Volume 8, Chapter 3: Entrance to the Gaping Abyss that Looks Up toward Heaven by Hishigami Mai

Part 1

A V-shaped flying wing owned by Hyakki Yakou flew three thousand meters above Bozen City.

“Hmm?”

I twisted my hips and gently spun my arms to see how I was doing.

Yeah, it tugs at the skin a little.

I was wearing a Yozakura Ver. 3 made by Hishigami Biochemical Industries, with some of my own custom modifications made. There are nursing suits woven with flexible tape meant to extend one’s back muscles, right? This used the same tech, but it covered me from shoulders to groin with a skintight material much like bike shorts. It also had collar and apron-like parts attached to make it look kunoichi-esque. It was mostly black and beige, but it also had some purple flower petals for decoration. It also partially covered my elbows and knees. ...Oh, and as a matter of taste rather than practicality, I had torn off the sickening Hishigami crest over my right breast.

It provided no defense and was even more excessively decorative than bikini armor.

But in my case, it was highly effective. After all, I had modified the human body below it, so I didn’t need a solid defense that could deflect external attacks. I needed some strengthening to prevent me from destroying my own joints when I went all out.

Why had I arranged to have this newly made? There were two major reasons.

First, this job was not about infiltration or spying, so I didn’t have to pretend to be a civilian.

And second...

“If Majina’s group is involved, Hishigami Shikimi will be there.”

Hishigami Shikimi was the founder of the Hishigami line.

That woman had truly lived for more than a thousand years and yet was still active.

Her anti-aging techniques were so effective that her physical body apparently grew younger as the years past.

I had lost to her once and she had easily swept me aside. But unfortunately, this field didn’t allow me to just say no because I was no match for her.

If I didn’t have a method to kill her, I had to find a new method. That was what a professional did.

The small canine Youkai rubbing his cheek against my leg hesitantly spoke up.

“I-is Majina-sama, um, really connected to this incident?”

“Most likely. And even if he isn’t, we still need to break in and resolve it as quickly as possible.”

The people caught in Bozen City’s zombie panic may have been hoping for someone – anyone – to show up and save them. Whether it was the police or the military, they wanted someone to bring an end to the city’s insanity.

But that wouldn’t work and there was a simple reason why.

“After all, the zombie panic may have started in Bozen City, but it has spread to thirteen different cities in five regions. Once it reaches a certain point, they won’t be able to seal the cities off anymore and the panic will cover all of Japan. Hyakki Yakou isn’t stupid. Normally, the Top 5 would have detected this and put together a countermeasure before it progressed this far. Since they were so late, the odds are good someone with a deep knowledge of Hyakki Yakou’s methods planned it out.”

“And Bozen City...is at the center of it all?”

“Everyone was slow to catch on, so the police, the JSDF, and even our field were late to react. The cup of water is already about to overflow. But if we stop things here, it’ll all be over. I’m sure that’s accurate, but it seems too blatant. They’re probably confident they can handle an infiltration by the young lady and her Hyakki Yakou.”

When it came down to pure firepower, the current Hyakki Yakou was the greatest force in the nation.

They had plenty of ways to wipe an entire city from the map and the Top 5 could each sink a continent if they went all out.

But the real problem was Hishigami Shikimi.

Just like me – if not more than me – she was the worst of the Hishigami Women.

Her raison d'être was to destroy stable organizations and societal systems, so Hyakki Yakou would be the ultimate bait.

If she was caught in a giant explosion, she would undoubtedly fake her death and make a comeback.

Sending in the Top 5 with their ridiculous firepower would let her manipulate them and lead them toward self-destruction.

Not to mention that Hyakki Yakou was caught between father and daughter at the moment. They didn’t know which one to follow, so they would definitely collapse if they tried a traditional attack.

And if I could figure that out, then Hishigami Shikimi’s mind had to be filled with far, farrrr more gruesome methods.

“Why would Majina-sama do this? What is he thinking?”

“Who knows. He hid in the shadows of history for a decade, let those idiots live while thinking they’d assassinated him, and couldn’t even take revenge for the attempt on his wife’s life. Who knows how much that boiled his heart. He said something about taking Hyakki Yakou from the young lady, but what does that have to do with this zombie panic? I’m not even sure why he started wanting Hyakki Yakou again after all this time. But...”

“But?”

“I’m not some middle school girl fidgeting in unrequited love. If I want to know how he feels, I just have to find him and ask him.”

I made it sound simple.

I had to do the same thing no matter who my enemy was. If I started thinking about some special way of dealing with that special enemy, I had already been swallowed up by them. Never wavering no matter what was one form of strength.

