I’m Really Unnerved In Tokyo

Outside the shrine, several old people and children who were attracted by the flames and thick smoke were stopped by Nimae Ryoma and Hase, watching the Furute Shrine curiously.

"Well, it's all done to this extent, this weird guy who has become a Buddha, there is no way to 'resurrect from death' again."

Putting his hands in his pockets, Araki Sousuke finally relaxed.

"Officer Araki, my father's death should also have something to do with the incident under this ancestral hall."

Behind him, Chairman Anato, whose face was still pale, asked abruptly.

"Feel sorry……"

"Secret, right? I understand..."

"I was the only one who discovered my father's body at the first time... So, from the beginning to the end, only I and the police knew that his death was not that simple."

Before Araki Sousuke finished speaking, Chairman Anato continued to mutter to himself.

"Because, no one who dies normally will have a distorted expression of horror and a tragic scene of bursting eyes..."

"I didn't dare to tell the people in the village about it. I just assumed that he had died a natural death and was buried hastily, and put away all his belongings."

"I didn't remember until today when I saw the scene in the basement... Intestinal flow ceremony is said to be a ritual born to pray for the help of the 'mountain god' and destroy the enemy."

"And the state of my father's death... woo... It's very similar to the legend, those who died due to the curse of the Anato family on the battlefield..."

Speaking of this, Chairman Anato seemed to have lost all his strength, and fell to the ground trembling, covering his face and sobbing.

"Should have found out earlier to stop him from tinkering with those ominous things... I'm really useless..."

"Just nest in the mountains and dare not go to the big cities... Not only did he fail to protect his father, but he also failed to leave anything he cared about..."

At this moment, this simple country uncle is crying like a child.

"Please be sorry...Although we cannot disclose any information, we must believe that we are doing this out of consideration for protecting more people."

Araki Sousuke patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.

It is really not kind for these "despicable outsiders" like themselves to burn down the shrines in other people's villages as soon as they come.

"Besides, I believe that even without these things, the long history of the Anato clan will still flow in the blood of every descendant and be passed down word of mouth..."

However, if the chairman of Anato knows that because his father uploaded the family tree of "Anado" to multiple surname query websites on a whim, it will lead to a strange recovery of a certain "knowing the name will be served at the door", How would he feel after slaughtering dozens of people including his father?

That's right, the place name "Hinamizawa" was "told" to Sosuke Araki after the woman in white clothes became a Buddha last night.

Born in Hinami Sawamura, she suffered from eye diseases since she was a child, and her eyeballs were unusually large.

Because of her ugly appearance and subtle name, she has been excluded by the villagers since she was a child, and she exists like a monster.

In such a small mountain village with fixed personnel, simple interpersonal relationships, and a pool of stagnant water, once they are "labeled" in one way or another, they often face a more cruel and unchangeable fate.

And in the years of famine and war, all the disasters that happened were attributed to her, who covered her face with long hair all day long and lived like a street mouse.

No matter the name or appearance, to her, they are meaningless scars that are ashamed to see others.

Because ugliness is original sin.

At the end of another year of winter, some villagers who believed that she was a symbol of "unknownness" chose to use the "intestinal flow sacrifice" method to dig out her eyes and internal organs and sacrifice her alive in the basement of the shrine. The way of praying to the "mountain god" to bless the prosperity of the whole village.

When this ugly crime was covered up in the dust of history, the descendants of the villagers, who knew nothing, still worshiped this shrine and its "ancestors" devoutly for a hundred years...

But I don't know, and at the same time, I am offering, the existence that no one under the shrine knows.

Until, the "real name" that symbolized her painful life was re-known by the world because of the recompiled genealogy.

Death is not scary.

For some people, because of name and appearance flaws, living in the viciousness and cruelty of others for a lifetime is a more terrible and unforgivable thing than death.

...

"All in all, after the burning here is over, check again, and then you can go back, right?"

After the weeping Chairman Anato was escorted away by Police Officer Hase, Ryoma and Sousuke Araki sat side by side on the stone steps behind the torii gate, and began to puff.

Behind them is the unburned shrine.

"Ryoma, do you think it's better to be remembered or forgotten after death?"

Pillowing his hands, lying under the torii gate, looking up at the white clouds floating in the blue sky, Sousuke Araki suddenly asked thoughtfully.

"For dead people, it shouldn't matter whether they are remembered or not... If you had asked me a month ago, I would have answered you this way."

"But now, after learning that death isn't necessarily the end, all I can say is... I don't know..."

Loosening the tie around his neck, Ryoma glanced at the "fire scene" behind him where the fire was fading, and his eyes became deep.

"Perhaps, the living's memory of the dead is a kind of bondage."

"Well, actually... during the period of 'Retreat and Practice', I secretly went to Saitama."

Without warning, Sousuke Araki uttered the lines that made Ryoma's eyes tremble before Reiji.

"What, you guy also... went?!"

"Also? Wait, maybe you also..."

"That's right, not only Saitama Cemetery, but also the apartment in Shinjuku, I have checked several times."

After the two stared at each other with wide eyes, they immediately smiled in relief.

"Actually, before I went, I didn't really think about it. I was afraid of facing their spirit bodies, and I was worried about seeing them become resentful spirits..."

After discovering that he could see the spirit body, anyone would want to confirm whether the spirit body of the deceased friend would linger in that cemetery.

"However, after staying in the cemetery all night, I didn't see the spirit bodies of Xingping and Lizi. I was relieved, but also a little bit disappointed."

Sousuke Araki sighed, and spit out melancholy smoke rings upward, as if he wanted to add a few strange-shaped white clouds to the blue sky.

"Obviously there were so many things we had agreed to do together that we didn't do, and so many things we wanted to say that we didn't say, and the two of them suddenly 'eloped' like this."

"I said... Sousuke..."

Before the two, Ryoma habitually reached out and rubbed the little golden oily head of the other party, and asked curiously: "If... I mean if..."

"That night, you actually met Yukihira or Reiko...what would you do..."

"I don't know... I haven't thought about it... I won't think about it..."

Araki Sousuke got up slowly, picked up the thick book under his buttocks, and walked towards the embers of the shrine that was about to go out.

"Perhaps, only when I really face that situation can I come up with the answer."

Crouching down, he gently spread the things in his hand on the fire.

"Originally, Sister Hanyu asked me to take this back, hand it over to the association, and send it to the Yin Yang Office for a thorough seal..."

What fell into the flames and was gradually swallowed up was the genealogy book written by Chairman Anado's father.

"But where it begins, it ends."

"Almost, let's go, Ryoma."

After all this was done, Araki Sousuke walked down the stairs with a relieved face after calling Ryoma to Erqian.

"However, having said that..."

When passing through the torii gate, he looked back worriedly.

In the light of the fire, the genealogy that flipped with the wind happened to stay on a certain page.

"Your appearance, and the name "How beautiful", are obviously not ugly at all... What is ugly is the human heart. "

Looking at a certain name on that page, Araki Sousuke turned and left with peace of mind after being completely swallowed by the flames and turned into ashes.

...

You knew already.