Five years later . . .
Rain falls like a torrent during this windless noon as gloom and coolness hang in the air. Frequent flashes of lightening are immediately answered by loud claps of thunder. A van carrying Mizuhara Reito and his entourage of five females drive up to the abandoned inn. Even with the windshield wipers on full, it is difficult to see out through its windows due to the torrential downpour.
It had all started back at the magnetic rail station after Reito came out of that station's abandoned male washroom where he discovered secret information about the MK Virus having been created. He met up with the others to learn that the train would not arrive today because of an accident on the line that will not be cleared up until tomorrow. But a van had been called in for them to make use of so that they could drive back to Tokyo.
Another problem manifested itself in the form of this rainstorm that blew in. Katagiri Rea, Reito's new caretaker, knew of an inn along the way called the Hidden Inn where they could take refuge for the night.
"See? What did I tell you!" Ryuzoji Akane practically shouted after taking a drink from her flask in order to be heard over the persistant drumming roar of the rainfall against their vehicle. "The Outbreak compelled women to flee the countryside for the cities! Not like over in America where they were fleeing the cities for the countryside! So places like this ended up getting abandoned!"
Flirty and statuesque, Akane is Reito's personal nurse and tends to be a bottle fairy as she carries a flask of alcoholic drink with her that she took frequent gulps from.
"Y-You don't suppose this place is h-haunted!" Sui fretted loudly as well, a little girl who is actually Reito's bodyguard with a split personality that is emotionless and superhuman when called forth. Despite that, she is fearful of the supernatural.
"Who knows?" Akane quavered humorously, then takes another drink from her flask.
Rea drives the van up alongside the inn as close to the steps as possible and turns off the engine. The persistant drumming roar from the rainfall seems more intense now. She crawls into the back with the others.
"Okay, first I will call in our situation!" Rea stated as she picks up a tablet. Upon getting through, an image of a woman appears on the screen. "This is Katagiri Rea reporting in and I am informing you that we had to stop at a place called the Hidden Inn!"
"The Hidden Inn?" the woman asked.
"Yes, but it has been abandoned because of the Outbreak!" Rea answered. "We have no choice but to stay here because of this storm! We will be leaving early the next morning to return!"
"Very well, I'll let you get settled away and inform the Ministers," the woman answered.
"Good night!" Rea said, and turns off the tablet to put away, then looks at the abandoned inn. "We are going to have to make a run for it!"
Rea opens the side door. The rain falls as long thick drops to splash against whatever hard surfaces they strike. The entrance is protected by the eaves. Rea braces herself and is quick to run out and up the stairs, risking a couple of seconds of exposure to that intense downpour. She tries the door handles and they turn. She pushes the doors open and turns to gesture back at the others to come.
"I'll go next," Reito said, and is also quick to jump out and vault up those stairs.
One-by-one, they hurry out. The couple of seconds of exposure was enough to get them damp, such was the rainfall. Rea presses a button on the keychain and the van door closes. They enter the inn.
"Pardon for the intrusion!" Reito called. "Please excuse us!"
But a brief metallic rumble of thunder is all that answers them over the din of the soft perpetual roar of rainfall against the exterior of the inn.
"It's strange that nobody's here," Reito mused while still looking around. "What with the doors being unlocked and all."
"Most likely to discourage vandalism," Rea answered while also looking around, then looks at Reito. "A lot of businesses were not secured by their male owners before they died. Many even left notes imploring others not to commit vandalism. Now then," as she looks around once more. "We-"
Reito gets slam tackled to the floor by a screaming Sui. There they lie while she continues clasping him tightly and shivering, then looks up at him with shimmering solid white eyes.
"D-D-D-D-DEMON!"
"What?!" Reito exclaimed. "Sui, calm down you're hurting me!"
"I s-s-s-s-saw a d-d-d-d-demon!" Sui blubbered.
"Where?!" Reito asked.
