Volume 7, Chapter 6: Jinnai - Truth

Part 1

The first thing I heard was the chirping of a sparrow.

Next came the light. Color quickly filled my white vision. It gained depth, the scenery was constructed, and I found myself standing in front of a thatch-roof house.

..Is this my home?

It looked like it, but a few details were different. The branches of the trees in the yard seemed off and the tree mode Furutsubaki (small) was nowhere to be seen.

In that case, that Hafuri girl must have been telling the truth.

Is this really ten years ago?

“Nagisa, Nagisa! Ah ha ha. Again! Let’s do it again!”

“Ehh? But I’m tired, Shinobu-chaaan..”

I heard voices from inside the house.

A young girl called to a “Shinobu”. I needed to learn what kind of connection the Aburatori and I had in the past, so sticking with my past self seemed like the best bet. I may have been sent to the past, but I only had one viewpoint and I couldn’t rewind. If I carelessly missed some crucial information, this trip into the past would be meaningless.

I started to reach for the front door, but..

“I can only interfere once, huh?”

This was apparently similar to an out-of-body experience, so I could pass through walls and doors.

I tilted my head and hesitantly reached out my fingertips. They passed right through the closed door. I didn’t really feel much of anything. It was so strange that I pulled my fingers out and stuck them back in a few times before slipping my entire body through.

As soon as I began to question the fact that I was standing on the ground well enough, I sank down to my knees.

Oh, no! Do I pass through things the instant I think about it!? Could I accidentally send myself straight to the center of the earth!?

I focused on the floor and ground again and took another step. This time, nothing unusual happened. I was apparently floating instead of walking. I had to view it that way for my own safety. I did my very best not to think too hard about things like the rotation and revolution of the earth. If those questions had filled my head, who knows how far I would have been flung.

More importantly, I had to check on the young Shinobu that was my past self.

I walked down the unchanged hallway and heard high-pitched voices coming from the Japanese-style living room.

“Nagisaaa!!”

“Shinobu-chaaan!!”

A boy and girl of about five or six raised their hands, ran in from the left and right, and slammed into each at the center. They both shouted the same thing as they did.

“Fusion!!”

???

“Ah ha ha ha ha! Nagisa, again, again!”

“Ehh!? You said that was the last time!”

I froze up in utter confusion for a moment, but then I realized that was a gag from some comedian or another. Maybe. After ten years, it was hard to remember what I had found funny about that, but that was the way of things with comedy and fashion.

But more importantly..

..There really is a small me from the past here.

Shinobu was laughing in utter glee in a happi coat, but Nagisa looked pretty exhausted in her mother’s homemade Red Riding Hood outfit.

If this was something from an old photo album or home video that the whole family was watching, I probably would have been writhing in embarrassment, but this was somehow different. I felt separated from it by some thin barrier and it didn’t feel like that was me.

“Ahh, now I’m thirsty. Nagisa, let’s go get something to drink.”

“W-wait, Shinobu-chaaan.”

Shinobu ran toward me, passed right through my body(?), and ran off down the hallway. The small Nagisa also passed through me as she chased after him.

“C-c-c-cat panties! Cat panties!”

“Y-you can’t, Shinobu-chan. My mom said not to sing the cat panties song.”

“Ehh? It isn’t gonna curse me, so what does it matter?”

“That isn’t the issue.”

“Quit complaining, Nagisa. You were just as bad with that mango song.”

“(Rumble rumble rumble) Shinobu-chan, you swore to forever seal away the mango and banana song. (Rumble rumble rumble)”

“Pii!? O-okay! I won’t sing it anymore!”

He was supposedly my past self, but I couldn’t seem to predict what he would do. I chased after him and found him using both hands to pry open the refrigerator door.

“Ah! Shinobu-chan, the fizzy stuff is bad for you.”

“But it tastes the best.”

It seemed today’s topic was a bottle of cider. In fact, Shinobu ignored Nagisa’s warning and started pouring some into a glass.

