Occultic;Nine Volume 2

by Chiyomaru Shikura

  >Meetings and Concerts

  72: The Anonymous Samurai

  There’s that Black Magic Agency run by that crazy chick in Harmonica Alley, you guys know that? Maybe she went through each person and put a curse on them?

  73: The Anonymous Samurai

  Black Magic lolol

  KiriBasa’s gone to the dogs huh? If you’re just some occult fan, spend six months lurking.

  74: The Anonymous Samurai

  >>72

  I know the Black Magic Agency! It’s really shady, but I actually saw someone going in sometime!

  76: Sounds Like Bad News ◆iQ1CwzKqLM

  The name’s not Black Magic Agency, it’s the House of Crimson. http://www. rouge_small_castle.co.jp/

  77: The Anonymous Samurai

  What is this? It’s scary! This is some bad news.

  78: The Anonymous Samurai

  >>76

  The owner’s name, lol

  ARIA KURENAINO

  That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard.

  79: The Anonymous Samurai

  Wait, isn’t it actually a little weird that nobody’s talking about a mass murderer? Aren’t we all just letting the cops and media control us?

  80: The Anonymous Samurai

  Is it possible for one guy to kill 256 people? For instance, maybe it’s possible if he wandered the streets at night and sunk one person in the lake a night?

  82: The Anonymous Samurai

  Japan’s cops aren’t that bad. You couldn’t get away with that for 256 nights in a row.

  84: The Anonymous Samurai

  Aria might be able to pull it off, maybe.

  85: The Anonymous Samurai

  If he kept dumping bodies in the lake for days the gas in their bodies would expand. There’s carp in that pond, right? Wouldn’t they be eaten?

  88: The Anonymous Samurai

  Think maybe it’s some organization behind it?

  92: The Anonymous Samurai

  Seems unlikely. I don’t know why they’d want to dump 256 bodies someplace so obvious.

  It’s a warning of some kind? Once they’ve identified all the bodies, think they’ll find something they have in common?

  93: The Anonymous Samurai

  They probably drove a dump truck up in the middle of the night and dumped them in the lake. I’m sure someone will testify that they saw it eventually. It’s too early for the cops to call off the search otherwise.

  94: Brought to you by Anonymous

  That batty old hag’s testimony was such BS that the cops and media aren’t sure how to handle it, I bet.

  95: Brought to you by Anonymous

  You think it’s worth looking into the suicide by mass hypnosis thing then?

  96: NEET God

  lol lol look at you guys lol

  You’re supposed to be Basariters and you’re believing in all this occult shit lolololololol

  did you convert to a new religion? lolololol

  I pounded my fingers hard into the laptop keyboard. I smashed the ‘l’ and ‘o’ keys on my computer expressionlessly, then did a little cheer.

  “Man, this mass suicide in Inokashira is the perfect way to make Kirikiri Basara those sweet, sweet affiliate bucks! This is sure to get some big numbers! I’m so glad I live in Kichijoji, haha. Things are looking up for the NEET God, also known as me! I bet I’ll have enough money to take Ryotasu to Wood... Busters? Lovers? Bearers?” I took a gulp of the drink (water, actually) that Master Izumin had poured me.

  Usually, I just wrote the article and watched the Basariters debate in the comments, but this time I’d gotten so excited I’d written a comment of my own. What I’d said was true. Kirikiri Basara was an occult aggregator blog, but the Basariters were expected to deny any belief in the occult and write nasty comments about the articles. Of course, they were expected to deny it all without proof.

  And yet...

  “They’re letting the media control public opinion? I mean, sure, the media’s been pushing this whole occult thing lately. 2chan, Yahoo Comments, and Twitter are all full of morons talking about how scary the occult is. If you ask me, it’s just a sign of how stupid the Japanese have gotten. If they don’t get their act together, even an incident with 256 suicides — we’ll call it the 256 incident — isn’t going to bring me any hits,” I muttered into my laptop.

