Blossoming Fissure | Tanjirou Kamado

28. The Plagues

The paranormal incidents that fell upon the red light district during a particular month of november in 1916 were something that is still talked about in present days.

These events have aroused countless theories, rumours and they have even become a popular legend throughout the years. Many have brushed them off as mere delusions, pranks or even hallucinations caused by a collective fever that simultaneously attacked the residents of the district. The government never recognized the multiple episodes and there were no records of them despite their severity, so the catastrophes were only remembered by those who lived through them... and those who provoked them.

This real myth started with some spiders.

The oiran hummed when seeing a little insect walking down her mirror with its nasty little legs.

Not paying much attention to it, she slapped it away and continued putting on lipstick for a night that would surely bring her great riches. Long lashes, spotless skin, long locks and deep eyes, this great strength gave the oiran Warabihime everything she needed and desired, and it would never fade away from her hands like it did all those old, sick and ugly whores that rot in the brothels of the poor side of the district.

Her, getting sick or old? Her, just like all those creatures at death's door that lived in between piss and shit?

Others could suffer as much as they wanted, but Warabihime wouldn't be dragged down with them.

A sudden scream and a tremble on her part and suddenly she found that her finger had slipped just the tiniest bit, painting a red line over her cheek instead of her lips.

Fuming, she ran to the doors of the house to punish whoever was responsible for that disaster. On the floor laid one of the many girls serving under that house, trembling with her terrified eyes looking outside. Around her had gathered a small crowd of many other girls that also looked at the streets of the district in horror.

"Spiders!" A girl exclaimed somewhere in the crowd, and her scream only served as the start.

Every single girl that had turned up at the door to look at the phenomenom that had manifested outside started screaming bloody murder and ran far away from the door in a wild stampede, as the oiran desperately tried not to be run over that had formed a parade of madness.

When looking out the door she saw nothing at first, just the dark night that would soon be light again as the lights were switched on throughout the first minutes after sunset.

But just right after, trying very hard, Warabihime saw a white reflection in the middle of the air, and a little spider floating in the middle of the street.

No, a new reflection was clearly right next to the first one, apparently not having grabbed onto anything, the spiders had built their spiderwebs midair.

But then her eyes flew to somewhere else and she saw a new spiderweb, and another one and another one. Fat black spiders were all around the air, dozens, hundreds, even thousands of them, little insects resting on their spiderwebs, that had covered the streets completely, and it didn't seem like they wanted to leave very soon.

The oiran, too, ran like a mad lad to hide on her room just to come out not too much time later, covered in spiders from head to toe.

She tried to swat them away, struggling and jumping around like one would look at an insane monkey in a cell. A blonde girl (Zenko, was her name?) was screaming so loudly she was unable to think clearly and, along with other screams not only from her house, but from all the others too, as if they had all been attacked at the same time, dread started to eat away at her, too.

It was said, from the children whose parents lived through it, that in the blink of an eye the spiders had invaded everything in its entirety, specially three houses in specific where a few girls had been recently sold to, but their names don't need to be mentioned.

In their entirety, they were the so called Three Plagues, the ones to attack the red light district for an entire month.

It took an entire week to clean, kill and throw out the millions of spiders that invaded every corner, nook and gap with their threads.

The Second Plague was not as dramatic, but it was more problematic.

Every japanese person that didn't live under a rock thought about summer when listening to a cicadas' cries.

The cicadas are, essentially, a kind of insects that spend in between two and seventeen years underground. After this time, the cicadas come out of their tunnels as fully adults to cry under the Sun.

What would it mean, then, if they were to be born in winter?

Because the first thing everyone thought, after the spiders' incident, was that the arrogance and debauchery of the district was finally being punished by the gods.

"They're everywhere!"

"Close the windows! Close them!"

"We're gonna die! They're gonna eat us all!"

"Stop crying, will you!?"

These were many of the different screams that could be heard coming from everywhere from every geisha, maiko and oiran, as a horde attacked the innocent victims that were taken by surprise at sunset.

This time the oiran Warabihime wasn't taken by surprise. Windows and door closed, she spent the two weeks that it took the cicadas to die because of the cold in her room, and she didn't let anyone in but the girl that brought her food and left it by her windowsill to come close to her. Not even her clients, that although few because of such a catastrophe, did she allow inside until it was confirmed that the cicadas were gone.

During this period of time, the cicadas dedicated their feeble lives to eat, gnaw and bite not just the wooden buildings, but they also managed to go into the storerooms and destroyed wardrobes, furniture and the floor day and night, so there was no way to get rid of them until they finally bred, placing their eggs underground, and died not much time after.

The last one of them, the Third Plague, was the one to affect the oiran the most.

In contrast with the other ones, it started silently. It had probably been already ongoing for days before anyone realized, but by the time they realized that too many girls scratched themselves with too much insistence, no one was safe.

The first two plagues had been unbiased, having attacked all the members of the houses in equal measure despite the fact that they slightly concentrated a little bit more in three specyfic houses. But this time, for some reason, the fleas specially gathered in the Kyogoku house, particularly the girls that slept on the north wing, where the oiran's personal room was, were the most affected in between all the girls not only from the entire district, but from the house itself, too.

Unbearable itches attacked the bodies of the residents at every minute. It was rumoured at the time that the oiran, who had been attacked by the most fleas, scratched herself so much that she believed to see a familiar silhouette that stared down at her from the roofs with eyes as hard as rocks.

If anyone truly believed Warabihime's accusations against the mysterious offender, that's another story.

All these incidents, once stopped, were associated with bad omens that warned of a massacre. Many clients stopped coming to the district, the amount of attempts to run away from geishas and maikos increased and there were even stories of suicides, although they was never confirmed.

Whether they were warnings or not, they were right to believe these rumours, since the massacre would take place not much time later. The oiran, blind with rage, wouldn't let anyone play her like a fiddle right in front of her nose.

What had truly happened? Oh, only nine members of the demon slayers corps knew.

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