Chapter 6.1

Before Higan, on the night of the 20th, Seishin paid a visit to Murasako Munehide in Sotoba. Murasako Munehide was the manager for the Sotoba community mourning crew. He therefore would have been the representative manager for the two consecutive funerals in Sotoba.

The lights were out in the enclosure of the shopping district that was the Murasako rice shop, the shutters already drawn down but, perhaps because he had called in advance, one of them was left half open. Bending down to open the glass door to enter the shop, Seishin called from the entryway.

There was an immediate answer, the one to pop his face out being the eldest son Munetaka. Munetaka showed a frank and honest smile.

"Yo. It's been a while, huh? What's up?"

It is the usual, Seishin answered as Munetaka ushered him inside.

"Business with my old man, then? He's waiting inside. Go on up."

Motioned to do so Seishin went from the store up towards the living area. Munetaka was three grades above Seishin. They had never been in the same school but the second son of the family Hideki was one year above him. In high school he also came over to the Murasako rice shop to hang out often, and Munetaka had been good tohim then. He often loaned him a lot of books and helped him with his studies. It'd been a while since he'd seen him or visited the shop, so it was nostalgic, seeing him again.

On the way to the tatami room, they passed by the side of the Japanese style living room. The one to bob her head down at him was Munetaka's wife, Chizuko. Chizuko had two children, a boy and a girl, seated at either side.

"Hiromi-kun and Chika-chan have grown, haven't they."

Haven't they? Munetaka laughed walking ahead of him down the corridor. "I guess the last time you saw her, Chika hadn't even started kindergarten yet, huh? She's a second grader already. Kids in the lower grades are amazing, you know. They grow right before your eyes and their personality starts coming out."

Just as he was answering, they do don't they, Seishin met the youngest son coming down from the second story. The third son was Masao. He was Munetaka's younger brother by more than ten years, so back when Seishin came, he was still a small child.

Masao looked to Seishin and averted his eyes. Whether he bowing to him in recognition or just hunching into himself, he passed by with a motion that didn't really seem to be one or the other.

"Masao, not going to say hello?" Munetaka called after him but he only fleetingly looked back and gave no response. He was getting to that age where they were reticent towards their family.

"He has gotten big. Is he already in highschool?"

"Second year," Munetaka said with a strained smile. "While his frame is getting bigger, he's not really growing at all. It's because mother and dad spoiled him, he's so hard to handle now."

It's natural, Munetaka said with an embarrassed seeming smile. "I get it ever since I became a father, your youngest child's just so precious and all. It's not like your older kids aren't precious but I guess you'd say they have something more weak and protectable you'd call it? He was a kid who was born right around the time we were losing our cuteness and all, looking at it from their view, that's what made him so cute, thinking about it now."

"That may have been it."

"Yup," Munetaka nodded, putting his hand on the sliding screen door. "Dad, it's the Junior Monk."

"Aa, thanks for bringing him," Munehide said as he stood. It seemed he was in the middle of having an evening drink alone. His drink-reddened face was disheveled as he pushed to have a beer first, but he refused, saying he came by car. And yet all the more he urged the drink on him, until Munetaka scolded him, at which point he became amusingly sullen. Munehide was already around his 60th or so? When people got to that age, something about them became childish again.

He gave his thanks to Munetaka for leading him in, as well as to Chizuko for bringing in tea cakes. Once he was alone with Munehide, Seishin quietly broached the subject.

"....I had heard that Saeki Akira-san had died, but."

Munehide nodded with a dizzied face. "Right, right! He did die! Did the Junior Monk know him?"

"Not well enough that I could say that I do, but," Seishin said turninghis eyes away with a guilty thought. He'd heard notice of his death through Ishida. Seishin didn't even know that a man named Saeki Akira existed at all. "I'd overheard it from others that it was a great surprise."

"Mm. It was sudden. No, but I guess I didn't know him that well either. His funeral group was Kami-Sotobas, so I didn't manage his funeral, so."

"Was he sick from long before?"

"Nope. Seems it was something sudden. In the middle of the night he suddenly said his stomach hurt---it seems it was actually his heart that was bad. There're times people've made that mistake, their heart hurting and thinking it's their stomach. His family didn't know that, so they tried giving him stomach medicine and seeing where it went but something seemed off. So they took him to the hospital where it came out that it was his heart, and the next day he'd died." Munehide said, seeming to be brooding, somewhat. "The family was surprised but... Maybe it's possible he himself knew he'd had symptoms for a while now. He suddenly quit his job and all."

Seishin started. "You are saying that he had resigned?"

