Chapter Seven: An Ordinary Life, with Stories
AKARI awoke to find herself in a city hospital that was under the influence of the Narrators’ Association. Before long, Munakata showed up to fill her in on what had happened.
The fire at the Sumimata Corporation warehouse was safely extinguished in the early morning.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the only damage had been to the warehouse itself. The cause of the fire—the Raiju—had been safely captured. The large-scale operation conducted by the Narrators and their Kotogami had been reported widely in the newspapers, and as a result, public favor for them rapidly returned.
The Narrators’ Association was currently investigating both the Raiju and the illegal “Pseudogatari” books, their suspicions turned on not just Sumimata, but several other companies as well. In fact, the Association had already been planning to strike Sumimata and begin making arrests based on Akari’s hunch. But then the fire happened first.
“You could see the fire from all over the city. We weren’t able to keep it from taking hold. But it turned out well—we manipulated the media to our advantage.”
Munakata seemed exhausted, slumped in the hospital room chair in a slovenly manner. He looked clean and shaven, but his uniform was rumpled and the inner shirt had one or two buttons left undone. He was pale in the face, too.
Akari paused in cutting up one of the peaches he’d brought her. Taking pity on him, she offered him a slice.
Munakata sat up in his chair.
“You’re willingly sharing food? Is the sky falling?”
“Oh, so you don’t want it, then?”
“Hand it over.”
Munakata grabbed the peach slice from Akari’s hand and tossed it into his mouth.
“It’s sweet. Worth the high price, I’d say.”
“It’s the best season for them right now.”
Akari quickly polished off the rest of the peach. They were sweet as nectar this time of year. The juice flowed over her tongue and fulfilled her in ways the bland hospital food had not.
Immediately, she started cutting up the next one. Then she paused, feeling Munakata’s intense eyes on her.
“You must be feeling better if you’re able to inhale peaches one after another like that.”
“Yep. But yesterday when I awoke, I could barely even sit up.”
“You manifested two Kotogami at once. Even seasoned Narrators never try to do that. And what were you thinking, entering into two contracts and re-narrating both Kotogami, one right after the other? Are you insane? I’m surprised you survived, to be honest.”
When Akari had passed out in the flaming warehouse, it had been because of an overload of spiritual power consumption.
Munakata scoffed at her, and Akari sulkily stabbed a toothpick into another peach slice.
“I didn’t realize I was taking on such a big responsibility at the time.”
“Yes, that was partially my fault. I kept certain information from you since you were just a civvy.”
He shrugged, and Akari sighed. It was hard to stay mad at him when he apologized. And Akari herself had never bothered trying to find out more about how Kotogami worked. Anyway, she wasn’t really upset about it. She could let this one slide.
She sensed him shift in the chair and turned to look at him. But he just steepled his fingers together and leaned forward thoughtfully.
“I should let you know that Sumimata Corporation is currently under investigation by the police for corporate malpractice. They, too, seem to have realized that the company has been using their musical clock product to call forth various spirits and incite them to violence. I’m certain they’ll link the company to the recent yokai disturbances. What happens then will probably depend on public opinion, but my guess is that heads will roll, at least on the managerial level.”
“So you’re not going to make the stuff about the Pseudogatari public?”
“The existence of those is a sensitive issue. We don’t want the book-burning radicals to get inflamed over this. They were in bed with your corporation all along, you know, trying to get the Narrators and Kotogami terminated. Where this case is concerned, the Narrators’ Association has adopted a policy of discretion.”
Munakata paused for a second.
“What I’m telling you is that Sumimata is going to collapse as a company. Is that all right with you?”
“Well, it’s what they deserve. The Raiju and other yokai disturbances…people could have been killed. They need to pay for what they’ve done.”
Akari felt bad for the other innocent employees who were about to find themselves out of a job, but she couldn’t blame the Association’s handling of the situation for that.
“It was idiotic of them to try to take down the Narrators and the Kotogami while using their own fake Kotogatari. They never really thought it through, did they? Fools.”
“You’re darn right. Messing with things they’re too stupid to understand. I don’t even want to know what they thought their justification was. I just want to see that whole twisted organization torn up by the roots.”
Akari blinked at Munakata, who had balled his hands into fists and was growling in a low voice. The fire in his gaze was so different from his usual tepid demeanor.
He really is dedicated to the Association after all, Akari thought. He gave her a questioning look.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just unexpected to see you taking something so seriously.”
“Don’t be fooled. My favorite thing to do is nothing. I hate it when I get a call to attend to a yokai case.”
Sighing, Munakata leaned back in his chair, his expression once again showing only boredom. With that cool-guy act of his, Akari figured he had a lot of younger military members who hung on to his every word.
“But you know, I’m not an Association member. Should you really be telling me, an outsider, all this?”
Akari gave him a sly grin, and his shoulders drooped as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
“I’d hardly call you an outsider. In fact, you’ve become something of a person of interest for our organization. I’ve been able to hide the existence of the demon Tomohito, but I can’t cover up the emergence of that Western beast. Tomohito complied with our cover story, but that beast is an unknown entity. And now he is under your control. The Association is currently investigating him, and you too.”
“So that’s why you’re here chatting with me, hmm?”
“Precisely. I was assigned as your inspector, you see.”
“I think they picked the wrong person for the job.”
Munakata just shrugged, not bothering to deny it.
“Miss Mitsukuri, may I remind you that you pulled off feats no ordinary Narrator ever could. You manifested a powerful demon with the power of your words, and you performed a re-narration of a warped Kotogami using your own words to restore it to a complete form. These accomplishments are unprecedented. And you did all this without any training whatsoever.”
“I just strung some words together. It was no big deal…”
“But that’s the issue. You didn’t even have to try.”