"All My Atrocities, Come By Way of Reprocity"

“Fujinami Kano here,” said Fujinami Kano, “Editor of the Higashikatsushika High Shimbun. I’m here at Kisaragi Station, said to be one of the most haunted locations in the prefecture.”

She breathed heavily for dramatic effect, then pointed the camera away from her face, instead focusing on her dilapidated surroundings. It was past midnight now, a pale crescent hanging high in the dark sky, and the train station was crumbling away. Located high in the hills surrounding Higashikatsushika, the tracks now went nowhere, and the open-air station, really just a platform with a wall and small roof, was covered in rubble, graffiti, and overgrowth.

“Kisaragi Station,” Fujinami contemplated. “In the postwar era, there was a plan to develop a rail line through the hills, and establish a mountainside resort here along the way. Kisaragi was completed as part of that plan. Locals warned the corporation that these hills were cursed. Fox-spirits live here, they say. Or is it ghost girls in fox masks? Legends are confusing. But the corporation went ahead anyway. However, soon after the station was complete, but before the rest of the plan could even begin, the Red Army Faction, the same group that hijacked Japan Air Lines Flight 351 in 1970, kidnapped the CEO’s daughter, occupied the station and held her as a hostage, and ultimately killed her whilst in a shootout with the cops. The station now lays abandoned, and that poor daughter is said to still haunt the premises…what was that?”

Fujinami swung the camera around shakily, breathing hard, only to let out a fart.

“Hah! I’m funny. Though I’ll probably have to edit that out…wait, what was that?”

She gasped, took a step back, then ripped more ass.

“Hah! I’m hilarious-”

The dead daughter crawled across the ceiling spider-style, gazing upside-down at Fujinami, one side of her face caved-in from where the Red Army killed her with a hammer.

“Did you come to save me…” the ghost asked, face twisting around owl-style. “I’ve been waiting…I just know otou-san will pay the ransom, he’ll come get me out of here…”

Fujinami lowered the camera. She gazed up at the ghost. Then she tooted a bit before passing out.

The daughter propelled herself down, the same bloody hammer materializing in her hand. Fujinami, out cold, was about to become another victim of the Onryo no Hanma of Kisaragi Station, her body found at the bottom of the hills the next morning, alive but with a ruined face, the same as all the other alleged, rumored girls throughout the years, which prompted Fujinami to investigate in the first place.

But a scythe stopped the hammer before it could bash Fujinami’s face in. The onryo struggled, but the scythe held tight, then pushed the onryo backwards. Her eyes, already rather dark if not outright black entirely, narrowed.

“Shrine maiden.”

Shigeko stepped between Fujinami and the onryo. “I’ve come to save you,” she said to the ghost.

“Really now…”

The ghost charged, hammer making wide swings, but Shigeko deflected it, spun, and bisected the ghost in a single fluid motion. The hammer clanged to the ground, the ghost falling atop of it. She began to fade away, same as Hanako once did.

Shigeko knelt next to her. “I’m sorry your father chose to storm the station, rather than pay the ransom and get you out of there safely. Maybe he wasn’t being cheap, though. Maybe he thought if he paid one ransom, they’d demand a second. Or they’d take the money and then kill you anyway. It’s not his fault, or the police’s. It’s the fault of the kidnappers-”

A ghostly hand swung the hammer into Shigeko’s wounded ribs. Shigeko cried out and keeled over. The ghost, despite fading away, managed to rise to her knees and lift the hammer once more. But right as she swung, Shigeko gripped her arm, stopping the swing in its tracks. Shigeko coughed up blood and sighed.

“Itai,” she muttered, then cut out the onryo’s throat with her scythe.

BRILLIANT

BATTLE

FIRST CORINTHIANS

Shigeko got home late, had barely enough time for a shower, let alone to sleep, and noticed that the skin over her injured flank had started to grow a little green. But that didn’t matter. Nothing did. She shuffled through school, ignoring Fujinami during her customary morning ritual of bellowing, “Make way for the shinigami!” whenever Shigeko entered the class. The newspaper hound was in quite good spirits despite waking at the foot of the hills that morning, her camera unfortunately destroyed by what appeared to be some sort of katana, or perhaps a scythe.

