Volume 8, 4: Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi by ???(3/5)
With that in mind, I prepared to close the metal doors, but then I heard something rolling toward me.
“Hm? Hey, wait!!”
The foundation must have sunk at some point because the floor was slanted just a bit. That meant the wheeled bear trap was rolling straight toward me!
For a second, I considered trying to catch it, but I quickly realized that wasn’t possible. That thing was meant to carry two or three hundred kilo bears. It had to be pretty solid and heavy. If it picked up speed it wouldn’t just hit me. It would send me flying!
So I quickly fled to the side.
“Gau!!”
As the Zashiki Warashi held onto the bars inside the cage, I thought I saw her giving me a look of pure spite.
A moment later, the cage fell down the stairs beyond the door.
The crashing sounds continued for a while afterwards.
“Ah...”
Once the sound completely stopped, I peered into that darkness.
These were the blatantly fishy stairs leading underground below the shimenawa. I hadn’t wanted to go down there, so I sounded really annoyed.
“But I guess I have to go down there to collect that idiot...”
Part 7
The stairway was a lot longer than I had thought.
Once I finally reached the bottom, I found the bear trap on its side and the Zashiki Warashi glaring at me with a hint of fear in her eyes.
It was the look of a wild animal that could no longer trust humans after burning itself on a campfire.
“Gau gau!! Grrr!!!”
“Sorry. I’m sorry, Zashiki Warashi. But there’s no way I could have stopped that.”
I apologized and somehow managed to right the toppled cage. Then I looked back the way we had come. Could I really climb those stairs with that cage?
I was worried, but since we were down here, I decided to keep going. It was possible there was another exit.
The underground space was quite large. At the center was a pit twenty meters across and too deep to see the bottom. Quite a few small shacks and bamboo passageways had been built in three dimensions around the pit. The wooden walls were branded with Hyakki Yakou’s emblem. There were plenty of bare lightbulbs, candles, and lanterns, so the space was filled with a dim orange light. The stuffy scent of dirt was mixed with the scent of machine oil. There was a simple reason why.
“A power shovel and a bulldozer? There’s even a tunnel boring machine with attached arms.”
There was a lot of the yellow heavy machinery used for public works projects.
I could tell a lot of effort had gone into making this space, but what was it for?
I pushed the bear trap down the gradually descending pathway that spiraled like a giant spring.
After continuing for a bit, the scenery changed entirely. The buildings and passageways had burned away. There also must have been a cave-in because the bedrock had collapsed in places.
What had happened?
No matter how big this place was, that would still mean a fire in a subterranean space. The smoke and lack of oxygen scared me more than the flames and heat.
“Gau...”
“Hm? What is it, Zashiki Warashi?”
She was acting odd inside the cage.
She was sitting motionless in a corner with her hands on the top of her black-haired head.
Was she afraid of something? I doubted it was just the fire, so what had caused it? I looked over to the fire-blackened pillars, but I couldn’t tell what the small building had been used for originally.
Curious, I brushed my fingers across the burned materials and thought. Suddenly, what looked like a stuffed animal head poked out from behind the corner.
No, it was a small canine Youkai.
“Hm? You’re that Sunekosuri, aren’t you?”
“I never expected to see you here, Jinnai Shinobu! Oh! But this is hardly the time. Hide! You really need to hide!”
“?”
“The zombies will be here soon! Um, oh, that Zashiki Warashi also needs to-...wahh!! She’s a zombie too!?”
The canine Youkai suddenly appeared and nearly pissed himself, so I scooped him up in one hand. It didn’t matter if the zombies found the Zashiki Warashi, so I left the cage there. However, the zombies tracked their prey by smell, so...
“Hey, I’d like to base some stuff on a dog’s sense of smell!”
“Who are you calling a dog!? I am a proper Youkai called a Sunekosu-...ghh!?”
He’s useless!
At any rate, I ran into the remains of the burned-down shack with the Sunekosuri. I lay down on the ground and held my breath.
The smell of charcoal was pretty distinctive, so I could only hope it would hide us from the zombies!
I heard some wet sounds.
They were several pairs of footsteps.
I had no real weapon and I didn’t have Nagisa’s skill to knock them off balance and then sever an arm, leg, or head with a full swing. If we were found, it was all over. We’d be powerlessly overwhelmed and eaten.
I held my breath.
My heart pounded in my head.
I could not sense any warmth in the footsteps I heard. I didn’t sense the atmospheric change felt when you’re on an elevator alone and someone else steps on.