  I could feel someone looking at me. I looked around the inside of Blue Moon and saw two girls and a... something... near the counter, watching me from a distance.

  “Come on! Ryotasu, Myu-Pom, Master Izumin, why are you looking like that? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “You’re just freaking me out a little,” Master said with a wink, the creepy freak.

  “Master I understand, but Ryotasu, Myu-Pom, you two are Basara Girls. Come over here and help.”

  “You sure are enthusiastic about this, Gamo...” Myu-Pom seemed a little nervous.

  “You haven’t come around for a while, and then you just show up with the same amount of energy. It’s a little surprising,” Izumin said.

  “That’s right. You’ve never skipped out on this place for a whole week, have you?”

  “W-Were you worried about me, Myu-Pom?”

  She smiled, if a little indifferently. “Hmm... I guess?”

  “I was worried about you!”

  It’s time to ignore creepy Master Izumin.

  “Wow, Myu-Pom was worried about me! I’m so glad I decided to become the NEET God! You didn’t seem like you were looking so good, and I guess that’s why!”

  “But Gamo...” Myu-Pom suddenly looked serious. “I don’t think it’s good to make fun of what happened.”

  “Huh? But this is what Kirikiri Basara has always done. Of course, I know that makes me a bad person, but all the aggregator sites are basically doing the same thing.”

  Even non-occult sites were covering this thing. And beyond that, even the media was only talking about it because they wanted to pull in more viewers and ad dollars.

  “A-And don’t you think it’s weird? I mean, why does everybody on TV and the net think it’s some kind of occult thing? It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does make sense, though, doesn’t it? The occult’s been really popular lately,” Master Izumin said, as he wiped down the glasses.

  “And you’d be happier if there was a big occult fad, right, Gamota?”

  “That’s right, but there’s somebody pushing the occult angle from outside the media. I mean, it’s obvious it’s the government, right? It’s the same as the fashion industry! You know every season the fashion magazines and apparel makers get together and decide in advance what the trends are going to be. Then they put it all in magazines for dumb girls to buy. And then the girls end up being convinced that rubber boots and stuff are cute, and then they wear them. Or like, they all wear cardigans off their shoulders. I’ve thought sometimes that eventually they’re going to start wearing military gloves and thinking those are cute, too. Hahaha!”

  Now even Myu-Pom looked a little freaked out.

  “Gamotan is much, much, much more energetic today, isn’t he? Five times? Twice? Ten times? A million times!” Ryotasu did an enthralling dance as she spun around. It felt like a while since I’d seen that.

  But if I played along, Ryotasu would take that as a cue to start her little act. I decided to ignore the strange dance playing out before me, and share my theories with the three wrong-siders in front of me.

  “What I’m saying here is that you can’t just believe what the net and the media are telling you. Master, another drink!”

  “I’ve got no intention of believing in ghosts and curses and stuff, but...” Master Izumin poured me another glass of water and put it on the counter. Evidently, he wasn’t going to bring it to me.

  “We don’t even know how these 256 people actually died, right?”

  “What are you talking about, Gamota? Didn’t you watch the TV? There was some woman who said she saw
the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, I saw her. But is what she said really true?”

  “You’re saying she was lying?!”

  “Was she?”

  Both Master Izumin and Myu-Pom’s eyes went wide.

  “No, I don’t know...”

  “You don’t, huh?” Izumin said.

  “But don’t you think it’s weird that everybody believes what she said? She might just be some woman who wants to be famous. I mean, in more normal circumstances, you’d never believe a woman like that.”

  Myu-Pom tilted her head. “So you don’t believe the theory that it’s mass hypnosis by a cult?”

  “Well, mass hypnosis is a nice, balanced hypothesis, halfway between occult and reality, I think.”

  “You sound so arrogant when you say that.”

  “I’m the NEET God, after all!” I puffed out my chest in pride. “But I don’t think the cult thing is right. If there was some kind of cult like that in Kichijoji, they’d probably have caused some kind of trouble with the locals before that.”

