fence alongside the 50m bridge’s sidewalk.

“A-are these praising the ghost and treating it like a hero? To take the revenge they can’t take themselves!?”

“Malign Spirits are not so useful.”

Tsumugi was exasperated. Attempting to utilize imagined commonalities and rules was a common point of confusion. And with no scientific basis and thus no guarantee anything would even happen, people felt no guilt in trying it out.

“The Malign Spirits who wield their power for people simply are not that convenient…”

She saw fire in her mind’s eye.

A giant blazing torii and a woman’s silhouette standing below it.

“What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing.”

“So that…Groan thing? It must emit some kind of waves. I’ve been feeling a headache, but I barely hear anything.”

“Apparently the people who can’t hear it don’t hear anything at all. And since I can hear it here, the information from the job list I received must be accurate. There really is something here.”

“Wait, are you saying I could hire a real live battle shrine maiden and use her for anything I wanted!?”

“So what if you could?”

“Where………………is………………?”

Something shrill enveloped the world.

Even the primitive halogen lights that didn’t use semiconductors flashed irregularly and Rainy grimaced. They were less than a meter apart, but their voices couldn’t reach each other.

It moved in and out of her audible range, but even when it was silent, there had to be something there. Something was definitely rattling the electronics.

There was no time. The girl in the shrine maiden outfit clicked her tongue and pulled a few fireworks from her large sleeves. These fireworks looked like the center tube from a roll of plastic wrap and launched either a single large firework or twenty smaller ones. Rainy widened her eyes as Tsumugi shoved one of the more powerful ones into her arms. Needless to say, Rainy was in the most danger here. The odds of her death had just skyrocketed.

“The incense sticks may not mean much at this point, but…”

Tsumugi trailed off there. She was annoyed with herself. Rainy wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the shrill Groan, so why was she bothering to speak?

She slowly waved the bundle of lit incense sticks side to side.

Something

impossible.

She saw something

she shouldn’t have seen.

The light of the flashing halogen lights tangled with the thin smoke, bringing something else into view. Vaguely and intermittently.

There it was.

“The Single Dread Star Ghastly Crusher!!”

Part 11

She remembered.

Chatty was crying.

And asking why everyone had to get all creeped out and drive her out of school.

Because Mincemeat Drawbridge was a real haunted location? Because an invisible Malign Spirit called the Ghastly Crusher was there and it had been inappropriate and careless to go there after nightfall?

Of course not.

The problem was that something like you is haunting this place like you own the place.

Why should you get to smugly turn an ordinary bridge into a place of death?

Don’t think you get to toy with people’s lives just because you died once yourself, Malign Spirit!!

Part 12

As the night breeze dragged the incense smoke along, some outlines came into view.

It flickered in and out in time with the halogen lights.

What stood in the center of the brand-new drawbridge appeared to be a young woman. She had short red hair and wore a short-sleeve blouse, black slacks, and a cardigan to protect her from the sun. Her lowered head created a shadow blocking her face from view. But something else drew the eye more than the face. Her hands were both more than meter across and directly gripped the ground. She had another giant hand at the back of her hips, making her look something like a twisted version of a nine-tailed fox.

This was the Ghastly Crusher, the Malign Spirit haunting the Mincemeat Drawbridge. If nothing was done about her, she would cause more and more tragedy here. She crushed and killed people who crossed this bridge.

And even if she didn’t know exactly how it worked, someone was risking her one and only life here.

Betsuzaki Rainy.

“Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. I can see it. Wh-wh-wh-what, it’s there, what am I supposed to do…?”

She was scared. Terrified.

This wasn’t a figure of speech or intangible bad luck. It was here. It was definitely right here! A ghost. Ordinarily, she would have bolted.

But she didn’t.

Get it together, me.

There’s an expert here and a chance like this won’t come again. Don’t miss this tailwind. This professional has clashed with these things countless time and lived to tell the tale, so you can defeat this ghost. That alone is enough to say you’re really damn lucky here.

“Hey, get lost, you occult ghost! You don’t get to just appear and disappear and mess with people’s lives whenever you want! So go back to hell where you- dbfhhhh!!?”

Rainy was launched to the side by a kick from the online shrine maiden. A merciless one.

The Ghastly Crusher made her move a moment later. One of her giant hands dropped down as if swatting a fly.

Kathoooom!!!

The bridge sank down.

