Vacay (self-insert #6)

Chapter 6

I wiggled in my seat, getting ready for all the gruesome details that weren't about to come.

"Foreignor killing. In this case, any outsider can be considered a foreigner. In the old days, a village was a closed society. All the people on the village were relatives and neighbors. So let's say a merchant happens along. The merchant has no blood relation or territorial connection to the villagers. He is completely different from the villagers, meaning he is an outsider." He said simply. "And there are many folktales in various areas about killing this outsider, and these murders were called foreigner killings, and the foreigners in the old days are smaller in range. Usually the ones killed were Marebito."

"WAIT! Back up a little." Mai interrupted, a little panicked. "What's a Marebito?"

"Oh, sorry. A Marebito is a term used by Shinobu Origuchi. Oh, I guess I shouldn't go into that." Yasuhara grimaced as he struggled to communicate with people with average IQs. "Marebito is 'a god who arrives'. They come to villages and bless the villagers or advise them. So, expanding on that idea, people who come to a village and act as gods are called Marebito."

Mai nodded slowly. "Substitute...so that person comes to bless and advise? Like a god would?"

"That's right. And they also have supernatural powers. They can communicate with gods and Buddhas and nymphs, so they do that, too. They make predictions or wish for a good harvest. They can make it rain, get rid of bad luck, other times they'll drive away apparitions or perform exorcisms."

"Huh?" Mai's eyes widened. "So that means we're also Marebito? We're outsiders and we perform exorcisms."

"Yeah! That's it. So miko and traveling monks were referred to as Marebito, and there are many folktales about killing those Marebito."

"Good thing I'm not a Marebito." I said cheerfully.

Ayako and Bou-san glared at me. Lin eyed me and motioned towards Naru's room, hinting that it was just about time for me to shut my mouth and do something useful. I obeyed, mostly because my feet had fallen asleep and waiting any longer would make walking a billion times more painful. Naru was still snoozing happily (or as happily as possible for Naru), so I hurriedly dished out a bowl of porridge from the thermos Akifumi had provided me with and carefully dripped it into his mouth.

It took a while, so when I returned I found that Bou-san was already on his feet, his game face on. "Then I guess we'll take care of the numerous ones first. We'll start with the five from the riot."

He had barely finished speaking before a BOOM resonated throughout the building, vibrating down to our very bones as it was immediately followed by clattering in the hallway. "What? The hallways?" Mai cried out. "Is someone running there?"

I edged my way to Lin's side. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I had a bad feeling. The kind that made you sort of trembly and break out into sweat and then wish that humans were born without sweat glands, because no one likes smelling like stress and intense workout. No one.

He glanced at me, but a sudden flurry of numbers on the monitors caught his attention. "Takigawa-san, the temperature is dropping." He called out over the rapping as he watched them flicker out, ERROR replacing the different spots of the Yoshimi house we'd been monitoring. "I can't see it. All the thermographs are crashing."

"The monitors!" Ayako cried out. We all whipped around, watching in stunned silence as the last monitor of the monitors fizzled out into static.

"I guess they attacked first." Yasuhara said as calmly as possible.

"Just when we think of going, they come visiting instead." Bou-san agreed with a sigh.

"Well, that's our gain, no?"