Irusu (A BNHA x IT AU)

by Seroyonin

It started in the winter of 2004, after the death of Midoriya Izuku's little sister Eri, and it would end almost 16 years later, after Kaminari Denki made his six phone calls. After all, they had all promised that they'd come back. (An "IT" AU with *that* part removed) (Cross posted from Ao3) (Every trigger warning imaginable applies- seriously, proceed with caution)

36. Irusu: A History

IRUSU: A HISTORY

The segments below are all drawn from "Irusu: A History" by Kaminari Denki. This is an unpublished set of notes and accompanying fragments of manuscript (which read almost like diary entries) found in the Irusu Public Library vault. The title given is the one written on the cover of the looseleaf binder in which these notes were kept prior to their appearance here. The author, however, refers to the work several times within his own notes as "Irusu: A Look Through Hell's Back Door."
One supposes the thought of popular publication had done more than cross Mr. Kaminari's Mind.

—January 12th, 2020—

I'm not much of a writer, but I have to get these thoughts out somehow, and if I try to talk to anyone about it here I'll be sent up to Juniper Hill in no time flat.

Is it possible for an entire town to be haunted? Like- not just a house in it, or a shop- but the entire thing?

I looked up the definition (I've never been good with that sorta thing, ya know?) and... well, listen:

Haunted - often visited by ghosts and spirits

Haunting - Persistently recurring to the mind; difficult to forget

To Haunt - To appear or recur often, especially as a ghost.

...Typical stuff, right?... Even a dummy like myself should of been able to work that out- but- look-

Haunt (used as a noun) - A feeding place for animals.

Now, this- this one gets me. A feeding place for animals- like the animals that beat up Auyoma Yuga and tossed him over the bridge earlier this month? Or like the animal that was there waiting for him under that bridge?

...A feeding place for animals.

What's feeding in Irusu?

What's feeding on Irusu?

You know, before this Auyoma business, I didn't know it was possible to function while being this terrified.

I know what it is that's feeding on Irusu, you see- not everything, but I know a lot- which is a first... I'm not really known for being the smartest person in the room, you know? Dumb blondes and all that...

...Well, anyway- the knowing didn't just start when I turned on the local news one day last week, heard the description of the grizzly remains of Kamakiri Kaede found in Ukiyo park and thought that the clown that killed Toshinori Eri might be back again. It actually started around 2018- I think that's when some part of me that had been asleep woke up... knowing that it was almost time for It to come back again.
It.

...What exactly had woken me up? Hell if I know- the turtle, maybe? That's what Deku would say...

Part of me- the part Deku would say was the turtle's voice- wants to call all of them tonight. But I can't, I can't because somewhere deep down I know they don't remember everything that happened here- and I also know that it might kill them to find out- and another part of me wonders if I can even be sure Its back again? After all, I don't have much to go on. Why risk their deaths if I'm not absolutely sure?

If It has started again, I will call them. I made the promise to do so back then, an additional promise all my own tacked on to the one we were all making, that I would stay here in Irusu and I would call them to finish what we started if the time ever came.

...The Kamakiri girl was killed the same day as Toshinori Eri fifteen years before...

...But still, I have to be sure.

- Kaminari Denki

—January 15th, 2020—

I do have a life outside of this bullshit, ya know?

During the day I jumpstart engines, change oil, rotate tires... I flirt with my customers (men and women alike, I'm not picky) and more often then not, I end up in bed with them-
However...

At night, after my one-night stands have fallen asleep or I've closed the shop up alone, I write, rip pages out of the local newspaper, go over my recordings of the 5 o'clock news until my eyes are burning- and I wake up every morning drenched in sweat and tears, still in this stupid town, with a fist in my mouth to keep from screaming.

...So, on second thought, maybe I don't have a life outside of this bullshit... huh.

- Kaminari Denki

—January 18th, 2020—

Another one has gone missing.

Another girl, Ojirou Etsu,
she's only four. Her father, Ojirou Mashiroa, went to school with us... he and his family own the Shajima Hotel and Sauna... there's a memorial out by the hot springs for her... she was a cute kid.

They've found another body.

Shoji Hajime- the son of another person we used to go to school with- coincidence? I doubt it. (Nothing in this town is ever just a coincidence.) Shoji Hajime was six years old, and they found him across the street from that damn house on neibolt with both his legs torn off... there's a girl I know at the department that leaks me information in exchange for "favors"... I saw the pictures- they were horrifying.

...I want to call them, but I know it's still too early. It started slowly last time and didn't really get going until the summer of 2005. So... I'll wait, and I'll write in this journal until I'm able to pick up the phone.

But I want to call them.

Desperately.

I'm pretty sure It really is back, now- the thing that was here in 2004 and 2005; the thing that was here in 1989 and in 1990 when the Hitosashi night club was burnt down by "traditionalists"- the thing that was here in 1974 and 1975 and early 1976- at least until the Kanzaki Ironworks exploded; the thing that was here in 1959 and 1960-61. The thing that has shown up every fifteen years or so. Sometimes it comes a little sooner, sometimes a little later... but it always comes. As you go back it gets harder and harder to track and the holes in the history of the area grow bigger. But knowing where to look- and when to look- goes a long way toward solving the problem. It always comes back. It's a cycle.

It is back... I'm almost sure of it now...

Almost.

I'll call them when I'm 100% sure.

-Kaminari Denki

—January 20th, 2020–

This notebook is supposed to be a way to keep me from obsessing over what's happening- there's way more to this story than seven kids, none of them happy, none of them accepted by their peers, who stumbled into a nightmare one summer... Writing was supposed to be a way to see the entire city from a new perspective- to see it as a whole- a place where nearly fifteen-thousand people eat, sleep and occasionally disappear into the dark...

...If I had to name a specific time when this all really started for me again, I'd say it was back in the early spring of 2018- after I went and talked to Nagia Kame, who died last summer at the age of ninety-one, and was the head librarian at the Irusu Public Library from 1939 to 1985.

He'd pointed me to a buddy of his, Sama Ryota, who had owned the ice cream bar when I was a kid- and through the two of them, I was able to piece a couple of things together.

In the year 1696, the land Irusu was settled on was sold to a group of around 300 people who wanted to cultivate it for farmland- these 300 were known as the "Irusu Company". Around 1711, all 300 of these people disappeared without a trace. They were there in June, but come October all the people who lived there, now topping off at around 380, just disappeared.

Flood? Not that year. Disease? No word of it in the surrounding towns. They just disappeared. All of them. All 380 of them. Without a trace.

...And nobody, even the people that live here, seems to know about it. I've asked several life-longer's, and they had no idea that this happened- something consistent with everything off in this town- sure, with more recent things, the locals tend to become aware that somethings going on... but, back in 2005, after all those child deaths... not a single news reporter outside of Irusu's own had a thing to say about it...

...But now that I think about it, most of the information I got back then (and even now) didn't come from any news source- I know they showed the photos of the missing children, and made announcements when their bodies were found but... all the details I learned came from people talking...

A man told me about how his wife had heard voices speaking to her from the drain of her kitchen sink in the three weeks before their daughter died- that was in the winter of 2004-05. The girl he spoke of was one of the early victims in the murder-spree which began with Toshinori Eri.

Mr. Hado also told me that, about two months after his daughter's death, he heard her laughter rising out of the sinks drain while doing the dishes... and that he and his wife had reported this to the police, but nothing came of it. It's not even mentioned in the police reports...

Strange, isn't it?

...Another thing Nagia and Sama agreed on is that things aren't right in Irusu- that things have never been right in Irusu.

I saw Nagia one last time, the month before he would die of throat cancer, and he told me about an old friend of his, Hattori Shin. He had also been researching Irusu's history and ended up committing suicide four months in- of course, I had known he had committed suicide (everyone in town did- again, through the ways of talk) but the police had reported it as a falling accident... While it was true that Hattori had fallen, they failed to mention that it was off of a stool in his closet with a belt tied around his neck.

Nagia told me that he, Sama, Hattori, and most of the other oldies in town knew about the cycle- the same one I discovered- and that Hattori had stumbled across something so horrific in his research that he had taken his own life- had seen that as the only option- because of whatever it was he found during his research on Irusu's history.

Irusu.

My hometown. The place where I was born.

Irusu.

The place where I had gone to school, where I now worked, lived- a town that I could never leave even if I tried (and oh, how I've tried)

But:

But:

In 1821 a group of volunteers found the remains of the building crew that had disappeared 6 months before, buried under snow- in the area now known as the barrens- all nine of them hacked up to pieces.

But:

In 1851 Okubo Yutaka killed his entire family with poison and then, sitting in the middle of the circle he had made with their corpses, he ate an entire "white-nightshade" mushroom. His death agonies must have been intense. The town leader who found him wrote in his report that at first, he believed the corpse was grinning at him; he wrote of "Okubo's awful white smile." The white smile was an entire mouthful of the killer mushroom; Okubo had gone on eating even as the cramps and the excruciating muscle spasms must have been wracking his dying body.

But:

On Culture Day in 1976 the owners of the Kanazaki Ironworks, which stood where the brand new Irusu Mall now stands, was the only place large enough to host the indoor portion of the festival. Cafe's, Art shows, and much more took place in the huge Ironworks building. Dangerous areas were closed off, and employees volunteered their time to stand guard and make sure no adventurous boy or girl decided to duck under the barriers and explore. According to Sama, there were over five hundred children there that day. They ran giggling and whooping and yelling through the Wednesday-silent Ironworks, trying foods, painting, learning dances- Three generations of Kanazaki's were there to watch the riot and to award culture prizes, keep things running smoothly, and a multitude of other things. The prizes, which were to come at four o'clock, were supposed to cap off the end of that day's festivities. The end actually came forty-five minutes early, at quarter past three. That was when the Ironworks exploded. Seventy-two people were pulled dead from the wreckage before the sun went down. The final toll was a hundred and two. Eighty-eight of the dead were children. On the following Sunday, while the town still lay in stunned silent contemplation of the tragedy, a woman found the head of nine-year-old Furuta Nao caught in the limbs of her backyard beech. There was chocolate on the Furuta boy's teeth and blood in his hair. He was the last of the known dead. Eight children and one adult were never accounted for. It was the worst tragedy in Irusu's history, even worse than the fire at the Hitosashi night club in 1990, and it was never explained. All four of the Ironworks boilers were shut down. Not just banked; shut down.

But:

The murder rate in Irusu is six times the size of any other comparable town in Hokkaido. I found this statistic so hard to believe (I've never been good at math, so the idea that I was doing something wrong wasn't that far fetched) that I took it to that friend of mine down at the Irusu Police Department- and it turned out that my math was correct.

Here in Irusu children disappear unexplained and unfound at the rate of forty to sixty a year. Most are teenagers. They are assumed to be runaways. I suppose some of them even are- in fact, I know for a fact some have to be, as Todoroki Shouto (who I know for a fact is alive) had been reported missing in 2009 after running away with his older brother Natsuo- meaning he was living proof that not all of it was sinister circumstances- well, at least not to the same degree as the other missing children's cases.

During what Nagia would undoubtedly call the time of the cycle, the disappearance rate shoots up almost out of sight. In the year 1990- the year the Hitosashi nightclub burnt down- there were 130 missing reports filed- and these were the ones that were actually reported to the police.
In 1975, there were 143 missing children reports. In 1960 there were 127, and so on and so forth.

Here I sit next to my cellphone, hand shaking so badly I can barely write. I could call them now... but... something's still keeping me from it.

...Something's... keeping me from calling my old friends. The Turtle?... It?...

...The Other?...

We went deep together.

We went into the black together.

Would we come out of the black if we went in a second time?

I don't think so.

Please- I don't want to call them.

Please.

- Kaminari Denki.

—February 14th, 2020—

Valentine's Day

Two more disappearances in the past week- both children. Just as I was beginning to relax, too... One of them a girl named Tokoyami Haruhi.

The other was a five-year-old boy who was out sledding at the back of his house- which, disturbingly, once belonged to the Iida's.

Awase Hoshi- that's the poor boy's name... His hysterical mother found his sled, one of those cheap plastic flyers, but nothing else... There had been a fresh fall of snow the night before- four inches or so. No tracks but his own, Chief Ishihara said when I called her. She's becoming extremely annoyed with me, I think. Not the I care- I've become extremely annoyed with her myself. Besides, I have worse things to do than worry about what other's think of me.

I asked her if I could see the police photos. She refused. I asked if I could do her another "Favor" in exchange for a peak at one. She said no again. Sigh. (Is it okay to write "sigh"?... I am anyway)

Asked her if the boy's tracks led toward any sort of drain or sewer grating. This was followed by a long period of silence. Then Ishihara said, "I'm beginning to think you should see a doctor, Denki. Like the type up on Juniper Hill. The kid was snatched by his grandparents. Don't you read the papers?... watch the news?..."

