Hello everyone! Sorry for the long wait, things have been busy. I am now on summer vacation and I am currently attending an internship so my hands and my mind have been full. But I have not forgotten or given up on this story! That will never happen on my watch! Now, continuing where I left, what secrets will be learned by our beloved trio this night? Enjoy! :)
After the Pestilence had passed, Akio found himself in a strange room. It was the same room that Shuu found himself in just over an hour or two earlier, Noboru's Room. It was humid and sticky inside from the hot night air and Akio brushed away a thin veil of sweat from his forehead. Besides the sweat, Akio noticed that despite the heat, he felt a slight tinge of icy cold in the room. In fact, he felt strange, as if he were hollow.
He was sick again from the Pestilence. On the bright side however, the illness was not as bad as it was before and he managed to stand without his knees shaking. The room smelled sickly too. It smelled overpoweringly of mildew and wood rot and it left an invisible lump of disgust in Akio's throat. As he stood up from the moldy tatami matting, something caught Akio's eye.
It was the writing desk. On a blank, old piece of paper was a pair of dust caked black frame spectacles. Akio scrutinized his find. This shrine and town were located in a very rural region of Fukushima and items from the West during the time around the Vengeance were rare and expensive to come by. No doubt Noboru was able to afford them.
Akio wiped away the thick dust from the small lenses with his shirt. Looking into the now decently cleaned lenses made a flashback play in Akio's mind. In the scratchy black and white image, Akio could see the writing desk and the hands of man writing on a piece of paper. He could feel the glasses on the bridge of his nose and they slipped a little and the left hand came up to push them back. Akio focused his sight on what the man was writing.
It looked like a letter and there were several crumpled up balls of paper nearby. In his left hand was another letter. It read:
"Nanami,
Please come here at around midnight. Meet me in the entrance courtyard. I want to talk to you about something. I want to leave this place and be with you and Airi.
Yamato"
Akio then noticed that the letter that the man was writing had the same exact words. He was forging Yamato's handwriting. Noboru made a line in a character slightly crooked. A low sigh permeated from Noboru's lips. He began to apply more ink onto the line.
"No… no… Not good enough. It must be straighter, much more straighter…"
Akio remembered those words from the night before. The voice was familiar too. It was the "Half-Skinned Man" aka Noboru Watanabe's voice. The room that Akio was in was Noboru's. Finally Noboru got the character design to a satisfactory similarity to Yamato's writing.
He continued to copy the letter, this time he added some changes. Instead of the Entrance Courtyard, Noboru wrote that Nanami should come to the shrine's backyard and she should bring someone named Airi with her… The letter was soon complete and Akio could feel a smirk of satisfaction on Noboru's face. He took Yamato's real letter, folded it and dipped into a rice paper lamp that was nearby. When the corner was caught, he placed the flaming letter into his brazier and watched it burn into black, ashen bark.
Noboru blew on the forged letter to dry out the ink before he folded it and placed it in an envelope. The flashback ended and Akio found himself staring back at the glasses. He put them back down on the desk and when his eyes glanced over the desk, he saw a pine green book laying on a green cushion with the Watanabe persimmon symbol on it. This piqued Akio's interest and he picked up the book and he opened it. It was a diary.
"The preparations for the Ceremony are now complete. The Burning Ritual is long passed, the Choosing Ritual is done and now the five new Aku-seijou have been gathered. The Inviting Ritual will be held a week from now. What order will they be sacrificed in this year?"
…
"The Inviting Ritual has revealed the order of who will be sacrificed. Akihiro Yokoyama, Asuka Tamura, Seiji Sakai and Yamato Inoue. Ryoko Kazukabe died during the ritual. She began to falter through the ritual and she had to be killed in order to prevent the evil within her being from escaping. Yamato on the other hand will live on until the 21st of May and during that time he will gather more evil energy and spirits into his body.
He looks like could hold a good deal of evil forces inside of him."
Akio turned a page.
