site 50: Yuta Gamon

“Well, whatever.” Sarai sighed and looked away from me.

How long had passed since I’d fallen silent in answer to his questions? It felt like a long time, but maybe it wasn’t even thirty seconds.

It looked like Sarai had thankfully given up on getting any answers out of me. Knowing him, maybe he’d decided it was a waste of time.

“But I think we do need to look closer into what’s in this doujinshi.”

“I-I agree with that.”

“May I look at it too?” Myu-Pom, who’d been holding her breath as she watched the two of us talk, took the doujin. She flipped through the pages.

“Um, Myu-Pom, what do you think about BL?”

“What do you mean?’

“D-Does it turn you on?”

“Gamo, that doesn’t matter now—” And then she gasped. “Oh, look!” Her eyes went wide as she looked at one of the pages in the doujinshi.

Something was wrong.

“What is it?” Was there another secret hidden in this thing? Was it possible for all the stuff in this book to just line up with reality like that? How many prophecies could you fit in a single volume?

Ririka Nishizono was terrifying...!

“Th-This is...” She was pointing at a page from the second story in the book, where the keyhole of the Kotoribako was.

I shuddered when I saw it.

I’d been thinking about the Kotoribako as well.

It felt like the lock on it matched the gold tooth key. I’d actually put the tip of the gold tooth key up against the page, and it had seemed to match. This didn’t feel like a coincidence to me, but I still couldn’t mention the key.

“Kotoribako? What about it?”

“...” Myu-Pom was going pale.

The second story was this creepy thing about some smug, albino jackass who had a box called the Kotoribako to put birds in. In the story he had a threesome with two “Gods of Fortune.” The protagonist was this annoying jerk who always had a grin on his face, and was extremely cynical. And for some reason, these two Gods of Fortune fell in love with him, and they had sex.

The Kotoribako ended up having very little to do with the story.

Which only made its presence even more strange.

It was like the box existed first, and then the author tried to force the BL story to go along with it.

“What’s wrong with the Kotoribako?” I asked again, but Myu-Pom had wrapped her hands around herself and started to shake.

“Kotori... Kotoriba... Kotoribako...” She was clearly panicking. I couldn’t explain why.

It was kind of like when she’d burst into tears when she saw Sarai’s vision during the Nicco-Nico Live Fortune-Telling.

“What is a Kotoribako?” Myu-Pom just barely managed to squeak out the words.

“All I know is that it’s some kind of dangerous box you can see in a creepypasta online.” I’d looked it up myself, but even on 2chan it was treated as a word you weren’t supposed to search for. Nobody wanted to talk about it.

Sarai and Master Izumin didn’t seem to know anything about it either. Neither did Ryotasu, obviously.

Myu-Pom took her cell phone out and made a call.

“I’ll ask Toko...”

Wait, was that the Mumuu editor she just mentioned?

“Um, hello! Toko?” Myu-Pom began to ask whoever she was talking to on the phone about the Kotoribako.

Just like you’d expect from an editor at Mumuu, she evidently knew about the Kotoribako. Myu-Pom put the phone on speaker so that we could all hear.

“So Toko, what exactly is the Kotoribako?”

The woman on the phone began to speak in a clear, rapid voice.

“Just from the name, you might think it’s some kind of birdcage. But it’s much more... brutal... than that.”

“Brutal...?”

Was it something from a ghost story or something? How did I not know this? As a guy running an occult aggregator, that might not be good — but that thought fled from my mind when I heard her next words.

“The Kotoribako... is a child-taking box.”

When I heard her say that, my hair stood up on end.

“...No.” Myu-Pom was shocked, too.

Child-taking? Just the name sounded bad.

“What’s the story behind it...?”

“It used to be a ghost story from the internet. The rumor is that it got its start in Shimane Prefecture, but there’s no real source on it, so it’s possible that someone just made it up.”

So this was an occult thing, then?

