Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

"It's the same, only the density is much higher, and the frequency of both good and bad is also higher."

During their conversation, Akemi stopped walking.

“We’re almost there. Let me repeat our plan,” Mingmei slowed her pace. “We’ll sneak into the school, find the ghost that’s been creating this eerie atmosphere and acting strangely, then we’ll fight him two-on-one until he falls asleep. Finally, I’ll perform an exorcism to send him back to the underworld—your job is to put in the effort during the two-on-one fight and make sure he doesn’t run away, okay?”

"If you think we can win, then there's no problem." Yuri thought the plan was sound.

“I can definitely beat him. That guy isn’t actually that strong. As long as I can see ghosts and avoid being ambushed, and fight bravely without fear, I can hold my own against him. However, just being able to make contact won’t allow me to inflict effective damage quickly; it will drag on for a long time. And he could transform into a spirit at any moment and escape through walls and windows—the sacrificial dagger I prepared was for quickly inflicting damage on him, but if it were you, you’d have to hold him off if he tries to run away. You can’t just pass through walls at will, but you can generally pass through windows and doors.” Akemi stopped. “The main gate and guardhouse are just ahead. Let’s go in here.”

“No problem, sounds like just a menial job—” Yuri, now in spirit form, walked through the gate and entered the school. A chill ran through him; if he weren't already a spirit, he might have shivered.

Turning to look at the top of the wall, I saw Mingmei swiftly grabbing the security spikes and vaulting over the fence. She was truly skilled and daring; if she had slipped, she might have fallen onto the spikes. Her landing was quite smooth, but given her attire, it still made some noise. "Let's hurry, or we might attract another guard. Even if he's afraid of ghosts, this commotion makes him look more like a thief."

The campus was deserted at night; it was hard to hear even the chirping of birds and insects.

"Since it's described as a sacrificial dagger, are you a follower of some religion?"

"If I had to say, I would say... but I don't know what religion my grandfather was taught. I once thought he was a professional con artist."

"I'm curious, if I hadn't interfered and caused the sacrificial dagger to malfunction, what difference would it have made? A dagger would still be a dagger, wouldn't it?"

"Fighting with a manifest spirit and fighting with an ordinary person have some similarities, but there are also some major differences. For example, spirits don't feel pain much and lack the opportunity to directly damage their internal organs and brain. Spirits lack vital points, so ordinary weapons are not much different from blunt force trauma from fists and feet. They cannot easily penetrate the skin to damage the inside. However, weapons that have undergone special rituals and spiritual infusion can have the same effect as ordinary weapons against ordinary people when fighting spirits, causing more fatal damage."

There are several school buildings nearby, and Mingmei walked straight toward the largest one.

"Inexperienced people often mistakenly believe that ghosts have weaknesses similar to humans when fighting them, such as the head or heart... My experience is not very extensive either, but I know that ghosts have no vital points; they are all one entity. Therefore, there is no need to deliberately aim for what would be a vital point for a human when fighting them. Just hit the general area—why am I teaching ghosts how to fight ghosts? Even if you are a confused ghost, you should know this, right?"

"........."

“If I keep talking, I’m going to lose confidence… You wait, after this is over, I’m going to write an observation report on the confused freshmen, and you’ll be the test subject.”

The main gate of the teaching building was closed, but not locked.

"This is the building. We'll go in once it's ready."

"I have one more question—"

"Why do you have so many questions?! Come outside and ask them! Now come with me."

Chapter Four: Evil Spirits and Anchors

Yuri entered the teaching building through the door, and after confirming that no evil spirits were lurking there, he slowly opened the door. As Akemi tiptoed in, they vaguely heard a crashing sound coming from a distance above.

Following the stairs, I floated up to the third floor with Akemi. The crashing sounds stopped, but I didn't see a single ghost.

"Is he afraid of you and hiding away?" Yuri asked quietly, worried that speaking too loudly might cause problems.

“It’s more likely he saw there were two of us and ran away—search quickly, he couldn’t have gone far in such a short time,” Mingmei replied in the same low voice.

"We'll search along the corridor. I can walk through the walls to the classrooms, you go through the corridor. If anything happens, just shout to contact each other," Yuri, the strategist, started offering random ideas. "That's the only idea I can think of."

"Okay!" came the affirmative response.

The first classroom…nothing. The second classroom…nothing. The third classroom…still nothing. The fourth—Yuri heard Akemi's shout and rushed out, seeing a human and a ghost wrestling—where did this adult male ghost come from? A ghost's appearance doesn't determine its power, but it does greatly affect things like hiding—but rather than worrying about that, Yuri quickly rushed to help.

