Hyakki Yagyou

Chapter Nineteen: Laughter, Chaos

“Darkness... When everything that you know and love... is taken from you so harshly... all you can think about is anger, hatred, and even revenge... and no one can save you.”

-          Masashi Kishimoto

 

January 15th, 5:10 pm

 

Abe watched Sanada speak to his mother and a girl that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. She must have been someone who took care of the elderly woman when Sanada was too busy, Abe thought but the girl’s purpose for being there was the least important. All three of them were seriously distressed.

His mother was staring at the ground, twirling her fingers together and the girl was staring at Sanada with a look on her eyes as if someone had just told her a psychopath had gunned down the entire village and was on his way up to finish them off as well.

They spoke quietly and no one from the group could discern a single word they were saying but none of them dared approach the monk and the women to see what one earth was going on. His reaction was sudden and the sounding of the gong so morose and threatening that they all stood there, unmoving like candlesticks, staring at the three of them, as if moving their bodies or even breathing meant putting them all in danger.

After several minutes that felt like centuries, the girl rushed down and disappeared quickly whereas Sanada and his mother turned around and headed their way. Emi’s body tensed. Their faces were so grim, especially the woman’s, that she knew something really bad was happening.

Again, she could hear the tick tock sound. There was no clock. The sound was in her head, a repetitive cacophony that made her want to pluck each strand off her head.

“What’s going on?” Ryu asked when the two approached but not a single word was uttered. Not yet.

They all withdrew back to the room (with the exception of Aoyama who had not moved in the first place; he was still patiently waiting for them to come back) and the woman went into the other room, returning with a bunch of paper talismans.

“We need to put them on the walls.” She declared and the only one who moved to help was Keita. For some odd reason, he was the only one that did not feel any of this was strange or unnecessary. He wasn’t even in shock. Stoic as usual, he helped the woman and Sanada place the talismans as others waited, nervous and impatient to hear what all this is supposed to mean.

It took them exactly ten minutes to finish doing them. Once they were all seated again, Abe clenched her fists and looked at Sanada’s mother. “What’s happening? Is anyone going to tell us or are we going to keep being in the dark?”

Kayoko took a deep breath and looked at her son. His hands were still shaking. She scanned the room and made sure all the doors were closed and locked. Sayuri was already on her way to warn the rest of the village elders. Soon enough, everyone will know the day had come. A deep chill ran down her spine and she passed a hand through her hair, neatly brushed to the back of her head, fallen on her back.

She took a deep breath and sighed, shortly. Sanada took this as a sign she would tell the story. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to tell it correctly anyway. He had only heard it once or twice when he was just learning about these things. He never actually believed it would come to this. He wanted to believe it was just a fairy tale – one of those scary ones that children are afraid of hearing ever again but still feel a morbid urge to keep listening and/or reading about them.

“A long time ago, in this area where our little village is, no one but two deities lived. Humans had long settled the islands of Japan but due to this area’s infertile land, they decided it was best leave it alone. This was the reason why these deities, upon arriving to our world, decided to settle here.”