Death, the blackish aura of a grump, was simmering in full gloom or whatever that sinking feeling of being thrown into a bottomless abyss or despair.
Arahabaki stepped away from the immovable lovable grouch of darkness. Death decides where to stand. A god has to give way even if the god scheduled a death for the old grump.
Nothing to do with divine hierarchy, but even the rich would not choose to stand near the humble free shit on the ground.
I chuckled.
"Not funny. If the others catch a scent of him on me, they will throw me out of my shrine for 50 days," Arahabaki growled. "I am not going anywhere until he tells us what he is up to."
Ah, defilement. That is worse than a wife finding out that her husband had an affair. None of the Yamato gods liked ritual contamination.
They liked ritual purification together with everything in spick and span order.
"Death, why are you here?" Daija called out.
A rumbling noise masked by the rolling thunder roaring from the skies above.
Death doesn't talk. He just projects his communication or uses whatever form he appears in to do charades hoping we understand him.
Well, maybe not hoping per say. He doesn't care if we understood or not.
The only advantage of this old git remaining mute was that those whom he took away will not hold on to the hope to bargain for dear life. Unless the divine steps in, now that is rare.
The gods, except for Izanami-no-mikoto of Yomi-no-kuni, our netherworld, prefer not to have a conversation with Death.
When he replies, the images projected from me are an R18 rating by the human Japanese film classification status. Death would have made a lot of dying kids scream in horror before he collected their souls.
Daija spoke. "Death says something summoned him. He isn't happy."
Death, happy? Oh yeah, only for the suicidal if they have no regrets of meeting him. The old grouch is probably inundated with COVID-19 complications, overwork and lonely elderly deaths.
That does not include other causes of deaths.
"What's that something?" Arahabaki asked.
"Death says it is not us and it is not human."
Rhetorical answer to a rhetorical question.
"Death, can you describe the summoner," I asked.
An image appeared. It was of the man whom we seen get out of the car. The one with the sunglasses. Not human? There was no visible aura around him to show he was not human.
A dark haze was glowing beneath the human body in Death's projection. And several thousands of humans in an assembly hall. Something I had not seen in a while.
"Foreign possession," I uttered. "Cult."
"New age cults again," Arahabaki sighed. "With fucked up ideals on how to exorcise by issuing a fire spell."
He turned to me and shook his head. "Great idea that you brought me along here, but I don't feel like entering this place when Death isn't summoned by me or any of you jokers. If that's a foreign god which I have to fight, then with all those trapped energy of captured yōkai there… it is a disadvantage."
The image of that same young girl with her hands and legs bonded in a lone room appeared in my mind. Death was telling me something.
"Can you get the girl?" I said to Arahabaki.
"I can do all of you a favour," Arahabaki said as the iPhone appeared in his hand. "Call in a favour."
"Wait, you are a god. Why are you calling the cops? can't you…"
"Hush," Arahabaki's eyes glowed red as his fingers tapped the number for the police.
"And how are you going to identify yourself since they can trace your SIM card to your name?" I hissed.
"Who said I was going to call the cops?," he placed the iPhone on his ear with a finger to his lips.
"Hello, Mainichi? Yes extension 2340, Mihara Takeshi…"
***
Arahabaki waited for them under the canopy of the primeval forest at the base of the mountain, away from the kominka. Two days have passed and, as expected, he received news that the police were indeed going to make the arrests.
He spotted two silver Toyota crowns, the unmarked police cars, from afar making their way towards their location under the late afternoon sun.
"The humans are almost here already," he grumbled at the portal opening.
"Fine, we just had some checking up to do. I run a business," Kuro said as Daija came through.
"Get onto the trees, we are going to trail those two cars there," he leaped up on the nearest branch, landing on it without a sound.
They followed. One after the other, their three shadows made their way, leaping and swinging forward near the moving cars. The trees rustled as they passed through unseen. In and out of Kakuriyo, they weaved through to cross the winding mountain road behind the cars.
"There's a few more coming," Kuro called out as she squinted. "And an ambulance."
"Police and news vans," Arahabaki shrugged.
The red siren lights flipped up in the two silver Toyota Crown cars and the siren sounded as they reached the outskirts of the forests surrounding the kominka. Trailing the sound was an ambulance.
Red flashing lights of the police cars were now illuminating the kominka. A police van arrived as the occupants of the kominka looked on in panic. Nothing like the smell of fear.
"Usually, they take a while to investigate…"
"Not if the girl has been missing for a while and let's say pictures of a very battered girl turned up from some insider," Arahabaki winked.
"What did you do?"
Arahabaki shrugged. These two in front of him were too used to whipping out their guns and ammo or just straight killing.
He, a former war god, knew better. Go for the weakest link. Exert less. Let others do the dirty work.
Mihara Takeshi was just one of the many humans who worshipped him in exchange for trivial gains.
One of the many divine skills possessed by a god of his statue was the ability to see the inside and out of their followers. Talents, connections, relationships, ability and even their ambitions were privy to him. Something these two daiyōkai didn't have.
Takeshi is a good investigative journalist who had a well established relationship with the police for his diplomatic approach. Any smell of unusual news would welt Takeshi's appetite. Anything Takeshi said to the police would be trusted. Who knew the gift he granted to Takeshi would be so useful?
"You could have told me and I would have approached the mujina yōkai in the publishing business," Kuro said.
"And he would get the police on those fellas there, pronto?" Arahabaki raised his eyebrow and pointed towards the now busy kominka.
The bright lights coming from the direction of the national NHK and the local news crew then distracted Daija and Kuro.
"Yes, this is the secret hide out of the cult. The police has rescued a 12-year-old girl. They reported her as missing from her school and home for a week before an anonymous tip off. They are entering the kominka now…," a reporter paused, and the cameras were directed at the policemen now entering the building.
A snap of Arahabaki's fingers and both of them looked at him. "After they are done, we have work to do. Including releasing those yōkai and ghosts trapped there."
"I thought the gods don't care about us?"
"They care if it is a foreign god or demon controlling their own yōkai," Arahabaki grinned and pointed to the darkening skies. "You won't believe how territorial Takamagahara is."
Or paranoid.