Chapter 12

Summer was coming. The weather forecast for the following week, which had been full of rain symbols for days on end, suddenly displayed little suns instead. On the TV screen, the beaming forecaster announced, “The long-standing weather front has finally moved on, which means we’re looking at the end of the rainy season.” Once the rains had ceased, summer began. The tedious days of sodden shoes and laundry that would never dry on the line would give way to the scorching rays of the sun baking the asphalt. Already, the weather reports warned of the year’s upcoming heat wave. Summer was definitely coming. “When summer break is here, let’s go to the place where you saw that festival, Fukamachi. “We’ll figure out what it is together.” Every day since he made that promise, he’d felt strange, like he was awaiting summer’s arrival with both bated breath and a roiling storm of anxiety. …And even still. Student life was surprisingly busy, especially in July before summer break arrived. With spring-semester exams approaching, their assignments increased in number and length. By the time students managed—one way or another—to meet all the deadlines for their relentlessly accumulating piles of work, exams would be upon them. Unlike the fall semester, there was no mass outbreak of zombies across campus, but all the seats in the library and cafeteria were occupied by students at their wit’s end, and the vending machines had been entirely emptied of energy drinks. The end of the spring-semester exam period at Seiwa University fell on the last day of July this year. Exiting the school building after finishing the last of his exams, Naoya Fukamachi was hit with an unexpected wave of dizziness in the glaring sun. The sunlight was intense. Perhaps even painfully so. Its dazzling brightness poured down unsparingly from a sky so blue, it could have served as the image on a postcard. Unable to bear it, Naoya found some shade to take refuge in, followed at a tottering pace by his half zombified classmate, Youichi Nanba. “…It’s so hot. I’m burning to death,” Nanba muttered, sinking into a crouch next to Naoya. He ruffled his brown hair like he was trying to shake off some heat. Pushing up his glasses, Naoya glanced upward, where he saw a cumulonimbus cloud so massive that he couldn’t help but wonder whether it was hiding a castle in the sky. The bright blue expanse made his eyes water, and when he closed them, he noticed the sound of cicadas mingling with the hustle and bustle of campus. “…Remind me when they started chirping? The cicadas.” “Um… A couple days ago, maybe? I don’t really remember.” “Gotcha.” The rainy season had been long this year. The rain had continued to fall every day even into the latter half of July, and the temperature had barely risen. The official end of the rainy season in the Kanto region was only declared several days ago. Nanba took a handheld electric fan out of his bag, pointing the wind at his own face. “I guess summer is here already.” “…Yeah, guess so.” Naoya nodded. It wasn’t as though the world had totally changed while he and the other students were taking their last exams. The sky, which had been cloudy all morning, had simply cleared up. But the sweltering heat and persistent trill of cicadas made the shift in seasons impossible to ignore. Summer had come at last. “Wait a minute, that means it’s summer vacation!” His energy instantly restored, Nanba shot to his feet and hollered into the air. “All our finals are done! As of right now, it’s officially summer vacation! Whoo-hoo, we did it! Summer break, how I missed you! Summer is the best!” “…Yeah, you’re right.” “Geez, don’t sound so bummed! Don’t start suffering from summer fatigue all of a sudden. Go do something fun instead! What are your plans for summer, Fukamachi?!” “P-plans? Um, well…” Nanba turned the electric fan on Naoya, who faltered as the air blew over the tip of his nose. “Listen, Fukamachi,” Nanba said with an exasperated look. “You said you didn’t go anywhere last summer, either, right? We don’t get a lot of longer breaks, so you should take advantage of it to travel or something. We’re college students. There’s no other time in our whole lives when we’ll be able to fool around this much. There must be something you can do. If you’re short on money, you could just bike around the country or whatever.” “What are you talking about? I don’t own a bike anyway… Oh, but I am going on a trip.” “What, for real? Where to?” “Well, I mean, I said ‘trip,’ but I’m just accompanying Professor Takatsuki for some fieldwork.” “Oh, your part-time job, huh? Wow, so you even go on outings with him? Professor Takatsuki is somethin’ else.” Nanba’s admiration was plain. Ever since Takatsuki had helped him out with a situation, Nanba seemed to hold the man in very high esteem. “That reminds me. Speaking of Professor Takatsuki, one of the juniors in my club invited us to some—” Naoya’s phone vibrated in his pocket as his classmate was speaking. Taking it out, he saw an e-mail notification on the screen and opened it immediately upon reading the sender’s address. Firing off a quick reply, Naoya said, “Sorry, Nanba. I have to go.” “Okay. Is it work?” “No, I just agreed to meet up with someone,” he replied, turning to walk away before he felt Nanba’s grip clamp down on the back of his shirt collar. T-shirt biting into his neck, Naoya almost let out a choked sound. He wrapped his fingers around the front of his collar and looked over his shoulder. “Hey! What the hell?!” “—A girlfriend?” Nanba’s eyes were alight. He looked so excited that it made Naoya want to squirm. “No, it’s not like that, so let me go!” “Aw, come on, no need to hide it. Why else would you be so eager to go see this person? Wow, so Fukamachi finally got himself a girlfriend. At least show me a picture of her before you go!” “I’m telling you, I don’t have a girlfriend, so there’s no picture! The person I’m meeting is a guy!” “What, so it’s just a friend? Boo, that’s no fun.” “He’s not really a friend. He’s more like…my senior?” “Senior? Like from high school?” “…In life?” “Huh?” Nanba cocked his head in confusion, and Naoya took the chance to escape his grasp. After fixing the ruffled collar of his shirt, he gave a quick good-bye and walked off for real. He made his way toward a café on the opposite side of the train station from the school. He hadn’t been there before, but he was able to make it to his destination without incident after entering the shop name he read in an e-mail on his phone map. The atmosphere inside the café was relaxed, and there weren’t many patrons, possibly because the store was slightly off the main road. No one there looked like a student at Seiwa, so Naoya felt a bit relieved. He glanced around the café and noticed a man seated at a table in the rear raise his head. Approximately in his midforties, the man was wearing silver-rimmed glasses and a neat shirt, and he had a gentle air about him. Naoya approached his table, lightly bowing his head in greeting. “Sorry to make you go out of your way like this, Mr. Tooyama.” “Oh, no, I’m the one who should apologize for the lack of communication. I just happened to be in the area for a work meeting and wondered if you might be available.” Hirotaka Tooyama’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed even further behind his glasses as he smiled. Naoya had met Tooyama, who ran an architectural firm in the city, in April. A woman who worked at his company had consulted with Takatsuki about an incident that occurred there. That was when Naoya learned that Tooyama had the same ability he did. Just like Naoya, Tooyama had wandered into that festival in the dead of night as a child and paid the same price. The possibility that there were others like him was one Naoya had never even considered. Since then, the two of them had been in touch a handful of times. Tooyama had learned to use the power to hear lies to his benefit and had been living with it much longer than Naoya, who found what he had to say extremely enlightening. Naoya told Nanba that Tooyama was like his senior in life, and he really did feel that way. Tooyama was someone Naoya could honestly look up to. Naoya sat across from Tooyama and asked for an iced coffee when the server came to take his order. Tooyama was drinking a coffee, too, though his was hot. It seemed he wasn’t fond of sweets, either, after all. “Has your summer break from university started already, Fukamachi?” “Yes. I actually just finished my last final.” “Ah, no wonder you look worn-out. I take it you were up all night studying?” “I did get a little sleep. What about you, Mr. Tooyama? Are you okay? You seem a bit exhausted yourself.” “The company started work on a big project, that’s all… We still haven’t been able to fill our open positions, so everything is a little hectic.” Tooyama, his face appearing just a tad thinner than it had the last time they met, gave a wry smile. The incident in April had led to his office losing two employees. His staff hadn’t been all that big to begin with, so they were probably quite shorthanded now. Naoya had sent him an e-mail at the start of July that said, “There’s something I want to ask you about. Do you have time to talk?” Tooyama hadn’t replied. Not until a short while ago, that is. His response read, “I’m near your school at the moment; we could talk right now, if you’d like?” Naoya had rushed to send back an “I’ll be right there.” “Um, I really am sorry. For taking up your time when you’re already busy.” “Don’t worry about that. I was just thinking it was time for a cup of coffee and a break. Anyway, you wanted to ask me about something?” “…About the village in Nagano.” Tooyama fell abruptly silent at that statement. Just then, the server arrived with Naoya’s iced coffee. Naoya pulled the glass closer to him on the table, also saying nothing. Sneaking a glance at Tooyama as he put a straw in his drink, Naoya found the eyes on the other side of those glasses looking back at him. The older man stared at Naoya, his gaze searching, then said, “Do you intend to go there? To the village.” “…Yes.” “When?” “Around Obon.” “During that festival of all times?!” “Professor Takatsuki said he thought it would be pointless to go any other time.” “He’s got some nerve… I thought I warned him against going there before.” Shaking his head, Tooyama pressed his fingers to his temples as if he had a headache. Naoya took a sip of his iced coffee before looking back at Tooyama. “We already had our minds set on it. Professor Takatsuki and I agreed to go there ages ago. So I was hoping—could you tell me, please? Why you think it’s a bad idea?” Tooyama had once told them, “It’s practically a ghost town there now. Even if you did go, an