Search

[Hakata, Kyushu, Japan. Year: 30 December 2019]

"About summoning your friend…," the woman paused as she watched Takeshi staring at the dark black crow hopping around the balcony overlooking a zen garden of the neighbouring Buddhist temple.

"Alex, right?" she repeated the name politely to get his attention.

Takeshi nodded, deep in his thoughts.

After they visited Alex, Takeshi flew to Japan the next day. Three days later in Kyushu, to discuss his paper with Fujita. After the exhausting flight home from Melbourne to Tokyo, Takeshi learnt of Alex's death.

The family stopped Alex's life support soon after Terry and he left the ICU. Takeshi had more questions on his mind about Alex and the archaeological site than answers.

Why Alex? Was it a curse? No known cause of death, only multi-organ failure, according to the online gossip from those among their classmates' WhatsApp group, who attended the funeral. The news shocked them, especially how sudden his deterioration leading to death was.

His family's Shinto priest had performed a ritual cleansing ceremony for him as a precaution after inquiring for details about the circumstances of Alex's death.

"He died around five days ago. The soul should linger around." Takeshi looked at her with great doubt in his mind if she summon Alex's soul.

"Not scared of the dead?" She inquired.

Takeshi shook his head.

A ghost didn't faze him. His family's long archaic history and patronage of the shrines brought many paranormal experiences to him as a child. He himself had the sight of seeing ghosts when young, albeit a fuzzy memory. Alas, the ability disappeared after puberty came.

"But how do you summon?" Takeshi glanced around her office.

One kamidana in her office, a shelf to place the Shinto Shrine's talisman. The kamidana was like his home's kamidana, which house three talismans. Next to it was a Chinese altar with a placid-looking picture of a male Chinese god he didn't recognise.

He expected more than a sparse office. If his family's shrine priest didn't tell him to approach the woman via a mobile number, Takeshi wouldn't bother. Still, it was an unusual for the Shinto priest to make such a suggestion and Takeshi wondered if Alex, not being Japanese, had anything to do with it.

The priest said that she was over 40 years old, yet she looked like she was in her 20s. Not that attractive with no makeup. She spoke little Japanese as she was not Japanese but of the overseas Chinese diaspora. And coincidentally, she was in Hakata, Kyushu, where he is staying.

Explicit instructions specified instead of a cash payment, he should donate to a particular Shinto Shrine. Takeshi agreed with the satisfactory conditions.

"Summoning doesn't require elaborate equipment," she replied. "But do you have anything of his? Something he gave you, or he used? A picture?"

Takeshi took his iPhone out and tapped the security code in. Then he showed her the photos of Alex.

Pointing to the small blackish embroidered amulet from a Shinto shrine hanging off the iPhone leather case, Takeshi said, "he gave me this omamori."

"Mind if I have a look?"

He handed his iPhone to her and glanced at her, inspecting his amulet with interest.

The amulet brought back memories of Takeshi and Alex exploring historical shrines and buying anything unusual to gawk at later. Takeshi recalled the memory of Alex cracking jokes about the purchases as clear as day.

After examining it carefully for a while, she sighed and said, "I cannot help you."

"People like you shouldn't con others," he snapped at her, indignant at his wasted time, only to spot a smirk forming on her face as she straightened herself.

"Alex was next to you, digging around a sacred area where two local farmers were watching. You should be thankful that the spirits took him instead of you."

Takeshi immediately sat up in the armchair. He did not tell the priest about that detail.

"He cut his hand on his trowel and bled on the territory of snake spirits, desecrating their land with blood…"

Takeshi's eyes widened in horror. He didn't tell the Shinto priest the detail about the trowel.

"… your friend was not 'spirited away' by them. That's why your priest referred you to me. Your priest can only ask your side of the Gods, but Alex didn't believe. He called that… hogwash," she continued as he stared at her in amazement.

"Why can't our Kami answer?"

"Alex has no Japanese heritage and no belief in the ways of the Kami," she said.

"Then why do you have a kamidana? You are not Japanese."

"I do have some Japanese blood from ancestry. Kami worship from a great grand parent. Not to mention, even on the Chinese side, I do have the blood links," she replied as Takeshi gazed at the Chinese altar again.

"Is the whole spirit world so complicated?" Takeshi asked.

"It is esoteric, beyond the understanding of humans," she replied with a shrug. "Don't worry about your friend's soul. Worry about your family."

"What do you mean?" He frowned, puzzled by her statement.

"A change is coming. Waves of diseased will affect human lives everywhere in this world," she replied.

Was she referring to the Rapture? Takeshi heard the apocalyptic prophecies from some crazy cult recruiters preaching the end of the world to disinterested shoppers at the Japanese malls.

The cults predicted doomsday almost every year. The end never came, except for the idiots who off themselves in the firm unshakable delusion that Earth was going up in a blaze of glory.