"Masami asked me today why I dislike her brother. I told that I do not but I know that that is a lie. It is true that I do feel some animosity towards him. He survived infancy while my own daughter was stillborn… It's just unfair that I, a humble and loyal servant of this shrine and its traditions could not have a child while my lackadaisical brother could."
Akio frowned. Noboru disliked his nephew because he was jealous that he managed to make it past infancy? Then again, it is tragic to lose a child and with a pregnant wife of his own… Akio shook that thought out of head. He continued reading.
"After Yumi died… Hiroko and I were disconsolate. Nothing could bring the light back into our lives and it was even harder for us when my brother and his wife had Hideo. We went to the Kuze Shrine because rumor had it that if you lose a loved one, you can offer your pain and grief to the priestess there and it can be engraved upon her flesh as an intricate tattoo. To create the Indigo Ink for the priestess's tattoos, the blood of the deceased has to be extracted. Hiroko would not give up our daughter's body for that one part of the ceremony.
I had to be the one to take our infant child's body from her and give her to an attending priestess. I will always remember that empty stare my wife had in her eyes and how her arms just fell to her sides after I took Yumi from her. She kept that look even after those terrifying blind women with needles in their arms extracted our blood for the Red Ink…Besides us, there were hundreds or even thousands of people in line at the shrine and each and every single one of them had a bundle containing the body of their loved ones. Old men and women carrying their soul mates despite their withered frames, men drawing a cart containing the remains of their parents or other family members, mothers carrying their dead offspring… even children themselves carried something like a deceased infant sibling or pet.
In all my years of living, I have never seen such grief and sadness in one place…
Akio became saddened from the lachrymose content of the entry. He had heard of the Kuze Shrine and how up until its mysterious abandonment during the winter of 1872, countless grieving worshipers would head there with the bodies of their dead loved ones. It was all in Kei Amakura's book. There were even some pictures showing antique illustrations of the Snake and Holly Tattoo that were engraved on the priestess. Akio couldn't imagine what it was like to take on the pain and sorrow of the worshipers.
To lighten his melancholy mood, Akio thought of how unsanitary it must have been to be tattooed with ink made from human blood, both living and dead. He smirked a little bit but there was still a lingering feeling of gloom in his heart.
Interested in what else Noboru had written, Akio turned the page.
The ceremony did not work, it was still so hard for us, Hiroko especially. Two years after our child's death, Hiroko volunteered to become an Aku-seija during that year's Ceremony of Cleansing… I protested of course but Hiroko had her way. She wanted to do something positive with her grief and she didn't want to wallow in her sorrow anymore. Agonizingly, the Inviting Ritual chose her to be last.
It was so hard and it was even harder when her Flaying Ritual came around… Having to watch my wife's body being skinned and groped roughly by those foul Guards… I wanted to do away with them after that. I wanted to cut off their arms like the Kuze matron supposedly does to her tattoo artists after they had finished their duties with the Tattooed Priestess. But I didn't… I couldn't let the darkness in my soul become even blacker and deeper than it already was.
I didn't want Hiroko's sacrifice to be in vain. Every morning since then, I stare up at the shrine above my door and I make a silent prayer for both my wife and child…
I hope they are happy wherever they are in spirit…"
Akio could feel his eyes water up a bit. This was so sad… He kept reading to see what else was written there.
"Taisuke has some rather alarming news for me. Being mute he wrote down what he has been seeing in the courtyard for the past few nights. He wrote that the last Aku-seijou, Yamato, has been sneaking out into the courtyard to meet some woman. Taisuke also noted that one of the priests here, Setsuna Kagome, has been acting strangely too... I have ordered Taisuke and the Guards to keep an extra eye on Yamato and Setsuna. I will have to as well since this can have serious consequences if these incidences prove themselves to be true. "
"Setsuna?" Akio thought to himself. "The White and Blue Boy?" Akio remembered that the Rokuro-kubi ghost had called him by that name.
"Whenever I go off to perform my duties to the shrine, I notice that Setsuna seems keep constantly checking his left sleeve. Its like he is afraid that something will fall out. Is he carrying a letter for Yamato to that woman that Taisuke had described?"