investigation would be useless.” He had followed that, in quite a strong tone, with: “You’re better off just giving up on the idea.” The way he’d said those words had stuck with Naoya ever since. “Did you perhaps make a visit there yourself relatively recently, Mr. Tooyama? You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you? What happened when you went there?” “…You’re right,” Tooyama replied, his face resigned. “I did go. About three years ago.” He had gone to the village while on a business trip in Nagano, Tooyama explained. After all his work was taken care of, when he was considering taking the chance to do a little sightseeing before going home, suddenly—he remembered that village. “My aunt had lived there. My grandparents passed early on, so whenever I went to the countryside for summer vacation, it was my aunt’s house I stayed at. A cousin I was close with wrote to me often, so I more or less remembered the address… Though, my cousin had long since married and left home, and my aunt and uncle were already dead, so it wasn’t like I was planning on visiting anyone.” It had been autumn. Driving through the wooded mountains, the scenery alive with fall colors, certainly wasn’t unpleasant as far as traveling by car went. But the village he arrived at afterward was quite different from the one he remembered. “The population had dropped a lot. There didn’t seem to be many occupied houses anymore. And the people who were there looked like they were just scraping by, working the fields.” Even so, as he got out of the car and strolled aimlessly along the road, Tooyama was confronted with all kinds of sights that brought memories to mind. The stream where he swam with his cousin. The field where he trudged around with a butterfly net over his shoulder. The forest where he went to catch rhinoceros beetles. Turning his gaze skyward, he saw that the ridges of the high mountain that surrounded the village looked just the same as before. Feeling nostalgic, Tooyama found himself walking toward the village square—the place where that festival had been held, watched over by the mountains. On the way there, however, he crossed paths with two people who appeared to be returning from working on a farm. The pair—most likely a married couple—seemed quite old, their faces well tanned and heavily lined. Nevertheless, their gaits were steady as they walked with their farming tools carried over their shoulders. When they saw Tooyama, their expressions became suspicious, but that was only natural. People from outside the village only rarely ventured that deeply into the mountains, far from any tourist destinations. They asked Tooyama where he had come from, and he told them about how his relatives used to live in the village. Hearing his aunt’s name, the pair nodded with understanding, suddenly all smiles. He made small talk with them for a while. The couple seemed to enjoy chatting, chuckling as they said things like “This village has shrunk so much” and “All the young folks move away as soon as they can, but us old-timers still have fields to tend to.” Their demeanors changed abruptly when Tooyama brought up the festival. “…At first, when I mentioned going to dance at the Bon festival as a child, they laughed. Said, ‘That takes me back. We don’t have festivals like that anymore.’ Then I said, ‘Now that I think of it, there was one time I went to a strange festival in the middle of the night.’ And just like that, they went quiet. They glanced at each other for a moment, and it was like they were communicating something.” “That sounds a bit ominous. Don’t tell me they did something to you?” “No, nothing like that, but…” Tooyama hesitated. He lifted his mug to his mouth, took a sip of coffee, and continued: “…after that, the two of them—all they did was lie.” “Huh?” “They weren’t saying anything important. Just things they had no particular reason to say to me, like ‘We’re going shopping in town tomorrow for the first time in a while’ and ‘Our grandkid is coming from Tokyo this weekend.’ And yet…everything they said was horribly distorted.” “Which means…” “They were telling obvious lies. And what’s more—they were deliberately doing it for me to hear.” That could only mean, in other words, that they knew about Tooyama’s ability. To both Tooyama and Naoya, people’s voices sounded terribly warped when they were lying. They experienced it as such an unpleasant noise that listening to it for prolonged periods of time was unbearable. Tooyama couldn’t help but think the older couple had been trying to drive him out of the village with their behavior. “It frightened me, for some reason. I hightailed it out of there and came back to Tokyo.” At that, Tooyama returned the mug he had still been holding to its saucer. The ceramic dishes gave a small clink as they made contact. The sound startled Naoya for no reason he could name, so he stirred up the ice in his coffee with the straw to mask his alarm. Quite honestly, Tooyama’s story left him feeling unsettled. The old couple’s demeanor had changed right after Tooyama mentioned the midnight festival. They knew. They knew about that festival. They knew what became of those who attended it and came back after. And so they had chased Tooyama away. It was as if…he was some sort of abomination. Tooyama spoke once more. “I’ll say it again—I think it would be best if you give up on going there. To that village.” “Mr. Tooyama…” “Fukamachi, I no longer have any intention of pursuing information about that festival or about our ability. Even I wish my ears could go back to normal sometimes, but I’ve lived with this power for decades now. If it disappeared suddenly, I’m sure I would never trust a single word out of anyone’s mouth ever again… Losing the ability to hear lies at this point… The thought scares me.” Tooyama’s voice was quiet. He clasped his hands together on the table and looked down at his entwined fingers. “I believe we have no choice but to keep living with these ears of ours. Going back to how we were isn’t an option anymore. So what merit is there in trying to figure out the truth?” Naoya looked down at his own hands. Idly, he watched the condensed water droplets on his iced coffee trace small paths down the outside of the glass to the table. Tooyama had spoken in a detached manner. That only made the words sit in Naoya’s chest all the more heavily. He understood how Tooyama felt. He had experienced it firsthand, after all. When he’d had an ear infection, Naoya had temporarily lost his ability to hear lies. It had caused him extreme anxiety. Any relief he had felt over being free from hearing distorted voices was far outweighed by the worry and fear of not knowing who was lying. Not being able to distinguish liar from truthteller even added fuel to the paranoia that everyone was lying. Indeed, there was no returning to normal. The two of them already knew—that humans were creatures who told lies as easily as they breathed. That, without batting an eye, people would deceive those they were close to. Even if either of them ended up with some sort of hearing loss and could no longer tell when someone was lying, in their minds, the world would still—always—be full of warped voices. Regardless. “…Even so, Mr. Tooyama. I—I want to know.” “Fukamachi…” “It’s not like I think my ears will go back to normal if I know the truth. I just really do want to know. Whether that was truly a festival of the dead or something else…and why it happened there in the first place.” “Isn’t it actually Professor Takatsuki who wants to know all that? Not you.” “…What?” Totally caught off guard by those words, Naoya looked up. At some point, Tooyama had raised his own downturned gaze and was staring intently at Naoya. His kept his voice low, but there was a sharpness to it that left Naoya feeling cornered. “If Professor Takatsuki hadn’t brought it up, the thought of going back to that village probably never would have occurred to you. I don’t see why it’s necessary for him to involve you so thoroughly in his academic interests.” A chill in the pit of his stomach, Naoya returned Tooyama’s gaze wordlessly. It was true; Takatsuki was the one who had said he wanted to uncover the truth behind that festival. He had asked Naoya whether he was interested in knowing what really happened that fateful summer night when he was ten. Takatsuki had always wanted to know. What was actually going on behind the scenes of the incidents brought to him as supernatural phenomena? And—did real monsters exist? But the root of why he felt that way wasn’t academic interest. Tooyama didn’t know that. Takatsuki’s obsession with the occult came from his strong desire to understand the events of his own past. So then…what about Naoya? Was he just getting caught up in Takatsuki’s feelings? Ever since agreeing to go to the village with the professor, Naoya had felt uneasy. Yes, it was just as Tooyama said. If not for Takatsuki’s suggestion, Naoya himself would never have entertained the idea. The truth was, he was absolutely terrified of that village; that was why he was so anxious. Seeing that festival again meant maybe never returning to this world. His instincts were telling him there was still time to back out. Still, for all that— Slowly, Naoya shook his head. “…That’s not it.” One clearly defined feeling existed deep inside his troubled heart. Naoya wanted to know. “I want this. I want to know the truth for my own sake.” “Fukamachi, you—” “You’re right,” Naoya went on, interrupting the start of whatever Tooyama was about to say. “Knowing won’t change anything, but…I think knowing is its own reward. “Someone once told me, ‘Past, present, and future are all connected.’ I feel like I won’t truly be able to move on with my life until I know what happened to me. Because…not knowing is scary.” For a short while, Tooyama simply gazed at Naoya without speaking. Then, little by little, a wry smile surfaced on his face. “You’re…a tough kid,” he muttered, a soft sigh mixed in with his words. “That’s not true. And it’s not like I’ll be going on my own,” Naoya replied with slight panic, realizing what he had said before could be taken as criticism of Tooyama. He didn’t intend to disavow the other man’s desire to leave the past in the past. Tooyama shook his head. “Well, as we get older, whether we like it or not, our way of thinking trends toward playing it safe, and that’s no good. But…I’m still worried. If you’re determined to go, please be careful.” “Yes, I will.” “And once you come back, maybe you could tell me about it. About how it was.” “Yes, of course—” Just then, Naoya’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Someone was calling him. He took his phone out and saw Takatsuki’s name on the screen. “Um, sorry, but the professor is calling me.” “Oh, you can answer it here. I don’t mind,” Tooyama said, as Naoya had gotten up to take the call somewhere else. “Thank you, sorry,” Naoya responded, sitting back down and tapping his phone to connect the call. “Hello?” “Ah, Fukamachi! All your exams are over now, right? Congrats on getting through them! If you’re still at the university, could you drop by my office for a bit? We’re going to be holding a storytelling ritual, and I was thinking you might want to join in!” On the other end of the line, Takatsuki’s voice was brimming with energy. That voice must have bled out from the phone speakers, because Tooyama gave another wry smile and said, “Professor Takatsuki sounds like his usual self.” After seeing Tooyama to the station and returning to Seiwa, Naoya found the campus unexpectedly quiet. The courtyard, which was usually always abuzz with all sorts of student activities, was less than half full. Maybe such activities weren’t held the day exams ended, or perhaps it was just too hot. The street-performance society kept dropping the juggling clubs they were tossing up into the air; the dance club’s choreography didn’t look as clean as usual. Hoping they’d take a break before ending up with heatstroke, Naoya headed toward the faculty building, walking through the shade as much as possible. He went to the third floor of the building, found the door labeled 304, and knocked. “Come in,” called a soft, clear voice from inside. Naoya opened the door. “Ah! Welcome, Fukamachi! Sorry for calling you here out of the blue.” Sitting at the large table in the center of the room with his open laptop in front of him, Akira Takatsuki was smiling brightly. Though more and more of the college faculty had switched to wearing lighter clothes at the start of the rainy season, Takatsuki was still dressing in his usual suit-and-tie attire. Of course, his current suits were probably made of a summer-appropriate material, and he wasn’t in a full three-piece, but Naoya often wondered if he wasn’t too warm. It may have been the influence of Takatsuki’s uncle, who was a lot like an English gentleman, or perhaps Takatsuki just didn’t overheat easily. Nevertheless, the air-conditioning in his office was running at just the right temperature, keeping the room cool. To someone whose body was not at all keeping pace with summer’s sudden onset, it felt amazing. Looking around the office as he appreciated the chill, Naoya was struck by the feeling that something was off. “…Huh? What happened to the computers that were over there?” The two desktop computers that he expected to see in the corner of the room had vanished along with the desks they had been on. In their place sat two additional—relatively small—bookshelves, despite the room already being packed with bookcases. “Well, you see, my graduate students and I all have our own laptops or tablets, so those computers hadn’t been getting any use lately. It was a pain to keep their systems updated, so I got rid of them recently.” Takatsuki gave a slight shrug as he answered. At that, Naoya realized it had been a little while since he had been to the office. He’d been busy with assignments, and the professor hadn’t contacted him, so he hadn’t visited for a time. Looking at Naoya, Takatsuki cocked his head to the side. “Fukamachi, don’t tell me you had already left campus when I called earlier? You’re covered in sweat. I didn’t mean to make you walk back such a distance.” “Oh, no, this is… I was at the café on the other side of the train station,” Naoya said, wiping the sweat off his face with a little handkerchief he got out of his bag. “Why were you all the way over there? It’s half-price crepe day at that café, but you don’t eat them, do you?” “No, I don’t. Why do you even know that…? No, never mind. I was there meeting with Mr. Tooyama. He was near Seiwa for work and took the trouble to contact me.” “Oh, really? In that case, I wish you would have called me, too.” Takatsuki was pouting a little. At thirty-five years old, he was as childish as ever. Naoya sat in the folding chair next to him. “I asked Mr. Tooyama about the time he went to that village.” In an instant, the professor’s expression changed. His eyes urged Naoya to go on, so he relayed the story he heard from Tooyama to Takatsuki. When Naoya was done, Takatsuki stroked lightly at his own chin with his eyes slightly narrowed. “Hmm… That does sound rather sinister.” The lips that murmured those words, however, were smiling as if amused. “And so? Are you going to heed Mr. Tooyama’s advice, Fukamachi? Have you decided not to go after all?” “Of course not. I’m going.” “Good, I’m glad.” Takatsuki’s glowing smile resurfaced. If Naoya had said he changed his mind, the professor might have visited the village anyway, even if he had to do it alone. That was the feeling Naoya got. The travel arrangements were already made. As usual, Sasakura would be driving. They would be gone for two nights and three days, from the fourteenth of August to the sixteenth. The festival in question occurred on the fifteenth. According to Tooyama’s story, there was no festival held in the village anymore, but coordinating the date was likely still critical. “I’m even more excited thanks to what Mr. Tooyama said! I really hope I meet that old couple as well. I hope they’re there when we go.” Takatsuki’s smile hadn’t waned. This was exactly why Naoya had decided not to bring Takatsuki along on his meetings with Tooyama. If the professor got too hyped up and went into his big-fluffy-dog mode at an inopportune time, Tooyama’s patience would probably be spent. Seeing Takatsuki behaving like he always did made Naoya, on the other hand, feel a little relieved. It was like the fear that had been putting down roots in the back of his mind was retreating. Takatsuki had his fair share of flaws, but he was still a reliable person nonetheless. As Naoya had told Tooyama, he wasn’t going to the village alone. Takatsuki would be there, and Sasakura, too. So it was going to be okay. He chose to believe that. “Speaking of things to be excited about, there’s another thing we can look forward to before our trip, Fukamachi!” His eyes sparkling, Takatsuki turned to Naoya. “Something to look forward to? What do you mean?” “I mentioned it on the phone, remember? The storytelling ritual!” Come to think of it, that was the reason Takatsuki had called Naoya to his office to begin with. But a storytelling ritual? Was that really happening? “When is it being held?” “In the evening, three days from now, here at the school. A larger number of people is preferable for something like this, so I would love it if you participated, too, Fukamachi. After all, it’s not just telling scary stories. It’s the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual! And naturally, we plan to tell exactly one hundred stories in a single night! I get to hear a hundred ghost stories in a night—some of them might even be new to me! I wonder if something scary will actually occur when the stories are over. I hope so!” Takatsuki looked just like a child on the day before Christmas with the excitement in his gaze. “Why did you decide to do the storytelling ritual? Is it part of your research?” “No, a student proposed the idea. First-year literature student, Hayama. He’s in this year’s Folklore Studies II class. We covered the ritual in a lecture, and it seemed to pique his interest, so he came to me asking if we could put one on over summer break.” Students could apply to the registrar’s office to reserve meeting rooms in school buildings. But a storytelling ritual involving one hundred stories was not just a nighttime event; it was an overnight one. The meeting rooms weren’t available to rent at all hours; naturally, they were unavailable at night. So apparently, Hayama had decided to get a professor involved to obtain permission from the registrar. Takatsuki, of course, agreed without a second thought. “This is actually my first time participating in a Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual, too. After all, it’s not an easy thing to execute in practice. It’s tough on attendees if there aren’t enough people, plus you need a big space and a lot of time. This is a chance to collect data on the trends in ghost stories that current students know, which makes it a very welcome proposal in my book.” Takatsuki looked rather pleased with himself as he spoke. Indeed, an event like this one was probably going to serve his research well. “We didn’t cover the storytelling ritual in last year’s class, did we? I just happened to hear about it from you, I think… It’s been around since the Edo period, right?” “That’s true, it wasn’t in one of last year’s Folklore Studies II lectures. Since you’re already here, I’ll take the chance to tell you a little about it,” Takatsuki said, getting up from his seat. “I’ll make you some coffee. It’ll have to be hot, though.” He went to the small table under his office window. Taking some mugs from the cupboard next to the table, the professor started to speak again. “The storytelling ritual was one form of popular entertainment during the Edo period, when ghost stories were all the rage. There are various theories as to its origin, such as that it began as a test of courage among the sons of samurai families and eventually spread to the townspeople; or that it started in the inner palace with the shogun’s harem as a way to pass the time; or that Kōshin practitioners used it to stay awake on vigil nights. Such rituals were held all over the place, and there were many ghost story collections with the words Night of One Hundred Horrors Ritual in their titles published. There are some books over on that shelf, for instance, called Edo Ghost Story Collection that were published by Iwanami. Go take a look at the table of contents in the last volume.” Takatsuki gestured to a bookcase behind Naoya. Grabbing the indicated book and opening to the contents, Naoya saw titles like Night of One Hundred Horrors Rituals in Various Provinces and Popular Tales from Storytelling Rituals. He glanced at the contents of the first compilation—an apparent collection of scary tales from here and there throughout the country, which included “The Ghost of Shichibei’s Wife at Honnoji” and “Ghosts of Iga Province During the Keicho Era.” “It’s been said that the reason the Edo period saw the publication of so many ghost story compilations was the popularity of this ritual among the general public. Originally, a ‘story’ was usually something recited by a single, skilled individual, to the point that an entire occupation called ‘otogishu’ existed. Otogishu were servants of lords who kept them entertained with various tales and conversation. Even