"Oh my, it's the Junior Monk!"
Seishin came into the back entrance of the hospital just as Kunihiro Ritsuko had finished her preparations to head home. It was already close to 9:00. With an awkward sensation thinking "there were still staff members here?" he realized once again that the toils of the situation were not limited to Toshio.
"Will you be together with the doctor tonight?"
Seishin gave a vague, prevaricating response.
"Setsuko-san's condition is becoming better isn't it? Considerably."
"It seems so, doesn't it?"
Ritsuko tilted her head. "It must be hard on you too, Junior Monk. I'm sure the temple is busy too, and helping out every night here..."
"No... It's not like..."
At Ritsuko's words Seishin somehow felt she was trying to feel out the situation. Right, Ritsuko shouldn't not find the matter suspicious. No matter how he thought about it a monk wouldn't be helpful in overseeing an in-patient's status. If things were to the point of having an amateur along, it would only seem obvious to call in a nurse.
"It's the doctor too, if he's going to have the Junior Monk help, he should let us help too."
"That isn't it." Seishin quickly said. "That is... I'm getting his advice on a manuscript I'm writing now."
"Oh?"
"I wanted to hear his opinion as a doctor. So that is why I'm staying with Toshio."
"What, so that's the case?"
"The truth is I'm keeping him company as he makes his rounds in apology for that. It feels more like I'm in the way then helping, though."
"Is that is. ... But, that doesn't change that it must be hard on you. Junior Monk, please don't push yourself too hard either, yes?"
"Thank you very much."
Lightly bowing his head, feeling a cold sweat break out he ascended the back entrance stairs. ---Yes, indeed the nurses shouldn't fail to find it suspicious. Someone amongst them was bound to ask him what he was doing there. Entering the nurse station with a complicated feeling, he could hear Setsuko laughing.
"Oh no, Doctor, something so childish!"
"Ah, what's the harm? It's a charm to keep you from getting discouraged. You're thinking Mikiyasu and the others are here and you're being pulled along right? It's to keep you from turning your back and thinking like they've come to escort you too."
"Fine, fine. --Oh my, Junior Monk." Setsuko noticed Seishin peekin in from the recovery room and laughed. "Take a look at this would you? The doctor, he brought in something like this!"
Setsuko gestured to the bedside table. There there was a small honzon and a candlestick, and incense burner, a flower vase and juzu beads were gathered.
"Toshio... Where did you get these from?"
Toshio gave a shameless expression as he laughed. "I raided the family altar."
"You can't do something like that."
"It's just one night, it'll be fine. Either way Mother won't even look to notice, so the Buddha'd probably rather watch over Setsuko-san than stay at the side of an infidel like Mother." That said Toshio slipped the juzu beads into Setsuko's hand. "You got it? You've still got Tokujiro-san. Tokujiro-san lost his last wife. Having lost Mikiyasu and his cute heir of a grandson, he's a man with scant family ties left. Even though he's finally gotten himself such a good tempered second wife, even she's gotten sick. If something happens to you too, Tokujiro-san'll be the last member of his family remaining. Think long and hard about that."
"....Yes."
"If Nao-san or Mikiyasu come to your bedside in a dream, just tell them you can't leave Tokujiro-san behind and that they'll just have to wait another thirty year. Even if you don't hurry on to them, they've got their whole three person family. They can just take it easy and wait on you.
That's true isn't it, Setsuko said wiping at the corner of her eye. Toshio nodded and said he'd be nearby as he turned out the light, leaving the recovery room. Seishin followed after him.
"Setsuko-san... she's doing well, huh?"
Toshio nodded to the small voice asking him.
"She's alert and oriented, and her symptoms are clearing up. To start with she didn't enter the final stages, so she might be back to her old self with a full recovery. But," Toshio said with his voice low. "even if the symptoms are cured, we haven't cut off the source of them. Once she'd cured we can't keep her hospitalized so when she goes back home is the problem."
Seishin cast his eyes down. The first day she was hospitalized, nothing abnormal at all had happened with Setsuko. The night of the second day, there was a visitor. They couldn't discern who they were, that figure who slipped into the darkness of the night. That may have been because of what Toshio had said or it may not have been.
Toshio turned to look back at the recovery room.
