by Shin Towada
The arguments came to a head when Mitsuba’s sister went and got herself business cards from an entertainment agency.
It had been a summer day, the air filled with the droning of cicadas. There was the usual angry shouting from Mitsuba’s mother and shrill cries from her sister. At some point, Mitsuba’s mother raised her hand and struck her daughter across the cheek.
“Mommy, stop it!” Mitsuba hurriedly interposed herself between them after seeing her sister fall to the floor. Her sister shoved her out of the way, however, and got back up, a hand pressed to where she’d been hit on the cheek.
“You used to encourage me so much when I was little! You’re such a bitch, mom!” her sister spat before gathering up her things and rushing out the front door, slamming it closed behind her.
“Sis …”
“Leave her!” Mitsuba’s mother snapped before she could chase after her sister, then stomped off to the kitchen, indignant. This wasn’t the first time her sister had stormed off, and so Mitsuba was sure she’d come back home before long. Previously, it had turned out that she’d actually just gone to her voice lessons.
But that time, when her sister left the house in tears after her mother hit her, was the last time Mitsuba ever saw her. She never came back.
After that, her mother and father began arguing daily. Her father would tell his wife it was her fault. Despite having gone for so long watching their fights and ignoring them, he still had the gall to blame her every day for their daughter never coming home.
Her mother would cry, tears falling onto the photo of her daughter she clutched in her hands day in and day out.
And then, a year after Mitsuba’s sister disappeared, her mother vanished as well, leaving only a note that read: “I’m sorry.”
“Ah, maybe that’s it,” Chie said, feeling like she’d hit upon the answer now that Mitsuba’s explanation was finished. “The sad look on your face, I mean.” She brought up the photo on her computer screen again.
“I thought that if I went into the entertainment industry, I might find my sister. Given how badly she’d wanted to become an idol singer, I was sure that’s where she’d be working. And if I got famous enough, maybe my mother would see me on TV. But now, I … I don’t really think either of them is alive anymore …”
“Hmm. I see,” Chie said, crossing her arms, rocking about restlessly as her eyes darted around. She then got out a pen and some paper and handed them to Mitsuba. “Write down the names of everyone in your family.”
“Huh?”
“I’m gonna do some searching.” Because just maybe, she might find the key to all this.
It was after three o’clock in the morning, and the exhausted Mitsuba lay on the floor. Chie worked at curating her photos while also running searches online, scanning through news reports. A run of burglaries. Hospital patients suffering injuries. Sports news. Financial data.
“Hmm?” As Chie was following this narrow thread of hers, one word unexpectedly jumped out at her. “Huh …”
She wanted to go and look into it right away, but she couldn’t well leave Mitsuba here. Instead, she called up a helpful friend of hers.
“Hey, Ikuma? There’s a little something I could use your help with …”
IV
“You know the 23rd Ward is terrifying, right, Chie?” Ikuma fretted. It was the next day, and he’d come bearing plastic supermarket bags in both hands. Chie had asked him to look into things, and also to pick up some food, supplies, and other daily necessities. It seemed, however, that having to set foot in the 23rd Ward while it was on special alert was something of a tribulation for a Ghoul like him. He continued to look around restlessly.
“Thanks! This is a big help,” Chie said. “So what do you think?”
“Well, it looks like you might be onto something with regard to that thing you had me look into.”
“Aha. I thought as much. Do you think you’d be able to get in touch with someone for me next?” Chie asked, handing Ikuma some notes she’d written down for what to do next.
The conflicted look on Ikuma’s face was quite unlike anything Chie had seen from Tsukiyama. “Chie, I’m not really that good at this sort of thing. I might be a Ghoul, but I’m really just a normal guy.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could pull it off.”
“Sheesh, no pressure or anything. I mean, I guess I’ll see what I can do,” Ikuma uttered meekly. “Besides, that poor girl must have it really rough,” he added. At least he seemed worried for Mitsuba. “I never should’ve told you about that Idol Fest …”
With that, Ikuma hurried away from the condominium, a distant look in his eyes. He clearly felt like he alone bore responsibility for this whole mess.
