Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

"Then why didn't you go to the hospital with her, and I went to the haunted house?" Mingmei frowned. "You can use a shield for protection and make improvisations, can't you?"

“No, you can’t go to the haunted house, at least not alone,” Yuri retorted instinctively.

The opponent is likely slightly stronger than Yuri, and considering Yuri's agility, there might be a fight going on. Having fought ghosts for so long, he's quite experienced. And if the opponent is significantly stronger than Yuri, his special abilities make him even harder to kill.

If it were Akemi, it wouldn't be like this.

Although Akemi's physical abilities are certainly better than Hojo Reie's, she is still within the realm of mortals, and her expertise is more suited to dealing with spirits than ghosts. This puts her at a disadvantage from the start in terms of compatibility.

Then, if the opponent is of similar skill level to Yuri, Akemi might be able to put up a fight. But if the opponent is a level stronger than Yuri, the cost of Akemi's defeat will be significantly greater than for Yuri's side. She is still made of flesh and blood; injuries and curses will greatly reduce her personal strength, leading to a more serious crisis.

She's not suited for this situation, at least that's what Yuri thinks.

"Why? Why can't I go to the haunted house but you can?" Mingmei's confusion didn't seem feigned.

"Because of your—" Yuri stopped himself before saying "You're not strong enough."

"Because of me?" Akemi frowned.

“Because…because you can communicate effectively with the hospital, right? You can’t just send her to the hospital and run away, can you?” Yuri stammered, quickly adding to his statement, “Don’t you have to handle all those procedures? Lehwa is still unconscious.”

Akemi didn't reply, but instead gave Yuri a cryptic look, scanning him up and down.

Yuri felt a little guilty, but still looked directly into Akemi's eyes.

About half a minute later, Mingmei looked away, her voice lower, "Okay, you're right, I really have to do this."

Did he successfully persuade her? Yuri breathed a sigh of relief.

"But—at least I won't give up on what I can do—after I finish reading all the unpassworded documents on the computer, I'll take our reporter to the hospital—she should be able to hold on, right?" The high school girl's tone changed slightly. "Or is something bad going to happen if we don't take her to the hospital now?"

She seemed to be suppressing her anger... Yuri hoped this only meant she was unhappy that she hadn't convinced him, and not some more serious reason.

“No, of course not. As long as the shield is still separating the inside from the outside, she will only be quite weak and will not suffer any further damage,” Yuri immediately answered Minmei’s question.

When a companion is already agitated, it is the right choice, or at least should be, to avoid further provoking them.

If Yuri were to say something like, "Does that mean the time wasted arguing doesn't count?" at this point, he felt... well, the consequences would be quite dire.

Unfortunately, the subsequent search yielded no results. The two did not know Hojo Rei's phone password, and apart from this latest document that resembled a personal essay, most of the content on the computer was also password protected.

These folders were categorized by date and marked with strange letters at the beginning, which was far too secure for an anonymous journalist's computer—but since they couldn't be opened anyway, Akemi had no idea what was inside that was so important.

After much difficulty, I finally found a folder without a password, and it turned out to be a movie folder—real movies, not classified information. The only thing I could glean from it was that Hojo Reie liked old-fashioned police and gangster movies.

It seems this is the end of it.

148 Walking Alone

After seeing the two off to the hospital, Yuri headed straight for the location of the haunted house. It was a bit far, but he could still get there before dawn.

The process of bringing Hojo Rei out of her own residence and putting her on the motorcycle went unexpectedly smoothly. They didn't encounter anyone until they finally leaned against the wall and climbed over it. After leaving the residence and being helped onto the motorcycle, she didn't seem so suspicious anymore.

Yuri was very careful when leading the reporter over the wall, fearing that they might be seen or that the reporter might accidentally get caught on the security spikes. Fortunately, neither of these incidents actually happened.

Although a certain low-pressure atmosphere surrounded Akemi, making her look a little creepy, she didn't show any uncooperative behavior. Yuri was a little scared and hoped that it was just his imagination.

There's no use worrying about that now. He's heading to the haunted house, hoping things will be easier there... and he'll find a suitable way to comfort Mingmei afterwards.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Yuri observed the target from the bushes outside.

This haunted house is one of a row of two-story houses in a good location. Although the house isn't particularly large, the two-story design makes up for it.

I heard that the homeowner abandoned the place afterward... It seems that what happened back then really caused extremely deep trauma.

He didn't see anything supernatural from the outside, nor did any ghosts peek out of the house and make eye contact with Yuri—but he did notice something strange near where he was hiding.

That is, the camera was also hidden under the leaves.

He was momentarily startled when he discovered it, but thankfully, even at such close range, he couldn't see any glass eyes on it, at least they weren't attached to it at the moment.