It truly lowered by more than 5 centimeters. Not only did the metal cry out in protest, but it audibly snapped in places. Nuts thick enough to fit one’s thumb through broke and tore through the air like bullets.

One hit from that was all it would take. It would mean instant death. They would be crushed beyond recognition.

Forgetting all about the pain of being kicked or having the breath knocked out of her, the gyaru sister trembled down on the ground.

Her mind was blank.

“You’re…kidding.”

“Generally speaking, you can’t afford to take even a single attack from a Malign Spirit. Not even from a fingertip or a single hair. Do not even consider grabbing at one of those monsters!”

“Then!? How are we supposed to fight-”

With a “fwoosh!!”, bright sparks swept away the shadows.

The shrine maiden had lit a bottle rocket with her oil lighter. She appeared to have a lot hidden both up her sleeves and in the triangular cut-outs in the sides of her hakama. She operated multiple fireworks with one hand, fanning them out.

They sliced through the air.

Several lights rapidly pierced the flickering figure in the incense smoke and then exploded inside her.

There was a scream.

The mysterious ghost reeled back. Large pieces had been painfully torn from her.

Rainy’s legs were still shaky, but she managed to roll further away as she shouted.

“It’s working. Oh, is that why you gave me a firework before!?”

Without taking her eyes off the Malign Spirit, Tsumugi tossed something over to Rainy: a bundle of incense sticks. Rainy somehow managed to catch them in one hand and then realized they were burning with an orange flame.

“Whoa!? Hey!!”

“The fireworks aren’t special. They will only damage Malign Spirits when lit by the pure flame of this oil lighter – the Imperial Exorcism Igniter!”

So even if she couldn’t hand over the lighter itself, its power could be shared using incense sticks and candles? Then these were crucial items. The gyaru sister hurriedly adjusted her grip on the incense sticks. She didn’t want to carelessly extinguish them.

“O-okay. But ghosts are dead, so what even counts as defeating them?”

“By utterly destroying their twisted and broken soul.”

“Destroy- wait? You mean helping them fulfill some hidden feelings or regrets so they can pass on to heaven or whatever!?”

“Going to heaven is not a part of Shinto.”

After reeling back from the bottle rocket, the Ghastly Crusher leaned forward again to correct her posture.

“You can’t expect anything so emotional from the shrine maiden of a shrine that conquers its enemies.”

A red and white wind roared.

This time, the shrine maiden rushed toward the Ghastly Crusher.

She kept low and moved sharply.

In response, the Malign Spirit swung a meter-long hand diagonally down.

But the shrine maiden’s large sleeves drew out a swirling circle as she twirled out of the way.

She ended up exactly back-to-back with the Ghastly Crusher which was partially swung around by the force of her own arm.

No, she did more than just evade.

As she moved past, she wrapped a very long bundle of firecrackers around the Ghastly Crusher’s neck.

A series of dry blasts rang out. There was no blood. But the lit firecrackers tore a large chunk from the side of the ghost woman’s neck. Enough for her entire head to be tilted at an angle. The gyaru sister shouted aloud without thinking.

“That’s doing real damage… Even though that thing may not even have physical shape or weight!!”

With a roar, the Ghastly Crusher tore the still-erupting firecrackers from her neck and approached once more.

The Malign Spirit swung her giant arm to the side and a guardrail thicker than the girl’s head burst like a balloon. A hit from that would likely obliterate the online shrine maiden’s body, but still it did not hit.

The attack found only air.

The black-haired girl leaned backwards until she performed a bridge and her left hand touched the ground. She let the attack pass overhead. Then the shrine maiden gathered strength in her left hand and left leg to send herself spinning sharply through the air. This avoided a second slap meant to attack lower, down at her feet. Before Tsumugi even landed, she ignited bottle rockets in midair to send another series of close-range attacks toward the Ghastly Crusher.

They stabbed into every part of the Malign Spirit’s body and detonated within to blow away more and more of her silhouette. The ghost screamed as she was filled with hole after fist-sized hole.

(Wow…)

Rainy was absorbed by the scene before her.

Not only by the online shrine maiden’s movements, but by how unfazed she was by these close calls with death. She was used to this. She even gave off a refined sort of beauty. She performed a deadly dance that wielded flames and explosives while moving along a series of circular paths.

However, the gyaru sister couldn’t assist her when she was moving so quickly. She had a firework, but with those two trading places so rapidly, she could end up burning the online shrine maiden’s back if she tried.

