So Mitsuhiro now had his appointment. Deep down, he wanted to ask Araki about the East Wing fire and Mole Unit-01 right now, but he couldn’t risk doing anything that’d break off contact with him. Besides, he couldn’t judge for himself whether his mind was wholly sound right now. He wanted to call Miyoko but didn’t. If he lost himself in the middle of the call and flew into another rage, it’d do nothing to calm her or Sae.
For that matter, Mitsuhiro couldn’t even really remember in detail what he had been doing since going down to the basement of the construction site anyway. Was that really true? Fourteen homeless people were missing? Even if he did take them all to the ritual hall, he had no clue what had happened to them afterward. Then again, wasn’t Araki managing that hall? It was odd that he hadn’t commented at all, either.
Mitsuhiro put his hand on his breast pocket to check for the stone and looked around the room for a way to keep himself sane. He felt helpless, wandering in complete darkness with only a flashlight to guide him. He could no longer dismiss the idea of “curses” as mere superstition, and thanks to that, he couldn’t even tell where the boundary between normal and abnormal lay any longer.
A loud noise echoed through the room. A torrential downpour had begun out of nowhere, pounding against the windows and screens. The kind of sudden, intense rain that had been making headlines in the news lately. Mitsuhiro stood by the window, feeling the wind and rain blowing through the screen. It was surprisingly rejuvenating, almost like it was purifying him. The violent storm seemed to blow away the strange smell and dry air that had taken up residence here.
He wanted to open all the windows in the house, but he didn’t. Instead, he closed it and went to the kitchen. He took a wet wipe and wiped down the table, then put everything back into his bag. After finishing off the contents of the plastic bottle, he threw it into the recycling bin. He washed the rag in the sink, wrung it out, and tossed it in the trash as well. Then he used a floor wiper to go over the floors in the dining room, kitchen, and hallway, briskly wiping away the dust-like material that had accumulated while he was unaware.
He discarded the wiper sheet and peeled off all the stained newspaper from the hallway walls. The thumbtacks were blackened and smelly, so he threw them away with the newspaper. He wondered what to do with the amulet up there, but in the end, he took it off and threw it away along with the tacks. It felt like throwing away a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills, but he didn’t let his emotions get the better of him.
He then brought in another rag from the kitchen and used some household cleaner to wipe the walls. The once-gruesome stains were reduced to just some dirty faded marks. He threw away the rag, took the garbage bag from the bin, tied it shut, and took it out to the trash-disposal room.
Upon returning, he filled the bathtub with water and had a late dinner in the kitchen—microwavable white rice, instant miso soup, and whatever else was left in the refrigerator. He still felt pretty lethargic, eating alone to the sound of the rain, but he could tell that his blood was moving around again. It helped him relax, and his back and abdomen were grateful.
After finishing his meal and washing the dishes, he went to the bathroom and threw his jacket into a cleaning bag. Before taking off his shirt, he took the handkerchief and stone out from the breast pocket. He wondered if something resembling his father might appear as soon as he let go of them. How did Chief Sugawara do this? Did he carry his brother’s glasses with him into the bath? He couldn’t have. If so, he would’ve advised Mitsuhiro that he really did have to go that far.
As a test, he cautiously placed the handkerchief and stone on the sink. Nothing happened. He took a step back and looked around. He waited for a burnt-out corpse to suddenly pop out and grab him, but nothing appeared.
Keeping the handkerchief and stone close at hand, he took another step back and left the bathroom. He felt fine. He wasn’t going crazy, at least. He wasn’t struck by an urge to lunge for them right away. Perhaps just recognizing that his father’s belongings were there had an effect.
Mitsuhiro returned to the sink, still on his guard, and began to unwrap the gauze on his left hand. He braced himself for intense pain, but it just stung a little. As the blood-soaked gauze came off, it revealed a cut running diagonally from the base of his index finger to the heel right above his wrist. It was scabbed up, covered in dried blood, and almost completely closed. He didn’t know which line this corresponded to in palm reading, but either way, he didn’t think the wound would last long.
He wondered why such a shallow cut hurt so much. Should he take it as a message from his real father? He would’ve preferred a warning that didn’t involve debilitating pain, but it had successfully brought him back to his senses, so he had no right to complain.
So Mitsuhiro stopped worrying about the pain in his hand and looked up as he unbuttoned his shirt. Then he saw it in the mirror—or them, that is.
Charred corpses were writhing and screaming behind Mitsuhiro. He couldn’t tell how many there were. Faces and hands were everywhere around him, spewing boiling blood from skin torn away by the heat. He couldn’t actually hear anything, and yet he felt like he was being swallowed up by a whirlpool of ear-splitting screams.
It had started and ended in an instant. Stunned, he grabbed the handkerchief and the stone—but before he even made the move, the horde of corpses had vanished. It wasn’t really a matter of “appearing” or “vanishing”—it felt more like he had briefly shifted into the same wavelength or something with them, giving him a glimpse of the other side.
His heart was pounding violently in his chest, and sweat was breaking out on his forehead. But there was no sense of fear-driven helplessness. It was there to some extent, but he pushed it aside, ardently hoping to endure this inexplicably abnormal experience.
Perhaps it was thanks to his father’s belongings that he could think clearly about all this.
The horde was still there. He had driven them out of his mind, but they were still persistently clinging to him. Not just one or two of them but a collective force—something impossible to count, much like a flow of water or a puff of smoke. Unless he drove them out of this home and back to the hole they came from, they’d continue to haunt him forever.
Mitsuhiro pressed his left hand against the mirror and pushed hard. The gesture didn’t have much thought behind it, but he needed his own “ritual” to fight this fear. To express his determination.
He felt a sharp pain in his hand, but he ignored it and rubbed it against the mirror. The blood from the wound seeped out, leaving a thin film. He continued moving slowly, writing a large character across the entire surface of the mirror.
鎭
He didn’t know if this would work, but he wanted to make this display to whatever was following him around. He needed to show whatever was clinging to him that he wouldn’t go down without a fight.
—This is where my family lives. It doesn’t belong to you. You have no right to be here. You’re not even alive. I won’t let you take this away from me.
Mitsuhiro held his sharp stone in the air, wrapped in a handkerchief, and shouted:
“Get out! Get out of my family’s house!”