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Return to Hinamizawa I – Predestination Chapter

9
The Black Demon

The door opened, and someone came in; from where I was, I could not see who. He was treading forward very quietly, not wanting to wake Oryou if she was asleep, I surmised. He stopped not far inside the room. "Oryou-sama," he said softly.

She turned her head slowly towards him. Her eyes, white and empty, barely moved.

"You're not Shion," she said – and her voice was slow and creaking, as though each sound had to be forced out against a wind that was pushing it back.

"I'm sorry. Shion went to a gathering at the shrine, I believe." I knew the man's voice now: it was Satoshi, Akito's father. "She asked me to come in and check on you."

"And?" said Oryou. "What will you tell her?"

"What would you like me to tell her?" Satoshi said patiently.

"Bah," Oryou spat out. She rolled gently over so that her head was turned upwards again, but she kept on moving it as though she just could not find a comfortable position. "It doesn't matter. If she's not going to come and see me... tell her what you like."

There was a soft thud as Satoshi knelt down on the floor. "Why won't you let me help you, Oryou-sama?" he said. "We both care about you – please believe me."

"Tell me this, Satoshi," she said. "What do you mean by caring about me? You know I'm not going to get any better... so what's the point?"

There was a long silence. At last Satoshi said, "I suppose we just want to help you be as comfortable as we can manage."

She grunted and turned over, now facing away from Satoshi.

"Are you all right, Oryou-sama?" he said.

She said something in reply that I could not make out. Satoshi evidently couldn't either, for he said, "What was that?"

"The Black Demon is coming," she said. "I hear his footstep... his cruel claws scratching the air... don't you see him? You're kneeling in his shadow..."

Another long silence. Finally, Satoshi desperately said, "Can I get you anything?"

"There's nothing you can do. Just go – make the most of the time you have left."

"I... I'm sorry you feel that way, Oryou-sama..."

"Just go," she said, more forcefully but not angrily. "And when Shion gets back –"

"Yes?"

"Tell her to come and see me first thing tomorrow. I don't want to be disturbed tonight."

"Of course, as you wish, Oryou-sama." Satoshi climbed unsteadily to his feet, and went out of the room, leaving the door slightly open behind him.

I remained unmoving for a long time. I was waiting, giving Satoshi time to get a long way away, before I tried to sneak out of the room.

I was just wondering whether I had waited long enough when Oryou spoke. "You can come out of there, you know."

She had seen me! Feeling like a prize idiot, I clambered out of the wardrobe and knelt before her in the middle of the floor.

"I beg your pardon, Oryou-sama."

She turned her head towards me, and I could not help shuddering. Never had I seen such a hideous wreckage of a human being. Her eyes, white globules, were like some kind of primaeval sea-creatures, hiding from predators in the ragged cliffs of her face. Her skin was folded so that her mouth hung permanently half-open, exposing a cracked lip and red-blotched toothless gum. She had little energy for movement, and most of it was used up in harsh spasms, as though she were being poked again and again with some sharp tool. She was breathing heavily and holding her head bent forwards, at such an unnatural angle that I was afraid her neck would snap at any moment.

"You're that girl that everyone's looking for," she said.

I sighed. Well, there seemed little point in pretending otherwise now. Perhaps I could still get this old woman to keep my secret – threaten her into silence... But even as I felt my hand straying towards the knife at my side, I shook my head and pulled it back. I couldn't do that!

"Teramachi Miaka, at your service," I said, bowing.

"I didn't ask for your name."

"Sorry," I said, fading back a little.

"So, you came here... because you knew they wouldn't think to look for you here. You're either very brave, or very stupid. Or perhaps both."

"I needed a place to hide," I said quietly.

"And you thought you'd find it here? You can't stay here, girl. The servants will find you."

"Isn't there anywhere in the Manor I could stay hidden?" I said. I don't know why it suddenly occurred to me to ask Oryou, of all people, for help; but I really did get the impression that she was at least sympathetic towards me.

"Not... in the Manor," she said, with a low croak that sounded almost like a laugh. "But under it. Yes, there are tunnels down there..."

"Tunnels?" I said apprehensively.

"Yes, tunnels, child! You could stay hidden for a long time... you wouldn't be the only one."

I looked up sharply. "There are other people hiding in the tunnels?"

"Not living people," she said; then she broke into a sort of rhythmic wheeze that I supposed was her equivalent of a chuckle. "Many secrets are down there. Secrets that the Sonozakis have hidden away over the years, and the bones of people left down there to die..."

