Case 04: The hole in the clock tower (2)

Yoishi Mitsurugi, the high school girl with long jet black hair, skin as white as pottery, possessing beauty akin to a western doll. A girl with the bizarre quality of responding to all kinds of monstrosities and amplifying their horror. What you would call a denpa* in terms of internet slang. Suddenly spreading her crazy occult delusions into the world, causing problems for those around her -- she’s that kind of denpa.

I associated with her, I tasted bottomless fear, but as a result, I was able to confirm the correct place where I should stand. Her powers of concentration are not normal when it comes to the occult, to the point of being left speechless, however, if she hadn’t been close to me at that time, I would have stayed held down, swallowed by that deep darkness, unable to return back.

At the same time, I could understand Krishna-san’s concerns.

She is, in one way or the other, extraordinary in many terms. She doesn’t know how to adjust; neither can she read the situation like a normal person could. Generally speaking, her own curiosity is the foremost priority, and she holds no care nor concern for other people’s feelings. Things like taboos hold the same meaning as broken down doors in front of her.

However, it was a fact that Yoishi and I hadn’t contacted each other even once since then, Come to think of it, her writings had disappeared from the bulletin board of Ikaigabuchi, which I had started browsing again recently. I went back and read all the posts from quite a while ago, so I'm sure of it. It was as if she had sunk into the sea of the internet, and all traces of her had vanished.

“She might have stopped posting, but maybe she’s still looking at logs.” I muttered.

For the time being, I decided to return back to my apartment.

Speaking of Yoishi, I recalled her last words when I reached Tokyo station.

“Next time, if we meet again...”

She had said with a somewhat tense expression.

“I’ll become your friend.”

Those were the words spoken after the train door had closed, so I’m not sure if that’s what it was. But I really feel that those were the words she frantically uttered with her lip movements. I mean, what did she mean when she said we would become friends. You don’t become friends after declaring it out loud like that, right? Usually, you’d end up hanging out with someone after getting along with them, you go through various things with them, you feel a sense of respect for their values and spirituality, and before you know it, you’d become friends -- No, it's not even worth talking about such things so seriously. Put simply, just hanging out with someone is enough to be able to call them your friend.

Whatever it is, she’s eccentric in all sorts of ways, and she’s beyond compare in terms of her peculiarities.

After all I(without holding any grudges towards Yoishi), was fed up of the feeling of the world beyond she was dragging me into. After all, only gazing at the occult from a slight distance away was enough excitement for me.

I kept thinking thoughts like that alone as I walked, before long I was in front of my apartment building in Tokyo. The scorching sun had completely drenched my T-shirt in sweat. For the time being, I should put away my luggage, change my clothes and head over to my part-time work place for greetings – it was the moment I was at my front door.

“Hey- Nagi-kun”

I turned to face the seemingly happy face, in front of the corridor was a glamorous beauty dressed in a black camisole.

“Ah, Karasu-san. Long time no see.”

It was the self-proclaimed fortune teller, one of the seniors of Ikaigabuchi, Karasu was her handle name. Of course, I still didn’t know her real name.

“You’re back then? You seemed to have tanned pretty well.”

“Oh, the reason I’m tanned is because I’ve been helping with all sorts of things: like weeding, washing the car, wholesaling lumber. In other words, I was worked hard by my father and sister, and ended up running away.”

That's what I said, but Karasu-san wasn't even looking at me anymore. I found her crouched at my feet, she started tearing the wrapping off the paper bag containing the souvenir.

“Ah, that souvenir was for my boss….”

“Wow—this is a green tea rice dumpling with chocolate paste! Super, super, super delicious! So soft and moist! I'm so happy--! It's true what they say: the friend to have is a neighbor who has a warm countryside home.” Saying things like that, Karasu-san threw a bite in her mouth. That’s right -- this person was my neighbor, my benefactor who introduced this cheap apartment to me. With pretty black hair, age unknown, a nostalgic beauty but, she also had other peculiar idiosyncrasies; even Krishna-san couldn’t control her words or actions.

“It’s so delicious – I can’t stop – “

“Hey – Karasu-san! You’re probably way richer than me, so stop leeching off of poor students like me already.”

“So cruel! I’m not leeching! It’s so sad to see a guy eating alone, so I’m going through all the trouble of eating with you!”

“Then, at least prepare your own meals. Isn’t coming to a person’s house with just a bowl strange enough? In the first place, your house isn’t here, isn’t it located in the high-rise apartment complex with a huge terrace in front of the station? The apartment next door is nothing more than a meaningless storage space for you, so please don't come to my place this often. Besides that, it’s a nuisance for you to be wandering around this neighborhood in that getup of yours.”

I said, pointing to the camisole that was revealing part of her plump white breasts.

“Oh? So you’re embarrassed? There’s no need for that, don’t act no reserved. It’s not as if I want to fool around with a fresh bumpkin boy who ran away from the sticks.” Karasu-san laughed in a foolish way as she clapped me on the shoulders.