"Consider it a gift since I can't help you…," she leaned forward on the table to look into his eyes as he backed away a little. "Start preparing."

"Um, like joining who?" Takeshi narrowed his eyes at her.

She rolled her eyes.

"Why does everyone think I am recruiting for a bloody death cult?"

"You are telling me about waves of disease changing the world…"

She sighed loudly. "Young man, I am not saying that the world is going to end."

"When you say waves of disease, affecting human lives…" Takeshi emphasised his point.

"Ooooh… I get it now, my friends are right, my words can cause panic," she rubbed her chin and gaze at the ceiling.

Then she faced Takeshi and said, "It's going to be a terrible flu season that will last more than a year. Not people dropping like flies."

Her rephrased words relieved Takeshi, but he still didn't feel better. "So what will happen?"

"All round suffering of overcrowded hospitals, a poor economy, shortages bad government decisions and shitty world politics. You know… the usual world having a shitty year every few decades kinda thing."

"Just out of curiosity, my priest Yoshida-San is in Tokyo, but you are in Kyushu. How did you know each other?" Takeshi changed the topic.

"I don't know him, but maybe he knows the two Shinto priests I know in Fukuoka and took my number," she shrugged and fiddled with her watch.

A subtle hint that Takeshi should leave.

Takeshi looked out of the window again and said, "It is getting late. I have to go."

"About that donation. Forget it because I didn't give you the service you requested." She stood up together with Takeshi and they both nodded at each other in polite courtesy.

After sending Takeshi out of the door, she closed it and straightened her back.

"What does the famous nine-tailed fox want with me?" She asked as a shadow flitted across her office. "Shall I call you Jiuwei or Tamamo-no-Mae?"

Jiuwei growled at her as something forced him from the shadows into his nine-tailed fox form. "Don't forget, you are human."

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," she raised her hand.

"What do you mean?" Jiuwei snarled.

Her finger pointed behind Jiuwei. "The one asking me to ask is behind you."

"Tamamo then," a silky deep familiar voice said as a large menacing shadow cast over the now frozen Jiuwei.

Hope plunged to the abysmal despair. Even Kanghui will have difficulty saving his fox ass this time.

Compared to this Kami, even notorious Arahabaki looked like a saint. Takamagahara banned this primeval being and his twin from even stepping a foot on the island from Day one of their very existence.

At least Arahabaki had two invitations from Takamagahara several centuries ago.

"Yasomagatsuhi-no-kami Sama," Jiuwei spluttered nervously, using the honorific.

Jiuwei's thoughts moved to Kanghui. At least, Kanghui didn't require permanent babysitters and her actions had reasons.

Arahabaki told Jiuwei about how destructive Yasomagatsuhi and his twin, Ōmagatsuhi, were in the past. Both of them almost annihilated all the inhabitants in Japan without relent, remorse or reason. Judging from the historical records, there were almost quite a few wipeouts on the islands of the now modern mainland Japan.

Of all the Takamagahara primeval beings, Jiuwei lamented his misfortune of meeting Yasomagatsuhi now, for the first time in a few millennia.

"I am sure that you can take care of a nine-tailed fox," Yasomagatsuhi told the woman.

"I am letting him go."

"White fox fur will be nice as a shawl. I don't want to let him go, and if you try to let him go, his fur will vanish."

"Come on… too troublesome skinning."

Jiuwei tried to claw his way towards the open balcony door while the two were discussing the unpleasant topic of taking his fur. Yasomagatsuhi's powers suppressed his shape-shifting ability.

Well known for his contempt and utter disregard of any creature that lives and breathes, why Yasomagatsuhi would deign to talk with a human and even protect her? Who is this human, and why did the strange trail of energy lead him to a lion's den?

Jiuwei had underestimated the danger of Kanghui's task. This wasn't just a simple search with extra as a bonus. He realised the reason for the offer of more soul stones than usual to take up the assignment. Should've seen this coming, Jiuwei regretted to himself.

An overwhelming pressure smashed down on his fox form, pinning it down on the hardwood floor. A shrill whine escaped from Jiuwei's mouth.

"Now, now manners," Yasomagatsuhi chided, almost like a cat toying with its prey.

"Damn it, Yaso, you are denting my floor!" The woman grumbled.

Denting her floor? Jiuwei reared his head to stare at her. She wasn't the one having her soul sheared.

"Replace it then," he replied with nonchalance. "Easily manufactured. Pull down a tree and make a few floors boards."

Jiuwei felt the force of darkness drilling itself into his mind with such excruciating agony, twisting and barrelling into the core of Jiuwei's energy form that the fox shrieked in pain.

"Today, a mortal asked you about an Alex. And in Tamamo's mind, there is the same Alex. So… fox, tell me, why are you here?"

Another electrical shock ran violently through the energy waves of Jiuwei's soul in unbearable pain of being sliced to pieces.