Chapter 4

When Seishin opened his eyes again, his watch read 5:00AM. He realized he'd he'd ended up sleeping for about three hours.

When he turned to look towards the recovery room, darkness lurked beyond the privacy screen. Seishin woke himself with a vague feeling of unease.

There was still time before dawn broke. It was natural for it to be dark. Toshio was the one who had turned off the lamp, around 2:00 when he'd gone to check on her; he'd turned out the light and instead left the door open. Nothing had changed since the last time he'd looked. He shouldn't have been feeling that unease.

In spite of a stiffness in his joints Seishin rose with a frown. It's really cold, he thought. While walking towards the recovery room, he felt an extremely cold breeze flowing. And then, the strangely clear sound of the outdoors. The sound of the wind which may or may not have been blowing through trees. --The sound of the wind.

Seishin's eyes widened. He realized the source of his unease. The wind was blowing. Rushing into the recovery room, the first thing he took note of was the open ventilation window.

(The window is open--Why?)

Toshio didn't open it. While thinking that his gaze ran about, Setsuko not seen lying in the bed.

"Setsuko-san?"

The recovery room had a door that went not to the nurse's station but directly to the hallway. That door, too, was open. Everything was wide open, the cold wind passing through the open corridor.

He wasn't supposed to sleep. With bitter regret, he woke Toshio.

"Toshio, Setsuko-san's gone."

Toshio sprung from the chair he'd been sleeping in looking at Seishin as if it didn't make sense.

"...Gone?"

"She's gone. The window's open. The hallway door, too."

Toshio rushed into the recovery room. The bed was like an abandoned snake skin. Above the white sheets, the juzu beads Toshio had her hold was deserted. Indeed the window was open. The door to the hallway was open and there was no sign of Setsuko to be seen. Rushing into the hall and looking left and right, there was no Setsuko.

"Toshio."

Turning when Seishin called to him, he saw Seishin pointing with a stiff expression to the table at the bedside. That was where the Buddha Toshio had brought from his house should have been. The honzen, the flower vase, the incense. They weren't there.

Hurrying back in, he looked about near the bedside table but he didn't see any of them.

"I'm sorry... I ended up sleeping," Seishin murmured, but Toshio didn't have any right to blame him in the first place either.

"Check the second floor."

Nodding at what he was told, Seishin hurried further down the second story. Toshio left the recovery room, checked the operating room and from the small subsection of the nurse's station he peered towards the back steps. A cold wind passed up from the downstairs. Toshio was halfway down the back steps when saw the staff entrance was open. Wedged in the half opened backdoor, upon the entryway floor he could see the lower half of a woman's body in bedclothes.

He hurried the rest of the way down the stairs. Without a doubt it was Setsuko. Setsuko had fallen, halfway out the building. He hurried to take her pulse but he couldn't detect one by touch.

Turning as he heard a sound behind him he saw Seishin standing there with the color drained from his face. "Setsuko-san is..."

Toshio shook his head.

(She shouldn't be.)

Until yesterday she'd been showing signs of recovery. her vital signs were stable, returning to normal bit by bit. Even her anemia was improving, and her consciousness was clarifying. No matter how he looked at it she shouldn't have died this suddenly.

Toshio grabbed the flashlight set above the shoe rack and shined it about. Gravel was spread out around the staff entrance. It looked like it had been heavily used but nothing could be said for certain. He shined the light further out. On the dirt rising up the causeway it indeed looked like there had been footprints. And there something glistened. Something was reflecting the flashlight's light.

Toshio went outside. He shined the light around the thick shrubbery through the area. What caught the light had been a small golden honzen. The incense burner was found not far away, along with the flower vase. When he looked back, above his head was the open ventilation window. The window to the recovery room.

"They're here?" Seishin's dubious voice came from behind him. Toshio nodded. They were thrown out the window. That was the only thing he could think, looking at the set up. On the ground about were the ashes of the incense burner. There footprints could be seen.

"They weren't alone..."

Toshio shined the light over the scattered footprints for him to see. Clearly there were at least three different shoe sole designs there. It wasn't that the ashes were scattered over footprints. Somebody had stepped on top of the ash, and if so it was something that happened around dawn.

"Somebody came at dawn. And not alone, probably several."

Toshio turned back towards Setsuko who had fallen in the staff entrance. Setsuko was recovering bit by bit. She had to have around 500ml of blood in her still. At the very least she shouldn't have suddenly died.

"The bunch of them came to take care of her in one go, huh?"

"Toshio."

Seishin spoke as if surprised, Toshio urging him on. "For the time being let's carry Setsuko-san into the hospital room. Give me a hand."

