After departing on schedule, the train gradually picked up speed.
The clackety-clack as its wheels hit the joiners between rails reached them through the floor as vibrations. Seiji, who was clinging to the bathroom sink on the verge of tears, spat up stomach fluid. He could’ve handled the crowd, but not when they were all monsters. Six was just way too many.
“Well, this is going to be troublesome,” Shiroshi grumbled, rubbing Seiji’s back.
They were in the common restroom at the far end of the library. According to the map, there were two each at the front of the lounge car and the back of the dining car.
Thanks to that, after claiming Seiji was a little motion sick and slipping out of the lounge, they’d easily found a spot for him to go Merlion without holding back. Frankly, though, he still felt half dead.
“Shoukera, makuragaeshi, azukiarai—I believe I’ve identified the remaining three as well,” said Shiroshi. “The rock with the bloodied infant is a yonaki-ishi; the one like a salivating, starving demon is a kowai, and the sixth and final one—the shadow that resembled a monk—is an aburabouzu.”
“You mean each of them committed a separate sin?”
“Yes, I would imagine so.”
As Seiji’s nausea finally subsided, a possibility occurred to him. “…Um, couldn’t they be a hyakki yagyou, a demon horde’s night parade?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“In the Shidou family incident, the four of them were a snake, a tanuki, a tiger, and a monkey, but they counted as one yokai together. Nue. Right?” Incredibly, all four members of that family had been accomplices in a murder. “So I was wondering whether all six of them might be accomplices in one crime, and actually a hyakki yagyou.”
“All of the passengers, accomplices…? That really would be Murder on the Orient Express. I think that possibility is probably negligible, though.”
Why? Seiji cocked his head.
“Seiji, when you think of a hyakki yagyou, what do you picture?”
“Um, all sorts of yokai getting together and acting tough outside in the middle of the night?”
Basically, the yokai version of a motorcycle gang.
Shiroshi very nearly cracked up but managed to turn it into a cough. “Hyakki yagyou originally referred to grotesques that wandered the main street of the capital at night a millennium ago during the Heian period, specifically when their true forms were unclear. ‘Indescribably dreadful apparitions.’ In other words, they had no definite shapes: Their true forms were concealed by impenetrable darkness.”
“Um… But if their true forms aren’t known, why do they have a name?”
“Because the ki—or ‘demon’—character in Hyakki has its origins in the word onu, meaning ‘hidden.’ The word yokai was first used in the Shoku Nihongi, and at the time, it referred to ‘a strange phenomenon whose cause is unclear.’ In modern terms, they would have been a type of malicious, invisible spirit. And you see, a hyakki yagyou is a gathering of these ‘indescribably dreadful apparitions.’”
“Oh… Okay.”
In a vague way, Seiji understood.
In that case, yokai with definite shapes like shoukera and makuragaeshi could get together all they wanted without ever being a hyakki yagyou. However…
“But I think I’ve seen a picture of a hyakki yagyou somewhere. There were all sorts of monsters based on old tools, like a mortar and a lute.”
“Ah, that will have been Tosa Mitsunobu’s Hyakki Yagyou Emaki. It was drawn several centuries later, during the Muromachi period. By then, yokai had become visible beings. Many of the grotesques drawn in that picture scroll were the spirits of old objects, so later generations came to picture objects that had acquired spirits and become tsukumogami when they heard the term hyakki yagyou.”
“Huh? Then its image is different in different eras?”
“Heh-heh. By the Edo period, it had changed yet again. The terms hyakki and hyakki yagyou came to refer to all sorts of monsters cataloged scientifically. It’s just like the first part of the word hyakka jiten, ‘encyclopedia.’ I believe you’re quite familiar with an example of that one, Seiji.”
…Hm? Nothing was coming to mind.
“Toriyama Sekien’s The Illustrated Demon Horde’s Night Parade. Otherwise known as the Gazu Hyakki Yagyou.”
