14 Bank

The chauffeur patiently waited at the traffic light as the pedestrians dressed in their dark dull coloured suits hurried across the road, looking less than enthusiastic. They all wore the same stony look of Daija beside me.

Lunch time was over in Tokyo's financial district of Marunouchi. A large urban concrete jungle of glass and steel. The skyscrapers and multi-story buildings lined the road towards the Imperial Palace. Among them was a prime property lot surrounded by makeshift barricades. 

I raised my eyebrow at the unusual sight when the Maserati stopped again. That is supposedly the resting place of Taira no Masakado's head. His torso was buried in Enmyoin temple.

Do the humans not learn their lessons? Don't fuck with a resentful ghost of a god.

Even when the graveyard for his head was still around with its miniature frog statues and trees, I would not venture near it. 

Unlike Ushiwakamaru, Taira no Masakado is not on familiar terms with me. 

His claim to fame was the fact that he led the first uprising against the central government in Kyoto. The first of the many would follow before the end of the Heian period. 

All of us heard of him in Kyoto then. By then, I was already in Kurama, starting my training with Sojobo.

In 940, he was killed at Shimosa Province, which is located in a part of both Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures. He must have held a tremendous amount of animosity when they decapitated him.

There was an unsettling atmosphere of wrath when his head was unceremoniously brought back to be presented to the Imperial court. Rumour was that his head flew straight to that very spot in Tokyo. Until now, no yōkai could confirm if that was even true.

The humans did declare him a minor god. Like Sugawara no Michizane, Taira here went on a rampage of sorts which affected the imperial household. That's how you ensure godly promotions via the humans - their enemy in life, wreak havoc as a ghost and be their god after. 

The other godly neighbors of Ushiwakamaru did mention once that Taira no Masakado was a pure, delightful ball of overwhelming fury. 

Such was his wrath. It did not dissipate. After the absolute destruction wrought on in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. That was the day when the damn Deity of Calamity decided to come visiting with a companion. In short, destruction of the city is imminent and expected. 

A raging inferno, fire tornadoes and the ten meter high tsunami in Kamakura made them rethink about moving the capital again. Personally, I would have voted for Kyoto again. Who builds a capital on a place where the major seismic faults intersect? Oh wait, humans. 

After the scene of mass devastation, the dumb humans decided they wanted a Ministry of Finance building on Taira no Masakado's spot. Ho ho ho. People linked to the Ministry of Finance died mysteriously. Even the minister died. So they wised up. 

Then after World War 2, the occupying Americans learnt it the hard way when they wanted to build a car park on his spot. 

The Japanese did try to dissuade those morons, who decided that they wanted to learn it the hard way. An accident later, even the Americans decided to avoid him. 

Even the next door bank opened an account in Taira no Masakado's name to appease his wrath. Some rumor about their bankrupt rival pissing off the dreaded god. 

We had suspected Taira no Masakado had some connection to the Deity of Calamity given the pattern of disasters. Once again, no yōkai knew because no one dared to ask. Not even me.

Now this. 

"What are they going to do there?" I pointed at the spot. 

Daija would know. He dealt with the banks here on my behalf. 

I preferred banking in Hong Kong. Fast, easy and less troublesome through our subsidiary branch there. Internet banking is a breeze. No need for hanko, the silly stone seal, or dozens of documents to endorse. 

"Refurbishing his shrine to be future proofed and all that jazz," he replied. "I don't know why they pulled his trees down."

Good luck to the humans then. 

***

After an hour of signing and stamping documents to jump over bureaucratic hoops, the weasel of the private banker finally completed the transactions. Including the final payment of the Hachioji property, which Sojobo had his eye on. Kouki had cost me a fortune for his training.  

The only upside, Daija appeared in a better mood. He really loves to frighten those weasel yōkai, the itachi. Along with drawing his payment for the job on Jisho Tonma. 

The itachi are so jittery that it is easy to intimidate them. However, they are a fundamental contact for our banking needs. They could hypnotise their human counterparts faster than we can. Plus, their shape-shifting abilities were beyond us.

As we walked out of the building towards my waiting Maserati, I was distracted by an interesting whiff of an undead body. Almost like a nuribotoke, a type of zombie-like yōkai. However, nuribotoke won't come out in banking districts, especially in the day. 

That thought distracted me from noticing the oncoming male human. He bumped into me and toppled backwards. The next moment, documents were flying everywhere. A Japanese passerby tried to grab them for him.

"Nijima! What's wrong with you?" A bossy woman called out. 

The dopey eyed human got up, profusely bowed, and apologised to me. The other passerby shoved a messy stack of papers to him. I merely nodded out of civility, given the awkward situation. 

Daija was now intensely staring at the well dressed woman. The odd smell was emanating from her neck, which was hidden by a scarf. 

Both of us encountered many types of yōkai around. 

This one was peculiar. Neither a ghost and not actually a yōkai. One of those rare types which we rarely encountered. She could still be a foreign yōkai. Occasionally, we come across them with globalisation of the mortal world. 

The fact that she could walk out in the sun only told me that she is not one of the foreign vampires. 

"Misato-san! I think I need to go to the gents," the poor sod called out.

Misato. Her name. That's Japanese. 

"Are you okay? I do apologise for Nijima-san, he is inept at times." she bowed. 

Very typically Japanese. I am still standing and he was on the ground earlier. 

"That's fine. I hope he has all your papers."

Does he even know that she is not human, I thought. 

The way she glanced at him had some undying fondness.