"It'll be nice if those work, but. --What do you think?"
By 'those' he must have meant the juzu and the honzon.
"Who knows..."
"The night Susumu-kun died it seems he'd said 'Mama.' Mikiyasu heard it. Why was Susumu-kun calling Nao-san? Was it just a kid calling out because he missed his mother? Or did he really see his mom? Why did Setsuko see dreams of Nao-san coming back. But not Mikiyasu or Susumu-kun."
"With that said, isn't tying those together to say Nao-san revived jumping a little too far to a conclusion?"
Toshio gave a sarcastic laugh. "Susumu-kun was still young. He couldn't really understand what it meant that his mom was dead. So he might have been in pain and just calling out for his mom. The misfortunes at Setsuko's place started with Nao-san. Setsuko-san might be subconsciously thinking that if the start of it were fixed, the misfortunes that followed would be fixed too. That might be it, that might not be it. We're betting on one or the other without any proof.."
"But."
"I know that we need proof. That's what I want too. If we look for proof of whether there are vampires or not, it'll be a relief even if it comes back negative. ---So let's dig up Nao-san's grave."
"Toshio." Seishin breathed a sigh. "That's too far. How would you expect to get Tokujiro-san or Setsuko-san's consent? Even if you explained the circumstances, they wouldn't see it the same way would they?"
Toshio widened his eyes.
"Of course not. Even if there was suspicion that she was murdered and there was an order from the courts, even if there was a suspected epidemic and there were orders from the Health Department, they wouldn't allow something like that, now would they?"
Seishin blinked.
"That's why," Toshio said with his voice low "we'll do it in secret. Is there any other way?"
Seishin's mouth dropped open. "That's reckless."
"We have something to confirm. If we try digging up the grave, we'll know if it's Nao-san or not."
"Once we dig up the grave, all we'll know is whether she's there or not, I should say," Seishin said glaring at Toshio. "Even if for argument Nao-san isn't within, that won't be direct proof that she's risen. Even if the corpse is sleeping within, you probably won't abandon your vampire hypothesis. You'll just say that it wasn't Nao-san, won't you?"
"That's..."
"All you're going to achieve is ignoring the dignity of the dead and trampling all over the feelings of the bereaved family. I absolutely can't agree."
Toshio smacked the desk in irritation. "Then are you telling me to just fold my hands and do nothing? What else do you want me to do?!"
Seishin had no words to return to him.
"Since this summer just how many people do you think have died? And that's still increasing. It's intensifying as it goes on. I don't know the cause and I don't know how to counter it. I don't know where Ishida-san's at. The write-ups he had have disappeared with him. That's data we've got on hand. I might be able to compile it together and carry it over to Kanemasa. But if it's Kanemasa--do you think they can do something with administrator? Can they find the cause and stop the deaths? When'll that be?
"This many people're dying right before my eyes. And if we---if I do an investigation into the cause, even if it's just a hypothesis, there might be clues. It's an outrageous hypothesis but at least the symptoms match up. Ant yet you want me to sit quiet and watch over the situation without doing anything? Are you telling me to say 'I'm counting on you' and pass this weight on over to somebody else, waiting until somebody hands us reassurance on a silver platter?!"
"Toshio," Seishin spoke over him. He looked towards the recovery room. Toshio hurriedly lowered his voice.
"...I pass a heavy burden on to Kanemasa. Probably Kanemasa passes that burden on to someone else, and then that person'll probably pass it on to someone else too. If the responsibility passes on from in front of me does that mean my role's finished? I did my part, I did what I was supposed to do, so then I get to pull up my pillow and sleep easy? Even while it's still taking place right before my eyes?"
"....My mistake."
"I've got to do something. If I can't find any direction to go with it, then no matter how small a clue it is I want it. No matter how preposterous and wild a guess it is, there's a point in confirming it. That's how impending this situation is. Right now the waves are high. It's just past the peak, and probably at the middle of the month the next wave'll come. This next peak probably won't be a low one. Two becomes four, four becomes eight, eight becomes sixteen, sixteen becomes thirty two. The next one'll be sixty four, then after that a hundred and twenty eight. Two hundred and fifty-six, five hundred and twelve. ---in sum, one thousand and twenty two. How many people do you think there are in Sotoba? I'll tell you, it's one thousand and three hundred. After five twelve it's finished."