Dumbfounded, Seishin watched as Toshio examined Setsuko's corpse.

"No particular signs of blood loss. No outer wounds that are obvious, and I can't see any signs of major symptoms." Toshio said while settling Setsuko into the futon. "The cause is unclear, is what I want to say, but. It's probably blood loss, I'm sure."

Toshio lightly pointed to Setsuko's arm. In her left elbow were red several nodes, as if piled on top of each other.

Seishin sat back in the bedside chair. If he hadn't fallen asleep, he found himself thinking, unable to lay enough blame on himself. That he was tired didn't even begin to serve as an excuse. Both himself and Toshio were beyond admitting they were tired. They should have planned their rotations better. They should have at least taken up post right at Setsuko's bedside. Once he began to think of regrets, there was no end to them.

There was a hard, metalic sound. It was the sound of Toshio knocking over the flower vase.

"Who threw this out?!" Toshio murmured. "The window was locked from the inside. The hallway side door too. As long as nobody went through the office into the room someone had to open it from the inside and the only one who could do that is Setsuko-san!"

Seishin nodded. --But somebody could have invaded by going through the office. Seishin couldn't definitively declare that that would have definitely woken him up. But would anybody have the mental fortitude to be able to pass through two tentatively sleeping men to sneak into the recovery room? Supposing that they did, that still didn't establish that that somebody who had did not have a human mentality.

"The staff entrance would have been locked from the inside too. It should have been locked up."

"You didn't confirm that it was actually locked. It's possible Ritsuko-san had forgotten. or possibly when I met her as she was leaving she left it open thinking I would be going out."

"That's not impossible. But at least as far as the recovery room goes, the door and window had to be opened by Setsuko-san. A person couldn't come or go through the window. This's the second story, and even using a chair, the window wouldn't open enough for an adult to get in."

Toshio leaned against the wall and cast his eyes down. "...Setsuko-san was probably called out by somebody. It's possible she thought she was dreaming."

"Setsuko-san's consciousness was clear."

That's right, Toshio said with a sigh. "Was their power of suggestion already that strong on her? Or possibly it was because she was mentally clear that she couldn't ignore somebody calling to her. Either way, Setsuko-san opened the door and the back door. Setsuko was healthy enough that she could do as much."

"Who threw the Buddha?"

"Don't know that one. ...But, they came in numbers. That said, Setsuko-san's condition was pretty good, so unless she was being manipulated, she wouldn't open the door to invite several people in. Even the two of us would have noticed if several people came in no matter what."

I'm not so sure of that, Seishin thought but didn't voice that opinion. He couldn't call it absolute but indeed as far as possibilities went, the likelihood that they'd have woken up was much higher.

"The reason they came in numbers was probably to get her in one go. Setsuko-san was hospitalized, so they couldn't mess with her too easily. So they couldn't do a drawn out attack. But they couldn't have a big crowd fall in on her either. So one of them must have come in first. If that wasn't it, they called Setsuko-san out." Toshio tilted his head. "Was it Setsuko-san who threw the Buddha, or was it the invader... Maybe, one of them came in to the hospital, noticed it and threw it out. In either case, it being there was inconvenient."

Seishin didn't answer. The possibilities were limitless. As it was, they could only talk of what they imagined.

"What the two of us do know is the odds of Buddhist altar equipment being inconvenient for them. Thinking about the Mushiokuri and the traveler's guardian dieties, their magic's effective too. ...Probably."

"That's right."

"And after all they do have human limitations to their movement. They can't climb walls or turn into smoke to get into a room. She was isolated in the hospital, and they were under pressure from the night watches. That much is human. ...Other than that, there's no limit to what they could possibly be."

Seishin nodded.

"....We have to contact Tokujiro-san."

"Aa..." Toshio mumbled despondently. "We'll try digging up Nao-san's grave after all."

Seishin couldn't voice his protests anymore.

"When're you free?"

"Today I'll have Setsuko-san's mourning. Afterwards, there will be a few services. I think that I can have Tsurumi-san or somebody switch with me for Setsuko-san's vigil."

"It'd be bad to do it midday. There's the chance someone would be coming to the graveyard to get ready for the burial."

"At night?"

Toshio looked at Seishin who asked him that, nodding wordlessly.

"....If we dig up the grave tonight, the traces might be seen when doing Setsuko-san's burial."

"There's no choice is there? We can't wait until Setsuko's buried," Toshio said with a dry laugh. "I mean we could try to use an endoscope or something but I can't say I wanna put it to that use. Even with that we'll have to completely demolish the grave, so if we're in we're all in."

Understood, was all that Seishin murmured.