In other words, right now, none of the cameras can see Yuri... but if the Glass Eyes happen to come closer sometime in the future, they might be able to see Yuri.

There were no supernatural effects on the camera, which Yuri believed meant that none of them had enough knowledge of "how to see spirits," and that as long as they were careful not to materialize, they would definitely not be filmed.

I hope I'm right.

Yuri then circled the house twice and found several more cameras—he couldn’t determine their angles directly from the lens curvature, but judging from their placement and orientation, they were at least targeting every entrance and exit and most of the windows accessible to adults (although these windows were currently simply boarded up).

Yuri didn't find the camera's power supply or equipment, so it's very likely they weren't intended for long-term use. However, based on his senses, it's still within the short term... The reporter's notes didn't mention the existence of these cameras. Did she not notice them, or were they not yet deployed? Would these things record Hojo Reie's actions? Who deployed these things? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions cannot be found solely from the cameras.

With this point added to the list of things to be considered in the future, Yuri ended his exploration of the surrounding area and moved inside the house.

The first problem – the locked door.

Both the front and back doors were relatively easy to deal with. In fact, due to their age, Yuri suspected that he could open the door with a simple physical kick—and although the locks were old, they weren't jammed; Yuri could open them with a gentle push of the internal lock cylinder.

It seems like there's no problem, but the real trouble lies in the spiritual wall above the door.

It's normal for the people around a house that has been uninhabited for over a decade to regard its door as something that will never be opened, which in turn creates a spirited wall in the "place where" the door "should be."

It couldn't stop physical intruders, but it was enough to keep Yuri, who was also a spirit, out.

Its strength is not very high; compared to the surrounding regular walls, there is a significant difference in strength—although it requires some effort, it is not indestructible by Yuri.

But is this really a good idea? What if it might prematurely provoke the ghost inside? Yuri was prepared for a conflict in order to lift the curse (or something similar) on Hojo Reie—but making a scene beforehand and then being waited for after entering is a bit much.

Option two, climb through the window—not all windows were completely sealed off. Yuri just saw a corner window on the second floor that wasn't blocked... In fact, the window itself probably didn't exist long ago, just a hole. It must have been blown up in the fire, and then left unrepaired, ending up like this.

An ordinary person would be very conspicuous climbing up during the day, but it's the middle of the night now, so as a spirit, Yuri only needs to float up the wall.

This is a good method; we'll use it unless something unexpected happens.

Option three: Find some leaves to block the cameras facing the front or back door, then materialize the door and enter. Based on the experience from the school warehouse last time, this kind of spiritual wall is different from ghosts and cannot stop Yuri when he materializes—as long as the problem of being detected when materialized is avoided, you can enter freely.

Yuri thought about it and ultimately abandoned the idea. It was winter, not autumn, and disguising fallen leaves as naturally fallen wouldn't be easy. Blocking the camera would prevent Akemi from being seen, but blocking the camera itself would send a signal that something was amiss.

If someone is keeping an eye on things over there, while we're still dealing with the ghosts, a line of Tokyo police might break down the door and make the situation incredibly chaotic.

I've decided, I'll go through the second-floor corner window.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Yuri drifted into the room.

It seemed that the vengeful ghost did not arrive at the scene immediately to fight the intruder. Taking this opportunity, he looked around and observed the surrounding situation.

As Yuri passed the corner window, he realized his earlier assessment was wrong. Judging from the marks, the window wasn't completely unsealed; rather, it had been opened after being sealed—the gap that had been blocking it wasn't too new, at least not from just a few days ago, but it wasn't old enough to show signs of decay either.

These traces date back about ten days to a month? Around the time the ghostly activity began. Could this intrusion be the cause of the ghost rumors? Someone broke into the house, turned on their own light source, and did something that appeared as shadowy figures and firelight from the outside.

This is basically what would happen if the reporter hadn't actually encountered a ghost here... But since the reporter explicitly stated that he had encountered a ghost, Yuri banished his imagination and began to conduct further on-site investigation of the place.

After entering through the corner window, you arrive at the attic on the second floor. Whether observed from the outside or perceived from the inside, the attic is much smaller than the first floor. It is unclear what was placed here before the fire, but it is now empty.

In the fire, the wooden structure was almost completely destroyed, and all the flammable decorations were gone, leaving only the cement walls. Although fifteen years have passed, the charred marks on them are still very obvious because they have not been repaired.

It was a bit too obvious. Yuri reached out and touched the wall, and a charred piece of cement fell to the floor—while he was still in spirit form.

From the moment he entered the house, he felt as if he were in a repressive spiritual field. At first, he thought it was the influence of ghosts whose whereabouts were still unknown.

