Bound by the confines of this paper, limited by time and fading, faulty memory, I cannot thoroughly summarize the whole of what I uncovered through years of researching Japan. Rather, let me focus the attention onto a set of specific and curious revelations, which coincide with my speculation regarding 'the Bell'. That apex of occultism, its blending of time and space, was the reason why my friend Hojo contacted me initially.
I wonder if laymen find it incredible to accept, given the nature of the subject, yet know the truth that time-travel - and, particularly, time-travel by humans - is often met with scorn by true, serious occultists. It is a very sound policy, though, as the field is ripe with charlatans who cling onto the thinnest strands of evidences to support their claims. We strive to weed the discipline of those whose actions only serve themselves at the cost of our collective respectability.
That was why I hesitated to expose my theory - yet Hojo shared my view regarding 'the Bell' and knew, as if by instinct, the reality of human time-travel.
In December of 2012, my third trip to Japan, my contact informed me of a breakthrough about the still top-secret project called the Kikyo Effect. The project had been alluded to often across a slew of other, classified experiments conducted by the Japanese. However, those glimpses of a wider network of investigation did not lift its veil of mystery, until my friend uncovered a memorandum.
The document, which circulated among the highest military circles, gave us the push that unravelled the mystery.
It was late 1944 / early 1945, the Japanese Imperial Navy was destroyed by any kind of measure, the archipelago's supply of fuel was choked. That lead to a sharp drop in production and crippled offensive military operation. The rulers were desperate to find alternative sources of energies to power their war. It seemed, initially, that the so-called Kikyo Effect was key to tapping what their allies in Europe termed 'Zero Point Energy'. ('Zero Point Energy' is the energy embedded within time and space itself and was a subject of research by the Nazis.)
The memorandum, that Hojo obtained through a dear family friend and a source who survived the machinations of war, offered a trove of clues. The names and addresses it contained pointed us toward the Museum of History in Tokyo. While much of that establishment had been destroyed, the records, with which we were interested, survived through rather miraculous efforts. The documentation allowed us to connect scattered bits and pieces of information we already suspected and together we formed the history of events that culminated with the discovery of the Kikyo Effect.
We deduced the following:
It was summer, 1596, a cave was discovered about 60 miles south of Tokyo. The record noted it unusual because the content included a clay (and life-like) army. The Daimyo did not know what to make of the find beyond the usual suspicion of witchcraft. The statues, although delicate, were transported into a palace. Later they appeared to rot as if their clay was, in fact, flesh.
In the 1700's the cave, named 'Naraku' by farmers, was used by a warlord to house armaments.
At the dawn of the Meiji restoration, between the 1860's and 1870's, it was similarly employed by the Shinsengumi.
After the Meiji restoration the cave was explored by archaeologists who learned of the statues that had been discovered almost three hundred years prior. The research, funded by the Museum of History in Tokyo, was aimed at uncovering what other aspects of Japan's remote history that remained and could be found still.
The activity peaked in 1881 when diggers revealed a chamber behind a solid wall of rubble. That cavity had been sealed unnaturally. Inside they discovered relics similar to the implements used by alchemists in the 1400's. They found lamps and flintstones. They found journals written illegibly, hastily. They evidence indicating somebody had been alive and working within that cavity after it had been separated from the rest of the world. Then, under a blanket, they found a truly shocking discovery.
The paperwork of the expedition's investigator - a man named Kagewaki - was detailed except at the point where the men discover the blanket. Those pages seemed altered as though an attempt was made to erase the words by writing atop it. Enough of the original remained to allow a reconstruction of what followed.
At fist the impression was that beneath the blanket lay the body of a woman. Although the remains were dressed with the white and red robes of a miko, the superstitious of the group proclaimed the figure the witch, guilty of the alchemy they unearthed. Of course, she was dead by suffocation, she was dead at least four hundred years yet preserved as if asleep. Kagewaki claimed to be unnaturally moved by the figure's ageless youth and appearance - he claimed she was not aged a day beyond twenty although he did not specify how he came to that value.
