“Hey...” I couldn’t take it anymore, so I spoke to the kid.
It wasn’t really because of the cold that my voice was shaking...
“Do you know where my friend is? Her name’s Chi. Her real name is Chizu Kawabata. She’s a first-year student at Seimei High...”
“I need a sacrifice!” The boy suddenly looked up.
“Hyah!” I almost fell backwards in surprise, but Narusawa caught me.
The young boy grinned and looked back at the box. “A sacrifice needs to go inside the Kotoribako. And that sacrifice needs to be someone everybody loves, it said on the net. Oh, but I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime. Because I’m a minor, you know.”
Clack.
Another block got pushed out.
When he moved it back, his hands were slick, too.
“They told me about somebody who could be a good sacrifice. And it’s actually the super-popular high school girl that Morizuka was telling me about a while ago. I figured she’d be the perfect sacrifice, but...” He took his hand off the box, and another block pocked out.
He’d been doing that again and again. It felt like something I shouldn’t be looking at.
I wanted to run away, now.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands.
“Why?” I asked, without even realizing I’d done so. “Why is your hand wet? Why is it red?”
But he ignored me.
“But I guess I screwed up.”
“Huh?” He screwed up what—
“The sacrifice. Even if I screw up, I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime.”
“Tell me!” I yelled. “What’s... in that box...?” I couldn’t even speak anymore.
No more...
“What’s wrong? I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime.” The young boy slowly stood up.
The blocks fell apart again, but he didn’t try to fix them.
“I-I’ll call the police!!” Gamo said, but the boy just grinned and shrugged.
“The police? Why? I keep telling you. I’m a minor, so I won’t get in trouble.”
“Answer my question!” That was as loud as I could scream.
“If you want to know, I’ll give you this box. It’s a failure, but it’s halfway made.” And then the boy looked at me again.
He had a huge smile on his face. Different than the grin before.
“Myu—”
—How did he know my name?
“—that was you, wasn’t it?”
And then the white boy went away, leaving behind the falling-apart box.
“W-Wait!” Gamo tried to stop him, but the strange atmosphere around the boy seemed to keep him frozen in place.
The boy vanished, slowly, towards the graveyard behind the temple.
All that was left was the three of us, and the box placed in front of the statue of Bishamonten.
I didn’t want to imagine it. I didn’t want to see it.
If I saw it, I knew I’d regret it.
Maybe I could use my fortune-telling in my mind on the box’s contents. Maybe I could see a vision.
But I was too scared of what I’d see to do it.
No, it was better not to do it.
Don’t look inside that box.
I knew not to. I knew not to, but...
I took a step, and then another.
I walked towards the box.
Hey...
What did that boy put in the box? What did he mean by “sacrifice”? What did he mean, he got it wrong? How’d he know my name? Why would he give it to me? What was inside this wet, twisted thing that wasn’t even really a box?
I kneeled in front of it, and touched it with my fingertip.
It felt slick.
It was sticky. It was super cold, and I almost jerked my hand away.
It was made of wood, but I imagined it was made of stainless steel. The box was made of wood blocks, piled into a rectangle. And they were all piled together, randomly.
The smell had gotten stronger. It was clearly coming from inside the box.
I could hear something rattling.
A moment later I realized it was my teeth.
“Myu-Pom!” Gamo yelled to me from behind. “Don’t open it!”
I ignored his warning.
I took off the top block.
The smell got worse.
But I didn’t care. I kept removing blocks.
I could tell there was less room inside than I thought. The box was pretty big, but there wasn’t a lot of room to put anything in it.
“Stop it! Myu-Pom!”
I shook off Gamo’s hand.
And I kept tearing down the box.
A piece of hair stuck out of it and wrapped around my finger. It looked like human hair, but I told myself it couldn’t be. It was just a strange piece of fabric.
The wetness on my hands was cold, and I was losing the feeling in my fingertips. But I still couldn’t stop.
This isn’t true.
It can’t be true.
What’s inside is something that doesn’t matter at all.
It’s not a sacrifice. It can’t be. I mean, it’s the 21st century. This is Japan. It’s not a super-long time ago in the past, like the time of the samurai. And this isn’t a manga or an anime.
So my premonition would be wrong. It had to be. Please be wrong.
As I prayed...
I dismantled half of the box.
And then I saw something shine within it.
I took a deep breath, and looked inside.
I could see a hairpiece with a cute, little dog mascot. It was stained red and black.
“Aah... ahh....” I knew it.
It was...
It was the one I wore on my head. I’d given another one to Chi on her birthday, so we could match.
“No...” I reached out my hand for the hairpiece.
But it was dark. I judged the distance wrong.
And I touched the thing that was under it.
It was thick, like yogurt, and it was so disgusting I quickly yanked back my hand.
“Myu-Pom?! That’s enough! Stop it!” Gamo’s cell phone flashlight illuminated my hands.
My fingers were covered in pink yogurt mixed with red.
No, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t yogurt. Despite all that was going on, my brain knew exactly what was happening. This was...
