Chapter Text
‘Ugh, we’re back here again…’ Shishiba sighed as he carefully manoeuvred around the dozens of cigarette butts that littered the grimy alleyway. They’d both been ordered to go to the killer lotto scratch card booth to be assigned some top secret mission. He didn’t say it out loud, but he thought: the last time I was here, I had all five fingers.
‘It’s not a lucky place for you, Shishiba-san,’ Osaragi murmured from behind him, as if reading his mind.
‘I prefer the online assignments any day. Oh no, it’s Nagumo…’
‘Yo!’ Nagumo stepped out of the shadows, giving them an enthusiastic wave, which both Shishiba and Osaragi ignored. ‘You guys are here too? Alright, maybe it’s time for another road trip!!’
‘I’m seriously getting deja vu here, and not in a good way…’ Shishiba said, with a pained expression. ‘Obaa-san, three killer lotto scratch cards, please.’
The old lady reached under the counter for the stash of special lottery cards. ‘Hai…that will be nine hundred yen…’
Shishiba passed the money through the plastic barrier, and took his card from the old lady. Taking the other two cards she held out, he handed them to Nagumo and Osaragi.
‘Remember, we gotta share if anyone wins…!’ Nagumo chirped, as he scratched away at his card with a key.
‘Yeah, whatever. What are the chances of anyone winning again? This is such a gimmick…’ Shishiba pulled a five yen coin out of his wallet and gave it to Osaragi before she could open her mouth to ask. Together, the three of them scratched each of the six squares out.
Nagumo held his card up. ‘Hmm…Kinugawa onsen…bunch of kids missing…go and investigate…’
‘Huh. I got something different,’ Shishiba frowned. ‘Osaka, rogue assassin after local politician, eliminate.’ He turned to his right where Osaragi was staring at her card. ‘Osaragi, what about you?’
She slid it over to him. ‘Same as Nagumo.’
‘What? The two of you together?’
Nagumo looked over Shishiba’s shoulder at the matching card. ‘Ah, Osaragi-chan! Finally you have the chance to go with another senpai! We’re going to have so much fun together!’
Shishiba’s expression of discomfort had not faded, if anything it only deepened at Nagumo’s words. ‘But I’m her mentor. Why’d they pair her up with you?’
Nagumo leaned indolently against the counter, picking at his fingernails and smiling his irritating smile. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they want mother to let her learn to play with the other kids?’
‘Tch.’ Shishiba glanced over at Osaragi. Her usually empty facial expression had turned into one of petulant displeasure.
‘Shishiba-san, can’t I go with you instead?’
‘I’d rather ya did, actually,’ Shishiba pulled his phone out. ‘Let me give HQ a call…’
Nagumo darted in between them, draping his arms around their shoulders. ‘Aw, give someone else a chance, Shishiba! You’re always with her anyway! Are you scared she’ll like hanging out with me more than you?’
Osaragi delicately brushed his hand off with an expression of disgust, while Shishiba swatted at his hand in annoyance, phone ringing in his other hand. ‘Don’t touch me, we aren’t friends.’
After a few rings, the call was finally answered.
‘Good afternoon, JAA Tokyo Bureau, how may I help you?’
‘Good afternoon, Shishiba here. Yes about the latest mission…was there a mix up?’
Shishiba moved off a short distance away, his voice trailing off while Nagumo held the card up once more, examining it.
‘Kinugawa onsen…isn’t that the abandoned onsen town? I’ve heard it’s a horribly haunted place…’
He brought the website of cursed properties, the jiko bukken, up on his phone.
‘Ah yes, a few hotel manager suicides after the tourism boom of the 80s faded…ghost sightings and flickering lights in the large abandoned hotels…’
‘G…ghost sightings?’ Osaragi’s already pale face paled further.
‘Don’t worry, Osaragi-chan,’ Nagumo beamed at her. ‘I’ll protect you from those bad, evil ghosts!’
Osaragi glared at him. ‘I don’t need you.’
Her gaze alighted upon Shishiba’s returning figure. ‘Shishiba-san? What did they say?’