“The Kotoribako is made from lots of different wooden blocks. It’s not a normal box. It’s a series of complicated parts shaped like a square, and you have to open it in a special order.”

“You see things like that sold as gifts, don’t you?” Sarai knew about something similar, evidently.

“Yes. They’re a traditional craft in Hakone. But the Kotoribako is something totally different. One theory says that it was made around the 1860s. It’s supposed to be about twenty square centimeters, I think.”

The one in Ririka Nishizono’s manga had been about that size.

“That’s a lot bigger than the ones in Hakone.”

“Yes. This is a ritual item. It’s intended to curse people, and kill them. The box has an effect on the area around where it’s laid. Anyone affected by the curse has all their organs ‘ripped apart,’ and they die as they cough up their own blood. And the curse’s effects are limited to women and children.”

“A curse... do you mean like black magic?!”

The name Aria Kurenaino came to mind.

“No. This is a Japanese story. Western magic has nothing to do with it.”

“Y-You’re right...”

“Supposedly it was originally made by villagers who were suffering under the local ruler’s heavy taxes. You can bury it in the garden of the person you want to curse, and all their family’s women and children will die, until their family finally ceases to exist. That’s why it’s the ‘child-taking’ box.”

That sounded like a very powerful ritual item... It was probably a rare item with an S-Rank curse status. Like if you used it, the target would die... and so would you.

“The issue is how it’s made. It’s brutal.”

All of us were totally focused on Toko’s story now. Even Ryotasu, who never focused on anything, was biting her lip and listening. For my part, my hands were soaking with sweat. I pressed them against my pants to wipe it off.

“First, you fill the box with the blood of a female animal. Supposedly a fox or chicken was often used.”

A female animal...

“Then you would let it sit for a week, and then add a part from the body of a child who’d undergone mabiki.”

Huh?

“At the time, it was normal for people to do what they called mabiki, or culling, where they’d kill unneeded children. You’d put a part of that child’s body inside the box. What part it was depended on the age of the child. If it was a newborn baby, it was the umbilical cord, or the tip of the index finger. And their blood, drawn while they were alive. For a child younger than seven, it was their blood and the tip of their index finger. For a child younger than ten, just the first part of the index finger. Once that’s done, you seal the box and send it to the person you want to curse.”

“That really is brutal...” I was starting to feel sick.

“Gamon, you run an occult aggregator blog, don’t you? Aren’t you used to scary stories by now?”

“I-I’m not scared...”

Shut up, Sarai! Stop coolly analyzing my facial expression! Honestly, I felt like I was about to throw up.

“The effects of the curse change depending on the number of sacrificed children.”

“Huh? It’s not just one child?”

“What you call the box changes depending on the number of sacrifices. One, and you call it an ippo. Two, a niho. Three, a sanpo. Four, and it’s a shippo. Five, a goho. Six, and it’s a roppo. Seven, a chippo. Eight, and it’s a hakkai. More than eight, and the box becomes too strong, and it’s dangerous. In some cases its effects can last more than a hundred years.”

Eight kids...

So there was enough hate put into that box that whoever made it would be willing to kill eight children...

Just imagining it made me shiver.

“By the way, I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but I learned this from a source connected to Mumuu.” Toko lowered her voice.

“One of the Kotoribako is somewhere in Kichijoji.”

“What...?!”

Kichijoji’s got way too many curses.

“Listen, you guys. The Kotoribako is a really nasty thing. Don’t think about looking for it. Got it?”

“Thanks, Toko.”

“Huh? Wait, Miyuu?”

Myu-Pom said thank you and hung up the phone.

I wished I could’ve talked to the editor at Mumuu some more...

“Wahhh... I’m not gonna be able to go to the bathroom tonight...” Ryotasu was crying. I thought she was unusually quiet. The crying must have been why.

Just like Toko said, the Kotoribako was too dangerous. I was too scared to want to get close to it. Even if I did find a real one, I wouldn’t want to touch it.

But maybe the Kotoribako had something to do with Dr. Hashigami’s murder. Since it was in Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi, I couldn’t say that it didn’t.