The air moved.

The range didn’t matter. The ghost launched a remote attack. The incense smoke was disturbed and a giant invisible hand of more than 5 meters dropped toward the online shrine maiden’s head like a suspended ceiling.

The asphalt sank down like clay and the drawbridge that had to weigh thousands of tons creaked.

But she was unharmed.

Yahirodono Tsumugi had stepped forward to escape toward the little finger side of the giant wrist.

As big as it was, a hand was still a hand. And even with a remote attack, the ghost apparently needed to move her own hand. So by moving to the little finger side, the ghost’s own lowered hand and wrist would get in the way of attacking with the other hand. Tsumugi fired more bottle rockets. The young woman Malign Spirit let out a discordant scream and staggered back. Tsumugi twirled out of the way of the retaliating hand and readied additional fireworks.

That was when a large mass swayed and its weight moving in the opposite direction of the online shrine maiden’s own movement slightly slowed the sharp reversal of her side step. That mass was her chest.

“…I can’t stand these things.”

Then she launched another series of attacks. At first glance, it looked like the professional, the online shrine maiden, was unilaterally winning.

But something wasn’t right.

As unilateral as it was, the fighting never seemed to end. She couldn’t actually defeat the ghost.

Tsumugi had perfect accuracy but couldn’t deliver a finishing blow. The Ghastly Crusher had slower attacks, but a single hit would mean instant death. Even after all this, the Malign Spirit was still the one in control. The black-haired shrine maiden raised her voice.

“This isn’t my attacks being deflected. It’s more like they’re not reaching her at all? Her core may be elsewhere. If you don’t have anything better to do, then go search for something!!”

“C-can’t you give me anything better than ‘something’!?”

“The Ghastly Crusher!! Where on this bridge did she die!?”

Part 13

When mid-sized cargo ships or passenger ships passed below, the drawbridge would raise its two halves to clear the way. In other words, it was like the giant crossing between a land route and a water route. To accommodate this, its structure was more complex than a normal bridge.

For example, the joints used to raise the two halves of the bridge and the engine room used to supply power to those joints.

The gyaru sister’s first thought was some giant gears fitting together in the engine room, but…

“If there was a dead body caught in there, it would’ve been noticed by now.”

There were a few flat switchboard-like things on the wall. The metal doors were labeled with colorful tape saying things like “lights”, “below”, and “traffic signal”, but she felt no need to touch them. There was no hiding a dead body in there.

She left the engine room. She was scared, but she returned to the bridge and found a stairway leading down from the sidewalk. A metal stairway.

Physically moving away from the online shrine maiden reminded her how useless she was. While nervously descending the stairs, she found an identical pathway on the lower level. Or rather, it looked like the two directions across the bridge were fully separated.

Even now the bridge would shake irregularly. Due to Tsumugi and the Ghastly Crusher. She didn’t know how many thousands of tons the drawbridge weighed, but that wasn’t an opponent for a human being to face. If Tsumugi were defeated, all hope was lost. Left alone, Rainy would simply be tormented and killed.

No, she couldn’t give in to those negative thoughts. It was true this wasn’t like a vertical phone manga or a pay-to-win game. She couldn’t hope to battle that real ghost head on. Hell, she didn’t even know the proper terminology for it. But she did hold some tickets allowing her to take a few actions.

With that in mind, she gathered strength in her gut.

She was scared, but she couldn’t stop here.

(But where else can I look?)

“Hmm, this ain’t good. Is it not this way?”

She had no way of knowing. The gyaru sister looked both ways to make sure no cars were coming before she hopped over the guardrail, cut across the wide street, and slid below the guardrail for the opposite sidewalk. She enjoyed playing flashy sports like free climbing, cycle ball, and skateboarding around the city, so she had naturally picked up how to use various urban obstacles to run and climb.

But…

“This side is pretty much the sa-”

Out past the railing, something twirled around and flew her way.

It was one of the online shrine maiden’s bottle rockets.

“Whoa!?”

Rainy quickly ducked before realizing something.

This was odd. She saw an orange glow near where Tsumugi’s stray bottle rocket had exploded. Like heated metal. It was hard to miss in the shadowy night. Flattened to the wire mesh floor…was what looked like the a footprint. Probably from a 23cm pump.

“Could it be…?”

