major possibilities.

One: The Kaeshigami ritual to make the Aburatori harmless ends in failure.

Two: Someone was lying.

Perhaps Hyakki Yakou’s Kaeshigami ritual would not actually make the Aburatori harmless or perhaps the Aburatori was not as cooperative as he was letting on.

“..”

Was one of those Hyakki Yakou members lying or not? Figuring that out would help a lot. I would be able to decide how to face the situation. Of course, I was only a high school student and I couldn’t read their minds from the subtle movements of their eyes or trembling of their lips like some kind of professional profiler, but if I observed them during some especially emotional moment, I might notice something a little off.

I doubted they would make any kind of mistake while working together as Hyakki Yakou. Everything there would be within their expectations and would have settled together like gelatin.

If there was any irregular element, it was the presence of young Shinobu.

Him speaking with and influencing the Aburatori had to be unexpected, even if just slightly. That solidified situation would melt and shift like liquid.

In that case, it had to be when Shinobu contacted the Aburatori or Hyakki Yakou.

Or around that time.

Before and after Shinobu showed up. Before and after Shinobu left. It wouldn’t hurt to look out for any changes in their actions or behavior then.

With that in mind, I needed to get to work.

I left the thatch-roof house and walked down the narrow farm road running between the paddy fields. I passed what looked like a fiber-optic workman’s van and a flying Ittan-Momen as I made my way to the mountain.

That Youkai stood in front of the cabin today as well.

He may have been able to leave while the Kaeshigami project was ongoing because I seemed to find him there whenever I showed up.

It was a strange feeling since the Aburatori was supposed to be elusive and impossible to catch.

“Hello, visitor. Why are you here so early?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

Someone suddenly spoke to me from behind in a perfectly casual voice.

I quickly turned around and found Majina, the young man with a monocle and dress suit who claimed to be the leader of Hyakki Yakou. He was smiling.

The Sunekosuri (female) named Ohatsu rubbed up against his shin with an exasperated sigh and Hishigami Shikimi sat in a tree branch with her pale white hair tied back like a giant flower. It had been hard to tell in the darkness the night before last, but her kimono had Hyakki Yakou’s symbol on it. She also had something like a musical instrument around her neck.

The Aburatori was one thing, but where were these three spending the nights? They felt like they didn’t live actual lives. Or rather, like they appeared from the mist and vanished into the mist.

“What does he think he’s doing? While we can’t match the technique used, the one using it clearly has no idea what he’s doing. It’s like handing an idiot a cellphone.”

“Now, now, Ohatsu-san. I like this kind of thing. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to speak with someone without having to try to read their hand and watch out for murderous intent.”

“You do know you’re about to be a father, don’t you? You need to support a family, so get rid of that pathetic smile and be a little more cautious.”

“A..father?”

I wasn’t sure if Majina could hear me or not, but he bashfully scratched at his cheek.

“My wife is near the end of her pregnancy. To be honest, she could give birth at any time now. I’m really not ready for it, though.”

“What an awful husband. His wife is suffering and here is out on a business trip.”

“You don’t understand how scary the maternity ward is for a man, Ohatsu-san! All I can do is wait on the bench, so what am I even supposed to do!? Oh, no. Just thinking about is making my skin crawl..!”

“Honestly, the woman’s position there is ten or even a hundred times worse. Don’t start crying when all you’re doing is watch, you pathetic man.”

“I have a hard time believing you know anything about that, Shikimi-san.”

“What are you talking about? As the founder of the Hishigami line, I used to have an impressive body. It’s just that my eternal youth technique is a little too effective and I shrink on a daily basis.”

This conversation did not suit the name Hyakki Yakou in the slightest. My expression just about softened, but then it hit me.

I knew how this would turn out.

In the “present”, Hafuri was the leader of Hyakki Yakou.

If a girl of about ten had been forced up to that position, what did that mean for her father here?

They believed in blood, so if someone was forced up to a higher position, it could only mean one thing.

“..”

“Hm? What is it? You look like you’re at a funeral.”

“He’s probably shocked by how pathetic you’re acting,” said Ohatsu. “Who would ever believe you’re the leader of the great Hyakki Yakou?”

“I don’t blame him,” added Hishigami Shikimi. “The gap in expectations surprised me when I first met him as well.”

“I think it’s wrong for people to have that frightening image of us to begin with. Maybe we should change our name to Kanai Anzen or Mubyou Sokusai.”1

“Everyone would assume we went soft the instant you had a kid, so don’t you dare.”