“What do you want, Nagisa?”

“I-I can’t rummage through someone else’s refrigerator.”

“You can drink something too! You have my permission!”

“Uuh.. Then instead of that fizzy stuff, I’ll have orange juice. My mom said the ‘hundred percent’ is good for you.”

It was weird seeing a happy time when Nagisa could say normal things instead of only ever saying “I love you” or “I’ll kill you” while categorizing all of mankind with the labels “enemy”, “ally”, “not interested”, or “extreme love”. I felt like I should apologize to her once I returned to the present. Then again, if I brought up that stuff from middle school, there was a good possibility she would stab me right then and there.

“A drink isn’t enough. Oh, I know. I think we have some kitty bread.”

“Uuh.. I feel bad eating kitty bread.”

“Hm? Don’t worry, Nagisa. It’s easy to eat if you do this.”

“Ahhh! Don’t tear the kitty’s face apart!!”

I noticed a schedule attached to the fridge door by a magnet. It included the date a package from an online store was supposed to arrive.

According to that, it was late March ten years before.

“Ah, Nee-chan! You want some of the fizzy stuff too?”

“Wahyah! A-a Youkai.. (Tremble, tremble)”

“?”

Nee..-chan?

There was a time when I had called my uncle “Nii-chan”, but who was this “Nee-chan”? Puzzled by that nickname, I looked in the same direction as the young Shinobu.

There, I saw someone walking into the kitchen.

A Zashiki Warashi..in a red yukata???

“Shinobu, you can drink that carbonated stuff, but only one cup, okay? Lunch is in about an hour.”

“Ehh? But I want to drink more. Bartender, give me another!”

“Y-you can’t, Shinobu-chan. You have to do what the Youkai says..”

The Zashiki Warashi snatched the two liter bottle from the complaining boy’s hands and screwed on the cap.

“You can have more at lunchtime, Shinobu.”

“Okay. I’ll have to remember that.”

..Hmm. It feels weird to see her acting like a big sister. Did all of this really happen?

That said, she really was a Youkai. This was ten years in the past and she looked exactly the same as the present. Comparing that to Shinobu and Nagisa made it painfully obvious she was a paranormal being. It felt wrong, like someone had cut out her picture and pasted it into an older one.

Also, seeing that Good-for-Nothing Youkai caused some curiosity to rear its ugly head inside me. I could view anything in this past world. No one could see me, so I didn’t have to worry about an unexpected counterattack.

Does this mean I can peep all I want when that sexy Zashiki Warashi is in the bath or changing? Heh. Eh heh heh.

“..”

“What is it, Nee-chan?”

As Shinobu tilted his head, the Zashiki Warashi gave me a truly unnatural look, so I grew as cautious as possible and slowly moved to the side.

But the Zashiki Warashi’s head and gaze remained perfectly locked onto me.

“Am I just imaging it?” she said.

“???”

This was bad. It was very, very bad. It looked like I couldn’t get too carried away. Human rules didn’t seem to apply to Youkai here. Who could say when I would accidentally change history?

Meanwhile, I heard the TV from the Western-style living room connected to the kitchen.

“Just how effective is the Hidarugami Diet!? This new diet is spreading by word of mouth over the internet, but specialists have begun to speak out about the risks.”

Someone had apparently turned on the TV. Shinobu and the others walked into the living room, so I followed suit.

“It’s grampa! What is that you have there? A letter?”

“Oh, Shinobu-chan’s grandfather. H-hello.”

My grandfather waved while chopping up a letter with scissors. After it was nothing but scraps, he threw it into the garbage can.

“Ah, you threw it away without reading it!”

“This letter didn’t deserve to be read.”

“Nii-chan said email is better than letters. You’ve moved onto email, haven’t you!?”

“No, I’m not so good with those electronics. Staring at those screens makes my eyes water.”

Some small footsteps approached.