"Yup. Three days before he collapsed. He came back to the house and suddenly just spit out that he'd quit. His parents and his wife were, as expected, surprised. He didn't consult with them about nothing, they pressed on him and cross examined him but he said he'd already turned in his notice, and afterwards it exploded. It seems he said he wanted to take it easy for a while, wanted to rest, he was saying, I guess. So, his body might have been in bad shape after all."

Seishin was bewildered. The reason Seishin was visiting Munehide was because he wanted to know about Saeki's latest actions. Who he associated with, where he interacted, whether there was something in common with the other patients or not. At to that end, most questionings had been fruitless. Aside from cases when they were members of the same family, the fellow patients largely had no common point of contact. Nothing that could be definitively called it could be found. None the less, suddenly Shimizu Ryuuji, Hirosawa Takatoshi, Ohkawa Shigeru, three people other than Saeki had just before death abruptly resigned from their jobs. What could it mean that amongst all of them who had nothing in common, this was the single thing that could be called a commonality?

"Uhm, lately, there was another who had died too, hasn't there? In Sotoba."

"Aa," Munehide nodded. "Takami-san, right? Now that you mention it, that was sudden too, huh? Down to suddenly being bed ridden."

"That person didn't also.... he didn't quit his job, did he?"

Hidemasa blinked, making as if there were something strange in his mouth, a complicated expression. "That's right... Takami-san's place, too, were saying he had quit. He wasn't very committed to his job either, was he? There were problems at his wife's home family's place and he looked for a job, earnestly asked to move in, but I guess they couldn't take it after all and he quit, they said. So it looks like he did quit. ---Right, that was also right before he died. They said it like it was just a few days before, at the service."

Seishin was panicked. The common point between the dead---resignation. The exceptions were Shuuji, Mikiyasu, Ohtsuka Yasuyuki, those who took part in independent businesses within Sotoba.

(...Those who commute out of the village.)

What could this be? There were two groups of victims, those who commuted from the village and those who didn't, and the commuter group had mostly quit their jobs just before death. ---No, Seishin thought. The only exception was Ohta Kenji but Ohta also turned in a letter of resignation. He was just dissuaded from leaving.

"What does it mean, all this?" Munehide made a bewildered face. "I'm just realizing it now but it's a funny story, now ain't it?"

Seishin nodded, vaguely. Hidemasa mumbled to himself.

"Somehow lately I'm getting a strange feeling. There're so many funerals and all...." Hidemasa said, then looked at Seishin. "The resident officer Takami-san died too. I'm getting the feeling it's an awful lot. Doesn't the Junior Monk think so too?"

"That.... may be the case. I suppose?"

"It's a lot. That's, this summer's been hot but is it enough for this many to die's the question, isn't it? It's not just in the Sotoba district either, lately I've been hearing there is or there was a funeral here or there, you know, from customers. ---You don't think." Hidemasa made a severe expression as he seemed to be peering into Seishin's face. "it's a plague, do you?"

"It couldn't be," Seishin said with a painful smile. "No one who has died has died of a plague, have they?"

"That's true enough, but."

"If it were an epidemic, the hospital would surely say as much. They couldn't not tell the families and depending on the case the families would be quarantined. Even if the families would keep it quiet, it it were on the death certificate, the town hall wouldn't give permission for them to be buried."

"Aa," Hidemasa nodded as if still not satisfied. "Well, that's true, now."

"It is true that there are many dead, but..."

"It feels strange. Even though it's obvious there's no epidemic spreading, people are dying left and right. Two of those dead both quit with their companies and the like. It's been unusually hot and no rain. This year's strange... or maybe it'd be better to say it's the village, huh? This village is a little strange these days. Sudden move-ins and outs and all." Hidemasa said with a complicated smile. "Just around here two households have moved. Somehow, it's like we're being abandoned, now don't it?"

Come to think of it, Seishin had heard that some family from Monzen had moved. It seemed Ohsawa from the post office had also moved, the police substation's Takami's family had moved out and was gone. When he'd visited the Ohtsuka sawmill, he'd heard that---.

Seishin tilted his head. Something was rising up that he couldn't satisfy in his chest, the feeling of something stopping up his throat. It was just like when Megumi and Gotouda Fuki had died, the vague sense of the abnormality that he had felt.

For the time being he asked Munehide the things that he could ask of him, then Seishin took his leave of the Murasako house. A bit uncertain, he stopped his car before the temple. Getting out of the car, Seishin peered into the Tamos' inner parlor. Entering through the back gate he'd never remembered everbeing closed, he went along the wall across the garden, towards Tamo Sadaichi's bedroom. In a quiet drawing room that faced the back yard, Sadaichi was indulging in his retirement.