"Where are these tunnels?"

She made a jerky movement with her arm, as though she was trying to illustrate her words, but her hand just fell limply back onto the quilt. "A bunker... at the back of the estate... locked... but if you could get this far, I'm sure..."

I nodded. "Thank you, Oryou-sama."

"Heh, you can thank me after you've spent the night down there. I hope you don't mind keeping company with ghosts and demons."

"The Black Demon?" I said softly.

She lurched and gave a horrible rasping cough. I looked up, wondering for a moment whether I should do something, but she subsided onto the bed again, and her head rocked back and forth before coming to rest. "You've been listening more than is good for you," she said at last. "An unhealthy habit to cultivate around the Sonozakis."

"I... I'm sorry, Oryou-sama!" I said. "I just didn't know what else to do! I didn't want Satoshi-san to come in and find me!"

"That doesn't mean you had to listen," she said sharply. "And Satoshi's a big softie. He never fully recovered. He wouldn't hurt you."

Something in her words caught my attention. She was old and feeble, but it was easy to tell that her mind was all there, just as active as it had ever been, if not more. And she had been one of the leaders of Hinamizawa. Who better to answer a few of my many questions?

"Oryou-sama?" I said hesitantly. "You're talking about the time Satoshi-san disappeared, aren't you? Do... do you know what happened to him?"

"Yes."

"And... and where was he?"

"In the basement of the Irie Clinic, being treated for Hinamizawa Syndrome."

"What!" I cried, flinching back. "But... but why has everyone kept this a secret?"

She glowered at me, looking angry for the first time; but her tone was more one of firm admonishment. "You're too young to understand."

"I am not!" I hissed, forgetting for a moment that I was talking to one of the elders of the village. "I don't know if Shion-san told you this, but the reason I'm in this village is that I contracted Hinamizawa Syndrome and nearly killed my parents! Just because you're old, you think being a teenager is all anime theme songs and wild parties? Well, I can tell you it's not like that – it sucks!"

There was a long silence. I slowly became aware, not just of Oryou in the bed in front of me, but also of the curtains rustling in the wind, the fact that I could now hear them again reminding me of how loud I had been. My heart pounded. What if one of the servants heard me and came rushing in to defend Oryou against the intruder?

"So," she wheezed at last, "you are sure you want to know?"

"Yes," I said defiantly.

She groaned and rolled over, still trying in vain to find a comfortable position. "The people of Hinamizawa need to trust Irie-sensei – just as they need to trust the Sonozaki and Furude families. If we allowed that trust to be damaged, we would lose our stability, and then where would we be?"

"So... so you just let Satoshi's disappearance be brushed under the rug?" I retorted. "Have you got any idea how much this secrecy is hurting Akito-kun?"

"He is young. He has not learned to trust yet."

"Who would trust you?" I snapped. "Why, you practically boast about the number of secrets you have!"

She came out with that odd wheezing chuckle again. "That, young girl, is why people know they can trust us. We do not pretend to be respectable."

"But – what if Satoshi-san had died? Would you have covered up his death just as lightly? Would it not matter to you?"

"As I said," Oryou said coldly, "you are too young to understand. Still too much attached to life. When you are older... you will realise... the individual is not so important. What matters is to preserve stability."

"So you'd just have stood back and said nothing?" I growled. "And I suppose you'd be equally happy to watch them kill me, wouldn't you?"

Oryou placed a hand against her forehead and shivered; her breathing became so soft I could barely hear it. I took a deep breath to calm myself down. "Are you in pain, Oryou-sama?" I said.

She shook her head. "Child, if this is any comfort... it was not I who ordered your death."

"I know," I said. Somehow, I really knew that she would not say those words unless they were true. "But... do you know who it was?"

I held my breath. I don't know why I was expecting to get any answers from this old woman, but somehow – I got the feeling that she still knew most of what went on in the village.

"No," she said, sounding almost sorrowful. "Child... it's a long time since I had any part in the family's decisions. Now I'm just an old woman, left alone in a dark room to slowly die, with nothing to do except frighten any little girls who happen to drop in..."

"I'm not frightened," I said, though I had to screw up my face to fight back the tears, not entirely successfully. "I just don't want to die. Even if it is necessary to 'preserve stability'! I may be only an individual, but my life still matters to me!"

There was silence for a moment. I remained glowering at Oryou, and she turned towards me, her face as always so lost in wrinkles that little expression could be read.

"Stand up," she said.

I stood and made a small bow.

"You don't need to bow – I'm just an old woman. Come closer, child."

