Suzuki-san lived in a small, pre-war-era house on the outskirts of his village, set back from the road and shadowed by a grove of overgrown, unkempt cryptomeria trees. The house itself was immaculate. The wood of the engawa was swept clean, the small rock garden was free of weeds. But the moment Akari and Sae stepped past the front gate, the air changed.
It was a bright, cool autumn afternoon. The sun was sharp in a blue sky. But under the trees, the temperature didn't just drop; it was stolen.
"It's... cold," Sae whispered, pulling her thin cardigan tight. Her breath misted, just slightly.
"Yeah. He mentioned that," Akari said, his voice dripping with his usual lack of enthusiasm. He shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. The cold was real. It wasn't the crisp, wet cold of winter; it was a dry, heavy, dead cold. It felt like it was pressing on his skin, trying to get in.
'What a drag,' he thought, glancing at the roof. 'You feeling this?'
A localized thermal depression, Izan's voice stated in his mind, cool and academic. The ambient spiritual energy is... stagnant. Congealed. These are not active entities. They are... echoes. A recording, playing on a loop.
'Great. So he's being haunted by a broken record. And he's paying us for this.'
Suzuki-san slid the front door open before they could knock. He was wearing the same stained suit, and he was trembling, his milky eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror.
"You... you came," he rasped, bowing low. "Please... please, come in. They... they're quiet... for now. They... they seem to know the sun is out."
He led them inside.
If the garden was cold, the house was a tomb. The air was absolutely still. The dust motes in the few shafts of sunlight that pierced the curtains didn't dance; they hung suspended. The cold was a physical weight, settling on their shoulders. Sae was visibly shivering now, her teeth chattering.
"Where... where does it happen, Suzuki-san?" Sae asked, her voice trembling.
"My... my bedroom," the old man whispered, pointing to a closed shoji screen at the end of the hall. "But... they... they are everywhere. In the walls."
Akari sighed, the sound loud in the oppressive silence. "Right. Show's over. Everybody out."
"W-what?" Suzuki-san looked panicked.
"Out," Akari repeated, more forcefully. "Go sit on the porch. Both of you. Sae, you too. I can't 'survey the spiritual ground' with you two breathing all over it. The... 'ethereal resonance'... it's very delicate."
Sae, who had been on the receiving end of Akari's bizarre "methods" before, just nodded, her eyes wide with a misplaced respect. "Of course, Akari-san."
"But—" Suzuki-san began.
"You want the mumbling to stop or not?" Akari snapped.
The old man flinched and nodded, shuffling out the front door. Sae gave Akari a final, supportive look, then followed, sliding the door shut behind her and leaving Akari alone in the frozen, silent house.
The moment the door closed, Akari's "mystic" persona evaporated. He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Fuuuuuuck, it's cold."
He walked down the hall, his footsteps echoing too loudly on the polished wood. The house felt... full. Not with spirits, but with pressure. Like an over-inflated tire.
He stood in front of the bedroom and slid the shoji open.
It was a simple room. A rolled-up futon. A small, empty desk. And a wall... a wall covered in small, framed, black-and-white photographs. Young men in stiff-collared military uniforms, staring blankly at the camera. A group photo. A single portrait. Another. A dozen, at least.
This was the source. The cold was so intense here it made Akari's joints ache.
"Right," he muttered. He unzipped his backpack and set up his "stage." He placed a bundle of incense in a small bowl. He laid out the polished river stones in a meaningless, swirling pattern. He sat cross-legged, the picture of a serene exorcist.
He lit the incense.
The smoke... didn't rise. It left the stick, curled, and then sank, pooling around his knees like a sluggish, gray fog.
'Well, that's new,' he thought.
He closed his eyes. "Okay, guys. Let's get this over with. Ooooommmm... suuutra... pay me the mon-ey...." He began to chant, his voice a low monotone, the words a random selection of noodle ingredients from the ramen packets in his kitchen. "Nori... chashu... tamago... menma..."