"Was the Tokoyami girl snatched by her grandparents?" I asked

Another long pause.

"Give it a rest, Denki," she said. "Give me a rest."

She hung up.

Of course I read the papers and watched the news- I literally had a TV installed in both my office and work garage so I could watch it 24/7- and on top of that, I bought the paper every morning when I stopped for RedBull and coffee...

The little boy, Awase Hoshi, had been in the custody of his parents- typical, right? Well, the couple had to fight tooth and nail with his mother's parents, who tried to baselessly gain custody of the child- stating that the young couple were unfit to raise their child. The courts ruled in the couples favor, but Hoshi's grandparents tried several times to come and remove the boy from his home- each time unsuccessfully.

The police are operating on the theory that Araya Sakiko and Araya Teruo, (The parents of Araya Suzu who is the mother of Awase Hoshi, and wife of Awase Yosetsu) who both supposedly work and live somewhere in Uwajima, drove up to Hokkaido to snatch their grandson. They further theorize that they parked their car beside the house and called to their grandchild, who then joined them- hence the lack of any tracks other than the little boy's. They have less to say about the fact that the boy had not seen his grandparents since he was two. They had officially cut Awase Suzu's parents out of the picture three years prior with a court ordered restraining order. Ishihara claims the court's decision may have pushed the grandparents into taking their grandson. That at least has some merit, but ask yourself this: would Awase Hoshi have recognized the two of them after three years and run to them when they called?... Ishihara says yes. I don't think so. And his father says Awase Hoshi had been well trained on the matter of not talking or leaving with strangers, a lesson most Irusu children learn early and well. Ishihara says she's got Ehime Prefecture Police looking for the elderly Araya's and that her responsibility ends there.

"Matters of custody are more the province of the lawyers than that of the police," this ignorant, nasally, giraffe-necked, woman said during a press conference last Friday.

...But the Tokoyami girl... that's something else. Wonderful home life. Seven years old, played in the local soccer league, Honor Roll student. Lived on West Broadway, her father the head librarian at Irusu library, her mother an accountant for one of the banks downtown... she was well loved by her classmates and teachers alike... she would have been brilliant.

All the same, she's gone.

What happened to her? A sudden attack of wanderlust? A drunk driver who maybe hit her, killed her, and buried her? Or is she maybe still in Irusu, is she maybe on the nightside of Irusu, keeping company with kids like Asui Tsuyu and Toga Himiko and Jirou Kyoka and all the rest? Is it-

(later)

-I'm doing it again... Going over and over the same ground, doing nothing constructive, only working myself up to the screaming point... I jump when someone slams their car doors to loud. I jump at shadows. I find myself wondering how I'd react if I was working on an engine or changing oil, and a hand reached from between the twisted wires and machinery, a groping hand...

I had the desire to call them again. At one point I even got as far as dialing +92, the Fukuoka area code, with Iida Tenya's number in front of me. Then I just held the phone against my ear, asking myself if I wanted to call them because I was really sure- one hundred percent sure- or simply because I'm now so badly spooked that I can't stand to be alone; that I'm so badly spooked that I have to drown myself in sex, RedBull, and caffeine pills to keep from losing it; that I have to talk to someone who knows (or will know) what it is I am spooked about.

For a moment I could hear Bakugo saying "Why are you acting like such a goddamn pussy, shortstack?" as clearly as if he were standing beside me... and I hung up the phone. Because when you want to see someone as badly as I wanted to see Bakugo Katsuki -or any of them- at that moment, you just can't trust your own motivations... We lie best when we lie to ourselves. The fact is, I'm still not one hundred percent sure. If another body...

...If another body shows up, I will call... but for now I guess that even an ignorant giraffe like Ishihara may be right... Hoshi could have remembered his grandparents; there may have been pictures of them. ...And I guess any really persuasive adult could talk a kid into coming to their car, no matter what that kid had been taught...

But, there's another fear that haunts me. Ishihara suggested that I might be going crazy. I don't believe that, but if I call them now, they may think I'm crazy. Worse than that, what if they don't remember me at all? "Kaminari Denki?... Who? I don't remember any Kaminari Denki. I don't remember you at all... What promise?"

I heard that horrifying fantasy in Roki's voice... Yikes...

He's still very pretty- judging by the photo I found of him accepting an award at the international fashion award ceremony in New York...

...Now I feel like a creep...

Anyway- I feel that there will be a right time to call them... and when that time comes, I'll know that it's right. Their own circuits will open at the same time. It's as if there are two great wheels slowly coming into some sort of powerful convergence with each other, myself and the rest of Irusu on one, and the other members of the loser's club on the other.

When the time comes, they will hear the voice of the Turtle.

...So I'll wait, and sooner or later I'll know. I don't believe it's a question anymore of calling them or not calling them.

Only a question of when.

- Kaminari Denki

—February 20th, 2020—

The fire at the Hitosashi nightclub.

"A perfect example of how the Chamber of Commerce will try to rewrite history, Denki," old Nagia Kame would have told me, probably cackling as he said it. "They'll try, and sometimes they almost succeed... but the old people remember how things really went. They always remember. And sometimes they'll tell you, if you ask them right."

When I was a kid, my mother told me a story. A story about my grandfather, and why he left Irusu.

To keep it short and sweet: he was a train conductor, his brother took over the farm from their father. In 1961, the same year a whole lot of people got chopped up in a bar called the Ureshi Yotte, a year of the cycle, he saw something he couldn't explain: his mother, who had died in 1946, giving birth to my great aunt Kimoto. He'd seen her hovering over my great aunt, who was fourteen at the time, while she was asleep in bed when he came to check on her after a long day of work.

"He swears up and down that it happened." My mother told me. "Auntie Kimoto thinks he's full of it... that he was just tired that day- she never woke up, you see... not until dad screamed..."

"Do you believe grandpa?" I asked her.

"...I do." She said, but she hesitated, and there was a look in her eyes that I caught- even as a child- that made me frown. "His story is consistent... even the description of his mother... long blonde hair, blue eyes, but the whites were yellow... she was wearing a silver nightgown with orange puffs on the sleeves, and there was blood-"

"-Blood?" I asked her.

She flushed then, as a child I didn't know why, but I do now. She refused to elaborate on where the blood was coming from... but I'm sure you can harbor a guess.

...It was right around 2004 that my mother told me that story. I asked her if that was the reason grandpa left Irusu, and if she truly believed he saw something, why she had come back.

"Well, Denki... I was curious." She said simply, but that look was back again, "... it was almost like the town itself was calling me..."

She sighed and shifted in her chair, a small woman with chin-length blonde hair in a sky-blue tank-top and homemade jean shorts. At that time we had one of the bigger farms in Irusu, and probably the best roadside produce stand north of Sapporo. The three of us- Sero Hanta, being our third- worked hard to keep that farm going.

She said: "I moved here because something called me here... a voice- not my own... it sounds silly but it's true... it told me this was where I was supposed to be."

"...In a way it was that fire that thrust me into adulthood. There were sixty people killed in that fire, I probably would of been the sixty-first, your aunts the sixty-second and sixty/third, if it weren't for Aizawa Shouta... and he was only a boy then too..." she paused then, looking wistfully across the kitchen, lost in a memory as her hands fiddled with her key chain. "I knew eighteen of the people who died that night personally."

"...It was a gay night club... not everyone that went there was gay, of course... women that just wanted to have fun without being hit on, people with friends or family in the LGBT community that didn't want to be harassed... I was there with your aunts Miho and Ko..." She paused again, and took a deep drink of water "Igarashi Kimi... Baba Yuko... Shoda Hotaka... Ohara Takashi... Kawai Yasuhiro... Kase Chika... all my friends, all dead in that fire. And that fire wasn't set by The Satoru gang... It was set by a group of people from Irusu that called themselves "Traditionalists." Some of the kids you go to school with, Denki, their parents struck the matches that lit the Hitosashi on fire. And I'm not talking about the poor kids, neither."

"Why, Mom? Why did they?"

"...Well, part of it was just Irusu," my mother said, frowning. She swung her keychain around her index finger. "I don't know why it happened here; I can't explain it, but at the same time Im not surprised by it... Irusu is just..." she sighed, "...Things get out of hand, you see. The way things seem to do in this town, sometimes."

She paused, catching the keys in her palm.

"It's like those "traditionalists"were just a seed, Denki, and it found some earth that nourished it well here. It was a regular rich-people club. And after the fire, they all just lied each other up and it was papered over." Now there was a kind of vicious contempt in her voice that scared me. "After all... who got killed? No one but a bunch of dykes and fags... and a bunch of dyke and fag lover's, right? Who cares?"

"Mom-"

"-It's getting to be your bedtime, Denki," She said, ruffling my hair with her small, work-hard hand. "I just want to tell you one thing more, and I don't think you'll understand it, because I'm not sure I understand it myself... What happened that night at the Hitosashi, bad as it was... I don't really think it happened because it was a gay nightclub... Not even because the Hitosashi was close behind West Broadway, where the rich in Irusu live. I don't think the "traditionalists" in Irusu got so fired up that night because their backwards thinking just happened to reach its boiling point. I think it's because of the soil. It seems that bad things, hurtful things, do well in the soil of this town. I've thought so again and again over the years. I don't know why... but I think that's it."

"...But there are good people here too, and there were good people here then. When the funerals were held afterward, thousands of people turned out. Businesses closed up for most of a week. The hospitals treated the hurt ones free of charge. There were food baskets and letters of condolence that were honestly meant. And there were helping hands held out... good people are everywhere, Denki... even in this town..."

"...Your aunt Ko ended up going home two weeks later. I stayed. I met your father in Ukiyo Park while walking my dog... we married at his parents home two years later, and two years after that you were born, and four years later your father and I grew apart and he skipped town... But Irusu never changed. There hasn't been anything as bad as the Hitosashi since I've been here... but there's been little incidents... a kid will run away, a couple will go down for child abuse, drug trafficking... little incidents."

"I want to hear about the fire." I said, "Tell me about the fire."

And she looked at me in that frowning way that always shut me up... maybe because she didn't look that way often. Usually she was very smiley and filled with sunshine. "That's not a story for a kid," she said. "Another time, Denki. When we've both walked around a few more years."

As it turned out, we both walked around another eleven years before I heard the story of what happened at the Hitosashi that night. She told me over the phone, now living right down the street from Aunt Ko... miles and miles away from the town-turned-city that had called out to her all those years ago.

I'm certain now, that that voice- wether it be the Turtle or the Other- called my mother here to Irusu so I could take my place in the circle in the Barrens that August evening... more than certain, even... whatever that means.

- Kaminari Denki

—February 26th, 2020—

It's been days since I sat down to write the story of the fire at the Hitosashi as my mother told it to me, and I haven't gotten to it yet... because I'm "a fucking loser coward." As Bakugo Katsuki would say.

Now it's ten o'clock, the shop closed an hour ago, and an old geezer is ranting at me through the door because we're closed and I won't start on his car until morning. I can hear rain striking the windows in here and I can see it splatting against the large skylights above me. I can hear other sounds, too- stealthy creaks and bumps outside the circle of light where I sit, writing on the lined pages of loose leaf. Just the sounds of the building settling, I tell myself... but I wonder. I wonder if somewhere out in this storm there is a clown selling balloons tonight.

Well... never mind. I think I've finally found my way to my mother's story. I heard it four years ago, over an unstable phone connection, during a raging storm- because my life is a horror movie, as I've discussed.

It was getting harder and harder to think of things to talk about with her- things that were appropriate to tell my mother, anyway. I hadn't had a long term relationship since my girlfriend right after high school- the one who I got the botched vasectomy for- and I didn't really feel like telling my mom that I had a new person in my bed three to four times a week because sex was/still is the only thing that keeps me from going crazy- that clown... or Hanta's heads... or Katsuki's werewolf... Ejirou's leper... my bird... they were constantly running around in my mind. If I wasn't having sex, I was hopped up on caffeine pills and RedBull- sometimes even alcohol if the day was bad enough... anything to keep the memories and nightmares at bay...

It was during one of those interminable, scary pauses where I scrambled for shit to say, that I asked her again about the fire at the Hitosashi. She was wine drunk. I asked her about the Hitosashi for no real reason; it had just jumped into my mind.

She paused, and began to laugh a little. "You never forgot that, have you, Denki?"

"No," I said, and although I hadn't thought about it in eleven years or so, I added what she sometimes said: "It hasn't ever escaped my mind."

"Well, I'll tell you now," she said. "You're an adult now... Geez... twenty-three years old... Besides, you ought to know. I think something like it could only have happened in Irusu, and you need to know that, too. So you can beware. The conditions for such things have always seemed right there... You're careful, aren't you, Denki?..."

"I am," I said.

"Good," she said, and the phone cut out for just a moment. "-at's good."

