Chapter 4.3

Takemura Tatsu was seated at the storefront to her stationary shop as always, gazing towards the village road while trying to pin down her faint sense of malaise. Monday, a holiday. The elementary school children were having an athletic meet. The enthusiastic voices and noises carried to the shopfront. As usual Hirosawa Takeko and Ohkawa Namie were loitering about, with Itou Ikumi being the only oddity today having come just to belittle their conversation. It was all the same as ever, and yet she couldn't help feel that something was different. 

--Feels like there aren't enough people.

So Tatsu concluded. That morning the number of children heading to school seemed just a little too few. She also couldn't help feeling that the number of parents or siblings along with them was too low. That wasn't all, if today was a holiday, there should have been plenty of cars going along the village road towards Mizobe or even further out and yet despite it being the traveling season, she thought there were too few of those too.

Not just today. Far from it, she'd thought the number of cars commuting to work had decreased too. She couldn't help think that the numbers riding the bus towards the high school, towards their jobs were dwindling. 

Unable to say anything for certain, Tatsu never said a word of it to anyone. She couldn't say anything about it beyond as a matter of numbers. Throughout the many years she had become accustomed to the numbers going up or down a step and this was a time when it was going down. She didn't particularly keep count on the rises and falls but in terms of its usual pace of growth or recession, it was still too few. And so in that gap for how many there should have been was filled with uneasiness. ---It was like that.

With this many funerals, it's only natural, she thought. There were a lot of moves. The village numbers were in fact declining. So it might have been only natural that it felt like they were declining but as she sat watching over it all with her unease, she wondered just how many people had actually left in some form or other.

As she was caught in her thoughts, Sato Oitarou came by. She knew by the way he walked. Oitarou had come to tell them something.

"Tatsu-san, Tatsu-san!" As Tatsu had imagined, before Oitarou had made it to the shop front, his voice was already calling out to her. "Hey, have you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"We're getting an funeral home."

Eh? Tatsu didn't raise her voice often. She'd figured it was another death announcement, or a talk about somebody else moving again. When something completely unexpected was said, she let out her voice.

"See, there was the big woodworking shop in Kami-Sotoba, right? The Hirokane one. The Takemura's who were distant relatives of Kanemasa. The old woman was the last one left and it'd been closed for some time. They say they're putting in a funeral home there. When the woodworkers were meeting up there a bit ago, they said that."

"Mune-san is going to be an undertaker?"

"Naw. Mune-san's going into a home it sounds like. Her legs have been bad for a while, it was real inconvenient on her. They say she's going into a nursing home for old folks. And after that, some male relative came down and started doing front work at the carpentry. The ones contracted were a big company from Mizobe, though, and the foreman in charge of that group said it was gonna be a funeral home."

Well my, said Takeko, sounding shocked. "An outsider coming to set up funeral services, they won't get any business at all will they?"

"I wonder." It was Ikumi who laughed. "After all, with so many dead."

"Even if there's more than less," Takeko said with a snort through her nose. "In this village, we have the mourning crew."

"No matter how good the morning crew is, having to be drawn up together all the time like this, everyone's done gave up. Either way, it's going to continue after all."

"That's enough," Tatsu interrupted Ikumi. "Don't just say it's going to continue that flippantly. Do you know what it means to show some restraint when people are morning?"

Ikumi laughed as it to make fools of them all even as her mouth closed. Tatsu could feel her own disgust towards that smile. The same discomfort she felt towards the dead and the moves. This was beyond the pale of something one could irresponsibly make a joke of. Something truly not right was happening, really.

Ikumi took a glance at Tatsu who was staring into her face unpleasantly. Tatsu didn't understand. The not a one of the old folks who gathered at Takemura understood. Only she understood the situation, she was certain. Calamity had come to the village. Just as Ikumi had prophesied, this was far from over, most likely. She had such a premonition, so it was surely correct. Just like the one that this summer was going to be horrif.

As she was thinking as much, she saw Ohtsuka Yaeko coming hurrying down the road. Ikumi held a premonition, one saying it was the announcement of a death. No doubt, Yaeko was coming to convey news of someone's death. 

