The small office was quiet, save for the rhythmic tick-tock of a cheap wall clock Sae had bought. The air was thick with the old-man smell of mothballs, fear, and something else—a faint, metallic tang that Akari recognized from the alley. The smell of old blood.
Suzuki-san sat with his back rigid, his milky, cataract-filled eyes staring at a point on the tatami mat. His hands were clasped, his whole body gripped by a fine, unending tremor.
Akari sat opposite him, slouched in his usual posture, projecting an aura of bored, effortless control. He sipped his tea. Sae sat just behind him and to the side, a pen and a fresh client-file notebook poised on her lap. Her new, self-appointed role: case secretary.
Masamune, looking healthy and vital, sat beside the old man, acting as a silent, supportive pillar.
"So, Suzuki-san," Akari began, his voice flat. "Masamune-san says you're being... 'disturbed.'"
The old man flinched, as if the sound of Akari's voice was a physical blow. He nodded, his head bobbing.
"Please," the old man whispered. His voice was a dry, reedy rasp, like sandpaper on old wood. "You have to... you have to make them stop."
"Stop what, exactly?" Akari asked.
"The... the talking," Suzuki-san rasped. "All night. Every night. The moment the sun goes down... they... they come into my room."
Sae's pen scratched quietly.
"Do you see them?" Akari asked.
"No. Not... not clearly. They're... shapes. In the dark. Shadows. But... they're cold." The old man shivered, a violent tremor that rattled his thin frame. "So, so cold. It gets in... in my bones. Even in summer, I... I have to light the heater. My... my family... my grandchildren... they don't visit anymore. They say my house is... is like an icebox."
'This one smells of old blood and decay,' Izan's voice stated in Akari's mind, a cold, clinical observation. The massive eyeball was invisible, floating near the ceiling, its gaze fixed on the old man. 'He is already a corpse, nine-tenths in the grave. Why bother?'
Akari inwardly ignored it, focusing. "And the talking. What do they say?"
Suzuki-san's face, a roadmap of pale wrinkles, seemed to collapse in on itself. He looked confused. "They... they just... talk. Mumbling. Whispering. Names, I think... but... but I can't... I can't make them out. It's like... like listening to a radio through a thick wall. But it's always there. I haven't slept... I haven't really slept... in... in months."
He leaned forward, his filmy eyes pleading. "I can't think. I can't rest. It's... it's just... the cold. And the noise. Please... I'll pay anything. You have to make it stop."
Akari stared at him. This was... anticlimactic. No spiders. No unhinging jaws. Just... cold and mumbling. It was a standard-issue, low-grade haunting. Compared to the Gaki in the alley, this felt like a prank.
Still, the smell of blood on the man was real.
"This sounds... complex," Akari said, adopting his serious, mystical tone. "The spirits of the cold are often the most... stubborn. They are tied to the land... or... to a person."
He named his price. It was high—double what he'd charged Masamune, just because he felt like it.
The old man didn't even blink. He just nodded, his hands trembling. "Yes. Yes. Anything. When... when can you come?"
"We will be at your residence tomorrow. To... 'survey the spiritual ground.'" Akari nodded to Sae, who immediately stood and moved to the front desk. "My assistant, Sae-san, will take down your address and the advance payment. Please... be prepared. These things can be... unpredictable."
"Thank you," the old man whispered, tears of pure, exhausted relief welling in his cloudy eyes. "Thank you."
Masamune helped Suzuki-san to his feet. The old man was frail, his legs unsteady. As Masamune guided him to the front desk where Sae was waiting, he paused and looked back, bowing deeply to Akari one more time. "Thank you, Akari-san. You are... a godsend."
Akari just grunted and waved him off.
A few minutes later, Akari stood at the front door, watching Masamune help the old man into a waiting taxi. After the taxi pulled away, Masamune turned back, his expression of gratitude replaced by one of grave seriousness.
"Akari-san," he said, his voice low.
"He paid, Masamune-san. Your part's done. You can go home to your kid." Akari started to slide the door shut.
"Wait." Masamune put a hand on the door. "I... I have to warn you. About Suzuki-san."
Akari paused, his eyes narrowing. "Warn me? He looks like a stiff breeze could kill him."
"Now, yes," Masamune said. "But... my grandfather... he knew him. He knew of him. They're from the same village."
"And?"
Masamune leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Suzuki-san... he isn't just a veteran, Akari-san. He was... a 'specialist.' During the war."
Akari's bored expression didn't change, but his mind went very, very still. "...The war?"
"The Great War," Masamune said, using the old-fashioned term. "Manchuria. Burma. The things my grandfather said... the things he heard... Suzuki-san... he wasn't just a soldier. He was... a killing machine. For the Kempeitai."
The military police. The secret police. Infamous for their brutality.
Akari's mind instantly connected the dots. The smell of old blood. The cold. The whispers.
"He was... feared," Masamune continued, his face pale. "They said he was the only one in his unit to come back. That he... 'walked home through a thousand corpses.' That's the legend, anyway. He... he came back... wrong. He's been a recluse ever since. His wife died. His children... they moved as far away as they could."