"Sadaichi-san."

Called out to, the man who had an open book while facing a go board looked up. "Well, Junior Monk."

The Tamo household were typical part-time farmers. Sadaichi had been a grade school principal until the age of compulsory retirement, and his son was a teacher at Sotoba middle school. The farm land that made up for the cost of food was tended to by Sadaichi's wife Kiyo as if it were a hobby but originally the Tamos were Sotoba's first or second richest farmers. Not only did they rent out excess farm and mountain land, they owned several of the rented shops in Sotoba's shopping district and several houses, and a few apartment buildings in Mizobe as well. By all rights with the rentals alone they could have lived a life of leisure but it didn't seem that the man himself, nor his family for that matter, had any intent to live that way.

"I am sorry for the late hour of the night. It is at last becoming cooler, isn't it?" said Seishin, to which Sadaichi smiled 'really!'

"Well, do come up. What is it?"

I had a small something I had wished to inquire about, Seishin said, and without asking further Sadaichi soon was in the kitchen attached to the inner parlor. From there he returned with tea he had brewed himself.

"Tea brewed by an old man may not suit your tastes but it's a bit much to call my wife in from the main wing. Either way, tea brewed by an old woman wouldn't be on much of a higher level, so you'll just have to forgive me."

Please do not fuss over me, Seishin laughed.

This old man laughing amicably was a current leader of Sotoba. Current day Sotoba had administrative wards that were called school districts; there were six of them---Yamairi was formerly one of them but in the present day it was amalgamated into Monzen--and in each a single named individual was elected to be the ward head. Then the six headmen were called the Ward Headman's Association and they elected a chairman, and this ward headman's association's headman was this man, Tamo Sadaichi. At the temple he served as the Parish Representative Committee's president, and on Sotoba's JA's board of directors. At the same time he was also the Shrine Parish Representative's head and the shrine's head priest. Sadaichi was that sort of old man.

"Somehow lately, there's been a hustle and a bustle, hasn't there? I guess it's been some time since I'd been able to meet with the Junior Monk face to face, now. How are things? At the temple."

"...Well thanks to you, thank you for asking," Seishin said while at the same time adding in. "Our Mitsuo-san had been saying that some place in Monzen had had a move recently but, Sadaichi-san, might you perhaps know of which family it may have been?"

"Ah, the Matsuos, yes?" Sadaichi replied immediately. Leader of the village though he was, it wasn't as if every minute detail of the village reached his notice. Even so, if it was relating to Monzen, there was approximately nothing that did not reach Sadaichi's ears. "You know, Sakaimatsu. "

[TL/N: Sakaimatsu - The nickname for the Matsuo family who live in Monzen at the border of Kami-Sotoba. Sakai means border, Matsu is short for Matsuo, a last name common enough there are likely multiple families with the last name in any given area]

Ah, Seishin murmured. Sakaimatsu was Matsuo's trade name. Their estates were just on the border of Monzen and Kami-Sotoba, so they were called the Matsu-os of the border, sakai.

"They have moved? Sakaimatsu?"

"That they did. Their boy was called Takashi, did the Junior Monk know of him? If I recall, he was a wee bit older than the Junior Monk, but..."

"Aa---Yes. I do know of him."

"That Takashi-kun went flying out of here saying that he was transferred away at his job but, that was an outright lie."

"...Ha?"

"I'm saying that he himself said he had been transferred when he left with his wife and kids but after that we never heard back like they were cut off. Sakaimatsu's Yasushi-san was worried and called to contact his company but far from being transferred, they said that he had quit."

Seishin was instantly startled.

"Without a word to his family, he went and quit. That's what they call absconding, and Yasushi-san was red with shame. He came to me for advice but he had said that things being what they were to please keep it a secret, so I've kept it quiet myself.

"About when might this have happened?"

"At the start of September. ---And then, it seems Takashi-kun did make contact. I don't know what lead to it turning out like this but at any rate he said he was going to his son's place and the family all moved out. That was just recently on the 18th."

"...That is a strange story, isn't it."

"Inn't it?" Sadaichi said adding hot water to the tea pot. "What's more, one day, there was a truck stopped out in front ofthwer house, and when I asked the neighbor Morihiro-san's wife about it, that's how she answered. If the wife hadn't asked, did he plan to move without any goodbyes, then? Yasushi-san is a conscientious person but, he must have had quite the circumstances going on." Sadaichi refilled the tea cups, making a sullen face. "That's another story that happened at night. And then? Well, around the neighborhood, there's talk about how they might've been flying away by night, but. Perhaps Takashi-kun borrowed money from someplace scary, they said, and maybe he had to run away from that, they said."