Then, when the lamp was aimed directly at the face of the corpse, the group saw its eyes follow the motion of the light. The eyes blinked. A shriek echoed through the alcove - whether it came from the men or from the figure Kagewaki could not say. The figure was alive, still, at least a few seconds.
The woman's face 'cracked'. A web of fissures spread across the features. The sharp sound of snapping followed and the figure quivered. With a gasp the body shattered like a vase - the clothes collapsed and a large portion of the skull rolled along the ground.
It had been a clay doll like the soldiers they heard about.
The pieces were collected and transported to the Museum of History. In the metropolis of Tokyo, the chief archeologist Kagewaki studied the remains minutely. Through a decade of work he reconstructed the body of the woman who, he felt, died by the shock of seeing his face. Yes, Kagewaki was strangely almost obsessively attached, going as far as to name the find 'the Kikyo Lady'. He displayed the restoration as part of an exhibit and provided visitors quite a lurid story about who she was and what she might have been doing inside of that cave.
The story would have been forgotten to obscurity except that 'the Kikyo Lady' crossed paths with a clairvoyant who worked with the military at the start of the 1920's. The psychic, K. Higurashi, a student (and admirer) of Tesla, asked to study the remains after a visit to its exhibit induced a 'very acute vibration'. Kagewaki (alive despite a possible age of 90) was eager to let the agent work.
The name Higurashi appeared significant to Hojo. He wondered if the clairvoyant, K. Higurashi, was related to the family by that Higurashi a member of which revealed that memorandum. He related that certain inexplicable events, related to a youth of that clan, started his fascination with occultism. Specifically it was about a girl named Kagome - she lived inside of the temple of the Higurashi which closed recently with the death of its patriarch.
According to my friend, at the age of fifteen, the girl tended to vanish weeks at a time while the family covered it by issuing a series of excuses, usually medical. He believed what they said until a little research proved it was impossible to survive the combinations of illnesses they claimed she suffered. Later, at the age of eighteen, the girl vanished and did not return. Now the family said she went to America.
He did not accept it. Disturbed by it, he struck a friendship with the elder of the clan, in order to glean what happened to Kagome. At the end it was the patriarch who revealed the secret. The truth involved a well kept at the rear of the temple. Apparently, it was a portal into another epoch - same space, different time - he revealed it to be a gateway into the Feudal Era.
Kagome did not go to America - she transported five hundred years into the past.
Hojo wondered if, indeed, there was a connection not only between the generations of Higurashis but also between the Kikyo Effect and the well. Maybe a part of that experiment survived the war. Maybe it, whatever it was, caused the well to operate like 'the Bell'?
Unfortunately, with respect to the Kikyo Lady and the fates of Kagewaki and K. Higurashi, the trail stagnated. Beyond the history already outlined, we discovered photographs of the Kikyo Lady, as well as photographs of Kagewaki and K. Higurashi. We were surprised that the archeologist, despite portrayed at the age of ninety, did not look past fifty. We were also surprised K. Higurashi was a woman - a rare accomplishment to be a student of Tesla's at that era.
The documents that could have shed light on the subject were not released. A few must have been deemed classified even into the 21st Century. It was also possible that the information was destroyed prior to occupation in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of the Americans. It was also likely that the knowledge was transferred, wholesale, overseas therefore these Japanese leads would have proved to be dead-ends.
I did not believe everything about the Kikyo Effect was out of reach. Although, at that juncture no single document revealed what exactly it was, the memorandum and the volume of other clandestine experiments that referenced it showed the Kikyo Effect was too important to squander.
My hunch to visit the city's hall of records proved fruitful. I learned that K. Higurashi was, in fact, Kanna Higurashi. A cross-reference with a database of declassified military operations showed that she was also a student of Otto Cerny - the scientist at the center of 'the Bell' - and that she participated with another top-secret project named 'Fox Fire'.
'Fox Fire' was not as classified as the Kikyo Effect and soon we located a site where experiments related to that project were conducted - a warehouse owned by the Taisho, a wealthy exporting family. We paused the investigation of the Kikyo Effect in order to pursue that apparently connected matter of 'Fox Fire'. We contacted the owners of the warehouse and sought permission to enter.