Tokyo: Proving one's position from behind the scenes

The police tape swayed slightly in the night wind. The red and blue police lights had been turned off, replaced by two makeshift white spotlights that illuminated the entire front of the building in a stark white light. Under the lights, the building's shadows were stretched long, appearing on the road like several black cracks.

Two uniformed policemen stood at the door, one with a cigarette in his hand, the other leaning against the wall yawning.

The hand holding the cigarette dimmed under the white light: "The forensic experts will be here tomorrow to clean up the scene. We don't need to guard this lousy place anymore."

"Keep your voice down," said the one leaning against the wall, gesturing towards the building. "Thirty-eight people are dead inside."

"No matter how many people die, they're all dead now." The smoking policeman flicked his cigarette ash. "They won't get up—"

His words were cut short.

A damp, cold aura wafted out of the building. The aura appeared out of nowhere, as if someone had stuck a damp towel taken from the refrigerator onto the back of his neck—cold, damp, and carrying a faint, fishy smell.

The smoking policeman suddenly turned around.

There was nothing in the hallway. White light shone in, revealing water stains on the wall at the end of the corridor. The shadows outside the light appeared deeper than usual, but they were just shadows.

"What's wrong with you?" the policeman leaning against the wall asked.

"It's nothing." The smoking policeman threw his cigarette butt on the ground and stomped it out. "Maybe he just didn't sleep well."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a hand landed on his shoulder.

A cold, wet hand rested on his left shoulder, its five fingers spread apart. The touch was light, like someone gently patting him from behind. But the temperature of that hand was wrong—not the temperature of a living person, not even the temperature of something just taken out of the refrigerator, but a deeper, bone-chilling cold.

He looked down at his shoulders.

On his shoulder was a gray hand made of translucent mist. The pressure of its five fingers was clearly distributed on his shoulder blade, and he could even feel the slight stinging as the fingernails dug into the fabric of his clothes. He reached out to pat it, but his palm passed through the mist and touched nothing.

Then that hand started to exert force.

It wasn't pressing him down, but twisting him to the side. It was as if someone was standing behind him, one hand on his shoulder, the other gripping his arm, and then slowly, forcefully twisting his body to the left. He instinctively resisted, pushing off the ground with his feet and straining his core to steady himself. But the force was astonishing, not explosive, but continuous, steady, like a winch tightening, twisting his upper body inch by inch to the left.

His spine creaked.

"Help me—" his voice forced out from his throat, distorted, "There's something there—"

The policeman leaning against the wall had already seen it.

"Evil spirits, begone!" He mimicked the words of the exorcist priest in the comics, rushed over and grabbed his colleague's arm, trying to help him steady himself.

The moment he touched the mist, a chill surged into his palm from the point of contact. It wasn't the cold touch, but something else—fear. Not his own fear, but a fear that had inexplicably flooded his mind, a fear that didn't belong to him.

He let go.

My colleague's body was finally completely twisted around. Not just turned around, but twisted around—his upper body facing left, his lower body still facing the original direction, his waist connecting the two body parts at an angle that shouldn't exist. The sound of tearing fabric, followed by the sound of a person falling.

Throughout the entire process, the surveillance camera footage showed nothing.

It's not that the image is blurry or interfered with; there's simply nothing behind the policeman in the frame. The image clearly shows the policeman's body twisting to the left, the pained expression on his face, and five indentations on the fabric of his uniform on his shoulders from something invisible pressing down on them—but the thing that made those indentations is completely invisible in the frame. It looks like a hand, but the camera doesn't capture that hand.

"Tell me, what happened?"

The ashtrays in the conference room were full. A dozen or so people sat on either side of the long table, some in uniforms, some in suits, and two forensic experts in white coats. A pile of photos and reports were spread out on the table, and the surveillance footage on the screen was frozen on a frame showing the policeman's shoulder dented from being pressed down.

Naoya Taniguchi sat near the door, his military boots propped up on the chair crossbar, the cigarette in his hand unlit.

"Let's start with what we can explain first," the man in the head seat said again. He was in his fifties, with gray hair and wrinkles on his face that looked like they were carved by a knife. Superintendent General Yamazaki had been in this position for four years and had seen all sorts of strange and unusual cases, but tonight's report was the first one that left him at a loss for where to begin.

"Two police officers were injured; one suffered a broken spine and multiple organ damage, while the other remains unconscious. Both were standing outside the building at the time of the incident, and CCTV footage shows no third person approached. What did the dents on the injured officers' uniforms indicate?"