Without suitable weapons, the three people can only engage in basic techniques such as boxing and claw strikes. When their individual skills are roughly equal, two against one is a significant advantage—as should be the case.

The demon punched Akemi, but at the same time, Yuri hit him on the head.

The demon then instinctively dodged to the side, avoiding Akemi's counterattack.

Akemi couldn't pull her fist away from Yuri in time, so she chose to kick the demon directly with her foot.

Yuri lunged at the demon from behind, trying to pin him down, but was thrown off. He then adjusted his stance and threw another punch.

Akemi rushed forward and punched and kicked the demon, but ended up blocking Yuri's path.

The demon tried to move to either side, but bumped head-on into Yuri, who was going around to one side. So it simply gave Yuri a few hard blows.

Yuri retaliated fiercely, but to little effect, until Akemi launched another attack from behind the demon.

After a brief but disastrous minute of scuffling, Yuri stood with his back against the corridor glass, and Akemi with her back against the classroom door, the two of them sandwiching the demon in the middle. Akemi was a little out of breath, and neither the demon nor Yuri looked well. Akemi, being human, was slightly affected by the pain of the attack, and Yuri's fighting skills were the worst among the two demons. As for the demon, who wished to remain anonymous, although he performed the best in the battle, he was still being fought two against one.

"Be careful, this guy has gotten stronger again this week! I might not be a match for him one-on-one," Mingmei warned warily.

"Why didn't you say so before the fight started?!" I knew about this when you hit me halfway through your fight with the demon!

"This is definitely not normal, it's too fast, be careful—"

The demon hesitated for a moment, then pounced on Yuri. "Meddling bastard!" it yelled, simultaneously throwing a familiar energy ball, intending to force Yuri to move aside. Unfortunately, it overestimated its opponent's dodging ability—Yuri tried to dodge, but this energy ball was much faster than the previous version—probably because the demon was much stronger—Yuri couldn't completely dodge and was hit squarely by the ball. This meant he was still blocking the demon's path, completely blocking its way.

Impacted by the energy ball, Yuri felt his entire body tremble and even experienced a blurring of consciousness, but he managed to convert and replenish his energy in time, thus avoiding being killed on the spot.

Despite the demon's desperate struggles and fierce attacks while being held by Yuri, it had already expended considerable energy and hadn't replenished it. In desperation, it forced out another burst of brute force, attempting to smash itself and Yuri out of the window together—but failed. Although Yuri was severely injured, he still blocked its escape route. The continuous bursts of energy were also a huge burden on the demon, leaving it powerless to continue.

The evil spirit made one last struggle, breaking free from the badly injured Yuri, and tried to escape into the side corridor. If Akemi had caught up, his escape would have been over, but Yuri accelerated the process, binding the evil spirit's feet with his tentacles.

"You shapeshifter—" the evil spirit howled and vanished into the ground.

The battle should be over.

The two exorcists exchanged glances and tidied their appearance. A spirit's appearance is easy to fix, but the torn coat revealing the woven metal wires and the sunglasses that had fallen to the ground and been broken by the unnamed Ms. Kakizaki looked like they needed repair.

Gasping for breath, Mingmei sat down against the wall. Regardless of the injuries she had sustained, her strength had been rapidly depleted during the fight.

"Did we win? I felt like I was about to be beaten to death." Yuri landed opposite Akemi, mimicking her.

"We've won, for now."

"Temporarily? I feel like he hasn't gone all out in this fight yet. To be honest, if he had used all his strength from the very beginning, I probably wouldn't have made it."

"That's still unlikely. That kind of outburst would obviously consume spiritual essence... that is, your ghost's energy reserves. If they are really used up, he won't even have a chance to go to the underworld. He will die completely when he dissipates. Although he has dissipated now, as long as the anchor point is still there, he will be reborn at the anchor point. Once we finish the exorcism, he can also be reborn in the underworld."

"Is that so? I thought he was just careless at first. Spiritual Essence..."

“I was careless. I didn’t expect him to improve so quickly, and I didn’t expect you… No, that’s my fault too.” Mingmei swallowed her words. “I forgot how clueless you were. I thought you knew, so I didn’t tell you these things.”

"Is spiritual essence something that can heal injuries?" Yuri thought of the hunger he felt after being injured and recovering from those injuries.