in villages, there were professional storytellers who recited old legends for all the gathered townsfolk to hear. The ritual’s format of telling one hundred stories, on the other hand, wasn’t suited for that kind of event. Everyone present at this type of storytelling ritual was both teller and listener. A skilled narrator wasn’t necessary. It could be done anywhere by anyone. That was how this ritual spread among the common people, and how ghost stories were increasingly considered a form of entertainment.” Takatsuki’s voice flowed smoothly as he spoke, just like it did during his lectures. Naoya had heard that quite a few students who had already taken Takatsuki’s class for credit would sign up to take it again the following year, probably because the topics he covered changed a little every year. Maybe they did it as a sort of hobby, Naoya thought, even if it wouldn’t lead to more credits. He felt a bit regretful that he hadn’t enrolled in the class again himself. “Things like storytelling rituals saw a decline in the chaos that was the transition from the end of the Edo period to the start of the Meiji Restoration, though their popularity picked right back up about twenty years into the Meiji era during the late 1880s. Around this time, people began putting a lot of effort into the rituals’ staging and production. They used decorative lights to make demonic cats with glowing eyes, devised gadgets to craft mechanical ghosts, or deliberately brought funerals and memorial services to mind with the foods and tableware they chose for the ritual venue. Things like that.” “Mechanical ghosts? It sounds like the studios where they film bizarro TV specials.” “That’s exactly right. It spoils the fun of it, don’t you think? Sure, it was the era of modernization and all that, but it feels like they were overdoing things.” Takatsuki returned to the table with a tray of drinks in hand. He set a mug with a picture of a dog on it in front of Naoya and a blue one at his own seat. Naoya’s mug contained black coffee, but as usual, Takatsuki’s was full of hot cocoa and topped with a mass of floating marshmallows. Wafting softly into the air of the room, the scents of coffee and sweet cocoa mixed pleasantly with the predominate smell of old books. Taking a sip of his drink, Takatsuki smiled blissfully before picking up his story again. “So the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual continued like that from the Edo period to the present day, but it has three particular characteristics that other ghost story gatherings lack. First, as I said before, ‘everyone present at this type of storytelling ritual is both teller and listener.’ It’s a participatory event, in other words. Now, can you tell me what the other two features are?” Holding one finger aloft, Takatsuki suddenly lobbed a question at Naoya. Naoya tilted his head to the side as he brought his mug to his lips. “Umm… Oh, is it the part where you light one hundred candles? Ah, but in olden times, it would have been paper lanterns instead of candles, right?” “You’re close, but, well. Let’s just say you’re close enough… The second characteristic is, ‘the ritual follows a set procedure.’” Takatsuki put up a second finger. “For the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual, you start with one hundred lights and put them out one by one as each story is finished. In the Edo period, it was standard to use a hundred lanterns covered with blue paper. In ‘Hyakumonogatari,’ a short story by Ogai Mori from the Meiji era, there’s a description of one hundred candles being set up. The type of light differs by era, but essentially, it’s not a Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual without the lights. So…what do you think number three is?” Two of his fingers held up in what was basically a V sign, Takatsuki looked expectant. Naoya stared at the professor’s hand, his brow furrowed. The ritual was a participatory event, and it followed a set procedure. What other features did the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual even have? Caught off guard by being quizzed like this, Naoya couldn’t readily think of an answer. “It’s something you would definitely know, even if you’ve never participated in one of these rituals before. I said it earlier, too! Remember? When the hundredth story is finished and all the lights are snuffed out—” Takatsuki’s tone was trying to lead Naoya in the right direction; his raised fingers waved lightly in the air. Ah, Naoya thought, nodding. “Is it that ghosts appear?” “Yes, ‘when the hundredth story is finished, something scary happens’! That’s the third special characteristic.” Putting up a third finger, Takatsuki grinned. “‘Something scary happens’… But, I mean, it doesn’t actually happen, does it? It’s not real.” “It happening is the premise on which this ritual is performed. It seems that’s what people believed, at least, until the Kanbun era, roughly. But even after that, the idea that something frightening will take place after the last story has persisted, even if only as a pretense. Many of the ghost stories centered around the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual involve some sort of supernatural occurrence at the end of the ritual.” “…Um. I don’t really get it. Why did people in the Edo period purposefully participate in the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual if they believed something scary would happen?” Naoya was genuinely curious. Why would anyone do something like that when it was clearly preferable that no ghosts appeared? But the look that Takatsuki gave him in response was a bit confused. “Well, isn’t it obvious? Because they wanted to experience the supernatural.” “Come on, that’s ridiculous. Are you saying the Edo period was full of people like you?” “I rather think there’s a number of people in the world who like scary stories, you know. It’s not just me. But to give you a serious answer—I mentioned one of the origins of this ritual was as a test of courage for the sons of samurai families, yes? That meant those sons had to withstand both the frightening stories told in the moment and whatever phenomenon followed at the end without giving into fear as proof of their warrior’s courage. There are even stories with that flow of events as a plotline, in fact. ‘Inou Bukkairoku’ is a famous one.” Takatsuki took another sip of his cocoa before continuing: “‘Inou Bukkairoku’ is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy named Inou Heitarou who encounters various monsters over the course of a month. The origin of Heitarou’s trials and tribulations is the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. He went up a mountain to perform the ritual with his neighbor, a man named Gonpachi, as a test of courage. Nothing happened at the time, but after a while, monsters started appearing before Heitarou every night. In the end, after Heitarou faced down one monster after another without fear, the demon king came to extol the boy’s bravery by giving him a mallet and an incantation that would summon the demon king. The moral being that good fortune will ultimately come to those who act with courage.” Naoya wondered what good would come of summoning a demon king, but it seemed like the demon king would provide protection to the summoner in case of disaster or attack by other demons. Calling on a powerful demon in a pinch sounded like something out of a manga or a video game. “This kind of story, where the protagonist is eventually rewarded for not succumbing to supernatural phenomena, is actually rather common in ghost stories centered around the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. There are also stories where a ghost appears at the end of the ritual and grabs hold of the protagonist, and when said protagonist reacts without fear, the ghost hands over a large sum of money and asks for a funeral service to be performed in their memory. In one case, the ghost forked over thirty thousand ryo.” “Now, that is the kind of supernatural phenomenon I would definitely want to experience.” “Right? Curses and blessings are two sides of the same coin in this country. If dealt with properly, the ‘curses’ of the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual can become blessings and bring good fortune. Although, well…even in the ones that don’t result in such an auspicious conclusion, the supernatural phenomena that occur in the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual aren’t all that scary. At least not insofar as the Edo period stories go. None of the participants die because of them, in any case. In later eras, you did start to see stories where people were killed.” “Why is that?” “I suppose because things are scarier and more interesting that way?” Takatsuki chuckled. “As time went on, the original significance of the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual was forgotten, and it became something done purely for entertainment. And the scarier the better when it comes to telling scary stories, right? That way, the fear is heightened. It’s always more fun when the listeners have strong reactions.” This, Naoya suspected, was probably related to a point he had heard Takatsuki make on several other occasions. It was like how letters of “blessings” became malicious chain letters, or how many ghost stories and urban legends evolved bit by bit. Over time, as the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual spread to more people and regions far and wide, it gradually changed down to even its basic nature, becoming nothing more than a thrill-seeking venture. “So what do you think, Fukamachi? About participating in the ritual? If you’re free, you should join us! It’ll be really fun—I guarantee it!” Leaning forward in a quick motion, Takatsuki peered into Naoya’s eyes from up close. With his sparkling gaze full of anticipation and his face-splitting smile, he looked like he was really enjoying himself. Naoya could practically see the image of a big dog sitting in front of its favorite toy, its tail wagging. Backing away a little, the folding chair scraping the floor underneath him, Naoya replied, “…You seem really eager to invite me to every little event, Professor.” “Well, it’s not like you have anything planned for summer break other than our trip, right? You only get so much time off, so you should use that time to have lots of fun and make good memories. And why are you backing up?” “Because you’re closing in! You really need to learn how to maintain the right amount of personal space for a Japanese person!” Takatsuki had been making to scoot his own chair closer as Naoya withdrew, but Naoya’s stern declaration stopped him. The thirty-five-year-old’s sadly crumpled brow reminded