The truth was that as Yaeko came to the shop front, she told them that the old woman in Kami-Sotoba was having a funeral service. I knew it, Ikumi thought to nobody in particular, feeling gratified none the less.

"That's, this is no joke. What is going on, these days." Oitarou seemed sincerely uneasy. Takeko and Namie both looked frightfully at Yaeko who brought the news of death to them. 

"Well, didn't I say so?" Ikumi laughed. She must have heard her low voice to herself, as Takeko gave Ikumi a glare. 

"If you're going to go on with your grumbling about premonitions, go and do it somewhere else. If I have to believe in any of your nonsense, I'd rather hear about you thinking the Oni have come."

For an instant, Ikumi gave Takeko a sharp look, and then she felt her stomach drop. Kanemasa came and brought the misfortune with them. The trouble on the Kanemasa land had accelerated the tragedy. --That's right, she thought. That's what it was.

"It's The Risen!"

Tatsu looked to the mumbling Ikumi with annoyance. Do you think I care, Ikumi thought. After all Tatsu and the others knew who turned out to be right, didn't they?

Why the Kanemasas only appear at night, why they took the trouble to move in the middle of the night. The lot of them could only go out in the night, because they were Oni. The Risen had entered the village. And thus death was spreading. Those touched by the Oni were revived as Oni, and one after another the living were being---.

(I won't let you do as you please.) Ikumi turned her eyes to the nroth. (You thought nobody noticed but it hasn't gone so smoothly. For this village has in it somebody like myself!)

Ikumi smiled thinly. Seeing that smile, Tatsu was all the more overcome by that revolting feeling. This woman was taking joy in the disaster.

(Oni you say? That's ridiculous.) Tatsu spit out in her thoughts, her gaze returning to the village road. That road that she was thinking was traveled less and less. (...Oni.)

But, indeed, it was like they were being ruled over by Oni. Rising up from the graveyard, drawing the living into the mountains. Those pulled into death rose up as Oni and pulled in more still of the living, and thus death was spreading throughout the village.

I see, Tatsu understood. The chain of deaths and the spreading epidemic. Oni was another word for illness. She hadn't heard the rumors of a specific epidemic disease within the village. But these days new strains and diseases were found ofte enough. Like punishment upon corrupt humans, disease of an unknown nature punished mankind. 

Is that what it's been, Tatsu thought privately. And there was the Ozaki Clinic which was opened on the weekends now. ---That's what it was. 

"Dead, you said? Another one?" Kanami said, her hand stopping in wiping at the counter she stood behind. She watched Motoko look up at her with a bewildered expression as she nodded.

"Yes. The old woman from the Hashimotos. When a neighbor went to check on her, she was dead, they said."

Kanami furrowed her brows. Again. Motoko's father-in-law had just died and even before that she heard incessant talk of funerals. How many days had passed since this summer when a customer didn't come into the shop mentioning that somebody had died? Gotouda's son died. The three old people in Yamairi died too. This was obviously too many.

"I've gotten so sick of it. I just had a funeral yesterday." Motoko brooded with a sigh. That's right, Kanami thought. Yesterday, one of Motoko's relatives had a funeral. If she recalled, they lived in Sotoba, the man who worked at the fire station. Motoko's husband Isami, Motoko Isami's cousin had died.

"It's like there really are Oni, carrying people off..." Motoko said to herself. Seeing Motoko's profile with her usual grave expression rising up, Kanami spoke in an intentionally cheerful voice. 

"Oh no you don't. Don't start with that kind of old-woman talk on me now."

That's right, Motoko laughed but as expected her brow was still furrowed with uneasiness.

(.....Oni.)

Kanami looked out the window to the quintessential fall scene. It was a scene no different from any other fall. It hadn't changed since she was a kid. It was peaceful, calm and safe. ---But, where it couldn't be seen, impropriety was occurring. That impropriety was the Oni running rampart.

(It couldn't be...) Kanami kept herself from speaking aloud to Motoko. (An epidemic?)

Kanami swallowed her breath in secret. Everybody had said that it might have been a terrible disease at least once since that summer. But, even while she had said it, Kanami herself hadn't believed it. She just repeated what she heard while thinking it couldn't be so. It wasn't something real enough for her to hesitate in saying it. ---Until now.