Instead of family, it was some travelling Youkai staying at the house. The one that looked like a small child was an Onbu-Obake and the large man with a red face was..what was it? It didn’t have any horns, so it didn’t seem to be an Oni.

“Shinobu-chan! I heard we could get a Youkai Stamp if we came here. Give me a stamp! Or a piggyback ride!”

“Eh heh heh. I happened to hear that a Youkai Stamp is an important symbol.”

Youkai Stamp???

I tilted my head, but the young Shinobu seemed to understand. He pulled out a round stamp about five centimeters across and pressed it to the back of the Youkai’s hands.

“Now you’re my friend.”

“Wonderful! Now give me a piggyback ride!!”

“You’re a Friend Youkai too.”

“Eh heh heh. So this is the Youkai Stamp that began as an app and now even has a movie..”

This was apparently a magazine bonus based on a kid’s TV show. Unlike most Youkai shows, no one died and the Youkai weren’t defeated. They were simply captured as Friend Youkai. I didn’t really remember the details, though.

“Mhh. Why are you wearing a happi coat, Shinobu-chan? Is there a festival coming up?”

“This proves I’m a man of the Jinnai Brewery!”

He spun around to show it off.

Oh, so that’s why he’s wearing that.

“What does an Onbu-Obake do?”

“Ask people for piggyback rides! Obariyon!!”

“And a Kaki Otoko?”

“Eh heh heh. You can just think of me as a kind of Tantankororin. You’re still too young for the details. ..Oh, it’s Hayabusa!!”

“Hayabusaaa! Give me a piggyback ride!!”

The Youkai left with some loud footsteps. I heard someone shouting “Waah! Stay away from me, you perverts!” in the hallway, but what exactly was happening out there?

Back in the living room young Nagisa was puffing out her cheeks.

“Mhh.”

“What is it, Nagisa?”

“Shinobu-chan! Give me a stamp too!”

“What are you talking about? This is a Youkai Stamp, so I can’t stamp a human like you.”

“Mhhhhh!”

She was really mad, but then her giant St. Bernard trotted into the living room and gave a single loud bark.

She pulled a children’s cellphone from the small barrel hanging below the large dog’s neck.

“Oh, it’s already this late. It’s almost lunchtime, so I have to head home.”

“Okay. I’ll walk you home. Nii-chan said a true man walks the girl home!”

“Zashiki Warashi, what do you think about that?” asked my grandfather.

“If he didn’t try to act cool saying lame things like that, he wouldn’t have a Kaki Otoko attacking him.”

With that, Shinobu, Nagisa, and the St. Bernard made their way to the front entrance.

It nearly forgot, but the Aburatori incident was supposedly going to begin soon. I had no idea when it would it would happen or how, so I had no choice but to follow them.

The rural farm road was the same scenery I was used to seeing. That said, there seemed to be more Youkai than I was used to.

Shinobu and Nagisa approached an intersection in the middle of the paddy fields.

“I am a Nurikabe.”

“Wahyah!? Sh-Sh-Shinobu-chaaan!”

“Don’t worry, Nagisa. He doesn’t bite.”

A giant three-eyed dog lay in the middle of the narrow road. It was about the size of a microbus, so it completely blocked the way.

“Wait a little until that work van goes by.”

“A-are you sure it isn’t a bad Youkai..?”

“I’m gonna give him a Youkai Stamp.”

“When I get home, I’m getting a potato and making you a Human Stamp..”

Before long, a vehicle drove through the intersection and the giant three-eyed dog vanished into thin air. The Youkai seemed to be like a railroad crossing barrier.

Nagisa’s home was not in the middle of the paddy fields. It was at the base of the mountain on the edge of the village. I could hear cows and chickens from nearby. I was pretty sure they ran an extremely small-scale but high-quality micro-farm. I remembered hearing something about a price tag of ten thousand yen on each egg laid by their stress-free chickens.

