The week following the Tsumagoi case was one of suffocating, awkward quiet. The Jorōgumo was gone, Takeru was safe, and Akari had been paid—handsomely. But the event had changed the atmosphere in the small office. Sae was no longer just a receptionist; she was a witness. She had seen the raw, terrifying, and utterly absurd truth of Akari's "method."
She had seen the fraud, and she had seen the god. And as Akari had correctly guessed, she was too grateful and exhausted to give a damn about the difference.
This new, unspoken understanding led to a strange domesticity. Sae had taken to cleaning the entire residence, her way of processing. Akari, flush with cash, had taken to sleeping late.
He was in his room, which was a disaster of discarded clothes and empty instant-noodle cups, pulling a semi-clean t-shirt over his head. He was only in a pair of worn, gray boxers, his hair a sleep-mangled mess. The paper shoji door to his room was ajar—he'd kicked it open on his way back from the bathroom.
He was mid-yawn, his arms still tangled in the shirt, when the door slid open the rest of the way.
"Akari-san? Are you awake? The mail—"
Sae stopped dead.
Her eyes, which had been focused on the envelope in her hand, snapped up. They went wide, taking in the scene: Akari, half-naked, his thin but toned chest on full display, his boxers sagging slightly on one hip.
A sound, a tiny eep, caught in her throat.
Akari froze, the shirt still halfway over his head. He looked at her through the neck-hole, one eye visible. "Hm? Mail? Just put it on the desk."
"I—I—I—" Sae's face exploded in a furious, crimson blush. She spun around so fast she nearly tripped, her back ramrod-straight, her hands clapped over her eyes. "I'm so sorry! The door was open! I thought—I didn't—please put some clothes on!"
Akari sighed, pulling the shirt down. He scratched his side, completely unbothered. "You're gonna see worse if you stick around here. It's just a body, Sae. Shrug it off. What's the matter?"
"It's—it's not—it's rude!" she stammered, still facing the wall.
"Right. And you walking in on me is... polite?" He grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor and started pulling them on, his voice muffled. "You can turn around. I'm decent. Mostly."
Sae took a deep, shuddering breath and turned around, her eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling above Akari's head. The blush was still burning on her cheeks. "The mail came. There was... this. For you. It's anonymous."
She held out a single, beautiful envelope, her hand trembling slightly.
Akari, now zipping his jeans, took it. His usual lazy indifference sharpened. The envelope was not a standard white one. It was made of thick, creamy wasara paper, the kind used for high-end calligraphy. There was no address, no stamp. It had been placed directly in their mailbox. His name, "Akari," was written on the front in a stark, elegant, and severe sumi ink.
"Huh," he said. He slid a finger under the simple wax seal—it was plain, no crest—and pulled out a single, matching sheet of paper.
It was one sentence, brushed with the same, perfect calligraphy.
"Give up that which is not yours. The Eye that Gazes Beyond is not a possession for a child-fraud."
Sae, who had finally risked a glance at his face, saw the humor drain from it, replaced by a cold, flat stillness she hadn't seen before.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
Akari let out a loud, barking laugh. It was a forced, ugly sound.
"Child-fraud!" he scoffed, crumpling the beautiful paper into a tight ball. "They got the 'fraud' part right, at least. 'Give up that which is not yours.' What a joke."
"Akari-san," Sae said, her voice small, the blush forgotten. "That's... that's terrifying..and very odd. What even is the 'gaze' ?"
"As if I'd know," Akari snapped, tossing the wadded-up paper into his overflowing trash bin. He adopted his usual, too-cool swagger. "It's some old monk, Sae. Trust me. We just handled the Jorōgumo case. A case that real priests and exorcists died trying to solve. Word gets out. I just put a half-dozen old-school con artists out of business. This? This is just a... a professional 'get off my turf' letter. Happens all the time."
Sae looked unconvinced. "All the time? You get... death threats?"