“The shinigami truly looks like death today,” Yoizuki the gyaru laughed out.

“She looks like she got the piss beat out of her,” Arashi the delinquent huffed, trying his best to divert all associations between him and pooping.

The class all laughed and laughed. Shigeko reminded herself that not everyone was laughing - basketball buchou Kinagusa Eiji looked asleep, his club manager Yubari Miwa looked with sympathy, though too nervous to say anything, and school princess Zuiho Hisa read her book as usual. And there was, of course-

“Ya-hallo!” Dick Slaughter greeted as he entered the classroom. Arashi and Yoizuki scoffed, and Eiji frowned, but Dick merrily made his way to his desk, sitting in the protagonist’s seat behind Shigeko.

“Is the rainy season truly that bad?” Dick asked. “I know it’s supposed to start soon.”

But Shigeko had her head on her desk, pretending to be asleep.

BRILLIANT

BATTLE

FIRST CORINTHIANS

Rather than get ingredients for dinner, Shigeko only succeeded in buying some ramen at a 6/7 konbini along her trudge back to the shrine after school. The whole day was a blur, and she felt woozy, but she had to overcome this herself, because she herself was the only person she could rely upon. She might’ve passed out on the long stairs up to the temple, she wasn’t sure, but at some point, she made it inside the house, and immediately crumpled onto the wooden floor at the entrance.

“I saved you,” she mumbled. “Yet you still say, ‘Make way for the shinigami.’ Of course, it’s not like you know I saved you…”

Memories and dreams - Shigeko couldn’t tell them apart - swirled around her mind, her brain feeling foggy and swamped like a foggy swamp, as she saw okaa-san in the hospital and recalled her own shyness in elementary school, always standing off by herself…

You’re the best, around!

Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down!

You’re the best, around!

Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down!

The unrelenting assault of 1980s power pop on her eardrums, coming from the temple courtyard, forced Shigeko to stand and shamble over to the front door. She opened it halfway and peered outside.

“Dikkun…”

Dick stood in the courtyard, a Suisei Conglomerate boombox raised over his head. He gave a crooked grin. “The temple is a public area, right? If you won’t train me, well, I’ll just train myself!”

He flung the boombox in the air, then immediately dropped into a one-handed pushup. The boombox landed snugly on his bag, and the music seemed to oscillate in time with Dick’s upward and downward motions.

No response came from Shigeko, mainly ‘cuz she just didn’t know what to say.

“Some people tell me I just don’t know when to give up,” Dick said. “I’m not blind. I can tell you were out fighting last night. You look sick.”

“It’s just the lighting.”

“Let me help,” Dick said, each word coming as he clapped in between each pushup. “You can’t take on the whole world by yourself.”

“Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?”

“A concerned friend!”

Shigeko slammed a fist into the door. “W-Who gave you permission to be my friend! You’re just so hot-headed sometimes!”

The pushups ended. Dick rearranged himself, sitting up straight, boombox balanced perfectly on his head. “Ah, of course. There’s a mental component to fighting the paranormal that I’m probably missing, right? I must meditate, and achieve a state of Zen, right?”

“That’s right,” said the Old Man. It was winter then, shortly after they buried her father. He and Shigeko sat on the long stairs up to the shrine, air condensing with each word.

“But why,” Shigeko asked, wearing the yellow elementary school hat. “Okaa-san fought the monsters with the Scythe of a Thousand Truths. She never fought them with her mind.”

“You can’t see the mind,” the Old Man explained. “But it’s there. Always there. The greatest source of strength is inner peace. And the greatest display of strength is kindness.”

Shigeko kicked a rock. “The world doesn’t seem that kind. Is most of the world weak, then?”

The Old Man shook his head. “Most of the world wants to be strong, but doesn’t know how. That’s why you show them kindness.”

Shigeko rubbed her eyes.

“Hah,” Dick realized. “I know you just had a flashback there. I was totally right. If you need me, I’ll be meditating.”

“Hmph.” Shigeko slowly closed the door, her voice trailing away. “If you’re gonna meditate, straighten that back. And turn that racket off.”

The music stopped, but even through the door, Shigeko could hear the tranquil sound of Dick inhaling and exhaling. She laid down on the floor, like usual, and before she even noticed, soon fell asleep to his rhythm.