Seishin was shocked. At first it was Gotouda Shuuji and then the three in Yamairi for a total of four. In the middle of August was another peak, and when Seishin and the others had noticed the abnormality, the death toll had already gone up to ten. While investigating it the deaths continued to add on, and in a breath it had passed twenty. It wasn't that the victims were multiplying in perfect twos but each time the peak number of victims was indeed showing geometric progression.
"Where I am right now I don't have a single case I've helped. Not a single damned one. The fatality rate's 100 percent. Once it breaks out there's no saving them. On top of that, there's the strange move outs. At the rate the disease is spreading, this time next year this village is just going to be a bunch of ruined buildings."
"....I'm sorry."
At Seishin's words, Toshio kept silent as if embarrassed at his rage. Seishin couldn't help falling silent with his own shame at something unclear himself. Nor was there sound from the recovery room either.
Seishin hung his head in shame. The dead since this summer. Such a large number of villagers were dead. A summer beyond normality, and even though it was turning to fall, it was showing no signs of being extinguished. They thought it was a disease. But even though it was spreading in a way that could only be thought of as an epidemic, they didn't think it was a specified epidemic disease either. Suspicious moves. Quitting their jobs. The village was indeed being surrounded by something (by death). Slowly but surely, it might have been becoming more impossible to think that these were normal circumstances.
"....I think that the situation Toshio's outlining is consistent with something being in the village and attacking people and sucking blood. Even though I don't understand the specific details."
"Aa..."
"Blood is being drained by some means. Because of that the victims go from anemia to shock from blood loss and die. Those deaths are continuing. It's obvious they're serialized. If we say that something is here, then as long as it remains of course they will continue. But it won't just continue, it looks like it's spreading like a contagious epidemic."
"It is contagious. The geometric progression of the number of patients is proof of that."
Seishin nodded. "Setsuko-san says she saw a dream of Nao-san. What attacked Setsuko-san may have been Nao-san who had already become the victim of something herself. If that's so, those who are attacked by something and die must revive as that same something, it would mean. And they become a point of contamination themselves. The revived dead do. The body has already been confirmed once as dead, but it rises up, it moves, it takes action. It selects its victims, conducts the attack, and threatens the well being of the living. ---A corpse demon, Shiki."
"....Shiki."
"Shiki attack people, taking in their blood. As they're an exceedingly intellectual and productive existence, I think it would be all right to view them as moving in accordance with a plan. At the very least, they aren't like a corpse that's lost its ability to think and reason--it isn't like a zombie. If we say that whoever came to visit Setsuko-san last night was a Shiki, it cannot drift in the air or walk through walls to get to its victim. It isn't a spiritual existence, it's a being with physical limitations to its body. It's differenct from the demons or "Oni" of the village, but it's also different from a vampir. The vampir was found fresh and lively in the coffin but when the curse afflicted it, I think it would be better to understand it as a spiritual existence. But a Shiki isn't like that. Through and through, they are tethered to their body. They use their own body to move, to attack their victims. As each victim dies, they become a Shiki."
Toshio nodded. "That's all that I can think of."
"The first string of deaths began in Yamairi. The first one found in bad condition was Ohkawa Gigorou-san."
"Gigorou Jii-san was probably the first victim. Gigorou-san left the village at the end of July, stayed out overnight and came back acting strange. If it were an epidemic it'd need an incubation period but a if it was a vampire--a Shiki that attacked, there wouldn't need to be one. It's possible Gigorou-san was attacked after he went outt. And brought back calamity to Yamairi with him. Gigorou-san died at the start of August. And then he was reborn, attacking Hidemasa-san and Mieko Baa-san, then attacking Shuuji-san."
"That's not it," Seishin interrupted. "Gigorou-san's remains were found. Hidemasa-san's, and Mieko-san's too. And by mistake the three of them were cremated. Even if Gigorou-san's death was due to a raid by a Shiki, Gigorou-san can't rise. The same for Hidemasa-san and Mieko-san."
Toshio winced as if a hole had been poked through him, soon raising a finger. "What if we say that the attacked aren't sure to definitely rise up? There're those who rise and those who don't. Mieko-san didn't rise up. Maybe the same for Hidemasa-san. But, for Gigorou-san, we can't say for sure."