Shishiba looked rather vexed. ‘They said there wasn’t a mix up and you should go with him. It’s a special request by one of the higher ups.’
‘But I don’t want to…’
‘Believe me, I tried talking to them. Look, how about this, I’ll finish up in Osaka quickly and then catch up with the two of you, okay?’
He quickly entered the passcode on the lotto scratch card into the encrypted email he’d received. Scanning through the message, he then glanced at the time on his phone. ‘If I leave now there’s enough time to catch the Nozomi Shinkansen…’
Nagumo let out a low whistle. ‘You’re leaving now? In that much of a hurry, huh?’
‘The sooner I go, the better,’ Shishiba fixed Nagumo with a stern gaze. ‘You’d better not leave her behind somewhere.’
‘Me?’ Nagumo pretended not to recollect the time they’d left Osaragi behind at the rest stop on the way to Kyoto. ‘As I recall, you were the one driving…’
Shishiba took no notice of him. ‘And don’t let her drive. You might throw up again.’
Nagumo pouted. ‘Any more instructions, okaa-san?’
‘Sure,’ Shishiba said, pulling him to the side. ‘If anything happens to her, you’re dead.’
‘Easy there, mother hen! Or should I say…lover boy?’ Nagumo teased, observing Shishiba’s annoyed expression turn to outright exasperation with satisfaction. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be fine! Give her a little more credit!’
‘She’s not too good with haunted places. I’ve heard stories about Kinugawa onsen.’
‘Oh come on, surely you don’t believe in ghosts too? Those are just urban legends.’
‘I don’t, but she does.’
‘Maybe that’s why the company’s sending her there with me. For ghost training!’ Nagumo made a ghastly noise and held his arms out, tilting his head to the side, and crossing his eyes in an uncanny imitation of a ghost.
‘Cut it out, will ya,’ Shishiba appeared to have made up his mind, turning his back on them and walking away. ‘I’ve got a train to catch. Osaragi, keep an eye on your phone.’
Osaragi nodded miserably at his retreating figure. The words ‘Don’t go…’ had almost escaped her lips.
‘Don’t look so sad, Osaragi-chan! I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow!’ Nagumo vanished back into the shadows, leaving Osaragi alone outside the shuttered lottery booth.
It was definitely not a lucky place for her either.
The next morning, Nagumo showed up outside her apartment half an hour late.
He wasn’t even apologetic, greeting her with a bright ‘Ohayo, Osaragi-chan! Let’s work hard on this mission together, okay?’
Osaragi buckled her seatbelt on in silence. Shishiba-san is never late…she thought. And he always has a coffee for me…
He’d messaged her last night. A simple ‘I’m in Osaka.’ She’d replied with a ramen emoji and a smiley face that meant ‘Go eat some nice food’, and he’d given it a thumbs up.
Annoyingly, Nagumo had a single coffee, the exact brand she liked, sitting in the cup holder between them. He took a long sip, smacking his lips in enjoyment at the end. ‘Ahhh, nothing like a good coffee to start the morning!’
Osaragi sighed. It was only five minutes into the mission and she already felt like killing Nagumo. Worse, she felt the Shishiba-shaped hole in her small world a little too acutely. She had never been on an Order mission without him, and she had no idea what HQ was thinking. It was going to be a long drive.
Shishiba had spent a sleepless night in a rundown city hotel with a window facing a blank wall. The summer heat was ramping up, and he mildly regretted the hot bowl of ramen he’d had for breakfast.
He read the encrypted email from the JAA again. The target would likely be attending the local politician’s rally today at nine in the morning. He would go there early and scout out the area. With a bit of luck, he could be done by lunchtime and on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. And then another two hours by car to Kinugawa Onsen. It would be an exhausting day, no doubt, but as long as he caught up to them, it would be fine…
HQ had made it clear that what he did on his downtime was no business of theirs, and that if he wanted to follow Osaragi on her mission, he would not be compensated at all. He was getting tired of them and their toxic work culture. Like most big corporations, the JAA didn’t reward loyalty and hard work, it only cared about hitting targets, literally and monetarily.
