“Less than the reading’s of a plant…” Hosuke muttered to himself.
“This is a chart of the results, amplified and applied to a polygraph.” Katsuragi lifted a sheet of paper from the table. On it were a number of gradients, almost-flat lines. “A record of the electric potential difference—brainwaves, if you will—recorded from Kukai’s sokushinbutsu. This is thirty seconds, recorded every ten hours. It doesn’t tell us much. However, when we look at this next chart…”
Katsuragi picked up another sheet. On it were a series of ten wavy lines, delta waves running down the paper.
“This is the same data after remapping the timescale with a computer. Here, time is compressed to one-twentieth of normal. This is 102 hours, or four days. We know that every line on the previous sheet represented thirty seconds. Now, if we extrapolate outwards and imagine each of these lines to be thirty seconds, the pattern we get is clearly that of a delta wave.”
“You called it a super delta wave.”
“A term I came up with, but if we use it to describe the way Kukai appears here…well, it forces us to conclude that Kukai is in a kind of super sleep.”
“Super sleep?”
“Of course, the implication of this is hard to gauge.” Katsuragi fell silent before continuing. “This next bit is not in my report. A few years ago, an academic published the results of some tests on the brain patterns of monks engaged in zazen meditation. Boring details aside, his paper essentially showed that the brainwaves of monks downshifted during meditation, from waking-state alpha waves to the theta waves seen in early sleep. And that the deeper in meditation the monks were, the more the brainwaves began to resemble those of deep sleep.”
“Intriguing.” It was Kurogosho that answered. His eyes were full of a powerful energy.
“Yet these priests were never actually asleep. There is a human trait called GSR, the Galvanic Skin Response, whereby the electric resistance of the hand alters when a person becomes scared or surprised. It is the response that lie detectors seek to measure. It is also something that does not happen—bar a few exceptions—to people emitting theta waves during sleep. Yet the monks emitting theta waves during meditation exhibited a GSR response, measured through their reaction to external stimulation such as a noise.”
“I’ve heard something like that before,” Hosuke said.
“I had understood this knowledge as something the Diver’s Association instilled in each of you during your training?”
“Yeah well I’m underground, you know.” Hosuke gave him a sly grin.
“What I’m trying to say is that, as someone moves towards a deep meditative state, the mental condition that approaches what Buddhists term as enlightenment, the patterns emitted by the brain downshift and become closer to those exhibited during deep sleep. At the same time, GSR shows us that the nervous system becomes increasingly sensitive. So we can project that the brainwaves of someone that had attained nirvana, living Buddhahood, if you will, would be something not dissimilar to delta waves. In other words, they would have an extremely low frequency. Just like the ones we see here.”
“Ahhh…” Kurogosho breathed out in something like a deep groan.
“There is one more thing I have yet to add to the report.”
Katsuragi lined up a selection of the papers on the table. Each showed a wave pattern not dissimilar to the ones he had already demonstrated.
“What you see here are the readings of Kukai’s brainwaves as compressed to a one-twentieth scale. There are eight points in total where the waves change pattern.”
“Yup,” Hosuke nodded. “This is what I was talking about when I said the data was a blast.”
“Here, here, and here,” Katsuragi pointed a few of them out.
At each of the points, the wave patterns came together into frequencies denser than those seen elsewhere.
“Eight points in total, one and a half hours each. The pattern appears twice a day.”
“When the haunts go quiet?”
“Indeed.”
“You look like you’ve got more to tell,” Hosuke said. He peered into Katsuragi’s face. “Go on, let it out.”
Katsuragi’s tongue traced over his lips, he pushed his glasses up. “This anomalous pattern matches with that of paradoxical, or REM sleep. If we assume the wave pattern belongs to something living, this shows us that Kukai is asleep and he is dreaming,” Katsuragi said.
3
Katsuragi was gone, leaving only Hosuke, Kurogosho and Enoh on the sofas.
Kurogosho had dismissed Katsuragi after hearing what the man had to say. He had invited those remaining to partake in a meal. They gazed at each other, each in their own idiosyncratic way.
