Volume 9, Chapter 4: Be Dyed in ???

Part 1 (Jinnai Shinobu)

Let’s go back over the conditions.

There are apparently two broad categories of Zashiki Warashi.

The normal Zashiki Warashi that preferred to wear a white kimono protected one’s assets and happiness.

The dangerous Zashiki Warashi that preferred to wear a red kimono brought bankruptcy and ruin.

It isn’t actually known whether they are entirely different species or if the clothing they wear changes depending on certain conditions and the timing. When it comes to Zashiki Warashi, there are even theories that they settle down alone and theories that they do so as twins.

Regardless, our Yukari preferred to wear a red yukata.

That meant she was the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi.

Normally, that would only wipe out the family from food poisoning or a fire. It would never destroy a country or the world. I think Majina had said the Jinnai family only lasted more than a century with the Zashiki Warashi with us because of our great fortune and assets. We had earned more than was being taken away. We had handled that misfortune just fine. Our ancestors had been monsters in their own way.

But that would not last forever.

For one thing, Yukari was not just “any old” Zashiki Warashi.

She was the Hyakki Yakou Prototype Ver. 39 Zashiki Warashi.

She was a special Zashiki Warashi that had been given the ability to distort the world’s destiny not just by Hyakki Yakou but by techniques they considered to be lost.

I had no idea why the Hyakki Yakou of the time had wanted to give something as dreadful as the Ver. 39 to Yukari who had been “red” from the beginning. She may have been the only sample they had to work with and they may have wanted to use the power of destiny for military purposes by intentionally spreading that ruinous power.

That didn’t matter now.

That combination had led to the current unbelievable situation.

The world would end if we didn’t do something.

The multiple credit rating agencies and the world’s inability to measure the value of government bonds was one way that would happen, but it was not the only way. Unless we dealt with this at a fundamental level, fixing the global economy would solve nothing. Ruin would arrive again in some other form and it would keep happening until it worked.

“So what exactly are you going to do?”

The Nekomata approached while I was looking up at the moon and thinking on the porch.

“You’re true to your desires, so I doubt you would be satisfied with a beautifully platonic ending of waiting for the end in your lover’s arms as the world falls to ruin around you. There’s still a lot you want to do, so what will you do about it?”

“I can’t mess with the Ver. 39.”

I quietly answered and my voice vanished into the night air that was a little chilly in just a hoodie and shirt.

“Not even the current Hyakki Yakou understands it, so an amateur high school boy can’t mess with it. The Ver. 40..Mei, was it? Anyway, things might be different if we had her body to look at, but even that wouldn’t help much. Besides, Majina was enough of an expert to create the Ver. 40 from scratch and even he threw in the towel. I doubt we can do anything on that front. I expect she’d either lose control of destiny or die of a ruptured organ. Both of those options are unacceptable.”

“Then you’re going with the other condition?”

“Yeah.” I moved my eyes from the moon to the Nekomata. “The dangerous Zashiki Warashi prefers red. Doesn’t it seem like we could figure something out about that rather than grasping at a cloud with the Ver. 39?”

“Does it? They both seem unlikely to me. Besides, what does it mean to prefer a color? If the Zashiki Warashi announces she’ll start wearing a white yukata from now on, will all this chaos settle down? Does she just have to avoid red day after day? I seriously doubt it’s that simple.”

Yes.

She had to switch from red to white.

The issue of preference was clear, but changing it would be difficult.

If a child hated carrots, it was still possible to make him eat them. You could discipline him until he would eat every last one. Or you could chop them up and mix them in with fried rice or Salisbury steak to get him to eat them without knowing it. But wouldn’t it be far more difficult to actually making him like carrots? In fact, was it even possible?

You often hear people say their tastes changed when they grew up, but that would be entirely up to coincidence. I didn’t think it was something you could intentionally cause by human means.

So if I was trying to distort that, there was only one way to describe it.

“Hey, Nekomata.”

“What is it?”

“I think I’m about to do the worst thing in the world. This might even be something Majina avoided, so I don’t care if you look down on me for it.”

“..”

“But don’t stop me.”

I spoke quietly yet powerfully to the silent Nekomata.

“If she’ll walk by my side and if there’s still a way of doing everything I still want to do, then I’ll do anything. I’ve finally found something that makes me think my principles can come second. So don’t you stop me. I’ll never give up before doing this.”

I heard a sigh that almost sounded like a laugh.

The cat couldn’t form facial expressions, though.

“Then do what you want. I haven’t exactly lived a praiseworthy life, but I have no intention of regretting it.”

“I see.”