It was almost certain that this leader of Hyakki Yakou and his wife were going to die.

I didn’t know how they would die, but if it was anything too dangerous, I couldn’t assume Ohatsu and Hishigami Shikimi wouldn’t be in danger too.

Abandoning them because it was “their destiny” would have been the right thing to do.

Looking at it positively and being glad that the baby inside the wife’s belly would survive would have been the right thing to do.

But there was a possibility here.

A single statement from me could change something. Was it truly “right” to stay silent and watch them walk down that dead-end of a path?

We were selfishly interfering with history in order to defeat the Aoandon and protect Japan’s future, so I could not afford to change anyone else’s history. But who had decided that was the “right” thing to do?

I didn’t know what was “right”.

Most likely, no one knew.

But.

But!!

“Hyakki Yakou believes in blood. My generation will eventually come to an end and the child in my wife’s belly will take over.”

Majina seemed to be staring into the distance as he spoke.

He seemed to believe he would be able to hand the baton over to Hafuri once she was fully grown.

“So I want to search out all the distortions and problems in Hyakki Yakou before that happens. I don’t want it to be some bloody organization. I want to be able to hand down a warm organization that can coexist with the paranormal without needing to bind it using fear and violence.”

This was not a name on a document.

Nor was it someone from the past who had already died, been burned to ashes, and been buried below a gravestone.

Once I looked at it that way, I couldn’t resist.

I forced out the voice that I was unsure he could even hear.

“In that case..you can’t keep doing things the way you are.”

“?”

“In the world I know, the name Majina is nowhere to be found. The leader of Hyakki Yakou is a girl of about ten named Hafuri.”

“..I see.”

He displayed no obvious killer intent, but neither did he seem frightened or confused.

This young man named Majina simply gave a sad smile.

A single word I spoke must have told him I wasn’t joking.

The name “Hafuri” had to only exist in his head at this point.

Hishigami Shikimi spoke fiercely down from the tree.

“See? Didn’t we tell you there was an assassination plot in the works?”

“Honestly, when you take naivety this far, it almost becomes an art form. It took a visitor from the future before you actually accepted your death is coming.”

“..”

Even as the other two spoke noisily around him, Majina remained silent for a while.

Even if they were hostile to him and even if they were clearly after his life, he may still have seen the people plotting against him as being “one of his own”.

Finally, he spoke as if to shake it all off.

“Thank you.”

I had no idea how to respond.

I couldn’t even decide if I had really done the “right” thing or not.

“But you didn’t come all this way just to tell me that, did you? Why did you come here?”

Most likely, this prophecy of the fall of Hyakki Yakou’s leaders was beyond unexpected for them, but Majina, Ohatsu, and Hishigami Shikimi did not seem particularly shaken. Neither did the Aburatori.

Did that mean they really were a single group and none of them was deceiving any of the others?

And..

“..?”

“What is it?”

As I looked around in confusion, Majina spoke to me in a puzzled voice.

I could not touch or use things, so I couldn’t use a cellphone. It was very inconvenient.

And so I didn’t know what time it was.

I thought a fair amount of time had passed since I had arrived here. Nagisa would return home for lunch and Shinobu would head out at the same time, but what had happened today? Had he not visited this place for once?

Things were leaving the normal routine.

Even if it was a minor difference, it still filled my chest with unease.

Yes.

I had only one point of view and I couldn’t rewind.

Had I missed some decisive moment?

“Sorry.”

“?”

“Sorry! I have to go check on something!! We can talk more later! Bye!”

My impatience grew to worry, my worry grew to fear, and my fear grew to panic.

Did I even have a body here? Did I really need to move my legs? I didn’t know, but I still ran as fast as my legs would carry me.

I didn’t see Shinobu on the way back, so I ran straight back to the thatch-roof house.

As soon as I approached, a ripple-like omen reached me.

A few Youkai were gathered in the large yard and chatting.

One was a Hitotsume-Kozou, one was a Dorotabou, and one was a Yagyou-san.

“Mh. There seems to be a commotion inside.”

“I wonder where Shinobu-chan went..”

“Hmm. I was hoping to beg for some lunch, but it looks like today might not be the best day.”

It grew and grew and grew.

The pressure inside me grew past the limit. To reduce the overwhelmingly bad feeling as much as possible, I tried to gather as much information as I could. I didn’t bother opening the front door. I stuck my head right through.