…..
"My suspicions were correct, Setsuna is carrying letters for Yamato. Taisuke was a former Guard and he managed to disguise himself and follow Setsuna out of the Shrine and into the village near here. There, Taisuke saw him delivering a letter to the wife of the ryokan owner. I will not stand for this treason! This has gotten worse now because Taisuke has told me that the woman has a child with her…
As much as this pains me… I have no choice. I must enact the Preservation Rite. The Ceremony of Cleansing must continue. I do remembering reading in the ancient annals of this shrine's history that some Ceremonies of Cleansing were successfully carried out with only four or three sacrifices. However those numbers weren't potent enough to ward off evil energy and Yamato is almost ready for his ritual.
It cannot stop here!
Setsuna and I are going to have a very interesting chat when I get my hands on him…"
Akio continued reading, he felt as if he was on edge to know what was going to happen next. Suddenly his mind seemed to sink into a long tunnel. When Akio finally regained himself, he found himself once again in the black and white point of view of someone from to the past. Someone was approaching the sliding doors with the noren above them. A hand reached out and opened the door. Two men were inside the room, Noboru and a lean old man with hard, withered features and had what appeared to be tanned skin dressed in white workman's clothes. A nasty looking sickle laid by his side and it looked stained. Akio could feel the discomfort of the person he was seeing through.
"You have come Setsuna. Please, sit down on the cushion."
Noboru's voice calmed Setsuna down and he sat albeit hesitantly by the creepy old man and his sickle. After he had been seated, Akio could see that Noboru was studying Setsuna with inquisitive eyes. Feeling anxious, Setsuna looked around and he saw that the old man had not budged an inch and was still looking off into space. He noticed that Setsuna was looking at him and he suddenly swiveled his around to stare at him and he cringed and looked down on his folded knees. After about a half minute of uncomfortable silence, Noboru spoke again.
"Setsuna Kagome, do you know why you here?"
Setsuna nervously spoke. He probably felt nervous about being addressed by his full name. It was just like being called up by an angry teacher or parent and it made Akio kind of wince at some certain unpleasant childhood memories…
"Because you wanted to talk with me about something?"
Noboru nodded.
"Very good, do you know what I wish to speak with you about?"
Setsuna tensed a little and he pursed his lips for an answer.
"Umm… Is it about me forgetting to sweep off the pollen and seeds from the kagura stage near the shrine?"
Noboru frowned. He hadn't expected that answer.
"No… not that. Setsuna, this is about those letters that you have been delivering to that ryokan in the village near here."
Setsuna froze and he immediately tensed up. Akio could feel the young man's heart racing at an incredible rate. The young man began to stutter uncontrollably.
"I-I-I d-d-d-don't know what your talking about…"
Suddenly though some unseen gesture, the old man suddenly lunged behind Setsuna and he restrained him. To keep him from struggling too hard, the sickle was brought to the young man's throat. Noboru moved from behind his writing desk and he grabbed Setsuna's left sleeve and he began to root around in it. Noboru soon pulled out an envelope with a triumphant smirk. He opened it, put his glasses on and began reading it as Setsuna's heart began to sink.
After reading the letter, Noboru took off his glasses and he glared at Setsuna.
"How long have you been helping Yamato stay in contact with this woman?"
"J-just for a few weeks now… s-s-since the hanami festival… They are his wife and daughter. They survived that flood two years ago…"
Noboru's eyes became even harder.
"Why did you betray this shrine? Why did you expose Yamato to outsiders? Even if they are his long lost family, you know that he is not allowed to be in contact with people outside this shrine… so why would you do this?"
"Because… I just wanted to help…"
The vision began to falter a bit.
"Do you have any idea what kind of consequences you may have brought upon us because of your treachery?!" Noboru said in a voice that seethed with anger and disappointment.
"Y-yes…" Setsuna whimpered. "The Vengeance…"
"Then why would you do this whilst you knew full well about this risk? You now know what must happen now don't you?"