“The meal is being prepared elsewhere. We will be notified when it is ready,” Kurogosho said.
“What’s on the menu?” Hosuke asked.
“Oh, nothing too grand. A formal dinner of the goto and gokanro might have been in order, but we shall settle for substitutes in fear of offending your palate.”
Goto and gokanro, five meats and five nectars, traditionally consumed by followers of the Samvara religions before commencing a ritual.
The five meats consist of human, dog, horse, cow and elephant. The five nectars are urine, feces, phlegm, mucous, and menstrual blood. Hosuke recalled Biku’s explanation from before.
“Well, that sounds disgusting. I’m not fussy but…”
“You are free to abstain if you find it disagreeable.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Before that, let us talk a little.”
“Talk?”
“I find you intriguing, Hosuke.”
“Huh,” Hosuke reached up to scratch his head.
“Hit a nerve?”
“Nah, it’s nothing. Just that…there’s this tendency old men have. They tend to fall for me.” Hosuke’s eyes trailed across to Enoh. He saw the features of Gensai Sakuma in his place.
Kurogosho flicked his eyes to the painting on the wall beside them. “What do you think of this type of thing?” he asked.
“That type of thing?”
“Yes.”
They fell silent for a while. Hosuke observed the painting as Kurogosho watched on. It depicted Heruka mating with the goddess Varahi, painted with loud, primary colors. The subject was the same as numerous other paintings found around the residence. Heruka is a dark, ultramarine blue, standing with his legs apart in the center. Varahi is blackish-green, sitting in his lap, clinging to the male deity with her head thrust backwards. Her legs are clamped around his waist as the dark form of his engorged penis penetrates the shadow between her legs. Heruka is bearing his teeth, each of his three eyes is open and visibly bloodshot. In his left hand is a priceless gem, in his right a cobalt pestle. A wave of arms spread out in an endless fan behind him. In each hand is a ritualistic tool. In some are objects that include the severed head of Brahma, and other human forms skewered through the anus. Heruka’s clothing is made from countless human heads. His crown is formed of over a dozen skulls. The two deities both wear expressions that could be read as either ecstasy or anger.
Anger, perhaps, from the effort necessary to survive an ecstasy powerful enough to reduce them to ashes; at the same time it could have been pleasure so extreme it merely looked like rage. However interpreted, it was clear that the painting was an overt ratification of human desire, more than simple approval.
The overall impression was that of a raw human state, one lacking in affectation or perversion, of something that existed beyond such value-based opinions as approval or rejection. Hosuke supposed Kurogosho’s question about this type of thing had in fact been a meta-question, asking what he thought of desire in general, outside the confines of the picture. Perhaps his goal was to discover whether Hosuke harbored a similar itching himself.
“Hm,” Hosuke rubbed his nose and glanced at Kurogosho. He looked back at the painting, still seated on the sofa with his legs crossed under him. “I guess it’s a pretty genuine re
flection of how things are.” He flicked at his nose, still looking at the painting.
“Hmm,” Kurogosho nodded deeply without revealing his reaction to Hosuke’s answer. Instead, his dark, empty eyes remained focused on him, searching. They softened. “Human desire, it becomes us.” He said it quietly, but his tone was definitive. His eyes lingered on Hosuke for a moment, perhaps gauging his reaction. Then he turned them back to the painting. “That is what I believe the painting tells us. Well, not quite. It does not attempt to delineate what is proper, or improper. Instead it seems to be conveying a simple message to those who gaze upon it—this is how you are.”
“Like a mirror.”
“Indeed. And so its nature changes, depending on the viewpoint of its beholder. The message is, I believe, the same as that of the Rishu Sutra. The painting communicates it with more grace, in my opinion.”
“Huh.”
“The Rishu Sutra is a little pretty for my tastes. Here we see no ornamentation, and the message is clearer for it.” Kurogosho sounded like he was talking to himself as much as he was to Hosuke.