The room reacted.
The temperature, which had been near-freezing, plummeted. Akari's breath, which had been a faint mist, was now a thick, white cloud. A frost, delicate and fern-like, began to creep across the wooden floor from the walls.
And the sound began.
It wasn't a whisper. It was... mumbling. A low, collective, guttural drone. It was the sound of a dozen men, speaking at once, just outside the range of hearing. It wasn't in his head; it was in the air. The shoji screen rattled in its frame, not from a wind, but from the vibration.
Akari's eyes snapped open. The fake chant died in his throat.
'Okay, okay. Shit. That's... that's a reaction,' he thought, his own heart starting to hammer. 'Sae was right. They're not attacking. They're... they're just talking.'
He looked at the wall of photos. The faces... were they... were they staring at him?
'Izan. Now. No more cryptic bullshit. What. Am. I. Looking. At?'
The world shifted.
For a fraction of a second, Izan gave him a glimpse. The room didn't change, but his perception of it did. The cold, the mumbling, the pressure... it all snapped into focus.
The room was full.
Standing along the walls, shoulder-to-shoulder, were a dozen... impressions. Shapes in the air, in the tattered, spectral outlines of old Imperial uniforms. Their faces were blurred, like watercolor paintings left in the rain. They weren't moving. They weren't threatening.
They were standing at attention.
And they were all, every single one, staring at the empty spot where Suzuki-san slept.
They were waiting.
Izan's voice was a cold, sharp blade of comprehension in his mind. They are not echoes, fraud. They are a garrison. They do not know the war is over. They do not know they are dead. They are anchored to their commander... and they are waiting for their final orders.
Akari's blood ran colder than the room.
Sae's theory. She was right, but she had missed the most terrifying, tragic part. This wasn't just loneliness. This was a 50-year-long, undeclared military limbo. The mumbling... it wasn't threats.
It was roll call.
Akari scrambled to his feet, his knees cracking. He kicked his useless rocks aside, scattering them. He slid the shoji screen open with a bang, making Sae and Suzuki-san jump.
They were sitting on the porch, wrapped in blankets Sae had found.
"Akari-san!" Sae said, alarmed. "Is it... is it done?"
"No, it's not 'done,'" Akari said, his voice raw. He was pissed. This was... so much work. He stalked over to the old man. Suzuki-san looked up at him, terrified.
"Your 'exorcism,' it's all wrong," Akari said.
"W-what?"
"I asked you if they threatened you. If they attacked you," Akari said, his voice low and intense. "But they don't, do they? They just... mumble. They're just... cold."
Suzuki-san's face went from fear to a deep, profound, ancient shame. He looked down at his gnarled hands. "...No. They... they have never... harmed me."
Sae looked at Akari, her eyes wide, a silent "I told you" passing between them.
Akari ignored her. He crouched in front of the old man, his gaze boring into him. "You're Suzuki-san. But... that's not what they call you, is it?"
The old man began to tremble again, a deep, rattling quake.
"They're not haunting you, you old bastard," Akari said, his voice devoid of pity. "They're reporting to you. Aren't they?"
Suzuki-san didn't answer. He just wept. Silent, dry tears from his cloudy eyes.
"You were their commander," Akari stated. "Your... 'specialist' unit. The Kempeitai. They're yours."
"I... I..." the old man's voice was a fractured whisper. "I... was... Gunsō. Sergeant. I... they... they were my men."
"And they're still here," Akari said, standing up. "They're in that room. Standing at attention. They've been standing at attention for fifty years, you idiot. They're waiting."
"Waiting?" Suzuki-san looked up, his face a mask of tragic confusion. "Waiting... for... for what?"
"For you!" Akari yelled, his patience snapping. He was so tired of this. "The war is over! You're the only one who can tell them! They're dead! You're not! You've been letting them stand there, in the cold, mumbling at you, and you've been too much of a coward to dismiss them!"