“First, I’ll defeat Hishigami Shikimi as a fellow Hishigami Woman.” My voice was nearly singing. “We can send in the Top 5 once that tricky woman has been defeated. After that, normal firepower can do the talking. We’ll have better odds of pushing Majina’s group back with pure numbers too.”

That said, the Hyakki Yakou Special-Made Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi that had appeared at the end was a complete unknown.

“Th-then you know where Majina-sama’s group is hiding?”

“Mt. Boseki, one of the mountains bordering Bozen City. More specifically, in the network of tunnels filling that dormant volcano like a labyrinth. Aka Mikuchi-sama.”

My preparations were complete.

To make our final greeting, the Sunekosuri and I walked through the traditional Japanese-style interior of the plane to meet the young lady who led Hyakki Yakou.

The scent of incense filled the room where a small girl in thick mourning clothes sat. A canine Youkai even smaller than the Sunekosuri (only about five centimeters) sat across from her.

Or rather, it was chowing down on a small plate of chicken.

“So good!! I can’t get enough of your chicken, Hafuri-sama! Munch, munch!!”

“Heh heh. The chicken isn’t going to run away. And there’s plenty more, so slow down and savor it.”

The Sunekosuri’s fur bristled at the sight.

“Waaahh!! G-Gisuke!? How can you be so rude in front of Hafuri-sama!?”

“Oh, dad. Hafuri-sama is an expert cook! Munch, munch! You’ll understand if you try some! I set some aside for you here! Munch, munch!!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. ...And I’m so sorry, Hafuri-sama! I’ll have him move elsewhere, so please forgive him!!”

“I don’t mind. I enjoy it more when he can relax.”

“Oh, Hafuri-sama, I want to rub up against you now!”

“Yes, yes. Let me move my legs over. Come here, Gisuke.”

Hmm.

She may have disliked the way all of her bodyguards would pat her head. She seemed to be letting off some steam no that she had found someone she could act like an older sister to.

Hmm! She’s so damn cute!! If I had the time, I’d pat her head like crazy!!!! (←Vicious circle)

The room may have seemed extremely calming, but there was actually something horribly off about it.

There was a two meter or more family crest of pure gold directly behind the young lady. Normally, it would have been worth hundreds of millions of yen.

But it had been sliced in two by a sword.

Hyakki Yakou believed in blood. Majina was the pure-blooded father and Hafuri was the half-blooded daughter. If the two came into conflict, it was obvious who most of the organization would side with.

Or it should have been.

But the young lady had changed things. She had raised the paranormal sword prepared by one of the Top 5 and she had sliced that symbol of Hyakki Yakou in front of everyone.

“Not even I was aware of my mixed blood. I had no intention of hiding it.”

With those words, she had turned the unbelievably sharp blade around, grabbed the tip, and held the hilt out towards the others.

The slightest of tugs on the blade and she would have lost all of her fingers.

“If anyone does not wish to continue serving someone of impure blood, then slice me in half and store me in your household shrine. Just like this family crest. If that will maintain order in this small field and if it will prevent any further conflict with Majina’s group, then I do not mind in the slightest.”

If she had simply held up her blood or family name, she would not have been able to restrain the chaos. Hyakki Yakou would have broken apart and descended into chaos just as Majina had wanted.

But that had not happened.

It may have been that the battle with the Aoandon had given her the edge she needed to not simply rely on others.

So the symbol worn by everyone here was now incomplete, like the crescent moon.

They had sworn to bear the complete family crest only once Majina’s group had been fully defeated.

That said, it wasn’t a perfect resolution. The many followers of the giant organization were watching carefully. If the young lady made any kind of mistake and failed to achieve results, she would be deemed unfit to lead and they would all join Majina. They would shift that way like a great avalanche.

That meant she needed to brace herself now.

“I see you’re ready to go.”

“More or less.”

My target was the great hole known as Mikuchi-sama in the depths of Bozen City’s Mt. Boseki. Breaking through the zombie-ridden city and making my way to the mountain would have been difficult, but as I’d said, we were on the flying wing.

Why bother with all that other stuff when I could strap on a parachute and jump straight down to the great hole on the mountain peak?

It was apparently located near an unnatural dog square.

“Allow me to go back over our objective. We are hiring you to resolve the issue in Bozen City that has caused the zombie panic spreading to other regions as well. We also wish to eliminate Majina’s group that we expect is closely related to all this. You will be the first wave and your top priority should be defeating Hishigami Shikimi.”