There was a soft knock at the door. Enoh responded and a male voice announced their dinner to be ready.
“Shall we, then? Master Kurogosho,” Enoh said.
“Let’s.” Kurogosho got easily to his feet. The energy around him seemed to flicker momentarily, like black fire.
“Hehe.”
Hosuke stood up on the sofa, he gazed up at the ceiling. He saw another of the black, hair-like haunts, crawling spider-like along it.
4
It was the same room he had dined in during his first night in the residence, joined then by Kurogosho, Enoh and Renobo.
It was the same room in which Yuko had witnessed Kurogosho and Renobo cavorting before her. It was Japanese-style, and spread over twelve tatami mats. Painted over the ceiling was a brightly-colored image, with Heruka at the center. A mandala of sex, sectioned into twenty-five squares, each uniquely designed with two deities locked in sexual intercourse.
Entering the room, Hosuke noticed a candle burning orange towards the center of the table at the middle of the room. It was held by by an age-yellowed skull. The candle was thick, providing the only light in the room. As it flickered, shadows danced across the space. It felt ominous, like the insides of some absurd beast’s stomach.
“I must confess, Mr. Kumon, that you are not our main guest tonight,” Kurogosho said. He had remained standing after entering the room.
“Seems that way,” Hosuke muttered, eyes on the object before him.
He looked up to the side of the table that backed up to the alcove—there he saw Kukai’s worn, dried-up mummy, sat there like some kind of practical joke. It was wearing a formal robe, something new and decorated with a gold lining. Wearing it in the sense that it had been arranged over the monk’s frame without threading the arms through the sleeves.
“Now that’s a good look. I bet the monks at Mt. Koya would piss themselves with shock if they saw that.”
Hosuke recalled the agonized look on Enjaku’s face when they had tried to enlist him at Biku’s apartment. The poor man had let out a pained screech when Biku came out with the truth—it’s Kukai, the item stolen was Kukai’s sokushinbutsu. Now here he was, about to sit for dinner with it. He recognized the same gold-colored, ritualistic cloth under the monk’s robe, still draped over the shoulders. The insides of its sunken eyes appeared to have deepened, now resembling two inky holes, eerie, with candlelight flickering deep inside. The monk’s dusty frame was smaller even than Enoh’s.
“Let us enjoy the feast.”
Kurogosho sat, across from Kukai so that the table was between them. Enoh and Hosuke joined him, also sitting to face each other. Hosuke ended up with Kurogosho to his left and Kukai to his right.
Around Kukai swirled masses of mud-black haunts, normally invisible to the naked eye but moving with a ferocity that was all but audible. The room was teeming with them. They glided over the food on the table, packed in tight, throbbing groups. Some resembled human hair, some were more like leeches that were four meters long. There were snakes with human faces and other, slithering creatures that were harder to place. Coiling forms that wriggled over the table like maggots. The food was visible underneath each of the transparent shapes.
“Even I can see these,” Kurogosho stated.
The bizarre dinner commenced.
The three men—far from normal themselves—began to feast inside this nest of phantasms. There was no one else around. They ate in unnatural silence, the only sound was their chewing. The food was as unnatural as the silence. Hosuke could make out meat and vegetables, but it was impossible to discern anything specific. Kurogosho had told him the dinner would be made from substitutes, but he began to suspect that it might be mixed with something more authentic.
“Is it to your taste?” Kurogosho asked.
“It’s okay, I guess.”
Hosuke grabbed a handful of the food from behind a swirling mass of leeches that had arranged themselves into a skull. He carried it to his mouth. Kurogosho watched, his lips forming a wide smile. The expression was demonic, but Hosuke showed no particular reaction. He was still chewing on the meat-like substance when he opened his mouth to speak.
“While we’re here,” he addressed Kurogosho directly. “Tell me…you really want to end up like that thing, old man?” He pointed his chin towards Kukai’s sokushinbutsu.
“A fine question indeed.”
“I get the feeling this thing isn’t exactly your dream vision of immortality, huh?”