“Oh!” That made sense. So it was literally a field guide to yokai. Now Seiji knew what a hyakki yagyou was, but… “Um. In the end, though, we haven’t made any progress at all on the main issue, have we?”
“Well, frankly, we don’t know anything yet. If Takamura is to be believed, Ibara has only one companion. Since it isn’t even clear why the remaining passengers are on the train with us, I think we’ll just have to wait and see how the situation develops.”
Hm. Shiroshi had a point.
That said, being in an enclosed environment like a train with six sinners—all of whom could very well be murderers—screamed “thrills and suspense,” to put it mildly.
“We’ll return to the lounge for now,” said Shiroshi, “but do be very careful, please.”
You too, Shiroshi, Seiji added silently. Then, just as they left the bathroom together…
“Dwah!”
…they ran smack into a shoukera.
No—it was the high school girl from the lounge. Her name badge read Mao Unoki. Apparently, she’d come out of the other bathroom right as they emerged.
“S-sorry!” Seiji exclaimed.
“No, it’s my fault. I startled you.” The girl returned Seiji’s nod, then gave Shiroshi a friendly smile. “That crew member, Takamura, came to the lounge car a minute ago. He said it was time for dinner, so we should all go to the dining car.”
“Oh, did he?” asked Shiroshi. “It’s very kind of you to tell us; thank you.”
“No, no. To be honest, I’m relieved you’re back. Not having anyone my age around was lonely. I’m in my last year of high school, and…um, Mr. Saijou, was it? You’re about the same, aren’t you?”
“I’m a little older, but yes.”
Sure: He was over seventy in human terms, but for a supernatural, he’d count as a millennial.
“So we are in the same age group! Wow, and traditional clothing still suits you so well. That’s incredible. Are you the heir to a school of some traditional art that’s been handed down for generations or something?”
“Heh-heh-heh. I’ll leave that to your imagination.” The girl’s eyes were shining, but as usual, Shiroshi evaded. “By the way, Miss Unoki, how did you come to be on this train?”
“Well…this is going to sound strange, but I don’t really know.” A shadow had crept into Mao’s expression, and there was a hint of fear in her eyes. “It was as if I was on board before I even knew it. I didn’t stow away or anything. I have an invitation, and when I thought about it, I remembered applying to be a trial customer for a travel company… I’m pretty sure it was for some kind of active participation mystery game. That memory’s hazy, too, though.”
An active participation mystery game. Seiji had a very bad feeling about that.
“I’m not sure how to put it,” she continued. “It feels like remembering something that happened in a dream. Even this dress: I recall renting it… But is that memory really mine?”
Ordinarily this would have been sheer nonsense, but Seiji felt himself break out in goose bumps. He knew who could have done a thing like that.
Ibara Rindou—or no, had it been Takamura?
Shiroshi whispered in his ear, “It sounds as if she’s had false memories implanted.”
She couldn’t have been kidnapped, right? Seiji shuddered.
Mao seemed to think she’d weirded them out; she hastily waved her hands in front of her chest. “I’m sorry, I know that sounds pretty random. Please just forget about it.”
“No, um, erm…”
And with that, the conversation died. The three of them passed through the deserted lounge in awkward silence, stepped through the connecting door to the dining car, and then—
“Omigosh, it’s like a movie!” Mao squealed.
In a space even more old-fashioned than the others, two tables for four had been set out in a row. Silver cutlery was arranged neatly on spotless white tablecloths, and the flames in fantastical table lamps flickered gently with the vibration of the wheels. Maybe that was why the passengers’ reflections in the window all seemed hazy. It looked like a dinner party for ghosts.
The table in the back was full, and there was already one person in a window seat at the table nearest them. It was the college guy who’d appeared as a kowai earlier; his name badge read Fumihiko Tosu. He was still wearing his earbuds, and Seiji concluded that communication wasn’t going to be an option.