Saying it and having someone else hear it seemed to have cleared things up for me.

What I was doing here was kind of like rejecting my past actions. I had run across many different Packages, analyzed their structure, determined the weakness of the Youkai being used, and turned everything around at the last second.

I had even defeated Majina, the leader of the old Hyakki Yakou, like that, but now I would be doing the opposite.

That is..

“I will create a Package.”

I said it.

I finally said it.

“I will personally create a Package that suppresses that dangerous trait so I can walk alongside the girl I’ve fallen for.”

The Nekomata did not curl up on the spot.

She continued standing tall and looked up into my eyes.

She was being courteous because this was not something to listen to while curled up.

“Oh? So this time your love isn’t shallow enough to joke about?”

“Well, I was always this serious at the time..”

“But you always ran off. Whenever you sensed you couldn’t deal with it any longer, you had a habit of backing out. That’s how you preserved your peaceful life rather than going for something akin to a heroic double suicide. You can’t deny that.”

“..”

“But something was different this time. You can actually face what you want to protect, even if that means burning away your own body. I suppose you could say the eggshell has finally fallen away from the chick’s tail.”

Perhaps so.

That may have been true.

I had no real proof, but I had a feeling that if the world tried to kill the Zashiki Warashi to protect its peace, I would not have hesitated to become a being that could destroy the world. And this wasn’t just an adolescent delusion. I really did think that might be the case.

“So where are you going to start? We’re talking about a criminal Package here. No matter how hard you work, you can’t do that on your own. You need dozens if not hundreds of people, specialized knowledge, and a Youkai to build into it. The Ver. 39 power is connected to the whole world, so you’ll have to keep this quiet. You can’t have someone slipping in a backdoor after all. You were already planning to get me involved, weren’t you? But who else are you going to use?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

I breathed in and looked up to the moon again.

“I’ll use everything I can.”

Part 2 (Jinnai Shinobu)

The answer had been in front of my eyes all along.

It had been hanging in front of my eyes since ten years ago.

“This construction paper?”

All of the Youkai except the Zashiki Warashi were gathered in the living room and I showed them the child’s drawing I had dug from the back of the closet. It was the original of what I had on my smartphone.

Humans and Youkai were smiling in a circle and the words “We’re All Friends” were written over their heads.

But that wasn’t the point.

That wasn’t what I wanted to take from it.

“Look at this, everyone.”

I pointed at one point on the edge of the construction paper.

Yes.

“Um, is that the sun?”

The Succubus looked puzzled. It was just a spiraling circle drawn in red crayon, so she looked skeptical that it could really help solve this worldwide problem.

But it could.

It was the key to the one and only right answer.

“That’s right. Think about it. The sun is red. I think any kid would draw it that way, but it’s weird if you think about it. If you look up in the blue sky, you aren’t going to see a red sun there.”

“Um..”

“But if you pass a kid a crayon, they’ll all use red to draw the sun. Why? Because they aren’t looking up at the sun to check on the color. It’s based on the image in their head. It’s a mass of fire, so of course they think it’s red. They redraw the actual scene with their imaginary color. That’s why they picture the sun as red despite what the actual scene shows.”

Some of them seemed to be gradually catching on.

Marguerite the Witch cut in while rubbing her chin with her slender fingers.

“Those are called memory colors, right? The concept is widely used in the field of magic. Fire is red, water is blue, wind is yellow, and earth is green. By coloring your cards and weapons accordingly, you can picture things more easily during certain rituals.”

“The Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi prefers to wear a red yukata. We can’t change that part. After all, she’s been doing that for centuries and it’s indelibly stained her heart. Confiscating her yukata and throwing white clothes at her wouldn’t change the fact that she loves red, so it wouldn’t free her from the bonds of the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi.”

“So you’ll use memory colors?” asked the Aburatori. “You’ll have her focus on the color in her head over the color she sees? Wait, do you mean..!?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “What if the kimono she grabs, thinking its red, is actually white?”

Everyone there gasped.

It wasn’t an issue of her body. We were talking about her mind, about her perception.

This was the worst possible method, but it was the only way of overcoming this incident without anyone dying.

“We’ll overturn her perception of color. We’ll turn red to white and white to red.”

If this didn’t get through to them it was all over.

If they said it was unrealistic, unusable, inhumane, or cruel and then rejected it, the path would close off.

After all, I didn’t have the skills or manpower to do this. Convincing everyone was absolutely necessary to save the Zashiki Warashi.

But that was exactly why I had to tell them this. If I hid anything, I would never gain their trust, so I could only lay out everything I had and pray!

I was no hero.

I was saying I would be dragging them all into a criminal Package!

