Chapter 2: Second Week of October: The Hinoenma

“I now call this family meeting to order!” Mutsuko declared to Yoriko and Yuichi.

They were sitting in the room he shared with Yoriko, and while she called it a family meeting, their parents weren’t involved. Their mother was preparing dinner, and their father was out late, as usual. Their parents probably didn’t even know they were holding this meeting.

“Isn’t it more like a sibling meeting?” Yuichi tried to object, but Mutsuko completely ignored him.

“Big Brother, take this seriously,” said his little sister.

Yoriko sounded like she meant it, so Yuichi fell back into silence. He was getting the feeling this was not a situation he could fight back against.

Yoriko was in middle school, famous as the younger of the Beautiful Sakaki Sisters. Even Yuichi, her brother, thought she was a lovely girl whose long, black hair suited her well. Above her head hung the label “Little Sister.”

“Well, okay, but what I don’t get is why it feels like I’m being attacked.” Yuichi had been forced to kneel on the other side of the low table from his sisters. They sat side by side, looking at him.

“Really? You don’t have any clue at all, Big Brother?” Yoriko asked.

“Well, I do, but...” Yuichi cast a glance at his left shoulder.

There was a little girl dressed in a red kimono clinging to it. She looked about six years old, and had a big smile on her face.

“Yu... an actual kindergartner? This is simply unacceptable,” said Mutsuko.

“Exactly,” Yoriko agreed. “It’s all right if you’re close with Noro and such, but this is just... wrong!”

“Hey! It’s not like I sought this out!” Yuichi shouted.

“What is going on here? First Noro, now this real little girl... is my big brother a pedo?” Yoriko murmured, fixing a glare on the girl.

“I can still hear you even if you whisper,” Yuichi said furiously. “And I’m not a damned pedo!”

“Your ears only seem to hear what’s convenient to you, Big Brother!”

“Hey, Yu,” Mutsuko said, “I’m a forgiving person. I don’t care what fetishes you indulge in the 2D realm. Love as many fictional little girls as you like! But... this is one thing your big sister cannot allow!”

“It’s like you guys think I’m a lolicon or something!” Yuichi was getting angrier and angrier at each statement.

“Then how do you explain this? You just bring a little girl home with you, and immediately try to get her in the bath?” Yoriko demanded, just like an interrogator. Yuichi had never seen her so intense before. It had his head spinning.

“Well... she was dirty, so she wanted me to bathe her!” He cast a glance at the little girl. She was covered in mud from a fight she’d been in.

“Bathe her in what?! You perv!” Mutsuko pounded the low table.

“If that’s what you wanted, you could have asked me!” Yoriko scowled.

It was true. Maybe he hadn’t needed to put her in the bath himself.

“I’m telling you, you guys have got it all wrong,” Yuichi said. “She looks like a kid, but she’s not. She’s not even human.”

“Then what is she?” Mutsuko demanded. “Explain right this second, or as your big sister, I swear I’ll take things into my own hands!”

“She’s a Hinoenma. A yokai!” His voice cracked.

The Hinoenma clinging to him just laughed.

✽✽✽✽✽

It had all started not long ago. That afternoon, in fact.

Yuichi had just finished his classes at school. He’d stopped by the house, then headed for the mountains.

Seishin City was between the ocean and the mountains, rich in natural beauty, as big cities went. The residents had everything they needed close by, but with a little walking, they could also get back in touch with nature.

The mountain in question was to the north of the city. He arrived at the foot via bicycle, then folded up the bicycle and carried it as he walked the rest of the way.

The transforming bicycle had been one of the things pushed on him by Mutsuko, but he really liked it. It was compact, after all, and when folded up, it became small enough to carry with him.

Yuichi walked up one of the hiking courses for a while, but at some point, he left the path to walk deep into the dense forests of the mountain. It was hard to tell at a glance, but Yuichi could make out signs of where people had passed, and he followed those.

He was heading towards the oni settlement to see Monika Sakurazaki.

He had met Monika during summer break, after their training camp. She had appeared out of nowhere to demand that Yuichi give Soul Reader back to her.

In the end, the question of how she had given Soul Reader to him in the first place remained a mystery, but he had decided to help her in her mission of trying to collect the Divine Vessels, parts of the Evil God’s body that had been divided up. Whoever collected them all could have a wish granted, and as a result, a war had broken out over them.