Chie had Ikuma helping her out as she spent day and night at the 23rd Ward condo gathering information. Before she knew it a week had passed, and it was dawning on her that she might well be in for a long haul here.
“Hmmm … This is taking a while.” Chie had actually made contact with someone who could turn this whole thing around at the drop of a hat, but given her own position and not wanting to put her contact too on edge, she hadn’t been able to make much forward progress.
She hadn’t heard from her contact today, either, and it was already past sunset. Well, not much I can do about it now, Chie thought as she took her gaze away from her computer screen and began to fiddle with her camera.
“Hm?” She heard a quiet voice, singing. Straining to make it out, she recognized it as an idol song that had been popular a long while back. Mitsuba was singing, apparently. Chie headed to the back room and poked her head in to check on Mitsuba.
“I’m sorry. Was I being too loud?”
Chie shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said. “You have fond memories of that song?”
“My sister used to sing it a lot. Back when my mom and dad used to listen to her, smiles on their faces, and tell her how good she was.” Mitsuba’s eyes narrowed with visible nostalgia. “I think my sister was really happy for all that. Even after she grew up, she’d always carry around her old toy microphone in her bag …”
The look of reminiscence on her face then grew tinged with sadness. “I guess people need to learn to let go of the past,” she laughed, trying to cover that up. “But how are you doing, Miss Hori?”
“No real progress. We might need to move to a new base of operations soon so that Tsukiyama doesn’t find us,” Chie said, and as she ran through a mental checklist of where their next safe house might be, the intercom chimed. She padded over to the front door and opened it.
There stood Ikuma, a rather serious look on his face. “Chie, I think I’ve got something,” he said, quietly enough for Mitsuba not to overhear as he showed Chie a picture.
Chie took a good look at it, then nodded. “Got it. I hate to bother you, but do you mind coming inside?”
Every other time, Ikuma and Chie had done their business by the door, and he’d gone home as soon as things finished up. Mitsuba’s eyes widened to see him actually come into the room. “Good evening,” he said.
“Oh! Thank you so much for all you help.” Mitsuba hadn’t been informed that Ikuma was a Ghoul. Probably she just thought he was a nice, helpful young man. Today, however, she appeared to sense that something else was going on with him and Chie, and her expression stiffened.
“Mitsuba, could you come here for a sec?” Chie said, sitting down on the floor. Ikuma sat down alongside her. Mitsuba sat across from them, her eyes attentive.
Chie decided to cut straight to the point. “Mitsuba, we’ve tracked down your mother and your sister.”
Mitsuba let out a quick, sharp gasp at the sudden news. “My … my mother and my sister?”
“Yes. I won’t beat around the bush: your sister is already dead. Your mother stabbed someone and then attempted suicide, and is in critical cond
ition.”
“Ah …” That probably wasn’t anything like the answer Mitsuba had been expecting. She was visibly stricken, and began to tremble as she took in Chie’s words.
“Chie, did you really need to put it like that?” Ikuma said, his sympathy for Mitsuba plain.
Ignoring him, Chie kept her gaze on Mitsuba. “Do you still want to know?” she asked.
There was a long pause before Mitsuba replied, in a shaky whisper, “I … I do.”
“No matter what the details are?”
Mitsuba swallowed hard, then nodded. “No matter what the details are!”
“Hmm. All right,” Chie said. She took out the note paper she’d had Mitsuba write her family’s names down on a week before and showed it to her. “Your mother is Kazene Mitsuba, and your sister is Kiyone Mitsuba, correct?” Mitsuba nodded yes. “On the day of the Idol Fest, there was an incident in an 8th Ward hospital where a terminally ill patient named Yujiro Utsumi was stabbed by his housekeeper. Afterward, the housekeeper tried to kill herself.”