“With a Package like that, she would think she loved red while actually always choosing white! If it worked, she would unwittingly become a white Zashiki Warashi!”

Silence followed.

Had it worked?

Had it?

I had thought and thought until my mind boiled over to come up with this answer, but what would they think of it? It was absurd and silly, but had I built up enough trust for them to go along with it? Or would they flinch back at the thought of messing with her mind.

And then..

“Sounds good to me.”

The Aoandon spoke up slowly without thinking too deeply about it.

“I honestly thought my mama would end up being that human girl named Kotemitsu, but that’s your decision, papa. And I guess you could switch between a Youkai mama and a human mama. But based on what I’ve heard, it makes sense. If a Zashiki Warashi’s traits hinge on red or white, guiding her to choose the color of her own free will isn’t a bad idea. If we were talking about a human, I could just use this.”

She gently stroked the single horn growing from her forehead.

Its phosphorescent light provided a form of hypnosis.

This wasn’t an issue of good or evil and she was not empathizing with me. To her, manipulating someone else to one’s own end may have been a perfectly normal thing to do. It also might have helped that she herself was bound by the color blue.

“My thoughts on it are complex, but I can’t come up with a better idea,” said the Furutsubaki (Small). “And shooting down every idea while just sitting around won’t improve the situation. The only other options are to wait for the world to fall apart or to have someone else kill the Zashiki Warashi and I flatly refuse to do either of those. In that case, I can only bet on Jinnai Shinobu’s suggestion.”

“I call myself a guardian deity of children. A Zashiki Warashi is a collection of the young children killed during famines, so I don’t like the sound of treating her so crudely. But if you are shorthanded, just ask.”

Then the Aburatori gave his approval.

The Nekomata used her back paw to scratch her ear while sitting on the tea table.

“I’m more worried about the old woman than the Zashiki Warashi. She hasn’t had any time to rest since this unnatural age of mass consumption started. I’m willing to help if it will bring an end to that.”

“I would love to have a chance to learn about Eastern Packages rather than Western magic,” said Marguerite the Witch. “Plus, I’m nearly a refugee here, so I wouldn’t want to lose this home.”

“Well, you are my current master right now,” said the Succubus. “With our contract, I won’t stop you if you’re willing to risk your life on this. A demon will continue obeying as long as it continues to benefit her.”

The Yuki Onna was the last to speak.

“I don’t really like doing anything to help that filthy Youkai..”

The deadly Youkai sighed as everyone focused on her.

A diamond dust atmosphere glittered around her and she continued as if having given up.

“But abandoning her here would probably greatly change Jinnai Shinobu’s nature. It is truly unfortunate, but I do need to keep him in the form I want him..”

That settled it.

If we got down to who benefitted the most from this, it would of course be the Zashiki Warashi and me, but they would stick with me regardless. Creating a criminal Package was wrong. No matter what it actually did, the simple idea of “using” a Youkai could easily have filled them with disgust.

I could only bow my head to these idiots for gong along with my selfishness.

“Sorry, everyone!!”

“You need to proudly thank us instead. You’re going to take on the world for the girl you love, right? What about that requires curling up in shame?”

The Aburatori quickly corrected me.

When I raised my head, the Aoandon cut in.

“But what will you do? When it comes to knowledge and techniques, I would know a lot about Eastern stuff and Marguerite would probably know a lot about Western magic, but you’ll need more than that to build a Package. You need to observe the Youkai involved, accurately grasp her legends, distort or enlarge a portion to match your objective, build in symbols with specific physical items, and spiritually link them together. That requires at least a few dozen people and at most a few hundred. Do you have anyone you can rely on?”

“Sorry, but can you draw up the plans for the Package I want? I want to start recruiting help after we have the preliminary calculations done.”

“Fine, but where are you going to find these people? Surely you don’t mean the students at your school.”

I could not help but smile at that.

For the time being, I would cast aside all my principles and I could violate any taboo if it meant saving the world from this ruinous destiny and walking alongside the Zashiki Warashi once more.

So I said it.

“How many Youkai do you think I’ve dealt with in the past?”

“You don’t mean..?”

“I do.”

I had made up my mind. I would use everything I could. Giving up before I’d even tried, abandoning her in this crisis she was entirely unaware of, and then regretting it was the one thing I couldn’t do.

So I would bear any sin and I would accept any punishment.

I couldn’t hold up the pure goal of saving the Zashiki Warashi to dull people’s conscience and guilt as I dragged them into something as crazy as a criminal Package while remaining clean myself.

I placed my left hand on my right shoulder and rotated my dominant arm.

