Occultic;Nine Volume 2

by Chiyomaru Shikura

Please don’t be following me... I prayed silently.

  I closed my eyes, and I waited for the nightmare to end.

  ...But it was no good.

  A lone shadow was standing just under the torii arch at the entrance.

  From where I was hiding I could only make out the silhouette, but it was definitely the man in glasses I’d seen before.

  “...!!”

  What do I do? I’m screwed! I’m gonna be murdered here at this shrine, and some old guy walking his dog is gonna find me in the morning, and then I’ll be in the evening papers. Will my mom cry, I wonder?

  And then—

  “Don’t you think it’s stupid that past this point is a sacred space?” The man’s voice echoed throughout the quiet grounds.

  It was an intelligent voice. There was no irritation, rage, or anything else contained within it.

  “Even if, hypothetically, gods were real, do you think they would choose to live in the middle of the city, with all these cars around?” He was calling to someone.

  Who was he calling to?

  It was obvious. It was me! He knew I was here, and was trying to scare me!

  “Why Kirikiri Basara?”

  ...Huh? What did he just say? What did he just say?!

  “Does it come from the mantra of Gundari Myouou, ‘On Kirikiri Basara Un Hatta’?”

  He... He knew who I was!

  “I heard about you from Miyuu Aikawa. I found out that you were at Seimei University on the day my dad died, too.”

  “...?!” He knew Myu-Pom?! The only one who knew that I was at Seimei Building 10 that day was Ryotasu...

  Did Ryotasu tell Myu-Pom? And did Myu-Pom tell him? And did he just say, “my dad”? Was he talking about Dr. Hashigami? My mind couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t think.

  And then I gasped.

  I remembered.

  I remembered where I saw his face.

  —On TV. It was during Dr. Hashigami’s funeral. He’d been there.

  He was Dr. Hashigami’s son...!

  “I didn’t kill him!” I’d leapt out of the darkness and screamed, without even realizing it.

  It was true that I’d seen his body, and that I hadn’t told the police, and that I’d ripped out his gold tooth with a pair of pliers. But... But I didn’t...

  “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!” I felt like I was going to cry. “Believe me! Please, believe me! I didn’t...”

  The man — Dr. Hashigami’s son — didn’t move at all. He scoffed a little, his face still cold.

  And this is what he said.

  “I don’t think you did it.”

  “...Huh?” He didn’t...?

  “R-Really?”

  He nodded.

  I felt relieved. At the same time, all the energy drained from my body, and I dropped to my knees right there.

  Dr. Hashigami’s son slowly walked towards me. In the dim light of the streetlamps, I could just barely make out his expression. I looked so pathetic, but he didn’t bat an eye.

  “You’re definitely the admin for Kirikiri Basara, right?”

  “A-Are you... Dr. Hashigami’s son?”

  He nodded. “Sarai Hashigami. I’ve commented on Kirikiri Basara several times,” he said.

  For a moment I didn’t understand him, but his words bothered me.

  I thought a little. Part of me thought that it was a really small world, if Dr. Hashigami’s son was commenting on my blog.

  I let the name echo in my mind. And then the fog in my mind lifted.

  “Sarai... you mean you’re THE Sarai?”

  Sarai Hashigami nodded a little.

  Maybe the bigger surprise was that Sarai’s dad was Dr. Hashigami.

  “I’ve heard most of your personal information. Yuta Gamon. A second-year student at Seimei High.”

  “Oh, yes... that’s right.”

  “I’m a student at Seimei U.”

  “Huh...?!” We went to the same academy? I had no idea he was so close. It was possible that I passed by him on campus without even knowing it.

  “I want you to tell me something.” Sarai looked me dead in the eye. “Did you see the place where my father died?”

  “...I-I...”

  “There’s no need to lie to me. I don’t think for a moment that you’re the killer. There’s signs that my father was locked in there and tortured for at least a week. That would’ve been impossible for you, in light of a number of factors.”