Akio could feel confusion welling up in Setsuna.
"What?"
"The Preservation Rite must now be performed, and you," Noboru pointed towards Setsuna. "are going to help."
"No!" Setsuna screamed. Darkness began to burn through the vision. As it faded away, the voices of Noboru and Setsuna lingered on.
"Yes… You are going to help Setsuna. This will be your atonement. You will be helping Yamato perform his duty by eliminating the two people who are a threat to him. That woman and her child…"
The vision faded away and along with it, the disappearing sound of Setsuna weeping… Akio came back to his senses. He felt sick. How could anyone be so cold? So cold as to order the deaths of a woman and her young daughter as if it were nothing?
Akio looked down on the journal. It was on a different page that contained only one sentence.
"It has been done."
The Preservation Rite. The ritual used to execute those who dared to threaten Watanabe Shrine's rituals and secrets… Akio turned the page.
"Setsuna killed himself last night. His body was found this morning in one of the kura (storage house) in the Temple Courtyard. He had hanged himself. He has redeemed himself through death… Strangely enough, I believe he hung himself with the rope that was confiscated from Asuka when she first came here…"
Akio recalled the words that the Rokurokubi had said. "Traitor" and "hanged yourself", it all came together. Setsuna wanted to help his friend by reuniting him with his wife and daughter. Noboru found out however and he had them killed to protect the Ceremony of Cleansing. Setsuna became depressed because he had to help kill them and he committed suicide out of guilt.
Somehow Yamato found out and he later became the Skinless Man… As Akio figured this all out, he looked down on the diary again. He turned the page and he found the last entry.
"The last Flaying Ritual for the Ceremony will be held tonight. Uncle Hachirou will not be joining us tonight. I can't blame him, his knees have plaguing him with great pain lately and I don't won't him to tax them further. Despite all that has happened recently with the Preservation Rite and Setsuna's suicide, I believe it will all work out in the end. Yamato has had a lot of evil energy to absorb and the purifying flames of his pyre shall destroy it all after he has been skinned. He will see his family again in the end.
The Preservation Rite did them all a favor…"
Akio felt even sicker than before. How could Noboru be so callous? Not seeing anything else of value in the room, he got up to leave. Just as he put his hand on the sliding door, a voice called out.
"Under the Gaze of Mother and Child. Reveal the Sacred Letter. Your Reward shall be a Memento of Lost Days."
Akio looked around for the source of the voice but he could not sense it anywhere. He looked up at the bottom of the altar and he saw what appeared to be a go board carved into it the wood. From under some of the clustered pieces, Akio could see the black splotches of a kanji character under them. A wavering aura covered the bottom of the altar along with a piercing, resonating noise. Akio took a picture with his Camera.
The results showed the kanji character for fire. It was a symbol that was burned into the hillsides of Kyoto during the Obon festival, a celebration meant to pay respect to the souls of the deceased. Doing his best to remember the rules of Go from playing with his grandmother, Akio began to move the pieces. After some major brainstorming, he final got the pieces moved away and he saw the letter. In the middle of the symbol was a square shaped hole and a key fell out. It was a brass key with an engraved persimmon symbol and a lock of hair tied to it with red string.
It was strange at first but then it became endearing when Akio came to the conclusion that the hair had belonged to Noboru's Aku-seija wife, Hiroko.
Just then a cold feeling overcame Akio and a huge chill went up his spine. He looked away from the key in his hand and he saw in the far corner of the room the spirit of Noboru Watanabe. His head was down and he spoke very menacingly.
"How dare you…."
He began to raise his head. Blood began to stain his left side…
"Give me back that key. How dare you take what is precious to me!"
His skinned face was revealed. The Half-Skinned Man then charged Akio with a rage-fueled roar. The charge was too fast for Akio to do anything about it and he was immediately struck full force by the mutilated spirit. Noboru's angry eyes glared at Akio directly in his face and even when he turned away, Akio could still feel that look upon him. Noboru spoke and his foul breath irritated his victim's nose.