And I suggested something I really should not have let myself do.

“Youkai seem to like me, so I’m gonna intentionally use that for once.”

Part 3 (3rd person)

——It began inside Noukotsu Village.

“Hey, Umbrella, a letter just arrived.”

“Hm? It’s for the Youkai directly rather than our master or his mother? How rare. Let’s take a look.”

“Oh, my. Do you think we should call for the Mayoiga too?”

“Yes, Lantern. Let’s call the new Fuguruma-Youbi as well. This is a good opportunity for her to get to know everyone.”

“The Jatai and Kosode-no-Te are saying they want in too.”

——An old-fashioned postcard with an attached reply card arrived at a distant seaside town.

“H-hey, that’s a Shichinin Misaki, isn’t it? Don’t you die if you meet one..?”

“Shh! It looks like they’re distracted by something.. Are they reading a letter? Anyway, we need to run away!! Don’t give up hope! This’ll work out somehow!!”

“But there’s a mermaid over there. Don’t you gain immortality by eating their meat!?”

“And how are you going to cook up a mermaid that’s immune to physical attacks? And let me tell you something more fundamental: The people who get greedy at times like this are the ones who die! So run!!”

——Another postcard arrived at the even more distant land of Okinawa.

A Shisa held it in his mouth while running to a familiar Kijimuna for advice.

“I am Shisa. That Jinnai Shinobu guy is in trouble. What should we do?”

“.. (sway sway)”

The lion-like decoration and the Chinese banyan tree continued speaking like that.

——A middle-aged man gave a postcard a concerned look at the tollbooth for the Four Mountains Junction where multiple highways intersected.

“A postcard for Zenmetsu Village? Are you serious? This thing isn’t cursed, is it?”

When he looked away for just a moment, a snake about as thick as a pinky finger grabbed the postcard in its mouth and carried it away.

It was a Toubyou.

They were hiding all around and quietly discussing the postcard, but the middle-aged man was oblivious.

“What, is that thing really cursed!? I’ve got the night shift coming up, you know!?”

——A few postcards were delivered via the special casino district of Goldmine Island.

The first one was sent to the Gold Crane Inn that Jinnai Shinobu had stayed at.

“Oh? A postcard from a guest. How unusual. And it even comes with a gift.”

“Let’s see.. A Zashiki Warashi? Isn’t that like a relative of ours?”

“It’s more like they’re the main family and we’re the branch families.”

They were a Notabariko, an Usuhiki Warashi, and a Kura Bokko.

However, there was actually another Usuhiki Warashi on Goldmine Island.

“Kyah kyah☆”

Her mini-yukata was worn off the shoulders, so the girl seemed to be wearing a tube top dress as she ran around behind the casinos.

She held an identical postcard in her hand.

One of the postcards was sent from Goldmine Island to the United States via airmail.

Hasukawa Yumi frowned when she saw the strange postcard that slipped through the gaps in the naval blockade.

(To think he would use the world’s top intelligence agency to relay a message..)

It was being sent to the Kechibi, Ubume, and Amanojaku at the base of the Package they had used.

If a Package was being made to interfere with the Bloodstained Zashiki Warashi that was causing the global chaos, the CIA had a chance to add in whatever they might want.

Hasukawa Yumi thought for a moment about where to send the postcard.

(But unfortunately, I owe him one.)

She sighed just once.

She then erased a few records and sent the postcard along while making sure it would not be seen by Sid Clouds, her boss in name only.

Lastly, one was transferred to Shikoku from Kyushu’s Goldmine Island.

“Tanuki, Fox, Badger. You have a postcard.”

When the small girl called for them, three Youkai who looked like stuffed animals rushed out. It was a commonplace ready-built house, but a span of two generations from grandchild to grandmother lived there and it even had its own gardener, nurse, and bodyguard.

“Ohh, it’s from Jinnai Shinobu! I haven’t heard that name in a while!”

“My, my. But based on what it says, we can’t just rejoice about this..”

“Not a problem. I didn’t like being indebted to him anyway, so we should actually be thankful for this chance to repay him!”

——A postcard arrived for Ranzono Sachi at her juvenile hall.

When she read the text with the small centipede that crawled in through the gaps in the bars, her friend spoke to her.

“Sorry, Sachi. I know you’ll be lonely, but the time has come to repay that boy for what he did for us.”

“Hee hee. Even the picture books talk about your concept of repaying debts, so you don’t have to be so formal. More importantly, why not bring the others? The Tsuchigumo, the Nue, the Gama, the Uwabami, the Tesso, the Takebunkani, the Sarugami, and the Baku.. Heh heh. They’re all really nice, so I’m sure they’ll help out.”