“But you know—“, the black haired fortune teller spoke, as soon as she had finished gobbling down three more dumplings. “Even though I said you ran away from there, the real reason is that, right? You got curious about the strange rain and rushed back here, right?”

“…….”

I became silent after being seen through so easily; Karasu-san smirked.

“We have similar interests, after all; you don't have to be a fortune teller to know that. Say—that is quite interesting, isn’t it? Right now Ikaigabuchi is in an uproar. Me too, If I knew the place where it’s going to happen next, I’d rush right over there.”

Come to think of it, I had been so occupied with getting Krishna-san’s permission for joining the club, I forgot to ask her about the important ‘Mushashino’s consecutive strange rain incident’. I asked unintentionally, “About that strange rain incident, is there anyone who saw it happen? The scene of the fish raining down?”

“No, there was someone who uploaded a picture taken in front of the station crammed with fish, but that was after everything was over. I want to see the moment everything was raining down.”

“Eh, so there isn’t any new information or anything?”

“Presently, we don’t know anything beyond what was reported in the news. There’s very little info on the net as well, Krishna-chan might have some ideas, but, that girl doesn’t speak out until everything is clear.”

“…That’s true.”

So I guess I'll have to wait until the manager of Ikaigabuchi makes an official comment about it. Well, as I’ve officially became a staff member of the Ikaigabuchi today, I’ll be able to get the information a little sooner. As I once again recall the important position I gained today my expression loosened.

As I grinned, thinking of bragging about it to Karasu-san, she quickly gulped down her fourth dumpling and spoke:

“But, there’s a similar story at your school.”

“Huh?”

“You see, strange rain is famous for raining mummified fish and a large number of frogs, but it can also rain blood, right? So, a while ago on Ikaigabuchi, I read that that there’s a place like that in Koumei institute. Ehh... If I remember correctly… it was near the clock tower.”

--Clock tower?

--A rain of blood?

That sounds like an interesting story.

“W-where is that? That clock tower?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a student. Isn’t there one? A clock tower?”

“I’ve never seen it before. Or rather, this is the first time I'm hearing about the existence of a clock tower.”

“Hmmm…? Well, I really did read about it.”

As I looked at Karasu-san, who was tilting her head in contemplation, I once again pictured the inside of the university.

The university I was attending: Koumei private university.

Established originally as a girl’s school, incorporated as a missionary school. It has a long history, dating back to the Meiji era. It’s famous for the beautiful zelkova trees that lead to the main gate, and I learned after I entered the university that it was known to the public as a university for the prestigious class. All the faculties are located side by side on the campus, and with the high school attached to it, it is quite a large institute. The buildings are arranged around the old main building, with the student’s hall on the east side. On the west side are the buildings of the arts and sciences faculty. Beyond that, sandwiched in between the zelkova trees, is the clubhouse building. To the north are the library, the science department building, and the multi-purpose hall. And on the far side of that is supposed to be the school sports grounds, But –

No, there’s no such thing as a clock tower anywhere.

“Hmm...... Was it the clock tower that you can't open? Or maybe it was a sealed clock tower? Anyway, there's a hidden room there, and there was a creepy incident there a long time ago, so there's blood raining around the clock tower.”

“Come on, try and remember it properly, Karasu-san.” I urged excitedly.

"Ah---perhaps," spoke Karasu-san while licking her Daifuku-dusted fingertips. “That place, has already been classified as an S rank.”

An S rank classified haunted place.

It's a haunted place that is said to be especially dangerous on the occult website Ikaigabuchi. On Ikaigabuchi, there are usually four ranks classified from rank A to D; In fact, the S ranking does not officially exist. The rankings themselves are investigated and determined by Krishna-san and the spiritually trained experts on a daily basis, with the main purpose of the site being to promote the separation of people and spirits, but if a place is currently dangerous, the article itself is deleted from the site as it’s a place that people shouldn’t know about.

--The rumored S-rank haunted place… in my university?

The information I gained from Karasu-san, greatly excited me. A huge event was happening right when I returned to Tokyo. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to become a staff member in the first place, so I could encounter such spots that I would never have known about if I had only been a lurker on the website.

But-- when I went to the club room the next day and asked Krishna-san about it, she stared at me with the most horrible look in the world, “I don't know who told you that story, but…” she said, glaring at me with a terrifying look. “There's no such thing as a clock tower on the campus, and no such article about a rain of blood that was ever published in Ikaigabuchi.”

“…Ugh.”

“You may get all excited by yourself, but you should know better, Nagi-kun.”

Her words were cold enough to freeze a laughing baby’s face; I nodded in panic.

“Generally speaking, the Fafrotskies phenomenon is not that rare and has sufficient scientific explanations to not be classified as an occult occurrence.”

“Faf…What is that?

“Fall from the skies, abbreviated as the Fafrotskies phenomenon. In short, it’s about the strange rain; the paranormal phenomenon in which fish, frogs, and other impossible things suddenly fall from the sky to a point on the earth's surface.

“Ah…the scientific explanation is like that, right? The tornado theory, or that one about abnormal increase in animal reproduction rates?

