It might look like just a BL book, but it definitely had more information in it than you’d think. So there must be some kind of meaning to the two “Gods of Fortune.”
“This is the only story with a shrine...” Sarai pointed out.
He was right. The only people the main character slept with were the Gods of Fortune, and most of it was set at a shrine, with several panels dedicated to describing it.
“In other words, the Kotoribako is at a shrine?” That felt a little too obvious to me, but it made sense. If it was that powerful, the safest thing to do would be to seal it away somewhere holy.
I decided to run a search for how many shrines there were in Kichijoji.
“There are three shrines in Kichijoji, according to the map.” Tamamitsu Shrine, Musashino Hachimangu Shrine, and Yaeda Shrine. “If you extend the area to Mitaka and Nishi-Ogikubo, there’s more.”
“Wasn’t there a shrine in Inokashira Park?” Myu-Pom nodded in response to Sarai’s question.
“Benten Shrine, right? I’ve been there.”
If the shrine in Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi was based off of one in Kichijoji, we might be able to find something in common.
“Can we pin it down?”
“Ririka Nishizono isn’t that great an artist.” Sarai sighed.
“And it doesn’t look like she traced from a picture either. The perspective is all messed up. It looks like she’s just drawing haphazardly.”
That would make ID’ing it hard.
“If the torii arch were in it, we might be able to narrow it down a little.”
“The torii?”
“There are different kinds of torii arches at shrines. I think there are about sixty variations.”
Huh? Seriously? I had no idea.
Way to go, Sarai-kyun. You’re like a walking encyclopedia.
“But... there’s no torii arch in this doujinshi.”
He was right. There were no torii arches drawn. The only scenes with the Gods of Fortune were drawn inside the shrine grounds.
“The shrine’s supposed to be pretty big, so wouldn’t it be something like Hachimanjingu?”
I checked with street view, and of the three shrines in Kichijoji, Yaeda Shrine was tiny. It was basically just an arch and a shrine building. We could eliminate that one, maybe.
That is, if Ririka Nishizono was being careful with what she drew.
There was a chance that her shrine had nothing to do with a real one. If that were the case, then we were wasting our time here.
“Are these two Gods of Fortune from the seven Gods of Fortune? If so, then doesn’t that mean it’s probably Benten Shrine? He’s one of them.” Myu-Pom’s idea was a good one, but...
“These two are supposed to be Gods of Fortune, but they don’t actually do anything blessing-y.”
Each of the seven Gods of Fortune was famous and distinct, so if you were drawing one of them, you’d add in parts of their costume or something to make them recognizable.
Ririka Nishizono’s gods weren’t anything more than normal, handsome men.
Of course, that wasn’t a problem. This was an original doujinshi. She could draw whatever she wanted.
But there was no way to tell if one of the gods, or perhaps both, were supposed to be Benzaiten. We were never told their names, for one thing.
I thought about going to the park to check, but Inokashira Park was closed down right now.
“Wait, wasn’t that place a temple, not a shrine?”
“Oh, was it?”
“I don’t think... there was an arch.”
“Which means...” I used my laptop to search the area around Kichijoji again. “Maybe we were mistaken to limit ourselves to shrines.”
There were about six temples around Kichijoji. But that didn’t mean we’d found any kind of new clue. Instead of having three places to search, we now had nine.
“...”
I realized that everyone had fallen silent.
The debate had reached an end.
This single doujinshi wasn’t going to give us any critical hints.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” I headed for the bathroom to clear my head.
The bathroom was dark and moody, like always. There were all kinds of flyers and things pasted up on the walls, and I always felt a little uneasy in there.
As I relieved myself, I looked at the flyers, until my eyes happened to stop on a small poster the size of an ordinary piece of paper.
“Make a Pilgrimage to the Seven Gods of Fortune in Kichijoji, Musashino”
“What a coincidence.” We’d been talking about the seven Gods of Fortune, and here I was staring at a poster for an event involving them.
What a coincidence. Or was it a coincidence? Maybe there was a hint here.
“Hmm?”
It was a bus tour that was held every January. The tour visited shrines and temples relating to the seven Gods of Fortune in Kichijoji.
The one in Inokashira was included in the tour as well. There was also Anyoji, Musashino Hachimangingu, and Daihozenji.
Enmeiji and Kizuki Taisha were pretty far apart. Kizuki Taisha was two stations down at Musashisakai station, and Enmeiji was in a hard-to-get-to place near Musashino University.
That explained why there was a bus tour. It would be really hard to visit all six spots on your own.
“Hmm? Six? Even though there’s seven gods?” Did I count wrong?
After I finished and flushed, I leaned forward to take a closer look at the pamphlet.
I followed the stops on the tour in order.