Inside, my pale-faced mom was speaking into the house’s cordless phone receiver.

The growing pressure inside me burst.

“Yes, yes, yes! As I already told you, we’ve been receiving threatening letters for a while now. Yes, and today we received a photograph of Shinobu sent from an unknown address. It asked for a bottle of Jinnai Amaterasu Dedication sake to be sent through a specified method. ..What are we supposed to do? We..ahhh!!”

........................................................................................................................I screwed up.

That was what I honestly thought.

I had misread the heart of the entire incident. It hadn’t had anything to do with the Zashiki Warashi, the Jinnai house, the Aburatori, or Hyakki Yakou. And I had definitely seen hints of it.

The Jinnai Brewery made Japan’s..no, the world’s highest quality Japanese sake that large criminal organizations needed for their ceremonies. And I knew they were willing to kidnap family members to get it.

They had kidnapped Shinobu.

And hadn’t the attacker the day before said he had meant to target Shinobu but had shifted to Hayabusa because of all the Youkai? Shinobu had been a target from the beginning.

But I couldn’t make a mistake here. I was here to see the truth of the “Aburatori Incident”. That meant anything else was only the trigger.

And a trigger like this did make some sense.

At the very least, the Aburatori was not someone who randomly hurt people. I didn’t know what caused it to fail, but he was still stable at this point. It hadn’t seemed right to think of him as the villain here.

But what if this trigger were pulled?

The Aburatori had even asked those experts to kill him if the alternative was him killing another child, what if he learned that the child he had tried to protect at the cost of his own life had just been kidnapped? He held the cruelest killing techniques in his hands, so what if he thought to use them to their fullest to counterattack and rescue Shinobu?

He would do it.

It did not matter if it meant the failure of the Kaeshigami that had required the miraculous combination of resisting for nearly nine years and gaining the cooperation of Hyakki Yakou.

It did not matter if that could lead to a hopeless future in which he was eliminated by Hyakki Yakou as the most dangerous of deadly Youkai.

He had been prepared to give up his life in the first place.

He had no reason to hesitate here.

“..What?”

But..

But that meant..!!

“No one was deceiving anyone. Nothing failed. Was he..was the Aburatori really just a normal Youkai who wanted to rid himself of his murderous trait!?”

I didn’t know what was “right”, but I couldn’t just throw away any chance we might have by letting things continue like this.

I turned right around and ran out of the thatch-roof house.

The Youkai hiding on the farm road, in the dry paddy fields, and in the waterways were whispering to each other.

“I am a Nurikabe. Has anyone seen Shinobu-chan?”

“He was kidnapped. The human world is so scary. Even us Tengu have stopped spiriting people away.”

“Those damn villains. If I only knew where they were hiding, I’d give them a taste of the hammer of justice.”

If they were talking about it, the information had to have spread quite a bit. It was only a matter of time before it reached the Aburatori in the mountains.

When I ran to that elevated clearing, I found someone unexpected there: Nagisa with her large St. Bernard.

She was shouting more at the Aburatori who stood in front of the rotting cabin than she was at Majina or Hishigami Shikimi.

“P-please save Shinobu-chan!! We need your help!!”

“..”

She handed him a photo of young Shinobu that had likely been printed on a home printer.

“Even my dog’s nose can’t find him. I asked the other Youkai, but they said they don’t know where he is! S-so you’re the only one left. I don’t care who; I just want as many people searching for Shinobu-chan as I can get! So you help too! To save Shinobu-chan!!”

“..”

“I-I know an Aburatori is a scary Youkai. I know you mix up everything in our stomachs and eat it..”

Nagisa lay down on the underbrush covering the ground and spread her arms.

She squeezed her eyes shut and continued shouting.

“But then..you can eat everything in my stomach! I’ll do anything if you’ll help us save Shinobu-chan! So please save him!!”

Her argument didn’t really make sense.

There was no guarantee that Shinobu could be saved with the Aburatori’s help and you could hardly expect a Youkai that eats kid’s organs to keep his promise after giving him your own organs.

But this must have been the conclusion that her childish mind reached through a variety of strange connections.

He was a symbol of madness and death.

He stood in the place closest to vivid reds and blacks.

He stood at the entrance to all of the world’s darkness.

That may have been what the Aburatori looked like to Nagisa. She may have thought anyone who had fallen into the darkness had to obey the will of this gatekeeper, so she may have thought he would save Shinobu’s life from that dark abyss if she gave her own life to this Youkai.