"There was a corpse wasn't there?"
"But one torn to pieces. Gigorou-san died in Yamairi, and what if he did rise up? Then he'd attack Hidemasa-san, he'd attack Mieko-san, he'd attack Shuuji-san. Mieko-san saw that Hidemasa-san had died, then with a sense of panic she overtook Gigorou-san who was a shadow of his former self. Gigorou-san returned to a dead body that's not risen up. But at that point Mueko-san's condition had gotten to the point of no return---
We thought it was weird. Didn't we say that Mieko Baa-san didn't report Gigorou-san or Hidemasa-san's deaths? She couldn't could she? Gigorou-san was dead, so if rose up and attacked your husband, could you report it? Even if you said it you wouldn't expect anyone to believe it. So Mieko Baa-san couldn't contact anyone."
Seishin shook his head, deep in thought.
"....It's no good. As expected, this's wrong. I can't assent to this."
"Seishin, oi..."
"I'm not saying it as if I'm denying it from the start. It's that it doesn't add up. Listen? Gigorou-san went out somewhere in the end of July. When he came back he was acting strange. It's probably certain something happened outside the village. But soon after Gigorou-san was bedridden, Hidemasa-san was bedridden too. Mieko-san came by the hospital and said that didn't she? At that point, Gigorou-san wasn't dead. So he shouldn't have been risen up either. None the less, Hidemasa-san had fallen ill. ---So, who was it that attacked Hidemasa-san?"
"What if Gigorou-san had already risen up and come back?"
"You're saying he died and came back in only one day? If that happened, there should have been people who rose up during the overnight vigils. Isn't that right?"
Toshio, sullenly at a loss for a reply, gave Seishin a glare.
"If you've got any other explanation I'd love to hear it."
"That's what we're doing, isn't it? ---In Yamairi three people's corpses were found. Gigorou-san and Hidemasa-san were disfigured enough to be difficult to distinguish but the police did an autopsy. It was confirmed that they were indeed themselves. It'd be hard to think that Gigorou-san rose, hid himself and used another person's corpse in his place while he fled. That aside, Hidemasa-san's condition began to worsen before Gigorou-san had died. Gigorou-san may have been the one who attacked Mieko-san but it was at least impossible for it to have been Gigorou-san who attacked Hidemasa-san."
"What I can think of is the possibility that there was another Shiki separate from Gigorou-san. A Shiki infiltrated the village. Or Yamairi, you could say. They attacked Gigorou-san, attacked Hidemasa-san, attacked Mieko-san."
"Is all I can think but.... Then, what about Gigorou-san going out? Is that unrelated?"
Toshio groaned. "I have no damned idea."
Seishin nodded, once again following through his memory.
"Gotouda Shuuji-san heard that Hidemasa-san was sick and went from Chigusa to Yamairi. At that time, Mieko-san was already in bad condition, and it's estimated that Hidemasa-san was already dead. And yet Shuuji-san didn't report anything about their state. And as soon as he returned from Yamairi, he was bedridden."
"As expected it's Yamairi. There was a Shiki there. They attacked Shuuji-san. The Shiki can manipulate their victims. So Shuuji-san didn't say anything. Is that it?"
"It might be. The same for Mieko-san. And so she didn't report Hidemasa-san's death to anybody..."
"Gigorou-san and Hidemasa-san might have been dead by the time that Shuuji-san had gone to Yamairi but since they left behind rotting corpses, the two weren't Shiki. Mieko-san wasn't yet dead. As expected somebody besides those three had to be in Yamairi at the time. They attacked the Gotouda's Shuuji-san."
"Probably so. And then Shuuji-san died. From there, Hirosawa Takatoshi-san and Shimizu Megumi-chan. Yasumori Giichi-san. Gotouda Fuki-san. Shimizu Ryuuji-san. Yasumori Nao-san."
"At the very least, Giichi-san and Megumi-chan didn't go to Yamairi. Yeah, that's why we couldn't confirm a contamination route. There wasn't any single point of contact between the victims. We thought there might be an intermediary carrier animal but that might've been right in a way.