"...When I first moved to Irusu in 1990, I was eighteen years old." She said, "...there was a nightclub up on the hill, where the new High School is now. The Club was only a hut, really... but they had fixed it up- vinyl flooring, booths along the walls, speakers- and you could get soft drinks on the weekend... They would have bands in most Saturday nights, and there was a rumor that they'd sell stronger stuff under the counter for a price... weed, ecstasy, acid, even heroin... Me and your aunts can tell you, it wasn't just a rumor... heh... your aunt Ko and I... we really were stereotypes I guess- blonde, twins, party-girls..." she paused then, seeming to reminisce, before continuing "...well anyway, it became a pretty popular hang out for those of us who labeled ourselves as "different"... alternatives, runaways, and, of course, LGBT folk."

As I've told you, she was wine drunk. I don't think she would have said any of that stuff if she hadn't been... wether I was twenty-three or forty-five.

"Well, it wasn't very long before a representative of the Town Council showed up, wanting to see Chief Goro. He said he wanted to talk about "some problems between the townspeople and some of the bar patrons" and "concerns of the electorate" and "questions of propriety," but what he really wanted Goro to know was as clear as a windowpane. They didn't want any "fags and dykes" in their club, bothering "normals" and doing their drugs- at a bar where only "normals"- fuck, I hate that... "normals"... anyway, they didn't like that we were there."

"...All of which was a laugh, alright. The "normals" they were so worried about being corrupted and harassed were- well- all I can say is that I never saw a member of the Irusu Town Council down in the Ureshi Yotte, or where we were, the Mitsuzō Sake. The men and women who drank in those dives were barbags and pulp-cutters, scars and scabs all over their hands, some of 'em missing eyes or fingers, all of 'em missing most of their teeth, all of them smelling like woodchips and sawdust and sap. They wore green gumrubber boots and tracked snow across the floor until it was black with it. They smelled big, Denki, and they walked big, and they talked big. They were big. I was in the ice cream bar one night when I saw one of them split his shirt right down one arm while he was armrassling this other guy. It didn't just rip- you probably think that's what I mean, but it isn't. The arm of that man's shirt damn near exploded- sort of blew off his arm, in rags. And everybody cheered and applauded and he turned to me, winked, and said "Like that one, sweetheart? 'Cause I can do it again."

"...What I'm trying to get across with you is that if the men who used those bars on Friday and Saturday nights when they come out of the woods to drink whiskey and fuck women instead of knotholes greased up with lard, if those men hadn't wanted us there, they would have thrown us out on our asses. But the fact of it was, Denki, they didn't seem to give much of a shit one way or the other."

"One of them took me aside one night- he was six foot five, which was damn big- especially compared to how small I am, and he was dead drunk, and he smelled as bad as a basket of month-old peaches. If he'd stepped out of his clothes, I think they would have stood up alone. He looks at me and says, "Sweetheart, imma ask you something- are you the dyke?"

"No," I said, and I was already getting red in the face- I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, Denki- I was ready to defend your aunt Ko to hell and back, wether that meant getting the mess beat out of me by a guy a foot taller than I was or not."

"He just laughs- and I swear the whole bar shook with it- and he goes "Too bad, I need to give her her jacket back, she left it here last week." And sure enough, this mountain of a man holds up Ko's jacket- it looked child-sized in his bear hands but it was hers... I just blinked at him, and he laughed again."

"Then he turns back to the bar and yells "Oi! I need two beers! One for me and one for the lady!" And they're all laughing back and forth, and inviting me to sit... but not in a mean or degrading way, Denki... just as if I were one of them."

"So he gets the beers and gives me mine and he says, "What's your name? I don't want to call you 'The Dyke's sister'- doesn't sound right."

"Kaminari Kaori," I say. And it's clear that his use of "dyke" was just him using outdated terminology- why, I wouldn't be surprised if the man had never heard the word "Lesbian" in his entire life."

"Well, here's to you, Kaminari Kaori," he says.

"No, here's to you," I say. "You're the first person to not treat me like shit when they find out about my sister- well, the first one that isn't like her themself." Which was true."

She took a sip of wine and then went on.

"Anyway, it wasn't the straight women who stayed in the bars, and it wasn't the lumberjacks that made up their main demographic who wanted us out. It was those five old men on the Town Council who were really offended, them and the dozen or so men that stood behind them- Irusu's old line, you know. None of them had ever stepped a foot inside of either of those bars, they did their boozing at the country club which then stood over on Irusu Heights, but they wanted to make sure that none of those barbags or peavey-swingers got polluted by the gays."

"So Chief Goro says, "I'm not going on a crusade. How am I even supposed to tell who's who? Should I kick out everyone in the bar and ban them for life? Even the straights?"

"That's not my problem," this weird fuck tells him. Mineta, I think his name was-"

"-Mineta Minoru's father?" I asked, startled. Mineta Minoru had been in the same high-school class as me in first year.

My mom sighed. "No, this would have been his uncle. His dad was off in college somewhere then. But if he'd been in Irusu, he would have been there, I guess, standing with his brother."

"I don't care how you find out who is who." Mineta goes: "My problem is where you're letting them go on Friday and Saturday nights. If they go on whooping it up downtown, there's going to be trouble. We've got the Legion in this town, you know."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you." Goro shrugs, "I can't look at people and just- know their sexual orientation."

"That's not my problem either. I simply trust you will take care of the matter. Responsibility accompanies rank." And off he goes."

"Well, after enough whining and bitching, Goro solved the problem. Where Eagle Beef is now, that was where the Hitosashi stood."

"It was just an old requisition shed in early 1990, when all of this happened, but Chief Goro mustered in Ko and a few other's and told them that it was gonna be "their place." Then he added, like it was nothing, that the pubs downtown were off-limits to them- for their own safety, of course." I could hear her rolling her eyes through the phone, it made me smile a little.

"There was a lot of bitterness about it, but what could anyone do? We had no real power. This girl, Igarashi Kimi, short order cook, suggested we could fix it up real nice... So we did. We really tried. And we made out pretty well, all things considered. The first time a bunch of us went in there to look it over, we were pretty depressed. It was dark and smelly, full of old tools and boxes of papers that had gone moldy. There was only two little windows and no lectricity. The floor was dirt. Baba Yuko laughed in a kind of bitter way, I remember that, and said, "What a generous little fucking town."

"Shoda was who got us going, though... Shoda... Ko and Kimi and me. I guess the universe will forgive us for what we did, though- cause it knows we had no idea how it would turn out... After awhile the rest of the fellows pitched in. With most of Irusu off-limits, there wasn't much else we could do. We hammered and nailed and cleaned. Ohara Takashi was a pretty good jackleg carpenter, and he showed us how to cut some more windows along the side, and if Kawai Yasuhiro hadn't come up with panes of glass for them that were different colors- sort of a cross between carnival glass and the sort you see in church windows... well... I don't think it would have ever started looking like a real club."

"Where'd you get this?" I asked him. Kawai was the oldest of us; he was about forty-two, old enough so that most of us called him dad."

"He stuck a Camel in his mouth and tipped me a wink. "Midnight Requisitions," he says, and would say no more."

"So the place came along pretty good, and by the middle of the summer we were using it. Kase Chika and some of the others had partitioned off the back quarter of the building and got a little kitchen set up in there, not much more than a grill and a couple of deep-fryers, so that you could get a hamburger and some french fries, if you wanted. There was a bar on one side. The floor was made of rotting planks, but we kept it oiled down nice. Kimi and Kawai ran an electric line- more Midnight Requisitions, I imagine. By July, you could go in there any Saturday night and sit down and have a cola and a hamburger. It was nice. It never really got finished- we were still working on it when the fire burned it down. It got to be a kind of hobby... or a way of thumbing our noses at the Town Council. But I guess we knew it was ours when Ko and I put up a sign one Friday night that said THE HITOSASHI."

"...It got looking nice enough that the Council started to grumble about it... We were young, except for Kawai, but we weren't entirely foolish. We knew why the "Traditionalists" were grumbling... We had what we wanted, and that was enough- we weren't causing a stir, wanting more... And then... something happened." She fell silent, frowning.

"What was that, Mom?"

"...We... found out that we had a pretty decent classic-rock band among us," she said slowly. "Kimi played drums. Baba Yuko played guitar. Kawai was on keyboard. He wasn't great, but he wasn't terrible, either. Chika sang... they were never really great, mind you, but... there was something about their music that drew people in- it was... different. It even drew people in from town... and, well, that was when we started to get less careful."

"It was Saturday night and the joint was jumping, going round and round. There might have been two hundred people there, maybe three. And here came these "traditionalists", six or eight at first, and more coining through the trees behind the fancy houses on West Broadway. They weren't young, not many of them, and sometimes I wonder how many cases of angina and bleeding ulcers there were the next day. I hope there was a lot. Those dirty sneaking murdering bastards-" she paused, seeming to need to calm down before continuing.

"...They parked on the hill and flashed their cars lights twice. Some had those two-gallon tins of gasoline... All of them had matches. One of them stayed behind the wheel of that car- a white Toyota. Mineta had a Toyota, you know. Yes he did. A white one."

"...They got together at the back of the Hitosashi and doused the dry grass surrounding the club in gasoline. Maybe they only meant to scare us. I've heard it the other way, but I've heard it that way, too. I'd rather believe that's how they meant it, anyway..."

"It could have been that gas splashed on some of their clothes so when they lit them, those holding the matches panicked and threw them any whichway just to get rid of them. Whatever, that black November night was suddenly blazing with torches. Some of them were screaming in horror. Some of them were laughing. But like I said, some of the others up and threw them through the back windows, into what was our kitchen. It only took a second for the grease to catch fire, and only a few seconds after that for the grass outside to catch and start clawing at the back wall."

"The band was playing loud- louder than they ever had before... that's what I meant about us getting less careful... Everybody was whooping it up and having a good time. Nobody inside knew anything was wrong until Shoda Hotaka, who was playing assistant cook that night, opened the door to the kitchen and damn near got blowtorched. Flames shot out ten feet and burned his jacket right off. Burned most of his hair off as well."

"I was sitting about halfway down the east wall with Ko and Miho when it happened, and at first I thought the stove had exploded. I'd no more than got on my feet when I was knocked down by people headed for the door. About two dozen of them went racing right up my back, and I guess that was the only time during the whole thing when I really felt scared. I could hear people screaming and telling each other they had to get out, the place was on fire. But every time I tried to get up, someone footed me right back down again. Someone landed his big shoe square on the back of my head and I saw stars. My nose mashed on the floor and I snuffled up dirt and began to cough and sneeze at the same time. Someone else stepped on the small of my back. I felt a lady's high heel slam down on my hand, crushing it... that's what the scar on my left hand is- the one I always used to tell you came from the time the old truck backfired on the farm..."

"...I damn near died in that stampede. I was whopped, whapped, stomped, walked on, and kicked in so many places I couldn't walk until the next day. I was screaming and no one seemed to hear me... it was Ko and Miho who saved me. Their hands yanked me up by the straps of my dress, and... someone's foot got me in the side of my neck and it hurt so bad that I guess I blacked out for a minute. But your aunts never let go of the straps of my dress. I got to my feet, finally, just as the wall we'd put up between the kitchen and the hall fell over. It made a noise like- like- floompf!- noise a puddle of gasoline makes when you light it. I saw it go over in a big bundle of sparks, and I saw the people running to get out of its way as it fell. Some of them made it. Some didn't. One of my friends- I think it might have been Chika- was buried under it, and for just one second I saw her hand underneath all those blazing coals, opening and closing. There was another girl, surely no more than twenty, and the back of her dress went up. She was with a college boy and I heard her screaming at him, beggin him to help her. He took just about two swipes at it and then ran away with the others. She stood there screaming as her dress went up and took her with it."

"It was like hell out where the kitchen had been. The flames were so bright you couldn't look at them. The heat was baking hot, Denki, roasting hot. You could feel your skin cooking. You could feel the hairs in your nose gettin crispy."

"We've gotta break outta here!" Ko yells and she starts to drag me along the wall. "Come on!"

Then Aizawa Shouta catches hold of her. He couldn't have been no more than twelve, and his eyes, Denki- there was something so strange about them... they were distant... dull... like he wasn't all there... Well- whatever was wrong with his eyes, he kept his head better than we did. He saved our lives. "Not that way!" he yells, and his voice was just as distant as his eyes. "This way!" And he pointed back toward the bandstand... toward the fire, you know."

"You're crazy!" Ko screamed back, but you could barely hear her over the thunder of the fire and the screaming people. "Die if you want to, but me, Kaori, and Miho are getting out!"

My mom laughed a little then, it was bitter. "She still had me by the dress straps, and she started to haul me toward the door again, although there were so many people around it by then you couldn't see it at all. I would have gone with her. I was so shell-shocked I didn't know what end was up and what end was down. All I knew was that I didn't want to be baked like a human turkey."

