Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

It's better than doing it with a suspicious-looking, unidentified newbie ghost who seems unsteady on his feet when you talk to him closely, even if he can materialize.

Although the two people look identical once the suspicious clothing is removed, there are still some differences for a careful observer, and the differences become more obvious when they move.

Mingmei returned quickly. Although she hadn't found out the exact address, she had a general idea of ​​where it was.

The same approach failed at the building entrance. The elderly woman in charge of the apartment complex told Mingmei in a serious tone that Zhucun had disappeared and that she wouldn't find him here. She suggested that since she had found his wallet, she should contact the police right now, as they could provide clues.

Left with no other choice, Mingmei fled in panic. If she stayed any longer, her mother-in-law might actually call the police out of kindness.

On the bright side, at least Zhucun does live in this building.

After Yuri materialized, he entered the building. The old woman seemed to sense something and glanced in his direction. If she hadn't clearly looked too far ahead, he would have been scared and fled.

Following the address number marked on the mailbox, Yuri easily found Takemura's room.

If there's a strange alarm barrier at the workplace, wouldn't there be one at home? With this suspicion in mind, the spirit preparing to break in floated out of the corridor window, moved along the outer wall to the inside of the window, and looked inside.

There aren't any, but that doesn't mean there aren't other protective measures.

Yuri tensed up and drifted in through the window.

—A bird-like spirit emerged from the shadows, swiftly swooping down to strike the intruder's eye. After being swatted away by its prepared opponent, it flipped over and regained its footing. Its speed surpassed Yuri's, but its strength was slightly inferior.

After several attacks aimed at the target's head were blocked and even retaliated against, the bird spirit circled inside the house, seemingly hesitant because its attacks were ineffective.

Yuri was also hesitant. Although for a spirit, an attack on the head was not a vital point, it was obviously quite effective. In addition, overall, he was on par with this... bird.

"Are you the guard here?" Yuri sensed that the other party's aggressive intent was indeed waning. "Can we talk? Takemura might be dead—"

“I know he hasn’t shown up for several days, but I can’t,” the hissing voice replied. “An agreement is an agreement. However, you must leave now. If you come back tomorrow, I can’t control you.”

It's the same language as a certain rat. So, the language of spirits is universal? That's very convenient.

"Why tomorrow?" Following his instructions, she stepped out of the window, and sure enough, the bird spirit did not continue to pursue and attack.

“Because Takemura pays me for the spiritual essence once a week, if he doesn’t pay tomorrow, I won’t have to be a guard anymore. An agreement is an agreement—how about you wait three more hours? That way we won’t have to fight to the death.”

Is this bird spirit honest or cunning?

"You need to understand that it's no use just to fool me for a few hours."

“I know, so I’m telling the truth.”

Yuri floated down the outer wall to the ground and reunited with Akemi.

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.

“Then we’ll wait until midnight.” Mingmei refused Yuri’s suggestion that she go back early.

“It’s already very dark, but there are still some people on the road. If we stay here until midnight, there will be no one here, and it will be very unsafe to travel along the way…” Yuri thought of Akemi’s overly agile movements and stumbled.

“No, I can see the road as long as there’s a little light—even in places without streetlights, there’s still the moon in the sky, isn’t there?” Mingmei looked up at the crescent moon in the sky. “I love moonlight, but my grandfather always makes me go to bed early, so I haven’t seen it many times—you can hardly see the stars in the city, but you can still see the moon. I’ll just treat tonight as a time to admire the moon.”

"No, no, no, I was actually talking about people, not roads."

Seeing Akemi's confused look, Yuri gestured, but finally couldn't hold back. "I know you're not afraid of ordinary robbers, but robbers don't know that! Besides, what if you fail? Even if you don't fail, what if you beat the robber half to death and get called in for questioning?"

"I would not hesitate to hit and run. Now, shut up and enjoy the moon in peace."

What's so interesting about the moon? It's just a ball. Besides, it's not a full moon today. Yuri couldn't understand Akemi's hobby at all, but he also knew he couldn't persuade her otherwise.

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.

Three hours later, Yuri saw the bird spirit fly out of the open window, circle twice in Yuri's direction, and then fly away.