The forensic team opened the report.

"seawater."

"seawater?"

"Residues of sodium chloride, magnesium ions, and various trace elements were detected on the fabric in the dented area, with a composition basically consistent with seawater. In addition, an unknown energy residue was found on the fabric surface, consistent with the energy found on the coral-like object at the scene. It cannot be identified at present, and the laboratory is conducting further analysis."

Director Yamazaki remained silent for a few seconds.

"Inside that building."

"The same seawater residue was found on the walls, floors, and ceilings of the first to third floors, and it has not evaporated. The coral-like object found on the chest of the deceased Yoshida Sho—the body that shrank back to its normal human form—has yielded results in its composition analysis. The main component is calcium carbonate, but the crystal structure does not belong to any known coral species."

Director Yamazaki closed the report.

"In other words, a seventeen-year-old high school student transformed overnight into something over two meters long, covered in scales, capable of killing thirty-seven people with his bare hands, and then after this thing died, a coral grew from its body."

No one responded.

"And what's the deal with those two police officers downstairs?"

The people in the forensic department hesitated for a moment.

"The surveillance cameras didn't capture anything."

"Was the camera angle interfered with?"

"There are no signs of interference. The image is clear, the frame rate is normal, and the lighting conditions are good. The dent in the injured person's uniform appears in real time on the screen; according to the injured person, it is a ghost made of mist."

The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.

Naoya Taniguchi took the cigarette out of his mouth, didn't light it, and put it back.

"That building needs to be sealed off," he said.

Director Yamazaki glanced at him.

"It's already sealed off. But sealing off the building won't solve the problem. That thing—whatever it is—if it could injure two officers outside that building, it can do the same thing elsewhere. I need to know what it is and how to deal with it."

He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote down a few words.

"Scientific approach: Continue to analyze on-site physical evidence, retrieve all surrounding surveillance footage, investigate Yoshida Sho's movements and social relationships before his death, and contact experts in marine biology and biochemistry to see if there are any precedents for that type of coral and seawater."

He switched to a red pen and wrote a few words on the other side.

"The Metaphysical Path".

Several people in the conference room exchanged glances.

He threw the marker back into the slot and turned around.

"We'll pursue both paths simultaneously. I need to see results within a week."

Adachi Ward, afternoon.

About a fifteen-minute walk north from Ayase, through a low-rise residential area, at the intersection of two narrow alleys, stands an Inari shrine.

Despite being called a shrine, it was actually a tiny one. The torii gate was made of wood, and most of the vermilion lacquer had faded. The approach path was only a dozen steps long, paved with gravel, and overgrown with weeds on both sides, which looked like someone would pull them regularly, but not very often. The main hall was small, and the copper plates on the roof were covered with green rust, glistening damply in the afternoon sun.

Stone fox statues crouch on either side of the approach, one with its head tilted to the side and the other with a missing corner of its ear. They are draped in faded red cloth and have bells around their necks that occasionally ring softly when the wind blows.

Akira Nagayama stood outside the torii gate and looked up.

His fingers twitched in his pocket, the illusory images of three copper coins flashing between his fingertips before disappearing. The divination result matched perfectly with what he had calculated that morning—the edge of a Water-elemental evil land, the aura of Wood-elemental power, was in the direction of this shrine. Not the shrine itself, but someone within it.

He stepped into the torii gate.

The pebbles crunched softly beneath his feet. Before he even reached the offering box, hurried footsteps echoed from the shrine's office to the side of the main hall. The wooden door was pushed open from the inside, and a figure practically leaped out.

She wore a white top, scarlet hakama, and her long black hair was tied back. In her hand she held a broom—or rather, the broom handle; the broom head was nowhere to be found, leaving only the bare bamboo pole in her hand.

Hoshimiya Ei.

Eighteen years old, the same age as Akira Nagayama. Her face was the kind that wasn't common in Adachi Ward; not pretty, but clean—her skin was so white it looked like it never got sunburned, and her eyes held an indescribable coolness. But that coolness would shatter the moment she opened her mouth to speak.

"Nagayama!"

Her footsteps were quick and sharp on the gravel, the hem of her crimson hakama swaying with each step. She stopped two steps in front of Nagayama Akira and pointed the bare broom handle at his nose.

"You haven't come for a full eighteen days!"

Akira Nagayama took half a step back.

"Work schedule: there are no weekend shifts this month."