“Sure thing.”

“Majina claims to be the true leader of Hyakki Yakou and he intends to hijack the organization we have built. What that has to do with this zombie panic is still a mystery, but if this situation continues, it will do catastrophic damage to the nation of Japan. Please resolve this quickly, before that can happen.”

“I’ll do anything if you’re willing to pay for it.”

The parachute down was of course a one-way ticket. If I screwed up, they wouldn’t be retrieving me. The mountain was surrounded by zombies and there were no blind spots in any direction. In fact, if the number of zombies continued growing at an accelerated rate, they would cover the entirety of Japan, so “running away” quickly lost all meaning.

Even so, I left the young lady’s room and walked to the cargo room with its decompression equipment.

It wasn’t that I was filled with righteousness or revenge.

It was simply that I risked my life on my jobs more often than not.

The zombie panic may have looked like the end of the world to some, but it only looked a little more exciting than a normal day for me.

“...”

The Sunekosuri had fallen silent at my feet, but he wasn’t simply afraid of the zombies down below.

“What is it? Thinking of your estranged wife?”

“I had always assumed Ohatsu had been dragged into the darkness of this small field. That’s why I charged head-first into it in order to find her when she suddenly disappeared,” intermittently explained the Sunekosuri. “But she herself was a great darkness. She worked with Majina-sama, became the deepest portion of Hyakki Yakou, and now had a hand in this evil! My goal is no longer to rescue my wife. Even if it means sacrificing myself!!”

“Oryah.”

I stepped lightly on the stuffed animal Youkai and he gave a cute “bgyuh!!” cry just as he put on a serious expression.

Yes, yes. That’s the Sunekosuri I know.

“You’re a harmless Youkai, so stop trying to act like the grim reaper. Making people pay for their crimes is the young lady’s job. We’re just her arms and legs, so we don’t need to worry about it.”

“But she is my family!! That means I have to take responsibility!!”

“Do you put your personal feelings ahead of your work? The young lady hired me to swiftly end this zombie panic. To be blunt, I’m not about to bring along someone dulled by personal feelings. It’ll get in the way of our work.”

“...”

“And on the other hand, how about I use personal feelings to motivate you? Why do you think your son Gisuke-chan has been hanging around the young lady so much?”

“Hm? Because Hafuri-sama is showing unwarranted kindness by looking after him?”

“No. Because he’s stopping by every day, begging her to save his mom.”

The young lady would have to face her own parents too. If only she would be so cutely honest, I might feel a little more motivated. Was she insistent on wearing those depressing mourning clothes because she was stubbornly insisting that the mourning period was not over until the ghosts had vanished? Then again, it was also cute how she was desperately trying to hold all that in.

Now.

It wasn’t my job to transform that “kind noise” into power. I always dealt with the dirty jobs. I had to dryly, digitally, and assuredly resolve this problem.

Part 2

It was already pitch black outside.

The pure white snow covering the ground made it difficult to tell how far away it was.

Plus, the geothermal power plant on the slope stood out far more than the winding road or the mountain peak. It was small, so it may have been an experiment in the environmental energy and smart power systems that were all the rage lately. I could feel my eyes being drawn to it which would probably make me miss my target.

Breaking your legs right off the bat was about as stupid as it could get, but it was a pretty common problem on battlefields. I carefully landed on the snow with the Sunekosuri in my arms.

The Yozakura strengthened my joints, but it provided no defense against the cold. If not for my bodily modifications, the cold would have been unbearable.

Bozen City apparently followed an old tradition of height equaling social status, but that made the peak a strange place for this strange dog square.

I cut away the parachute, lowered the Sunekosuri to my feet, and asked a question.

“Now then, Sunekosuri. Based on Hyakki Yakou’s analysis of a few zombies, this zombie panic has a lot to do with a Youkai known as the Kasha. So what is a Kasha?”

“Um, isn’t it a cat Youkai surrounded by fire? I think it creates a gust of wind that blows open a coffin and steals sinners’ corpses from the funeral or grave to eat their organs or something.”

“Yes, that’s one legend, but that one only started in the Edo period. In the oldest legends, it’s a burning chariot in Buddhism. It’s said to be a type of Oni that carries the dead down to the depths of the earth.”

“Huh? But I kind of think there were other legends too.”

“Well, the Kasha has gotten mixed together with the Bakeneko as time has passed. Some stories say corpses begin to move when the Kasha approaches, but you can think of that as a mixture with the Bakeneko’s stories. The trait is still just as effective, though.”