Naoya of a child. “…Anyway, since I am free, I guess I’ll go.” “Really? Then I’ll sign you up as a participant!” Takatsuki crowed with open delight. He really was just like a kid. “Making as many memories as you can” was something Takatsuki urged Naoya to do every chance he had. The year prior, he had dragged Naoya along to a ghost scroll exhibition in Yanaka, a departmental barbecue party, and all sorts of other things. Then, suddenly hitting upon an unpleasant realization, Naoya frowned a little. “What’s wrong, Fukamachi?” Takatsuki asked, his head cocked to the side. Naoya put a hand to one of his ears. “It’s just… Well, don’t people tend to lie a lot when they tell ghost stories? Like they’ll claim to have experienced the story themselves or just completely make something up… I might not be able to handle something like that.” “Ahh… I see. You’re right, that might happen.” The professor’s face was mildly troubled. Naoya’s ears interpreted things meant to increase a story’s entertainment value, such as exaggerations and false elements, as lies, too. As many as one hundred such tales in succession posed the risk of making him feel sick and causing him to collapse. “Hmm. In that case, how about we count you in for now, and if it’s too much on the day of, you can leave partway through? Don’t worry—if you have to leave early, I’ll tell your portion of scary stories. That is my specialty, after all!” Puffing out his chest, Takatsuki told Naoya to leave it to him. Figuring that would be fine, Naoya nodded in agreement. Before heading home, he borrowed a few ghost-story-collection volumes from the bookshelves in the office. Unlike Takatsuki, after all, he didn’t have a huge stock of scary stories on hand. Then three days later, in the evening— The Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual was set to take place in Assembly Room A, which was tucked into a corner on the first floor of Building 1. According to the event notification that went out in advance via e-mail, there were twenty-five participants, which meant each person would tell four stories. Since there was a chance they wouldn’t get through all the stories in one night if they ran too long, a guideline of approximately five minutes per story was set. But even so, telling one hundred stories was sure to be quite a lengthy undertaking. The event began at seven PM. There was a participation fee—for candles and refreshments—of five hundred yen. Eating dinner ahead of time, Naoya headed to the assembly room fifteen minutes before seven to find more than half of the other participants were already gathered. Long tables had been arranged in a square shape, with metal folding chairs set up along the outside. On a table near the wall sat two-liter bottles of various drinks, paper cups, and some snacks. He didn’t see Takatsuki anywhere. Naoya found himself peering into the room from the doorway, his feet having stopped moving without his noticing. The lively, bustling atmosphere inside made him feel a bit daunted. He wasn’t sure what to do; crowded places weren’t Naoya’s forte. Perhaps it would be best if he killed time somewhere else and returned just before things started? As he considered that possibility, Naoya suddenly felt someone slap him on the back. “Yay, it’s Dog Boy! It’s been so long!” Startled, Naoya turned to see a short, smiling, round-faced girl standing behind him. It was Yui Machimura, one of Takatsuki’s graduate students. “…It’s not ‘Dog Boy.’ It’s Fukamachi. Are you participating in the ritual tonight too, Miss Yui?” “Of course! As one of Professor Takatsuki’s advisees, I would never miss out on an event like this! Ruiko said she’s coming, too.” Yui wasted no time heading inside the assembly room as she spoke, so Naoya had no choice but to follow. As they crossed the threshold, a male student standing near the door called them over to sign in. “Good evening! I’m Hayama, a first-year literature student. Thanks for joining us today!” He was the event organizer. His loosely curled hair and rectangular glasses gave him the air of someone who cared about his appearance, but his youthful facial features betrayed him as a first-year. Yui, who was always in the mood for the attention of younger boys, replied to him with an enthusiastic “Nice to meet you!” As Yui and Naoya signed their names on the participant list, Hayama reached into a cardboard box at his side. “Here, take these. I tested them, but please also check for yourselves that they’re working properly. Let me know if they don’t light up—I have a few spares.” Hayama thrust something into their hands as he spoke. They were small LED lights in the shape of candles—the kind that were sold in sets of two at the hundred-yen shops. It seemed each participant was allocated four of the lights. “Are these…replacing the candles?” “Ah, yep. Unsurprisingly, we couldn’t get permission from Academic Affairs to use real ones, so we decided on these.” With a grin, Hayama gestured to the OPEN FLAMES PROHIBITED sign affixed to the wall. Flicking the candles’ switches on to try them out made the flame-shaped portions light up orange. They looked more realistic than expected, but Naoya felt like they still lacked somewhat in elegance. He and Yui headed for the table where the drinks were set up. “LEDs instead of candles feels very modern, doesn’t it?” Naoya said. “Right? Stuff like this is so interesting.” Yui smiled brightly while looking down at the candles in her hands. She seemed satisfied with the use of LED lights despite it being unexpected. Pouring tea from a plastic bottle into a cup, Yui looked up at Naoya with a puzzled expression. “Oh? What is it, Dog Boy? Are you a bit bummed out about them?” “Not bummed out, per se… It’s more like, these remind me of Christmas decorations, so they aren’t very scary.” “Ah-ha-ha, you may have a point there. But,” Yui replied, “I think elements like this tend to change along with the times.” She continued: “This ritual originally involved the use of paper lanterns. Then lanterns became less common as candles became mainstream. Once LED lights, which are more convenient than candles, were readily available, they took over. I think that sort of transformation is totally fine. Don’t you think it really speaks to modern rationale to respond to a situation where fire and candles are prohibited by deciding to go buy LED candles at the hundred-yen shop? I actually feel like that’s one reason a storytelling ritual that was popular in the Edo period has survived to this day—this approach of trying to preserve elements of it at a minimum wherever possible.” Yui held out the tea-filled paper cup to Naoya, who thanked her for it as she chuckled. “You know you can use an app to curse a straw doll nowadays, right? And in horror movies, the evil spirits possessing a person’s body show up on CT scans. I think it’s cool to see how old-fashioned supernatural phenomena and rituals are adapted for the modern era! Don’t you, Dog Boy?” With her eyes lit up as she spoke, Yui bore a strong resemblance to Takatsuki. Hearing her talk like this served as a reminder that she was one of the professor’s graduate students after all. Although, Naoya’s typical image of her was someone who showered her juniors excessively in sweets. Just then, Naoya spotted a familiar figure with dyed brown hair among the group of people noisily chatting across the room. “Oh, it’s Fukamachi! Hey! So you’re here, too!” It was Nanba. Waving vigorously, he made his way over to Naoya. “What are you doing here, Nanba? Did Professor Takatsuki invite you as well?” “Nope, Hayama did. He’s a junior in the tennis club. Almost everyone else here is also a member. I was wondering if you’d be here, since it’s an event Professor Takatsuki is involved in, and whaddaya know? Summer is the perfect season for telling ghost stories, isn’t it?” As he talked about the club, Nanba gestured toward the group of people he had just left. One member of the group—a girl with her hair in a ponytail who was looking their way—was most likely Nanba’s girlfriend. Nanba was in the tennis club. Naoya had thought he didn’t recognize most of the participants’ faces because they were first-years, but it seemed it was just that some of them were students from other departments who played tennis. Takatsuki walked into the room at that moment with another of his graduate students, Ruiko Ubukata, in tow. Both of them were carrying bags of sweets. “Good evening! Is everyone here already? Here, more refreshments.” “Ah, thank you, Professor! All twenty-five participants are here, so we can start anytime!” Hayama relieved them of the sweets and gave them both candles in exchange. Around that time, the hubbub in the room started to shift in nature. Some of the female students had become laser-focused on something. They were, naturally, staring right at Takatsuki. Naoya could hear their comments from across the room: “Hey, who is that tall, good-looking guy?” “Wait, is that the ‘Associate Professor Takatsuki’ mentioned in the event notice?!” “No way! I wish I was in the Lit Department!” He had thought Takatsuki was a famous figure at Seiwa, but students in other departments seemed surprisingly unfamiliar with him. “Okay, everyone! Please take a seat!” Clapping his hands twice, Hayama got their attention. The participants, who’d been standing as they pleased around the room until that moment, took that as their signal to start moving. Grabbing the back of a nearby chair, Takatsuki looked at Naoya and Yui and beckoned lightly to them. Ruiko was doing the same at his side. “Let’s sit together,” they seemed to be saying. But before Naoya and Yui could move, something happened. The moment Takatsuki and Ruiko took their seats next to each other, a fierce battle broke out—musical chairs–style—for the open seat on Takatsuki’s other side. The fight was over in seconds, but it was a brutal one, nothing like the game Naoya remembered from grade school. That had merely been for fun; this was a genuine battle. Arms, shoulders, hands, and legs collided in a mix of offensive and defensive maneuvers, resulting in short cries piercing the air. The difference between the triumphant look of the girl who ultimately managed to slam her butt down into the chair and the sulky expressions of the ones who lost was incredible. Some of them had even been sent flying and tumbled to the floor, but they seemed unhurt, Naoya thought. The seat next to Ruiko had also been snapped up by an unfamiliar male student before anyone knew what was going on. “D-Dog Boy, let’s go sit over here…” “O-okay…” With a somewhat stiff face, Yui tugged on Naoya’s arm, guiding him to a couple of empty chairs. They ended up sitting basically opposite Takatsuki and Ruiko. The professor