I couldn’t move my head much, but I could see the zombies walking by beyond the burned-down wall.
They were...
“Uncle...?”
I knew it was hardly the time, but I muttered under my breath.
And it wasn’t just the detective in cardigan and slacks.
I also saw Hishigami Enbi in a torn-up Santa Claus themed swimsuit and Hishigami Mai who seemingly couldn’t use her legs since she was dragging herself forward with her arms. I also saw someone in a white kimono with long white hair spreading out from a head that dangled loosely from her neck. I was pretty sure that was the Hishigami Shikimi woman I had seen at some point.
All of them had dry white hair, muddy eyes, and red and purple skin.
What had happened here?
Why were they here in this creepy cave and why had they turned into zombies!? They all had to have been closer to the center of this than me, so how could this have happened!?
I didn’t understand anything anymore.
I didn’t want to believe the scene before my eyes.
“Jinnai-san?”
The Sunekosuri was saying something, but I wasn’t listening.
I got up without thinking. I slowly moved my head toward them. If I could go to them, dispel this strange mirage, and prove this scene was a lie...
As I started to stand up, the small Youkai bit the back of my hand.
“Jinnai Shinobu! Stop this! Are you trying to sacrifice yourself!?”
But...
I can’t let this be real...
“Refusing to face reality will save no one. If you are defeated, what will happen to the Zashiki Warashi you brought with you!?”
“————”
Those words finally focused my mind on reality.
Fortunately, the zombies had yet to notice me, so I got back down as if I had suddenly remembered the situation.
That’s right.
No matter how cruel the world got and no matter how overwhelming the scenes before my eyes, I had been willing to part ways with Nagisa over this.
I couldn’t end this by giving up and leaving the Zashiki Warashi all alone!
I clenched my teeth.
I could only wait for them to pass.
But...
“Gau.”
The shaking of the cage seemed to squeeze at my heart.
You Good-for-Nothing!! Do you have something against me!? You haven’t forgiven me for dropping you down those stairs, have you!? You’re pretty conceited for a zombie!!
My uncle and Hishigami Enbi coldly turned their heads.
Their feet came to a stop.
While lying on the ground, I slowly reached for some of the shockingly light wood used for the shack. It was really only charcoal now, so I was worried it would break in two the instant I hit something with it.
But after listening to the sound of the cage shaking a few more times, the zombies seemed to lose interest. Their wet footsteps slowly moved away without setting foot in the burned-down shack.
I stayed among the black charcoal for a while, letting time pass.
I could feel my heart beating so oddly fast I was sure this was taking years off my life.
“Are they...gone?”
“Looks that way.”
I hesitantly spoke and then got up from the charcoal. I poked my head out and looked around, but my uncle and the others were nowhere to be seen.
“What happened here?”
“I-I don’t know everything either, but I think we should share what information we have.”
Part 8
The Sunekosuri led me to one of the wooden shacks that had been built around seemingly at random. This one bore Hyakki Yakou’s emblem as well. Once I pushed the bear trap inside, I saw a familiar face: the Deadly Dragon Princess.
That was Hishigami Mai’s Shikigami.
She was lying on her back and didn’t seem to have become a zombie, but she didn’t look okay either. Sweat covered her unemotional face and she looked quite pale. It was like she was forcing down some pain.
How had this happened?
The Sunekosuri and I exchanged our stories leading up to this moment.
Despite being such a small Youkai, the Sunekosuri was an official member of Hyakki Yakou, so there were parts a high schooler like me had trouble comprehending. Still, I worked at processing it in my head until I had a decent understanding.
“You’re kidding, right? So Majina and that Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi are involved in this?”
That was my initial reaction.
“They are at the deepest part of this cave. It seems Majina-sama developed the Ver. 40 here and has now moved onto causing this zombie outbreak. It seems to be in order to stop something, but we don’t know what that something is. It’s even possible naming himself the true leader of Hyakki Yakou to usurp the country’s strongest organization is also part of his fight against whatever it is.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is. Creating an allied army to stop an UFO attack is meaningless if that allied army becomes a dictator that brings suffering to everyone. That just gives us two enemies threatening to destroy mankind.”
If Majina’s group had intentionally caused this zombie outbreak, stopping them was the only option.
And that meant something else was important.
“The Kasha and Mikuchi-sama. That’s probably the bottleneck here.”
I had already discussed the Kasha with Nagisa in that house, but we hadn’t known anything about Mikuchi-sama. I was fortunate to get some new information here.