Now, which image of the Kasha was Majina using? He had apparently rearranged a Sunekosuri named Ohatsu into an “original darkness” and used her for both offense and defense, so he could easily use the image from any era. He could probably swap out the Youkai’s powers and traits by the era as easily as switching a bicycle’s gears.

“Does that mean the zombie panic comes from the sinner’s corpses?”

“Well, there are a few different theories as to how the Kasha steals the corpses. Sometimes the Youkai directly carries them away and sometimes the corpses move on their own when it approaches.”

“The latter sounds exactly like a zombie.”

“But there weren’t any legends about it spreading from corpse to corpse.”

“Then did he change something there?”

“Also, the Kasha doesn’t control just any corpse. It has to be a sinner’s corpse. ...But what is a sin? This is focused on Bozen City, Mt. Boseki, and Mikuchi-sama, so that question has to be related to the rules here. I want to investigate that.”

“What do you need for that?”

“The dog square at the peak. Those buildings seem to be guarding the Mikuchi-sama pit, so they smell fishy to me.”

The wind seemed to cut through the dark night as we trudged through the still snow, crossed the broken fence, and approached the small cluster of one-story buildings.

I saw no sign of human guards, sensors, or traps.

I smashed the lock, walked in, and found a large empty space. There was no heater or lights. I thought for a bit before turning on a penlight and looking around.

“Was this a stable?”

“Most likely.”

The inside was clean. There were no dog droppings or even any shed fur. It didn’t even smell of animals. It was simply a large concrete structure with rows of chains and latches meant for holding animals.

The Sunekosuri followed the path of the penlight and read off the name plates above the cells.

“Jirou, Hanako, Honoka, Hitomi, Taichi... Hmm, they sound more like cow names than dog names.”

“I know.”

I lowered the penlight to the floor where I found some glittering silver metal.

“But I doubt they would put handcuffs on a cow.”

At first, the Sunekosuri did not move in the slightest.

Finally, he started to tremble and then looked around again.

“Wait...please wait! Then...you mean...this place was holding...”

“Yup.”

“Humans!? All of those nameplates were for humans!?”

Now, then.

Where had they gotten those humans from?

Part 3

historical

The entire dog square facility was deserted.

I checked inside the residence for workers, but it was covered in dust and clearly didn’t have anyone living in it. However, I did find a few interesting documents inside the rooms that had lost their owner’s scent.

“Looks like this was officially a shrine, not a dog square. The workers were viewed as Shinto priests. The place was registered as a religious organization and even received grant money every year.”

“A shrine? What kind of god did they worship?”

“Mikuchi-sama, of course.”

I tapped at the bundle of old Japanese paper.

“This mountain is actually a dormant volcano and there’s a huge pit below the peak. Long ago, there was a famine and the city at the base was littered with corpses, but they apparently managed to prevent the spread of disease by throwing the corpses into the hole.”

“And they eventually started worshiping the hole as a god?”

“It’s a little unclear whether the hole itself is the god or if they’re worshiping the dead they threw in so they wouldn’t hold a grudge. But things got weird as time passed. They apparently started throwing the badly injured, living criminals, and political enemies into the hole.”

“So anyone who disturbed society, tripped them up, got in the way, or were just too much trouble ended up in that category?”

“They were selfishly referred to as sinners.”

That established a link to the Kasha incident.

The Kasha stole sinners’ corpses or made them move when it got close. That was all it originally did, but Mikuchi-sama rules branded any corpses or injured people as sinners. In other words, if you were critically wounded in a zombie attack, you would be infected with the “sinner” label.

“I still don’t believe it. And what about that stable? If they had a cycle built up to throw the village’s rejects into the hole, they wouldn’t need to capture them and raise them, would they?”

The Sunekosuri did not seem particularly angry. He simply sounded sick of how the human mind came up with these ideas.

However, it may have been a truly strange vision for the four-legged Youkai.

“It’s not that unusual. Sunekosuri, are you familiar with the sacrificial process?”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“There are sacrificial ceremonies all across the world, but they tend to follow a few similar steps.”

I raised my fingers with the penlight hand.

“The original deaths are generally coincidental. Someone collapses during a drought and then it rains, so people start to think there’s a connection between the dead and the rain.”

“...”

“But next time, they try to recreate it. They check to see if killing someone makes it rain. If another coincidence occurs, there’s no stopping it. Once it’s deemed cause and effect, they’ll end up killing people as offerings on a yearly or monthly basis.”

“Are you saying that has something to do with this Mikuchi-sama?”