“So, Myu-Pom, what’s up with the Kotoribako? It looks like it’s bothering you somehow.”

Myu-Pom had been acting weird ever since she’d seen it in the doujinshi. She looked scared and exhausted.

“If... If I can, I want to try and find that Kotoribako right now...”

“You want to search for it? Are you crazy?”

And then Myu-Pom told me that her friend had been missing for a week, and that the last thing she’d said had been “Birdie Bo.”

She flipped through the pages.

Was that a coincidence, or was that part of Ririka Nishizono’s prophecy?

And did the Kotoribako have something to do with Dr. Hashigami’s death?

“It’s going to be hard to find it without knowing more than that it’s in Kichijoji.” Sarai frowned.

“Think we might find something online?” I booted up my laptop and ran a search for “Kichijoji Kotoribako.”

But I didn’t find anything.

I tried a bunch of other methods, but none of them felt like they were going to work.

So we were stuck then...

“Um, Gamo, you said that this doujinshi predicts the future, right?”

“Hmm? Y-Yeah.”

“Then are there maybe hints in it?”

“Hints, huh...”

The Kotoribako story was about a man with a box having a threesome with two (male) Gods of Fortune.

If there were a hint in here, what would it be?

It might look like just a BL book, but it definitely had more information in it than you’d think. So there must be some kind of meaning to the two “Gods of Fortune.”

“This is the only story with a shrine...” Sarai pointed out.

He was right. The only people the main character slept with were the Gods of Fortune, and most of it was set at a shrine, with several panels dedicated to describing it.

“In other words, the Kotoribako is at a shrine?” That felt a little too obvious to me, but it made sense. If it was that powerful, the safest thing to do would be to seal it away somewhere holy.

I decided to run a search for how many shrines there were in Kichijoji.

“There are three shrines in Kichijoji, according to the map.” Tamamitsu Shrine, Musashino Hachimangu Shrine, and Yaeda Shrine. “If you extend the area to Mitaka and Nishi-Ogikubo, there’s more.”

“Wasn’t there a shrine in Inokashira Park?” Myu-Pom nodded in response to Sarai’s question.

“Benten Shrine, right? I’ve been there.”

If the shrine in Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi was based off of one in Kichijoji, we might be able to find something in common.

“Can we pin it down?”

“Ririka Nishizono isn’t that great an artist.” Sarai sighed.

“And it doesn’t look like she traced from a picture either. The perspective is all messed up. It looks like she’s just drawing haphazardly.”

That would make ID’ing it hard.

“If the torii arch were in it, we might be able to narrow it down a little.”

“The torii?”

“There are different kinds of torii arches at shrines. I think there are about sixty variations.”

Huh? Seriously? I had no idea.

Way to go, Sarai-kyun. You’re like a walking encyclopedia.

“But... there’s no torii arch in this doujinshi.”

He was right. There were no torii arches drawn. The only scenes with the Gods of Fortune were drawn inside the shrine grounds.

“The shrine’s supposed to be pretty big, so wouldn’t it be something like Hachimanjingu?”

I checked with street view, and of the three shrines in Kichijoji, Yaeda Shrine was tiny. It was basically just an arch and a shrine building. We could eliminate that one, maybe.

That is, if Ririka Nishizono was being careful with what she drew.

There was a chance that her shrine had nothing to do with a real one. If that were the case, then we were wasting our time here.

“Are these two Gods of Fortune from the seven Gods of Fortune? If so, then doesn’t that mean it’s probably Benten Shrine? He’s one of them.” Myu-Pom’s idea was a good one, but...

“These two are supposed to be Gods of Fortune, but they don’t actually do anything blessing-y.”

Each of the seven Gods of Fortune was famous and distinct, so if you were drawing one of them, you’d add in parts of their costume or something to make them recognizable.

Ririka Nishizono’s gods weren’t anything more than normal, handsome men.

Of course, that wasn’t a problem. This was an original doujinshi. She could draw whatever she wanted.