"Pfft. 'Threats.'" Akari waved a dismissive hand. "They're jealous. They chant their dusty old sutras and wave their little paper sticks, and the yokai eat them for breakfast. I show up, 'chitty-chitty-bang-bang,' and the check clears. They're just pissed I'm better at their own damn game. Forget about it."
He said it with such casual, arrogant confidence that Sae almost believed him. Almost.
She nodded, still looking unnerved. "Okay... if you say so. But... Akari-san? Please... could you... button your pants? And... maybe find a clean shirt?"
Akari looked down. His fly was, in fact, still open. He smirked, that old, irritating grin returning. "Sorry, Sae. Girls always get so flustered when they see the outline of my—"
SLAP.
The sound of the slap echoed in the small office. Akari stood in the hall, one hand rubbing his now-stinging, bright-red cheek. Sae was in the kitchen, furiously—and very loudly—washing a kettle that was already clean.
Akari just sighed and grabbed his worn black coat from the hook by the door. "I'm going to the store!" he yelled. "We're out of milk!"
"Good!" she yelled back.
He stepped out onto the street, the cool morning air a relief. Izan, who had been clinging to the ceiling of his room, materialized in the air above his left shoulder, a silent, invisible, and deeply judgmental moon.
'That was unnecessary,' Akari projected, his thoughts sour. 'She's so... touchy.'
You are a crude child, Izan replied, its voice a cold, flat stone in his mind. You invite chaos into your own home. And now...
Akari felt a change in Izan's "tone"—a subtle, cold focusing of its attention. 'And now what? You going to lecture me on manners, you oversized paperweight?'
I smell dread, Izan stated. A spike in the local ambient... misery. The Jorōgumo's removal has created a... vacuum. And lesser things are crawling in to fill the void. Be aware.
'Dread.' Right. Akari rolled his eyes, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. He believed Izan, but he also had a guardian eyeball that could obliterate ancient demons with a plastic toy. His definition of "danger" had been permanently skewed. He was more worried about the price of eggs.
He turned onto a familiar side street, a shortcut to the small, 24-hour grocery. The street was narrow, the buildings blocking out most of the morning light. It was quiet, save for the distant hum of traffic.
There, Izan's voice commanded.
Akari stopped. He looked to his left, into a dark, narrow alley between a closed-down bar and a dry cleaner. It was a dead-end, filled with overflowing trash bags and stained cardboard.
And something was moving.
It was a man... or it had been. It was now a... thing. A gaunt, skeletal creature, dressed in the tattered rags of a salaryman's suit. Its skin was a waxy, pale gray, and its hair was gone, save for a few wet strands plastered to its skull. It was crouched over a pile of trash bags, its shoulders hunching and jerking with a wet, tearing, snapping sound.
It was feasting.
It was hunched over the body of a young woman, her possessions—a purse, a single red high-heeled shoe—scattered around her. The creature had its back to Akari, its head buried in the woman's...
Akari felt his stomach clench. The smell hit him—a coppery, spoiled-meat stench that choked the air.
As if sensing his gaze, the thing froze.
Its jerking, tearing motions stopped. The wet sounds ceased.
For a long, agonizing second, the alley was silent.
Slowly, the thing raised its head from the mangled corpse. It turned, its neck-bones cracking.
It looked at Akari.
Its eyes were gone. In their place were two raw, bloodshot sockets. Its mouth was a gaping, torn hole, smeared with blood and gore. It let out a low, wet hiss, and Akari saw that it had no tongue.
Then, with a speed that defied physics, it launched.
It sprang from its crouch, a predator built of only starvation and rage, its gray claws extended, its lipless mouth wide. It was going for his throat.
Akari didn't even have time to flinch. He didn't have time to think "Izan." He just... watched.
Before the creature had crossed even half the distance... it vanished.
It was not an explosion. There was no light. No bang. No trace. In one frame of reality, it was there, a leaping horror. In the next, it was gone. The air it had displaced snapped back with a quiet pop.
A few drops of blood, flung from its claws, continued their arc, spattering on the brick wall as if from a ghost.