"...Aizawa grabbed me first, and then he grabbed Ko by the hair- it was the only thing he was able to reach, I guess- and when Ko turned back, Aizawa was screaming at her "You go that way and you're going to die! They're jammed up against the door!"

"You don't know that!" Ko screamed back at him, and then there was this loud BANG! like a firecracker, only it was the heat exploding Kimi's bass drum. The fire was running along the beams overhead and the oil on the floor was catching."

"I know it!" Aizawa yelled back. "I know it!"

"He grabbed my other hand, and for a minute there I felt like the rope in a tug-o-war game. Then Ko took a good look at the door and went Aizawa's way, Miho right behind her. Aizawa got us down to a window and grabbed a chair to bust it out, but before he could swing it, the heat blew it out for him. Then he grabbed me and shoved me towards the wall, and then he shoved Ko and Miho towards the window.

"Climb!" he shouts at them. "Climb!" And they went, head up and tail over the dashboard."

"He boosted me next, and I went up. I grabbed the sides of the window and hauled. I had a good crop of blisters all over my palms the next day: that wood was already smoking. I come out headfirst, and if Miho hadn't grabbed me I might've broken my neck."

"We turned back around, and it was like something from the worst nightmare you ever had, Denki. That window was just a yellow, blazing, square of light. Flames were shooting up through the roof in a dozen places. We could hear people screaming inside... I saw two small hands waving around in front of the fire- Aizawa's hands. Miho made me a step with her own hands and I reached through that window and grabbed him. When I took his weight my chest went against the side of the building, and it was like pressing against a stove that's just starting to get real good and hot. My crushed hand was throbbing, but I was determined to repay the debt I owed. Aizawa's face came up and for a few seconds I didn't think we were going to be able to get him. He'd taken in a lot of smoke, and he was close to passing out. His lips had cracked open. The back of his shirt was smoldering, his long black hair was starting to crack off at the ends..."

"...And then I almost let go, because I could smell the people burning inside. I've heard people say that smell is like barbecuing pork ribs, but it isn't like that at all. It's more like what happens sometimes after they geld hosses. They build a big fire and throw all that shit into it and when the fire gets hot enough you can hear them hossballs popping like chestnuts, and that's what people smell like when they start to cook. I could smell that and I knew I couldn't take it for much longer so I gave one more great big yank, and out he came."

"He... his eyes seemed to clear then... he was coughing and hacking, trembling a little. Then he started to ask what happened, where he was- Ko and Miho say he just hit his head or the smoke did something, because he did eventually remember, you see- but... I dunno... it always felt like something else to me..." she was reflecting again, I think, truly reliving that terrible memory.

"...anyway... I was able to get to my knees, then to my feet. By then it was so bright around the Hitosashi it was like daylight. I saw figures zoom by, carrying red things, and understood it was people caring gas cans. One of them had fallen a little bit behind the others- and I saw..."

She trailed off, licking her lips.

"What did you see, Mom?" I asked.

"...We... ran across to the front of the club... and just like Aizawa said, people really were jammed in the doors. The fire raged, the ones in the back pushed forward to get away from the flames, and jammed the ones in front up even more... eventually, a wall collapsed, and a whole bunch of them ended up running out... the last few were on fire- and people rolled them on the ground until they were out. There were more people trying to come, but... we all knew the weren't gonna make it..."

She was close to tears now, her voice thick and scratchy, "...Miho grabbed my left hand and Ko grabbed my right. I grabbed them back twice as hard- Aizawa was some where behind us, still mumbling about not knowing how he got there... We stood there holding hands and we watched. They were nothing but shimmers shaped like men and women in that fire, walking toward the opening. Some of them had their arms held out, like they expected someone to save them. The others just walked, but they didn't seem to get anywhere. Their clothes were on fire. Their faces were... running... like... like egg yolk... And one after another they just toppled over and you didn't see them any more."

"...The last one was a woman. Her dress had burned off her. She was burning like a candle. She seemed to look right at me at the end, and I saw her eyelids were on fire... When she fell down it was over. The whole place went up in a pillar of fire. By the time the firetrucks got there, it was already burning itself out... That was the fire at the Hitosashi, Denki."

There was a long silence... and then I heard myself whisper, "What did you see?"

"Huh?"

"The thing you saw," I whispered. I didn't want to hear, but I had to hear. I was both hot and cold, my eyes burning, my hands freezing. But I had to hear.

"...I thought it was a clown at first," she said softly, "running after the straggler with a red gasoline can... but then I blinked and... it was a bird- A hawk, maybe. But it was big. Never told anyone. Would have been locked up. That bird was maybe sixty feet from wingtip to wingtip. It was the size of a Japanese Zero. But I saw... saw its eyes... and I think... it saw me..."

She paused again, her voice was shaking now, I heard the sound of liquid against glass and realized she was pouring herself another drink.

"...It swooped down and grabbed that last man up. I heard that bird's wings... The sound was like fire... and it hovered... and I thought,
'Birds can't hover'... but this one could, because. because..."

She fell silent.

"Why, Mom?" I whispered. "Why could it hover?"

"It didn't hover," she said.

I sat there in silence, thinking she had hung up. I had never been so afraid in my life... because eleven years before, I had seen that bird. Somehow, in some unimaginable way, I had nearly forgotten that nightmare. It was my mother who brought it back.

"...It didn't hover," she said finally. "It floated. It floated. There were big bunches of balloons tied to each wing, and it floated."

My mother hung up the phone.

- Kaminari Denki

—March 1st, 2020—

It's come again. I know that now. I'll wait, but in my heart I know it. I'm not sure I can stand it. As a kid I was able to deal with it, but it's different with kids. I don't really know how, but it is.

I wrote all of that last night in a kind of frenzy- not that I could have gone home anyway. Irusu has been blanketed in a thick glaze of ice, and although the sun is out this morning, nothing is moving.

I wrote until long after three this morning. I had forgotten about seeing the giant bird when I was eleven. It was my mother's story that brought it back... and I never almost-forgot it again. Not any of it.

I slept in my office, my head in my arms, my notebook and pen on the table in front of me. I woke up this morning with an aching back, but feeling free, somehow... purged of that old story.

...And then I saw that I had had company in the night, as I slept...

The tracks, drying to faint muddy impressions, led from the front door of my shop (which I locked; I always lock it) to the desk in my office where I slept.

There were no tracks leading away.

Whatever it was, it came to me in the night, left it's warning... and then simply disappeared.

Tied to my desk was a single, yellow, balloon. Filled with helium, it floated in a morning sunray which slanted in through one of the high windows.

On it was a picture of my face, the eyes gone, blood running down from the ragged sockets, a scream distorting the mouth on the balloon's thin and bulging rubber skin.

I looked at it and I screamed. The scream echoed through the empty shop, coming back to scare me again.

The balloon burst with a bang.

This is why I don't sleep.

- Kaminari Denki

—March 17th, 2020—

The fire at the Hitosashi happened in the late fall of 1990. From what I can tell, that fire- the one my mother barely escaped- ended the cycle of murder and disappearance which happened in the years 1989-90, just as the explosion at the Ironworks ended a cycle fifteen years before. It is as if a monstrous sacrifice is needed at the end of the cycle to quiet whatever terrible force it is which works here... to send It to sleep for another fifteen or so year time period.

...But if a sacrifice is needed to end each cycle, it seems that some similar event is needed to set each cycle in motion, right?...

Which brings me to the Satoru Gang.

Their execution took place at the three-way intersection of Center, Main, and Taiko- not far, in fact, from the place shown in the picture which began to move for Deku and Bakugo one day in the June of 2005.

Like the fire at the Hitosashi, which would happen a mere thirteen months later, many Irusu residents chose not to remember what happened that day. Or they were out of town, visiting relatives. Or they were napping that afternoon and never found out what had happened until they heard it on the news that night. Or they will simply look you in the eyes and lie to you.

The police logs for that day indicate that Chief Goro was not even in town ("Sure I remember," Mr. Torino told me from a chair on the sun-terrace of a Nursing Home in Sapporo. "That was my first year on the force in Irusu, and I ought to remember. He was off bird-hunting. They'd been sheeted and carried off by the time he got back.") but a picture in a reference book on gangsters called Bloodletters and Badmen shows a grinning man standing beside the bullet-riddled corpse of Satoru Isamu in the morgue, and if that man is not Chief Goro, its got to be his twin brother.

It was, strangely, Aizawa Shouta- the same man who as a child saved my mother and aunts from burning alive at the Hitosashi night club- who told me the truth about what really happened that day. He talked to me willingly enough, but, like Hado Nejire's father, he made me turn off my tape-recorder before he would really unwind the tale.

"No reason not to tell you," he said. "No one will print it, and no one would believe it even if they did." He offered me a pineapple hard candy from the bowl on his desk. "Want one? As I remember, you were always partial to these, Denki."

I took one. "Was Chief Goro there that day?"

Aizawa yawned and took a candy for himself. "You're too young to remember when Sada Eiji hit his home run for the Fighter's in the play-off game in 1998," Aizawa said. "You wouldn't have been but four years old... Well- They ran an article about that game in the newspaper a few years after, and it seemed like just about a million folks from Sapporo claimed they were there in the ballpark that day." We were sitting in the office behind the drugstore in Shinri, it smelled of medicine and pineapple.

"Just the opposite when it comes to the Satoru gang." Aizawa drawled. He was smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile- it was cynical, coldly reminiscent. "There was maybe eight thousand people who lived in downtown Irusu back then. Main Street and Center Street had both been paved for four years, but Taiko Street was still dirt. Raised dust in the summer and turned into a boghole every March and November. They used to oil Up-Mile Hill every June and every July the Mayor would talk about how they were going to pave Taiko Street, but it never happened until 1994, the year you and those friends of yours were born. ...of those eight thousand, there's probably a quarter that have passed away since, maybe even more- thirty-one years is a long time... And people have a funny way of dying young in Irusu. ...Maybe it's the air... or the soil... But of those left, I don't think you'd find more than a dozen who'd say they were in town the day the Satoru Gang rolled in."
He trailed off vaguely, looking at the hard candy in his hand. I thought of prodding him and decided not to.

At last he said, "Most of the people in town would lie about it, the way people lied and said they were there when Sada hit his homerun, that's all I mean. But people lied about being at that ballgame because they wished they had been there. People would lie to you about being in Irusu that day because they wish they hadn't been. Do you understand, Denki?"

I nodded.

"You sure you want to hear the rest of this?" Aizawa asked me. "You look pale."

"I don't," I said, "but I think I should."

"Okay," Aizawa said mildly. He offered me another candy. I took it.

"Chief Goro was there that day, alright... He was supposed to go bird-hunting, but he changed his mind real quick when Tajima Nao came in and told him that he was expecting Satoru Isamu that afternoon."

"How did Tajima know that?" I asked.

"Because they weren't that smart- the gang, I mean. It was made up of Satoru Isamu and his brother Shuji, Tani Hiroyuki, Hokama Sora, and Kitagawa Kazuhiro, a young man from Tokyo who was said to be a killing machine and have the face and body of Adonis. There were two women with them as well: Nakazawa Eri, Satoru Shuji's wife, and Kuse Manami, who belonged to Tani but sometimes got passed around- according to the stories we all heard on the school yard later."

"They made one bad assumption when they got up here, Denki- they got the idea they were so far away from Tokyo that they were safe."

"They laid low for awhile, and then got bored and decided they wanted to go hunting. They had plenty of firepower but they were a bit low on ammunition. So they all came into Irusu on the seventh of October in two cars. Kitagawa Kazuhiro took the women around shopping while the other men went into Tajima Sporting Goods. Nakazawa Eri bought a dress and she died in it two days later."

"Satoru Isamu handed Tajima himself a slip of paper and Tajima read it over. The paper has been lost, at least so far as I know, but Tajima said it would have turned your blood cold. They wanted five hundred rounds of .38-caliber ammunition, eight hundred rounds of .45-caliber, sixty rounds of .50-caliber, which they don't even make anymore, shotgun shells loaded both with buck and bird, and a thousand rounds each of .22 short- and long-rifle. Plus- get this- sixteen thousand rounds of .45 machine-gun bullets."

"Holy shit!" I said.

Aizawa smiled that cynical smile again and offered me the bowl. At first I shook my head and then I took another candy.

"This here is quite a shopping-list, boys," Tajima says, "And I'm sure you all know that the law says I can only give you one round at a time- shotgun only."

"Come on, Isa," Hokama Sora says. "I told you we weren't gonna get it in a shithole town like this. Let's go on up to Sapporo. They won't have anything there either, but I can use a ride."