Why did he feel so uneasy about letting her go off with Nagumo alone? Was it Nagumo himself, or was it the disturbing location? Maybe it was both?
It’s just the concern of a senpai, he told himself. But Nagumo would never know how scared Osaragi was of ghosts. Nagumo had never seen her terrified. Nagumo had never been clutched from behind while leading the way with a flashlight through an old cemetery where targets were hiding…
Shishiba banished that last image from his mind. It disturbed him, and he had a job to do.
It was about an hour into the drive when Nagumo finally decided to pull into the parking lot of what he said was his favourite rest stop. It had been nothing short of torture for Osaragi. Though she admitted that Nagumo was generally a competent driver, he had way too many idiosyncrasies that she found it hard to stomach.
He flipped incessantly through the car radio stations, settling on the most sugary, kawaii J-pop songs of the moment. He wound the windows down by an inch, even though the air conditioning was on, saying it helped with his car-sickness, though how he could still get carsick while driving was a mystery to Osaragi.
Worst of all, he talked way, way too much in that half-teasing, half-serious, wholly aggravating voice of his. It was hard to follow his train of thought. Sometimes he would ask a question seemingly out of nowhere, and then not bothering to wait for her reply, he would jump quickly to the next topic.
He was especially interested in what he called ‘the true nature of you and Shishiba’s relationship’, asking question after question about what they did together after work, where they went to eat, and various other suggestive questions that she chose not to answer.
Unused to the steady flow of conversation, Osaragi found it hard to keep up. Naturally introverted, she found her social energy levels steadily depleting while alone with Nagumo.
She longed for the comfortable silences she and Shishiba shared on long drives, only talking when they felt like it. Also, they had similar taste in music, so it was never a struggle finding something to listen to. Wait, did they really, or was it that Shishiba always gave in to her? She frowned, suddenly unsure as she followed Nagumo into the rest station.
She cheered up a little when he told her that today’s snacks could be expensed, and the two of them busied themselves with filling up the convenience store basket.
‘It’s hot today, let’s get a kakigori!’ Nagumo pointed to the little stand at the side with its enticing pictures of shaved ice desserts. ‘It looks huge, wanna share?’
‘No.’ Not with you, she thought. The only person she ever shared food with was Shishiba, and that was because he let her eat most of it. Or if she’d ordered too much, he would finish it for her. ‘I’ll get my own.’
‘Okay, I want my own too then!’ Nagumo happily skipped over to the stall.
A few moments later, they were seated at the picnic benches, each with a huge shaved ice in front of them. Osaragi snapped a photo of her strawberry shaved ice and sent it to Shishiba. She captioned it with a ‘yummy’ smiley face.
(I wish you were here to eat it with me instead of Nagumo.)
There was no reply. He must be busy.
Shishiba had spent the past twenty minutes staking out the rally grounds. He had a green party badge pinned to his suit to help him blend in. Green posters with the local politician, Okazaki-san’s face on them were hung everywhere. The crowd was getting thicker, and someone was trying to direct people with a loud megaphone.
The target for today was not a professional sniper, rather, like Shishiba, he favoured close combat. Go in, do the job and get out without anyone noticing, the email had said.
Shishiba quickly realised why Osaragi had not been included on this mission. With the large crowd of civilians milling about in a public place, adding an unrestrained girl and her buzzsaw would be catastrophic.
So far, no one had appeared especially suspicious. He’d already checked the small tent where Okazaki’s van would pull up for explosives. The target would likely show up near the table, where Okazaki would be greeting his supporters.
A megaphone announcement blared suddenly across the ground: ‘Please welcome Mr Okazaki-san, of the Osaka Restoration Party!’ The van containing the politician had pulled up, slowly moving towards the tent while its speakers played loud music. The crowds clapped and cheered.
Shishiba scanned the surroundings once again. Suddenly, the glint of a rifle barrel appeared from the window of a nearby building. Damn! He raced toward it, hoping it was not too late.
‘Wow, this place is even creepier than I thought,’ Nagumo said cheerfully, as if it didn’t bother him at all.
