Honoo no Mirage

Chapter 4: Message from the Mirror

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Chapter 4: Message from the Mirror

Tachibana Yoshiaki’s family lived in Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture.

Their family temple, the Shingon Kougen Temple, had one of the largest congregations in the city.

Asaoka Maiko alighted from her taxi and was immediately taken aback by the size of the temple. Though she had heard about it from her aunt, she had not thought that it would be so large. This was certainly not the tiny building tucked snugly away into a corner of the residential district she had imagined; the grounds were expansive enough to be a park and had the structures to match. She realized now, looking at the magnificent tile roofing of the main temple building, that this was what she had seen glittering in the summer sunlight as she rode into town on the electric train.

The children of the neighborhood catching cicadas among the temple’s giant camphor trees certainly seemed to find it a delightful playground. Maiko, looking over at the family quarters, hesitated.

(I’m probably a bit early...)

She had arrived around twenty minutes early. The temple’s schedule was probably packed with memorial services and the like, so it would be more polite to wait until her appointment—except she didn’t quite have the willpower to stand around outside in the summer heat. Maiko resolutely headed for the family quarters.

“Excuse me?” She rang the doorbell.

She could hear sutra chanting from the main temple—she must have arrived in the middle of a memorial service. No one appeared to be home, and Maiko stood there uncertainly for a moment.

Two or three minutes later, a middle-aged woman dressed in elegant traditional j.a.panese robes appeared at the sliding door.

“Thank you very much for waiting.”

“Aah, er, excuse me. Good afternoon, my name is Asaoka. Asaoka Maiko—I called a few days ago...”

After a pause, the woman gave a small nod as she recognized Maiko’s name. “The niece of Asaoka from the second district, I believe? Yes, of course. Yoshiaki mentioned your call. Please come in. Ah, it sounds like the service is not yet finished. You may have to wait for a little bit...”

“No, that’s fine. I’m actually early, so...”

“Here, come in, come in. Isn’t it hot today? Let me bring you some cold barley tea.”

Maiko bowed her head gratefully. “I’m sorry for the bother.”

As Mrs. Tachibana welcomed her with every courtesy, Maiko realized that this elegant lady was probably laboring under something of a misconception.

“Really, I just don’t know what to do with him. Still unsettled at twenty-eight! Everyone wants to help him find a good match, but he doesn’t seem to take any interest at all... I’m always telling him that if he’s seeing someone, he should bring her home and let us meet her.”

“...Ah...”

“Well, I’m glad that he has. He’s a bit rough around the edges, but please look after him...?”

Mrs. Tachibana had apparently mistaken her for the girlfriend of this Yoshiaki—he must not have told her Maiko’s reason for coming. Well, this is awkward, she thought, smiling noncommittally. Anyway, the man himself could clear up the misunderstanding when he turned up.

She had actually only talked to him on the phone for the first time a few days ago. He was, in fact, a complete stranger to her. Her aunt, a parishioner of this temple, was the one who had introduced him to her.

Incredible as it might sound, her aunt’s family had once experienced a haunting (though about ten years ago now). It had gotten so out of hand that the family, at their wits’ end, had come to consult with the abbot of the temple. His third son, Yoshiaki, though only a monk-in-training at the time, had come to deal with the problem, and everything had settled right down.

And he‘d gone about it in the oddest way. There was no cedar-stick burning rite or sutra-chanting; he only examined the spirit for a moment, then suddenly called out ’Bishamonten!’ in invocation. Since her aunt couldn’t see spirits, she couldn’t tell whether or not the ghost had truly disappeared per Yoshiaki’s claim, but since strange things stopped happening afterwards, she concluded that he must have exorcised it. The whole process hadn’t taken more than three minutes.

When asked, Yoshiaki had explained that a malicious weasel spirit had taken possession of the hanging scroll in the alcove, which had recently been purchased in an antique store and was very, very old.

“Shady,” had been Maiko’s first thought when she had heard the story from her aunt.

After all, this was exactly how religious cults preyed on people’s gullibility to pull them in, so a story like that hadn’t exactly left a good impression on her. It didn’t matter how many times Maiko told her aunt how silly it was—she seemed to have become a believer in Tachibana Yoshiaki. Besides, he had refused all payment for clearing out the ghost. She was only an ordinary temple parishioner now—she was just seduced by his character, her aunt had laughed.

If she hadn’t been touched by the supernatural herself, Maiko would probably never have believed her aunt’s story.

That Maiko was willing to bend her own beliefs so far as to pay a visit to Yoshiaki attested to her desperation.

“I’m sorry for the long wait...”

She had been there for about thirty minutes before Yoshiaki appeared. His height was a surprise, his fine-featured face and serene eyes even more so. If someone had told her he was an actor, she would have believed it. His gentle bearing and calm poise belied his twenty-eight years.