I moved closer to the bed. Oryou sat still, except for an occasional tremble, and her fingers moved up and down in rhythm like the limbs of a puppet.

"So, you want to live," she said. "But tell me – can you really stand there and look at me and say that you want to grow old like this?"

I gulped. I knelt down by the bed, and – without even thinking about what I was doing – took Oryou's hand in mine. The fingers were tough and rigid, and very dry. "It must be hard for you," I said. "I hope you're not in too much pain?"

"Oh, the pain is the easy part," Oryou said, softly and even more slowly than before. "It's the regret... I've lived much too long. Who would have thought I would be the last one left? Kimiyoshi, Furude, Makino, Satou, even that rascal Houjou... wouldn't he smile if he could see me now? I feel stretched out... like I'm just living out the last year of my life, over and over again. Is this... the penance I must do... for my sins?"

I clasped her hand tightly. "Is there anything you want to talk about?" I said. I don't know what made me say it; I just realised then that she must be very lonely, even with her large family – they all had their own lives and their own troubles, and she was probably alone with her thoughts for most of the day. It was no wonder, really, that she seemed to find it so easy to talk to me.

"I would only make you hate me," she said, turning away. "That was my role in the village, to keep everyone united by giving them something to hate. Only Mion didn't hate me – until I made her hate me too." Her voice had taken on such a bitterness that I could almost taste it.

"I won't hate you, Oryou-sama," I said. "I promise."

"You would... if you knew what I really am."

"What did you do that's so terrible?" I said lightly. "It can't be worse than what I've done."

She started to wheeze again, and then took her hand from mine. Her arm draped limply over the side of the bed, making her look almost like a corpse.

"It... it was I who killed that boy," she whispered.

"Boy?" I said gently.

"That boy Mion was crazy about... I don't remember his name..."

"Maebara Keiichi?" The name I had heard Naoya mention. It was rather a wild guess, but I wanted to understand, to find some connections.

"That was it. Keiichi... I sacrificed him to the family pride. Always the worst enemy of the Sonozakis, the demon of pride... and I could only watch as, one by one, it killed all of my children..."

I shivered. Up to that point, I'd had no doubts about the old woman's sanity; she was so lucid that it was hard to imagine her words might fail to connect with reality. But this was just crazy!

"What do you mean, Oryou-sama?" I said. "Your children aren't dead!"

"Just... listen," she croaked.

I listened. Through the partly open door, I could hear the sound of piano music coming from somewhere in the house, probably downstairs. A slow and melancholy waltz – Chopin, I think. I smiled, and listened for a while, letting the music drift its gentle way under my skin.

"It's beautiful," I said. "Who is playing?"

"My daughter Akane... can you not hear? She plays as though it doesn't matter who hears her, for she is only playing for herself, sounds and feelings no-one else will ever understand. Only the dead play like that."

I caught my breath, and found myself trying to focus away from the music, but it was impossible: the notes kept stroking against my mind like waves lapping the shore.

"The Black Demon gets us all one way or another, in the end," said Oryou, so softly that I wondered if she was now talking to herself. "That is the fate of the Sonozakis."

"But... what is this demon?"

"There," Oryou said, lifting her hand slightly as if she intended to point; but her arm quavered when it reached the horizontal and then fell again. "Don't you see it, there, behind you?"

I glanced round, a little nervous in spite of myself. Then I laughed. "There's nothing there."

"No, you wouldn't see it... but it's there all the same. Always there, waiting for me, coming slowly closer. It won't be long now. The Demon will come for me, and when I am gone, the house of Sonozaki will fall. And the village too, most likely."

"What do you mean?"

Her mouth opened out into the ghost of a smile. "They can't get along without me, you know. The village was so afraid of me... even now, when I haven't left the house for years, as long as they believe I'm still controlling things behind the scenes, they will fear the Sonozakis... Shion's too nice, and Mion is broken... when I'm gone, there will be no-one to hold them together..."

She shook; I think she was trying to cry. I looked anxiously up at her. Then, suddenly, I saw her head tilt back and her mouth fall open with a rasping gargle; her fingers began to flex as though she was drowning and struggling to grasp hold of something, anything. I stood up in alarm, but I didn't know what to do. She was staring forward, her eyes wide, her face frozen as if she saw something horrible in the empty air in front of her. Then she let out a high-pitched shriek, turned right over, and lay with her head buried in the quilt, breathing rapidly and heavily as her whole body trembled.

"Oryou-sama?" I said, leaning down and touching her arm. "Are you all right?"

