The Possessed Hospitality

The basement door creaked shut behind him, swallowed by shadows. Shion, fully in control of Haruki's body, stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, gazing back into the chamber where Nakai remained. Silence wrapped the underground like gauze, but Shion felt no need to speak further. The truth had been revealed, and now the burden shifted.

He climbed. Step after step, the wooden staircase groaned under his borrowed weight. Past the storage halls. Past the corridors stained with secrets. Into the manager's office, where the scent of old coffee still lingered. And then, into the lobby.

Faint moonlight filtered through the stained glass above the door, casting fractured colors across the dust-smeared tiles. The once-bustling ryokan now lay frozen—abandoned within the hour, not just by guests and staff, but by the spirit that once animated it. Temporarily suspended. Officially closed after the incident. For how long? No one knows yet.

There, standing at the center of the lobby, Shion stopped.

"This body..."

A breath.

"It has served its purpose."

With that, the air shivered. Shion's presence lifted like smoke, vanishing into the ether. Haruki collapsed onto the cold marble floor, unconscious. Still.

Same day, just hours before midnight.

A few kilometers from the hotel, the local kōban police station stirred with hushed urgency. In one of the small holding room, a woman sat trembling, her thin frame swallowed by an oversized white shirt, lent by one of the officers. Her eyes were wide and vacant—glass-like, unblinking. She was the possessed hotel staff—now freed, but locked in the silent aftermath of terror.

Across from her, the station’s police dog sat motionless. No growl. No bark. Only quiet, watchful stillness. Trained to detect threat and aggression, the dog offered no alarm. Only a gaze that seemed to sense something deeper, something not yet gone.

A young officer approached and gently handed her a steaming cup of tea. "You’re safe now. You’re not in that place anymore."

She didn’t answer.

In the next room, Haruki’s six colleagues—those who had entered Hotel Toyohashi and survived—were being interrogated. Some were defiant. Others numb. One of them trembled as he spoke.

“The walls… they moved. The eyes in the portraits blinked. You think we’re lying? You weren’t there. You didn’t see what it became.”

The words came in a frantic rush, fragments of a reality that never existed. It hadn’t really happened—not like that. But the trauma of Tomo’s death had cracked something open. What followed wasn’t a lie—just madness, dressed in memory.

The officer across from him tapped a pen impatiently against the notepad, skeptical.

Meanwhile, in the evidence room, the waraningyō taken from Haruki’s sling bag rested on a metal tray inside a clear plastic bag. A crime scene analyst bent over it, puzzled by the craftsmanship.

"It's just an old doll," he muttered.

Yet even as he spoke, a faint sound—a whisper?—brushed his ear. The lights in the evidence locker flickered. And the analyst, without knowing why, felt the sudden urge to revisit the hotel.

Elsewhere, far from the turmoil.

The Filipina hostess sat beside Haruki’s wife, Hana, at Toyohashi Station. Something stirred behind the hostess’s eyes—an idea, a plan perhaps, though unspoken.

Nearby, the Filipina was engaged in quiet conversation with a minister, recounting fragments of strange happenings from the hotel. The pastor nodded patiently, absorbing every word, though his eyes kept drifting to Hana—clearly unsettled.

The moment broke as he turned fully toward her and spoke with gentle firmness,
“I’m Pastor Isagani.”

That night, the suspended Hotel Toyohashi in an eerie quiet. 

Wind tapped gently against the broken eaves. Then a rustle.

Haruki stirred.

His eyelids fluttered open. Cold. He was lying on the lobby floor. No voices. No Nakai. Just the low hum of the night outside.

He tried to move, groaning as he pulled himself to his knees. His limbs ached. Something had been drained from him. Energy. Life. Something he could not name.

The lobby was completely dark. Abandoned, yes. But not empty.

He staggered toward the front door, barefoot, each step dragging across the cold floor. Outside, the world was drowned in stillness. The parking lot—empty. The gardens—silent, save for the deafening chorus of crickets that filled the night like a warning. Above, the full moon hung heavy, casting pale light across the deserted grounds.

Alone beneath its gaze, he turned, slowly… and began walking back toward the hotel’s facade—drawn to it, as if something unseen waited for him inside.

And then—

A figure. A staff member.

She stood at the doorway. Motionless at the entrance, dressed in uniform, hair perfectly tied, skin pale beneath the overhead gloom. She smiled. A soft, serene smile.

"Welcome back," she whispered.

Behind her, from the darkness beyond the threshold, a bell tolled. A mission bell. Deep. Hollow.

Haruki froze.

"Am I dead?" he asked the silence. "Is this heaven... or is this hell?"

The smile never faltered.

Around him, one by one, candles lit themselves on iron sconces around the lobby walls. Like torches in a forgotten shrine, their flames wavered against the dusk. Light, but not warmth. Illumination without safety.

One of the staff gestured politely. “Please, have a seat in the lounge.”

Haruki obeyed, still barefoot, his body heavy but alert. Moments later, another staff member emerged from the darkened kitchen, pushing a cart with a bottle of red wine and a single glass. With practiced elegance, she poured the drink, placed it on the table before him, and whispered,
“Relax.”

Haruki stared at the glass. He picked it up but didn’t sip. Instead, he set it back down slowly, eyes scanning the dim, candlelit room.

“What is this?” he muttered. “Feels like I just stepped into the lyrics of Hotel California.”

Fear clawed at his chest, but his fighting spirit burned brighter. He stood, voice louder now, defiant.

“Alright. I get it. So where’s the Captain?” He forced a bitter laugh. “We haven’t had that spirit here since... 1969, right?”

The room didn’t answer—but the air grew heavier.

From the stairwell, a cane tapped slowly. A rhythmic knock against the wood.

And then he appeared.

Ichiro.

A man nearing the edge of ninety. Stooped but regal. His ancient cane carved with fading sigils. His eyes deep hollows of time.

He raised one bony hand.

"Youkoso," he said, voice like gravel on bone.

Welcome.

[Next: Mass Threading]