"The Slit-Mouthed Woman?"
Kazumi Junya's face visibly tightened, a look of uncertain alarm crossing his features. He fixed Amamiya Rin with a grave, searching gaze, as though pressing for confirmation.
"The Slit-Mouthed Woman who had every kid in the country too scared to go out after dark — she actually exists?"
You really saw the Slit-Mouthed Woman?
That was the challenge Kazumi Junya was putting to him.
"Kazumi, you work at the Police History Compilation Office and you're still asking that?"
Amamiya Rin couldn't help giving him a sideways look, his expression shifting into something peculiar — like a man regarding a rare and baffling specimen.
By rights, Kazumi Junya should have encountered more than his fair share of paranormal incidents by now. Why the wide-eyed disbelief?
"No — you're young. You probably don't know the full story."
Kazumi Junya furrowed his brow, his gaze going distant, as though sorting through memories buried deep. "That was fifteen years ago. I was still in elementary school at the time. One day, the story going around was that a local high school girl had been in an argument with her boyfriend, and he'd accidentally cut the corner of her mouth with something. Word travels fast in school circles — and disappears just as fast. That kind of ugly incident between a couple wasn't exactly uncommon."
He paused, then continued.
"But for some reason, this one kept spreading. Eventually people were saying she'd had plastic surgery and gotten married. Others said she'd killed herself. And then somehow, out of nowhere, it mutated into a horror story that spread across the whole country, getting wilder with every retelling.
"In the stories, she became a woman in a long coat, wearing a scarf, a surgical mask over her face, and a pair of large scissors in her hand. She'd approach children walking home from school and ask: 'Am I pretty?' Then, depending on the answer, she'd either cut their mouths open or kill them outright. In the end — I remember it was in Himeji — the police arrested a woman who'd been dressing up as the Slit-Mouthed Woman and pulling knife pranks on the street. The newspapers ran full features on it. There was no such monster. Just a string of copycat stunts and coincidences by bored people imitating the rumor, amplified by people who couldn't help embellishing — and like that, the craze slowly died down."
Kazumi Junya had been close to the source. He'd known about the Slit-Mouthed Woman before the legend even took shape, and he'd watched every twist of its evolution firsthand.
"Right — it was just a rumor all along. The Slit-Mouthed Woman, some terrifying monster — complete nonsense!"
Kogure Soichiro trudged in carrying the body bag, grumbling as he rubbed his arms as though trying to scrub away a chill he couldn't see.
"I can't stand people who blow things out of proportion! Take a perfectly ordinary nasty incident, pass it around enough times, and somehow it turns into a ghost story. Drives me mad!"
Kazumi Junya gave a nod and pressed on: "Which is to say — the Slit-Mouthed Woman was never a monster to begin with. And even if she were, her weakness wouldn't be hair wax, because that particular weakness only exists as part of a different version of her legend."
In the legend, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had originally been a woman who went to a cosmetic surgery clinic for lip augmentation. During the procedure, her attending physician had been wearing cheap hair wax that gave off a foul smell.
Unable to bear the stench, she kept flinching away during the operation — and in doing so, caused the scalpel to accidentally slash open her lips.
"By your logic, that version is pure fiction. The real Slit-Mouthed Woman had her mouth cut open during a fight with her boyfriend — which means hair wax couldn't possibly have any effect on her."
Amamiya Rin listened to Kazumi's analysis and Kogure's complaints, and his own brow slowly creased.
He could hear what Kazumi Junya was getting at.
The rumor was false — but the Slit-Mouthed Woman was real. And the real Slit-Mouthed Woman had no weakness to hair wax whatsoever.
But...
"I did drive her off with the hair wax incantation, though..."
Or had he, really?
Amamiya Rin sank inward, dropping into Dhyana, carefully replaying the confrontation with the Slit-Mouthed Woman in his mind's eye — converting the memory into something like a video, analyzing it frame by frame.
He found nothing.
When he'd spoken the incantation, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had shown no reaction whatsoever. Even after he'd recited it three times in a row, she'd shown no sign of having been struck by anything — only hatred and bitter resentment burning in her eyes.
Was there another possibility entirely? That the Slit-Mouthed Woman hadn't fled because of the incantation at all — but because his underhanded Evil Thrust to her groin had severely limited her mobility, forcing her to abandon the chase? And that his recitation of the incantation had been nothing more than empty bluster that happened to coincide?
Amamiya Rin turned the question over for a long while and couldn't arrive at any certain conclusion.
"Ghosts are born from the human heart."
Indou Ranko's broad Osaka drawl cut into his thoughts, pulling him out of his brooding.
"Born from the human heart?"