Is that so, Seishin said looking into the face of the good natured old man that was Sadaichi. "Sadaichi-san, lately, have there not been any other households that have moved?"

Sadaichi looked at him blankly and murmured, let's see. "Come to think, at the end of August, the Kamiyasu's old woman moved, didn't she? Something about moving to start living with her son or something. I heard about something like that happening in Kami-Sotoba too. At Sadaji's place, his son-in-law said that, if I recall."

Sadaichi's younger brother Sadaji ran a super market in Kami-Sotoba

"....Looking at it like this, there are a lot aren't there? Recently." Sadaichi made a befuddled expression.

"It looks like it, doesn't it? I've heard how so many houses now have moved, just in Sotoba. And that's just lately. And so, Sadaichi-san, I am terribly sorry but since it has become an occasion on which I was able to meet with you, could I perhaps bother you to ask about indirectly how many have moved lately?"

"That's---I don't mind, but. What is this, is there something to it?"

"It is only something that is on my mind. I was thinking whether something was happening, so."

"Something?"

No, Seishin prevaricated, quickly faking the conversation in a new direction. "Uhm---wasn't it last summer, that the person from the research group had been coming to Sotoba frequently?"

Aa, Sadaichi nodded. "Now that you mention it, there was something like that. Building a resort facility or some such, he said. A golf ground or camp grounds, saying some kind of baloney, but hadn't that talk died out?"

"---Yes, I was but asking."

Hmm, Sadaichi folded his arms. "Certainly so. There are many coming and going, aren't there? I don't think it could be anything, but it certainly is interesting. I understand. I'll ask about indirectly."

"I am sorry, thank you very much."

Nodding, Sadaichi breathed a sigh. "What is going on, I wonder. ....Junior Monk, lately, do not you think it strange?"

Seishin was secretly in panic. "About... the movers?"

"There is that too. Somehow, I get the feeling there are many funerals. After good old Giichi, the wife at the contractors was next, wasn't she? Their boy passed on too, Mikiyasu-kun died too, the three generations of the contractors' family, even though they got along so good, are down to just Tokujirou and Setsuko-san all by themselves."

"Yes... that is true, isn't it?"

"The resident officer Takami-san died, too---come to think of it, the post office's Ohsawa-san moved too. Aa, and the library's Yuzuki-san also quit. Did you know that?"

Seishin blinked. "No. He has quit his job?"

"That's right, he has. It was another sudden story. It was already some time ago. Was it at the end of August, the start of September? Now Sumie-san who works at the nursery center is trying to learn to run the library, but."

Sadaichi lightly shook his head looking away. "Just the other day--about two days ago was it, the principal at the grade school quit too it seems. He'd had kidney failure, they were deciding whether to do dialysis or not, and that became worse and worse, and he had to resign in the middle of the school year. This is like... people are coming out like an old person's worn out teeth, is what it feels like."

Seishin nodded while feeling a faint, vague apprehension. The village was mostly made up of people who conducted their business within the village but there were my no means no people like Yuzuki and like the grade school principal who commuted to work by coming into the village. There were more who went out from the village to work.

(....Commute.)

Ohta Kenji, Hirosawa Takatoshi, Shimizu Ryuuji, Ohkawa Shigeru, Saeki, Takashima. Each of them worked outside of the village and resigned before they died. Yuzuki, the grade school principal, as expected they who quit commuted from outside of the village.

(Gigorou-san.)

Ohkawa Gigorou went out of the village and when he came back he was sick.

What am I thinking, Seishin thought while lightly furrowing his brows. What is this. It's like---it was like something outside of the village was closing in around the village.

An epidemic was spreading within the village. That's how it should have been. And yet, why was it that like this it seemed there was something outside of the village?

----Oni.

(....Such a stupid thought.)

But, it was clear as a picture. The triangle like the tip of a harpoon. The forest of firs that enveloped the village. Surrounding the village from the outside, oni were peeking in on the village from here and there.

The village is surrounded by death.

Seishin took his leave of Sadaichi as if intoxicated by something, returned to the temple and called Ishida from the town hall.

"Ishida-san, I am sorry but I'd like the register of names for those who have moved."

Ha, Ishida's bewildered voice sounded.

"A basic resident register or something along those lines, could you see if there is anything along those lines? ---I am depending on you."