  Huh? Really? Was that just what Sarai thought? Or was that what the police thought?

  “But from what I heard from Miyuu Aikawa, you visited my father’s lab around 5:00 PM on the twenty-fourth.”

  I was surprised to find out that Myu-Pom had told Sarai. I felt a little betrayed. And wait, did Myu-Pom actually know Sarai? The two of them got in a fight on Nico, didn’t they?

  “It’s not right to blame her. She was actually worried about you.”

  “I-I see.” He always seemed to be reading my mind. It felt like he was making fun of me, and I found it pretty annoying.

  “If it’s true that you saw the scene, ran, and never called the police, I find your actions inexplicable and upsetting, but...”

  “...” I couldn’t say anything.

  Of course I couldn’t.

  “So, did you see where my father died or not?”

  I gulped, and slowly nodded. “I... did.”

  Sarai didn’t move an eyebrow. “If there’s anything that bothered you, please tell me.”

  “Huh? Anything...?”

  “Anything. The police aren’t giving me much information, so I barely know anything about my father’s death.” Sarai grabbed me by the shoulders and got closer. “So tell me. What did you see there? If anything seemed strange, tell me, no matter what it is.”

  Part me wanted to tell him that this wasn’t how you asked people for help, but when I saw his expression, I couldn’t. There was nothing in his face that made me think he viewed me as an enemy. If anything, he seemed to be looking to me for help.

  Of course he would... His father had been horribly murdered, and the killer hadn’t been caught.

  Still... things that seemed strange, huh?

  The whole thing was so bizarre that I didn’t even know where to begin.

  The biggest thing that I remembered was — the gold tooth key in my pocket. But there was no way I could tell Sarai about that. I mean, what was I supposed to tell him? “I ripped out your dad’s gold tooth with a pair of pliers, and I’m still carrying it around with me?”

  “...CODE.” So the word that came out of my mouth was his father’s dying message.

  “What did you say? Code?”

  “Your father wrote letters on the floor, in his own blood. In English. C, O, D, E.”

  Sarai gasped and took his hands off of me.

  “You’re telling me there was a dying message?”

  “Y-You didn’t know?”

  Sarai shook his head. “The police wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Why wouldn’t they tell him?

  “CODE... I’ve seen that somewhere...” Sarai put his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, lost in thought. “At home... in the study? I think I saw a document that said that, a long time ago...”

  The study in Sarai’s home. That would be Dr. Hashigami’s study.

  I reflexively put my hand into my pocket and grabbed the gold tooth key within. If there was a lock that this key would fit, it would be in Dr. Hashigami’s house.

  If I went there...

  “Let’s look. For a clue.” The words came out of my mouth without me thinking, and I was a little surprised at them. “For an important hint to find the real killer...!”

  And also, a hint to that would prove my innocence.

  “No, but...” Sarai frowned for a moment, suddenly hesitant.

  At this rate, I was going to lose my chance. I grabbed onto Sarai.

  “Please! Don’t you want to find the real killer?!”

  “Of course
I want to know why my dad was killed! But it’s impossible!”

  Sarai pushed me away. I tripped and fell to the ground. He was looking down at me. He kept trying to adjust his glasses to calm himself down, but it only showed how frustrated he was. Just like on the net, it didn’t take much to set him off.

  “Someone ransacked my dad’s study the day he was killed.”

  ...Ransacked it? What?

  “After carefully analyzing me and my mother’s actions that day, I was able to determine that they entered the study between 4:15 and 5:30 PM. That matches up with my dad’s time of death almost exactly. It was a carefully planned crime. Of course, they would’ve taken any evidence.”

  When I heard that, I felt as if I were on the verge of stepping into an abyss of conspiracies. I felt the presence of some vast, invisible, and unknowable enemy.

  I started to shake.

  I glanced at the Skysensor bag that was hanging from my shoulder.

  —You practically asked for this when you came here!

