At the orthopedic department of the general hospital, Mitsuhiro was stripped of all his clothes except his underwear and given a hospital gown. An X-ray revealed a fracture of the proximal end of the humerus, something he was told usually happened to athletes or the elderly after falls. He opted not to mention that he had been kicked into a fairly deep hole.
He underwent an MRI scan of his head, got stitches for some of the cuts on his legs, and received treatment for the burns all over his body. Because he had come with the police, the doctor who patched him up assumed that Mitsuhiro and Sae had been involved in a traffic accident, the sort where the car both got torn apart and caught on fire. That wasn’t entirely wrong, so he didn’t argue the point.
His right upper arm was carefully immobilized, and his forearm was suspended from his neck in a sling. He was given an IV for pain relief and told that he’d need to stay in the hospital for a few days. By the time he learned this, it was already past four in the afternoon, and he hadn’t been able to see Miyoko or Sae the entire time.
He was then led to a hospital room—a private room, even though he hadn’t requested one. At the door, he was handed a bag with his clothes, and then he was left alone, as if to say, Do whatever you want in there.
At that point, he should have sensed the hand of someone else in all this, but all he could think about was lying down in bed—that, or talking to his family. But when he opened the door and entered, there were two men inside—one in a suit, and the other in work clothes.
Detective Kitagawa was holding a can of coffee, and Yoshio Tamai was holding a large paper bag, standing by the window. Mitsuhiro realized that life wasn’t going to be that easy for him.
“We’re here to see how you’re doing. Are you feeling any better?”
The strong painkillers made it hard to stand up for long, so Mitsuhiro put the bag with his clothes on the bed and sat down.
“They said I can be discharged in a few days if I rest enough. My head’s still foggy from the medication, so I’m not sure if I can talk too coherently, but…”
“I’m not here to question you,” Kitagawa quickly said. “I’m just here to see how you’re doing. We heard you hit your head. If you’re doing all right, I’ll be on my way.”
Before Mitsuhiro could ask anything, he shook the coffee can to see if there was any left, took a sip, and left the room.
Yoshio Tamai smiled at Mitsuhiro, who was left in a daze.
“They don’t want to get involved, I suppose. Everyone in the Tokyo police force knows about the terrible things that happened to Mr. Sugawara of Shimaoka a long time ago.”
“Chief Sugawara…?”
“It was at the construction site when the police department moved to its current location. There was a ritual hall in the basement there, which we were in charge of managing. The police chief must have been very afraid of curses, because he strictly ordered all his officers not to go down to the East Wing basement this time, too. Just like before.”
“Is he okay now, Chief Sugawara?”
“Well, he suffered serious burns, but his life isn’t in danger. I heard that this belonged to you, Mr. Matsunaga, so I brought it over for you.”
Yoshio handed him the paper bag, which contained a charred bag. He didn’t have any choice but to leave it in Sugawara’s car at the time.
Mitsuhiro put the burnt-smelling bag back in the paper bag and wondered what would have happened if the police had confiscated it. What would they have said about the Rubik’s Cube of unknown origins? And what about Mole Unit-01’s phone?
As Mitsuhiro thought about this, Yoshio Tamai bowed his head.
“We’ve caused you a lot of trouble. We had changed both our posts and our last names to prevent something like this from happening again, but I suppose the curse was stronger than we expected.”
“I heard that Mr. Araki was the son of your predecessor… Oh, right, have a seat.”
“Thank you very much.”
Yoshio pulled up a chair and sat down across from Mitsuhiro.
“It was a long time ago, but our previous president, Yutaro Tamai, was severely cursed. The owner of a building where a ritual hall was located became involved in a faddish new religion. He wound up tampering with the shrine, and both he and Yutaro, who was in charge of managing it, were cursed.”
“Cursed? It wasn’t his fault.”
“As I suppose you understand now, curses are like that. They spread through people’s karma—it’s not about good or evil. It’s not because someone harmed the gods or because something is right or wrong. It’s more like a natural disaster. If a dike breaks, it’ll lead to a flood, but you can’t say the people caught in that flood did anything wrong to deserve it.”
That was the cruelty of disasters, and it was enough to convince Mitsuhiro. Part of him wanted to dismiss the idea as ridiculous, but whether it was the painkillers or the injuries and fatigue, he couldn’t bring himself to argue.
“But things often follow the path of karma. If a parent is cursed, it often passes down to their children.”
Those words caught uncomfortably in Mitsuhiro’s mind. A curse placed on a parent is passed on to their children? For some reason, he felt like Yoshio was talking about his own father. Somewhere in his heart, he feared that he’d mention the fire at his parents’ house long ago, but Yoshio seemed indifferent to that.
“To sever the ties of karma, Sota Araki and I swapped homes. Originally, I was Yoshio Araki, and he was Sota Tamai. However, the karma must have returned to its original holders somehow. Perhaps deep down, he was not fully on board with swapping families.”
“I see…”
“That, of course, is the situation on our side. Which has nothing to do with you, Mr. Matsunaga. But since we have become connected in this way, I’m afraid I must ask you to participate in the ritual.”
The sudden request left him feeling like his heart was being squeezed by a clenched fist.
“But…does that mean I have to go into that hole, too?”
Yoshio waved his hand, dismissing the idea. “No, no, Mr. Matsunaga. you’re neither a mi-keshi nor a Shinto priest. We just need you to join the circle of the ritual. It will be a ceremony to invite the water god to enter the hall. We cannot return the bone ash that possessed you to its original place and prevent it from ever coming out again, but we’ll make sure that it doesn’t come out for at least the next few decades.”
“I’d…like to talk to my wife and daughter first…”
“I strongly advise you to meet them after the curse has been lifted.” Yoshio suddenly looked very serious. The faint smile on his lips only made his expression eerier. His words carried an inexplicable persuasiveness.
“All right. But in the state I’m in…”
“We’ll have our staff work something out. Do you have your father’s belongings?”
Mitsuhiro searched the pocket of the jacket in the bag and took out the handkerchief and the stone. “Um…yes, right here.”
“Then please take them with you. And please take this, too, while I’m here.”
Yoshio took a thick envelope out of the pocket of his work clothes and handed it to him. Mitsuhiro frowned as he took it and looked at the contents. Then his eyes widened. It was a thick stack of ten-thousand-yen bills.