Yeah, it had to be...
This was what was left of Chi’s brain.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” And then, I passed out.
site 52: Yuta Gamon
Several days had passed since the incident at Enmeiji. After what had happened, Myu-Pom had passed out from the shock and had to be hospitalized. I didn’t hear any details about the albino boy, or what was in his box. The papers didn’t really report it. But whatever was inside it was once human. I knew that.
I hadn’t been to Blue Moon once since then. I hadn’t been to school, either. I’d stayed in my house the whole time. I’d used the photo I’d taken of the ceiling of Dr. Hashigami’s study, stretched it out on a printer, and kept decoding the list. It took a long time, and was really boring, to decode the whole thing myself, but when I finished, I might have access to information even the police didn’t.
This was all I had left. This was all I could do.
Just like I thought, the names of the people matched the list of the ones in the 256 incident. Forty-three names had matched so far. One of them was Yuna Miyamae, the girl who’d been taken to the hospital after playing Kokkuri-san.
Only about 150 of the victims from the 256 incident had had their names released. So only a few names had matched so far. But if I kept going, eventually all the names should match.
I wasn’t sure if I should tell the police. It felt like they were acting weird. I couldn’t trust them.
I had my TV on all the time in the living room. A news program was giving an update on the 256 incident.
“—The police just released a new list of victims. This brings the total number to two hundred, but the
remaining fifty-six have yet to be identified.”
Oh, perfect timing. If there were new names released, I needed to match them with my list.
“Hey.” I heard a voice from the Skysensor. “How long are you going to keep doing that busywork? Shouldn’t you leave it to someone else? It’s a job for idiots, right?” Zonko had been saying that ever since I started. She was getting really annoying.
But whenever mom came home, Zonko fell silent immediately. It seemed like she was only going to talk when it was just me and her.
“Forget that list. Worry about the key. That’s more important, right?”
“No, the key’s important, but I walked all over and didn’t find anything it matched. I don’t have a choice.”
The Kotoribako that albino boy had didn’t have a keyhole. All my memories of that day were like a nightmare.
I still hadn’t made contact with Ririka Nishizono.
I just wanted to be done going through the list.
When I did, I’d find something. Something that wasn’t a nightmare.
I knew there was no point in doing this simple busywork. Zonko had told me I was just trying to escape reality, and she was right. Just the fact that several of the names had matched was enough to justify turning it over to the police. But once I’d started, I felt like I had to continue.
There was something in this list.
If Dr. Hashigami had a list of the victims of the 256 incident a year ago, then there must be something incredible that they all had in common. Maybe he was killed to hide that. In that world line, I’d cease being a suspect.
“Whew.” I decoded another name.
It was a lot more of a hassle than you’d think to decode a name from dots. This was number seventy, finally.
Umm...
“GAMON YUTA—???”
“Here are the names of the newest victims. Tadashi Iguchi. Yoko Ishizuka. Mitsuko Edo. Toyohiko Oba. Yasumi Ogata. Shingo Kaga. Yuta Gamon—”
“Yuta Gamon—”
“Huh?” For some reason, I made a weird noise as the announcer called my name.
“Hey, Zonko! Did you hear that? I’m... I’m a victim, it says! Ahahahaha! That’s hilarious, huh? Both the code on the ceiling and the TV news called my name at the same time! Hahaha! What’s going on here—”
“Sigh...” Zonko cut me off.
And in a resigned, disappointed voice, she said—
“You found it, huh?”
----BzzzBBzzt--bzzbzzzzt----
Occultic;Nine: Tips
≫Implant
A method of treatment that involves cutting open the gums and implanting a false root, then putting a false tooth on top of it. While it can’t be removed, unlike typical false teeth it doesn’t come loose and you can chew with it like you would a regular tooth.
≫Doujin Manga
Also called doujinshi. A magazine funded and produced by an individual or small group. Unlike normal magazines, these are not sold through normal distribution channels and are primarily “passed out” at doujin events. (They are never “sold.”) Originally they took the form of literary magazines, but as printing technology improved and the number of manga and anime fans increased, more and more of them took the form of manga. There are many genres of doujinshi, such as original works, derived works, all-ages works, adult works, works for men, and works for women. They are also called “thin books.”
≫Scramble Communications
A method of encryption used by places like paid satellite channels and cable TV. The data is encrypted by a simple method of scrambling it to stop people who have not bought the service from watching it. Paid customers are given a decoder that allows them to decrypt the scrambled data and view the channel.
≫Dodo Bird
A flightless bird that went extinct in the 1600s in what is now the Republic of Mauritius. The word Dodo is Portuguese for “fool.” A dodo bird appears in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
≫Inokashira Park
Officially named “Inokashira Onshi Park.” A 380,000m2 park owned by the city and located in Tokyo between Musashino and Mitaka. Opened in 1917. The park contains Inokashira Lake, as well as the Benzaiten and Inari Shrines, and a zoo called the Natural Culture Park. There is also a stadium grounds in the west park, and in the southeast of the west park, there is a smaller park as well.