And at this point in the past, no one knew that accidentally seeing her parents at work in the meat processing facility would knock one of Nagisa’s screws loose and ultimately help develop the gory techniques of one of the world’s three greatest yandere. (sob)

“Bye, Shinobu-chan. I’ll head back to play after lunch.”

“Yeah! It’s a promise!”

“Go right back home. Don’t take any detours, okay?”

“Okay! Leave it to me!”

“..I-I’m worried. Maybe I should go with you.”

That would have begun an infinite loop, so Nagisa said goodbye for the time being. Shinobu then started home alone.

However..

“What is it, Kappa!? Why are you all dried up on the road!?”

“U-uuh.. The plate on my head has dried up. Water.. Could you give me some water?”

“I only have the fizzy stuff in my water bottle.”

“Th-that’s bubbly!? Obh..ofahhh! What is this new sensation!?”

The Kappa got a stamp.

“Fwa ha ha! I am the great Tsuchigumo!! Heh heh. Don’t expect me to obey you!!”

“Huh? Why are you dressed like a girl when you’re a spider?”

“I am the ultimate delinquent, so I can transform into a beautiful woman!”

“How do spiders sleep? In a hammock? Make one for me!!”

“St-stop! You won’t get any silk by pulling on me there!!”

The Tsuchigumo got a stamp.

“Keh heh heh. I am a Nopperabou! What do you think? Scary, aren’t I!?”

“You aren’t supposed to call people scary for how they look.”

“Eh? Ah!? That may be true, but that’s kind of the entire reason I exist!”

“Anyway, you’re my friend too.”

The Nopperabou got a stamp.

D-does this kid forget what he’s doing every three steps!?

Every time he came across a Youkai, he would get sidetracked and he was now walking in an entirely different direction from the thatch-roof house.

“Ah! Come to think of it, I forget to give him a stamp! I need to go give him one!”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “The kid’s heading into the mountain, now!?”

He was me, but it was still scary watching it. Then again, I could only physically interfere once, so I couldn’t waste that chance here.

I followed Shinobu along the mountain path and he came to a clearing only about thirty or forty meters up. Instead of a high-tech orchard, the flat area only had some random undergrowth, so it may have been cleared out for a small shrine.

And..

“Hey! I’m here to play! I’ll give you a Youkai Stamp too!!”

I heard the wind gently blowing through the tree branches overhead.

A single rundown cabin existed on that elevated clearing.

And then something peeked out from behind it, as if revealing itself from its hiding spot.

All of its face save the mouth was hidden behind a large conical hat with a single eye drawn on it.

It wore a farmer’s kimono with leggings covering the feet.

Its arms and legs were so wrinkled they looked like tree branches or part of a mummy.

To sum it up..this was the Aburatori.

That worst of all deadly Youkai was second to none when it came to killing children.

“..!!!???”

Why was he here?

Hadn’t he suddenly wandered into Noukotsu Village one day, caused a number of incidents, and got young Shinobu caught in the middle?

The Aburatori slowly walked over.

The large hat still hid his face and expression as he silently approached Shinobu.

He simply appeared, simply abducted, and simply killed. He would take children away, remove their organs, stab them with skewers, and cook them over a fire. The Youkai that took children’s oil like that was known as the Aburatori. However, it was not defined what he did with that oil and there was no moral behind the story. He was a simple fear without any related lesson such as “return home before it gets dark” or “do what your parents tell you”.

He moved ever closer.

He approached.

From three meters, to two, and then one.

“What do I do?”

I was filled with a sticky sense of revulsion that went beyond simple fear. Was this it? Was this the scene where I was supposed to use my one forceful interference? I had no time to hesitate. If I failed here, the Zashiki Warashi would use her Ver. 39 power (whatever that was). To preserve that power and use it for the Aoandon incident in the present, I could not afford to mess up here. I had to use my one chance as accurately as possible.

“What do I do!?”