“Inokashira Benzaiten. Musashino Hachimangu, Anyoji, Daihozenji, Enmeiji, Kizuki Taisha... Huh? There really are only six.” Why was there one missing?
I looked even closer, and quickly found the answer.
Each temple, or shrine, had one god in it. Musashino Hachimangu was where Daikokuten was, and Ebisu could be found at Kizuki Taisha. But Enmeiji was a coincidence. There were two Gods of Fortune there: Bishamonten and Juroten...
“Is this...” All the hair on my body stood on end. “Two Gods of Fortune?!”
Wait... was that it? I ripped down the poster and ran from the bathroom.
“Guys! Look! Look at this!” I showed them all the poster.
A wave of surprise went through them as I told them about the two Gods of Fortune at Enmeiji.
“It makes sense... but is this the answer...?”
“The Kotoribako is at Enmeiji...?”
“It’s worth going, isn’t it?”
“But, but!” Ryotasu looked a little scared.
“Isn’t it dangerous? The Kotoribako is bad, right?”
“If we just go look, it should be fine—”
“Oh my. How brave.” And then I heard the quiet, but clear, voice of a woman.
I turned towards the voice in shock.
At some point, an astonishingly beautiful girl in a long black coat, with long, lush hair, had opened the door and come into the cafe.
It was a sudden visitor. Of course, we hadn’t reserved Blue Moon or anything, so it wasn’t strange for anybody else to show up.
This girl had an aura about her that made her hard to approach, and she gave each of us a freezing-cold glance.
As all of us stood there in shock, Ryotasu spun around and pointed to the girl.
“It’s the witch! ☆”
The witch...?
“Aria Kurenaino...” Myu-Pom whispered. It was only then that I realized who she was.
Wait, Aria Kurenaino?!
“U-Uwah! She’s come to curse us!” I hid behind Ryotasu’s back, quickly. “I knew it! I found the truth hidden in Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi, and her co-conspirator Aria Kurenaino has come to kill me with her curse! It’s so obvious now! Sarai, she’s a black-magic agent! Her job is to kill people with curses!”
“Calm down, Gamon!” Sarai yelled at me, annoyed.
“There’s no such things as curses!”
“But—”
“I don’t know who Ririka Nishizono is, but...” Aria whispered calmly.
Of course, I had no way of knowing if that were true or not.
“I’m very interested in what I just heard you say.”
“What you heard us say? But when? You just got here.”
“More precisely, it was relayed to me. It was my partner who heard the story—” And then Aria licked her lips a little, and narrowed her eyes.
“A devil.”
I shivered.
I imagined that when she said that, the temperature in the room dropped a little.
Everyone took a step back from her, as if they were feeling an invisible pressure.
Was she... serious? Did she have a real devil serving her? And this devil had heard everything we’d said? Between her words and the fact that she was dressed in all black, I normally would’ve written her off as some delusional goth girl.
But not now.
The way she moved and acted made it seem like everything she was saying was real.
It felt like she was telling the truth. It was like her magic had put a charm spell on me. Or maybe her voice just had the power to brainwash?
Aria looked each of us slowly in turn: me, Sarai, then Ryotasu, and then Myu-Pom.
“Hmph. How stupid.” Sarai was the first to speak. “Black magic? And a devil? So you’re bringing your dark fantasy crap into real life, and trying to make a living on it? Disgusting. And now you’re telling me you got a message from your devil? Listen, you’re still young. Try to limit your jokes to that cosplay fashion sense of yours.”
“...” Aria was looking down, silently.
Sarai... that’s just what I’d expect of you. You’re so strong. But if you get cursed... don’t blame me.
“Listen, if you can speak with a devil, call him here, would you? I’d love to see him, and to ask him some questions about Greek mythology—”
“Bang! Shattee!!”
“Hyahh!”
“Kyah!”
Sarai suddenly fell silent, and all of us screamed, as something burst—
It was the light bulbs inside the cafe. Two light bulbs... had exploded! What was going on...?
“T-That’s not a bad magic trick. I’ve seen that done on TV, but still, it’s impressive that you can do it with no preparation—” Sarai was trying his best to hang in there.
“Shhh.” Aria softly moved her index finger to her lips and ordered him to fall silent.
Silence returned to the room. The only sound was the soft crackling of electricity.
When Sarai took a small step back, Aria glanced upwards at the ceiling and smiled a little, and then began to whisper.
This devil... was seriously a devil.
And then she snorted, upset, and turned to me.
“Perhaps this is your punishment for trying to test black magic... no, to test me.”
My punishment?! For trying to test her?! Was she talking about how I’d had the girls pretend to want to get back at me for cheating?! I knew it! She was going to kill me! She was going to make my head explode! Like those light bulbs!