Monika currently had two Divine Vessels, which meant people might come after her to try to steal them. Since he didn’t want his own family getting targeted, he had left her in the care of an acquaintance, Ibaraki.

Makina had said the chances of getting attacked would be low for a while, and he’d wanted to call her and let her know, but he couldn’t get in touch with her. Feeling a little worried, Yuichi had decided to talk to her face to face.

After walking for a little while, he came to an open space.

There was a village there, but it looked poverty-stricken. There was a dreary and lonely aura around it.

What era is that supposed to be? he wondered.

Indeed, it felt like a place forgotten by time, with its houses of thatched and shingled roofs. It was hard to believe that a village like this could still exist, even this far out in the mountains. Perhaps, like Nihao the China, it existed in a slightly different dimension.

Yuichi checked his cell phone. He was still getting a signal.

“Well, I’ve managed to call her before, so that stands to reason...” In addition, when he looked closer, he saw phone lines leading to each house. It seemed the village hadn’t completely been abandoned by civilization.

Despite having made it to the oni settlement, he still had no idea where to find Monika. He looked around, and saw no sign of anybody nearby.

I give up... He walked around a little more, but nobody came into view.

He was just about to go in a little deeper, when he noticed something strange. Between two buildings, just above the ground, hovered a label.

“Oni Girl,” it said.

Where there was a label, there must be a person below it, Yuichi thought as he approached. Still, there was nobody there.

He knew that labels tended to hang about ten centimeters over someone’s head, which meant that if someone was there, they must be under the ground.

Yuichi reached down at a dark patch in the earth. It seemed a little too dark, even for a spot that was in the shadow of a building.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but as he reached out, instead of touching the ground, his hand merely sank into the darkness. It touched something that felt like a head of hair.

He kept reaching down, grabbed what felt like a collar, and pulled.

Hanging from his hand was a little girl.

She looked even younger than Monika. She wore a black kimono and had her hair in a bob, and she trembled in his grip.

“Ahh, sorry?” Unsure of how to react to pulling a girl out of the ground, Yuichi decided to apologize, and set her down.

“Are you from this village?” he asked her, but the girl kept trembling, and refused to meet his eyes.

Just as he was wondering what to do, Yuichi heard a voice shouting at him. “Hey! Don’t bully Kureha!”

He turned to see a blond young man in a school uniform, Ibaraki, standing behind him. The label above his head was “Ibaraki-doji,” and as that might imply, he was part of a race of oni that had lived in Japan since ancient times. He’d lost to Yuichi in a fight a while back, but ever since then, he’d been acting close and friendly with him.

“Ibaraki, huh?” Yuichi asked. “Is that the only thing you ever wear? Why don’t you dress more like an oni?”

The moment she heard his voice, the girl named Kureha ran to Ibaraki, hid behind him, and grabbed his leg.

“How do oni dress, exactly?” Ibaraki asked.

“I dunno. Nothing but a loincloth? Naked?”

“Why would I want to be naked at this time of year?!”

“By the way, I can’t sense anyone in this village, human or oni,” Yuichi commented. “Why is that?”

“What, you won’t even have a little conversational sparring with me? Oh, well. They don’t stay here during the day. They only come back at night, to sleep.”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t actually care. Where’s Monika, though? I couldn’t get hold of her on her cell, so I came here to talk to her.”

“What’s with you? Do you hate me or something?” Ibaraki complained.

“Do I have any reason to like you?” Yuichi returned. “Look, where’s Monika?”

“Went off to play somewhere, I guess? I’d get bored hanging out here all the time, too.” Ibaraki seemed angered by Yuichi’s attitude, but he answered lightly enough that he didn’t seem particularly worried.

“You know, I left Monika with you to keep her safe,” Yuichi said. “How can you not know where she is?”

“She’s fine,” said Ibaraki. “I left Kureha to look after her.”

“Isn’t Kureha the little girl clinging to your leg right now?” Yuichi asked.

Yuichi and Ibaraki both looked at Kureha.

“Um... she was... attacked by a yokai...” Kureha said, trembling.

Yuichi went pale at the words. “A yokai?! Where?”

Kureha just seemed even more frightened, and hugged Ibaraki tighter.

“Oh, Kureha can’t fight, so I told her to come back if anything happened...” Ibaraki scratched his head. Despite that, he must not have thought anything would actually happen.