But there was no way to tell if one of the gods, or perhaps both, were supposed to be Benzaiten. We were never told their names, for one thing.

I thought about going to the park to check, but Inokashira Park was closed down right now.

“Wait, wasn’t that place a temple, not a shrine?”

“Oh, was it?”

“I don’t think... there was an arch.”

“Which means...” I used my laptop to search the area around Kichijoji again. “Maybe we were mistaken to limit ourselves to shrines.”

There were about six temples around Kichijoji. But that didn’t mean we’d found any kind of new clue. Instead of having three places to search, we now had nine.

“...”

I realized that everyone had fallen silent.

The debate had reached an end.

This single doujinshi wasn’t going to give us any critical hints.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” I headed for the bathroom to clear my head.

The bathroom was dark and moody, like always. There were all kinds of flyers and things pasted up on the walls, and I always felt a little uneasy in there.

As I relieved myself, I looked at the flyers, until my eyes happened to stop on a small poster the size of an ordinary piece of paper.

“Make a Pilgrimage to the Seven Gods of Fortune in Kichijoji, Musashino”

“What a coincidence.” We’d been talking about the seven Gods of Fortune, and here I was staring at a poster for an event involving them.

What a coincidence. Or was it a coincidence? Maybe there was a hint here.

“Hmm?”

It was a bus tour that was held every January. The tour visited shrines and temples relating to the seven Gods of Fortune in Kichijoji.

The one in Inokashira was included in the tour as well. There was also Anyoji, Musashino Hachimangingu, and Daihozenji.

Enmeiji and Kizuki Taisha were pretty far apart. Kizuki Taisha was two stations down at Musashisakai station, and Enmeiji was in a hard-to-get-to place near Musashino University.

That explained why there was a bus tour. It would be really hard to visit all six spots on your own.

“Hmm? Six? Even though there’s seven gods?” Did I count wrong?

After I finished and flushed, I leaned forward to take a closer look at the pamphlet.

I followed the stops on the tour in order.

“Inokashira Benzaiten. Musashino Hachimangu, Anyoji, Daihozenji, Enmeiji, Kizuki Taisha... Huh? There really are only six.” Why was there one missing?

I looked even closer, and quickly found the answer.

Each temple, or shrine, had one god in it. Musashino Hachimangu was where Daikokuten was, and Ebisu could be found at Kizuki Taisha. But Enmeiji was a coincidence. There were two Gods of Fortune there: Bishamonten and Juroten...

“Is this...” All the hair on my body stood on end. “Two Gods of Fortune?!”

Wait... was that it? I ripped down the poster and ran from the bathroom.

“Guys! Look! Look at this!” I showed them all the poster.

A wave of surprise went through them as I told them about the two Gods of Fortune at Enmeiji.

“It makes sense... but is this the answer...?”

“The Kotoribako is at Enmeiji...?”

“It’s worth going, isn’t it?”

“But, but!” Ryotasu looked a little scared.

“Isn’t it dangerous? The Kotoribako is bad, right?”

“If we just go look, it should be fine—”

“Oh my. How brave.” And then I heard the quiet, but clear, voice of a woman.

I turned towards the voice in shock.

At some point, an astonishingly beautiful girl in a long black coat, with long, lush hair, had opened the door and come into the cafe.

It was a sudden visitor. Of course, we hadn’t reserved Blue Moon or anything, so it wasn’t strange for anybody else to show up.

This girl had an aura about her that made her hard to approach, and she gave each of us a freezing-cold glance.

As all of us stood there in shock, Ryotasu spun around and pointed to the girl.

“It’s the witch! ☆”

The witch...?

“Aria Kurenaino...” Myu-Pom whispered. It was only then that I realized who she was.

Wait, Aria Kurenaino?!

“U-Uwah! She’s come to curse us!” I hid behind Ryotasu’s back, quickly. “I knew it! I found the truth hidden in Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi, and her co-conspirator Aria Kurenaino has come to kill me with her curse! It’s so obvious now! Sarai, she’s a black-magic agent! Her job is to kill people with curses!”

