CHAPTER 9 #2
Keiko’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you really think they would?”
Shinji shrugged. “First case at the TMPD, I ended up almost strangled to death by the killer, a fellow Shinigami. And then there was my ex-boyfriend…”
“Fair point.” Keiko nodded. “Want me to take a look around?”
“Yes, please. Thanks.” Shinji let out a strained breath as Keiko floated away, trying not to think of the possibility that an extractor waited for him.
He swiped the water off his face, then headed for the narrow alleyway of the abandoned building after Keiko gave him the green light that it’s safe before leaving to check the rest of the area.
The wind howled through the gaps in the building, but once he reached the backyard through the muddy alley, it quieted down, and the rain softened, stopped by the beech trees’ rich crowns.
Behind him, the abandoned house’s door creaked on its hinges with an ominous sound and Shinji was suddenly acutely aware that he was alone and isolated.
If anything happened, no one could help him, not even Keiko.
Knock it off. Nothing’s going to happen. There are wards and seals in place.
But then his next thought was to remember how the extractor had managed to bypass the wards in Setagaya at the victims’ hideout and kill them. He’d have to finish this fast, then go to Higashikurume, replenish his energy and find out who was in charge of the extractors, then make a plan.
With trembling hands, he pulled down his hood, then pressed his palms together. When his energy poured out of his body in white tendrils, a constricted breath left his mouth, as if he’d been wrapped in chains and now, he was free. Repressing his powers was starting to take a toll on him.
Once he found his bearings again, Shinji focused on the white line of energy that snaked across the grass at his feet and through which his gate would come out.
Shinigami opened their gates by creating a mental connection with the veil that led to the other side.
Not for the first time in his life, Shinji was struggling to see it, the stress of these past few days affecting his concentration.
He nearly panicked that he’d fail to open it, but the veil showed itself to his mind’s eye and then the ground rumbled.
The karamon gate rose from the widened energy in the ground, its white and gold pillars glowing. The dark veil that connected this world with the other billowed in the center.
Once the gate settled, Shinji placed a hand on one of the pillars, just feeling the wood underneath his fingers.
It was a marvelous structure, one that didn’t occur naturally.
It had been built by fellow Shinigami to help ghosts that couldn’t pass over through the natural fissures that connected the worlds.
Perhaps that was why simply touching it managed to calm Shinji; it was a creation that belonged to the Shinigami.
“I’ll never not be impressed,” Keiko said, floating down to his side. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Shinji smiled proudly.
He pressed his palms together again. His energy stretched out into a torrent of icy white smoke, his rain coat flapping violently from its strength.
He expanded it until it turned into a thick mist that Shinji stretched over the buildings, encompassing the entire neighborhood, making sure to keep a special protective barrier over the mist so he wouldn’t hurt the supernaturals living in the area.
He sensed the ghosts’ presence and linked his energy with them one by one, slowly guiding them toward where he was, like holding their hands and gently walking with them down a road. Their final road.
In the past, he wouldn’t even think about his motions, everything being like muscle memory, but now he was self-conscious about it, mentally checking the energy quantity.
It drained so fast. He rarely bothered to really feel how fast. The gate had drained part of it, then the touch of death drained another part, then adding the barrier drained some more, and linking with the ghosts’ aura brought his energy to half.
He probably looked horrible. Shinigami sometimes ended up looking almost like living ghosts after consuming their energy, with cold bodies and sunken faces. Perhaps this was the spiritual energy’s way of reminding them of their origin: the world of the dead.
Finally, he had gotten all the ghosts, eight in number, and they floated down in front of the gate. Keiko stepped aside to make way, her gaze studying them one by one.
Shinji bowed to them. “I’m Miyazaki Shinji. I’m a Shinigami and I’m here to guide you to the other side.” They all stared at him, some in pure horror, others in confusion. “You have passed away and this gate behind me leads to the afterlife.”
“We’re dead?” a middle-aged woman wearing pajamas asked. Her neck had a strange bump and her shoulder stood at an unnatural angle.
“I’m afraid so,” Shinji said. “If there are still things you’d like to settle—”
“You don’t look dead,” the same woman told Shinji.
An elderly woman next to her nodded in agreement. “He looks drenched.”
Shinji smiled. “If there are things you’d like to take care of before you cross over, I am here to help you and prepare you for your trip.”
“Is it painful?” the elderly woman asked the number one question most ghosts asked.
“Not at all.”
She pointed toward the gate. “Is my husband inside? He passed away last year. I’d like to see him.” And this was the most heartbreaking thing ghosts asked about: their loved ones who had already died.