“This is a sacrifice too. Since they threw the corpses in to prevent the spread of disease, they could think disease will never happen if they keep throwing corpses in. It could even reach the point that they think the hole itself will spew out disease if they stop doing it. That kind of misunderstanding was pretty common in the days before knowledge of germs. Who they throw in can end up expanding because they can’t find any corpses and they have to choose sinners from the living humans instead.”

“Then those people in the stable...”

“Once the sacrificial ceremony is established, the people will think they need a sacrifice, but they won’t want to be chosen themselves. Since they can’t ignore the ceremony, they start viewing the sacrifices as something special. They’ll say the more noble the person, the more the god will be pleased. That way they can push the role onto someone other than themselves. They’ll create a system that raises sacrifices cut off from the normal world. They don’t have to know about them and can smoothly offer up complete strangers without feeling anything for them.”

“Ah.”

“When that desire to not be chosen continues further, they end up making dolls out of paper, wood, wheat, or corn, but it looks like Mikuchi-sama never made it that far. They raised people in the dog square and offered them up when needed. Since it came from a desire to not be chosen, they might have focused on capturing travelers.”

After some more searching, we found something odd in the pet food processing building.

It had a tiled floor, a stainless steel work table, and a bunch of spinning blades in one place (much like a sawmill’s circular saw or band saw) for what may have been a mixer or disposer. It wasn’t exactly pleasant imagining what had been carried by the gears and conveyer belt to be disposed of, but the problem lay beyond it.

Behind a thick metal door, I found a stairway leading into the darkness underground. A thick shimenawa was hung over the top of the entrance and the stench of dirt rose from within.

And to top it all off was the family crest of Hyakki Yakou...no, of the young lady’s bloodline.

It was thirty centimeters across and about eight centimeters thick. It was made of pure gold and hanging from the center of the shimenawa.

“Ohatsu,” muttered the Sunekosuri. “Ohatsu had a hand in something like this while working with Majina-sama?”

“Who can say?”

I neither confirmed nor denied that uncertain fact, but I did speculate based on what I had seen.

“But Majina’s group may not have been running this facility.”

“?”

“There was no human smell in that stable and the residence was covered in a fair bit of dust. The magazines and calendars sitting around didn’t have dates more recent than about ten years ago. Now, what happened then?”

“Jinnai Shinobu interfered with Majina-sama’s group in the past?”

“I don’t know if it was for the Kasha, to use Mikuchi-sama, or just because they wanted a hideout. It’s true they set their sights on this place, but based on the old dates, there’s a possibility they took over the dog square and drove out the original owners.”

“B-but you’re just guessing, right?”

“Then how about an interesting piece of information to back that up? Sunekosuri, based on the documents, this place was managed by someone named Sudou Taichi. Does that sound familiar?”

“?”

“I’m pretty sure one of the nameplates in the stable said Taichi.”

Someone had pretended to be a Shinto priest while abducting people and raising them like animals. What kind of revenge had the head of Japan’s greatest occult organization taken on them?

People on the underside of society loved that kind of thing, so it had probably been quite thorough.

“Th-then Mikuchi-sama was cleaned up once Majina-sama arrived?”

“At the very least, the sacrificial process may have advanced to the era of paper and wheat dolls instead of human sacrifices,” I agreed. “But make no mistake. Advancing the sacrificial process means the ceremony has been refined just as much. And after ten years of that, it led to a zombie panic spreading across Japan. Cleaned up? That’s exactly right. The imperfect threat was perfected into a stable weapon.”

What lay ahead was a darkness much deeper than the dog square.

If this was enough to shock him, then the rest would squeeze at his heart.

Are you ready, Sunekosuri?

We’re about to visit a true hell. If you still wish for salvation, then you can’t just cling to the truth. You need to have the guts to grab your wife’s hand and pull her out of this muddy truth.

Part 4

The wind roared.

The giant pit seemed to continue forever. It was over twenty meters wide and I didn’t want to think about how deep it was. The dirt and stone had been dug into to construct buildings and complex passageways all around the hole. Overall, it looked like a bunch of rundown shacks in a slum with wooden and bamboo scaffolding connecting them like narrow bridges.

They must have had no intention of hiding it because the thousand-year-old Hyakki Yakou emblem was burned into the wood all over.

Mikuchi-sama was filled with orange light. There were bare lightbulbs as well as candles and hanging lanterns. The lanterns used a wick soaked in a plate of oil rather than a candle.

As we descended, we generally circled around the large hole. It felt like walking along a coil or a spring.

“This is where Majina-sama’s group was?”

“You could call it-->>

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