"Give. Me. Back. My. KEY…!"
After a brief struggle, Akio finally shook off Noboru's enraged spirit. The phantom collected himself and he glared angrily at Akio. Just like before, Noboru raised his head up along with his arms and soon a pool of blood began to form beneath his feet. The pool grew into a pond that covered the entire floor of the bedroom. The sanguine liquid poured down the raised floor and it soon lapped against Akio's shoes and the shut sliding door.
"Dammit not again!" Akio shouted as he danced around anxiously in the blood. Noboru's "covered" half smirked menacingly at Akio and he raised his left hand. A sphere of blood rose from the red pond and Noboru threw it at Akio, who was unable to deflect it with his Camera Obscura because he distracted with the blood beneath his feet. The sphere struck Akio in the face, drenching him in blood.
"Ohhh God…" Akio gasped as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes. Besides grossing him out, the blood also seemed to have an acidic quality to it since it started to burn his skin. It was like the blood was trying flay Akio's face. Noboru began to summon three more orbs and he sent them flying towards his opponent however Akio managed to destroy them with his Camera Obscura. Noboru wasn't finished however.
After the blood spheres were destroyed, the enraged, mutilated spirit lunged at Akio. His hands wrapped around Akio's throat and he began to squeeze, black flames of Pestilence began to cover his arms. Akio began to choke under the icy grasp and from the pain caused by the Pestilence. A faint feeling of sickness grew stronger as the angry spirit held on to Akio's throat. He had to escape this before his strange "illness" got worse.
Summoning his inner reserves of strength, Akio managed to throw off the ghost and just half a minute later, took a picture of the spirit. It was a fully charged blast and it knocked Noboru back. Two Shutter Chances appeared and Akio eagerly took them. These did astronomical damage to the ghost however Noboru wasn't done yet. Noboru disappeared into the blood pond and with it, his presence which Akio could no longer sense.
Akio pranced around the blood nervously anticipating an attack from any direction. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps began to form on his skin. Acting on his senses, Akio quickly turned around only to come face to face with Noboru's spirit. He had lunged out from the blood and he tried to attack Akio. But Noboru's ambush was for nothing.
Akio had his Camera up to his face as he spun around and he got a shot just as Noboru's hands were at his neck. This was the "killing" blow. Noboru was pushed back against the wall, his hands brandishing his mutilated face, his eyes blinded by the flash. His moaning faded off into space as he vanished. Before Akio could completely relax, the dead man's voice echoed through the small room.
"I did what was right… Hiroko and Yumi would understand…"
Even in death, Noboru held on to the notion that the murder of an innocent woman and her young daughter was a necessary and unavoidable event. With the Memento Key in his hand, Akio felt that he had accomplished something at least. His sickness however was becoming reinvigorated and he started to feel some nausea.
"What is happening to me?" Akio asked himself.
A series of loud screams brought Akio's attention towards the door. The screaming sounded like it came from far across the hall and, like it came from Sumiko and Shuu…
Meanwhile...
"Mom!" Sumiko screamed after the retreating spirit of her mother. The ghost kept going on its usual pace, Megumi didn't even acknowledge her daughter. Sumiko managed to catch up close enough for her to reach her mother's shoulder.
"Rina… I mean mom…" Sumiko said.
Shuu just stood there confused. Sumiko's mother's name was Megumi. Why did she call her Rina? The spirit just stood there for a minute before she finally spoke.
"Sumiko…"
"Yeah mom?"
The woman turned around. Instead of the face that the two were expecting to see, they saw nothing; just smooth skin that had no eyes, nose or even a mouth. It was a Noppera-bo, a faceless spirit that took on human forms to play tricks on people. Sumiko and Shuu cried out in shock. The former backed away in fright as the ghost started to laugh. It was a mocking, cruel laugh.
Shuu couldn't believe what he was seeing. Sumiko on the other hand, began to turn red with rage after her shock had passed. She balled her hands into fist and she sauntered over towards Shuu and she ripped his Spirit Stone Flashlight out from his hand.