A small bird could be heard chirping, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Heh heh. Yes, there was an Okuri-Suzume as well, wasn’t there?”

——Many a postcard were sent out over the country based on old memories.

“Oh, it’s been so long since I visited the Jinnai place.. I never did get Shinobu-chan to carry me, so maybe I should stop by again!”

“Eh heh heh. I think it’s about time I approached Shinobu-chan about ‘that’.”

An Onbu-Obake and a Kaki Otoko were saying some dangerous things.

“Babuu.”

“This Ubu only ever says ‘babuu’ and ‘ogyah’, but the disobedient Tsuchigumo have a soft spot for abandoned kittens on a rainy day!!”

An Ubu and a Tsuchigumo moved their legs along.

“Heh. Ever since Shinobu-chan showed me a whole new world, I’ve always kept carbonated drinks in my head plate.”

“I am a Nopperabou, but I think people would actually be more surprised if I had eyes and a nose drawn on with black pen.”

A Kappa and Nopperabou were discussing something.

“Ho ho ho. He’s still such a spoiled child. Perhaps I, the Kyuubi, should pay him a visit.”

“C’mon, you wild fox, you just want to enjoy the festivities. As the Kuzunoha, I will make sure to train him properly.”

The Kyuubi and Kuzunoha.

“Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! This is Tanuki☆Bayashiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Today, I think I’ll introduce you all to a passionate fan letter we receeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeived!”

“I’m more than willing to help, but I don’t want him to expect too much. The Nurarihyon may be known as the leader of all Youkai, but I was originally just an Umibouzu.”

“I’m an Oni! Not many homes only do the bringing fortune inside part, so I need that shelter for February 3!!”

There were even five Tanuki, a Nurarihyon, and an Oni.

“Scurry scurry (Playing house with Shinobu-chan was fun.)”

“That’s right. A God of Poverty like me probably should have been worshipped there originally.”

“I don’t know what an Akaname can do, but I’ll head there if he wants it.”

A Kodoku, a God of Poverty, and an Akaname.

“I am a Nurikabe. I came running when I heard Shinobu-chan was in trouble.”

“I, an Ittan-Momen, am here too.”

“Then quit blocking the road! Do you want a Yagyou-san like me to kick you with my headless horse!?”

“Now, now. Infighting won’t get us anywhere. How can you look a Dorotabou like me in the face and think otherwise?”

“I didn’t know a Dorotabou could walk on the road like normal. My single eye is quite shocked.”

A Nurikabe, an Ittan-Momen, a Yagyou-san, a Dorotabou, and a Hitotsume-Kozou.

——In neighboring Bozen City, a postcard arrived at the supposedly abandoned dog square.

“It hasn’t been long since that zombie outbreak, so what is it now?”

The creeped-out part-time delivery boy had considered throwing away the postcard countless times on the way, but he had been afraid that would get him cursed.

Then he saw a giant ball of light shoot up from the peak of the dormant volcano.

“Gyawah!! What!? Is that a UFO!!!???”

Few people knew the original form of the Youkai known as a Kasha.

——A few postcards were delivered to Shinobu’s Uncle Uchimaku Hayabusa rather than the Youkai.

“Hm? I’m supposed to deliver these to any Youkai I can think of?”

“Um, there was Zashou Island’s Funa Yuurei and Nure Onna, the Jinmensou from the Tsumada Mio stuff, and..well, we can ignore the Aoandon from Zenmetsu village and the Aburatori from the Tarot Girls 22 stuff, but there was also the Yamanba from the Ubasute Apartments, right?”

“Come to think of it, what ever happened to Toujou Miyabi’s Inugami?”

“Oh, right. And there was a Jorougumo too.”

——And a few more were delivered to Hishigami Mai.

“What kind of paranormal power did he use to deliver these to me when no one knows my real name!? Jinnai Shinobu’s gotten pretty good since I last saw him!!”

“Perhaps so. Munch, munch. This squid somen is delicious.”

“Hey, you damn Shikigami. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten so attached to him you’ve started leaking my information. First the detective and now the blond? How unfaithful are you!? I shouldn’t be having this much trouble controlling a Shikigami!”

“I have no idea what you are talking about. More importantly, what will you do?”

“Playing it safe would get Hyakki Yakou wrapped up in this..but it’s interesting that these came to me rather than the young lady. Is the boy already thinking about the power balance? Or is he telling us to do this on our own?”

“And?”

“I think I’ll go along with it and then watch to see what happens. The only Youkai I think we could use are the Monk from Amem-->>

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