Liability (3)

"I need your help," Arahabaki's disembodied voice called out. "Enter the portal."

His tone sounded urgent as the dark circular portal opened up in my office. I stepped into it, and was greeted by trees and the silence in some urban park. I expected to see a fight of some sort with a foreign yōkai. 

What greeted me was the sight of several ghosts clothed in odd spectral garments of their past, wandering aimlessly about. Quite a lot seemed charred against the shimmering back lights of buildings around. 

Oh hell, don't tell me that Arahabaki is now interviewing the foreign ghosts? 

A tall foreign man in a hood passed me as though on an unseen horse and disappeared. Then fifty ghosts suddenly appeared ten meters away, screaming in agony. They were tied at the stake as a spectral fire lit up. 

I have seen ghosts who keep reliving their last dying moments. Yet, the scene before me boggles my mind. Some yōkai say it is only a remnant of their spirits, but who knows. But reliving the agony of burning at the stake? 

Oh fuck, this is Fuda No Tsuji near Tamachi. The view of the sea used to be around in the Edo period. No wonder I couldn't recognise it. 

They used to burn Christians here at the start of Tokugawa Iemitsu's rule and a few more times after. When Tokugawa Iemitsu came to power in 1623, he decided to eliminate Christianity from Japan. An estimated two thousand Christians were executed during his rule alone. 

Then a few years into his rule, there was this odd custom of stepping on images moulded to the key characters of the Christian holy book when the officials gathered people. 

Those of us who took human form were also subjected to this test. I stomped on them, much to the delight of the Officer and those standing behind me back then.

Anyone who vehemently refused, were arrested on the spot. Some even rambled on about how they were saved by a loving god, while being dragged away to be dumped in a stinking prison until it was time for execution. 

Some soft hearted wuss of officers will try to goad the refuser into lightly tapping those images. Or maybe it is because the jails were filling to the brim with those Christians. 

We didn't care. The new God was not of interest. Only his followers were annoying enough to throw water on a couple of yōkai while holding a book and screaming madly in some weird lingo. Their rituals had no effect on us. 

"Funny, these ghosts don't talk much, do they? I tried speaking to them in English about their demons," Arahabaki mused.

"We do have the internet now." I showed my iPhone's Google to him on the results of my search terms. 

"The internet is full of shit. It tells me that western demons only possess bodies. Look at it yourself. But that guy is in human form and not possessing a body. Go on ... read."

I read the first one website on demon exorcism. Sign of the cross, torturing victims, etc. I tapped back and read the second. The third and fourth were similar in content. Same shit, different webpage. 

Looking up, a smug looking Arahabaki raised his eyebrow with a 'I told you so' look. 

"I asked my fellow gamers in Eve Online and they said that vampires or werewolves are the usual ones with a material body. I did try the cross sign on him. I tried to stake him with silver. Didn't work, he fled. The garlic didn't do any harm too," Arahabaki folded his arms in indignation.

"Why don't you feed the momonofu of yours with that foreign yōkai?"

He would be extremely strong with those rotund spirit troops of his. The foreign yōkai don't stand a chance. 

"Do you think I never tried? My momonofu tried to feed on him."

"And?"

"That foreign yōkai energy is incompatible."

Incompatible - he made it sound as though his momonofu are his iPhone and that foreign yōkai is an incompatible charging cable. He might be right. We don't know much about them yet. Thanks to the airlines, which sped up globalisation.

Still, who, in the name of Izanami, gave him the great idea of asking for information from humans? Half of the human gamers may think that he is fucking crazy. Then again, that's for the best since he will do them no good. 

 "So best to go to the source, foreign ghosts with their foreign religion. Asakusa is too bright and too busy when I went there. Then one of the Inari told me about this place. So I came here, but these damn ghosts don't talk. So I thought a fellow yōkai could get them talking."

Within Asakusa, there are two other old execution grounds for Christians. Same gory shit, different execution methods, like dumping a person's head into human waste while they hung upside down.

"Um... they are busy burning themselves at the stake." I pointed to that eerie background of human ghostly torches with the now raging ghostly fire. 