"Now hold your horses," Tajima says, just as cool as a cucumber. "This here is one hell of a good order and I wouldn't want to lose it to that asshole up in Sapporo. I can give you the .22s right now, also the bird and half the buck. I can give you a hundred rounds each of the .38- and .45-caliber, too. I could have the rest for you... " And here Tajima sort of half-closed his eyes and tapped his chin, as if calculating it out. "... by the afternoon after tomorrow. How'd that be?"

"Isamu grinned like he'd split his head around the back and said it sounded just as fine as paint. Hokama Sora said he'd still like to go on up to Sapporo, but he was outvoted. "Now. if you're not sure you can make good on this order, you ought to say so right now," Satoru Isamu says to Tajima, "because I'm a pretty nice guy... but when I get mad you don't want to get into a pissing contest with me. You follow?"

"I do," Tajima says, "and I'll have all the ammo you could want, Mr-?"

"Mano," Satoru Isamu says. "Mano Isa."

"He stuck out his hand and Tajima shook it, grinning all the while. "Real pleased, Mr. Mano."

"So then Satoru Isamu asked him what would be a good time for him and his friends to drop by and pick up the goods, and Tajima asked them right back how two in the afternoon sounded to them. They agreed that would be fine. Out they went. Tajima watched them go. They met the other's on the sidewalk outside. Tajima recognized them, too."

"So," Aizawa said, looking at me tiredly, yawning, "for the rest of that day and all of the next, when someone he knew came in- some man- why, he would tell them that he knew who had been out in the woods around the Shinri-Irusu line shooting at deer and birds and who knows what else. It was the Satoru Gang. He knew for a fact because he had recognized them. He'd tell them that Satoru and his men were coming back the next day around two to pick up the rest of their order. He'd tell them he'd promised Satoru Isamu all the ammunition he could want, and that was a promise he intended to keep."

"How many?" I asked. I felt hypnotized by his glittering eye. Suddenly the dry smell of this back room- the smell of prescription drugs and powders, of Musterole and Vicks VapoRub and Robitussin cough syrup- suddenly all those smells seemed suffocating... but I couldn't leave. I had to stay. I had to know.

"How many men did Tajima pass the word to?" Aizawa asked.

I nodded.

"Don't know for sure," Aizawa said. "All those he felt he could trust, I suppose."

"Those he could trust," I mused. My voice was a little hoarse.

"Mhm," Aizawa nodded. "I came walking along about ten the day after the Satoru's had stopped by... I'd just been to the ice cream bar and was heading home. I overheard Tajima telling the story to one of his patrons and ducked around the corner of the alleyway so I could hear the rest without being caught."

"He told the patron the story, then asked how he could help them. The man was silent for a long time before he said he could use some ammo for his Winchester."

"You gonna shoot some game?" Tajima asks him, passing over the shells.

"Might plug some varmints," I the man said, and they laughed pretty hard at that. The story got around all it needed to. Small towns, you know. If you tell the right people, what you need to pass along will get along... see what I mean?"

I nodded numbly.

"The next day I walked back to the three-way intersection, because... well... I was curious. I slipped into that alleyway wand watched as men from all over town showed up with their hunting rifles."

"There was hardly any traffic on Center Street at all that day, either on foot or by car. Every now and then a delivery truck would pass, but that was about all. I saw another man cross over and he had a rifle in each hand. He gave one to someone else in the crowd."

"Three minutes later see two girls walking up the street- teenagers, Mitsuki and Inko, the mother's of your old friends Izuku and Katsuki... Inko had a sucker in her mouth and a worried expression on her face, Mitsuki was wearing a crop top and had a cigarette in her hand... she had that same expression on her face Katsuki used to have- I'm sure you know the one- where it looks as if she could and would murder anyone that got in the way of whatever the hell it was she was doing."

I nodded, indeed knowing the exact expression Aizawa was talking about.

"Well, one of the men in the crowd yells at them "You two need to get out of here; there's going to be a shooting." And Inko's eyes widened to the size of saucers, and she grabs Mitsuki's arm- but Katsuki truly did take after his mother, because Mitsuki rips her arm away and says: "Sounds interesting." And plops herself down on the sidewalk. Inko tries to get her to leave several more times after that, as do the men in the crowd, but Mitsuki was stubborn. Inko eventually ended up sitting down next to her."

"There were men everywhere, men with guns, standing in doorways and sitting on steps and looking out of windows..."Aizawa looked at me, through me. His eyes were not sharp now; they were hazy with memory. "...I remember I heard the wind." he said dreamily. "I remember hearing the wind... hearing the Town House clock toll two..."

"You would have thought that when it got to be two-ten and nothing happened, then two-fifteen, then two-twenty, people would have got up and left, wouldn't you?- especially Inko, Mitsuki, and myself... But it didn't happen that way at all. People just kept their place. Because-"

"-Because you knew they were going to come, didn't you?" I asked. "There was never any question at all."

He nodded at me like a teacher pleased with a student's recital. "That's right." he said. "We knew. No one had to talk about it, no one had to say, "Wellnow, let's wait until twenty past and if they don't show I've got to get back to work." Things just stayed quiet, and around two-twenty-five that afternoon these two cars, one red and one dark blue, started down Up-Mile Hill and came into the intersection. One of them was a Chevrolet and the other was a La Salle. They started through the intersection okay, and then Satoru Isamu slammed on the brakes of that La Salle so sudden that Kitagawa Kazuhiro damn near ran into him. The street was too quiet and Satoru Isamu knew it.

"He opened the door of the La Salle and stood up on the running board for a moment. He looked around, then he made a "go-back" gesture to Kitagawa Kazuhiro with his hand. Kitagawa said "What, boss?" I heard that plain as day, the only thing I heard any of them say that day. There was a wink of sun, too, I remember that. It came off a compact mirror. Shuji's wife was powdering her nose."

That was when Tajima came running out of his store. "Put them up, Satoru, you're surrounded!" Tajima shouts, and before Satoru Isamu could do more than turn his head, Tajima started blasting. He was wild at first, but then he put one into Satoru's shoulder. Blood started to pour out of that hole right away. Satoru caught hold of the La Salle's doorpost and swung himself back into the car. He threw it into gear, and that's when everyone started to shoot.

"It was all over in four, maybe five minutes, but it seemed a whole hell of a lot longer while it was happening. Some of them just sat there on the courthouse steps and poured bullets into the back end of the Chevrolet. I saw one guy down on one knee, firing and working the bolt on that old rifle of his like a madman. A few were shooting into the right side of the La Salle from under the theater marquee and another one stood in the gutter, holding a rifle out in both hands, pulling the trigger just as fast as he could work it."

"There must have been fifty, sixty men firing all at once. After it was all over Tajima dug thirty-six slugs out of the brick sides of his store. And that was three days later, after just about everybody in town who wanted one for a souvenir had come down and dug one out with his penknife. When it was at its worst, it sounded like a full on war zone. Windows were blown in by rifle-fire all around- one right above Mitsuki and Inko's heads. Inko screamed, Mitsuki's eyebrows raised- she looked more energized than anything else."

"Satoru Isamu got the La Salle around in a half-circle and he wasn't slow but by the time he'd done that he was running on four flats. Both the headlights were blowed out, and the windscreen was gone. Two of the guys were each at a backseat window, firing pistols. I saw one bullet take Sora high up in the neck and tear it wide open. He shot twice more and then collapsed out the window with his arms hanging out."

"Kitagawa Kazuhiro tried to turn the Chevrolet and only ran into the back end of Satoru's La Salle. That was really the end of them right there, Denki. The Chevrolet's front bumper locked with the La Salle's back one and there went any chance they might have had to make a run for it."

"Tani Hiroyuki got out of the back seat and just stood there in the middle of the intersection, a pistol in each hand, and started to pour it on. He didn't manage to land a single hit."

"Satoru Shuji, he had time to fire both his guns empty before anything so much as touched him. He was wearing a hat, and it flew off his head so you could see how he'd center-parted his hair. He had one of his guns under his arm and was trying to reload the other when someone cut the legs out from under him and he went down."

"Nakazawa Eri came out. Maybe she was trying to surrender, I dunno. She still had the compact she'd been using to powder her nose in her right hand. She was screaming, I believe, but by then it was hard to hear. Bullets were flying all around them. That compact mirror was blown right out of her hand. She started back to the car then but she took one in the hip. She made it somehow and managed to crawl inside again."

"Satoru Isamu revved the La Salle up just as high as it would go, and managed to get it moving again. He dragged the Chevrolet maybe ten feet before the bumper tore right off."

"Those Irusumen poured lead into it. All the windows were busted. One of the mudguards was laying in the street. Hokama Sora was dead hanging out the window, but both Satoru Isamu and Kitagawa were still alive. Tani was firing from the back seat. His girl, Kuse Manami, laying dead at his side with a bullet through the head.

"Satoru Isamu got to the big intersection, then his auto mounted the curb and stopped there. He got out from behind the wheel and started running up Center Street. He was riddled."

"Kitagawa got out of the Chevrolet, looked as if he was going to surrender for a minute, then he grabbed a .38 from a cheater-holster under his armpit. He triggered it off maybe three times, just firing wild, and then his shirt blew back from his chest in flames. He slid down the side of the Chevy until he was sitting on the running board. He shot one more time, and so far as I know that was the only bullet that hit anyone; it ricocheted off something and then grazed across the back of Monoma Arata's hand. Left a scar he used to show off when he was drunk until someone- Torino, maybe- took him aside and told him it might be a good idea to shut up about what happened to the Satoru Gang.

"The Nakazawa woman came out and that time there wasn't any doubt she was trying to surrender- she had her hands up. Maybe no one really meant to kill her, but by then there was a crossfire and she walked right into it."

"Tani Hiroyuki ran as far as that bench by the War Memorial, then someone pulped the back of his head with a shotgun blast. He fell down dead."

Hardly aware I was doing it, I took a pineapple candy from the jar.

"They went on pouring rounds into those cars for another minute or so before it began to taper off," Aizawa said. "That was when I looked around and saw Chief Goro behind Torino and the others on the courthouse steps, putting rounds through that dead Chevy with a Remington pump. Don't let anyone tell you he wasn't there; he was."

"By the time the firing stopped, those cars didn't look like cars at all anymore, just hunks of junk with glass around them. Men started to walk over to them. No one talked. All you could hear was the wind and feet gritting over broken glass. That's when the picture-taking started. And you ought to know this, Denki: when the picture-taking starts, the story is over."

Aizawa rocked in his chair, looking at me.

"There's nothing like that in the Irusu Weekly News," was all I could think of to say. The headline for that day had read PREFECTURE POLICE, PUBLIC SECURITY AGENCY GUN DOWN SATORU GANG IN PITCHED BATTLE. With the subhead "Local Police Lend Support."

"Of course not," Aizawa said, yawning again, rubbing his eyes. "I saw the publisher put two rounds into Satoru Shuji myself."

"Geez," I muttered.

"Get enough candy, Denki?"

"I got enough," I said. I licked my lips. "Aizawa... how could a thing of that... that magnitude... be covered up?"

"Wasn't much of a cover up, people just didn't talk about it- most saw it the same as shooting a rabid dog."

"But the women?"

"Yes, Nakazawa was a mistake... the other one, Kuse Manami, however, had a pistol in her hand when they dragged her out of the car... besides, it happened in Irusu, not in Sapporo or Kyoto. The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place. That's why there are bigger headlines when an earthquake kills twelve people in Los Angeles than there are when one kills three thousand in some country in the Middleast."

Besides, it happened in Irusu.

I've heard it before, and I suppose if I continue to pursue this I'll hear it again... and again... and again. They say it as if speaking patiently to a mental defective. They say it the way they would say Because of gravity if you asked them how come you stick to the ground when you walk. They say it as if it were a natural law any natural man should understand. And, of course, the worst of that is I do understand.

I had one more question for Aizawa Shouta.

"Did you see anyone at all that day that you didn't recognize once the shooting started?"

Aizawa's answer was quick enough to drop my blood temperature ten degrees. "The clown, you mean? How did you find out about him?"

"Oh, I heard it somewhere," I said.

"I only caught a glimpse of him once things really got going... I glanced around just once and saw him standing right behind Mitsuki and Inko." Aizawa said. "He wasn't wearing a clown suit or anything like that. He was dressed in a pair of khaki's and had on a cotton shirt. But his face was covered with that white grease-paint they use, and he had a big red clown smile painted on. Also had these tufts of fake hair, you know. Orange. Sorta comical."

"None of the men ever saw that guy, but Inko and Mistuki did. Only they must have been confused, because Inko thought she saw him in one of the windows of an apartment over somewhere to the left, and when I asked Mitsuki, she said she saw him standing behind me."

Aizawa frowned, then shook his head.

"It's funny how people get during a thing like that, and even funnier what they remember after it's all over. You can listen to sixteen different tales and no two of them will go together. Take the gun that clown had, for instance-"

"Gun?" I asked. "He was shooting, too?"