≫Nikola Tesla, Wardenclyffe Tower
An electrical engineer and inventor born in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia). 1856-1943. During his student days, he discovered the fundamental principles behind AC electricity. Afterward he went to America and worked for Edison’s company, but he fought with Edison over the differences between AC and DC power transmission and left the company after only a year. In 1888, he invented the AC power generator and AC motor. In addition, in the 21st century Tesla’s AC power is the primary mode of power transmission. He invented several other things as well, but in 1901, he built the 57-meter-tall “Wardenclyffe Tower” on Long Island, America as part of his experiments with a wireless power transmission system (The World System). But the experiments never succeeded, and due to the war and a lack of funds, it was torn down. The international unit of measurement for the strength of a magnetic field is a “Tesla.”
≫CNN
Cable News Network. The world’s first 24-hour news network. Founded in America in 1980.
≫Reuters
A communications company founded in 1851 by the Jewish Paul Julius Freiherr von Reuter. It’s currently owned by the Canadian Thompson Corporation and is known as Thompson Reuters.
≫2channel
The most frequently accessed anonymous message board in Japan. Its catchphrase is “From Hacking to Tonight’s Side Dishes,” and it covers a huge variety of topics, from standard to underground.
≫Dredging
The act of bringing up water from a lake and taking the mud, etc. out to improve water quality. Originally used to maintain the water quality in holding lakes for fields, this has been a part of Japanese culture for centuries.
≫People’s Temple
An American religious organization founded in 1955. At first it called for the abolition of all forms of discrimination, but its founder, Jim Jones, was overcome by fear of persecution, and it gradually became a cult. In 1978, Jones and over 900 of his followers committed suicide in Guyana, South America.
≫Harmonica Alley
A shopping and dining area in the backstreets near Kichijoji Station. It has over 100 stores.
≫Twitter
A social network that opened in 2006 in America. This “mini-blogging” platform allows for posts of up to 140 characters in length. In 2014, it had over 2.4 billion active users worldwide.
≫256 Incident
A mass death incident that occurred in the book at Inokashira Park. Yuta Gamon came up with this name because 256 corpses were found.
≫Tora no Ana
A manga doujinshi shop. There are over 20 of them all across Japan. In Tokyo, they’re concentrated in Akihabara, Shinjuku, and Ikebukuro.
≫J-CAST
A Japanese news site company that was founded in 1997. Over 11 million visitors come to J-CAST sites each month.
≫Baudot Code
A letter code used for teletype communications. Invented in 1905. In 1931, it was chosen as the standard code for the international Telex network. In the 21st century, it is no longer used in most cases thanks to the internet.
≫Punch Tape
Here used to refer to paper or plastic tape used as memory storage device for computers and electronic calculators. Very commonly used between 1950 and 1970. Data is saved by punching holes in long, thin tape, with the presence or lack of a hole being used to denote the data. Originally there were five rows, but later this increased to six, seven, or even eight rows.
≫Synchronicity
A theory propounded by Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Jung. A meaningful coincidence, like a sudden premonition. When two phenomena possess a similarity
or connection in meaning or image, they stick out from the order of time and space. This sticking out is the definition of synchronicity.
Afterword
Overlap novel readers, my beloved maniacs who are fans of Chiyomaru Studio, members of the Committee of 300, lovers of urban legends, people who believe in the occult, people who don’t, people who are cursed, people who can see things that aren’t really there, and ghosts who are actually already dead, thank you for reading! Just before I wrote this afterword, I took a shower while imagining occult things. On my way back, I thought I heard a noise from the hallway, but it turned out to be nothing.
Many lives were lost in the second volume of this book.
But what is “death”? The reason everyone thinks about this is that the death rate is 100%. It’s a truth that’s coming someday, and you can’t avoid it.
There’s differing opinions about the afterlife, but there are two types of people in general: those who believe that after death, there’s nothing, and those who believe that a world awaits after death.
So now it’s time for a personality analysis!
If you chose the former, you’re a self-proclaimed scientific believer with a strong heart, like Sarai and Gamota. When you see people who claim to be able to see ghosts, you say to yourself, “They just want attention.” But you actually fear death more than those in the second group, and you have a tendency to fear dying alone more than they do.
Also, this type tends to lack in communication skills, and not have many friends. For some reason you don’t believe in ghosts, but you’ll happily tell everyone about your belief in aliens. In addition, you don’t like taking the long route, and your favorite season is winter.
If you chose the latter, you’re more like Myu-Pom and Toko, people who hate being alone. You always try to look on the bright side of things, and if you find someone else who feels the same way, you can become friends quickly. You’re interested in many things, and you try your best to help your friends with their problems. You do your best to help others, but your room is always filthy, and you always tell yourself you’ll clean it tomorrow. People in this type are easily deceived by shady cults and brainwashed.
Your hobby is traveling. You like variety programs. Your favorite season is summer.
Occultic;Nine Volume 2 Page 17