To prevent the spread of disease, the people without relatives who died during a famine were thrown into a large hole in the mountain. That had eventually been broadly interpreted into throwing in the injured, criminals, and the losers of conflicts between political factions. Anyone labeled a criminal was sacrificed. Instead of throwing out the corpses to prevent the spread of disease, they had to continue throwing corpses in to keep disease from coming out.
By adding in the Kasha’s trait to move the corpses of criminals when it approached, it did sound like you could build up the basis for this zombie outbreak. But that made it sound like dying or being fatally injured in Bozen City was the trigger to become a zombie, not being bitten by a zombie.
No...
“This isn’t limited to just Bozen City, is it?”
“No. Several cities in five regions are experiencing a similar zombie outbreak. The police, firefighters, and JSDF are trying to seal them off, but if the number of zombies grows high enough, it will reach the saturation point and they will spread across Japan.”
“And you said with each generation, the zombies retain more of their rational mind. Eventually, they won’t even be aware they’re zombies.”
That “generation” became a little unclear for the people who became a zombie after dying from something other than a zombie.
“Majina-sama’s goal is to strengthen the entire Japanese population. He seems to want to increase their physical strength as much as possible while leaving them their rational minds.”
How could I believe something like that?
There had to be more to it. Maybe he was using the Kasha Package to manage the zombies’ minds and he had a breaker that let him turn someone back into a corpse if he didn’t like them.
And even if you kept your mind, a zombie was still a zombie. No one would want to end up like that. That’s the entire reason he had to attack all of Japan at once like this. He had known from the beginning that no one would agree to it if he simply suggested the idea.
“A-anyway, it all started here in Bozen City. The other cities are probably connected by some kind of network. If we destroy the Package’s core here, it should resolve all of the zombie outbreaks.”
Yes.
This was what I most wanted to ask about.
“What does it meant to resolve it? Does it mean no more zombies will be made? Does it mean the zombies turn back into people? Or does it mean they’ll turn back into corpses? ‘Resolving’ this could mean a lot of different things.”
“...”
The Sunekosuri silently shook his head.
Well, it wasn’t like the great Hyakki Yakou knew everything. It was possible not even Majina himself knew since he wouldn’t have planned for it being stopped.
However, ignoring this would be a bad idea.
Majina’s group had been spotted here in Mikuchi-sama. Given the scale of the facility, this had to be the center of it all. We needed to figure out the Kasha Package prepared here. The best plan from there would be to apply that knowledge in some way to save the Zashiki Warashi and the other zombies.
“But a Kasha, huh?”
That seemed like more of a minor Youkai than the Yuki Onna or Zashiki Warashi.
“That Youkai is said to be a cat Youkai enveloped in flames or an Oni chariot that carries criminals’ souls down to the depths of hell. The legends change age to age, though.”
“Majina is skilled enough to remake the Sunekosuri named Ohatsu into pure darkness that he can use for offense or defense. If he can freely use the Kasha, he might be able to switch between the different Kasha legends like shifting gears in a car.”
The Sunekosuri twitched a bit at my mention of “Ohatsu”.
...?
They were the same kind of Youkai, so there may have been a connection there.
“The hell’s chariot that takes criminals’ souls away is the version from an older age while the cat Youkai that steals and moves corpses is the version from a newer age. Given the zombie outbreak, this might be focused more on the newer version of the Kasha.”
“Um, in that case... Doesn’t it appear at the funeral or graveyard, create a powerful wind to blow open the coffin lid, and steal the criminal’s corpse?”
“The part about stealing the corpse must have been fulfilled by linking it to the Mikuchi-sama legend. That’s probably our best bet at attacking this.”
“?”
“Majina needs to be able to control the zombie outbreak. It’s just like having a way to keep yourself from being infected by your own malware or from having your own counterfeit money in your wallet. In that case, there’s one thing we don’t know: how is Majina controlling the Kasha?”
“Come to think of it, we have a few ideas about how the zombies were spread, but there’s a lot we don’t know about how they’re controlled. Majina-sama is powerful, so maybe he just plans to defeat any zombies that come his way.”
“Even though his supposed objective is to strengthen the Japanese population? What good is killing the soldiers he himself strengthened? There’s more to this. But is there some kind of symbol that restrains a Kasha? Y’know, like how a Nurikabe vanishes when you sweep the ground with a broom, how a Yuki Onna melts in a hot bath, or how the house transformed by a tanuki Youkai reveals its true form when cigarette ashes fall on it.”