Had she found it? Rainy pulled a launching type of firework from what she had been given. It didn’t look like the type you were meant to hold while using, though. She remembered she had been given a bundle of incense sticks and tried lighting it with them.

Bright light filled her view. By waving it side to side, sparks shot out like a hose, scattering over everything. It was highly effective. A few more footprints continued further in before suddenly making a turn. There was an orange glow on the metal railing there. Forming a pair of hand prints.

Rainy briefly imagined something was crawling up from the outside of the bridge, but that wasn’t it. The gyaru sister noticed something odd about the weight distribution shown by the intensity of the glow in the footprints. With pumps, the heel could easily break if you put too much weight on them, so why would someone do that? Because the footprints were facing backwards.

(So did she back up, bump into the railing, grab at it, but fail to escape before she was pushed off? …So is she attacking people who cross the bridge late at night because she’s searching for her murderer?)

Rainy followed the same path and peered down from the railing.

She gasped. She held a hand to her reeling head. She had only seen it for a split second, but her mind badly wanted to reject it. The image had defiled her brain. She had to remember what it was she was looking for.

It wasn’t on the drawbridge.

The gyaru sister recalled the flat metal box with the tape label saying “below”. And she recalled the crosswalk in front of the mall parking lot that had metal spikes that rose from the ground. …What if something similar, but on a scale large enough to stop cargo ships and passenger ships, was installed at the bottom of the ocean canal on either side of the drawbridge?

When the drawbridge was closed, the giant spikes would jut up nearly to the surface of the water.

So even with water below, a fall would mean certain death.

At any rate, Rainy had seen it. So she gathered strength in her gut and shouted as loud as she could.

“I found herrrr!! She’s directly below!! She fell from the bri-”

Gweeeeeeeeeen!!!

A ringing sound far louder than before erupted. What was it called? The Groan? It was the weird noise that kept phones from working. Rainy grimaced and held her head, but then it hit her.

She was only a few meters away, but this might distort her voice too much to reach the upper level of the bridge.

But didn’t this also mean this was critical information for the Ghastly Crusher? Enough so that she was going this far to interfere?

Then continuing to do what that ghost least wanted had to be the right choice!!

“Her………………is………………ridge!!”

She could get through.

She could.

“……bod………..bel……..the…..!”

She tried over and over. She wasn’t about to give up. Maybe it was the continual screaming until she thought she would damage her throat, but she was reminded of when she had done karaoke with everyone recently. She had promised Chatty she would sing that song to the end even though it clearly wasn’t designed for a human being to sing. All while smiling. She wasn’t going to lose a single one of her friends!!

“Her body is…below…bridge!! I don’t know what you’re going to do…just hurry up defeat that thing and rescue Chattyyyyyyyyy…………yyyyyyyyyyyyy…………yyyyyyyyyyyyy…………yyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”

Part 14

She heard.

The Groan was trembling unsteadily, but Yahirodono Tsumugi still heard that yell.

She knew the location of the broke and twisted soul’s “core”.

“Of course.”

That just left one thing.

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

With a “clink”, she once more opened the oil lighter’s cover with her thumb.

Part 15

It was down at the dark water’s surface.

A skull was caught among the splashing waves.

The egg-shaped object was covered by a large object almost like a hat. That was the rotting scalp with a woman’s hair growing from it. She must have had short hair in life.

The skull wasn’t carried away by the waves because it was caught on one of the thick retractable spikes used to stop mid-sized cargo ships. That made the actual depth less than 2cm, making a fall from the bridge 10m above quite fatal.

And by now, that skull was not alone.

The inky ocean canal parted as something emerged: a hand of muddy-colored bones. And not just the one. More and more bony arms parted the waves in a chain reaction. Like a sea anemone or an antlion. Resembling a great maw gaping up toward heaven as it awaited its prey.

The records had been wrong. The single digit number of victims only counted those who had been accidentally crushed by the bridge mechanism, not the suicides who had been overlooked by the records. If the Ghastly Crusher had taken a double digit number of lives, then its rank was in fact Double Dread Star. And the more victims, the fiercer and more difficult to defeat she would be.

“C……..o……..m……..e……..”

The shrill unsteady sound was like a distorted ringing in the ear.

By traveling through every possible wavelength and narrowing its width, it finally became a physical voice capable of vibrating human eardrums.

It formed the voice of a woman who had only been able to find amusement in destroying humans.

