The world you see isn't all there is. There are things you can't see.
See? In the darkness… behind you...
Mizuki, a blood bank employee, walked into his house and shook his head. He had a heck of a day and frankly was having trouble believing that any of it had actually happened. From the other room, he heard his mother call him.
"Honey? Are you home? It's time for dinner!"
He came in and sat at the table as his mother set a plate in front of him.
"How was your day, honey?" she asked.
"Strangely," he said, not really looking up.
"What do you mean," she asked.
"So earlier, I was called into my boss's office."
"Mr. Hageyama?"
"Yep. He said that he wanted me to investigate one of the hospitals we supply. Said they were planning to prosecute us for selling them some kind of inhuman blood."
"Inhuman? What does that mean?"
"Well, I went to the hospital and found the strangest thing I'd ever seen. The patient who had received the blood. He was… undead…"
"Like a zombie?" his mother said, sceptically.
"Yes. He wasn't breathing. He was thin and green. But he was sitting their, sipping tea. Weirdest part of all was, after I checked the records, was that the person who we got the blood from lived on this property."
Mizuki's mother seemed deep in thought.
"You know… I've been hearing a lot of weird noises coming from the abandoned house on the other side of the field. You could check there. You might just find answers."
Mizuki trudged back towards the old house. It was broken and dirty, but he could see light from a single lantern through the window. He walked up to the door and pulled it open. There to greet him, almost like she had been expecting him, was a haggard, old woman. She was dressed in rags and her hair was dirty and unkempt. She had only a few broken teeth and her gaze made her appear totally wall-eyed, yet Mizuki couldn't help but feel like her eyes were burrowing into his soul.
"Welcome. Please, come in. Sit down. I don't get visitors often," she said with a crooked smile. "Help yourself to some frogs eyes. They aren't the best, but help yourself."
Mizuki began to sweat nervously, but followed the woman anyway. She sat him down at a table and placed a bowl in front of him.
The bowl was filled with slimy yellow eyes. The hag took a spoonful and ate it with a grimace.
Finally, Mizuki couldn't take it. He made a bolt for the door, much to the alarm of the woman.
"Dear! Our neighbor is-"
Suddenly, another door opened and a very large man came out. He was wrapped in bandages, leaving only his face visible. His skin was a sickly green color and his eyes were big and blood-red. He grabbed Mizuki and lifted the terrified man over his shoulder as effortlessly as if he were a bag of flour.
"Sorry to be so rough," he said, setting the man down at the table.
"I am this woman's husband. We want you to understand why we're here. You see, we are yōkai, the last survivors of the Ghost Tribe. Millennia ago, our race inhabited the earth. But right as our civilization reached its peak, humans began to appear and forced us from the surface. We weren't safe anywhere. So we retreated underground and lived in caves. But soon, our food began to disappear. Many of us starved to death and we are the only ones left."
"But why are you here?" Mizuki asked.
"My husband has caught a terrible skin disease. Everyday, he decays more and more. We came to the human world, hoping to find a cure."
"So… you're the one who sold your blood to us!"
"Yes. We needed the money."
"As an investigator, I have to report this to my company immediately!"
Mizuki said, getting up to leave.
"No! That won't be good!" The man in the bandages stood and blocked the way. "If you report us, the humans will find and kill us and the Ghost Tribe will go extinct. I beg of you, please allow us to live here a little longer."
"But somebody is bound to find you!" Mizuki said.
"Please," the woman said. "I am three months pregnant, you see… so please don't tell anyone about us… at least until our child is born."
Mizuki sighed and looked at the couple.
"Fine. I won't tell anyone about you for at least six months."
"Thank you! Thank you!" The Ghost man cried out in gratitude as he fell to the floor.
Mizuki walked off towards his house, wondering if he had done the right thing.
Six months went by in a flash. Not that that benefited Mizuki at all. Because he wasn't able to present any of the details of his investigation, the blood bank was forced to declare bankruptcy after numerous lawsuits from the hospitals that had received the tainted blood. While his boss had to leave Japan for a while to lay low, Mizuki had been able to find other jobs in the medical field to help make ends meet. But finally, the day came. He trudged back up to the abandoned house, expecting to find the couple with their baby. Instead, he found the last surviving members of the Ghost Tribe, dead on the floor.
Horrified by this gruesome scene, Mizuki began running back to his house in horror. Halfway there though, he stopped and thought about what he was doing. He realized what a pitiful and sad race the couple must have been. He decided that the least he could do was give them a proper burial. So he grabbed a shovel and walked back to the house to collect the bodies. He buried the woman and marked her grave with a large stone. When he tried to move the body of the man, however, it Megan to rapidly dissolve. So Mizuki decided to just leave it alone.