"Hey!" he exclaimed but Sumiko was too enraged to care. Despite having a Camera Obscura, she took the Flashlight since it was quicker to reload. She shined the light on the laughing spirit. Its chortling turned to shrieks of pain. Sumiko wasn't satisfied with this, she kept blasting the spirit with the holy light.
"Take this you rotten little son of a bitch!" she shouted.
With each powerful blast, the more energy was used in the Flashlight. The Noppera-Bo put its arms up to its face in order to protect itself but it was futile. Shuu ran over and tried to wrestle the Flashlight from Sumiko's hand.
"Let me go Shuu!" she shouted at him. She struggled but Shuu managed to get the Flashlight from her.
"What the hell!" she shouted.
"Sumiko! That's enough! You've killed it!"
Sumiko looked and she saw that the spirit was indeed gone. With her feelings going haywire, Sumiko leaned against the wall to calm down.
"Sorry Shuu… Its just… this place and… seeing her…"
She held her forehead in her hand. Shuu saw an opportunity and he asked his question.
"Sumiko… why did you call your mom Rina? Isn't her name Megumi?"
Sumiko pressed her thumb and index finger into her forehead and sighed.
"My mom's name isn't Megumi, its actually Rina. She is the sister of the girl who was part of the Watanabe Three, you know, those three teenagers that went missing here in 1984? She was related to Ayumi Oshiro."
Shuu was aghast at this revelation. His mind became a storm of disbelief and questions. Was that why Ms. Yamada has white hair? She was the girl who went insane from witnessing the deaths of her friends? From encountering the Skinless Man as a young woman? Why she was so thin?
Why mostly everyone in town secretly called her the "crazy lady?"
Before he could ask another question, a great gust of wind blew over the two. They both froze at the spot, the color draining from their faces. Sumiko knew exactly who had arrived, Shuu didn't know but he had a good suspicion that it wasn't good… They both turned around to look. And there he was…
The Skinless Man was at the end of the hallway. The black flames of Pestilence raged about his body as the ghost simply stared at the floor. Shuu and Sumiko stammered and shivered where they stood. The Skinless Man looked up, revealing his permanent lipless smile and pitch black eyes. The flames became even more intense and the six black skeletal hands shot out of the flames from his back.
He began to move towards them. In his terror, Shuu tried to shine the light of the Spirit Stone Flashlight on the ghost but nothing happened. The light simply flickered and went out entirely. Sumiko and Shuu screamed then and they took off and ran. The Skinless Man increased his speed and he started to stretch out the skeletal hands out towards them.
Sumiko and Shuu barreled through the door before them and they flew down the hallway where Tetsuo had died twenty-seven years earlier by the Skinless Man's hands. They kept running until they bumped into Akio in the Bronze Atrium. They nearly bulldozed him over as they ran. Akio was shocked by their behavior.
"Shuu, Sumiko what happened?!" He asked.
The couple were both out breath and terrified out of their minds. Before they could answer, wind blew down the corridor where they had just ran out of. A black shadow pulsed within the darkness of the hallway. The full figure of the Skinless Man suddenly dashed through the entrance of the hallway, startling the trio that was gathered there.
"Oh shit!" Shuu shouted.
"Lets get out of here!" Sumiko yelled.
The two bypassed Akio who soon took off after them. With the sounds of their heavy footfalls drumming down on the old wooden floor, the three individuals sprinted towards the exit. Akio tried to catch up but for some reason, his energy was starting to deplete faster than it should. He could feel his legs start to slow down and his breathing became more and more labored. Sumiko and Shuu became nothing more than faint figures in the distance as Akio began to slow down.
He tried to summon any reserves of stamina he had left but there was nothing. He stopped to catch his breath when a bony hand grabbed his head. It began to pull him back and Akio didn't even have the strength to resist. Akio soon found himself face to face with the Skinless Man. It was a frightening sight.