“Come, come, come at me!! Hee hee hee ha ha, let us settle this. This is now one-on-one, so let us fight it out until your life too is taken. All because you insist on preventing me from meeting him someday somewhere!!!”

Something fell toward her.

A festival-size firecracker bundle longer than a pants belt.

That was all.

“Huh?”

Her gaping mouth seemed to welcome it in.

A moment later, well over a 100 firecrackers erupted within the massive maw and the Ghastly Crusher was shredded from within like thin paper wrapped around an explosive, leaving nothing at all behind.

Part 16

Without even looking down over the fence railing, Yahirodono Tsumugi held her black hair down against the night breeze and spoke.

“That is enough for you. Why would I ever bother with single combat against a Malign Spirit that only ranks a Double Dread Star even after correcting for the margin of error?”

“You did it. Now Chatty…finally…”

Over on the stairs connecting the upper and lower levels, Betsuzaki Rainy was leaning hard on the diagonal railing while still climbing step by step.

Tsumugi was about to reply, but realized Rainy’s voice was a bit distorted. Puzzled, she pulled her trifold phone from her shrine maiden sleeve and found it still wasn’t functioning.

(The Groan effect is still in place?)

“Wait… Where did her core go!?”

Part 17

By the time Betsuzaki Yuhi arrived, it was fully dark out.

And what were those two doing waving fireworks around on a public street this late at night?

(Damn, Onee-chan’s phone is set to share her location, but the data was all glitched and I had to walk all over the place to find her.)

She heard a voice going “goo goo”.

After picking the baby up from the street, she approached the drawbridge.

“Hey, are you filming some kind of video? Sorry if I get in the shot!”

It was supposed to be a casual comment.

But they froze.

This was weird. When they saw her, both of them stared wide-eyed and motionless. They almost seemed horrified?

“Wait…” said Rainy. “Y-Yuhi. Where did you get that? ~ ~ ~ That’s…”

“That’s what, Onee-chan?”

“Don’t worry. She hasn’t been fully possessed yet. And this saves me the effort of removing her. But I didn’t expect she could use such a powerful lure.”

They were acting so carefully you would think they were dealing with unexploded ordnance.

Actually…were they?

Come to think of it, why had there been a baby on the side of the road? Why had she picked it up without even thinking about it? No. For that matter…was it even a baby at all???

It was kind of slimy and smelled strongly of the beach. Yes, like rotten seawater. All she had to do was tilt her head down to look and she would know what it was she was holding to her chest.

Her neck joint locked up painfully. She was afraid to check. But her heart couldn’t bear to go on without checking. Yuhi slowly, slowly lowered her gaze to-

“Don’t look!!!”

She received an impossibly furious admonition. From her usually easygoing gyaru sister. It made Yuhi freeze, which may have been fortunate in this case. Because it created a brief opening. Tsumugi chose that moment to rush forward. She used both hands to snatch away something the size of a cabbage and turned away from Yuhi. As if to make sure the girl wouldn’t see what it was.

But the effort was in vain because Yuhi caught a glimpse.

Of a bloody skull with a clump of rotting hair perched atop.

She could have sworn its empty eye sockets were staring straight at her.

Part 18

Once the core of the broken and twisted soul was burned away with a firecracker, it was really and truly over.

“S-so what was all that?”

The straitlaced sister was tearful and trembling, but there was no need to explain it to her. The black-haired shrine maiden sighed.

“I’m going to be busy now.”

“Why? One of those things where this was the weakest of the bosses or something? But we came close enough to dying this time!!”

“No, I have to prepare to transfer schools.”

“You’re leaving!? But why!?”

“My secret is far greater than Chatty’s.”

Everyone had acted as if they were above reproach, but social media had had been aflood with burner accounts making irresponsible comments. That gyaru sister had to know all too well how cruel the society of a school could be.

“The existence of a specialist in defeating Malign Spirits can be seen as proof that Malign Spirits exist. Being presented with something that unpleasant will make people uneasy. With my identity known, I had planned to change schools to avoid all of that. …Actually, is it even worth attending another school? If I’m only battling Malign Spirits, I could just quit altogether.”

“N-no, you can’t do that!! It has to be everyone!”

“Um, what?” reflexively replied Tsumugi.

Maybe she shouldn’t have responded at all. If her intention was to fully part ways here.