“Calm down, Gamon!” Sarai yelled at me, annoyed.

“There’s no such things as curses!”

“But—”

“I don’t know who Ririka Nishizono is, but...” Aria whispered calmly.

Of course, I had no way of knowing if that were true or not.

“I’m very interested in what I just heard you say.”

“What you heard us say? But when? You just got here.”

“More precisely, it was relayed to me. It was my partner who heard the story—” And then Aria licked her lips a little, and narrowed her eyes.

“A devil.”

I shivered.

I imagined that when she said that, the temperature in the room dropped a little.

Everyone took a step back from her, as if they were feeling an invisible pressure.

Was she... serious? Did she have a real devil serving her? And this devil had heard everything we’d said? Between her words and the fact that she was dressed in all black, I normally would’ve written her off as some delusional goth girl.

But not now.

The way she moved and acted made it seem like everything she was saying was real.

It felt like she was telling the truth. It was like her magic had put a charm spell on me. Or maybe her voice just had the power to brainwash?

Aria looked each of us slowly in turn: me, Sarai, then Ryotasu, and then Myu-Pom.

“Hmph. How stupid.” Sarai was the first to speak. “Black magic? And a devil? So you’re bringing your dark fantasy crap into real life, and trying to make a living on it? Disgusting. And now you’re telling me you got a message from your devil? Listen, you’re still young. Try to limit your jokes to that cosplay fashion sense of yours.”

“...” Aria was looking down, silently.

Sarai... that’s just what I’d expect of you. You’re so strong. But if you get cursed... don’t blame me.

“Listen, if you can speak with a devil, call him here, would you? I’d love to see him, and to ask him some questions about Greek mythology—”

“Bang! Shattee!!”

“Hyahh!”

“Kyah!”

Sarai suddenly fell silent, and all of us screamed, as something burst—

It was the light bulbs inside the cafe. Two light bulbs... had exploded! What was going on...?

“T-That’s not a bad magic trick. I’ve seen that done on TV, but still, it’s impressive that you can do it with no preparation—” Sarai was trying his best to hang in there.

“Shhh.” Aria softly moved her index finger to her lips and ordered him to fall silent.

Silence returned to the room. The only sound was the soft crackling of electricity.

When Sarai took a small step back, Aria glanced upwards at the ceiling and smiled a little, and then began to whisper.

This devil... was seriously a devil.

And then she snorted, upset, and turned to me.

“Perhaps this is your punishment for trying to test black magic... no, to test me.”

My punishment?! For trying to test her?! Was she talking about how I’d had the girls pretend to want to get back at me for cheating?! I knew it! She was going to kill me! She was going to make my head explode! Like those light bulbs!

“More importantly, shouldn’t you hurry?”

“Huh?”

Aria closed her eyes, and acted like she was listening to something.

And this is what she said.

“This world is filled with evil will. And all that evil will is connected to one great will—”

“Huh...?” Will? What will? Whose will?

“It seems that ‘we’ were mistaken.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you talking to?”

“It is a pure being that knows no pain, and one more cruel and merciless than even the will of a devil. The one who holds that large box is...”

“Box... do you mean Chi...?! I know you do! I’m going!” Myu-Pom ran out of the café.

What was she talking about? What was going on?

“What are you planning?!”

She sighed a little, still with a cold look on her face. “It is a young boy... at Enmeiji... who holds the box—” She glanced at Ririka Nishizono’s doujinshi, which was sitting on the table.

And told me.

“A young boy whose hair and everything else is pure white.”

“What?!”

She meant “the albino jerk”! Just like was in the doujinshi! He was the true killer! He was the one who killed Dr. Hashigami! And he was the one who set me up!

I had to hurry. I didn’t even have time to worry that this might be a trap set by Aria.

I was overcome by the impulse to capture that white-haired boy as soon as I could.