"Crazy dumbfucks. What's the point?" He mumbled, with a confused look on his face. 

Same question I am asking myself. 

"You would have better luck asking in the dreams of their priests - just find them at their temple ... they call them churches," I suggested. 

After all, the living might be more willing to part with knowledge than some traumatised ghost on a replay orgy. 

"Oh good!"

 I will pity whichever priest he chooses. He picked this assignment because it is entertaining him like a huge puzzle.

***

Arahabaki looked at the entrance of Tsukiji's Catholic Church with its four large columns and two large wooden doors of the main entryway. It resembled a Greek or Roman temple which he had seen in Google. A statue stood beside the door.

Don't go to the priest, try the foreign god first. What the hell was Kuro thinking? 

He opened the doors and stepped onto the recently waxed wooden floor, the main lane way to a slightly raised platform with a tall table. 

Behind the stable stood an altar with a crucified man on a cross on top of a box which resembled a kamidana, the housing for a god. 

A large iron chandelier was hanging above. There were two odd looking long stained glass windows on the wall. Plain.

He could only surmise that it is some sort of Haiden, a space for sacred worship. Rows of old wooden church pews were organised neatly before the altar. 

"What do you want?" A presence of a god swarmed around. "I have not antagonised any of you."

Bullshit. Arahabaki rolled his eyes. How often this God's followers have preached outside his shrine about worshipping the 'demons' inside? All the Yamato gods were especially angry when the followers said that this god is the only god since its arrival in Japan centuries ago.

Not that he cared. He found it amusing. The pots were calling the kettle black.

The presence appeared hostile. Can't really blame it since Arahabaki knew how badly treated this god's followers were in the past. In old Tohoku, it was different during the Edo period. The Date clan was tolerant of the Christians as long as they kept discrete about their faith. 

"One of your demons is running loose, and I came to ask you how to get rid of your demon." Arahabaki sat down on a pew in front of the table.

"That or I visit your priest in his dreams but you may prefer to tell me god to god."

"Got any reference?" The god asked. 

Not that omniscient.

Arahabaki took out the photo as he got up and walked to the empty wooden table. Placing it on the table, he glanced as a white aura wafted out of the kamidana.

"This creature… now you have a problem here. It isn't one of the demons from my hell but a creature of both blood and flesh left by the ancient Romans. It is immune to most gods' control."

Duh. Not that omnipotent, too. 

"I tried a silver stake. Didn't do much except make it yelp." Arahabaki said.

"That's too Hollywood. You need several silver bullets to kill it in human form depending on the mercury residue on those bullets. That's quicksilver, mercury, which kills it," the god replied. "There are other methods - decapitation or stab through the heart. Then burn the body completely. All methods are bloody and leave physical traces. Depending on age and moon phase, they either revert to animal or human form once dead."

Arahabaki sighed. Any brash moment made to kill this creature will make him a liability to Kuro.

"If that's all, I have to retire before the priest decides to pray for the umpteenth time about the Covid-19 virus." The whitish aura returned to its box.

"Thanks for the information."

Footsteps were approaching. Arahabaki could sense a human approaching as he stood down from the platform. 

"What are you doing here?" A firm voice asked.

Arahabaki rolled his eyes and turned around to face an old foreign looking man. "Just talking to your god."

He had the features of those ghostly priests which died during the Edo period. Minus the beard and moustache. More fortunate than his predecessors, who lost their lives.

"Oh… always good to see youngsters come to church. We can pray together if you wish," the man offered.

I am a god too, Arahabaki smirked. The man was actually glancing at the surroundings. Almost like he was checking for damages. 

'My priest,' the god whispered to his being. "If you stay on, you may need to listen to the sermons proclaiming my greatness."

No bloody thanks. Thankfully, his shrine holds very little ceremonies or else he would be bored to death like the rest of the major gods. Listening to the Shinto priest chanting the norito payer and then reciting all the requests was plain boring.

"It is okay, I am just leaving." He waved to the priest and quickly exited.