“I see..”

This worst of the deadly Youkai picked up on that.

Rather than focusing on the actions themselves, he understood the human feelings that led to those actions.

“Then I will take one thing from your body.”

I thought I heard a trigger being pulled.

“I only need to take your tears. You must promise me that you will stop crying if I bring this Shinobu back.”

I felt like everything had returned to the proper rails.

This seemed to be snowballing toward the worst possible ending. Everything they had built up was coming tumbling down and failing. I knew that, but I still felt like this was “right”.

Or to put it more simply, I thought he looked cool.

“Can you promise me that?”

“Eh? Um..yes. But is that all you want? I mean..”

“I could not ask for anything more.”

I heard the sound of scraping metal.

The next thing I knew, he had a few dozen skewers spread out in his hands like fans.

“Thank you. I may not have been able to bring this to its conclusion, but I do appreciate the help you gave.”

Ohatsu the Sunekosuri (female) let out a heavy sigh.

“..Are you really going?”

“I have no real reason not to.”

It was a short answer and this time Hishigami Shikimi, the giant flower in the tree, laughed and spoke.

“Oh? Even though it means wasting your efforts of the past nine years? No matter the reason, the seal will be easily broken once you recall the flavor of killing.”

“An optimum answer that requires letting a six-year-old boy die scares me even more. I can only call that properly insane.”

Again, it was a short answer.

Finally, Hyakki Yakou Leader Majina spoke.

“I might not look it, but I am fairly upset about this. I could use Hyakki Yakou’s power to hunt them down. You do not necessarily have to use your power.”

“You will ‘eventually’ find them and defeat them ‘somewhere’. But will you make it in time for Jinnai Shinobu? I am a monster among monsters. I understand all too well how my fellow child-killers and kidnappers think. The best method of arriving in time is for me to use..no, to recall my skills.”

Majina fell silent.

Finally, he brought a hand to his forehead while leaning against a nearby tree to clear the way for the Youkai. Anguish seeped out from behind his monocle and he tore at his bangs as he forced out a low voice.

“..That’s too bad.”

“Once I recall the taste of blood, I leave the rest to you. The Kaeshigami will completely fail and there will be no other way of saving me. So please use the essence of Hyakki Yakou to kill me. Before I lay my hands on anyone.”

“Aburatori.”

“Also..”

With his face hidden behind his large hat, the Youkai formed a ferocious grin.

He was saying farewell to this world without a single complaint.

“You said you are fairly upset about this. Well, I am downright livid.”

I heard a buzzing sound much like a monitor powering on.

Old charms appeared all over his body. They appeared on his hat, his clothes, and his skin. All of those charms formed some kind of seal, but a bluish-white phosphorescence burned through them and destroyed them. He had broken free of his limiter.

He was at full power once more.

He simply appeared, simply abducted, and simply killed.

He was an empty husk of a legend that lacked the traditions of fear.

When he used his power, he broke through the three-dimensional restrictions and vanished in an instant.

The hunter was finally on the move.

Part 9

Just before the Aburatori vanished, I grabbed his shoulder.

I hadn’t had a real goal in mind. I simply felt like I needed to see all of this for myself.

Thanks to that, I successfully hitched a ride with him.

It may have been similar to teleportation.

First, the Aburatori appeared at a completely normal farm road.

“What would I do? While it is cutting edge, this is essentially an insular village society. Unlike a metropolis, there are no crowds of unfamiliar people walking around. A suspicious person wandering around and searching for someone to abduct would stand out too much. Then what method would they choose? Tire tracks..?”

Next, he appeared at an intersection and looked around.

“Scouting out the terrain, learning the target’s routine, going over the actual method of kidnapping, and a practice run. They would need to stay in the Intellectual Village for quite a while, but I doubt they would use a lodging facility like an inn. So maybe a large vehicle that doubles as transportation and lodging. What vehicle would be able to drive around the village irregularly without rousing suspicions?”

Then he stood in front of a vending machine.

“The Intellectual Village is meant to look remote, so they generally use online shopping. But it wouldn’t be a deliveryman. In rural areas, they only arrive at set times, so a truck driving around irregularly would stand out. ..Then an electronics worker? An internet provider truck that performs maintenance and inspections on fiber-optic and high-speed wireless lines does not have a set route. No one would suspect them if they drove back and forth a lot. This old vending machine has been used a lot. It isn’t often you see one with soba and udon. It would have been a convenient source of food without anyone noticing.

