October 12th. Itou Ikumi was quickly advancing along the village road to the north. Past the area of Sotoba, entering into Kami-Sotoba, just at the boundary was the Shimizu Gardening Shop. While it was a shop, there was no storefront. It was merely a field spread out behind the house that one couldn't discern as a shop if not for the modest signboard. That signboard was currently decorated with a flower wreath. Beneath the floral wreath was a black and white striped curtain, the front of the house was decorated in white and black and a mourning paper lantern and paper decorations were set out. It was Shimizu Yuu's funeral.
Ikumi pushed her way through the crowds of people entering into the house and found the house to be ripe with the smell of incense and an unease that fell over it.
"Even though he was still just in high school..."
"Even though his father had just died recently..."
"I wonder what Yumi-san'll do now? It's just her and a grandpa she doesn't have any blood ties to."
"She'll go back to her own family, won't she?"
"Even so, I don't see any of her family here."
"Or any classmates either."
The old women looked out dubiously over the tatami room, closing their mouths quickly when they laid eyes on Ikumi. Ikumi turned aside their suspicious stares and stepped into the room, going straight to the altar. Sitting beside the coffin set up at the altar, the mother Yumi and the grandfather Masaji sat, despondent.
"My deepest condolences," Ikumi said as she came before the two. Shimizu Masaji raised his face doubtfully. He looked up at Ikumi, blinking in surprise. He looked as if he was searching his memory for who she was and where she was from.
"I'm called Itou. I heard you lost your grandson, and I couldn't keep myself from rushing over."
"Ah... Thank you for that."
"Even though he was still just a high school student they say, it really is a shame, isn't it?" Ikumi said, to which Masaji hung his face low, nodding. Yumi who was seated next to him looked up at Ikumi absently.
"It seems you lost your son this summer too, didn't you? Ryuuji-san, was it?"
"Yes..."
As the the man looked even more depressed, Ikumi gave him a nod. "Ryuji-san took his son along with him, didn't he?"
"That might be the case."
"Shimizu-san, I am saying that literally. Ryuji-san rose up and pulled him in. He's an Oni."
At that, Masaji blinked.
"Ryuji-san wasn't sent off. I think that his burial was done wrong. Monks these days can't do anything but count costs. They can't comfort and send off the dead right at all. The way the service was held was wrong. He had worries and regrets left over. So Ryuuji-san wasn't sent on. So he rose up and pulled your grandson with him."
"You--what are you talking about?"
"You heard me. Don't you get it? There's no point to a funeral like this. These monks lately don't know a darned thing. It's because you relied on the temple that Ryuji-san didn't pass on. If you don't do the mourning service over again right, Masaji-san and Yumi-san, you'll end up pulled off too."
Masaji's face went red. With his fists clenched, he half rose. "And just who are you? What did you come to do?"
"I came to warn you. Your relatives? They rose up. They're Oni."
"That's preposterous."
"If that's not it, why are these deaths continuing."
Masaji was at a loss for words.
"Ryuuji-san just died, and now it's your grandson. How can something like this happen? It's obviously because Ryuuji-san pulledhim along. If you'd done a proper mourning ceremony, there's no way Ryuuji-san would have risen up. In other words,"
"Leave!" Masaji shouted, to Ikumi's disappointment.
"----I see. I came out of kindness but it seems you people can't understand the principal at hand here at all."
Ikumi looked coldly at Masaji, her gaze shifting to Yumi who looked up at her in a daze.
"Madame, what about you? It's no use going back to your own home. Ryuuji-san'll follow you. You might just be next. If you're going to have a change of heart, now's the time."
"Now hold on, you."
Her arm was grabbed from behind. When she turned around, the Murasako rice shop's Munehide was glaring at her.
"Listen here, that's not something to say to people who've just suffered a tragedy. Enough of this nonsense."
Ikumi set her sights then on Munehide.
"Come to think of it, there've been deaths going on at your place too, haven't there?"
Munehide flinched. After his grandson Hiromi, his youngest child Masao had died. It was literally a succession of sorrows.
"If you don't do something about that stubbornness of yours, they'll just keep continuing one after another."
"That's preposterous," Munehide spit out, but his grand daughter left behind came to mind. At any rate, he pulled at the arm he had seized, pulling Ikumi from the tatami room. "This is a place for grieving the dead. Think of the time and the place, would you?"
Putting her out forcibly he closed the shouji but whether that would really keep her out or not, Munehide himself had his doubts.
With a hmph, Kiumi stared at the closed shouji. Obstinate bunch who just didn't understand. If that was how it was then fine. They'd come to know who was right, and they'd pay in flesh. As she turned around, an audience with brimming curiosity surrounded Ikumi.
"The ame to you all, you'd better watch out."
With just that, Ikumi went towards the front. Behindher a short old lady followed.
"You weren't really serious about what you said in there, right?"
Ikumi came to a stop. Behind the old woman, trailing by a few steps, a number of old people were following after. Half of it was a matter of burning curiosity, and yet they did have unease on their faces.
"If I wasn't serious, I wouldn't take the trouble of walking out here. Though, nobody's going to believe me it looks like, yes?"
"That's because you... I mean, Oni, you're saying."
"Then let me ask you, what else would you call it?"
The old woman averted her gaze.
"Since this summer, just how many people have died, do you even know? Try hard to remember, now! How many times has the mourning group been set out? How many times now have funeral processions set out? And how many times more have you heard stories that so-and-so has died? Without seeing their funeral."
The elderly were silent.
"That the deaths will continue like this is a given! If this is going to be normal, it's you all who something's most likely to come down upon."
"That's.... Still."
"This family's no different. The father died, and while the forty-ninth day did or didn't quite come yet his son dies. And in the family the funeral manager was from, before even the seventh day anniversary of the grandson's death, the son dies. Things like this are happening far too frequently now don't you think?"
Still, many of the elderly had mumbled but there were non among them clearly offering any objection.
"They're being pulled along. It's Oni. This and that, it's all happened after Kanemasa brought that strange house."
As if on cue, the elderly looked up towards the Western mountain. With the clear fall air as the backdrop, the mountain glistened a deep, cool green.
"But... That's one thing and this is..."
"Do you think they're unrelated? Until now the village has been constantly dead folk and funerals. And yet to this point nobody's risen back up. It's that bunch that's taking them in. They were originally Oni after all. If not, why would they have such a gate, closed up to hide behind?" Ikumi lorded over the elderly who lowered their eyes. "If you don't want to believe, then don't. The deaths in your families will come directly to you in time, and you'll know the truth whether you want to or not. Though when it gets to that point, I don't know what I'll be able to do for you anymore."
Turning around, her head held high and haughty, the elderly watched Ikumi depart in bewilderment. As for the inconsistancies and contraditions in what Ikumi said, there were none amongst them pointing them out. Even if they could, they probably wouldn't. This was out of the domain of common sense, a matter of intuition. --This village was clearly strange lately.
The elderly shook their heads and returned to the funeral but amongst them a number of them would ask around about who had just came. Those who asked kept the name Itou Ikumi from Mizuguchi in their minds. Like a charm to protect them.