But as soon as I thought that..

“I told you not to come here, didn’t I?”

He clearly spoke with his face still hidden behind the large hat.

The voice was not at all like the rampaging monster I knew that simply devoured children’s organs.

“I am an incredibly scary Youkai that will eventually harm you.”

It was a male voice with deep intelligence behind it.

It was practically dripping with feelings of anguish and conflict.

“That isn’t true.”

And..

“Don’t worry! I can get along with any Youkai, no matter how deadly! I’m here to give you a stamp and you were worried for me. That means we’re already friends. So neither of us has to worry!!”

“..”

“Hold out your hand, Aburatori.”

“Why?”

“Just do it! I’ll give you a Youkai Stamp!”

Shinobu forcibly took the confused Aburatori’s hand and pressed the toy-like stamp against the back of his hand.

“Now you’re a Friend Youkai.”

Shinobu gave a beaming smile.

And then my past self clearly said the following in Noukotsu Village ten years ago:

“So don’t say those sad things anymore. We’re the best of friends now!!”

Part 2

Huh? I thought.

What did I just see?

Is this really what happened in the actual version of the past?

Part 3

Nothing else happened and Shinobu played with Nagisa at the thatch-roof house without interacting any more with the Aburatori. A variety of Youkai made their way into the house without permission, but I couldn’t see anything else that looked related to the past incident.

“I know what you mean! Jello is cool because it’s see-through!”

“No, Shinobu-chan. Jello is cute because it jiggles.”

The two children argued over their snack, but once they ran out of things to talk about there, they moved onto the names written on their bags.

“Look, Nagisa. I can write my name in kanji.”

“I-I can do that too. We’re starting school this spring, so hiragana would be embarrassing.”

“It’s a heart under a blade! Stab!! But Nee-chan’s is hard. It’s got a whole bunch of diagonal lines. How’d you get such an annoying name?”

“Shinobu, that was the name your parents had prepared in case you were born a girl. They didn’t need it anymore, so I borrowed it.”

Evening fell, Nagisa left, and Shinobu started getting a little excited.

“Nee-chan, Nee-chan!!”

“What is it, Shinobu?”

“I can’t get my toy box closed. All the toys fit in there before, so why won’t they now? This must be some kind of evil magic! There’s nothing I can do!”

“Shinobu. Let’s try thinking through this together, one step at a time.”

They began putting rubber balls, toy cars, and other toys inside the limited space of the toy box like a simple puzzle game.

She was still pretty helpful at this point. How’d she get so lazy by the present?

Once the work was done, it was apparently time for dinner.

When his plate was set in front of him, Shinobu gave a lopsided frown and spoke to his mother.

“Adults don’t play fair.”

“Eh!? Wh-where did that come from?”

“Everyone but me gets to eat oysters. And you all act like it’s the best part.”

“Oh.. But they say it’s dangerous to feed raw oysters to small children.”

“Adults always say that! I get that I can’t drink the gold fizzy stuff, but why can’t I have coffee or tea either? You put it all off limits, calling it an ‘adult flavor’!”

“You can’t have any, Shinobu. Caffeine is the last thing you need.”

“Mhhh.. Nee-chaaan!!”

Shinobu swung his arms and legs around to summon the Zashiki Warashi who sighed when she heard what was going on.

“Yes, the adults don’t play fair at all. Now, how about you come with me and eat some fried oysters?”

“Ah, no fair! You’re just going to steal Shinobu from me without even waiting for an explanation!?”

“But I want one of those slippery ones. Slippery!!”

Shinobu kept complaining, but he seemed happy enough once his stomach was full. He lay on the floor patting his stomach and spoke up.

“Today, I’ll take a bath with mom.”

“Oh, my. Well, I don’t mind.”

“And with dad.”

“Veh!?”

“What was that for? Do you not want to take a bath with dad?”