Amamiya Rin looked up at her, something stirring in his chest — an instinctive connection to the theory of mind over matter.
Indou Ranko didn't explain immediately. She tipped her chin toward Kazumi Junya.
"Kazumi, take Miss Kawabe to another room and get her statement. Make sure she understands the confidentiality terms."
"Understood."
Kazumi Junya nodded and moved over to Kawabe Mayo, who was still standing in a daze, his voice gentle.
"Miss Kawabe, please come with me — we need to record a few details. Don't worry, everything that happened tonight will be handled properly."
Kawabe Mayo gave a silent nod and followed Kazumi Junya out of the living room. Kogure, meanwhile, had finished placing Mrs. Kawabe's remains in the body bag and carried her out.
Only Amamiya Rin and Indou Ranko remained in the room.
Indou Ranko crossed to the sofa and dropped onto it with zero ceremony, fishing a battered, slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She pulled one out and stuck it between her lips — but didn't light it.
"Most urban legends with any real notoriety — it tends to work something like this. Their very existence is bound to the stories that circulate about them. Especially the modern ones. They're more like... a troublesome thing kneaded together out of the collective belief and terror of enormous numbers of people — that kind of mass will — mixed with some soul overflowing with intense resentment or regret. Their appearance, their behavioral patterns, even a portion of their abilities — all of it is derived from whichever version of the story spread furthest. That includes their weaknesses."
Amamiya Rin felt a quiet shock move through him as he listened.
He'd known that the power of belief was not to be underestimated in this warped world — that it could invest the natural world with special significance, even trigger supernatural phenomena.
But he hadn't imagined it could go this far. That it could directly create monsters out of ghost stories.
If it could create monsters from ghost stories — then in this animistic country, could gods and Buddhas be born from human faith as well?
"In that case... if we could change the stories about the Slit-Mouthed Woman on a large scale — say, spread a new version that completely counters or destroys her — would that solve her at the root?"
Amamiya Rin pressed on, following that thread, feeling as though he'd glimpsed a new path.
"What do you think? Why do you suppose the Slit-Mouthed Woman went dormant for fifteen years?"
Indou Ranko shot the question back at him.
Amamiya Rin didn't know. He hadn't even known she'd been dormant for that long.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman — wasn't she one of Japan's most famous urban legends?
Still, he thought he could guess at the truth.
"The police arrested a woman who'd been dressing up as the Slit-Mouthed Woman and pulling knife pranks... that was your doing? Fighting a rumor with a rumor?"
A Slit-Mouthed Woman born from rumor, negated by rumor.
If a monster's power came from people believing in it, then — make most people stop believing.
"Is that the proper method for destroying monsters?"
Amamiya Rin said it with a kind of wondering respect.
He thought he finally understood why the Police History Compilation Office was the Police History Compilation Office — and not some Paranormal Countermeasures Division.
Because their work wasn't to destroy monsters. It was to rewrite the history that gave monsters their birth.
Hmm... there was a distinct whiff of fictional mystery logic to all this.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. It can't be done — not fully."
Indou Ranko shot down his conjecture flatly.
"Covering an old horror legend with a rational explanation, weakening the power of collective fear and belief — it's like cutting the oxygen from a flame. At most you shrink the fire, make it lie low for a while. You can't put it out completely.
"Because stories can be overwritten, but memories are nearly impossible to erase entirely. As long as even one person remembers the name 'Slit-Mouthed Woman' — as long as anyone remembers her legend — she won't truly die. She'll only go dormant. I destroyed her once, back then. And yet here she is again."
So it had been Indou Ranko who'd dealt with the Slit-Mouthed Woman when she first ran rampant all those years ago.
She had defeated her — but could not finish her.
Amamiya Rin could imagine that feeling of helplessness. He thought of Kayako, who shared the same unkillable nature.
The difference between the Slit-Mouthed Woman and Kayako seemed to be only one of degree — they shared the same fundamental trait: impossible to uproot, only to be temporarily suppressed as time passed and memory faded.
Despair. This world was absolutely saturated with despair. These cursed legends and monsters — they were less like evil spirits than like natural phenomena.
And natural phenomena cannot be permanently eliminated.
"Then why did she reappear after fifteen years? Why here in Shimokitazawa?"
Amamiya Rin rubbed his brow and pushed on.
"No idea. Not a clue."
Indou Ranko answered without a hint of hesitation — almost defiantly unashamed about it.
"Could be some idiot made another terrible movie about her, or some paranormal TV show dug her back up and threw fuel on the fire. Could be there's been enough resentment building in this neighborhood lately — someone died here with a similar story to hers, giving her a stage to perform on again. There are any number of reasons."
"So — how do you plan to find her this time? And what will you do when you do?"
