Chapter 7.6

"How'd it go with Tokujirou?" Seishin was asked as Toshio entered his bedroom, to which he shook his head.

"He seems against being hospitalized. Indeed he was talking as if reciting lines according to instructions." 

And so, he was asked, to which he explained that while he didn't know if it would have an effect or not they'd moved his body into the altar room, spread incense and placed juzu beads on him, with sacred scriptures put at the porch entryway. 

"You think that'll be able to repel them?"

"I don't know. ...The house is already open to the Shiki. The only room blocked off by scriptures is the drawing room, so we might not be able to depend on their effectiveness very much." 

If they were going that far, transcribing sutras or mandala or the like on the sliding screens might have been effective but it wasn't as if they could try it. ---As he said that, Toshio gave a wry smile. 

"You said it. It's not like we can act too crazy here. Even without all that they're already having a hard enough time trusting me in this situation, if I start doing anything eccentric on top of this, people who would've come won't anymore."

Seishin nodded.

"Other than having him say that he doesn't want to be hospitalized, it doesn't seem they've had Tokujirou-san do anything else then? It's tough, making him refuse hospitalization. With everyone who lived in the same house with Tokujirou-san dying off like that, even though they've gone that far, if there were family there, they couldn't do anything to help."

"Aa..."

"By the way, you heard the talk about the Kirishiki family's Ebuchi-san opening up a clinic?"

No, Seishin said, eyes opening. "---They really are?"

"There was the convenience store in Shimo-Sotoba right? Seems they remodeled that into a clinic. But the question is for what?"

"You don't think it's as a base to spread the infection do you?"

Who knows, Toshio murmured. "In the first place--To start with, what made the bunch of them decide to move here to this village? Strangely enough I haven't even tried thinking about that until today. I was just thinking of it as they're here so they're here, but."

"Wasn't it you who said this place is prime for multiplying the Shiki's numbers?"

"Yeah. ...That's definitely right. Here even now we still bury the dead. Cremation'd be inconvenient for the Shiki. But how did the bunch of them know that the village still buries, I wonder, huh?"

Indeed, Seishin started to say back when he remembered that he himself had written something himself for publication. Indeed, it was in the spring of last year. Hadn't Sunako said that she had read that essay?

"...It can't be."

"Hm?" 

Could it be that that was to blame for all of this? Cremation was inconvenient for the Shiki. Cremation was sure to be a major obstacle in increasing their numbers. Toshio may have been correct when he'd guessed that if Shiki existed, the reason they weren't known to this day might have been entirely due to cremation. 

--But if there was a place that buried, that would be where Shiki could multiply. Seishin's essay caught their attention. Seishin had memories of writing that the village even now did burials, that the graveyards were in the mountains. 

"What's wrong?"

"It might be because of what I wrote."

Toshio gave a suspicious expression. "The village is surrounded by death, ---That one?"

Seishin nodded. 

"But the village's name's not written anywhere in it, right?"

"If you read it, you'd know it's the village where the author lives. If you reference the author's CV, you'll basically know where it is, then if you take into account the geographic conditions and search a map, it'd be possibly to find it," Seishin lowered his eyes in shame. "...She said that. The Kirishiki's daughter herself."

"...Oi."

"I think that's indeed what happened. She read the essay. She looked for where it is. Then---"

"Consulted someone related, or otherwise confirmed the real state of things. Before there was that talk about some kind of strange resort wasn't there? A surveyor came out, stayed at the Tokuda house for a while while snooping around here and there."

Indeed, Seishin murmured. Toshio seemed to be further searching his memory.

"The results of investigating the real spot also showed it to be a favorable location. They made a plan to infiltrate the village. They got ahold of the Kanemasa house---" Toshio started to say, then spitting out a sigh. "The predecessor of Kanemasa died suddenly. Without a word to anyone, he arbitrarily handed over the lot to Kirishiki-shi."

And that's where it all started, Seishin thought somberly. Perhaps taking on that same mood, Toshio's expression became all the more distressed. 

"They're scrupulous. More than we'd been thinking. On our end we've only just now recognized that they exist, I mean we've confirmed that Nao-san and Shuuji-san aren't in their graves but we haven't found any way to repel them or to dam up the situation. While we're completely in a fog about all this, they've had everything accounted for and planned out for over a year beforehand now. ---But the thing is, why?"

"Why?"

"They calculated nifilstrating the village. But what's that for? The preparations took more than a year, It's not something they just thought up. There's got to be a goal to it, something to make a plan over, to put steadily into place. But what is that goal?"

"Like we'd said, isn't that to increase---"

"What'll they get propagating the species? Cremation's certainly staved off the Shiki from growing in number until now. So in a way, Sotoba might be a beneficial place for the Shiki as a species. But what would the Shiki themselves want to increase their numbers for? For humans, wanting to spread their influence is like second nature but to pointlessly increase their numbers just increases the number of carnivores and that's it. The bunch of them are eating up all the people in the village.

Indeed, Seishin murmured.