By now this disease is spreading through the whole village. It's spreading too evenly. It should be spreading out to the surrounding areas. And yet the only one from Maruyasu to have an outbreak is Giichi-san. If if spread directly, we could think that Giichi-san caught it from Nao-san. Why not from the family but Nao-san? The family definitely had more physical contact with him by far. And from Nao-san was Susumu-kun, Mikiyasu, all three of them had the outbreak. I'd understand if it were the opposite. If Maruyasu had four cases, the contractors one. But that wasn't the case. Each time this pathogen transmites, it's incredibly choosy of its victims.
But if we think that the intermediary carrier takes on human form and has a will like that of a person, it's only natural it'd be choosy. For some reason at Maruyasu the only one they could attack was Giichi-san. No, if we think of the even way it'd been spreading, they chose their victims without any trend. But there were circumstances driving for an attack on the contractors. So only the contractors had a strange tendency present itself."
"Circumstances driving for an attack..."
"I don't know what those were, but. Just, there is one thing that I can confirm. Shuuji-san was attacked at Yamairi. After that Mieko-san died and the households in Yamairi died out. The stage moved from Yamairi to the village as a whole. At that point, the Shiki moved from Yamairi into the village," Toshio said, nodding to himself. "They moved in. Into the village."
"They moved in?"
"The bunch at Kanemasa. Can you think of anyone else? A master who never shows himself in midday, only showing himself at night. And on top of that, what other purpose would there be to put in that secretive Western style house high up with bad lighting?"
"That's wrong," Seishin reflexively denied. "That can't be it. ---That's right, the people of the Kirishiki family moved in after the bodies were found in Yamairi. They weren't here before that. Didn't resident officer Takami-san confirm that himself?"
"The point of the attack was at Yamairi. Weren't they hiding in Yamairi? They might have even been at Mieko-san's place."
"None the less."
"No--if they could do that much, then there'd be no reason to reconstruct that grandiose house, making themselves stand out in a bad way, would there? Then it's possible that bunch needs that house. Indeed Takami-san said it seemed like there was no one there. Most of all because the meter didn't move at all. But if they're Shiki, would they even need to use electricity or gas or water? For a human even just going into hiding for a few days with absolutely no electricity or water would be next to impossible. All the more for the intense heat wave we were in. But if you really want to hide yourself, even a human could use candles or bring in water from elsewhere, couldn't they? So all the more if they're not human, the meter not moving isn't proof of anything."
"But."
"There're ghost stories, right? Saying they saw figures that shouldn't be there, that they heard sounds. Maybe those were the real truth. To start with the bunch of them got into Yamairi. The three victims and the six members of the Kirishiki family. Some of them might have went into Yamairi, the other might have gone into the mansion, or they all might have already been at the mansion and moved to Yamairi. That's why ever since the three died in Yamairi, there've been signs of people in the mansion, couldn't that be the case? Because since that point they had already been in there. And littel by little they've been attacking the village. There are ostensibly victims from before the bunch of them moved in. Not just Shuuji-san, but starting with the old lady from Maebara, the strange moves."
"That's..."
"And then when a certain number of victims have sprung up, they can move in showily. That itself is just like you said, at the time the first run of deaths started, they have the alibi of being out of the village, so they made all the more of a show about moving in. And then Takatoshi-san was attacked, Megumi-chan wasa ttacked, Giichi-san was attacked. ---The night Megumi-chan went missing, she was last seen going up the hill towards Kanemasa. It's possible Megumi-chan went all the way to the Kanemasa mansion. When she came out to go back home she loitered around and lost her way. If that wasn't it, then she was thrown out while unconscious. Abandoned far enough away from the mansion in the mountains that it wouldn't be suspicious."
"None the less," Seishin murmured realizing he had no real verbal retreat.
"If we say that there are Shiki, Sotoba would be the ideal place to increase their numbers. Most of all because we still bury. If someone's cremated, there shouldn't be any opportunity to rise up. Right, if there are a bunch like the Shiki, that might be why we didn't know about them. Cremation would be a cultural deterent to them. As long as there're no special circumstances, they wouldn't be able to rise up. So their numbers are extremely low. They couldn't build the numbers to show themselves to people."
"Yes.... That might be it... but."
