Head Master Of Ningyō

Haruki froze in the hallway of the second floor.

They were there.
Not fading.
Not floating.
Standing.

Two figures―one male, one female―side by side at the far end of the corridor, their faces both calm and unreadable. Marie's long hair swayed though the air was still. Shion's waraningyō doll was clutched in his right hand, the thread trailing to Marie's fingers.

They didn't speak.
They didn't move.
They were waiting.

Haruki didn't wait to understand. His breath caught in his throat, and he sprinted down the staircase, skipping two steps at a time, his body shaking with the kind of fear that made no sense―and yet made perfect sense.

He reached the lobby, nearly colliding with someone rolling a large suitcase toward the entrance.

"Nakai?"

Haruki's voice came out breathless.

Nakai turned, startled. His eyes were sunken, his coat already on, his grip tight on the suitcase handle. "I was just leaving."

Haruki blinked. "Why? Something happened?"

Nakai didn't answer at first. He started at Haruki, the muscles in his face twitching as if trying to hold something back.

"I saw two ghosts," Haruki said quietly. "Just standing there. In front of me. I think they were trying to tell me something. But―my body told me to run."

Nakai inhaled slowly. His mouth opened, then closed again. When he finally spoke, it was quiet. Shaky.

"I'm flying to Okinawa. I need to leave now."

Then, a voice―not human, not entirely. "You can check out anytime you like... but you can never leave."

Nakai stopped mid-step. His fingers loosened from the suitcase. His face went pale.

"What did you say?" he whispered, not to Haruki, but to the air.

Haruki blinked. "I didn't say anything."

Then Nakai snapped.

"You wrote my name on the guest book, didn't you?! YOU DID IT!"
He grabbed Haruki by the collar.
"YOU SIGNED ME IN!"
His screams cracked the quiet air like thunder.

Haruki wrenched himself free, his voice hoarse and trembling. "No... I swear I didn’t. Why would I? It doesn’t make any sense."

The hotel groaned.

The entrance doors slammed shut with a loud thud.
Windows locked themselves with metallic clicks.
A gust of cold wind swept through the lobby, but it came from nowhere.

Then―the static.

A radio behind the wall buzzed to life. Hissing at first. Then music.

A shamisen.
Faint, delicate, plucking strings.
And behind it―voices.

A hundred. No, more. Whispering. Moaning. Screaming.

Nakai covered his ears, eyes squeezed shut, shaking his head violently. "No... no no no―make it stop―"

Haruki stood frozen in place, unsure if the sound was real.

Then his body jerked backward.
His spine arched unnaturally.
His head snapped back―and a different voice came out of his mouth.

"YOUR DESCENDANTS KILLED MY MARIE!"

The voice was deep. Cold. Full of ancient grief.

"YOU HAVE TO PAY."

Haruki's eyes turned white.

Haruki’s body went rigid. His breathing slowed, eyes dimming like a candle snuffed by unseen wind. Then, in a voice not his own—aged, sorrowful, and laced with fury—he spoke:

“Take me to the basement chamber, Nakai.”

Nakai froze. The voice was unmistakable. Shion.

Trembling, Nakai nodded slowly. With measured steps, he led Haruki—no, Shion—into the back of the office. There, beneath a heavy rug, they uncovered a trapdoor embedded in the floorboards. The wood groaned as they pried it open, revealing a dark stairwell that spiraled into the earth like a forgotten grave.

A single flickering bulb hung above the stairwell, casting long, twitching shadows. The air below was thick with age, damp with secrets. Every step echoed. Dripping pipes marked time like a broken metronome.

At the bottom, the narrow hallway opened into a hidden chamber.

And there—they saw them.

Hundreds of waraningyō dolls hung like limp bodies on rusted lines, swaying gently—unnaturally—as if stirred by breath that didn’t belong to the living. Each one bore a name tag. A room number. A guest. It was as if they were waiting… gathered for a feast. Their stitched faces twisted in silent, mocking grins, whispering through the stillness: “We're just prisoners here.”

This wasn’t superstition.

It was a system.
A method.
A curse meticulously archived.

Shion’s spirit, moving through Haruki’s body, paused—recognizing the artifacts strewn across the chamber. An old ritual drum once played by Marie. A tangle of black-beaded necklaces and bracelets. Wooden boards etched with cryptic, worn symbols. It felt less like a room and more like a shrine... or a forgotten museum of curses—each object humming with the weight of memory and something far darker.

Nakai, catching his breath, looked as though he feared these might be his final moments. "I thought they’d put an end to it," he whispered. "My grandfather told me they burned Marie alive to keep witchcraft—especially voodoo—from taking root in Japanese culture. That was the story… But I was wrong. They didn’t destroy her ritual book. They kept it. Translated it. Studied it. Mastered it. And over time… they became the very beasts they feared."
He glanced toward the dangling dolls, voice trembling. "I saw how they used them—waraningyō and voodoo alike. They didn’t use needles. They stabbed them with steely knives."

Shion no longer cared to hear those stories. Deep inside, regret had begun to settle. After the brutal, unjust death of his beloved Marie, his grief had turned to vengeance. He cast curses, buried dolls laced with spells across the hotel, and ultimately took his own life. But in doing so, he had bound their souls to the ryokan—trapped in a cycle of sorrow and rage. Now, a quiet realization haunted him: his fury had only deepened their suffering.

Nakai, spiraling into a panic attack, couldn’t stop talking—his words tumbling out in a frantic rush.
"To tell you the truth, Shion... your soul—Marie’s too—it’s not the cause of what’s happening in this hotel. My grandfather, Ichiro, reawakened the dolls. He recast the spells. After what happened to his daughter, something in him broke. His grief twisted into vengeance... and that’s what restarted all of this. The curse? It isn’t yours. It’s ours."

Shion stood in silence. The revelation brought a flicker of relief—but also deep sorrow.
Even in death, he and Marie had been trapped, haunted by a legacy they never meant to leave behind. And yet, the whispers around Mt. Horaji still blamed her—the voodoo priestess, they called her. The witch. The curse.
But the truth was more tragic.

They were never the origin of the evil.
Just its victims.

[Next: The Possessed Hospitality]