was looking at them with an embarrassed grin. Perhaps this was one of the struggles of being a good-looking man. When he was sure everyone was seated, Hayama began talking. “Everyone should have four candle lights, yes? Please turn them on.” Each participant switched their LED candles on. “I’ll turn the overhead lights off now.” Hayama flicked the switch on the wall, leaving only the glow of the candles to light the room. Perhaps due to the room’s location in a corner of the school building, the gleam from the streetlights in the courtyard didn’t make it to the windows. In the darkness, the faces of the assembled participants were dimly lit from below in a flame-like orange cast. In practice, the hundred-yen store lights turned out better than expected, creating a suitable atmosphere for telling scary stories. “Thank you, everyone,” Hayama said, “for coming to today’s Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. I’ve always wanted to try something like this, but my interest only grew after hearing Professor Takatsuki cover it in his lectures. We’re able to hold tonight’s event successfully thanks to Professor Takatsuki’s support and all of you. I hope it will give you even the barest of chills on this humid summer night.” Hayama bowed his head, and the tennis club members burst predictably into cheers. They seemed like a good-natured group. Holding up a hand, Hayama waved and thanked them before very abruptly pointing at Takatsuki. “Now, let’s kick things off with a few words from Professor Takatsuki!” “Huh? Was I supposed to prepare something?” Takatsuki replied, his eyes wide with surprise. “I didn’t know that.” Hayama apologized. “A lot of the people here haven’t been to your lectures, so I was thinking maybe it would be helpful to, like, you know, give a brief explanation of the ritual or something.” “I see. Well, that’s true. Okay then, I’ll keep it light.” Clearing his throat a bit, Takatsuki sat up straighter and smiled, looking around the assembly room. “So I’m going to talk a little bit about the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. This might end up taking more than ‘a few words’ to discuss, so let’s thinking of this as the first story of the evening rather than an introductory statement.” Holding up an LED candle in the palm of his hand, the professor continued: “We’re going to use these adorable lights in place of candles as we tell our stories, so I’d like to talk about why such things are necessary. As you’re all aware, it’s common practice to use one hundred lights for this ritual. In the Otogibōko, a text written in the Edo period, there’s a section called, ‘If You Speak of Mysteries, the Mysterious Shall Appear,’ which describes how to perform this ritual by detailing its ‘rules.’ According to the text, on a moonless night, the wicks of one hundred standing lanterns wrapped in blue paper would be lit. After the conclusion of each ghost story, one of the lanterns is snuffed out.” The professor’s voice carried through the room with a peculiar clarity and a brightness that was almost too much for such a gathering. The attendees listened to him quietly in the glow of the candlelight. “That seems to have been the standard method, but the procedure described in ‘One Hundred Tales at Umayabashi’ in Kaidan Oinotsune is more intricate. The blue lanterns would be set up in a room about thirty feet away alongside a hand mirror. After telling a story, the participants would have to walk alone through pitch darkness to that room. They would then extinguish one lantern, pick up the mirror, and stare at their own reflection before returning. It was more or less a test of courage. I rather admire the person who came up with this method—they must have understood human fear quite well.” A few people chuckled. Others, perhaps imagining making that solo trek through the dark, grimaced or smiled wryly. Takatsuki glanced around the room before speaking again. “Incidentally, has anyone ever wondered why the ritual involves the telling of one hundred stories exactly? Why one hundred instead of ten or fifty or one thousand?” Some of the participants tilted their heads in thought at his question. Naoya was among them. He had never really considered that point, come to think of it. Maybe it was just that ten seemed too few, fifty somehow felt half done, and one thousand was too many? “We use a hundred and hundreds to mean ‘a large amount’ as well as to indicate specific numbers. That’s how it’s used in Hyakki Yakou—that title isn’t meant to indicate that exactly one hundred demons parade through the night, but rather that the quantity of demons is very large. It’s said the name of the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual was derived from Hyakki Yakou. Such picture scrolls featuring hordes of demons were popular in the middle ages, but in the early-modern period, that hundred in the title was taken at face value, leading to a ritual in which exactly one hundred ghost stories are told.” The professor spoke into the dim room, which was lit faintly by the one hundred LED candles. Even though there were one hundred of them, they were too small to illuminate the whole room. Their glow extended only to the tables around which everyone was gathered; the rest of the room was lost in the inky blackness. It was dreadfully quiet, somehow. Every time Takatsuki stopped talking, the silence became strangely evident. It was possible that, both inside and outside the school building, they were the only people still on campus. In fact, it was so quiet, it felt like the entire neighborhood was deserted. Again, Takatsuki continued: “However, for us as Japanese people, the number one hundred can be seen as a definitive sort of goalpost. We have sayings like It’s been a century since we met here last, and it’s common to use one hundred percent as an adverbial phrase that indicates completeness, like one hundred percent accurate and one hundred percent aware. There’s also the Hyakunin Isshu, the collection of one hundred famous poems. In addition— Yes, there’s the tradition of ohyakudo-mairi, in which participants make one hundred pilgrimages to pray fervently to gods and Buddhas. The use of one hundred is ritualistic in this case. Praying one hundred times results in one’s heartfelt wishes being granted, which means one hundred must be the number sufficient to make prayers come true.” Takatsuki smiled brightly. He held the candle in his palm up at eye level. “Now, back to the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. As you’ll recall, I mentioned earlier that this ritual has rules. If you don’t follow those rules, you have not completed the ritual. So why are such rules necessary? Here, let’s refer once more to the previously mentioned passage from Otogibōko. The opening lines of the ‘If You Speak of Mysteries’ passage read as follows: ‘Gather thee one hundred ancient tales of terror and mystery and thereupon recite them, and that which is terrible and mysterious shall follow apace.’ In other words, if you tell one hundred scary and strange stories, scary and strange things are bound to happen. So it follows that if ohyakudo-mairi is a ritual to make prayers come true, then telling one hundred ghost stories in this way is simply a ritual used to summon the supernatural.” Takatsuki’s smile widened. The light from the candle he was holding reflected in his pupils, giving them a bewitching sheen. “Tonight, we have gathered here to tell one hundred ghost stories. If indeed ‘that which is terrible and mysterious shall follow apace,’ then something may happen when the final light goes out. In Otogibōko, countless twinkling lights flickered like fireflies before turning into one big sphere of white light, which then struck the tatami floor with a thunderous sound and disappeared. In Kaidan Oinotsune, the corpse of a woman who hanged herself appeared as an omen of a hanging incident that would occur in the future. Who knows what we will experience once all our stories have been told? I, for one, can’t wait to find out. And with that—the first tale comes to an end.” Takatsuki extinguished the LED in his palm. The darkness in the room deepened by one candle’s worth of light, and everything was still. Everyone was keenly aware that it was the middle of the night. Thus, the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual began. The storytelling continued in a clockwise direction from the professor. One by one, they each told a ghost story, then turned off a light. None of them were professional storytellers or anything of the sort, so the presentation varied in quality. Quite a few of the tales struck Naoya as ones he may have heard before, but there were some that were totally unfamiliar. The falsehoods and exaggerations he had been worried about weren’t enough to make him feel ill. A male student who was probably from another department started to speak. “This is something that actually happened to me. Once when I was in high school, a friend and I decided to spend the night at school without permission. We wanted to play a game of airsoft. Airsoft in a school building at night—sounds super fun, doesn’t it? So around midnight, we’re playing to our hearts’ content by the light of the emergency lamps when we heard a sound coming from the tennis courts in the courtyard. It was the whack, whack of a tennis ball being hit. I thought, Is there seriously someone else here besides us? But when we went to look…there was no one in the courtyard. I mean, there was no way someone could have been playing tennis, y’know? It was way too dark. They wouldn’t have been able to see the ball or anything. And yet from right there in front of us, we heard another whack. We didn’t see anyone. There was just the sound. Whack, whack… My friend and I were both freaked out, and we ran out of the building in a panic.” Judging by the distortion in his voice, the student telling the story hadn’t been the one staying overnight at the high school. It was probably a story he heard from someone else or read somewhere, repackaged as his own experience. Because he was merely retelling a story he knew, the tale itself wasn’t all that warped; there was just the occasional distortion of sentence subjects. The other stories thus far had been more or less the same, so Naoya was a bit relieved, thinking he could handle that much. In fact, he was having a surprisingly good time trying to discern which elements of the stories were lies. Next, a pale boy—he seemed like a first-year—began to talk. “I live in a first-floor apartment that has a garden. The local street cats that I feed come to play in it. They’re these really cute brown tabbies. I end up buying food for them a lot and waiting for them to come