"And on top of that there's the Ebuchi clinic. That contamination point---if it's a point to increase their numbers, then they really might just be able to grow even faster than they are now. But even now they're overdoing it. If people are dying off any more than they are now, somebody is definitely going to notice!"

"An undertaker..."

"Eh?"

"It seems we have an undertaker now. They were able to bring one in. The carpentry shop in Kami-Sotoba's been remodeled into a funeral home."

"Contracting burials?"

"Most likely."

Toshio groaned. 

The Ebuchi Clinic, the Sotoba Funeral Home, both painted a similar picture. He couldn't think they were unrelated. If the Kirishiki family had a hand in the Sotoba Funeral Home, what was the goal? They would be the ones doing the funeral, doing the burials. One thing that could definitely be said to come from that would be lessening the work it'd take to dig out their rising allies. The pain of secretly digging up a grace was one that permeated deeply into Seishin's own body. They must have been continuing to do that. Somehow or another they were confirming whether or not the dead body beneath the tombstones would rise or not, then if they rose they were digging them out, then burying the grave back. If they could be the agents carrying out the burials, they would be able to take measures to lessen that hardship. It's also quickly decrease the odds of their current activities being found out. They would multiply faster. ---But it was just as Toshio said. What were they trying to do, increasing their numbers like this?

"They've got some kind of goal." Toshio's eyes were sharply concentrated. "They had a goal, that's why they scrupulously made a plan, one they're acting out. In the mean time, we can't even find out their plan."

Toshio remained silent after that. Seishin's back was tense in anticipation of Toshio saying "That's why we need to hunt the Shiki," but fortunately he didn't say a thing. 

In fact, Toshio himself wanted to say it but he knew his childhood friend's temperament, so he didn't dare say it. That wasn't all, saying they didn't know what the Shiki were thinking, to hunt them, was easy enough in word, but they still had to think of how to actually go about hunting them. They were exceedingly scrupulous planners. As if they were something that Toshio and Seishin could stop by haphazardly working together. 

Seen off by Seishin who looked to him guiltily,Toshio spent time thinking in his own room. Toshio stood up. A shelt, a desk, he heard the sound of something like that falling. He left his own room towards the living room at the same time his mother was coming out in her night clothes down the hallway looking consterned. 

"What was that noise? It sounds like something fell?"

"No clue," Toshio answered, peering into the nearby room. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary he went up to the second floor. The room closest to the stairway--formerly Toshio's own room---currently a room with a bed in it, for the married couple in pretext. When he opened the door, with a very strong whiff of cosmetics, he saw Kyouko's form fallen prostrate over the dresser.

"--Oi!" Toshio hurried in. Kyouko had fallen forward onto the dresser, gripping at the front chest portion of her night clothes. They must have been scattered out when she fell, the cosmetics bottles spilled onto the floor, several with the lids off spilling a stain onto the carpet.

"Toshio, what on earth?"

Moving before the shrill voiced Takae did, he turned her towards the light and peered at Kyouko's face. He could tell at a glance cyanosis was occurring. Her breathing was labored. Ensuring her airway was open, he observed her breathing. Her breaths were spontaneous. They were shallow, mixed with wheezing noises. ---She's fine, he breathed out faintly. It wasn't to the point where her condition was a race against time. It was within bounds where Toshio could treat her himself. 

"Mom, take her legs. We'll take her to the treatment room."

"I will do no such thing!"

Toshio shouted as his openly repugnant mother. "Carry her! You want her to die?!" 

Takae's eyes widened with fright as she took Kyouko's legs with a resentful look. Sufferingly working her down the steps, once taken to the hospital portion of the building she was put onto a stretcher.

"Toshio... How is Kyouko-san?"

"I don't think it's serious but I can't say for sure. I'll treat her, so call Yasuyo-san for me. Tell her the situation and that I need her help ASAP."

Takae nodded, flustered. "Hashiguchi-san, yes?" 

Watching Takae head to the main wing as if she were fleeing, Toshio looked down at his own wife. He'd noticed it when making sure her airway was open. There were two bite marks on the vein on her neck.

Why didn't he notice? Come to think of it, lately Kyouko had been strangely moderate. Whenever she came back her fights with Takae would be unending, but not this time. Almost as if she weren't here, confined to her room, Toshio himself lost sight of the fact that she was. 

It was that. --And it was entering the later stages. 

Why, he thought, wanting to blame himself. Why did he think that they would keep this up while avoiding them? However it was that they chose their victims, even just as a matter of probability, there was no way they should have gotten by safely. It wasn't strange at all that the harm would come to one of their own. No, it was in fact lucky that they'd gotten by safely this long.

But thinking that, Toshio glared into space. ---Was it really true that they'd gotten by safely to this point?

"There's Tohru-kun..."

Yes, Mutou's son had of course been a victim of theirs. And then?

"...They got us."

Sudden resignations. 

Shimoyama the X-Ray technician, and also Towada. What would you call them if not victims and losses?