“Yes, it is possible, and it can even accelerate rebirth after disintegration.” Mingmei paused for a moment. “I thought these were things that spirits were born with, and I never thought that these were things that spirits needed to learn. This has really taught me a lesson.”

"So what do we do now?" Yuri observed that Minmei's breathing had calmed down.

"Take a break and calm down—I'd love to say we've accomplished our mission, but there's still one more thing we need to do, which is to dispel the resonance here."

"It's what we mentioned at the beginning, about holding a ceremony to help the deceased pass on, right? What's the significance of this ceremony, and how is it done?"

"Right now, that evil spirit has only temporarily disintegrated. It's difficult for a spirit to die completely. Usually, all we can do is calm the spirit down temporarily and then remove the conditions for it to appear in the world—usually by destroying the anchor point that allows the spirit to appear in the world and making it ineffective. Of course, it's not impossible to completely destroy a spirit, but it's much more difficult. As mentioned before, it requires completely consuming the spirit's essence. We didn't manage to do that this time."

"Specifically, how do we do it?"

"As agreed beforehand, you don't need to help with the ritual. But it's my personal request. If it's not too much trouble, could you please help us out? That way, we can make arrangements if any other problems arise."

“No problem.” Yuri also started floating while standing up. “But you have to answer more of my questions.”

Mingmei nodded in agreement.

"Hmm, how are you going to find that anchor point?"

“The anchor point determines the location where the spirit appears—this evil spirit has only appeared in this building before, and on a high floor, so we should look upstairs. And… usually, because it’s bound to a spirit, its spiritual power will be stronger… I don’t know how to describe it, it’s a feeling.” Akemi sighed. “Logically, as a fellow ghost, you should be able to spot these things more easily, but I can’t guarantee you’ll recognize them even if you see them.”

"If you're talking about a chilling feeling, I'd say it's felt throughout the entire campus."

“That’s unlikely. Schools often become the setting for all sorts of ghost stories because students love to spread these topics; they empower the ghosts in the stories. But the whole campus? No, we’re looking for something smaller, at most covering one floor. — An anchor point the size of the entire campus. We should start running for our lives right now, if we can still escape.”

The fourth floor was empty; a search of each classroom yielded no results.

"I can't sense it anymore... Do you know anything else about this evil spirit?"

“Hmm… While it’s possible that earlier ghost stories are also related to him, the stories that clearly fit his characteristics started circulating about a month ago, before I transferred to this high school—” Akemi’s words were quickly interrupted.

"Transfer in? You weren't originally studying here?"

"Yes, I already said my hometown is in the countryside."

"It doesn't seem like there's anything wrong..." Yuri really couldn't find anything wrong, except that this guy in front of him had gained more attributes.

"Then, about two weeks ago, some brave students stayed up very late in an attempt to hold a Hyakumonogatari event to summon ghosts."

"Isn't that a bit too brave?"

"They didn't even know there really were ghosts—then, the dutiful old guard appeared and reprimanded them. As they were being supervised and left dejectedly, the last guard was pushed by someone and tumbled down the stairs."

“Then, about ten days ago, a few people made a bet on whether there were ghosts here. My friend Chinami was among them, so I followed along. I almost got into trouble again, but luckily, after I caught Chinami, I successfully attracted the evil spirit’s attention.” Akemi spread her hands. “I exchanged a few blows with him back then. His strength was indeed not as strong as it is today, but I wasn’t fully prepared, so I quickly ran away with the others.”

"This time, we weren't adequately prepared either..." Yuri thought to himself. "And then what?"

"In the days that followed, I often felt like I was being watched during class, and sometimes I could see ghostly figures when I looked out the window—probably trying to scare me? In any case, they probably saw me as an obstacle, which wasn't a bad choice, as I was indeed preparing to deal with him at home."

"He was wronged too, running into you, you silly big... courageous heroine."

Did you just call me stupid?

Yuri quickly tried to change the subject. "I mean, he didn't actually have time to cause any irreversible damage? If he just wanted to scare you, isn't he being unfairly accused?"

“Impossible. I wasn’t there the first time, and the second time he basically lifted Chinami up and threw her down.” Akemi said firmly. “Once they get a taste of success, most evil spirits become increasingly extreme, and this evil spirit is a prime example.”

Upon reaching the fifth floor, Akemi shuddered. "I think this is it. I'll try to meditate and sense it; if you notice any changes, remember to let me know."

Yuri looked around but didn't find anything different, so he could only watch as Akemi began to close her eyes and chant strange incantations.