  Zonko’s words from that day echoed in my mind.

  Was I supposed to just spend the rest of my life in fear of the police and the real killer? No. No, I didn’t want that!

  I’m still a high school student! I’m still seventeen! Sure, maybe I planned to never leave my room, but that was so I could be lazy, not because I wanted to live in fear of some unseen enemy.

  There was no way I wanted to spend the rest of my life in fear.

  “Just because they ransacked your study doesn’t mean they took all the evidence!” I stood up and grabbed Sarai. “L-Let’s just look at it! Take me there! Please!”

  “D-Don’t blame me...! No matter what happens...” Sarai hesitated a moment, feeling a bit overwhelmed, but then he nodded.

  “This isn’t a video game or an anime, okay?”

  site 42: Yuta Gamon

  Sarai Hashigami’s house was in an expensive area right near Inokashira Park.

  Normally it was quiet, even though it was so close to the station, but thanks to the 256 incident, it was now filled with people walking the streets.

  There were media trucks and vans parked right on the road. Wasn’t that a parking violation? Evidently the media were staking out Inokashira Park even at night. It must’ve sucked to be them, considering how cold it was.

  It had been only ten days or so since Dr. Hashigami’s death, so normally the media would still be staking out his house. Maybe it was good for Sarai’s family that the 256 incident had pulled all of them away.

  “Come in.” Sarai opened the gate to his house.

  The Hashigami residence was a very ordinary one. There was a pine tree in the yard, and a small pond. He’d probably lived here for years. I’d been imagining something more modern and fancy, so I was a little surprised.

  The outside light was on. If the light was on, that meant his family was probably home. Was it okay for me to just come over like this? Sarai didn’t seem to care, though.

  Sarai opened the front door to the house, and we went inside.

  There were several pairs of shoes strewn about the front entrance, and the mail and newspapers were piling up. The place didn’t seem dirty. It felt like it had only gotten messy recently.

  And there was something else that bothered me.

  —The house was too quiet.

  It was so noisy outside, which only made the contrast more stark.

  The outside light was on, but there was no sign of anyone in the house.

  Maybe the rest of Sarai’s family — his mother, perhaps — had already gone to sleep. After what had happened to his dad, there was no way his family could live normally. Maybe his mom was asleep from exhaustion... maybe.

  When I thought about that, the look on Dr. Hashigami’s dead face came back to me, and I quickly shook my head.

  “This way.”

  The professor’s study was on the second floor. I was still in the process of taking off my shoes, but Sarai had already started walking up the stairs.

  He seemed kind of mad at me. Of course he would be. He’d just said I was inexplicable and upsetting. He probably hated me. But still, the person he should hate wasn’t me. It was whoever killed his dad.

  It was very strange to be with Sarai, the guy from my message board. It was a miracle, actually. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see us ever being friends.

  My only real friend... was Ryotasu, anyway.

  As I quickly took off my shoes, I realized that Sarai was looking down at me from the staircase.

  “Wh-What is it...?” I asked.

  “You were just thinking that I was the type of person you don’t like, weren’t you?”

  “No, um...”

  “Do you know what humans do when they lie? One thing they do is always look away. And what have you been doing? You seem to be looking down towards your lower right. The other thing they do is blink less. An adult male blinks an average of twenty times a minute. That’s once every three seconds. It’s been thirty seconds since I’ve started this conversation, but surprisingly, you haven’t blinked once. The third thing is that a small film of sweat forms around the bridge of their nose. The low for today is five degrees. At this hour, it’s not that low, but it still can’t be more than around seven. That’s not a temperature where you sweat. And this house doesn’t have the heater running at all. It’s the same temperature in here as it is outside, and you’re sweating. Your body temperature’s gone up because of something I’ve said that’s causing you to panic. There’s more. Should I continue?”

  “N-No, that’s okay!”

  What a PITA.