Akari stood there, his heart hammering once, hard, against his ribs. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
You may thank your guardian eyeball, Izan's voice stated, with what might have been a sliver of pride. It was a Gaki. A hungry ghost. Pathetic, but... messy. This area is becoming unstable.
Akari stared at the empty alley, at the bloody spatters on the wall. He stared at the corpse, now lying still and alone in the garbage.
"...'Weird ass spirit,'" he muttered.
He took a step back, out of the alley's shadow and into the pale light of the street. He pulled his cheap smartphone from his pocket. He dialed 110.
When the operator answered, he held the phone away from his face, his voice flat and monotone. "Yeah, there's a dead body in the alley behind the old 'Lucky Dragon' bar. Looks like... I dunno, a murder. You should send someone."
He hung up before they could ask a single question.
He wiped his thumbprint off the phone, shoved it back into his pocket, and continued walking down the street. Izan floated silently above him.
He turned into the bright, fluorescent-lit grocery store, the automatic door chiming pleasantly. He grabbed a small plastic basket and headed for the dairy aisle, his mind already calculating.
'Milk, eggs, two packs of tonkotsu ramen... and maybe one of those cheap ice creams for Sae. She earned it for that slap.'
He was standing in the checkout line, his basket full, when his phone buzzed. It was Sae.
He answered, his voice normal. "Yeah?"
"Akari-san!" Sae's voice was urgent, but not panicked. Professional. "You need to come back. Now. A... a client is here."
"A client? Did they call first?"
"No! He... he just showed up. And... Akari-san? He's... he's with Masamune-san. From the spider case."
Akari froze, the plastic basket of groceries suddenly feeling heavy. Masamune. His walking, talking advertisement. His first real, spectacular success. The price of reputation was that people talked.
"I'm paying," he said, dumping his items on the counter. "I'll be there in five."
He half-jogged, half-walked back, taking a different, longer route to avoid the alley, which he could already hear being cordoned off by distant, approaching sirens.
When he slid open the front door to his office, the scene was exactly as Sae had described.
Masamune was there. He was sitting on one of the client cushions, but he was a changed man. The gray, hollow-eyed exhaustion was gone. He had color in his cheeks. He was wearing a clean, pressed shirt. He looked... healthy. He was the living, breathing "after" photo.
Next to him sat the "before."
The new client was an old man, perhaps in his late seventies or early eighties. He was rail-thin, his body lost inside a cheap, oversized, and stained brown suit. His skin was like dry parchment, stretched taut over a skull. His hands, gnarled with arthritis, were clasped so tightly in his lap that his knuckles were white. He was staring at the floor, his eyes filmed over with cataracts, and he was trembling. Not a violent shake, but a constant, low-grade, terrified tremor. He smelled of dust, old clothes, and a faint, sharp odor of fear.
Sae was standing by her new desk, wringing her hands, looking at Akari with a "please handle this" expression.
Akari slid into his "exorcist" persona, his voice dropping into its calm, professional register. "Masamune-san. It's... good to see you looking well."
Masamune shot to his feet, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the mat. "Akari-san! Thank you! Thank you! My... my Takeru... he's... he's laughing again. My god... he's laughing."
"That's good," Akari said, cutting the gratitude short. He gestured to the old man, who hadn't moved. "Who's this?"
Masamune's face shifted from joy to a deep, profound pity. "This... this is Suzuki-san. He... he lives in a nearby village. I... I told him about you. I told him what you did... how you saved my son when... when everyone else failed."
He put a gentle hand on the old man's trembling shoulder. "Suzuki-san... he... he's hopeless. He begged me to bring him here. He said... he said he's being constantly disturbed."
Akari looked at the old man, who finally, slowly, raised his head. His milky, cataract-filled eyes found Akari's.
"Please..." the old man whispered, his voice a dry, reedy rasp. "Please... you have to make them stop."
"Make who stop, Suzuki-san?"
The old man's eyes filled with a fresh, rheumy terror.
"...The ghosts," he whispered, his body dissolving into another fit of tremors. "They... they talk to me. All night. Every night. They... they're so cold."