I shot an anxious glance at the door behind me. What if one of the servants had heard her scream and came rushing in to see what was the matter? Should I run for it, get away from the room – or get outside, wait on the roof and hope the guards didn't see me? Then I looked back at Oryou. She was curled up tightly, still palpitating and clawing at the air. And I knew that I couldn't leave her.

I reached down and held her hand again. "Oryou-sama?" I said. "Do you need help? Is there anything I can get for you? Or... would you like me to fetch Satoshi-san, or Akane-san?"

Did I really just say that?

She turned her head up again; her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to speak. I gripped her hand tightly. "It's all right," I said. "Take as much time as you need."

I waited.

"M... Miaka," she said at last.

"Yes?"

"Just go. There... never was anything... you could do..."

"I... well, all right, if you say so," I said, though my heart was heavy as I lifted myself up. This wasn't much like me, but somehow, I really wished I could do more to comfort this strange old woman.

I was about to walk towards the door when one last thought made me turn round. "Here," I said, bending down and holding out the dagger. "Oryou-sama, I believe this is yours."

She had, at least, stopped trembling now. She took the dagger and ran her hands over the hilt, without looking at it – and it was really only then that I realised that she was completely blind. A faint trace of a smile came to her face. She handed it back to me.

"Take it," she said. "You need it more than I do. If it helps you to feel safe, that might just stop you from doing something stupid."

I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but I certainly didn't want to argue with Oryou, so I took the dagger. I took a heavy breath as I looked down at her one last time.

"Oryou-sama," I said, "why are you helping me?"

She started to wheeze again. "Heh. Call it an old woman's fancy... but I hoped... maybe you might be the one to save Shion, in the end..."

"Save her from what?" I said, rather startled.

But Oryou said nothing more. She lay still now, and I wondered whether she had fallen asleep, exhausted after talking for so long, much more than she was used to. I still felt that I didn't like to leave her, but – Satoshi and Shion were her carers, and it was not my place to do anything more. I slid the door open just enough to creep out, and made my way on tiptoe out of the room.

I slipped along the corridor and down the stairs, pausing at each junction to check whether anyone was ahead of me before I scurried on. But my luck held, all the way to the passage behind the hall in which Akane was still playing Chopin. Here I stopped to consider: there were too many doors, and I didn't know where to go! Should I perhaps go back up to Oryou and ask for more detailed directions? No... somehow, now that I had gotten away from her, I didn't want to go back unless I had to; and I didn't think this was entirely because she was old and needed her sleep.

I hurried on, and then saw on my left a single step leading to a passage with bare wooden walls. The contrast to the lavish décor of the rest of the Manor was so strong that I felt sure this must be the entrance to the servants' quarters. I remembered, on one occasion when the games club had visited the Sonozaki house in happier times, someone (Akane perhaps?) mentioning that the family had once employed many more servants than they did now. So this part of the house would be mostly empty; and I had the added advantage that the servants would not know me by sight. With renewed confidence, I took one last glance around me and set off down the passage.

A smell wafting through the air guided me to the kitchen, and I stopped. I had to eat; I'd had nothing since Okinomiya! Well, it seemed no-one was around, so I slipped inside. The family had had duck with rice for dinner, and five plates were laid out for the latecomers. Five? The twins, Akito and Kotone... ah, presumably Satoshi was also waiting to have his together with his children. Someone might come in at any moment, but I would have to take that risk. I grabbed a spare plate and chopsticks and a serving-spoon and took a little from each portion, spreading out the remainder so that no-one would notice anything. Sorry, Kotone... if I had any way of knowing which plate was yours I would spare it, honestly I would!

There was a small pantry adjoining the kitchen, and I ate my food there, shovelling it down as quickly as I could manage. By the time I came out again, the other plates had gone. So, someone had come in... I had to admit that I was lucky he hadn't noticed anything amiss. Treading more cautiously, I looked around until I found the servants' bathroom. Once that was done, I had to get outside as quickly as possible. I couldn't rely on my luck holding out any longer. Well, there was bound to be a separate entrance between the servants' quarters and the outside, so it was just a matter of following the passage to its end. The door at the end was on a latch and easily opened from the inside, so I let myself out and looked around me.

It was now deep into the night, but there was still enough light to give me an idea of my surroundings. I was at the back of the house, facing the hills; a long wing of the house stood to my left, and to my right, if I followed the building round I would reach the shed I had used to climb to Oryou's window. There were a few outbuildings visible from here, but only one small enough to match Oryou's description of it as a "bunker". I took a careful look around. I could not see any guards at the moment, but they could easily be lurking around the back of one of the buildings. I decided to approach the bunker by crawling through the grass. If only I weren't wearing this white blouse!