"C-C-C-C-Come!" Sui quailed while getting up and tugging on him.
The group follow Sui toward the dining room, who stops and cautiously peeks around the corner as if expecting this demon she saw to attack.
"I was standing right here looking in!" Sui explained intensely as she mimicks by standing in the middle of the threshold of the entrance to the dining room and looking in. "And I saw it . . . !"
Trailing off as she marchs inside and up to the large row of windows that line the back wall, causing the others to follow.
"Right there!" Sui exclaimed upon striking the glass in the corner of the backmost window ardently with the tip of her forefinger, causing cracks to vein out. "It was staring right at me! Oh, Reito-sama, it was so ugly!" As she turns and hugs him.
"Oh please, it was just Sui's overactive imagination!" Rea stated dismissively as she momentarily squats next to a table to pick up a chair lying on its side to set upright. "Now let's check out those rooms."
"I want to see what is in the kitchen first," Suou Mira said while walking toward the kitchen door. She is a stoic woman who bears a strong resemblance to Reito's missing girlfriend, Tachibana Elisa. Up until recently, she was Reito's caretaker in this brave new world.
They follow her into the kitchen and do a search through the pantries and even the refrigerator.
"Nothing," Mira sighed. "There is nothing to eat. And I'm so hungry." As she clutches her stomach as it makes a growling squelching sound.
"I-I-It's for the better really, Mira-chan," Kuroda Maria said. She is half-Japanese half-German and was made Reito's new caretaker. She is a virologist assigned to help him create a vaccine for the MK virus. She is also a bit of a stutterer. "Any food still here would be spoiled by now."
"Let's go check out those rooms," Rea stated. "The sooner we get to sleep, the sooner we can leave this place."
They break up to do a search of the inn. Though Sui stays with Reito out of fear of the demon she had supposedly seen.
"This room will have to do," Rea said as they stand within the largest room they found. "We will take the futons from other rooms and place them in here."
"Ooh, so you do not want to sleep alone, do you?" Akane teased. "Has Sui's paranoia rubbed off on you and you're seeking protection from a big strong man?"
"Let's get to bed before it gets too dark to see properly!" Rea fumed.
The group move the various futons into the largest of the rooms, then take turns using the washroom. In Sui's case, she wants Reito to stay outside. They bed down for the night.
Akane awakens to profound darkness. The rainfall sounds softer, meaning that it is easing up. A faint flash of lightening flickers. There are a few seconds of silence before a soft distant rumble of thunder is heard. Good, the storm is moving away. Akane raises her head to look around, seeing that everybody looks to be asleep. She next gets a nagging feeling that something is outside. Slowly, carefully, she gets up and creeps over to the window and peeks out through the curtain, but sees nothing. She begins doubting that feeling and turns to go back to sleep.
Until movement in her peripheral vision catches her attention and she looks, then gasps and shudders as she catches herself from yelling out by covering her mouth tightly with both hands at the sight of the top of somebody's head slowly moving past the window sill directly underneath her gaze.
Was Sui right after all?! Was this place haunted?! Nonsense! Somebody must be living out here! Although they did not find any evidence that suggested such. Another faint flash of lightening gives Akane enough light to discern that the figure is wearing a hood.
After the figure moves out of sight Akane quietly returns to her futon and gets back under the covers. Tomorrow at dawn she is going to have Sui retrieve that woman.
Dawn arrives and it is Rea who gets up before the others. She calls and claps to awaken everyone, even tugging on a leg or two. But not Reito's.
Upon being awakened, Akane is quick to make her revelation.
"Sui really did see someone!"
"Eh?!" Reito gasped.
"I woke up last night and felt like peeking out that window!" Akane explained as she briefly points at it. "I saw someone skulking by like a ninja!"
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" Rea asked snidely.
"Positive!" Akane stated as she is busy getting dressed.
"Wha-Wha-What else do you know, Akane-san?!" Maria asked eagerly.