They stood at one end of the rusty red suspension bridge that spanned the length of the valley. The Kinugawa river flowed through this valley, and the contrast between the buildings on its riverbanks was like night and day.
Historically a place only for monks and samurai, Kinugawa Onsen was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, with many grand ryokans built along the cliff sides facing the river. By the late 1990s, Japan’s economic bubble had burst, and travelers no longer had the budget for such lavish merrymaking. Twenty, thirty years on, the previously grand and decadent ryokans were now empty and decaying, standing guard forebodingly over the river.
On one side of the valley further down, were the popular hotels and attractions that the government was trying to attract more tourists to visit. On the other side, a forlorn, desolate landscape of abandoned hotels.
There was not much wind about, yet the bridge swayed gently from left to right, adding to the eerie atmosphere. A collection of odd stone sculptures littered the little park at the side, which was overgrown with weeds. An ominous stone demon, a little stone girl, hands raised to the sky, and a little stone boy, sitting on a rock. It seemed altogether random and disturbing to Osaragi, and she gave a small shiver.
‘Come on!’ Nagumo was already halfway across the bridge, the combined weight of him and the long multi-weapon case slung on his shoulder making it sway even more.
Osaragi ran quickly after him, not daring to look down into the valley. It was beautiful, no doubt, but the place just felt off. Maybe it was the fact that just further down the river banks, tourists were talking, laughing and relaxing. On the side of the ruins, all that remained were ghostly echoes of a time long gone by.
The broad daylight should have made the large abandoned hotel a little less disquieting, but somehow it was tempered by the darkness encroaching upon the deserted inner rooms. The entire place had a damp, musty smell and a miserable, gloomy atmosphere. The air was thick with a feeling that felt to Osaragi like despair and regret, and it was an effort not to follow too closely behind Nagumo, even though the place made her skin crawl.
He was scrolling through the mission email, deftly side-stepping the piles of rubble and trash, apparently uncaring of their dilapidated surroundings.
‘Let’s see…four teenagers went missing in Kinugawa-kan, the largest abandoned hotel…that’s where we’re at now… we’d better have a good look around!’
They entered what appeared to be a banquet hall on the ground floor. Once a beautiful place of celebration, parts of the ceiling had caved in and there were questionable stains on the plastered walls. Cigarettes lay stubbed out in ash trays, old sake bottles and cups still sat on the low dining tables, as if waiting for ghostly inhabitants to return. The entire room was covered in a thin layer of dust and mold.
‘Check out the vintage TV!’ Nagumo pointed at an ancient television that was probably older than Osaragi. She glanced at it, and then her gaze drifted towards the symbols spray painted on the wall behind the stage.
‘Nagumo….what are those?’ she asked, biting her lip nervously.
The graffiti depicted a grid, its lines intersecting multiple times, and some hard to make out symbols. Osaragi felt sure she had seen something like that before in a horror movie. It looked like it had recently been painted.
Nagumo squinted at the symbols. ‘Don’t worry, it’s probably done by some kids playing around!’
He went through the side door, and Osaragi hurried after him, not wanting to be left behind. The rooms got progressively darker and darker, and Nagumo pulled his phone out of his pocket and put the flashlight on. They ascended to the second floor, where they found more of the same symbols spray-painted on the tatami floors of an abandoned guest room. Rusty red stains that looked suspiciously like blood accompanied these.
‘Nagumo, I don’t think it’s kids playing around…’ Osaragi whispered nervously. ‘It looks like some evil magic…’
‘You watch too many horror movies, Osaragi!’ Nagumo’s voice was abominably cheery.
They backed out of the guest room and rounded a corner. The corridor seemed to lead to a storeroom of some kind. It was piled high with old futons, crates of empty glass bottles and other junk. As they went deeper into the room, the back of it seemed to disappear into the darkness, and when Nagumo held his phone up, it was apparent that it had recently had human activity.
Trash littered the floor, disposable chopsticks, a smeared plastic Lawson sandwich wrapper, an empty cup with 7-11 printed on it. And incongruously, two small naked baby dolls, with limbs twisted and smiling painted eyes. More dried red stains were visible, leading right to another corner, where a pentacle was painted on a door in black paint.