He wasn’t so much a hound as he was a precision guided missile.

As the Aburatori grew ever closer to the answer, I could feel an ominous, heavy, sticky, and deadly aura coming from his entire body.

Something he had worked so hard to build up was being definitively corrupted.

And..

“Found them.”

It had not even taken ten..no, five minutes.

Not even the adults and paranormal Youkai had been able to find this kidnapper. With young Shinobu inside, an electric truck was driving around at irregular intervals to make sure no one suspected it. It was disguised as an ISP truck and the windows to the back were covered in metal plates.

A torrent of murderous intent had been radiating from the Aburatori, but as soon as he located that target, a clear directionality came over it.

That dark emotion became an invisible spear and accurately pierced through the van.

It had likely been over before it even began.

Before the Aburatori actually made his attack, the soldiers of a large criminal organization after the top quality Jinnai sake were bound like a frog being glared at by a snake.

But even so, the Aburatori kicked the van from the side.

The front half of the metal vehicle instantly tore open like a box of candy and shot out into the paddy field.

That violence was so impressive it almost felt refreshing.

The flow of time briefly seemed to stop.

The Aburatori silently glared into the van.

“Wha-..?” said someone in the back seat.

There were three assassins left and one of them had a hand on Shinobu’s shoulder. But before the flow of time could return, the Aburatori’s hands moved in a flash.

A total of over one hundred metal skewers were released from his hands and filled the cramped van. The storm of steel covered every inch of the van except for the space taken up by Shinobu’s small body.

It all happened too quickly for any screams or shouts to tear through the world.

The Aburatori rushed into the van, grabbed Shinobu’s collar, kicked open the van’s back door, and burst out like a shell.

“Wah, wah!?”

Shinobu did not seem nervous as he was lowered onto the farm road. He did not appear to have been crying either, so it was possible he hadn’t even been aware he had been kidnapped.

“Wait here.”

That was all the Aburatori said before approaching the van (Part B) that had finally come to a stop after rolling along.

“U-uuh..”

A single man groaned as he crawled out, but the Aburatori grabbed his collar and lifted him with one arm. He then slammed the man’s back against the ceiling of the van that lay on its side.

“Ubh! Cough, cough!! Gahh!!”

“Lend me your phone. I wish to speak with your boss.”

“Pant, pant. D-do you really think I’ll let you do that?”

“So you will remain loyal to the end? How old-fashioned of you.”

That monster dragged his enemy behind the van where Shinobu could not see and spoke with quiet smile poking out from below his large hat.

“By the way, do you know what it is my skewer is stabbing into? Do you know what this flabby dark red thing is?”

“Ah..ah..ahhh..”

“My specialty is children, but I still wouldn’t recommend upsetting me too much, youngster.”

“Aaaaahhh!? Wh-what..what organ is that!?”

Removing it had not killed him.

So was it his appendix, a kidney, or a piece of the highly regenerative liver?

Whatever the case, seeing it in front of your eyes was probably enough to piss yourself.

“I understand not wanting to lose a finger, but you should look after your insides as well.”

“Ah..ahh..ahhhhh!?”

“Now, let’s try this once more: Lend me your phone. I wish to speak with your boss. ..Surely you aren’t going to be foolish enough to say you don’t know how many organs you hold inside you. If that’s the case, I don’t mind removing them one at a time to educate you.”

“O-okay! Okay!!”

The Aburatori pulled a cellphone from the soldier’s pocket, opened the address book and called one of the numbers there.

His first words were blunt.

“Your men have failed.”

“..”

“Wash your hands of this before the wound grows even worse. I am a Youkai and a deadly one at that. I have no concept of lifespan. ..I am watching you at all times, forever. If you try to take revenge, I will immediately bring twice the damage to you.”

“Did you think you could threaten the Comfort Association just because you don’t die? We eat violence and fear for breakfast. Just like a sushi chef can’t afford to lose to an amateur in cooking skill, we cannot afford to withdraw in our own field of expertise.”

“Is that so? To be honest, I have no interest in the quantity and quality of your paranormal experts. But can you truly trust in the power of someone else in your organization if it is your own child’s life on the line?”

“You..”

“Didn’t I tell you? I am a Youkai and a deadly one at that. If you need a further hint, I am the cruelest of the cruel in the field of kidnapping and child-killing. You can hide your child overseas or on the other side of Mars if y-->>

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