"Mhm," Aizawa said. "The one glimpse I caught of him, it looked like he had a Winchester bolt-action, and it wasn't until later that I figured out I must have thought that because that's what my father had at home. Inko thought he had a Remington, because that was what her father had at home. And when I asked Mitsuki about it, she said that guy was shooting an old Springfield, just like her father had at her home. Funny, huh?"

"Funny," I managed. "Aizawa... didn't any of you wonder what in hell a clown, especially one in Khaki's, was doing there?..."

"Sure," Aizawa said. "It wasn't a big deal, you see, but sure we wondered. Most of us figured it was somebody who wanted to attend the party but didn't want to be recognized. A Town Council member, maybe. Or it could just have been a professional man who didn't want to be recognized. A doctor or a lawyer. I wouldn't have recognized my own father if he showed up with that all on his face."

He laughed a little and I asked him what was funny.

"...There's also a possibility that it was a real clown," he said. "Back in the eighties and nineties there was a fair that came around here, and it was set up and going full blast the week that the Satoru Gang met their end. There were clowns at the fair. Maybe one of them heard we were going to have our own little carnival and rode down because he wanted to be in on it."

He smiled at me, dryly.

"I'm about talked out," he said, "but I'll tell you one more thing. It was something Mitsuki said years later, the year you were running around with her son- 2005... She came to pick up a prescription for Masaru, and she and I got talking about that clown again... no real idea why... we just did. She said that the clown, which she was still claiming was standing behind me, wasn't really standing- instead, it was hovering... hanging there in mid air, shooting down at the cars the Satoru Gang had come in, with that big red grin on his face. "He was tricked out like a jackolantern that had got a bad scare," was how Mitsuki put it."

"Like he was floating," I said.

"Yes," Aizawa agreed. "And Mitsuki said there was something else, something that bothered her for weeks afterward. One of those things you get right on the tip of your tongue but won't quite come off, or something that lights on your skin like a mosquito or a noseeum. She said it finally came to her the day before, after an argument with Katsuki about how he kept getting into fights- it came to her all at once that it was two-twenty-five in the afternoon when the shooting started and the sun was out but... that clown didn't cast any shadow... No shadow at all..."

- Kaminari Denki

—April 6th, 2020—

Tell you what- I'm drunk tonight. Fuck-drunk. Cherry schnapps and RedBull. There's a girl and a guy asleep in my bed right now. Both are very pretty. I picked them up in the Ureshi Yotte, a bar that has been in Irusu since... forever, maybe...

The Ureshi Yotte is a beerjoint, and what may have been the weirdest mass murder in the entire history of Japan took place there in September of 1961. There are still a few old timers in Irusu who claim to remember it, but the only account that I really trust is from a woman named Shuzenji Chiyo, a retired nurse, who was eighteen when it happened.

Shuzenji lives at home with her husband, still in Irusu. She's tiny, very tiny, even compared to me. She wears her grey hair in a bun on top of her head, and a giant pair of glasses over her eyes.

Moriyama Jo was, according to Shuzenji, "One bad apple with an eye that would roll at you like a mare's in the moonlight."

Shuzenji said that she- and everyone else who had worked with Moriyama- believed the man was as sly as a chicken-stealing dog... which made his hatchet-wielding foray into the Ureshi Yotte all the more startling. It was not in character. Up until then, lumbermen in Irusu had believed Moriyama's talents ran more to lighting fires in the woods.

The summer of '61 was long and hot and there had been many fires in the woods. The biggest of them, which Moriyama later admitted he set by simply putting a lighted candle in the middle of a pile of woodchips and kindling, happened in Shinri's Woods.

In the spring of that year there had been some brief talk about unionizing. There were four lumbermen involved in organizing, and one of the four was Moriyama Jo, who probably saw his union activities mostly as a chance to talk big and spend a lot of time drinking down on Center and Main. Moriyama and the other three called themselves "organizers"; the lumber barons called them "ringleaders."

In May of that year there was a brief strike, and although the strike was broken up fairly quickly, Moriyama and his organizing friends considered it a great victory for their cause. Accordingly, they came down to Irusu to get drunk and to do some more "organizing"... or "ringleading," depending on whose side you were on. Whichever, it must have been dry work. They hit most of the bars in Hell's Half-Acre, finishing up in Ureshi Yotte, arms around each other's shoulders, pissing-down-your-leg drunk, alternating union songs...

According to Shuzenji, the only reason anyone could figure for Moriyama being in the movement at all was Yanagi Shoichi. Yanagi was the chief "organizer" or "ringleader," and Moriyama was in love with him. And he wasn't the only one; most of the men in the movement loved Yanagi deeply and passionately... the same way we all loved Roki that summer, I think... or maybe Deku is the more accurate comparison...

"Yanagi Shoichi was a man who walked like he owned half of the world and had him a deadlock on the rest." Shuzenji described.

Moriyama followed Yanagi into the organizing business the way he would have followed him into a bar for a drink. Moriyama was sly and he was mean, but sometimes, when a man has spent a life being distrusted and distrustful, being a loner (or a Loser) both by choice and by reason of society's opinions of him, he can find a friend or a lover and simply live for that person, the way a dog lives for its master. That's the way it appeared to have been between Moriyama and Yanagi.

Anyway, there were four of them who spent that night in the Shajima Hotel. Four checked in; none checked out. One of them, Akamine Michio, was never seen again; for all we know he might have spent the rest of his life living in pleasant ease in Ashikawa. But somehow I doubt it. Two of the other "ringleaders," Tamaki Ryota and Yanagi Shoichi himself, were found floating face-down in the Shibui. Tamaki was missing his head; someone had taken it off with the swipe of a woodsman's two-hander. Both of Yanagi's legs were gone, and those who found him swore that they had never seen such an expression of pain and horror on a human face. Something had distended his mouth, stuffing out his cheeks, and when his discoverers turned him over and spread his lips, seven of his toes fell out onto the mud. Some thought he might have lost the other three during his years working in the woods; others held the opinion that he might have swallowed them before he died.

Pinned to the back of each man's shirt was a paper with the word UNION on it.

Moriyama Jo was never brought to trial for what happened in the Ureshi Yotte on the night of September 9th, 1961, so there's no way of knowing exactly how he escaped the fate of the others that night in May. We could make assumptions; he had been on his own a long time, had learned how to run fast- But why didn't he take Yanagi with him? Or was he taken into the woods with the rest of the "agitators"?... Maybe they were saving him for last, and he was able to get away even while Yanagi's screams (which would have grown muffled as they jammed his toes into his mouth) were echoing in the dark and scaring birds off their roosts. There's no way of knowing, not for sure, but that last one feels right.

Moriyama Jo became a ghost-man. Weeks after the incident he showed up in a Shinri beerjoint, talking union and swearing he'd have his revenge on the men that had murdered his friends- All of the men he vowed revenge on lived in Irusu, and their gabled gambrelled cupola-ed houses stand on West Broadway to this day.

That assumption that there were people who would have liked Miroyama out of the way can't be doubted, especially after the fires started in June of that year.

The woods around Irusu and Shinri burned all summer. Children disappeared, there were more fights and murders than usual, and fear blanketed the town. The rains finally came on September first, and it rained for a solid week. Downtown Irusu was flooded out, which was not unusual, but the big houses on West Broadway were high above downtown, and in some of those big houses there must have been sighs of relief. 'Moriyama's work is done for this summer, and we'll get him before the roots dry next June.'

Then came September 9th. I can't explain what happened; Shuzenji can't explain it either; as far as I know, no one can. I can only pass on the events that occurred.

The Ureshi Yotte was full of loggers drinking beer. Outside, it was getting dark- the misty kind of dark. The Shibui was high, filling its channel from bank to bank, and according to Shuzenji Chiyo, a fallish wind was blowing- "the kind that finds the holes in your clothes and chills you to the bone." The streets were empty. There was a card game going on at one of the tables in the back of the room. The card players names caught my attention immediately... I asked Shuzenji to repeat their names seven times before I let it sink in.

Their names were Todoroki Masato, Sero Dai, and Iida Akio.

Todoroki Masato, according to town records, was Todoroki Shouto's great grandfather.

Sero Dai was Sero Hanta's great uncle.

Iida Akio was Iida Tenya's cousin, who's branch of the family moved out of Irusu sometime in the 70's. He's never met that side of the family.

Todoroki Masato owned one part of the Irusu rail line as well as a lumber potentate who owned millions of acres of prime timber, Iida Akio owned the other part- this ownership was indeed how both families acquired all the money that still circulates their families to this day. Sero Dai, though not an owner, was the head of the lumbermen in Irusu and made a pretty penny off the backs of his underlings as well- which is why he was invited to play cards with the big bosses that night.

All three men were trouble. Both Sero Dai and Todoroki Masato had spent time in jail- Sero Dai for punching an officer in the face while piss drunk, Todoroki Masato for spousal abuse- but he was good with the mayor, and didn't see more than a city jail cell for it. There were whispers around town that Iida Akio was laundering money- which is where "The Iida's foundation is built on dirty money" rumor comes from, I guess- and maybe that branch of the family was- but the Iida's I knew made their fortune lawfully through accounting... but small towns are gonna talk and pass on, I guess.

It seems very likely that the there of them were at least some of the men who had spent the last two and a half months keeping an eye out for Moriyama Jo. It seems just as likely- although there is not a shred of proof- that they were also apart of the group that murdered Moriyama Jo's fellow "ringleaders"

"The bar was crowded." Shuzenji Chiyo said; "dozens of men and a handful of women were bellied up there, drinking beer and eating bar lunches and dripping onto the sawdust-covered floor."

The door opened and in came Moriyama. He had a woodsman's double-bitted axe in his hand. He stepped up to the bar and elbowed himself a place. Shuzenji was standing on his left; according to her, he smelled like mothballs and stew. The barman brought Moriyama a stein of beer, two hard-cooked eggs in a bowl, and a shaker of salt. Moriyama paid him and put his change into one of the flap pockets of his lumberman's jacket. He salted his eggs and ate them. He salted his beer, drank it off, and uttered a belch.

"There's more room in the outside sitting places then there is inside, Jo." Shuzenji Chiyo said, taking a seat to his left, as if there weren't an entire police force combing the city for him.

"You know that's the truth," Moriyama said. He ordered himself another stein, drank up, and belched again. Talk at the bar went on; there was no silence like the ones in the western movies when the good guy or the bad guy pushes his way through the batwings and makes his ominous way to the bar. Several people called to him. Moriyama nodded and waved, but he didn't smile. Shuzenji said he looked like a man who was half in a dream. At the table in back, the poker game went on. Sero Dai was dealing. No one bothered to tell any of the players that Moriyama Jo was in the bar... although, since their table was no more than twenty feet away, and since Moriyama's name was called more than once by people who knew him, it is hard to believe they could have gone on playing, unaware of his potentially murderous presence. But that's what happened.

After he finished his second beer, Moriyama excused himself to Shuzenji, picked up his two-hander, and went back to the table where the three of them were playing. According to history, only workers in the bar died that night... but history tends to be biased, especially in Irusu.

Moriyama went to that table, and he started cutting.

Iida Akio had just poured himself a glass of rye whiskey and was setting the bottle back down when Moriyama arrived and chopped his hand off at the wrist. Akio looked at his hand and screamed; it was still holding the bottle but all of a sudden wasn't attached to anything but wet gristle and trailing veins. For a moment the severed hand clutched the bottle even tighter, and then it fell off and lay on the table like a dead spider. Blood spouted from his wrist and poured across the table.

At the bar, somebody called for more beer and someone else asked the bartender, whose name was Kirishima Yuu (I wasn't even surprised at this point. He's one of Ejirou's uncles, apparently) if he was still dying his hair.

"Never dyed it," Kirishima Yuu said in an ill-tempered way; he was vain of his hair.

"Met a whore who said what grows around your pecker is just as white as snow," the fellow said.

"She was a liar," Kirishima Yuu replied.

"Drop your pants and let us see," said a lumberman named Kendou Yuichi. This provoked general laughter.

Behind them, Iida Akio was shrieking. A few of the men leaning against the bar took a casual look around in time to see Moriyama Jo bury his woodsman's axe in Todoroki Masato's head. Masato was a big man with a fiery-red beard going gray. He got halfway up, blood pouring down his face in freshets, then sat down again. Moriyama pulled the axe out of his head- Now, I don't know what kind of demigod-blood runs through this families veins, but according to Shuzenji, Masato got up again, blood raining down everywhere- and he threw a punch. He got Moriyama pretty good in the jaw, which is what caused the first worker casualty. Moriyama dropped the axe at the exact moment a waitress stumbled. She fell forward and it embedded itself into her abdomen. She bled out on the floor.