around. Sometimes, they show up pretty late at night, so I always leave my shutters open just a little. And, well, I spend a lot of time looking through the gaps of the shutters at night, hoping to see the cats… Um, so, the other night, I looked through the shutters before bed and saw something really freaky. A long-haired woman in white clothes was crawling around the garden on all fours. ” This one is going to be all made-up from here on out, Naoya thought, pretending to rest his chin in his hand so he could cover his ears. “At first, I figured somebody in my building was out there looking for something they dropped, but everyone who lives there is a guy. The way she was moving was weird, too. It was like she was scuttling around like a spider with her arms and legs bent… I was really scared, and I thought, I shouldn’t be looking at this. So I backed away quietly from the shutters, got into bed, pulled the covers up over myself, and went to sleep… I mean—” The distortion in his voice disappeared suddenly, catching Naoya by surprise. “—like, if that woman had noticed me watching, she definitely would have come up to my apartment, right? I was worried she would cling to the outside of the building and peek through the shutters at me… That thought freaked me out so much, I couldn’t sleep that night… I still have no idea what on earth that woman was. ” With that, the student switched off one of his candles. Naoya watched his face for a while longer with an odd feeling in his chest. The boy hadn’t lied about the cats coming to his garden or the fact that he left his shutters open slightly for that reason. He genuinely looked out through the shutter gaps at night. But seeing a woman in white crawling around? That was a lie. There had been no such woman. And yet the fear he felt toward her at the end of the story was real. What did that mean? Even as the next story began, Naoya was still thinking about the one he had just heard. Maybe the student had been stalked by a woman before and experienced her spying on him? But when he mentioned “that woman” peeking in at him, he had almost certainly been referring to the woman on all fours in the garden. Why would he be scared of being stared at by a woman who didn’t exist? Or perhaps—maybe his story was one that had occurred randomly to him while he was looking through the shutters one night. Naoya got the feeling that was it. In the dead of night, the boy peeks out through the narrow gap in his shutters. He sees a small garden in his limited field of vision, dimly lit by a nearby streetlight. Beyond the garden is the road. It’s already quite late, so there are no passersby. A pitch-black night, steeped in darkness. The view between the shutter slats is so different from the one during the daytime that it’s like seeing another world. He moves away from the shutters, getting into bed, and suddenly, his imagination ignites. Wouldn’t it be scary if I saw something weird through the gap in the shutters? A woman in white clothes crawling wordlessly around the dark garden, for example. Her limbs, crooked and spiderlike, pushing aside the overgrown weeds. Her downturned face obscured by her long, unkempt hair. And then the next instant, that face swivels upward to turn toward him. She notices him watching. The woman crawls in his direction at an astonishing speed. Emaciated hands grip the frame of the sliding glass door, and her twisted spine creaks terribly as she straightens up. Her deathly pale face presses against the gap in the shutters. Her eyes, opened unusually wide, peer out through her hair— In times like that, one’s biggest enemy was their own imagination. Most likely, the student had imagined something along those lines and gone to bed feeling extremely creeped out. Then that experience gave way to the ghost story he just told. How interesting, Naoya thought. Perhaps that was how the countless scary stories all over the world came to be: with a thought occurring suddenly over the course of one’s daily life—I would hate it if that happened—that took shape and became a frightening tale. Even if it was nothing more than an idea, the fear such thoughts could inspire was akin to that caused by the real thing. Naoya hadn’t really used his ability like this much before, but it was rather interesting to probe into the boundary between fiction and reality and think about why that resulted in the creation of a story. He wanted to bring up the subject with Takatsuki later. What would the professor have to say about it? Just then, Naoya felt someone’s gaze on him. He looked up to find Takatsuki watching him from the seat opposite him. The professor’s eyes were also narrowed in interest. Just as Naoya was wondering why that was, the voice of the girl currently speaking turned distorted. Naoya pressed his hands to his ears reflexively, and Takatsuki tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. Taking in the other man’s somewhat disappointed expression, Naoya realized something. Takatsuki was probably trying to discern from Naoya’s reactions whether any of the participants’ ghost stories were real. He felt a bit like he was being used, and perhaps that sentiment showed on his face, because Takatsuki shrugged a little as if in apology. Naoya just gave a minute shake of his head, however, to show he didn’t think anything of it. This sort of thing happened frequently, after all. Eventually, it was Yui’s turn. “Um, this is a story from when I was in high school.” Smiling, Yui held a candle aloft in her palm like Takatsuki had done and began to speak. “My grandmother was hospitalized for an illness, so my mom and I went to visit her. Afterward, we left her room, and as we were walking to the elevator, we were chatting about how glad we were to see Grandma was doing well. We got to the elevator just as the doors were closing. I could see there was someone already on it through the gap in the door before it shut, so I waited a moment before pressing the button. It would have been awkward to make the doors open back up right as they had closed, and it wasn’t like we were in a hurry. But I must have moved quicker than I realized, because the doors started to open again. I was standing there thinking, Oh no, I messed up, watching the doors slide apart, but—the elevator was empty inside.” Without thinking, Naoya turned toward Yui in surprise. Her voice hadn’t distorted at all. She continued. “I figured I must have been mistaken, but my mom looked surprised, too. ‘Wasn’t there someone in there?’ she said. ‘An older lady in a long skirt?’ She saw the same thing I did—an old lady wearing a floral skirt, standing with her back facing us. The woman didn’t look strange or anything; I’m pretty sure she was totally normal, but… While we were talking about it, the doors closed again, and the elevator was called to a lower floor. We ended up taking a different elevator down to go home, and to this day, I think that woman may have been a ghost. It isn’t that scary, but that’s the story of the only ghost I’ve ever seen. The end.” Yui blew delicately on the light in her palm. She switched it off at the exact same moment so that it seemed to actually go out as a real candle would have. From start to finish, Yui’s voice hadn’t warped even once. “Hey, wait a minute,” Naoya wanted to say, but he couldn’t just start interrogating her. Feeling someone watching him again, Naoya glanced at Takatsuki, who was looking back at him with a very characteristic sparkle in his eyes. Yui was likely in for a barrage of questions from the professor later. “Dog Boy, you’re up next,” Yui called to Naoya, who flinched. Hurriedly picking up a candle, he began to recite a story from the book of true ghost stories he had borrowed from Takatsuki. Looking around as he spoke, Naoya noticed most of the group was facing whoever’s turn it was. Everyone seemed to be participating more earnestly than expected. Well, they had made the effort to show up to the event in the first place. They were probably a bunch of ghost story enthusiasts for the most part. There was, however, one person among them who was oddly stiff. It was Nanba’s girlfriend. Naoya was fairly certain her name was Narumi. Narumi’s thin shoulders were tense, her gaze cast downward. Naoya wondered if maybe she wasn’t feeling well, but then he saw that she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, and he realized she was scared. She probably really disliked ghost stories. Had she felt obliged to come because of her club affiliation? Or because Nanba had agreed to it? Then, at her side, Nanba poked gently at Narumi’s hand. His movements casual, he grabbed her hand from above and lowered it under the table. Narumi’s eyes widened a little, then she glanced down with a shy smile. Nanba seemed to be holding her hand, out of everyone else’s line of sight. The stiffness melted visibly from Narumi’s shoulders. The sight made Naoya feel pleased somehow. Nice one, Nanba, he thought. You’re a good guy, you know. They took some breaks throughout the evening, but the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual progressed smoothly. Speakers whose voice remained undistorted from start to finish, like Yui’s, were rare, though many of their stories were enjoyable anyway. Among them was Ruiko, whose storytelling abilities made her seem like a pro. She mainly told well-known internet folklore stories—“Kunekune,” “Saru Yume,” “Hasshaku-sama.” Even Naoya, who was pretty familiar with Ruiko, was a bit freaked out when she mimicked Hasshaku-sama’s “po-po-po-po” laugh while the light of an LED candle reflected off the lenses of her glasses. It was toward the end of the event that a particular story was told. The one who shared it was the first-year boy who had relayed the tale about the woman crawling around the garden. “…Um, someone already told the exact ghost story I was going to do next, so I’ll go for a different one. This…might not really be a ghost story. But it is true.” With that preface, the boy’s story began. “I had a sister who was three years younger than me. We played together all the time when we were little…but when I got to the later years of elementary school, my friends started making fun of me. They would say I had a ‘sister complex.’ So one day, I left my sister alone so I could go hang out with them instead. Apparently, my sister was playing by herself with a ball in front of the house… When the ball rolled away from her, she chased it into the street and was hit by a car. She ended up passing away. My parents never blamed me or anything, but I still felt like it was all my fault.” The student’s trembling voice didn’t warp once as he spoke. His story was true. “…Why did I leave her behind to go play? I should have just taken her with me. I’m sure she blames me, too. That was all I could think about every day, and I got really depressed…but then one day when I came home from elementary school, there was a flower on my bed next to my pillow.” The boy explained that it was something he and his sister had often done to make up after a fight. They would pick a flower from the garden and place it next to the other’s pillow when they weren’t looking. If either of them found a flower by their pillow, no matter how angry they had been, they would forgive the other. It was a custom he and his sister had decided upon—their own private way of apologizing that not even their parents knew about. “I asked my parents about the flower, but they didn’t know where it had come from. Then I thought, Oh, my little sister was here. Her ghost had picked a flower for me, her stupid older brother who was always so miserable… Surely, it was a symbol of her forgiveness.” As his voice became less shaky, the boy apologized for the story not being scary while flicking off his candle. Certainly, the story was more heartwarming than frightening. But there had been no distortion in his words from beginning to end, which meant the story was true. Whether the ghost of the boy’s sister had been the one to leave that flower or not, Naoya didn’t know. But at the very least—that was what the boy believed. After that story, the ritual continued. Unsurprisingly, by that point, the stories were starting to overlap quite a bit. Some were actually pretty boring, and some could barely be called ghost stories at all. The tension in the room was, nevertheless, only increasing. Every time someone finished a story, the darkness grew denser. At the start, everyone’s faces had been clearly visible, but it had gotten difficult to tell people apart now. Those who had completed their turns no longer had a single lit candle in their hands. Engulfed in darkness, only their outlines were visible. Before long, Naoya found himself keeping track of the number of remaining stories in his head. There were still five lights on. What would happen once they all went out? These were the thoughts on everyone’s minds. After all, they were currently conducting a ritual to summon the supernatural. Another ghost story concluded. The darkness deepened once more by a single candle’s light. When they had first been handed the lights, Naoya had wondered just how well these tiny, cheap-looking things would work. But with the room as dark as it was, it became painfully obvious just how reassuringly bright the little candles shone. Someone finished telling another ghost story. The darkness deepened once more by a single candle’s worth of light. The tension in the air was palpable. Everyone in the room was holding their breath, staring at the three remaining lights—trying their best not to look into the surrounding darkness. Everyone was very aware, after all. None of the ghost stories, scary tales, and creepy anecdotes they’d told had disappeared from the isolated assembly room. They had simply piled up one after another in the dark, congealing into a mass that was on the verge of taking shape. The white figure someone saw at the abandoned hospital they’d gone into as a test of courage. The one-legged figure seen from behind, standing at the scene of an accident. The eight-foot-tall monster with the eerie laugh. They were all hiding in the darkness, lying eagerly in wait for the chance to emerge. They, too, were waiting with bated breath for the last light to go out. Ah, that’s right. In times like these, one’s biggest enemy was their own imagination. Human fear was what allowed demons to run rampant in the darkness. The Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual was used to instill one hundred little terrors in someone’s heart, a ceremony to help them see inhuman figures and forms in the dark. The scariest moment would probably be when the last light was turned off. Even if nothing happened afterward, everyone would probably be so terrified that their hearts would tremble. Someone finished telling another ghost story. The darkness deepened once more by a single candle’s light. Why did people share scary stories in the first place? Stories about ghosts, about monsters, about other worlds unlike this one. Things that had nothing to do with the everyday lives of people; things that were, in fact, not supposed to be a part of ordinary life. So why did people deliberately try to peer into the realm of the unknown? No—that wasn’t it. The spirit realm was always just there, a hair’s breadth away. Humans merely tried not to look at it nor come into contact with it, but the truth was that it was always present, right next to them, separated from their world by a single thin membrane. People had no idea when they would find themselves brushing up against that membrane. They might fall asleep on a late-night train and wake up in another world. Or they could be in bed with a high fever and hear the thundering of festival drums that was none other than an invitation to the other side. Maybe in the corners of their minds, humans knew how little there was separating the ordinary from the extraordinary. And so when they had the chance, they told ghost stories so they could get a glimpse of the spirit realm and try to get used to the fear. Someone finished telling another ghost story. Only one light remained. The final ghost story began. A voice hoarse with nerves recited a scary tale. It was about someone who was running past an empty park late at night. Inside, a swing was moving of its own accord, its chains creaking. A single child’s shoe was left sitting in the middle of the park. When the runner got home, for some reason, that same shoe was sitting in front of their door. The story was familiar. A conventional ghost story. And yet it felt unreasonably scary. With that, the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual was complete. The last candle was turned off, and everything fell into darkness. It was too dark to see. Not a sound could be heard. The silence was so deafening that it hurt. No— There was something. Just two little words… …in a voice that sounded like it belonged to a young girl. The next second, a tremendous scream rang out. It came from one of the female students. The resounding shrieks caused others to start screaming as well. Even the male students hollered instinctively. There was the sound of chairs and tables clattering and the footsteps of someone dashing toward the wall. Suddenly, the overhead lights switched on. It was too bright for eyes accustomed to the dark, and Naoya squeezed his eyelids shut automatically. He held his hands over his glasses, letting his vision gradually readjust. Blinking rapidly, he looked around the assembly room, seeing the chairs and tables in disarray. Several people were standing, while the rest remained seated with almost dazed expressions on their faces, surveying the room like Naoya was. Narumi, her face pressed to Nanba’s chest, was shaking. Looking distressed, Nanba stroked his girlfriend’s back in an effort to soothe her. “Hey,” one of the other female students said, her voice trembling. “Everyone heard that just now, right?” One of the guys who was standing nodded stiffly. “I heard it. It sounded like a kid’s voice.” “M-maybe you just imagined it?” a different girl responded with a strained laugh, but the first student shook her head. “If it was just my imagination, no one else would have heard the same voice! Right? You heard it, didn’t you?! You guys, too?!” “…It sounded like it said, ‘big brother,’” said the pale first-year boy in a low murmur. At that, Hayama, who was standing in front of the light switch by the wall, held up a hand. “Um! I was actually recording! Let’s check the audio!” In his raised hand, Hayama held a digital recorder. All at once, the room was alive with activity. Hayama had returned to the tables and was surrounded by a number of people urging him to hurry and play the recording. As he pushed the right buttons to make the device replay the end of the last ghost story, Hayama could not conceal the way his hands shook. “…When they returned home, they saw there was something by the front door. It was the exact same child’s shoe that they had seen at the park. A single, small, yellow shoe, placed with the heel facing the door as if someone had only just taken it off there.” The story ended, and the speaker’s voice trailed off. For a few moments, there was silence. And then— “—See! I heard it just now!” someone yelled. Hayama rewound the audio. Naoya heard it. Someone saying, in the faintest of voices… …Big brother. “N-no, don’t! Please just stop! No more, no more, no more!” Narumi wailed, sounding nearly in tears, her face still pressed to Nanba’s chest. She was probably the one who had screamed earlier. Holding Narumi close, Nanba turned to Hayama. “Sorry, but could you hold off for now? She’s really freaked out.” “But…” “Sorry,” Nanba repeated, “but it’s gotta wait.” Hayama put the recorder away without another word. The other students looked around at one another uneasily. Then— —Takatsuki stood up from his folding chair. It didn’t escape Naoya’s notice that the professor hadn’t joined in the commotion surrounding Hayama. Takatsuki strode calmly to a window, where he opened the glass pane up with a rattling sound and looked outside. “Hmm, it’s still dark,” he noted in a relaxed tone, turning back toward the room. “It’s…just before four o’clock, it seems? We finished earlier than I expected.” He looked around at them with his friendly golden-retriever smile. “Well done, everyone! That was pretty fun!” His bright voice and expression dispersed the tension in the air. The students let out sighs like they had just been freed from a curse. Takatsuki continued: “Now then, Hayama. You have one more fun activity planned, don’t you? If we don’t get to it soon, it’ll be too bright out.” “Oh, yes! That’s right. Um, everybody—how about some fireworks?” Hayama dashed over to the wall and hurried back with a cardboard box in his arms. “I heard that fireworks can be used to ward off evil, so I got us some! Well, they’re actually sparklers. Let’s light them before the sun starts to come up! Everybody, outside!” “Just to be clear, the fireworks part of this has to be kept secret, okay?” Takatsuki said, pressing a finger to his lips. “We’re really not supposed to have them on campus. If Academic Affairs finds out, I’ll get an earful.” It didn’t matter that they were just sparklers; everyone headed outdoors right away in high spirits. The sparklers were going to be lit behind the school building, apparently. Nanba followed the other participants, too, bringing Narumi along as she continued to cling to him.