What was it?
It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t seem to verbalize it.
And then...
“...of Protection.”
The Deadly Dragon Princess spoke up from the floor.
“The Sword of Protection. By placing a blade next to the corpse, the later legends say the Kasha will run away without stealing it. In some regions, a Sword of Protection is placed in the coffin during the funeral or burial.”
“That’s it.”
I snapped my fingers.
Those words caused a symbol to link together the legends and scenes in my mind. I wasn’t a strange fortune-teller or onmyouji, so I couldn’t be certain about the occult. Still, I was pretty sure I was headed in the right direction.
“It was Mikuchi-sama.”
“What?”
“That’s what’s trapping the Kasha. It’s a giant hole twenty meters across and who knows how deep. Hey, Sunekosuri, what do you think this symbolizes?”
“Um, the gates of hell? The Kasha is also called hell’s chariot.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong. The Youkai might be at the deepest part.”
But...
“But at the same time, I’m betting it was intentionally also made a symbol of a coffin. We think of them as long rectangular boxes today, but that came from the West. During the Edo period, weren’t coffins round buckets?”
“Ah!”
“And Mikuchi-sama isn’t just a big hole. It’s closely linked to death with all the people that were thrown into it over centuries. Corpses have been piling up at the bottom of the coffin. If the Kasha causes the corpses to move by approaching them, the first step would have to be diving into the coffin itself. Yes, what would work better to lure in a Kasha?”
“But...”
The Deadly Dragon Princess moved her head a little on the ground.
She looked my way.
“Where is the Sword of Protection?”
“Normally, it’s placed next to the body ‘ahead of time’ to keep the Kasha from showing up,” I answered. “But what if it was placed on top of the giant coffin like a lid once the Kasha went inside? The Kasha would lose its only exit, so wouldn’t it be stuck at the bottom of the coffin?”
Yes.
I was pretty sure I had seen the Sword of Protection already. When it came to swords and blades, there was only one option based on what I had seen after entering Mikuchi-sama.
But what next?
The Kasha was trapped in the center of the mountain, but how were they letting its power leak out? And this wasn’t complete chaos. They were “aiming” the Youkai’s power at thirteen cities in five regions so the zombies would spread evenly across Japan.
“Wait.”
“?”
“Sunekosuri. You said the zombie outbreak is happening in thirteen cities at once, right? Do you know the exact names?”
“Y-yes. Based on the briefing I received ahead of time, it’s Bonuta City, Sange City, Mukaehi City...”
“Shourou City and Kumotsu City are on the list too, aren’t they?”
“H-how did you know that?”
“When escaping in the dump truck with Nagisa and the others, I saw a burning banner. It was talking about a winter festival held in other cities around the country. That speeds this up. The zombie outbreak is occurring in the thirteen cities working with Bozen City, but what kind of energy line is connecting Mikuchi-sama to them?”
I thought for a bit and came up with a theory, even if it was a little forced.
“What about geothermal power? There’s apparently a geothermal power station a bit away from Bozen City’s mountain road. I met some of the workers. They said something about smart power. That means they’re monitoring the power production and consumption over the internet and can send the power to the optimal locations at the optimal times. Most likely, all the cities are linked by power stations or substations like that.”
“Over the internet? But aren’t the phone lines and other means of communication cut off?”
“But the power is still on. That means the smart power would be too. Maybe they have their own dedicated line or maybe their information is prioritized during this kind of chaos. Y’know, like how the police and firefighters can use their cellphones even during a disaster.”
The Kasha was hiding inside the volcano, the heat energy was transformed into steam, the steam turned the turbines to create electricity, and that was carried to other cities based on the data from the internet.
I didn’t know how effective that really was. It might have just been an empty show of being economical to get more funding from the country and the government.
But that wouldn’t matter to Majina and the Ver. 40.
Anything was fine as long as they had a line between the Kasha’s power at the depths of the volcano and the rest of the country.
“That would be why the zombie outbreak spread by city. The people who died in the areas managed by the smart power were the ones turned into zombies by the Kasha and Mikuchi-sama.”
The exact numbers and equations might be different, but I thought I had the general framework right. If I didn’t, I was out of ideas. If we were to take this any further, we would need to be as smart as the person who had assembled it.
Namely, Majina.
That was the truly skilled man who had ruled the old Hyakki Yakou.
This large-scale zombie outbreak Package was something only he could do.
“Th-then...”