It seems to mean that it's ready to go.

Yuri floated up the outer wall and slipped back into the window. No enemies, no traps. Relieved, he turned and waved to Akemi below, signaling that he had entered safely.

Then, as if receiving a signal, Akemi began to climb up the wall.

Yuri almost screamed, but worried that his shout would cause her to fall, so he could only float out and stay below Akemi, materializing himself to catch Akemi if she fell.

With a close call, Akemi climbed over the windowsill.

"It's only the fourth floor, don't make a fuss - I used to climb mountains often when I was in my hometown, and I just rested for so long under the beautiful moonlight, I'm in excellent condition right now."

What a beautiful moonlight!? Can climbing a mountain with bare hands be the same as climbing a building with bare hands!? Yuri wanted to scold her, but... she really had already climbed up.

After quickly calming down, the two began searching the room for any potentially useful information. It was then that Yuri noticed that Akemi had put on a pair of thin gloves.

"Habitual thief?"

"I'm not a habitual thief!" the suspected habitual thief explained while searching. "These gloves are for collecting dangerous items, such as corrosive or toxic ones—of course, I should wear gloves in these situations because I've seen some crime dramas on TV."

Mingmei first found a hidden compartment, opened it and found documents and cash inside, but unfortunately there was nothing related to the supernatural, so she put it back.

At that moment, Yuri's gaze was drawn to the bookshelf, where, in a corner, lay a faintly glowing handbook. However, upon picking it up and flipping through it, he discovered it was just an ordinary diary, filled with filler content.

Are there really people who pad their diaries with excessive word counts?

Chapter Thirteen Remains

After careful observation, Yuri discovered that the diary was made up of two identical notebooks overlapped together. He didn't know how to separate the two notebooks for the time being, but he found a way to read them.

By injecting spiritual essence, the words in another notebook can be made to appear.

The original characters will not disappear, but recognizing overlapping characters requires extra effort. The displayed characters are visibly becoming blurry, but with careful observation for a short time, the two characters can be separated.

Clearly, the hidden content was written with more care. Although it was filled with all sorts of delusions and illusions, it was evident that the author genuinely believed in it, making it much more heartfelt than the filler parts.

This is also a diary, containing a lot of... mystical content. At the beginning of the notebook, Takemura calls himself an Awakened One (and refers to ordinary people as Sleepers), believing that he understands the truth of the world better than others... Skip, skip.

Yuri quickly scanned the notebook and mentally created a table of contents for the diary.

Overall, Takemura considers himself a sorcerer capable of summoning spirits and altering life. Judging from the bird spirit he previously hired as a guard, he seems to possess genuine skills. He focuses on these two abilities, considering himself a shaman in modern society, believing that with sufficient accumulation, he can command the elements.

However, the fact that he is still going to work indicates that he is still quite far from having accumulated enough experience.

His method of exercising supernatural powers is very similar to Yuri's, that is, a person has a range of abilities, and within that range, one can fulfill wishes. Details... details are not written.

His notebook also contained his understanding and investigations into spirits, which Yuri found very interesting, but now was not the time to study it.

At the end of his diary, Takemura claimed that he had devised a plan. He proudly wrote a bunch of words praising his genius and declaring that this plan would allow him to surpass humanity.

This plan involves a small hut not far from the company, residence, and coastline (in previous texts, Takemura boasts about how he used plants to conceal his genius), a spirit that Takemura named the Hunter, and something he painstakingly searched for. In that hut, Takemura plots to do something to the Hunter using this thing.

Although the specific details are unclear, it seems that Takemura intends to obtain the power of this spirit in some way and achieve... though it is unknown what, it is certainly a great undertaking.

Another location. Fortunately, there was only one location. Yuri closed the diary, the words of which had completely faded.

He understood the principle behind the diary. Takemura purchased two identical diaries, transformed one of them into a spirit in some way, and then superimposed and bound the two diaries together. In this way, even for those who could see the spirit, the second diary would not be detected because it overlapped with the first diary.

However, Yuri was able to directly observe at dusk, so he still discovered the differences.

If Yuri were to approach this from the perspective of twilight, he might be able to reverse this bond and separate the two notebooks again, but now is not the right time to study that.