"Akari-san!" Sae gasped, horrified at his cruelty.
"No..." Suzuki-san whispered, but a new light was in his eyes. A dawning, horrifying, and clarifying light. "He... he's... right. The noise... the names... they're... they're giving... their reports. Tanaka... O-kami... Watanabe... I... I hear them..."
"Then get up," Akari commanded, his voice as sharp as a bayonet. "Get. Up. You're going to end this. Now."
Akari grabbed the old man by his thin, bird-like arm and hauled him to his feet. He half-dragged, half-shoved him down the hall, back to the bedroom. Sae followed, her hands over her mouth.
The room was electric with the cold and the noise. The mumbling was a palpable roar. The shadows on the wall seemed to writhe.
"Look at them!" Akari shoved Suzuki-san into the center of the room. "They're your men! They died for you! And you're letting them rot here!"
Suzuki-san stood in the center of the room, in the pool of frozen incense smoke, and he broke. The decades of guilt, of fear, of loneliness, of unresolved duty... it all came crashing down.
"I... I..." he stammered.
And then, something in him snapped straight.
The trembling stopped. His stooped, frail shoulders... straightened. His chin, which had been resting on his chest, came up. He pulled his arms back, his gnarled hands balling into fists at his sides.
He was no longer a frail, eighty-year-old man.
He was Gunsō Suzuki. And he was on deck.
He took a deep, rattling breath, and when he spoke, his voice was not a reedy rasp. It was a command. A parade-ground bark that shook the very dust from the air.
"KIITE!" (LISTEN!)
The mumbling... stopped. Instantly.
The house fell into a silence so profound, so absolute, that Akari's ears rang. The cold... it didn't vanish, but it... held its breath.
Suzuki-san, his cloudy eyes staring at the wall of photographs, at the spectral shapes only he and Akari could truly see, took another breath.
"Tanaka!" he barked. "Watanabe! Okami! Yamada! Unit... ten-shun!"
He... he was crying. The tears were streaming down his face, but his voice was iron.
"Your... your duty... is concluded," he choked out. "The... the war... shūryō. The war is over."
He was shaking, but he held his stance.
"On... on my authority... as your commanding officer... I... I dismiss you. Be... at peace. Yasume!" (At ease!)
He held his hand up in a quivering, final salute.
For a long second, nothing happened. The silence stretched.
'Izan,' Akari thought, his own throat tight. 'If you're going to do something... now's the time. Send them off.'
They have their orders, Izan replied.
And then... it happened.
There was no explosion. No Glock.
Just... a release.
A warm breeze, like the first real day of spring, seemed to generate from the center of the room. It wasn't a wind; it was... a collective, grateful sigh. The frost on the floor didn't melt; it sublimated, vanishing in an instant. The oppressive, soul-deep cold... lifted. It was gone.
The shadows in the corners... were just shadows. The air... was just air.
The photos on the wall... were just photos.
Suzuki-san's salute wavered. His shoulders stooped. His legs gave out. He collapsed to the tatami mat, the sound of his body hitting the floor echoing. But he wasn..."t crying anymore.
He was... asleep. A deep, true, and finally silent sleep. His face, even in exhaustion, looked lighter than it had in fifty years.
Akari let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding since he stepped on the property.
This... this was so much harder than shooting things.
He looked at Sae. She was leaning against the doorframe, tears streaming down her own face. But she was smiling. She was looking at Akari with an expression of such pure, unadulterated awe... such admiration... it made him sick to his stomach.
In her eyes, he hadn't just conned a senile old man. He had seen into a man's soul, commanded an army of the dead, and brought peace to a half-century of suffering... all with the power of his words.
He was, to her, a true master.
"Ugh," Akari groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. "This was a pain in the ass."
He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Sae to find a blanket for the old man.
"Get the rest of the payment, Sae!" he yelled from the genkan. "And add a fifty-percent surcharge for... 'emotional distress'! My fee just went way up for ghost therapy!"