The day she’d first brought Mitsuba to this condo, Chie had inadvertently come across the incident while browsing news stories online. It had recently come to light that the perpetrator behind a string of incidents involving missing high school girls had been a Ghoul: Yujiro Utsumi’s adopted daughter, Koharu Utsumi. These incidents apparently went back as far as eighteen years ago, with high school girls being abducted mainly from the 8th Ward and the wards neighboring it—including the 23rd, where Mitsuba had said she used to live.
“The housekeeper who stabbed Yujiro Utsumi was apparently named ‘Otokaze.’ ” Mitsuba’s mother’s name was Kazene. If you switched the kanji around and changed their readings, you got “Otokaze.”
“Thanks to the detective who rushed to the scene, Yujiro Utsumi survived the attack and is still alive, at least for the time being. The same detective was apparently quick enough to deal with Otokaze after she tried to kill herself; he wound up saving her life. Probably lucky that this all happened in a hospital. Anyhow, I had Ikuma get in touch with this detective for me. They discussed things behind the scenes, and he managed to get this photo of Otokaze.” Chie slid the photo she’d gotten from Ikuma over to Mitsuba.
Mitsuba cried out at the sight of the emaciated woman sleeping in the bed. “Mother!” She looked nothing like the woman in the happy family photo Chie had seen before, but Mitsuba’s voice confirmed it. Her mother. Tears began to stream down the girl’s face.
“So this is just supposition on my part, but I think what happened is that, while your mother was looking for your sister, she ran across this Utsumi family, and she may have become their housekeeper as part of her search.”
Mitsuba grabbed on to Chie’s shirt and leaned in close. “Miss Hori, is there some way I can see my mother? Please, I … I want to see her!” While the reality of the situation was grave, it didn’t change the fact that her mother was still alive. She clung to Chie, sobbing as she begged over and over again.
Seeing this, Ikuma spoke up. “The detective on this case really opened up to me after I told him about you, Mitsuba. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he let me have this picture, and he also promised me he’d make a special exception in allowing a meeting.”
“Meaning …”
Ikuma flashed Chie a look, and Chie smile brightly. “Meaning yes, you can see her,” she replied. “Do you think now would be all right, Ikuma?”
“Hmm. Maybe? I mean the detective did say he wanted to see Mitsuba ASAP, so it’s probably all right?” Ikuma got out his cell phone and started typing away to check on that.
With Ikuma focusing on that, Chie moved on to the next matter at hand. “Mitsuba, we should use this opportunity to bail on this place and get ready to move someplace else.”
Mitsuba wiped her tears away. “Yeah,” she said with a nod before standing up.
Chie checked her computer one last time, but she didn’t have any new emails. “I hope this won’t take much longer,” she said, sighing as she slipped the laptop into her backpack and hefted it up.
Ikuma made an “OK” sign with his hand. “You’re good to go, Chie!”
“Mitsuba, your mother’s hospital is in the 8th Ward.”
“From here it’s maybe thirty or forty minutes by taxi,” Ikuma said.
“All right. Thank you so much!” Mitsuba said, bowing to both Chie and Ikuma.
Ikuma turned to Chie and nodded. “Ready to get going?”
When they turned toward the door, however, it was already open, and a man was standing there. “Going on a little picnic, are we? I’d be delighted if I could join you.”
“Ah, geez,” Chie muttered.
Ikuma’s face fell. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me …”
Over by the back window, Mitsuba gasped, only just now noticing the intruder, doubtless recognizing him from the picture Chie had shown her previously.
The picture of Shu Tsukiyama feeding on someone.
“So you were right under my nose this whole time. To think you’d be sneaking about in my own townhouse, Hori!” Tsukiyama stepped inside without bothering to slip off his shoes, the door behind him locking with a sharp click as he reached back for it. “But you’ve made a clear mistake in choosing the 23rd Ward, under heavy guard.”
Tsukiyama made grandiose, operatic gestures as he spoke. “You see, knowing you, Hori, I realized you’d probably hide someplace I’d have a hard time getting to. And what place fits the bill better than the 23rd Ward? After that, it was a simple matter of having my attendants do some searching.”