“So where is she?” Yuichi demanded. “Ibaraki! You ask her!”

Whenever Yuichi asked her, Kureha just acted scared.

Ibaraki got her to tell him where Monika was. Hearing the location, Yuichi hurried off to find her.

It was a park at the base of the mountain. It was a compact place, with swings and a slide, a sandbox, and other such equipment. When Yuichi arrived, there were two young girls on the ground, wrestling.

One was a very little girl; she looked to be in about first or second grade. She was wearing a red kimono, and above her head was the label “Hinoenma.” She had to be the yokai in question. You didn’t see many little girls walking around the city dressed in kimonos these days, and the label above her head did refer to a type of yokai.

The other was a slender girl with her hair tied with a scrunchie. Yuichi knew her. Her name was Monika Sakurazaki, and there was no label over her head because she was an Outer.

She looked to be about in fifth grade, but she was apparently the same age as Yuichi. She had stopped aging the moment she became an Outer.

There was another girl there who looked to be about Monika’s age. She was watching them from afar with a frown.

Yuichi just stared. He’d come running because he’d heard she was being attacked by a yokai, but this didn’t look like a big deal at all.

“Hey. What’s going on here?” Yuichi asked the little girl who was watching them fight.

“Huh?” The girl didn’t seem to know how to react to being approached like this.

Yuichi worked to give her a big smile. Nowadays, you had to be careful when talking to little girls.

Seeming to decide, after a moment, that he wasn’t dangerous, the girl slowly began to talk. “Monika was telling love fortunes.”

“She does that stuff?” he asked.

He recalled Monika mentioning her worldview being “A Hopelessly Romantic Little World,” and proclaiming herself a romance expert. Maybe she did have the ability to predict someone’s romantic prospects.

“Are you Monika’s big brother?” the girl asked.

“Less her big brother and more her guardian, I guess?”

The girl, seeming to accept that, continued. “Monika’s predictions always come true. If you’re having a concrete problem, and you do what she tells you, you’ll find luck in love. She’s become sort of a legend around here.”

Yuichi had his doubts that this was really the time for Monika to be doing that sort of thing. Then again, she had to pass the time somehow. “How did her fortune-telling lead to this?”

“She had set up shop here, and that girl showed up and asked her to read hers. Monika told her fortune, but... she said there was no chance, she had zero romantic luck, no potential whatsoever. Then the girl got mad and flew at Monika, and it’s been like this ever since.”

“Okay. I’ll stop them.” It was pretty careless of her to be telling love fortunes and starting fights when she was already a target. Yuichi felt a bit exasperated, but still, he couldn’t just leave things like this.

Yuichi approached the two girls rolling along the ground in the park. He judged his timing, snatched at both their collars, and lifted them both up.

“Monika... isn’t it a little pathetic for you to be fighting with such a little girl?” he asked.

“Yuichi! Ah, well, that’s... she... she picked the fight with me!” Still dangling from Yuichi’s hand, Monika pointed to the other girl.

The Hinoenma had fallen silent, just looking up at Yuichi.

“I know Monika was probably rude to you, but you can’t just jump on people, okay?” Yuichi asked.

Since they seemed to have calmed down now, Yuichi set them both down.

“Monika,” he said. “You need to lay low at Ibaraki’s place.”

“I was trying, but there’s nothing to do there!” Monika responded, puffing out her cheeks.

“Well... I’ll explain more later, but there won’t be any resonance for a while. You’ll probably be safe for now, but still, keep it on the down low. Go back to Ibaraki’s place, okay?”

Yuichi pointed back at Ibaraki, who had shown up a bit after him. She was reluctant, but she did walk after Ibaraki in the end.

Just as Yuichi was wondering what to do with the other girl, he heard her address him.

“You must bathe me!”

He turned back to see the Hinoenma staring straight at him.

“Why should I?” he asked.

Perhaps because of all the rolling around they’d been doing, the Hinoenma was covered in mud. The ground was still wet from the rain the day before; the park must not have good drainage.

“There is no one else who can,” she said. “I must entreat you to look after my care. Come, take me with you.”

Yuichi looked at the Hinoenma and thought about it. She did seem to be yokai, but she didn’t look dangerous. He didn’t like the thought of just leaving her, either, so he decided that giving her a bath was the least he could do.