  “I’ve never seen any news about a cult, yeah,” Myu-Pom said.

  “Right,” Izumin added.

  “Then what’s your theory, Gamo?”

  Ooh, she took the bait. Once I told her my theory, like a detective does at the end of a mystery novel, she was sure to fall in love with me.

  “I don’t think there was any kind of mass hypnosis. This is... a mass suicide.”

  “Mass suicide? How’s that different?”

  “It means that nobody was hypnotized. The thing with conspiracy theories is that they always involve a struggle against an invisible enemy. It’s really not that different from being afraid of a ghost’s curse. A lot of people just don’t realize that.”

  “Do you realize it? I’m sure you’re going to tell me you do, right?” Master sighed as he asked.

  I nodded. “I mean, does it make any sense? What would be the point of hypnotizing 256 people into killing themselves? Is there one? Can you think of one?”

  “Gamo, calm down.”

  I’d gotten a little worked up.

  “Um, anyway, do you know how many people in Japan kill themselves every year?”

  Nobody answered me. Talk about ignorance.

  “Thirty thousand. Thirty thousand people.”

  “That many?” Izumin said.

  “So wouldn’t it be pretty easy to find 256 people in Tokyo who wanted to kill themselves?”

  “Of course not!” Myu said.

  “No, I think it would be. This is what you’d say: ‘Anybody who wants to commit suicide, let’s meet up IRL. After we all have a little party or something, we can take some drugs and kill ourselves at the same spot. If we do that, we can end our lives in a way that’ll shock all of Japan!’”

  “Gamota, you’re completely inappropriate!”

  Master’s insults didn’t exactly make me happy. Insults from Myu-Pom probably would, though.

  “So? What happens then?” Myu-Pom was listening to me, her expression serious.

  “Well, if they all tried to die at the same time, just given the sheer number of people involved, someone would call the cops before they could do it.” So they split up into little groups, and each group died in order. There might even have been people organizing it. Like it was some big event or something.”

  “Could anyone stay calm enough to do that right before they were going to kill themselves?” Myu-Pom asked.

  I nodded. “Anybody who’d go to a meeting like that is someone who isn’t brave enough to die alone. If you really want to die, all you have to do is go to the station and jump in front of a train. They didn’t do that. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t want to die at all. By being around a bunch of other would-be suicides, it creates a kind of ‘atmosphere.’ An atmosphere that says, ‘With these guys here, I can die now.’ Reading the atmosphere of a room is something Japanese as a race have to do to survive. So this time, they read the atmosphere of the room and died. Hahaha! Talk about irony.”

  Nobody laughed.

  “Since this is basically one big event, there’s the participants, and then a volunteer staff. The staff’s job is to make sure the event goes off without a hitch.” Ryotasu finally decided to join the conversation. She must’ve been listening while she danced.

  “I don’t think they were just managing it. I think they wanted to kill themselves, too. Of course, there were probably some people who showed up to kill themselves and didn’t go through with it. But don’t you think this idea of a casual suicide club makes a lot more sense? I’m planning on publishing this theory on Kirikiri Basara tomorrow.”

  “I hope Chi didn’t...” Myu-Pom looked uneasy.

  Ryotasu finished her dance and came up to me. She was panting and maybe sweating a little from dancing. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. “Hey, hey, Gamonosuke. Samurai Gamonosuke Hikojurogorozaemon!”

  “Your face is too close. And what’s with that weird name?”

  “How do you know there’s no invisible enemy?”

  “Huh?”

  Invisible enemy?

  When I heard Ryotasu’s words, the events at Dr. Hashigami’s lab came flashing back to me. I’d almost run into someone there at the lab. While I was trying to yank out the Professor’s tooth, I’d heard footsteps out in the hallway. Someone out there had killed Dr. Hashigami, and they hadn’t been arrested yet.

  What if they’d seen someone yanking out the professor’s tooth and running away? In other words, what if they’d seen me? What if they had a lot of friends? What if they were thinking about killing me in order to hide the truth? And what if they couldn’t find out exactly who I was, so they decided to start killing all the students at Seimei? What if all the victims from the 256 Incident were from Seimei?