“I wonder how to phrase my answer,” Kurogosho mused. His eyes moved around, addressing no one in particular. They fell on Enoh, who grinned before shaking his head. “Here is an old man. Yet he appears to lack even the slightest interest in immortality.”
“I am content to get on with life and die when the time comes,” Enoh responded.
“He talks like a Zen Buddhist, yet he professes a love of murder…”
“Depending entirely on the opponent, Master Kurogosho.”
“Fuminari.”
“Yes, there is Fuminari. Then Biku of course,” Enoh said. Then he turned to Hosuke, looking slightly troubled.
“And this one?”
“In truth, I am a little conflicted.”
“Conflicted?”
“I’ve become a bit of a fan; I would be as happy joining him for tea as I would killing him.”
“Hmm,” Kurogosho smiled faintly, enjoying himself.
“If there must be killing, I would rather keep him for last.”
“You’re a blast, Enoh,” Hosuke said, grinning. He licked the thick fingers of his right hand before turning back to Kurogosho. “Anyway, my question. Immortality. Your thoughts.”
“Immortality, indeed.”
“I bet you’re into Tachikawa, Sendo’s bedroom arts and all that shit. But Heruka’s Sadhana, that Secret Rite of Heruka’s Descent…does that shit do anything? For immortality, I mean? It didn’t look like it would do much, I have to say.”
Hosuke was asking Kurogosho about the ritual in the Tanzawa mountains. Kurogosho smiled, partially taken aback by the directness of Hosuke’s question.
“All that…is simply a means to an end.”
“A lie?”
“No, not a lie. When an organization reaches a certain size, it becomes important to maintain a sense of plausibility.
“This is not to say that the rituals are a sham. It is quite possible—with a certain level of expertise—to reap benefits from them all; Tachikawa, Sendo, and the Rite of Heruka’s Descent.”
“Using your balls to siphon energy from a woman’s groin?”
“Indeed. Through these practices one can maintain youth and even achieve a form of rejuvenation. You have already seen the results on a woman, up close in fact.”
“Renobo, huh?”
“Exactly. How old would you say she appears to be?”
“From what I hear, she’s getting on a
bit…”
“Just so. The fact is, she is hardly younger than Enoh or myself.”
Hosuke whistled, then cocked his head as though he was listening for something. “Miwa Ishibashi!” he exclaimed.
“Correct,” Kurogosho nodded. “She went to India, a long time ago, looking for material for her book.”
“The Hidden Sangha of India, right?”
“Yes. During that time she was attacked by a pack of thieves near Pakistan.”
“The phansigars.”
“You are surprisingly well informed, Mr. Kumon. The phansigars do not kill women outright; they take them captive and use them to extend their line, only feasting on their flesh if they fail to cooperate. Miwa Ishibashi—Renobo, that is—was captured in this manner. She spent five years living among them. The term phansigars may sound exotic, but the truth is that most of the time these people are normal village folk.
“Renobo came to learn of the rite of Heruka during her years in their village. Then, during her fifth year she managed to escape. She wandered the desert for a week until she was picked up by a party of good-natured merchants.”
“Huh. Hard to imagine that woman as being so old. So…if you already know how to maintain youth like that, why go and steal Kukai’s sokushinbutsu?”
“Alas, things are not so simple. Appropriating energy from sex does prolong youth, the process is flawed.”
“Huh.”
“In the beginning, one must only need perform the act every three months. After two or three years, however, the gap shortens to every two months. After five years, this becomes one month. After ten years, one must partake in the act every ten days to maintain the same age. Renobo has now reached the stage where she must have sex every two days, maybe even daily. If she fails to do this, she will at once regress back to her true age.
“She is kind enough to abstain when we need Miwa Ishibashi. Each time, it takes a month and a half of fucking to return to her younger age. This is not immortality. It may prolong life, but there is an upper limit of twenty or so years.”
“Hence, Kukai.”
“Indeed.”
The Psyche Diver Trilogy: Demon Hunters Page 45