"But the village buries. And the graves are spread out across the mountains. If they're sloppy, someone might be sighted rising up. For them the village's backwards customs probably worked out just perfectly for them," Toshio said sardonically only to cut himself up, making a face as if he'd remembered something suddenly. "That's it.The mushiokuri."
"....Eh?"
Toshio leaned forward slightly, looking to Seishin's face. "The day of the mushiokuri, a truck came and turned back."
Seishin tilted his head. Come to think of it, there was talk about that. Before he could ask if that was it, Toshio nodded in confirmation.
"That was the start of it. The mushiokuri is a ritual to drive out evil spirits and wickedness. Just then the Shiki just happened to come along, in other words. They tried to come into the village but they couldn't. I think that's it, that they can't come in someplace if they aren't invited."
Just as he was about to call it ridiculous Seishin lost his argument. Indeed the mushiokuri was a ritual to exorcise evil. The impurities of the village were transferred to the traveler's guardian deities at the boundary, brought out of the village, worshiped and thrown out. Yes, the village had boundaries. Within the boundaries was the "inside" and beyond the boundary was the outside. The mushiokuri prevented the evil spirits from outside from invading and drove out those from within to that outside. If indeed vampires did exist, if they couldn't come "inside" without an invitation, then it mightn't it have been the case that they likewise couldn't enter "inside" the village without an invitation either?
"So the bunch turned back. And then they called Gigorou-san "outside." I don't know how but they had Gigorou Jii-san invite them in. And then they came in."
"You don't know how," Seishin started to say when a meaningless fragment of his memory was found. "The traveler's guardian deities... were broken."
"Eh?"
Seishin pressed a finger to his forehead lightly. A faded red color was revived within his mind. A small hokora in Yamairi. Knocked over, the head knocked off of the stone Jizo and its red apron. Here and there throughout the village for some reason there was a string of destruction of the traveler's guardian deities.
"The traveler's guardian dieties were broken. Possibly, from within the village."
"That right? Then the boundary would be broken. The bunch of them cleared out the screening devices. And then they moved in. To the village."
---I do believe that any human can understand the feeling that they have been abandoned by God.
Seishin hung his head. Toshio continued to pile on the words.
"If that's the case, magic's effective. It figures They tried to come into the village from the front and ended up in a deadlock with the mushiokuri and failed. The village that protects its religious zeal with anachronistic burial customs is at the same time protected by the kind of religious zeal that keeps the mushiokuri going. So the bunch couldn't come in. So they called Gigorou-san out, attacked him, and had themselves invited. They can manipulate people to their will. Otherwise there's no explanation for the resignations.
It's possible that that's not related to the extreme emotional blunting that takes place. The patients always made a face like it was someone else's problem. They were indifferent to their own condition. Setsuko-san said she saw Nao-san come back to her in a dream. If Nao-san became a Shiki and was coming to visit Setsuko-san, to the victims reality might've been made to take on that kind of feel. They lose their sense of being able to recognize reality, feeling like it's more like a dream. In a dream, the younger wife of the family who should have been dead throws a pebble at the window. The victim doesn't have a clear consciousness. Lost at the boundary of a dream ant reality they go with it. Almost like they're possessed."
Seishin hung his head.
(Sunako... You're.)
"That's it," Toshio's voice rose. "That car."
"....Car?"
"That hit the boy from Shimo-Sotoba. The driver was like he was drunk the story went, right? The driver had an outbreak. He was a victim. Just like a lot of the victims were manipulated to turn in their resignations, they had him drive the car to Yamairi. And there they called Gigorou-san out and attacked him. And then they got their invitation. At that point the traveler's guardian deities weren't broken yet. If they had an invitation that might invalidate any protection by the deities but since they went and destroyed the bounsads afterwards, it must still hinder them somehow after all. In that case they shouldn't be able to just come into the village from the front with just an invitation. It's possible they used another route---a forest path to cross the mountains to get directly into Yamairi. In that case, Gigorou-san destroyed the jizo in Yamairi to help them."
"When there the village guardian deities...?"
"That was at the start of August. Just around that time someone had contracted the disease. ---Shuuji-san."
How's that, Toshio seemed to want to brag with the satisfied smile Seishin saw rise to his face. Seishin couldn't answer.
She understood the feeling of being abandoned by God, Sunako said.
---No doubt because Sunako was a being who was "abandond by God."