“I decided to risk my life to return Chatty’s life to normal! All of it!! After coming this far, I’m not accepting almost perfect. And that’s what it’ll be without you there!! I’m good at keeping secrets and there’s no problem if I don’t tell anyone!!”

She could say this after everything she had seen?

“I am the survivor of a shrine burned down, killing everyone inside, I run a strange online shrine, and I use an oil lighter to battle Malign Spirits as an online shrine maiden.”

“So what? Sounds like an ordinary high school girl to me.”

The gyaru sister frowned, but she made her retort. Without a moment’s hesitation.

Maybe this was a type of talent. Probably a type you couldn’t get through hard work.

(Well, maybe I can stay with the status quo for a while longer.)

“No transferring schools, okay? Transfer bad! And don’t underestimate the information network of a gyaru who knows the birthdays of everyone in class. If you disappear one day, I won’t rest until I’ve tracked you down! Grr, grr!!”

“Yes, yes.”

The three of them left Mincemeat Drawbridge and began walking back to the shopping district.

“Now that I’ve calmed down, the exhaustion is hitting me… Ugh, my life points are down to 0. I’ll be taking my sister home, but what about you, Mugikko?”

“What do you mean? We have class tomorrow, so I’ll be taking a shower and going to bed like normal.”

Looking weirdly delighted, the gyaru sister slapped her on the back.

It kind of hurt.

“Hwa ha ha! I know you’re worn out, but don’t forget we were assigned math homework, Miss Shrine Maiden!”

“Why do you sound so happy? The same disaster is going to hit you too.”

“…Hey, Mugikko? We’re friends, right? Then let’s link up on social media. Right this instant!!!”

“You had better not send me questions about the homework all night long.”

Rainy really made Tsumugi friend her. At least that proved the effects of the Groan were gone.

When no one was looking, Tsumugi gave in to the urge to yawn.

From here, her nap room was closer than her home. After saying goodbye to the sisters, the shrine maiden walked to a row of multi-tenant buildings while swaying unsteadily from exhaustion and drowsiness. She gave one of the buildings a puzzled look.

Light was coming from the windows displaying the name Hisame Detective Agency.

“Oh, you’re back. You should have just spent the night in Tokyo.”

“Taking the linear, 500km is only an hour’s trip. Besides, I was worried about you.”

“Eh?”

“I had a feeling you would try something on your own if I wasn’t around. And that feeling was right.”

“…Is that so?”

Tsumugi tossed the borrowed oil lighter to the blond young man in a suit, the owner of the detective agency, and then walked to the nap room in the back of the office.

That room was effectively her private room.

Only she had a key to the door and it was full of her personal possessions. She used a futon at home, so she had a bed here just for a change of pace.

Once she collapsed into bed, she would be out like a light, so she had to take care of some things first.

In the lockable room, she pulled out a further key and unlocked the desk drawer. From there, she pulled a simple remote with a single button and aimed it toward the window.

The electric curtain slowly closed.

The inside of the curtain was covered with handwritten notes, photos, newspaper clippings, and more. The connections between them were visualized with colorful masking tape.

Burning of the Kagebarai Tanebi Shrine

5 Years Ago

149 Killed

Religious Corporation Status Revoked – How to Recover?

Detective – Cooperator

New Sea City

Group of Megafloats – Drones – Testing Ground

Fire Malign Spirit – Who Benefits? – Interests

Hibashi-sama – Someone Unleashed Her – Revenge – Special Ritual

Of course, it was all tentative. She didn’t have all the pieces and, despite drawing out the diagram herself, she wasn’t certain she was even approaching an accurate view.

The Forbidden Hands. The Ghastly Crusher.

Both notes had a large X drawn over them with black permanent marker, but she was uncertain where to place them. Eventually, the online shrine maiden withdrew them to the very edge of the electric curtain. And she attached another note next to them.

Unusual Appearances

New Sea City was was a group of megafloats located more than 500km south of Tokyo which acted as a testing ground for new technologies.

But she had a feeling that wasn’t all.

There was something more.

The online shrine maiden prepared another two notes. She jotted down a name on each in permanent marker: the gyaru older sister Betsuzaki Rainy and the straitlaced-seeming younger sister Betsuzaki Yuhi.

Battle assistance? Requires attention? She wasn’t sure what category to place them under. I just see them as another tool? she thought in self-deprecation.

“An ordinary high school girl, hm?”

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