“We can ignore the smart power for now. The Package’s Achilles’ heel has to be the Sword of Protection at the top or the Kasha sealed at the bottom. If we can free the Kasha, the zombie panic in Bozen city and the connected cities will end. Just like removing a toy’s batteries.”
Whichever one we went for, there was something I had to do.
“However we do it, we’re going to be crushing Majina’s grand plan here. I doubt he’ll just sit idly by.”
That old leader of Hyakki Yakou could analyze, break down, and reconstruct any Youkai to the point that he could turn a harmless Sunekosuri into the greatest of disasters.
And the Hyakki Yakou Special-Made Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi named Mei had been thoroughly remade by him to manipulate and create destiny.
Even if I could ignore Hishigami Shikimi since she had apparently become a zombie, there were two monsters left to face.
“Can you really take them both on at once?”
The Sunekosuri gulped and the Deadly Dragon Princess calmly voiced the result of her analysis.
“Not even Hishigami Mai’s strength was enough to ensure their defeat. The ideal was to defeat only the trickier Hishigami Shikimi and send in the Top 5 to force back Majina, the Ver. 40, and Ohatsu.”
“But...”
“Yes. Even that ideal was wishful thinking on the current Hyakki Yakou’s part. In other words, if it did not work, they were out of ideas.”
The Top 5 were all monsters on the same level as the Illness Magic User. We were up against something that even all five of them might not have been able to defeat.
What could a simple high school boy do?
The only help I had was a harmless Sunekosuri, the more than half-dead Deadly Dragon Princess, and the zombie Zashiki Warashi that I could only control with the cellphone and smartphone. To be blunt, they weren’t going to be any help. I was the only one that could actually stand in harm’s way here.
And if anything was going to give me a fighting chance there...
“Majina won’t be worried about a simple high school boy, right?”
“So you think you can get him to lower his guard? You think Majina-sama will do that!? Don’t be ridiculous. He has made countless sacrifices to evenly spread this zombie outbreak to everyone in Japan without questioning the morality of it all. If it was necessary to fulfill his plan, he would use his full power to kill a baby. I doubt that would work on him!”
“The difference in strength here is massive. Hyakki Yakou literally refers to a hundred Oni marching through the night, but he truly has surpassed that name. Even if he did let his guard down, less than 1% of his power would still smash my body to pieces. Whether he’s taking it seriously or not probably doesn’t really matter with him.”
I knew that.
I knew all that.
After all, he was the leader of the old Hyakki Yakou. Until the assassination, he had ruled over Japan’s strongest occult organization. And because I changed history, he had faked his death instead of dying and he had the skill to hide his survival from the current Hyakki Yakou for a full decade. He was a great mountain of an enemy that made me not understand even the things that I thought I understood.
The giant pit had countless excavation tools and shacks with everything from shovels and pickaxes to a tunnel boring machine and explosives, but I doubted any one of them would put a single scratch on Majina as he smiled cheerfully in the depths.
No normal attempt would win this for me.
If I relied on childish tricks, he would pierce me through the stomach with a smile on his face.
There was nothing I could do. It was a dead end. No matter what car you chose, if you floored it toward a thick concrete wall, your car would be the one that was destroyed.
“But that’s fine.”
“?”
The Sunekosuri tilted his head and I looked them in the eye again.
“We need to defeat Majina if we’re going to do something about the Kasha Package. Can you give me a hand, Sunekosuri?”
“Y-yes. With Ohatsu down there and with everything else going on, I must bring an end to Majina-sama’s evil deeds.”
“Deadly Dragon Princess. I know this is asking a lot given your state, but can you help me out?”
“Yes. Hishigami Mai did not ask for my help in her final moment. I believe that was to preserve me for a future opportunity.”
“And Zashiki Warashi, I’ll need something from you too.”
She didn’t reply.
I only heard the shaking of the bars.
Now, then.
“Let’s get started. We only have one chance at this. This is a pretty reckless plan, but hear me out.”
Part 9
Everything was ready.
This was going to be the final battle.
And not long before that clash, I had selfishly asked to be left alone with the Zashiki Warashi. The zombie outbreak was ongoing in Bozen City and the other cities, so each extra minute or second could mean the loss of another life. In that way, taking my time like this might seem profane, but this was something I had to do.
“Hey, Zashiki Warashi.”
While sitting on the ground with my back against the wall of a shack, I looked over to the bear trap. The zombie Zashiki Warashi may not have been able to recognize me because she had been grabbing at the metal bars and even gnawing on them. She would bite me to death the instant I gave her the chance.
There was no sign -->>