A long, long time ago (about two months ago), he conducted a major exploration of Huanmingmei's residence and encountered many relatively powerful ghosts occupying an anchor point. Nowadays, most of these ghosts are no longer a threat to him. The remaining ones, which are obviously stronger than him, tend to fill their own spiritual fields in their environment to ensure an advantage over intruders (such as You).

At the time, he always chose to flee in such situations and never experienced the actual effects of this kind of spiritual field. If he had to say something, it would at least allow the corresponding ghosts to quickly know what was happening in their territory.

He had assumed it would be the same here, but... Yuri looked at the fragments that had fallen to the ground and became certain that the thing was entirely made of spiritual matter.

Is this ghost so extravagant that it even renovates its own dwelling? It's not that such a creature is impossible, but a ghost with such extravagant resources must be quite powerful, while the spiritual field Yuri sensed wasn't that strong.

Yes, that's right. The one that appeared behind Yuri at some point, with tattered clothes and obvious burn marks, her body covered in alternating black and white, and eyes that were mainly composed of white, was a young female ghost. She didn't seem that strong... similar to Yuri, but not as strong as a Bound Spirit, probably in the middle of level two or three.

Yuri suddenly darted to the right, dodging the opponent's lunge.

In terms of speed, the opponent is inferior to the spirit binder; in terms of strength, the opponent is inferior to the spirit binder; in terms of skill, the opponent is inferior to the spirit binder; in terms of magic, it is not clear yet, but it is estimated that the opponent is still inferior to the spirit binder.

In short, nothing can compare to that spirit-binding ability.

“I have no hostility. I think we can discuss this—” Yuri dodged the question repeatedly.

He intended to dodge some of the attacks, but he actually dodged them all.

According to Yuri's memory and the reporter's notes, the ghost's name should be Taniguchi Mika... Yuri called out her name loudly, trying to make her stop. However, this only provoked her.

Ghosts of this level should have self-awareness, as evidenced by the hatred on her face. However, despite being relentlessly pursued, Yuri has not heard a single word from her. Mika Taniguchi has maintained an eerie silence.

She spoke, but no sound came out. If it weren't for the obvious stopping motion when her attacks hit the wall, and the wall reacting by falling a few more pieces of cement, Yuri might have begun to suspect she was a silent phantom. If she really was a silent phantom, it would explain why she hadn't been able to touch Yuri at all—the manipulator dared not let her actually make contact with him.

However, as the saying goes, prolonged defense inevitably leads to defeat. As Yuri retreated again to create distance, he bumped into the bed behind him. Before he could quickly rise above the bed to get around it, Mika Taniguchi pounced on him, attempting to tear Yuri apart with her bare hands—she genuinely intended to use her fingernails to cut into Yuri's body and rip him in two.

Her fingernails bounced off the shield, and Yuri could almost hear the sound of it shattering in his hallucination, but the vengeful spirit was indeed completely repelled. This couldn't go on any longer; hiding in the cluttered attic couldn't last forever. A counterattack was necessary.

And it's certain that the other party isn't a silent phantom.

Yuri hesitated for only a moment before rushing forward as his opponent retreated, fiercely striking the opponent's abdomen. Caught off guard by Yuri's counterattack, the demon failed to dodge, and its attack with its fingernails was once again blocked by the shield—perhaps distracted by Yuri's counterattack, its attacks were noticeably weaker, requiring several attempts to break through the shield.

Yuri's attack went very smoothly until a burning piece of wood from the ceiling came crashing down on him. Unsure of its effectiveness, Yuri retreated and avoided the attack.

Judging from the sound of the wood falling onto the wooden floor, Yuri's retreat was a mistake... Even if he hadn't retreated, the thing wouldn't have been able to cause him any effective damage.

The hatred on the ghost's face did not diminish in the slightest. She let out a silent howl, exposing the cut wound on her neck, and stared at Yuri menacingly, but did not pounce on him for the time being.

This wound might be the reason she can't speak. Ghosts don't make sounds by vibrating the air, so theoretically the structure shouldn't have any effect—but if a ghost thinks it can't speak (usually, this means the ghost tried desperately to speak before it died but failed), then it might also be unable to speak... like this one.

Yuri crouched low and charged toward the other side, grabbing the still-burning piece of wood along the way and swinging it fiercely at Taniguchi Mika. Unlike her fierce demeanor, the ghost immediately began to retreat, and the small door to the attic opened behind her, allowing her to enter smoothly without any hindrance.

It seemed to be a small storage room containing unused items, with no other exit. Yuri followed, intending to trap them, and then saw that, without Taniguchi Mika's contact, the small door to the attic was rapidly closing.

Yuri struggled to throw the piece of wood at the demon, but could only watch as it turned into a charred lump of wood and scattered on the ground after leaving his hand.

At the same time, the small door to the attic was completely closed.