"It's not about the job!" Hoshimiya Ei slammed the broom handle on the ground, switching it from her right hand to her left and back again, as if she didn't know how to express her dissatisfaction in a way that would make the other person realize the seriousness of the problem. Finally, she tucked the broom handle under her arm and pulled a bunch of keys from her hakama's belt.

"Fix the broom head for me, or you're not allowed to leave."

Akira Nagayama looked at the bunch of keys in her hand.

"The broom head broke off yesterday when I was swatting a mouse."

"Did you catch a mouse?"

"Got it. The broom head is broken too."

When Hoshimiya Ei said this, his expression was so serious that he didn't seem to be joking.

As an orphan, Akira Nagayama routinely worked odd jobs in Adachi Ward, which is why he worked at this shrine, where he also collected the "Six Heavens' Ancient Qi".

Hoshimiya Ei's family had guarded this Inari Shrine for generations. In her generation, her grandfather had passed away, and her parents were long gone, leaving her all alone. The ward office had approached her, suggesting she merge the shrine into a larger nearby shrine because it was too small and had few worshippers. She refused. Her reason wasn't some grand pronouncement about tradition or responsibility, but rather, "The two stone foxes at the shrine have been with me since I was a child; they'd be unhappy if I moved them."

Akira Nagayama worked at this shrine for over a year. While it was called "working," it really meant helping Akira Hoshimiya with tasks she couldn't do alone—sweeping leaves from the roof, repairing broken windows in the shrine office, and spreading anti-slip sand on the approach in winter. Hoshimiya paid him only a fraction of what a convenience store would pay him per hour, but he did receive lunch.

"Will you provide lunch today?" Akira Nagayama asked.

Hoshimiya Ei paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up.

"Fix it for me, and I'll treat you to spicy hot pot from Dongda University."

"You just want to eat it yourself, don't you?" Nagayama Akira thought.

Akira Nagayama took the broom handle and pretended to fix it.

The magical power seeped from his fingertips in an extremely faint manner, not for any purpose, but simply for perception. The perception extended along the wood and finally converged on Hoshimiya Akira beside him.

【Wellwood】.

The "Well Wood" element signifies water-related matters. A well is a spring of water, and wood represents the vital energy of growth. Those with the "Well Wood" destiny are born with the seed of wood virtue—not the wood of a towering tree, but the kind of wood that grows from the damp soil beside a well, slender, resilient, with roots deeply embedded in the groundwater. They have a mutually supportive relationship with water virtue; water nourishes wood, and wood draws water from it.

It is a perfect match with the water-virtuous and evil land.

"Nagayama."

"Um."

Have you heard anything about what's going on with Ayase lately?

His expression remained unchanged; he simply turned his head slightly and said in a nonchalant tone, "I heard there's been a case."

"This isn't an ordinary case." Hoshimiya Ei's voice lowered as she looked around to make sure no one else was nearby before continuing, "The day before yesterday, a shrine visitor came to me and said that the person who died in Ayase's area was killed by a monster. Not by a human, but by a monster. That person said he knew someone who lived near that building and heard a sound in the middle of the night that didn't sound like a human could make."

Akira Nagayama looked at her. Sunlight shone on her face, and her brows furrowed slightly as she spoke, her fingers unconsciously twisting the fabric of her red hakama.

Are you scared?

Hoshimiya Ei thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"Don't be afraid. This is Inari Shrine, the Inari God will protect you."

She said it in a very calm tone, not like reciting a line, but as if stating a self-evident fact. Her grandfather had told her this since she was little, and she had believed it.

Akira Nagayama remained silent for a few seconds.

"Yes," he said. "I will."

After returning from dinner, Akira Nagayama helped sweep up the fallen leaves along the approach to the temple and tightened the bell around the stone fox statue's neck. Before leaving, Akira Hoshimiya gave him a piece of candy—a cheap kind of apple candy.

"Are you coming tomorrow?"

"I have something to do tomorrow," said Akira Nagayama. "The day after tomorrow."

"You must come the day after tomorrow."

Akira Nagayama responded and walked out of the torii gate.

He didn't turn around, but his senses extended behind him, like an extremely thin and long thread tied to the figure in white robes and crimson hakama beneath the torii gate.

【Well Wood】Life Pattern. Seed of Wood Virtue.

Tonight, he needs to play the role of a god in his dream.

For someone who was a Purple Mansion True Person in a previous life, this is not too difficult.