"Not much," Akane answered as she is still getting dressed. "Because all I saw was the top of her head-I say, her, for obvious reasons. But she was also wearing a hood and very tall because the top of her head was level with that window sill, which looks to be almost two meters up from the ground."
"A foreigner then," Reito stated. "Because tallness is a more prominant feature amongst them than amongst us Japanese. But I don't get it. Why would a foreign woman be hiding out here when she could have gotten repatriated with the rest of the foreign women?"
"Scared obviously," Akane said as she is now putting on her boots.
"She's got a point," Rea said. "Throughout history whenever an infectious disease started spreading through a place, outsiders were blamed for it. Back during the fourteenth century, the Jewish communities in Europe were blamed for the spread of the Bubonic Plague. Twenty-five years ago, Covid-19 made its appearance and there were people blaming the Chinese for it. And here in Japan, foreigners in general were blamed for the spread of the MK Virus."
"Okay," Akane said while standing up. "Let's go get her."
They arrive outside to a clear increasingly blue sky and the crisp sharp smell of nitrogen hanging in the still air.
"Sui," Akane stated. "Get to work."
Sui's other personality comes forth as denoted by her eyes turning cold and flat. "What are your orders, Ryuzoji Akane?" Her voice a cold monotone.
"Search around the inn," Akane commanded. "If you find someone, bring them to us. Now go."
"Understood," Sui said and flash steps out of view, leaving the group waiting upon the steps
A few seconds later, Sui seemingly appears before the group upon the asphalt and holding someone, now lying on their back.
"Mission accomplished!" Sui exclaimed in her child mode once again while letting the mystery woman go to make a salute.
Sui looks down and squeals with fright, then jumps back to hide behind Reito. The group stare down at who Sui had captured.
"A man!" Mira gasped.
"Impossible!" Rea gasped.
"No, she's right!" Akane stated ardently, then points out. "Look at that chest! That form! That bulge . . . ! That is a man!"
"Th-Th-Then he must be immune to the MK Virus too!" Maria deduced.
"That is about the only thing that makes sense!" Reito gasped.
The man in question is wearing a dark green rubbery poncho with sleeves and hood pulled up. He also wears grungy blue jeans with Ho Chi Min sandals crafted from a tire on his bare feet. His face is covered by a dark red wooden Noh mask of naturally dark red wood. The mask is of a fearsome demon with a black gaping mouth filled with white pointy teeth, two pronged horns protruding upward from its forehead, and eyeholes covered by see-through black fabric from within to give the mask those unnerving twin black void eyes.
"A little shabby for a ninja," Akane noted. "Although he does have the mask down pat."
The man slowly gets up to stand to his full height.
"I knew he was pretty tall," Akane mused, since the man stands taller than even herself in her high heel shoes, which in turn makes her stand taller than Reito.
The man reaches up to pull his hood back, revealing haphazardly cut blond hair and the mask being held in place by three brown leather straps, with one going over his crown to meet up at the back with the others. He lifts his mask up and off.
"Not only a male, but a foreigner too?!" Akane gasped.
"This has to be called in to headquarters," Rea stated as she walks over to the van. She opens the door and gets in, then emerges with tablet in hand. She fiddles with it and a woman appears on the monitor.
"This is Katagiri Rea reporting in and I must inform you that we just found another male hiding out here at this place!" Then turns the tablet towards the man for the secretary to see for a few seconds. Then flips it back to talk to the secretary again. "Do you understand now?! Get me the Ministers, preferably Kihara-san!"
"Right away!" The secretary stated.
There is a longer moment of silence until another woman appears on the screen.
"Is it true?!"
"See for yourself," Rea said and turns the tablet toward the foreign man once again for a few seconds longer, then turns it back to herself.
"Bring him back here!" The woman on the tablet stated. "He can get cleaned up, his clothes laundered, a medical checkup, and something to eat! Then we will see him! Now come!"