Thanks to Takemura, who may have died suddenly or transformed into some kind of tentacle monster he no longer recognizes; thanks to his arrogance; thanks to him for not deliberately creating confusion in the documents or giving a few wrong directions that only he knows how to distinguish.

We must go to that hut; we should be able to find more information there about what Bamboo Village did and what impact it had.

Yuri looked up, ready to call for Akemi to leave.

Then I saw Akemi bring out a bottle of... orange juice from the kitchen?

A bottle of… energy-rich orange juice gleamed golden in Yuri’s vision.

Yuri didn't know how to describe it, but he felt a strong craving for the orange juice, as if drinking it would give him immense power. This attraction was even stronger than when he first saw Akemi's shrine... well, it was about the same. But this time, Yuri wasn't starving and injured to the point of delirium.

"You felt it too, didn't you?" Mingmei pointed to the orange juice she had just placed on the table.

"I can feel it. What's going on?" Suppressing the urge to approach the orange juice (which is quite easy when you're focused), Yuri circled the bottle. He noticed a label near the cap with the date and a single number, 6.

“I don’t know, but he might have done something to those bottles of orange juice.” Akemi spread her hands. “Come check the kitchen.”

Yuri floated toward the kitchen and saw a mess. It looked like... a slaughterhouse that had been cleaned up, with dried, dark red stains still visible in some hard-to-reach corners.

Open the refrigerator next to it, and you'll find it crammed with fish that look like they've died with their eyes wide open and their bodies torn to pieces.

"What happened?" Yuri couldn't figure it out. Indeed, Takemura worked for a fishing company, but he wasn't the type to personally kill fish—even if he were, he should have been skilled by now, and wouldn't have chopped the fish like that.

“Although it’s not very obvious, I think this is a site of blood sacrifice… Takemura used fish as a sacrifice in exchange for… I don’t know what he was exchanging for, but it’s very likely related to this orange juice.”

"What kind of blood sacrifice requires fish?" Yuri expected a further answer, but Minmei spread her hands, indicating that she didn't know.

"Then why can blood sacrifice provide energy?" Another question.

“I believe that the essence of a blood sacrifice is to release the energy of a living being. Humans who cannot complete this step on their own will rely on other spirits to do so. Depending on the relationship between the two parties, some of the energy will be taken away by the spirit. It is very likely that Takemura does not need to do this.”

Well, he really is a user of supernatural powers, not just someone with knowledge. It's quite normal for him to say that he can perform blood sacrifices on his own without going through middlemen.

Opening the lower half of the refrigerator revealed a completely different scene from the upper half. A dozen or so bottles of orange juice were neatly arranged in two piles, the smaller pile labeled. The cycle appeared to be once a week, and the number kept decreasing, from an initial 31 to a final 5.

Yuri had some recollection of the earliest date.

Reopen the diary, flip to a rough page, and infuse it with spiritual essence...

Yuri closed his notebook, confirmed his guess, and began to explain to Akemi.

"In a record from about a month and a half ago, Takemura announced that he had found a way to obtain infinite magic power, and this time he would definitely not make a mistake. He wrote similar things several times, so I thought he was going crazy again, but maybe this time he really did have some results."

Mingmei nodded, signaling for him to continue.

"He also said that the magic he obtained in this way could play a vital role in his grand plan—a grand plan related to a spirit he named the Hunter. So I think that after many tests, he finally became confident that he could succeed and went to carry out his grand plan."

Then he died somehow.

"He calls spiritual essence 'magic power'?" Mingmei shook the orange juice in her hand.

“I don’t think so. He seems to believe that magic is some kind of unique, chosen power that only he possesses. And he has a considerable understanding of spirits, so he should know that spirits use spirit essences.” So he wouldn’t say that if he hadn’t completely gone mad, but he might actually have gone completely mad in this regard, Yuri thought. “Well, I can’t guarantee that; it depends on his mental state when he left the record. But if you ask me, it should be somewhat different.”

“Let’s leave it here for now. I don’t think the orange juice itself has any special meaning; it’s probably just that he likes to drink it. But I always feel there’s something wrong with the energy extracted from it through blood sacrifice.” Mingmei put the orange juice back in the refrigerator, along with the other orange juices.