That was why Yuichi had brought her home with him.

✽✽✽✽✽

Hinoenma.

It can be written “flying destiny demon” or “flying fire demon.”

There are several explanations behind those names, but we’ll discuss one here: the Hinoeuma myth theory.

The Hinoeuma is said to be a woman born in the 43rd year of the sexagenary cycle. They are said to have a wild temperament that would shorten the lifespan of her husband. In other words, a woman born that year would never be able to find a husband.

As a result, people tried to avoid having children during those years. It seems inconceivable by modern standards, but back then, women who could not get married, and thus have no children, were considered worthless.

If you’ve ever seen a graph of number of Japanese births by year, you may remember some years when the birth rate takes a sudden drop.

For instance, the year 1966 saw a 25% decrease in births from the year before. It wasn’t that some terrible incident happened that year: it was the 43rd year of the sexagenary cycle.

People continued believing the superstition into the Showa era, and it became a society-wide phenomenon.

So what’s the connection between the Hinoeuma myth and the Hinoenma yokai?

First, the story of the Hinoenma yokai comes from Buddhist sermons. The Hinoenma would use her womanly wiles to bewitch a man and destroy him. It was a story meant to caution against the sin of sexual relations.

Over time, people began to see the Hinoenma and the Hinoeuma — wild women born in the 43rd year of the sexagenary cycle who would eat their husbands — as one and the same. At some point, people began deciding that women born in those years, after living out their lifespans, were reborn as Hinoenma as a manifestation of their resentment.

These Hinoenma were women of unparalleled beauty, and they’d seduce men only to suck out all of their life force.

Most yokai myths are inspired by something. Perhaps the Hinoenma was born from the guilt of men who rejected the Hinoeuma women.

✽✽✽✽✽

“It’s like, you know, the story that if a man remains a virgin until he’s 30, he can become a wizard!” Mutsuko said proudly, capping off her explanation of the Hinoenma.

“Don’t lump me in with that nonsense!” the Hinoenma shouted. “I maintained my chastity to the very end! I will not be conflated with fools who simply failed to find a willing partner!”

“But you couldn’t find a willing partner either, right?” Yoriko pointed out coldly.

It was a side of Yoriko rarely seen, one that only showed itself when she was truly angry. Yuichi, who knew her as a cheerful and innocent girl most of the time, found it quite frightening.

“Incidentally, the thing about the Hinoeuma women going mad and killing men is a play on words,” said Mutsuko. “‘Hi-no-uma’ means ‘Fire Horse.’ They believed horses who saw fire would go mad and eat people, and ‘Hinoeuma’ sounds like ‘Hinouma,’ so people just started associating them.”

“A play on words? Is the reason I can’t get married really something that stupid?” The Hinoenma had apparently never heard that explanation before, and she was clearly surprised by it.

“Well, setting that aside, your big sister can’t overlook child kidnapping!” Mutsuko proclaimed.

“Look, she’s a yokai, she’s not innocent, and I didn’t kidnap her! I don’t even think she has parents!” Yuichi shot back.

“Where did you even find her?” Mutsuko demanded.

“She was fighting Monika in the park,” he said. “After I broke them up, she insisted that I bathe her.”

“Yu, you know this is the reason your harem keeps growing, right?” Yoriko asked.

“I do not have a harem!” Yuichi fired back.

“Big Sis, he doesn’t even realize it...”

“Yeah, it’s a problem,” said Mutsuko. “I wonder how much bigger it’s gonna get... Poor Noro!”

“So, Hinoenma, what’s your game?” Yoriko seemed to be trying hard to pretend like she was calm, but Yuichi could sense her anger seething below the surface.

“Hmm,” said the Hinoenma. “I am treated like a yokai, but I’m more like a resentful spirit. I think I might be able to move on if I can finish my unfinished business. So I decided I’d get this man to help me. From the minute I saw him, I thought, ‘This is a man I can trust to do what’s right!’”

“I’m going to regret asking this, but could you clarify?” Yoriko said with a bright smile.

“In other words, I regret dying a virgin. I figure if I lose my virginity, I can move on!”

“That’s a felony! You can’t possibly want to do it with this little girl, Yu!” Mutsuko shouted.

“She’s a yokai, right? Can we kill her?” Yoriko asked.