Todoroki Masato started to stumble backwards into his seat again. Moriyama yanked the axe out of the waitresses abdomen, slung it sideways, burying it in his back. "It made a sound..." Shuzenji said, "like a load of laundry being dropped on a rug." Masato flopped over the table, his cards spraying out of his hand.

The others players were hollering and bellowing. Iida Akio, still shrieking, was trying to pick up his right hand with his left as his life's blood ran out of his stump of a wrist in a steady stream. Sero Dai had a knife hidden in his boot and was trying to get it out- this knife would cause two more deaths, another waitress who was standing in the door, the other Kirishima's relative, Yuu, who grabbed his shoulder to ask him what was wrong.

Another death that would occur late would involve the bar's bouncer. He would end up committing suicide in the back room two days later.

All three of these deaths would go down as axe murders. The reason why is unknown.

...But before that, Moriyama grabbed Iida Akio by the back of the shirt collar and slammed him down onto the ground. He was still screaming over his missing hand when his glasses shattered across the floor. He looked up, tears streaming down his face, and yelled: "Please, Jo, I just got married last month!"

The axe came down, its head almost disappearing in Iida Akio's gut. Blood sprayed all the way up to the beamed roof. Akio began to crawfish on the floor. Moriyama pulled the axe out of him the way a good woodsman will pull his axe out of a softwood tree, kind of rocking it back and forth to loosen the clinging grip of the sappy wood. When it was free he slung it up over his head. He brought it down again and Iida Akio stopped screaming. Moriyama wasn't done with him, however; he began to chop Akio up like kindling-wood.

At the bar, conversation had turned to what sort of winter lay ahead. Asui Takayuki, a farmer from Shinri, claimed it would be a mild one- fall rain uses up winter snow was his scripture. Jirou Sumiko, who was one of the only women besides Shuzenji Chiyo in the bar that night and owned a stable down the road, disagreed. Sumiko claimed the coming winter was going to be crazy. Another man, Ojirou Satoshi, held out for ice; another, Shoji Hajime, held out for mud. Kirishima Yuu sent steins of beer and bowls of hardcooked eggs skidding down the bar. Behind them the screaming went on and the blood flowed in rivers.

At this point in my questioning of Shuzenji Chiyo, I turned off my cassette recorder and asked her: "How did it happen? Are you saying you didn't know it was going on, or that you knew but you let it go on, or what?"

Shuzenji's chin sank down to the top button of her food-spotted gown. Her eyebrows drew together behind her large glasses. She said nothing for a long, long time. Outside it was winter, and I could hear- very faintly- the yells and laughter of the children sliding down the big hill in Ukiyo Park. The silence in Shuzenji's home, small, cramped, and medicinal-smelling, spun out so long that I was about to repeat my question, when she replied: "...We knew... But it didn't seem to matter. It was like politics, in a way. Yeah, like that. Like town business. Best let people who understand politics take care of that and people who understand town business take care of that."

"...Are you really talking about fate and just afraid to come out right and call it that?" I asked suddenly. The question was simply jerked out of me, and I certainly did not expect Shuzenji to answer it... but she did, with no surprise at all.

"Yes," she said. "Maybe I am."

While the men at the bar went on talking about the weather, Moriyama went on cutting. Sero Dai had finally managed to grab his knife. The axe was descending for another chop at Iida Akio, who was by then in pieces. Dai got to his feet and started backing away. He was still holding the deck he had been dealing from; cards were fluttering off the bottom and onto the floor. Moriyama came after him. Sero Dai turned for the door, killed the waitress in front of it to get her out of the way. Kirishima Yuu grabbed his shoulder, Dai shoved the blade into the hollow of his throat, thinking it was Moriyama. He was almost out the door when Moriyama slammed it shut for him and backed him against the wall.

"Stop, Jo," Sero Dai said. Shuzenji said it appeared like Dai was trying to smile- which was strange-looking, considering he was covered in the blood of the two people he'd just murdered. "I wasn't with them. I didn't mix in at all. I swear."

Moriyama only growled.

"I was in Osaka," Sero Dai said, his voice starting to rise toward a scream, blood was dripping from his hands onto the ground. "I was in Osaka, I swear it on my mother's name! Ask anybody if you don't believe meeeee..."

Moriyama raised the dripping axe, and Sero Dai sprayed the rest of the cards into his face. The axe came down, whistling. Dai ducked. The axe-head buried itself in the planking that formed the back wall. Sero Dai tried to run again. Moriyama hauled the axe out of the wall and poked it between his ankles. Sero Dai went sprawling. He slashed at Moriyama, and actually managed to do some damage. He had been aiming at the crazed lumberman's neck; it slashed a deep scar across the giant man's chest.

Sero Dai dropped to his knees and began crawling busily toward the door with his hair hanging in his face. Moriyama swung the axe again, snarling and gibbering, and a moment later Sero Dai's severed head was rolling across the sawdust-strewn floor, the tongue popped bizarrely out between the teeth. It rolled to a stop by the booted foot of a lumberman named Togata Shiro, who had spent most of the day in the bar and who, by then, was so exquisitely slopped that he didn't know if he was on land or at sea. He kicked the head away without looking down to see what it was, and hollered at Kirishima Yuu's corpse to get him another beer.

Sero Dai crawled another three feet, blood spraying from his neck in a high-tension jet, before he realized he was dead and collapsed.

"Shut the door, Jo, that shitpot stinks to high heaven," Togata Shiro said, Moriyama was standing next to the bathroom door, covered head to toe in gore. Moriyama dropped his axe on the floor and did as he had been asked. He walked over to the card-strewn table where his victims had been sitting, kicking one of Iida Akio's severed legs out of his way. Then he simply sat down and put his head in his arms. The drinking and conversation at the bar went on. Five minutes later more men began to pile in, three or four deputies among them (the one in charge was Toshinori Yagi's grandfather, and when he saw the mess he had a heart attack and had to be taken away). Moriyama Jo was led away. He was docile when they took him, more asleep than awake.

That night the bars all over town boomed and hollered with news of the slaughter. A righteous drunken sort of fury began to build up, and when the bars closed better than seventy men headed downtown toward the jail and the court-house. They had torches and lanterns. Some were carrying guns, some had axes, some had butcher knives.

The chief wasn't due from Sapporo until noon the next day, so he wasn't there, and Toshinori Michi was laid up in the infirmary with his heart attack. The two deputies who were sitting in the office playing cribbage heard the mob coming and got out of there fast. The drunks broke in and dragged Moriyama out of his cell. He didn't protest much; he seemed dazed, vacant.

They carried him on their shoulders like a football hero; down to Ukiyo Park. There they lynched him from an old maple that overhung the Canal. "He was so far gone that he didn't kick but twice," Shuzenji Chiyo said. "It was, so far as the town records show, the only lynching to ever take place in this part of Hokkaido. And almost needless to say, it was not reported in the Irusu News. Many of those who had gone on drinking unconcernedly while Moriyama Jo went about his business in the Ureshi Yotte were in the necktie party that strung him up. By midnight their mood had changed."

I asked Shuzenji my final question: had she seen anyone she didn't know during that day's violent activities? Someone who struck her as strange, out of place, funny, even clownish? Someone who would have been drinking at the bar that afternoon, someone who had maybe turned into one of the rabble-rousers that night as the drinking went on and the talk turned to lynching?

"Maybe there was," Shuzenji replied. She was tired by then, drooping, ready for her afternoon nap. "It was a long time ago..."

"But you remember something," I said.

"I remember thinking that there must be a fair nearby." Shuzenji said. "I was having a beer in the Ureshi Yotte that night. There was a fella in there... comical sort of fella... doing flips and rollovers... jugglin glasses... tricks... put four dimes on his forhead and they'd stay right there... comical, you know..."

Her chin had sunk to her chest again. She was going to sleep right in front of me.

"Seen him a few times since then." Shuzenji said. "Figure maybe he had such a good time that night... that he decided to stick around."

"Yeah. He's been around a long time," I said.

Her only response was a weak snore. Shuzenji had gone to sleep in her chair by the window, with her medicines lined up beside her on the sill. I turned off my tape-recorder and just sat looking at her for a moment. Pennywise had been there, guiding them down the path toward another gaudy sacrifice- just one more in Irusu's long history of gaudy sacrifices. That one, in September of 1961, capped off the 1959-1961 cycle... a little longer than usual... that one had been particularly bad.

And yet again, my group of friends had been connected- and not loosely, like with my mother or Bakugo and Deku's- four of my friends relatives had been apart of the finale sacrifice that year.

Strange.

This raises some interesting (and, for all I know, vitally important) questions. Is it all connected to us? Or are we all connected to something bigger?

Yes. I think that's the secret here. And if I make the calls, how much will they remember? How much will they believe? Enough to end this horror once and for all, or only enough to get them killed? They are being called- I know that much. Each murder in this new cycle has been a call. We almost killed It twice, and in the end we drove It deep in Its warren of tunnels and stinking rooms under the city. But I think It knows another secret: although It may be immortal (or almost so), we are not. It had only to wait until the act of faith, which made us potential monster-killers as well as sources of power, had become impossible. Fifteen years. Perhaps a period of sleep for It, as short and refreshing as an afternoon nap would be for us. And when It awakes, It is the same, but a big chunk of our lives have disappeared. Our perspectives have narrowed; our faith in the magic that makes magic possible, has worn off.

...Why call us back? Why not just let us die?...

...Because we nearly killed It, because we frightened It, I think. Because It wants revenge. Yes. I think that's the reason.

And now, now that we no longer believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Hansel and Gretel, or the troll under the bridge, It is ready for us. "Come on back," It says. "Come on back, let's finish our business in Irusu. Bring your jacks and your marbles and your yo-yos! We'll play. Come on back and we'll see if you remember the simplest thing of all: how it is to be children, secure in belief and afraid of the dark."

At least I have that one going for me: I'm terrified of the dark. Oh, so, terrified.

- Kaminari Denki

—June 4th, 2020–

Deku came in about twenty minutes ago and brought me this book- Roki found it on one of my work counters. I thought Chief Ishihara might have taken it, but apparently she didn't want anything to do with it.

Deku's stutter is disappearing again, but the poor guy looks as if he hasn't slept in a hundred years. He told me he expects Ochako to be discharged from Irusu Home Hospital (where I myself still am) tomorrow, only to take a private ambulance south to a mental health institution in Tokyo. Physically she's fine-minor cuts and bruises that are already healing. Mentally...

"You raise her hand and it stays up," Deku says. He was sitting by the window, he had one of Sero's cigarette's in his hand- I've never seen him smoke before. Bakugo said he saw him do it once- in the summer of 2005, when he told them about his first encounter with It. "...It just floats there until someone puts it down again. Her reflexes are there, but very slow. The EEG they did shows a severely repressed alpha wave. She's c-c-catatonic."

I said, "I've got an idea. Maybe not such a good one. If you don't like it, just say so."

"What?"

"I'm going to be in here another week," I said. "Instead of sending Ochako up to Tokyo, why don't you take her to my place, Deku? Spend the week with her. Talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back. Is she... is she... ya know?... continent?..."

"No," Deku said bleakly.

"Can you- I mean, would you-"

"Would I help her out?" He smiled, and it was such a painful smile that I had to look away for a moment. It was the way my mother smiled the time she told me about Shigaraki Senior all those years ago. "Yes. I think I could do that much."

"I won't tell you to not be hard on yourself when I know you will be anyways" I said, "but please try to remember that you yourself agreed that everything that's happened was predetermined. That might include Ochako's part, too."

"I sh-should have kept my mouth shut about where I was g-going."

Sometimes it's better to say nothing- so that's what I did. I know- shocking.

"Alright," Deku said at last. "If you really mean it about your house-"

"I mean it. They've got my housekeys down at the Patient Services Desk. There's a couple of Hamburg steaks in the freezer. Maybe that was predetermined, too." I cracked a smile at him.

"She's eating mostly soft foods and, uh, luh-liquids."

"Well," I said, holding onto my smile, "maybe there'll be a reason to celebrate. There's a pretty good bottle of wine on the top shelf in the pantry, too. Mondavi. Domestic, but good."

He came over and gripped my hand. "Thank you, Denki."

"Any time, Deku."

He let go of my hand. "Kacchan flew back to Osaka this morning."

I nodded. "I know, he told me goodbye- "I hope I never see you again." Was his parting message... I told him a loved him too, and he gave me a hug."

Deku nodded, smiling a little himself: "That's pretty much what the rest of us got as well... I think... I think Kiri's death hit him really hard..."

"Think we'll all keep in touch?" I asked.

"M-Maybe," he said. "For awhile, anyway. But... "He looked at me levelly. "It's going to happen again, I think."

"The forgetting?"

"Yes. In fact, I think it's already started. Just little things so far. Details. Maybe that'll be all... I hope so... I don't want to forget you guys."

"Maybe that's best."