Yuri nodded in agreement. He felt it was never a good idea to rashly use something he didn't recognize, especially when it was related to blood sacrifice—unless he was forced into a corner.

After searching for other traces, Yuri noticed a twisted and unrecognizable piece of wire in the bedroom.

To figure out what this wire was originally for, we need to understand what it originally looked like and how it became like this.

Yuri placed his hand on the wire, concentrating his mind, trying to recreate its original appearance in his mind.

If you unfurl and straighten the wire without interfering with the connection at the joints, and mend the broken ends... it looks like a small cage. At the same time, Yuri somehow also realized something else: this bundle of wire was last interfered with—or rather, was last transformed into this state—about half an hour ago.

Half an hour ago, there was only one person here—a bird spirit. Before leaving, it twisted a cage like this.

After a brief discussion with Mingmei, the two still couldn't reach a definitive conclusion. However, generally speaking, if the wire, when intact, wasn't a token of the contract, it was part of the ritual that bound the bird spirit here. Destroying it was most likely the way for the bird spirit to gain its freedom. (Or perhaps it was simply smashed before leaving because it was annoyed?)

"Is there any description of this bird spirit in Takemura's diary?" Akemi asked.

Yuri could answer this question without having to look it up in the book again.

"Yes, but it's very brief—Takemura claims he's captured a stupid guard, and after a little intimidation and a little energy, he'll guard this place day and night as agreed."

“That bird’s spirit might not be strong, but it can’t be considered stupid.” Mingmei paused for a moment. “It’s just a guess. It destroyed the cage before it left, but it didn’t do anything to the energy in the refrigerator.”

Could it not know? This was the first thought that popped into Yuri's mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Since it was the guardian here, it couldn't possibly have never seen it, and that energy would be recognizable upon first sight.

“I guess it’s because of some kind of oath. You said before that Bamboo Village pays energy regularly, so it guards it. So maybe getting energy from Bamboo Village’s things is also a way for Bamboo Village to fulfill its payment.”

“That’s certainly very likely—” Yuri did indeed sense the bird spirit’s reluctance during their fight. “It has quite a bit of self-control.”

"Some mystics believe that spirits are machines that act entirely on instinct. They will respond in the same way as long as they are given the same stimulus. They do not make long-term plans and are subject to the control of instinct. Although they have intelligence, they are still no different from wild beasts. My grandfather had a very strange expression when he talked about them."

Yuri understood what Minmei meant... Clearly, those mystical scholars didn't have a comprehensive understanding.

“Ah, no, I’m not entirely against them.” Noticing Yuri’s expression, Akemi began to explain in more detail. “What they said is true about some spirits; some spirits do only see what’s in front of them. These spirits will see energy and rush towards it, and then get bound because they absorb the energy. What I mean is, every spirit is different, and you can’t generalize.”

Haha, no way, how could there be a spirit that rushes towards energy and gets bound, only looking at what's in front of it? That's so stupid.

"Doesn't an agreement with a spirit require mutual consent? The bird spirit seems quite dissatisfied, and Takemura... isn't detailed enough, but since he mentioned intimidation, it means it's not a mutually agreeable contract."

"Usually, this is a humiliating treaty, where Takemura holds the other side's weaknesses or something. The bird spirit certainly won't tell you this again, but Takemura..."

It's highly likely that Takemura is gone, and what remains has probably become something that can't be negotiated.

After searching for another half hour, the two found nothing else.

It seems that's all we can find here; it's time to leave.

Fortunately, valuables weren't the objective, and the suspicious orange juice was left behind. All that remained was a thin notebook. After handing the diary to Akemi and ensuring her safe landing, Yuri returned to the room and began destroying any traces of their presence.

Essentially, it's about solidifying things, floating them up, and then putting the moved objects back in their original positions.

Then, they searched the house for any evidence that could be traced back to Akemi, such as hair. Akemi said not to worry about it, that very few people in the world lose their hair, but Yuri was quite skeptical. Many cases reported in the newspapers involved perpetrators leaving traces when they weren't looking.

Don't be too nervous. We didn't actually steal anything obvious, and it's very likely that no one will notice until we return it.

A guilty conscience.