“W-well, I don’t have a problem taking a bath with my husband, but I’m not sure I want you in there with us. I would have to find a way to banish all of my worldly thoughts..”

For some reason, Shinobu looked incredibly shocked.

“I was the problem!? Do you hate me, mom!?”

“What!? N-no, that isn’t it at all, Shinobu! That isn’t what I meant!!”

“No excuses! I’m taking a bath with grampa today!! You have to wait until tomorrow!”

“Hmm? That’s fine, but grampa likes his baths hot.”

“And gramma can join us.”

“Vfweh!?”

He suffered another shock.

“Th-then I’ll have to take my bath with Nee-chan!!”

“Honestly, why are you adults making such a fuss over a simple bath?”

“And Nii-chan can join us.”

“Not a chance.”

The third shock finally brought Shinobu to tears, so he ran from the Western-style living room and into the Japanese-style living room where the Youkai were gathered.

“Wahhhhh!! Kyuubi! Kuzunoha!! Everyone’s so mean! They’re all taking baths together without me!!”

“Ho ho ho. What a troublesome child. Now, how about you try grabbing my nine tails?”

“You wild fox, stop spoiling other people’s children. As the Kuzunoha, I will harden my heart and thoroughly teach him some manners!”

The boy and two animals made their way to the bath.

That Kyuubi isn’t related to the Japanese Killing Stone, is it? Well, I think they were originally Chinese and were a sign of good luck. But doesn’t Kuzunoha refer to an individual? Could that be the Kuzunoha?

After throwing open the changing room’s door and just before shutting it, teary Shinobu let out a shout.

“We all have to get along!!”

Despite all that, I could see no sign of any sort of bloody incident.

The problem was that I did not know what month, day, hour, and minute the danger would arrive. Of course, I doubted a year or two would pass with nothing happening.

Once the clock reached eleven at night, all the lights were turned out, and the family had all gone to sleep, a certain fact became much more obvious. Simply put..

“I have nothing to do..”

The time travel method was similar to an out-of-body experience, so I could slip through walls and doors without being seen and I didn’t need to worry about biological issues. In other words, I wasn’t sleepy. That may have sounded convenient as I only had one point of view and couldn’t rewind, but when nothing was happening, I got pretty bored.

I slipped through the door to Shinobu’s room a few times to check on him, but he was fast asleep with a giant fox curled up on either side of him.

“Mumble, mumble.. Fluffy tails..”

“Keh heh heh! ..I-I will never..forget this humiliation..”

I doubted I was going to find any important information watching this.

“I guess I should go back over what information I have.”

That was really all I could do. Then again, I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed by a bunch of information I had to sort through.

The Aburatori had apparently not suddenly appeared in this version of the past. He was living in a rundown mountain cabin doing something.

And I knew the Aburatori.

He had not tried to kill me no questions asked and had even warned me away. But at the same time, he was aware how dangerous and deadly he was.

That led me to the conclusion that he did not want to kill any children. Although I had yet to check inside that cabin. It was possible he was keeping me away because there was something “evil” in there he didn’t want me to see.

“That’s right.”

I doubted Shinobu was going to do anything here.

Leaving his side and heading out into the mountains wouldn’t be a bad idea. After all, I couldn’t predict when or where the incident would occur. I would have an easier time later if I gathered what information I could now while the danger was still low.

And that sped things up.

Maybe I was bored and starving for some stimulation or maybe I felt safe in this out-of-body experience state, but I felt no reluctance to head out into the dark mountains late at night where I knew the Aburatori was waiting.

I left the thatch-roof house and followed the farm roads.

Intellectual Villages were dark at night. Most crops used photosynthesis, so they were influenced by light and it was not good to shine unnecessary light on them. There were streetlights with the same sensors as automatic doors to ensure the safety of pedestrians, so the lights came on only where people and cars were passing by. However, they didn’t react to me in my current state.

The inky darkness of the village was broken by the carpet of countless stars and the m-->>

next page