“You seem to know about it already. The Musashino incident is the same, if you roughly take a look at past cases worldwide; there are actually very few people who witnessed the rainfall directly. In short, it's mostly an accumulation of post-event phenomena, where there were supposedly a lot of impossible creatures in an impossible place. I said it before, didn’t I? Ninety-nine percent of ghost stories out there in the world are lies, delusions, or misunderstandings.”

“So, the cases of strange rain near Musashino are in that category?

”The temperature of the sea surface has been rising due to the abnormal weather in the past few years. The shift of the earth's axis caused by frequent earthquakes may be affecting the ecosystem. It wouldn't be surprising if there was an abnormal increase of a particular type of life in a particular place, or if it was simply a truckload of fish that collapsed.”

…Oof.

“But even so, the situation has caused such a big uproar that we can't rule out the possibility that some real ghosts might be involved – So we need to start gathering as much material as we can and investigate.”

With a thud, she handed me a large amount of A4 papers. It was so much that even as a man, I staggered when holding them - but when I looked up, there was more on the worktable in the back.

“W-what is this?”

“It’s material from the middle ages about the Fafrotskies phenomenon that was in the British Library. I asked an acquaintance over there if he could send me some materials, and this arrived today. I thought it had been digitized, but here it is. We have to translate all of this as soon as possible.”

“Translate…all of it?”

“Of course, and we can’t just upload it to Ikaigabuchi like that, we also need to add the summary, analysis and give our own opinion on it.”

“T-thanks for the hard work.” I blurted out without thinking; Krishna-san raised her eyes in disgust.

“Why are you acting like it’s somebody else’s problem? You said you would become a member of Ikaigabuchi, right? From now on, you and I are going to do it together.”

“Ehhhh?”

“Go all out, Nagi-kun. Go at it like crazy.”

As expected, Krishna said this without much effort - but when I thought of the endless work involved, I practically fainted right there.

My life in Tokyo suddenly got a whole lot busier. Half of it was having all my free time consumed with doing translation work in my room, and the other half was my part time job. As soon as I gave my greetings at my workplace, I was told to go straight in and start my shift right away, as if I were making up for lost time. Basically, from the time I woke up in the morning until evening, I was face to face with Krishna-san, grappling with a mountain of research materials in the scorching hot club room without air conditioning, and from the time the sun went down until after midnight, I was at a stone-built Italian restaurant, smiling laboriously.

Day after day, I wiped the sweat from my face with the towel hanging around my neck, and with a thick dictionary in one hand, we both worked hard to translate the English documents. It was the first time since I studied for my entrance exams that I had to deal with such a huge number of English letters. Or rather, that time was still way easier compared to this. Roughly speaking, most of these documents were written in a literary style, occasionally the meaning of the English words used from the Middle Ages wasn’t even written in the dictionary. Some of the phrases are uniquely British, and every time I read them, my hand stopped. The bulky English-English dictionary was handier than the internet or the library. It was so difficult that even Krishna-san, a literature major, groaned, and my willpower, as an economics major, had already broken down a while ago.

--This is just impossible.

I don’t know how many times I uttered that line. It was still only around August; the summer vacation was still on. Outside the window, gigantic columns of clouds rose up in a nice pattern, and the sun shone in brightly. The city was full of girls in light dresses, and it was unbearable to spend time indoors, passing up the chance to experience all the youthful events like the beach, pools, and fireworks displays.

I thought that, but I naturally swallowed those words when I saw Krishna-san in front of me, her lovely eyebrows twisted into a frown as she scratched her head. If a girl was working this hard, a guy like me couldn’t give up so easily.

And, at the same time -- I finally realized something.

Up until now, this person has been doing all this work, all by herself. All of the extensive and in-depth articles in "Ikaigabuchi," which we, as occult fans all over the country, used to just read and enjoy, were surely the very fruit of this girl’s blood, sweat and tears.

Anyway, seeing Krishna-san raised my dipping morale, and I continued to frenetically go through the research materials. Waking up, I’d head to the club room straight away, translating diligently until evening. After that, I’d work at the Italian restaurant until late at night. I’d peel the garlic, wash the dishes and also serve as a waiter. I’d stagger home at closing time, sleep like a log, and go to the club room straight again the next day. The next day, and the day after that, repeating the same thing over and over again.

The only saving grace in all that was when I’d return home to my apartment after work, plop down on my futon, and take a peek at Ikaigabuchi on my phone. As usual, everyone there was chatting cheerfully about ghosts.

--God damn it, it's so comfortable not knowing the hardships of others.

That's what I thought, but that reflected me until now. Just a few months ago, I was just a user of the site like the rest of them. Even though Krishna-san is busy doing translation work with me, but she still never misses posting daily updates on Ikaigabuchi. Knowing firsthand how hard it is to do, I can only groan.

As always, Yoishi’s whereabouts were unknown. I had a quick look around the busy forums, but I still couldn't find her posts anywhere.

“…I probably won’t meet her again, will I?”

I felt lonely as if a wind was blowing through my chest somewhere.

My summer vacation passed by in a flash.