Being up close with Yamato's spirit caused Akio's body to break out into terrible shakes. Yamato grabbed Akio's throat as the skeletal hand let go of him. Pestilence began to appear into Akio's peripheral vision and soon his nerves were seized by a great burning pain. The pain spread throughout his body and into his very soul, his sixth sense wreaked havoc on his psyche and Akio began to scream. Poor Tetsuo Mori, along with Ayumi Oshiro and Daiki Ishikawa, suffered this fate almost thirty years earlier and it appeared that Akio was due to go through the same thing.
Unlike Tetsuo however, Akio couldn't even struggle despite his futile situation. As the fire grew even more intense, the voice of a small child called out.
"Daddy…"
The Pestilence mercifully stopped raging and Yamato dropped Akio to the floor. As Akio struggled to breathe, he looked towards the direction of the voice. There he saw the same little girl who was with Setsuna's spirit in the Aku-seijou graveyard earlier. She looked sadly up to the Skinless Man, the ghost of her sacrificed father… From where he laid, Akio watched a seemingly tender event unfold.
The Skinless Man walked gently over towards his child. He held out his hand to her. The little girl, Airi, shied away in fear causing a despairing demeanor to come over the terrifying phantom. A whisper so gentle that Akio almost didn't hear it echoed through the still air.
"Airi…"
It came from the Skinless Man. Just as soon as he said that, another ghost appeared. It was a woman in a dark green kimono appeared. Her hair was in a ponytail and in disarray and her skin was gray and sickly. She leaned towards Airi but the girl shrieked and disappeared.
The female ghost let out a grief stricken moan at the site of her child vanishing. She turned to see the Skinless Man and Akio finally saw her face. It was the woman he saw in that flashback in the Priest Dormitory. She was the ghost that attacked Hideki Asou back in 1907. She had those same white eyes and that paper talisman taped to her mouth.
As soon as she saw Yamato's spirit, the woman let out a muffled yelp of fear and she disappeared into the darkness. Yamato's being began to quake with sadness and then… fury. The flames grew even more intense and finally, Yamato let out a roar of rage. The whole area became a scratchy monochrome dark gray, the flames surrounding Yamato were now an inferno and the six skeletal hands were now larger and their phalanges were were more claw-like. The wrathful spirit turned his attention to Akio once more.
Akio felt like he was done for and a feeling of complete helplessness came over him. Suddenly he felt two pairs of hands grab his arms and wrap around his torso. It was Sumiko and Shuu, they came back for him. After hastily straddling his arms over their shoulders, the two youths did their best to run while carrying Akio. The Skinless Man gave chase. The hallway the three were running in now had become a living nightmare.
Black flames of Pestilence were raging on the ceiling, walls and on the floor. The monochrome air made the place feel like a dark prison with its evil energy. Was this what Watanabe Shirne was like during the Vengeance on May 21, 1855? A black, bony hand shot out to try and grab Sumiko and it missed her by mere inches. She felt the cold air from the hand but she steeled herself to not look behind her, only on the exit that was coming up ahead.
Holding on to Akio's wrists tighter, Sumko and Shuu sprinted as best they could to the exit. Even after dashing out of the Entrance Foyer, the two found that the monochrome air and Pestilence were outside as well. The black flames were afflicting the trees, walls, stone lamps and raked gravel ground. Knowing that the Skinless Man wasn't too far behind them, Sumiko and Shuu ran down the stone road as fast they could. They burst through the gate, ran down the mossy stone stairs and through the forest, leaving behind the horror that had tried to kill them.
So what do you guys think? Rina Oshiro is Sumiko Yamada's mother! That was a plot twist that I have been saving for awhile. I will describe everything in the next chapter. Taisuke is also the Gardener ghost from the second chapter when Sumiko is introduced. What do you guys think of Noboru? Is he truly an evil man or just a product of what he has been exposed to during his lifetime? Stay tuned for more scary events, ghosts and yokai!
Just only a few more chapters to go...
Thank you for reading and please review! :)