Amamiya Rin let that thread drop and switched to something more practical.
"Old-fashioned way. Canvass the area. Interviews — especially with people who are out at night, and children. Narrow down the zone where she's been appearing most frequently. Then stakeout. Sit and wait. When she shows, eliminate her."
"Just like apprehending an ordinary suspect?"
"Exactly."
The sheer plainness of the plan left Amamiya Rin momentarily at a loss for words.
No tracking spells. No divination. In an era before surveillance cameras were everywhere, facing a monster with superhuman speed that looked perfectly human from the outside — and their answer was really just the most primitive possible combination of manpower, door-to-door inquiries, and waiting?
Amamiya Rin already knew this country was painfully ill-equipped to handle paranormal incidents. An entire department with only three staff members, two of whom were ordinary police officers — for countless supernatural cases, all they could do was look the other way.
But he truly hadn't expected the Police History Compilation Office to be this underpowered.
"Watch yourself."
Indou Ranko looked at him, her gaze pausing for a moment on the cane he was leaning on. For once, her tone carried a note of genuine seriousness.
"That supernatural constitution of yours means you're several grades more likely to run into something than a normal person. Run into her once, and you might run into her again. These next few days — stay home if you can. Especially don't come wandering around Shimokitazawa. And if you do have to go out... keep a can of hair wax on you. Better to have it and not need it than the other way around. Even if it's just a psychological comfort."
So... she knew full well his supernatural constitution made him a magnet for the Slit-Mouthed Woman, and she still wasn't going to bring him along for the operation?
Amamiya Rin opened his mouth, then closed it again. He said nothing, made no offer to help.
By the time he left the Kawabe residence, the night had deepened into something impenetrable.
The streetlamps bled rings of sickly yellow into the damp, cold air. Silence lay over everything — broken only by the occasional distant rumble of a passing car, which only made the small hours feel emptier and colder.
Amamiya Rin settled into the driver's seat and pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples.
Two incidents in a single day — a vampire and the Slit-Mouthed Woman. The mental strain was worse than the physical exhaustion. Even with Dhyana as his foundation, the sheer volume of information hammering at him had drained his mind to its dregs.
He glanced at his phone. 1:00 a.m.
Amamiya Rin started the engine. It growled to life and shattered the quiet. The jeep crept out of Shimokitazawa and headed in the direction of Tomie's apartment.
Back at the apartment, he pushed open the door, changed out of his shoes, and went straight to the bathroom for a quick cold shower.
The icy water stripped away the fatigue clinging to his body and the faint, lingering smell of blood. The scissor wound on his thigh had already healed completely — nothing left but a faint line slightly lighter than the surrounding skin, the only proof that something had been there at all.
He came out of the bathroom toweling his hair and, out of habit, made himself a cup of instant coffee.
He carried it to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.
Beyond the glass lay the sleeping city, its scattered lights like fallen stars.
Amamiya Rin stared at them, feeling slightly unmoored. He sipped slowly at the coffee, keeping the drowsiness at bay.
Too much had happened today — far too much to digest, and yet he couldn't stop his mind from working through it.
The black magic ritual for becoming a vampire. The alchemical formula from the Paracelsian system. The formation and evolution of urban legends. The true origin of the Slit-Mouthed Woman. An enormous volume of information floated through Amamiya Rin's mind as his exhausted brain kept sorting through the day's intake, separating what was useful from what wasn't.
"Mind over matter... ghosts born from the human heart... animism..."
Vaguely, dimly, he felt he was on the edge of something — a thread just out of reach, impossible to grasp.
His mind felt like an overloaded machine grinding and groaning under a weight it couldn't bear. His temples throbbed with a steady pulse of pain, and the city lights beyond the glass began to waver and swim before him.
"Haaah..."
An involuntary yawn tore itself free, pulling involuntary tears with it.
Amamiya Rin blinked hard, his dry eyes briefly coming into focus — only to blur again immediately, a soft haze settling over everything like a veil of fine mist.
That was it. He'd hit the wall.
He took one last sip of coffee, staggered away from the window, dropped onto the sofa, and gave up on thinking entirely.
The following morning. Tomie's apartment.
Sunlight poured without obstruction through the spotless floor-to-ceiling windows, casting broad, brilliant patches across the pale wooden floors of the living room. Dust motes drifted in and out of visibility within the shafts of light.
The room was warm. A faint, expensive fragrance — some kind of luxury incense — hung in the air, a world away from the blood and cold of the alley the night before.
And yet what was unfolding in the center of the living room was entirely at odds with the bright, cozy atmosphere — strange enough, in fact, to be called genuinely bizarre.
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
Let's achieve our community goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 extra chapter for everybody