Once again, only Yuri remained in the room... along with the bed, cabinets, decorations, and other furnishings typical of an attic bedroom.

They should have gradually appeared after the vengeful spirit appeared, and they helped the vengeful spirit to some extent... So, are they part of Mika Taniguchi's abilities?

Yuri had some doubts about this, but now was not the best time to investigate.

149 Hide and Seek

Having prepared himself both physically and mentally, Yuri pulled open the small door in front of him.

He had made various mental preparations beforehand, including the possibility that the vengeful ghost Taniguchi Mika would pounce out the moment he opened the door, that Taniguchi Mika had dug a hole somewhere in the small storage room to escape, that the vengeful ghost had planted ghost mines inside, and that two more vengeful ghosts were lying in ambush inside, preparing for a three-on-one fight.

None of the above preparations were needed.

The small storage room contained some cardboard boxes and miscellaneous items that shouldn't have been there, but the vengeful ghost that should have been there was nowhere to be found.

At first, Yuri's first reaction was, "There's a secret passage!" But after scanning the area, he couldn't find a single usable entrance or exit larger than a fist.

Unconvinced, he moved the cardboard box that shouldn't have been there a bit to see if the other party had used it to block the hole, but he didn't find anything that looked like that.

Yuri even tapped on each floor and wall tile, spending more than ten minutes trying to confirm whether any of them were illusions. But in the end, apart from the door that inexplicably closed itself after he came in and was made of spirit matter, there was no other structure with such a large gap.

The vengeful ghost mysteriously disappeared from the room.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Yuri wasn't in a hurry to capture Mika Taniguchi immediately. If he didn't figure out how she escaped, she might get away even if he tried several more times.

This escape wasn't a particularly noisy operation—although there was a door between them, the distance was so small that Yuri should have sensed something if it had been too loud. In fact, he didn't feel anything unusual at all, and even when he pushed open the door to search the entire area, he still believed the vengeful ghost was inside.

This escape does not require traversing continuous space. Although the principle may be different (or the same, but Yuri cannot confirm), Yuri tentatively considers it to be a kind of teleportation effect. In other words, trying to force the opponent into a trap is probably useless.

The opponent will run away—although she is full of resentment, she will bluff and run away after realizing that she can't beat Yuri—she is undoubtedly intelligent, but she simply doesn't want to communicate with Yuri at all.

The opponent has some degree of control over the house, although the degree of control is limited. If she could do whatever she wanted, Yuri might have thought of things like "using a suddenly appearing spiritual object to cover the opponent up to just their head" or "casting the opponent entirely into a suddenly appearing spiritual block." The reason the opponent didn't do that is unlikely to be because she is mentally challenged; it's more likely that she is unable to do so.

A supporting piece of evidence: If it could be controlled at will, the spirit stick that Yuri picked up, which "looked like it was on fire," should have suddenly changed into a strange shape and hit Yuri in the face. However, Yuri chose to dodge it, and only after Yuri threw the stick away did he suddenly see the stick turn into ashes.

...This seems to be a dead end.

The small energy fluctuations indicate that this "teleportation" is relatively concealed and difficult to observe from the outside. Without effective external observation, Yuri does not believe he can break the teleportation at the magical level. The fact that Mika Taniguchi ran away also shows that the other party will not give him enough time to observe.

It's good that the other party is weaker than you, but if they're so slippery and refuse to negotiate, dealing with them becomes much more troublesome...

It seems we need to find a breakthrough from another angle, namely, the "haunted house" itself.

At first, Yuri thought that the haunted house was controlled by Mika Taniguchi... but now it seems that this is not the case.

He had indeed created spiritual matter himself—he had observed that small sphere of spiritual matter and concluded that the rate at which spiritual essence was converted into spiritual matter was not fixed, but had an upper and lower limit. In other words, the same amount of spiritual essence could be converted into substantial spiritual matter of different "densities," which was consistent with his intuition—if he wanted to create a more solid spiritual matter, he would need to consume a larger amount of spiritual essence.

After the vengeful spirit appeared, along with her actions, a substance composed of spiritual energy appeared... While it couldn't be described as particularly solid or strong, the quantity was clearly excessive—too much. If Yuri were to create the same substance, not to mention that his spiritual energy shaping skills were basically like sculpting clay, just the sheer amount would drive him crazy.

Mika Taniguchi is weaker than Yuri, but her spiritual essence reserves far exceed Yuri's? That's unlikely. Yuri didn't sense that. Besides, if she really had such a large reserve of spiritual essence, she wouldn't need to run. She could just rush up and fight Yuri head-on.

In other words, yes, the haunted house is not part of Mika Taniguchi's story. It wasn't that she used any power to turn this place into a haunted house; it was originally a separate... "ghost."