But nothing happened, and I heard no sound except for owls calling in the woods. The bunker was a small stone shed, overgrown with weeds and ivy, with only two windows, one on each side high up on the walls and far too small for even a child to fit through. The door, a heavy block of steel, was held shut only by the curved bar of a padlock – which, oddly enough, was not attached to the base below. Why would anyone leave it like that? Surely, if one of the Sonozakis wished to leave the door open (and this seemed unlikely in itself) they would have removed the padlock entirely. So, it was most likely that the lock had either been picked or wrenched open –

Tomitake? Had he been here?

I removed the padlock and went inside. This was the entrance to the tunnels, sure enough! The shed contained a number of shelves, mostly bare; there were a few small items such as a pot of paint and brushes, but I did not pay these much attention. Right in front of me was a large trapdoor, lying open, and below it a flight of stairs leading down. The moonlight trickling through the windows illuminated the upper stairs, but they continued down into utter darkness.

I shuddered. This would not be easy. It wasn't the darkness I minded so much as the thought of descending into that narrow stairwell. I don't cope well with confined spaces like that; I need the open air around me; I need to know that whatever happens, I can still run away if I have to. And yes, I'd known this moment was coming, but that didn't make it any easier. I felt a sense of revulsion rising within me, an urge to just turn and run. But that wouldn't do at all. I had to face this; I hadn't come all this way and got past the entire Sonozaki family just to be defeated by a tunnel!

One step at a time, then. I closed the door behind me and sat on the top stair. Sitting made it easier; the urge to run away was less strong. I lowered myself one step at a time. There, not so difficult after all. The main thing was just to bear in mind that I could escape at any time I chose to.

Once I was below the level of the floor, there was just soil on either side of me, with no walls holding it back. It was dark and moist, and gave the air a pungent smell. This was not like the fresh soil that makes such a rich and pleasant smell when you turn it over; this was old soil that had known years of stagnation and decay. It was getting harder and harder to go on; I had to look back and keep reminding myself that the moon was still watching over me, and that the cool night breeze would be waiting to welcome me when I emerged.

Then, at last, I reached the bottom of the stairs and was down into the tunnel itself: an irregular passage a few metres wide cut into the rock that lay below the soil. I shook my head; I was certainly not going any further. Not now, at least. I had got what I wanted; I was under cover and could stay hidden for the night. If Tomitake had indeed come here, then the tunnels might well be worth exploring; but that would have to wait until tomorrow. It had already been a long enough day.

Having made up my mind, I settled down just around the corner, getting off the stairs just in case anyone should come by and shine a torch down towards me. The rock made for an uncomfortable bed, but I smoothed it out as well as I could, getting rid of any jagged stones, and curled up. This would have to do; I wasn't going to find anywhere better.

But sleep took a long time to find me. I found myself being distracted by the slightest sounds – water dripping somewhere down the tunnel, a soft tapping that might have been the footsteps of some small animal, and, almost inaudible, a kind of groaning whistle that was probably just the movement of air. I wasn't going to start believing in the ghosts and demons Oryou had spoken of, but it was easy enough to see why anyone might come out talking about ghosts after spending any time down here.

Then, suddenly, I heard a cry, as though someone was shrieking out in pain. It was very faint, echoing towards me from a long way down the tunnel. It was repeated, growing fainter and fainter; then it stopped, and I heard running footsteps – I think they were human, but it was hard to tell. These in turn stopped quite suddenly, and there was a long near-silence, made all the more eerie by the continued soft whistling of the air.

I lay very still. I'm not superstitious, but if there was anything in the tunnels, I didn't want to attract its attention. If I just lay here... the sounds had gone, but they still echoed incessantly through my head; or was I hearing them again in reality? It had become impossible to tell. I couldn't move any more, even if I had wanted to. I closed my eyes and tried to forget where I was, telling myself that this was all a bad dream and if I waited until morning, I would wake up in my room in Kyoto again. Perhaps Hinamizawa itself did not exist and was only the creation of a deranged and sadistic mind. I lay still, for there was no purpose in movement; the only way to escape was to let time pass until whoever created this nightmare was kind enough to let me wake up. I huddled up tight and let the rank air swell slowly past me, until the moonlight was blotted out and the cries of the cicadas were nothing more than the memory of a dream from another world.