‘I don’t want to go in there…’ Osaragi would have grabbed onto Shishiba’s jacket at this point, but since it was Nagumo, she had to content herself with clutching the thick fabric of her long skirt in one hand and the handle of her buzzsaw in the other. The buzzsaw did not feel as comforting as usual, if she was really up against a ghost, it would be useless. Every instinct was telling her to get out of the cursed place.
It was hard to walk through all the rubbish on the floor, but Nagumo had gotten far ahead of Osaragi, his phone flashlight still held high in the air. He was aiming for the demonic-looking door.
‘Relax, I’ll go first! See ya!’ Nagumo turned the handle of the door and disappeared quickly into the darkness.
‘…Wait for me!’ Osaragi scrambled after him, but by the time she’d reached the demon door, the only thing that met her gaze was a maze of corridors, other doors leading off each one. The light from Nagumo’s phone had disappeared, and he was nowhere in sight.
‘…Nagumo?’ It was as if the building had swallowed him whole.
Why did he have to be so eager? She had no idea where he’d gone, and she increasingly felt like she’d entered an alternate dimension from Hell. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the ruined hotel with its many annexes was somehow sentient, and watching them.
She bit her lip, not knowing what to do. Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught her eye, and when she turned towards it, something white was floating near the ceiling. A gust of cool wind blew from nowhere straight into her face, and a feeling of pure dread rose up within her.
Her stomach dropped. Cold, sickening terror enveloped her body. Though she was a member of the Order and held one of the most feared and respected ranks in the JAA, Osaragi let out a terrified squeak, turned, and ran right out of the maze of rooms. She didn’t stop running until she’d gone down the stairs and crashed through one of the glass windows on the ground floor, reaching the safety of the daylight outside.
The sudden bright daylight was disorienting, and she panted, catching her breath. She didn’t think she’d ever run that fast in her entire life. There was a large rip in her right stocking, the blood from a deep gash welling up beneath it.
Osaragi sucked in a sobbing breath. It wasn’t that she was hurt, she knew her body would take care of itself. But it was her first mission without Shishiba, and already she had spectacularly failed. Was she really cut out to be a member of The Order? She unclipped the stocking from its garter and rolled it down. Carefully, she picked out the bits of broken glass from her wound as best as she could, then tied the stocking around it to stop the bleeding. It would need some proper first aid later.
There was no way in hell she was going back in there to look for Nagumo. He was probably doing just fine anyway. She deliberated for a few moments, before finally pulling out her phone and texting:
Shishiba-san, where are you? Please come soon.
Shishiba had just gotten into his rental car when he felt his phone buzz. His own mission had gone smoothly, he’d managed to eliminate the assassin, unseen and unheard, in the room of the building he’d chosen to shoot from. Okazaki-san had gone off in his bright green van, unaware of how closely he’d come to death that day.
He opened the message and instantly felt a chill down his spine. She was in trouble, he knew it. He should never have let her go with Nagumo. He called her immediately, and was relieved to hear her trembling voice on the other end.
‘Osaragi? What’s going on? Are you in trouble?’
‘I…I…saw a ghost,’ she hiccuped through the phone.
‘What? Where’s Nagumo?’
‘I…I don’t know. He just disappeared. It was so scary!’ She choked back another sob.
‘Alright, alright, calm down. Send me your location. I’m coming right now. It’s gonna be awhile though. Stop crying, sheesh. Are you hurt?’
‘I’m not crying!’ she lied, unconvincingly. ‘My leg’s a bit messed up, it’ll be fine, I just need the first aid kit, but it’s in the car and Nagumo locked it…’
‘Osaragi, breathe. Find a safe place and stay there until I come for you, okay?’
‘…O-okay. Please hurry.’
‘I will.’
Shishiba clicked the phone off, and shot a message to Nagumo: What the hell is going on??
Then he put his foot on the pedal, and drove like a maniac towards Kinugawa Onsen.