He looked Akari in the eyes. "I... I believe he's haunted, Akari-san. I truly do. But... the 'vengeful things' that might be roaming around him... they aren't just... random spirits. They're... his. Please... be careful. What you did for my son was a miracle... but this... this feels... dark. Old."
Akari's expression remained impassive. "A job is a job, Masamune-san. The fee is the same for angry ghosts as it is for sad ones."
Masamune stared at him for a moment, at this strange, rude, vulgar young man who had saved his child with a power he couldn't comprehend. He bowed, low and respectful. "Of course. Forgive me."
He turned and walked away. Akari watched him go, his gaze cold. He slid the door shut, the click of the latch sounding loud in the suddenly silent office.
Akari stood in the kitchen, the single, buzzing fluorescent light casting a sickly pale glow over the counters. He was putting away the groceries he'd bought earlier, the mundane task a welcome distraction.
Milk in the fridge. Eggs. Two packs of tonkotsu ramen shoved into the cabinet. He still had the cheap ice cream in its plastic bag, sweating on the counter. His cheek, he realized, was still faintly throbbing from Sae's slap.
Sae was at the low table in the main room, meticulously transcribing her handwritten notes from the client file into a new, hardback ledger. She was humming, a quiet, tuneless sound. She had organized his entire, chaotic "business" in under a week.
He leaned against the doorframe, watching her. He was processing.
'Kempeitai... so, a war criminal. Or close enough. Haunted by the ghosts of the soldiers he served with? Or the civilians he slaughtered? 'Cold.' 'Mumbling.' Sounds like a standard-issue vengeful spirit cluster. Tedious.'
He was more unnerved by the letter. "The Eye that Gazes Beyond." That was specific. That wasn't a jealous monk. That was someone who knew.
He glanced up at the ceiling. 'Did you hear the old man's story? War ghosts. You're going to have to... I don't know... vaporize a spectral platoon. You up for that? Or am I going to need to buy a toy tank?'
Izan, as usual, offered no reply. Its silence was, in itself, an answer. 'You're on your own, fraud.'
"This is... a very sad case," Sae said suddenly, not looking up from her ledger.
Akari grunted. "It's a haunting. It's a job. It's 'sad' if he doesn't pay."
"No," she said, finally pausing her writing. She looked up, her expression serious, her brows furrowed in thought. "It's what he didn't say."
Akari's cynical train of thought derailed. "What are you talking about? He said plenty. Cold, mumbling, shadows... the standard ghost-story package."
"Exactly," Sae said, her eyes bright with a sudden, keen insight. "He's a terrified old man. He's being haunted by things that... well, Masamune-san said it. Things from the war. Vengeful spirits."
"Your point?"
"My point is..." Sae tapped her pen against the ledger. "Akari-san... he never once asked you to banish them."
Akari stopped leaning. He stood up straight. "...What? Of course he did. He wants them gone."
"No," Sae insisted, flipping back a page in her original notebook. "I write down everything. His exact words were: 'Please... you have to make them stop.' And when you asked what they say, he got... confused. Not scared. Confused. He said he 'couldn't make them out.' He complained about the noise and the cold. Not about... being attacked. Not about being threatened."
Akari was silent. He was replaying the conversation, word for word.
Sae pressed on, her voice gaining confidence. "He's an old, lonely man. Masamune-san said his whole family left him. He lives in that house, all alone, with... with those memories. What if..."
She looked at Akari, her gaze sharp. "What if he's not afraid of them?"
Akari stared at her. The cheap, cynical explanation—vengeful ghosts, angry platoon—shattered.
"What if... what if they're not vengeful?" Sae whispered, the idea taking full form. "What if they're just... lost? Just like him. And... what if he's just... lonely? He's spent more than fifty years alone with... with them. Maybe... maybe he just wants them to be quiet."
A beat of silence passed. Akari's mind, which had been bracing for a fight, a spiritual warzone, was now completely wrong-footed. Sae hadn't just offered a new clue. She'd just reframed the entire problem. This wasn't a case for an exorcist.
This was a case for a... a negotiator. A goddamn ghost-therapist.
Akari let out a long, slow breath. This was... complicated. This was annoying. A blessed Glock couldn't fix loneliness.
He looked at Sae, who was watching him, suddenly nervous, as if she'd overstepped.
"That's... not stupid," Akari said, his voice gruff.
Sae beamed.
Akari turned, walked back to the counter, and picked up the now-dripping plastic bag. He pulled out the cheap, "Choco-Mint" ice cream bar. He tossed it to her.
Sae fumbled, but caught it. "Oh! Akari-san, thank you!"
"You earned it," he muttered, turning to go to his room. "Your notes... they're good. Keep... keep doing that. That thing... where you... listen."
He slid his door shut, leaving Sae in the main room, happily unwrapping her small, cheap reward.
Akari sat on his futon in the dark, his mind racing.
A lonely, haunted war veteran. A cluster of lost, cold, mumbling ghosts. And... him. A fraud. With a god in his pocket.
'This,' he thought, rubbing his face, 'is going to be a massive pain in the ass.'