Completely ineffective.

During the several tens of minutes that Mingmei was performing her charlatan act, Yuri searched each classroom one by one but found nothing unusual. A textbook with a few pages torn out, some trash that hadn't been completely cleaned up, little figures drawn on the desks and walls, a half-burnt candle left behind sometime during the night, fashion magazines and horror novel stories, a mentally impaired spirit standing in the corner of the classroom… that was all.

Yuri popped out again and found that the exorcist outside the door had stopped chanting and was slapping his face to bring himself back to his senses.

"Looks like my trick didn't work out... What did you discover?"

"I've noticed that students at your school have many extracurricular hobbies, which might suggest they aren't particularly passionate about studying." He truthfully recounted this, then added his own assessment: "Simply put, I haven't found anything particularly special."

“The candles are the most likely thing here to be related to the anchor point, because it’s the only thing besides the ghost that I can’t think of an explanation for…” Akemi entered the classroom and walked around. “Although I can’t tell if it’s the anchor point, I now think that these candles are… leftovers from when they were playing the Hyakumonogatari. This might be related, but it came out later than the rumors.”

Mingmei shook her head, denying the possibility that the candles could be used as anchors, and then began rummaging through the garbage heap.

“Could it be this?” Yuri picked up a piece of paper from the scattered trash. “I feel like this piece of paper is a bit special.”

“That might be it.” Akemi examined it carefully. “Although I can’t tell exactly which type it is, it looks like someone used this paper for spirit writing or something similar in the past… Perhaps this is the basis for the initial summoning of that evil spirit.”

"So, all we need to do is destroy this piece of paper?"

"If it really is an anchor point, then that's good. Ghosts that lose their anchor points will be banished back to the underworld, and we'll have accomplished our mission."

"Is just one piece of paper enough?" Yuri found it hard to believe. "I felt the chill of the entire school."

“The most important thing in establishing an anchor point is the relationship, not the size. Sure, larger and harder-to-break anchor points require a higher minimum, but as long as there is a relatively close relationship, that should be enough.” Mingmei pondered. “As for the chilling feeling that you’ve been talking about that pervades the entire school… it may indeed exist, but I haven’t felt it.”

Then Akemi took out a box of matches and watched as the paper was consumed by fire.

“That’s it, theoretically.” She extended her hand to Yuri, gesturing for a handshake. “Pleasant to work together?”

Yuri extended his hand as well, saying, "It's a pleasure working with you."

Click.

Author's message

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Note: "Hyakumonogatari" here refers to a gathering where people light candles and tell scary stories. One candle is extinguished for each story told, and the activity is believed to summon ghosts when the last candle is extinguished.

Chapter Five: Cooperation (and Miscellaneous)

Yuri kept convincing himself it was an illusion until the two noticed the broken glass window in the corridor, proving that the sounds they had heard earlier were not hallucinations. This was not only because Yuri had already accomplished what he had agreed to (at least, before the evil spirit reappeared to prove that he had chosen the wrong anchor point), but also because Yuri was now slightly injured and quite hungry.

In fact, Yuri had developed a delusion that he could try to eat the wind and drink the dew—try to absorb the coldness and dampness to fill his stomach.

"Have you forgotten how you got involved in this? What if you end up stuck at school this time?" Use this excuse to convince yourself not to do it.

The two left the school together, and after climbing over the wall the same way they came, Akemi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hmm... shall we part ways here?" After assessing his condition and comparing it to when he was running around aimlessly, Yuri figured he wouldn't just suddenly die, and since that was the case, it seemed like there was nothing left to do.

"...Would you like to consider staying at my house? Consider it establishing a long-term partnership?" Mingmei nervously offered a new suggestion.

"Why?" Why what? Yuri had many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn't come up with a conclusion right away.

"At first I thought you were just an ordinary evil spirit that had broken in, but then I found out you were quite easy to talk to—"

"Easy to talk to? Does that mean I'm stupid and easy to take advantage of?" Yuri didn't really understand it that way, but he still wanted to be sure.

“No—spirits generally fall into three categories in their attitude towards humans. The most common is indifference unless directly related, then they see humans as usable walking spirit essence generators, and the least common are those who are easy to talk to and biased towards humans.” Akemi took a breath. “This classification isn’t absolute. For example, even indifferent ghosts will react to things related to their own death, and there’s overlap between exploitation and communication. But when looking for partners, you definitely need to find someone easy to talk to; that’s the basics.”