"Maybe." He looked out the window, still puffing on the cigarette, almost surely thinking about his wife, so wide-eyed and silent and beautiful and plastic. Catatonic. The sound of a door slamming shut echoed through the halls. He sighed. "Maybe it is... have you heard from Hanta and Sho?"

I blushed, and Deku smiled for real this time- though it was small. I'm glad my embarrassment seemed to cheer him up a bit. "Hanta's going back to Kyoto soon... something about some girl in a bar he needs to apologize to?... I dunno- Roki... Roki's Uh-invited me to go back with him... not to Harajuku- but- we're gonna find a place near there... I can open a mechanic's shop anywhere, ya know?..."

Deku nodded, he looked almost relieved: "Moving in together already, huh?"

I blushed even more, because I swear Midoriya Izuku is just a mean as Bakugo Katsuki sometimes- this opinion was only furthered by the humor in his eyes. "It's- like roommates- not... not like... Ya know- not yet, at least... two bedrooms..."

"I always knew you were the one that was supposed to see him home." Deku said, and he bent down to hug me, I hugged him back. "Take care of him."

"I will." I responded.

He looked back at me and frowned a little. "You hear about Natsuo?"

I nodded. Roki told Sero and Sero told me yesterday. If I understate the case (grotesquely understate the case), Roki's later description of his wonderful fantastic husband, Koji, was much truer than his original one. Wonderful fantastic Koji kept Roki in emotional, spiritual, and sometimes physical bondage for the last four years or so. Wonderful fantastic Koji got here by beating the mess out of Roki's brother Natsuo, who's assistant finally spilled the beans when wonderful fantastic Koji tried to cut Natsuo's face off with a pane of glass.

"He told me he's going to file a missing-persons report on him. Koji, I mean." I said. "Sometime soon, before I'm discharged, maybe..."

"Smart enough," Deku nodded. "No one's ever going to find him down there."

"No, they won't," I said.

"you know something else? Something really crazy?" Deku asked.

"What?"

"I don't think he really remembers what happened to Koji."

I just stared at him.

"Sho's forgotten- or is currently forgetting," Deku said. "...And I can't remember what the doorway looked like anymore. The d-doorway into Its place. I try to think of it and the craziest thing happens- I just see colors. A whole lotta colors..."

"They'll trace Akiyuki Koji to Irusu eventually," I said. "He'll have left a paper trail a mile wide. Rent-a-car, plane tickets."

"I'm not so sure of that," Deku said, lighting another cigarette. "I think he might have paid cash for his plane ticket and given a phony name. Maybe bought a cheap car here or stole one."

"Why?"

"Oh, come on," Deku said. "do you think he came all this way to give him a verbal lashing? No. He came here to kill him- maybe even came here to kill the both of us, too... I wouldn't put it past It to put some idea in his head- especially because it was sort of true. We both loved him then, and we both love him now, right?"

I nodded.

"Right." Deku nodded, bluish-grey smoke drifting out of his mouth. He looked handsome in the dying light. He was framed in the orange glow of sunset, which drew attention to his sharp jawline. The freckles dusted across his cheeks seemed to almost glow. His green hair was styled nicely, a chunky curl falling into his eyes. His eye's were far off, looking into the distance. He had a grey vest hooked over his shoulder with the index finger of his left hand, a cigarette was held to his mouth with the right. The white button up he wore was rolled up to his elbows, the first three buttons unbuttoned, revealing the top of a freckled chest. For a moment I wondered why he hadn't taken up modeling.

Our eyes met for a long moment and then he stood up. "Listen, Denki..."

"I get it, you're leaving me again." I joked, "go on, I'm used to it by now."

He laughed at that, laughed hard, and when he had sobered he said: "Thanks for the use of your place, Denki."

"I'm not going to swear to you it'll make any difference. It has no therapeutic qualities that I'm aware of."

"Well... I'll see you." He did an odd thing then, odd but rather lovely. He kissed my cheek. "See ya, Denki. I'll be around."

"Things might be okay, Izuku," I said, using his real name- but not really knowing why. It was almost foreign on my tongue. "don't give up hope. They might be okay."

He smiled and nodded, but I think the same word was in both of our minds: Catatonic.

- Kaminari Denki

—June 5th, 2020—

Sero came in today to say goodbye. Roki came with him to look at apartments with me. The three of us, the strange trio within the larger group of seven, were together once again.

Sero's not flying- he's rented a great big Cadillac from the Hertz people and he's going to drive, not hurrying.

"I've got to apologize to that girl I told you about yesterday." Sero starts, his smile is sheepish, his face is pink. It reminds me of how he used to look- before the summer of 2005, when it was just me and him. "Her names Mina... scared her pretty bad after you called... didn't think I'd be coming back, ya know?..."

"You in love with her or something?" I asked, grinning.

"...I think so." Sero shrugged, and leaned back in his chair, "...at the very least I like her a whole lot... don't know how she's put up with me though- I've probably rejected her a billion times."

"Why?" Roki asked curiously. He wasn't wearing his jacket anymore, I think it got ruined under the city.

Sero shrugged: "Repressed trauma, I think: something inside just- told me not to get involved seriously with anyone."

Roki's eyebrows raised, "I wish I would of had that." Sero and I laughed a little, but then things fell silent.

Finally, Sero slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up. It was time for him to go. He hugged Roki first, and Roki hugged back. They held one another for a long time, and I found myself wondering if Sero had been the real competition all along.

"Thanks for giving me those cigs, Sho." Sero whispered into the crook of Roki's neck. I saw Roki smile over Sero's shoulder, his eyes looked misty.

"Thank you for telling me to have a nice summer... it meant a lot, even if the summer wasn't that great."

They held each other for a little longer, before pulling away. Sero wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and started towards me. He bent down and pulled me into a fierce hug, and I hugged him back just as hard. After all these years, he was still my brother.

"Tell Kaori I said hi." He whispered.

"Tell her yourself, we're keeping in touch this time." I said, forcing away the memories of Deku and I's conversation the day before "Send me a pic of that Mina girl so I can judge wether or not she's good enough for you."

Sero laughed tearfully "I will. I'm gonna call both of you when I get back to Kyoto. I'm gonna call Katsuki too."

I nod.

Sero pulls away, and heads to the door. He takes one last look around before he leaves, his eyes linger on both Roki and I for a moment- and they're warm, kind. He has a laid back smile on his face, he holds up his hand in a mock salute.

"Bye, guys... I'll always remember you." He says, and then he's gone without another word.

Roki and I spend hours looking at apartments. We find a nice one right in the heart of Tokyo. It's a one bedroom. I point it out to Roki, who was the one to originally suggest we get a two bedroom, and he merely shrugs. He walks into the hall to call about it's availability.

Deku calls to say he and Ochako have moved in. There is no change in her.

- Kaminari Denki

—June 6th, 2020—

Called Deku late this afternoon. No change in Ochako.

Sero Hanta called me early this morning as promised. He sounded happy, which made me smile. He told me all about what happened when he got back home.

"Well, I went straight to the bar- because that's where Mina is and I also have a buddy there- that bartender I gave the silver dollars to- that I scared half to death... I walk in, and the bartender Mihara nearly screams my name- he scrambles around the counter, telling me how he gave the dollars to his kids and he thought he'd never see me again- he's like, full on crying- I had no idea he liked me that much."

I laugh and say, "Hanta, everyone likes you."

Sero pauses then, and I can feel his blush through the phone, "Um- I guess so- but, anyway... about that time, Mina comes out of the back room to see what all the commotions about. Now- she's tiny- like, 5'3... I'm nearly a foot taller than her- but she's a dancer, only doing waitress work on the side, so she's super strong- and she sees me and she looks fucking pissed- like- I can practically see the steam coming out of her ears. She marches up to me, and I'm expecting her to scream, hit me, call me an asshole, whatever, right?- and I'm a little scared because like I said- she's strong as hell."

"Uh huh" I say, grinning.

"Yeah, well- she doesn't do any of that. Instead she kisses me. Then she pushes me away, tells me never to scare her like that again, and kisses me again. Then she says I'm gonna make it up to her by going out to dinner with her- her treat- she said I'm not paying, which confused me, because I thought I was supposed to be making it up to her... but I dunno. Free meal. Also I get to go on a date with a girl I've been in love with for like- four years."

"Sounds awesome, man." I say, and it truly does.

"You're gonna meet her one day." Sero says, and my smile widened "I swear it. When you and Sho get settled in Tokyo, I'll buy her and I a train ticket down there. We can hang out- she'd love to meet you, especially because I excused my absence by saying I had a nervous breakdown and went home to spend time with you. You can make up a whole lot of shit to embarrass me."

"Oh, I plan on it." I say, and he laughs. We talk for a little while longer, and then he's pulled away to a job site. For the first time since the summer of 2005, I feel almost normal.

An hour later I put through another call, this one to Bakugo Katsuki in Osaka. I get his voicemail, which is literally "Fuck off, I don't feel like talking right now." I frown, feeling like that's a recent change. I leave my name and number, hesitate, and add that I hope he was doing alright. I was about to hang up when Bakugo picked up the phone and said, "Fucking hell... I swear to everything if you're calling to tell me the bitch isn't dead-"

"No no-" I say quickly, stifling a laugh- I hadn't been expecting that. "Its gone... I just wanted to say hello... see how you've been."

"Oh." Bakugo's voice is gravely... fragile... it sounds like he's been crying. I don't mention it. "I'm fine, I guess... you? The pain any better?..."

"I'm alright. The pain's starting to fade. The itch is worse. I'll be damn glad when they finally decide to unstrap my ribs."

Bakugo snorts. "shit, that must suck."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, you should listen to something... take your mind off the pain or some shit... Supercar is great. It was-" He trailed off for a moment and then said, "...it was Kiri and I's favorite band in the old days..."

"I'll pick it up," I said, and I probably will.

"What about Deku?"

"He and Ochako are keeping house for me while I'm in here."

"Good. That's good." He paused for a moment. "You want to hear something fucking bizarre, shortstack?"

"Sure," I said.

"Well, I was driving back from the airport, you know?... listening to the radio, trying to forget everything that happened and... well... I pass a sporting goods store. I get- I get this urge to go inside, and when I get in there... there's this- this display..."

"Yeah?..." I prompt him.

"And- well-" he laughs, it sounds pained, I wince. "I guess shark teeth did some brand deal before he left... because it's a whole wall of stuff just... shit- just covered in his gyms logo- which I didn't even know, by the way- I'd never seen it before- but something just... something just told me it was his..."

"Im sorry." I say, and I am.

"Yeah... me too..." he's quiet for a long time.

"...Well, you say hi to Deku and that wife of his," Bakugo says after a long while.

"I will, Kats," I say, closing my eyes.

"...And if you're ever in Osaka, you got the number. We'll get together or something."

"Sure." I feel hot tears behind my eyes, I don't really know why... maybe it was the Kirishima reminder. "If you find yourself in Tokyo, the same goes for you."

"Denki?"

"Uh-huh?."

"I love you, too."

"I'm glad." I say.

He hung up and so did I. Then I lay back on my pillows with my eyes shut and didn't open them for a long time.

- Kaminari Denki

—June 7th, 2020—

Police Chief Ishihara, who took over from Chief Okumura in the mid 2010's, is dead. It was a bizarre accident, one I can't help associating with what has been happening in Irusu... what has just ended in Irusu.

The combination police-station-courthouse stands on the edge of the area that fell into the Canal, and while it didn't go, the upheaval- or the flood- must have caused structural damage which no one was aware of.

Ishihara was working late in her office last night, the story in the paper says, as she has every night since the storm and the flood. The Police Chiefs office has moved from the third to the fifth floor since the old days, to just below an attic where all sorts of records and useless city artifacts are stored. One of these items was a tramp chair. It was made of iron and weighed better than four hundred pounds. The building shipped a quantity of water during the downpour of May 31st, and that must have weakened the attic floor (or so the paper says). Whatever the reason, the tramp-chair fell from the attic directly onto Chief Ishihara as she sat at her desk, reading accident reports. She was killed instantly. Another officer rushed in and found her lying on the ruins of her shattered desk, her pen still in one hand.

Talked to Deku on the phone again. Ochako is taking some solid food, he says, but otherwise there is no change. My heart is with him, I truly hope she gets better.

I tell him about my talks with Bakugo and Sero. He says he's spoken to both of them as well. We don't talk much after that.

Roki comes in around three, he tells me we got the apartment and can move in soon. He'll be leaving to sign the lease in two days. I smile at him.

He crawls into bed with me, minding my leg, and wraps his long limbs gently around my body. My heart was- and still is- beating out of my chest. He tells me needs to near someone warm right now. I don't really know what that means. He's asleep now, still coiled around me, I can feel his warm breath against my cheek while I write.

His hair is like winter fire, January embers.

I love him.

I love all of them.

I feel happy.

:)

- Kaminari Denki