A few nights later, when the rain was coming down in buckets, Mizuki walked back up to the grave to pay his respects. It was the least he could do, right? But as he reached the grave sight, he noticed the dirt on the grave. It was moving and shifting, as if something was trying to climb out. Mizuki watched in fascinated horror as a small, chubby hand burst from the ground! The baby was still alive! It climbed up out of the dirt and crawled towards the horrified man, starring at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Acting without thinking, Mizuki let out a scream and kicked the child into the tombstone.
The child clipped its eye on the stone, gouging it out completely. The baby cried as a trickle of blood ran down its face and mixed with the both the rain and its used this as an opportunity to make a run for it, leaving the baby alone in the cemetery.
Back in the abandoned house, the body of the father began to stir. His eye rolled around, before popping out of his head. The nerve endings twisted together to form a small body, similar to a mans with the eyeball acting as the head. The newly formed eyeball creature stood with a groan. Perhaps the will and soul of this particular yōkai allowed it to continue to live even after death. Or perhaps this fathers love for his son was so great that he forced himself to continue living to take care of him. Either way, the eyeball was alive.
It walked out into the rain and put his hands on his hips.
"It's about time that my son was born," he said.
He ran off towards the cemetery, finding the baby still crying.
"Look at me, little one," he said catching the baby's attention. Your name is Kitaro."
Kitaro looked down at his father and smiled, giving him a few licks with his small tongue, causing him to laugh.
"Such a good boy. Now quickly. We have to get you out of this rain. Follow me!"
Before he left, he turned and looked up at the grave stone.
"I'm so sorry, Iwako. In the end, I could not protect you."
With that, he ran off, dragging the baby Kitaro with him. He led him to Mizuki's house where Mizuki was settling in for the night. Right as he was lying down, he was startled by the child he had left in the cemetery crawling towards him. But the baby showed no hostility for his missing eye. Instead, he crawled over and snuggled up next to him.
"I see now. You need me. I'll take care of you." he said with a smile.
From the window, Medama Oyaji (as Kitaro's father decided he would now be called) shed a tear of joy. His son was safe and he couldn't be happier.
Ten years went by and Kitaro continued to grow. But it was terribly obvious that he was not popular with children his age due to his strange appearance and actions. His silver hair grew long and covered the place where his right eye use to be. His face was considered ugly and the other children would often hear him talking to himself. Soon, children began to call him "GeGeGe no Kitaro".
Stranger still, Mizuki's mother noticed that Kitaro would often sneak out at night. She didn't know where he went, only that he was always back by sunrise. She brought the subject up with Mizuki and he decided he would confront Kitaro about it. So that night, he waited for Kitaro by the front door. Sure enough, Kitaro ran into him on his way out.
"Kitaro," he said sternly. "Where are you going?"
"Juboko," he said. "I've been going there to visit the dead."
"Kitaro, that's not okay. You can't play with dead people. You're a human being."
Kitaro looked at him with his single, piercing eye.
"I'm not human," he said.
Suddenly, Medama Oyaji popped out of Kitaro's hair, startling Mizuki.
"Thank you for taking such good care of my son all these years, good sir, but you and I both know Kitaro is a yōkai. And you can't restrict his true nature."
Mizuki looked at Oyaji with awe. "You're the man I made the promise to all those years ago. You're Kitaro's father!"
Oyaji nodded. "And it's time for me to take Kitaro to be with his kind."
Mizuki shook his head and sighed. "I was hoping it wouldn't be like this, but I guess I have no choice. Come, Kitaro. I'll pack you some supplies for your journey."
Mizuki gave Kitaro about 2,000¥, some food and a spare futon. As they were about to leave, Oyaji jumped from Kitaro's shoulder and pulled a box from the closet.
"Kitaro. This is a family heirloom of ours."
He removed the lid to reveal a yellow and black striped chanchanko.
"This chanchanko is made from the spirits hairs of our ancestors. It holds great mystical power. You must promise never to take it off."
Kitaro tied it on, nodded and turned to Mizuki.
"Thank you for everything," he said with a bow.
And with that, GeGeGe no Kitaro and his father walked off, with his geta making a "clop-clop" sound as he went.
And that's it!
I've wanted to do a GeGeGe no Kitaro story for a long time, but this web site doesn't have a category for it. Yōkai Watch seemed like a safe bet though.
In case it wasn't terribly obvious, I am a huge fan of the series and was really excited to do this.
The term "GeGeGe no Kitaro" in Japanese means "Creepy Kitaro," for anyone who didn't know.
Sorry I haven't updated recently. Lot of junks been happening recently. I'll try to update more though.
So until next time…
GibbyTheCookie, signing off.