  What was with this guy? He kept going on and on about crap that didn’t matter. And with this huge smirk on his face, too! Did I really need to know all that stuff now? It would be a lot easier if he just said, “You don’t like super-smart jackasses like me, do you? Well, I don’t like NEET scum like you.” No, I wouldn’t want him saying that to my face. If he said it to me on Twitter or something, I could probably come up with a really good comeback. And wait, how long was he going to stand there? Just go up the stairs already. At this rate I’d be stuck in the front hall forever.

  Maybe it was because I was complaining to myself like usual, but the panic I’d been feeling a moment ago had started to subside.

  As I listened to Sarai’s long, boring speech, I suddenly heard a noise that bothered me.

  Both Sarai and I were standing still, but I could hear the sound of a creaking floor. At the end of the first floor hallway, there was a door fitted with frosted glass. It was half-open, but the room inside was dark, and I couldn’t see what was going on inside. It was probably the living room or something.

  I focused towards the spot in the darkness where I’d heard the noise — and saw a white shadow move.

  “Uwah!” I screamed a little in surprise.

  “Huh?” Sarai looked a little annoyed. I realized that I’d grabbed onto his arm.

  “I’m... sorry. But that was...” I rubbed my eyes.

  It looked like an old woman in a white kimono...

  Was it Sarai’s grandmother? But if it was, why didn’t she turn the light on?

  Was it... a ghost?

  “Are you sure you’re the admin of KiriBasa?” Sarai sounded unsatisfied.

  He must not have seen whatever it was I saw.

  Okay, I would just ignore the shadow then. Yeah. People see things all the time. Yup. Later I could send Special Correspondent Ryotasu on a mission to find out what it was. Then I could write a post about whether it was a ghost or just some old woman.

  I followed Sarai up the stairs.

  There were three rooms on the second floor. Sarai stopped at the one near the end of the hall.

  “Is this Dr. Hashigami’s study...?”

  “Yup.”

  The door was shut. There was no way to see what was inside. Sarai had said it had been “ransacked,” but...

  “I’ll wait here. If you want to investigate, do it on your own.”
/>   “Huh? Why? Is there a ghost in here too?!”

  “A ghost? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, nothing...”

  “I still haven’t processed my feelings toward my dad. My emotions get in the way no matter what I do.”

  He didn’t have to always put things in such an obnoxious way.

  “I-I lost my dad, too...”

  “What?”

  “So, um...”

  I kinda understood how he felt...

  “D-Don’t think... that you’re the only one who’s got it tough...”

  “Ahem...”

  Oh, crap. That didn’t come out right.

  Sarai looked annoyed, but he didn’t say anything. He just silently opened the door to the study and nodded.

  I bowed and slid past him into the room.

  “...It’s cleaned up.” I was surprised.

  He’d said it had been ransacked, so I was imagining something like out of a TV show, but that wasn’t the case at all.

  His family must have cleaned it up. Most of the books and papers were piled neatly on the floor and tied up with string. The bookcase that covered one of the walls was mostly empty.

  There was a simple study desk in the middle of the room. The desktop had been cleaned off, and now had only a lonely looking pen holder lying on top... It was very different from the desk at his lab, which had been covered in strange objects.

  But if things were like this...

  “There’s no way to find any clues...” What I was after was a clue to who had killed the professor. The ideal thing would be to find the keyhole for the golden tooth key. If I found a clue to the real killer, I’d be able to go tell the police that I was the first one who found the body. I wouldn’t have to fear that they’d arrest me instead.

  But...

  “I guess it’s not like in the detective shows, huh?” I said.

  But I had to look anyway. My life was on the line, after all. I didn’t want my life to end at this age.

  I started by looking at the covers of the books on the floor. They were similar to the ones in his room at the school. The occult books and physics books in particular stood out. Then there were old papers, and what looked like drafts of his Mumuu column.

  I wanted to read them all, but they were tied so tightly that it would be difficult to get the string off. Maybe I should get permission from Sarai later...