If, just maybe. Kanami looked to Motoko's face as she cleaned up.

She couldn't say anything to Motoko. Her father-in-law Iwao had just died. Motoko would probably be filled to the brim with anxiety that it could spread to her children. That worry was something Kanami understood distinctly in regards to her own aging mother.

Her mother Tae was good friends with Gotouda Fuki. Since Fuki had died she had been down, enough to draw compassion from anyone. Would her mother in such a state be all right?

(....She's all right now.)

She should have been. Fuki died in August, and all this time she'd been safe, so without a doubt Tae had averted disaster.

Kanami let out her breath with ease but still she could feel a chill lingering at the base of her spine. 

Ikumi returned home from Takemura. Her steps were firm and she felt light footed. 

(Oni--It was Oni all along.)

Leaving Takemura, Yaeko followed after Ikumi as if cowering from her surroundings. And doing so she asked if she might not receive an ofuda charm from her, which only served to bolster Ikumi's mood further. 

[T/N: Ofuda - A piece of paper, cloth or plank of wood or metal with the name or symbol of a god and/or temple or shrine written on it. Said to be imbibed with a portion of a god or spirit (which can be divided indefinitely), they can be made with specialized blessings in mind, such as for luck in studying, safety in traveling, fertility, healthy childbirth, etc. They're meant to be put in the family shrine or altar but can also be placed elsewhere; for example, it's common to have one in the kitchen to prevent house fires or also at doorways or on windows to keep evil from entering. It's customary to bring ofuda in to a temple to replace every year, to dispose of the old charm loaded with bad luck in a ritualistic and grateful manner rather than treating it like common trash. In a more cynical view, purchases of them are seen as a donation to the temple or shrine.]

She knew, she grasped the situation. Her confidence reassured, she was haughty. She could distinctly feel something invigorating flowing into her. Her power was flowing. Surely it was for the purpose of confronting the Oni. The only one to see the matter for what it was was Ikumi. And so no doubt she was the only one who could control it.

With the feeling she had received her life's mission, Ikumi returned to her home. Seeing her daughter loitering about absently, she snapped out at her.

"I've got it. It's Oni. As expected, I was right all along."

Her daughter Tamae looked at her blankly. "Mother."

"It's Kanemasa. They're the ringleaders. It's just as I'd said."

Ikumi turned a smile towards her daughter but Tamae blinked several times and then scrunched up her face.

"Oh Mother, please, just stop it already."

"Stop it, you say?"

"Stop it, stop saying things like that."

Ikumi glared at her daughter. She watched her dull-witted face with annoyance as she burst out crying.

"The likes of you couldn't understand. Really, you're a worthless daughter only taking after your father."

"Mother, you're the one who's strange!" Tamae screamed. While sobbing she stomped her foot. "Just let it go already! Do you know what the people of the village say about you and me? Why do I have to become a laughing stock? It's because you say such strange things all the time that I have to..." Tamae fell to her knees on the hard floor. Her voice broke out into a wail. Ikumi watched her with a cold eye.

Her dullwitted simpleton of a husband. He had no particularly redeeming features, and could not avail a single good thing of himself to her. She knew it would come to this. Ikumi had wept when she found she was arranged to marry a man of no sharp wits, short stature, the very picture of mediocrity. Against her will Ikumi was made to wear the white wedding kimono by her parents and set out of her house. Living with her husband was exactly as Ikumi had imagined it would be. It was a life without brilliance or glory. Truly her husband could not convey to her a single wonderful thing within himself. Life in an enclosed village, nitpicking relatives---life was such banalities. Her bright and lovable sons had been born and died without experiencing any of it. The oldest son and the second son who resembled him lived not for even three days. All she had left was her daughter who resembled her father, without a scrap of intelligence, homely and incompetent. When her shackle of a husband had died, Ikumi's life as a woman was over.

(But that isn't the end of everything.)

As if she would let it end with her being disdained and made light of.

Ikumi abandoned Tamae to head more deeply into the house. She began to sort the living room. She could not let those depending on her down. She would prepare, would let the light into her home, would let them know that Ikumi was here.