Shinji prepared the usual neutral speech because there was no way he could give a straight answer to this question. “Once you cross over, the gate keepers who patrol the Sanzu River banks might be able to help.”
“The Sanzu River?” the pajama woman asked. “We’ll cross it?”
“Yes,” Shinji confirmed. “Then you will arrive at the end of your journey in the afterlife.”
“What’s at the end of our journey?” she added.
“It’s different for each person. You will find out once you get there.”
Truthfully, he didn’t know much about it.
King Enma took care of the souls and no one had ever seen Enma and came back to tell the tale.
One thing he was sure about was that no one ever told him anything good about the afterlife.
It was a desolate and hollow world, but neither he nor other Shinigami had much choice. The ghosts had to be sent there.
“It will be okay,” Shinji added, then gestured toward the veil billowing in the middle of the gate. “If you are ready, all you have to do is go right toward the smoky veil and pass through.”
The two women were hesitant at first, but walked toward it. The other ghosts were so confused and unaware of their surroundings that Shinji’s attempts to talk to them were in vain, so he reluctantly let them pass one by one.
“Pretty little lies,” Keiko whispered in his ear. “It’ll be okay?”
Shinji whispered back, “Fear, pain, regret… these things weigh spirits down. They could wander off before they reach the river and be lost in the expanse that makes the land of the dead. They’ll keep on roaming while their painful memories haunt them.
It’s best to send them on their way on a positive note rather than scare them. It’s the least we can do.”
“Does it work?”
“Not always.” Shinji sighed. “Shinigami do their best, but we have no control over what happens afterwards. There’s very little in this world or the other that we have control over.”
There was only one spirit left behind, a man in a polo t-shirt and sweatpants, with short trimmed hair. He seemed to be somewhere in his sixties, and he stood with his hands clasped behind his back watching all the ghosts pass through.
Shinji approached him. “Are you still not sure about crossing over?”
“Oh, no. I am sure,” the man replied. “I’m not crossing.”
“I see. Let me know what I can do to help.”
“I’ll stick around for a little longer.” The man nodded, his gaze still set on the gate, studying it like he was looking at a nice pair of shoes in a shop.
“All right,” Shinji said. Some ghosts were more peculiar, insisting on remaining in this world because they had trouble letting go.
“Then you’ll be joining me and my friend here.
Her name is Ishikawa Keiko and she’s my partner.
” He exchanged a look with Keiko, who seemed rather put off, then patiently waited for the man to react.
The guy turned to them with a polite smile. “Of course. I’m Tamura,” he offered his surname, then bowed. “So, where are we off to?”
Shinji wondered what had happened to Tamura.
He didn’t have any apparent death marks and he was quite aware of his surroundings.
In fact, he seemed like he might have been dead for longer than the rest. Perhaps he drifted here from an unassigned jurisdiction because Shinji hadn’t left any ghosts behind at his last soul harvest.
“We’re off to Higashikurume. I have some business there,” Shinji cut the explanation short.
He headed back toward the car, Keiko and Tamura trailing behind him.
Keiko drifter closer to Shinji. “Are we really letting him come with us?” she asked in a low voice. “Isn’t it dangerous for Teruo?”
“I already linked my energy with his aura, so no more dangerous than having you around.” He glanced at Tamura. “I can’t exactly leave him to his own devices. I’ll text Kazuya and ask, just in case, but I can’t not do my job.”
“Yeah…” She looked at Tamura who was casually walking behind. “He’s different than the other spirits who passed through. He seems more… like me.”
“I noticed,” Shinji said and opened the car door, climbing behind the wheel.
He prepared to hold Tamura in place, so he wouldn’t drift, but the man was already making himself comfortable on the back seat.
As Shinji braved the rainstorm toward the Onmyōryō’s headquarters, Tamura even started making small talk with Keiko about the weather, the traffic, then switching to complaining about today’s economy.
Keiko’s face practically screamed ‘you’re dead, why do you care?
’, but Shinji knew this was the denial period, when spirits held onto their former lives, wishing they could turn back time.
He looked at Keiko through the rearview mirror and raised a brow into a ‘just humor him, please’.
She sighed and slumped back, nodding along Tamura’s economic plans for the benefit of the country.
“Mr. Tamura,” Shinji said, “what job did you have if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I was a financial analyst at a bank.”
That explained the passionate way he spoke about economy, and it seemed he knew he was dead since he spoke in the past tense about it. Even so, Shinji let him take his time deciding whether to cross over, though he didn’t plan on leaving him ponder for too long.