  A cold chill ran down my spine. There was no guarantee that I wasn’t fighting an invisible enemy.

  So...

  Could I really be sure the occult wasn’t real? I’d always thought that the occult was just a bunch of lies, but now I realized that maybe I was wrong. If radios could talk on their own, then maybe there really could be an invisible enemy.

  “Gamotan?”

  I started.

  Suddenly, I realized Ryotasu’s eyes were right in front of my face. She was so close now that I could see my own face reflected in them. Also, her tits were touching my shoulder.

  What kind of face was I making right now? Was I still keeping up the face of a scummy affiliate blog admin who only cared about himself? The face I’d worn only a moment ago?

  I couldn’t let her find out. I needed to keep my face looking normal, and especially around Ryotasu. She knew what had gone on that day. If I didn’t want her to suspect me, I had to act normal.

  “Th-That’s right! There was someone I wanted to introduce you to. Uh... maybe not someone. Something? Anyway, just look at this. It’ll upend your whole world.”

  I quickly moved away from Ryotasu and turned on the Skysensor, then placed it on a nearby sofa. Ryotasu, Myu-Pom, and Master Izumin looked shocked as I pointed at the Skysensor.

  “Get this! This radio talks! And in a girl’s voice! Hey, Master Izumin, stop looking at me like I’ve finally gone crazy.” I knelt down next to the radio on the sofa and showed them the Zonko strap hanging from the radio. “Do you know who this is? It’s Zonko from MMM. Since I’d thought at first that the strap was talking, I decided to call the voice ‘Zonko.’ Anyway, listen to this. You’ll be amazed.”

  I turned back towards the Skysensor and poked at the speaker. “Hey, Zonko, you there? I know you’re there. Can you say hi to everybody?”

  Silence.

  The Skysensor was completely silent, so I turned up the volume. “Bzzzzz... zzzzzzz... zzzz...”

  I couldn’t hear the voice at all. “Huh? Hey, Zonko! Are you asleep? Wait, do you even sleep at all? Do you get up if I turn the power on? Anyway, that doesn’t matter. Just answer me. Everybody’s waiting.” But no matter how many times I spoke into
the Skysensor, there was no response at all.

  I’d spent the last day or so doing nothing but talking to Zonko. I’d really done nothing but talk to her, honestly. When I tried to go to sleep, she yelled at me and made me talk to her about nothing for a long time after. My idea about the group suicide meeting had come to me only after going over everything with her.

  Honestly, I never would’ve been able to clear my head if I was by myself. Yet now, she wasn’t answering me.

  “After all that bossing around you did yesterday, how come you’re not talking now? Hello!”

  “Gamota, here...” Master Izumin put some hot milk on the table. He looked concerned. “Drink this. It’s on the house.”

  He was feeling sympathy! He was looking at me with very sympathetic eyes. And it wasn’t just Master Izumin. So was Myu-Pom!

  “Zonko-tan? Wakey-wakey! It’s Ryotasu! Are you poyaya?” Maybe Ryotasu, at least, believed me, or maybe she was just having fun by imitating me.

  “I... I guess Zonko’s at school today. Aha... ahahahah...” My excuse echoed futilely off the walls of Blue Moon. Well, this sucked. Kill me now. I just look like a lunatic!

  My eyes met with the smiling Zonko strap, and I felt like telling her off. “Sheesh... After all that time I spent talking with her, too.”

  I thought about going to Inokashira Park myself, but there were probably cops there, so I decided not to.

  site 38: Yuta Gamon

  When I got home, I suddenly felt really tired. I must’ve been more exhausted than I thought.

  Of course I was. It was my first time in a week going back to Blue Moon, and I’d been on edge the whole time. I’d been doing nothing but talking to try and hide my nervousness. I knew I was acting differently than usual. Sweat had been pouring out of my whole body.