“Took you long enough, all things considered.”
“My master has been busy searching for Kamishiro, and I’ve been aiding him in that. But I finally found the time to swing by,” Tsukiyama said as he hungrily eyed Mitsuba like his prey. “Heh heh … Oh, I’ve longed to meet you, my sad little songstress! Have you been crying? I can see those charming eyes of yours wavering with tears.” He slowly crept closer and closer to Mitsuba.
“Ikuma, can you take Tsukiyama in a fight?” Chie asked.
“Nuh-uh, no way! Can an amateur boxer take on the heavyweight champ? Because that’s basically what you’re asking here!”
Someone had to do something, though, or the girl was as good as dead.
“I’ll replace your pearls of tears with rich rubies of blood … Oh, the very thought of it is just thrilling!” Tsukiyama shouted, his eyes now a flush crimson. He radiated an air of menace that made it hard to even breathe. Mitsuba slumped back onto the floor.
“I should thank you, Hori. This little ordeal you’ve made me go through has ratcheted my appetite up a tiny notch!” Tsukiyama’s Kagune coiled around his right arm like a slithering snake, soon taking on a knifelike shape, which he brandished at Mitsuba. “This is going to be the most fun I’ve had with a meal in a long time!”
No ordinary person—no ordinary Ghoul, even—would be able to bring themselves to take action in the face of such a threat.
Chie turned to Ikuma and snapped, “Ikuma, jump!”
“Oh, goddammit!” Spurred into action, Ikuma’s own eyes went red. Hefting Chie up over one shoulder, he then dove in next to Mitsuba. He yanked her in close with his free hand and, clutching her tight, leapt away from Tsukiyama—and right toward the window as he cried out, “This is why I hate my own peeeeeopplleeee!”
There was the piercing sound of shattering glass as he jumped right through the window, and the three of them began to plummet as gravity took over.
“Eeeeeeeek!”
“Whoa, this is aaaawesome!” Chie’s playful shout intermingled with Mitsuba’s terrified shriek.
Ikuma held the other two tightly and shouted, “Hold on tight!” His Kagune erupted through his skin around his shoulder blades and wrapped around his body in a spiral, reaching all the way down to his feet, where it took on a shape like
a spring.
He grunted as his Kagune softened the impact of landing. It still hurt, but considering they’d just leapt from the top floor of an apartment building, it wasn’t too bad at all.
“Wow, you’re really good at carrying stuff!” Chie said.
“That’s why I work part time for a shipping company! But hey, this isn’t the time to joke around like that!”
Mitsuba seemed to have finally realized what Ikuma was. “I-Ikuma, are … are you a … ?”
“Sorry for not saying anything! I wasn’t trying to deceive you. For now, let’s just hope we can get away!” Ikuma quashed his Kagune and began running through the nighttime city streets. It was doubtful that Tsukiyama was just going to stand by and let them run off.
“You’re not getting away that easily!” he cried as he leapt gracefully from the window.
“Ikuma,” Chie asked, “how long can you hold out for us?”
“Well, I’m carrying two people, and I’ve got Tsukiyama of all people after me! I think if he wanted to, he could end this in the blink of an eye, but he’s probably having more fun toying with us right now.”
Clinging to Ikuma’s shoulder, Chie looked back to see Tsukiyama following them some distance behind. He’d stopped using his Kagune, but his eyes still smoldered a fierce red. What Chie felt on seeing that, however, wasn’t fear. “Wow, looking good, there, Tsukiyama!” A Ghoul running full-out with his eyes blazing amidst the darkness of night. Chie took up her camera and began to fire off shots as if she were smitten.
“Hey, look, check it out!” she said. “Tsukiyama makes for a good picture when he’s not talking!”
“Chie, I’d really appreciate if you could focus on the more immediate situation!” Ikuma protested. “I mean Tsukiyama might not kill you because he likes you and all, but Mitsuba and I are kinda marked for death here!” He kicked up into the air and leapt over a fence, weaving up and down and side to side for dear life.