“I’m not gonna do it! And Yori, stop talking about killing.” Yuichi was getting fed up with his henpecking sisters. He felt like the conversation had completely gotten off track.

“Why did you take the form of a little girl, anyway?” Mutsuko demanded. “Hinoenma are supposed to be beautiful women! They’re associated with the most beautiful women in history! Daji and Mo Xi were both believed to be Hinoenma! Of course, they were associated with Nine-Tailed Kitsune, too...”

“Hey! Don’t get off the subject!” It sounded like Mutsuko was about to go on a tangent about kitsune, so Yuichi nipped that in the bud.

“Well, the point is, if you want to win a man, shouldn’t you have picked a more suitable form?” Mutsuko asked.

“Big Sister, please don’t put ideas into her head,” pleaded Yoriko. “If she becomes an adult, it’s going to make things even worse.”

“Ah, I chose this form because I heard there are more men lately who have a taste for young girls,” said the yokai. “Realizing that my previous strategies may have been mistaken, I made the bold decision to try out this form!”

“That’s too bold a decision!” Yuichi objected. It was turning the spigot all the way from hot to freezing.

“I understand the situation, but we just can’t have you clinging to Yu forever,” said Mutsuko. “Let’s see if we can get you to rest in peace!”

“Will you?” the Hinoenma asked hopefully. “Okay, get out of here, both of you! I’m going to get better acquainted with this man!” She tried to shoo both Mutsuko and Yoriko out.

“No, you’re the one who’s going to be leaving.” Mutsuko and Yoriko worked together to pry the Hinoenma off of Yuichi.

In moments like this, there was no mistaking the fact that they were sisters. They were totally in sync.

“Stay there, Yu,” Mutsuko ordered.

Mutsuko, carrying the Hinoenma, left the room with Yoriko, and they both headed for her room next door.

✽✽✽✽✽

“Hey, Big Sister! Why do you have that?!” Yoriko exclaimed.

“Oh, I got it as a sample after helping with some artificial skin research,” said Mutsuko. “It even faithfully recreates the mucous membrane! So this should work, shouldn’t it?”

“Does it... move?”

“It should move when I put a battery in, but it might be a little hard for her first time. The real question is whether this’ll let her rest in peace!”

“S-Stop it! What are you doing? Wh-What is... what are you doing with... s-stop! I don’t want to lose my chastity to that! Have mercy! Don’t do this! Oww, ow ow ow! S-Stop it! Don’t put it in! Stop! Don’t you dare put it— ah, no, I didn’t mean there instead! I’m begging you... I’m sorry, I’m really sorry! I’m sorry I exist, so stop it! Stop it!”

He could hear her screams of anguish from the next room over.

✽✽✽✽✽

“Ugh... I’m sorry I’m alive... I’m really sorry... I won’t go after Yuichi anymore... please, have mercy...”

After a while, Mutsuko and Yoriko brought the weeping Hinoenma back to the room where Yuichi was waiting. He didn’t even want to think about what they had been doing in there, but it seemed that it had been unsuccessful, whatever it was.

“Hey... it might be a little weird hearing this from me, but... um, you can take on adult form, right? I bet there are plenty of men out there who’d be happy with any woman.” It seemed to Yuichi that if she wasn’t picky about her partner, she could probably work it out pretty easily.

“N-No way! I need a handsome man! A-And there needs to be love, too!” she cried.

“After all that big talk before...” Yuichi muttered. It seemed the Hinoenma was indeed quite picky, which may have been why she had had so much trouble that she’d ended up a yokai.

“We decided to call it off, since we felt bad for you, but we could reconsider...” Mutsuko tilted her head.

“N-No, don’t do it! I’m leaving the house, I swear!” With that, the Hinoenma rushed out of the room.

The next day, Yuichi was on the way back from school when he heard a familiar voice. He stopped, and found himself back at the park.

He immediately recognized the speaker. It was the Hinoenma, who appeared to be playing with some young children.

The Hinoenma came trotting up when she saw him.

“What are you doing?” he asked. If she was looking for a partner in love, playing with children wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

“Oh, well. I decided I’m not in any particular hurry, so for now, I’m blending in,” she said. “If I can get close to a man in his childhood, love will grow from there. Then, once he’s grown, everything will fall into place!”

“I-I see. Good luck, then,” he said.

It was quite a grand plan, indeed.