The memorial service had apparently run late, and he was still wearing his ceremonial robes. Despite his youth, the traditional j.a.panese robes became him, and his broad shoulders cut quite an impressive figure in the jikitotsu and gojou-kesa. It emphasized that incongruous serenity even more—yet his reserved and humble demeanor kept her from being intimidated.

Maiko thought she could understand now what her aunt had meant by being seduced. Though she was meeting him for the first time, Maiko felt dazzled for a moment.

“I apologize for my appearance. We started a little late—it appears the family had a flat on their way over, and it took a little while to change the tire...” he explained, smiling. He had apparently sensed her nervousness at their first meeting and was trying to put her at her ease. What a wonderful person, Maiko thought.

“My my my. What is this, Yoshiaki-san? Dressed like that, you’ll make the entire room smell of incense.”

Mrs. Tachibana entered carrying tea pastries. Maiko noted the look of trepidation that flashed across Yoshiaki’s face.

“Mother, we are in a temple. It probably smells of incense everywhere.”

“What are you talking about? Show a little more concern for the ladies. While we might live in temple, it would certainly not do to have the smell of incense everywhere. It is a matter of delicacy. Don’t tell me you haven’t even considered that.”

Yoshiaki, evidently, was no match for his mother. He was the youngest of the Tachibana family’s four children. Teruhiro, the eldest, was a realtor; both Yoshiaki and his older brother Yoshihiro worked for their father in the temple (their sister, Saeko, was married and resided in Tokyo). Teruhiro lived on the temple grounds with his family in a detached building, while the second son, who was about to be married in the autumn, would become heir to the temple. Only Yoshiaki’s future was up in the air, though he himself seemed completely unconcerned about that fact.

He appeared to be feeling a rather strong push from his family, however.

“You see? This is why things are always broken off as soon as you start getting somewhere,” Mrs. Tachibana complained, though he was always the one to break things off. Even so, Yoshiaki didn’t seem to want to defy his mother carelessly.

“I understand, Mother. Please rest inside so we can talk.”

“Well! Are you not even going to introduce your future wife to me?”

“Mother...”

Yoshiaki pressed a hand against his forehead as his shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

“How has your brother been?” Tachibana Yoshiaki—or rather Naoe n.o.butsuna finally got to the purpose for her visit after Mrs. Tachibana had left.

At his question, Maiko shook her head despondently. “He’s still unconscious. It’s like he’s in a vegetative state, and the machines are the only things keeping him alive...”

A shadow darkened Maiko’s face.

“The doctor said that there isn’t much chance of him returning to consciousness. Words to that effect, anyway... My family doesn’t want to give up yet.”

“And you?”

“Me?” Maiko lifted her eyes sharply. “How could I give up after those dreams?!”

“Then...you’re still dreaming about him?”

Maiko nodded, and her gaze fell back to the low table.

“And the reflection in the mirror...?”

Maiko nodded again and covered her face with her hands.

She had told him her story on the phone a few days ago. This was why Maiko, who didn’t believe in psychic phenomenon, had come to ask for Tachibana Yoshiaki’s help.

Her brother, Asaoka Shinya, had been rushed to the hospital after a car accident left him comatose one late night in Nikkou just about a month ago. The Asaoka family ran a j.a.panese inn on the banks of Lake Chuuzenji, and her brother had been taking some friends to the Toubu Nikkou Station. He had just gotten his license, and should probably not have been driving the Iroha Hill Road at night. He had missed a curve and crashed into the guardrail. Fortunately, his pa.s.sengers had not suffered any serious injuries; Shinya, however, had needed an ambulance, and was still in serious condition...even though there were no signs of external physical trauma, and he only seemed to have hit his head...

A little while later, he began appearing in Maiko’s dreams.

She had that strange dream every night. At first she had thought that they were caused by her worry for her brother, but for some reason, the dream was always the same.

Her brother was in what looked like a forest. He was naked, and weirdly, his lower half was merged with the large trunk of a j.a.panese cedar tree.

“Help me, Nee-san,” he begged her. “I can’t get out of his tree. Help me, Nee-san.”

His pleas were so vivid in her mind that she awoke soaked in sweat. The dream repeated night after night, endlessly.

A little while later, one of the students who had been riding in her brother’s car told her a strange story: Shinya hadn’t gotten into the accident because he’d missed a curve—he’d been swerving to avoid something, though they didn’t know what it was. They only knew that right before it happened, Shinya had given a blood-curdling scream, terror on his face. That was when he had wrenched the wheel around and hit the guardrail.

Maiko had been convinced of the strangeness of the incident a week ago, when she had seen Shinya’s reflection from the mirror in her empty room. Only half of Shinya appeared in the reflection—the rest was simply not there. Thereafter, Maiko saw her brother whenever she looked at herself in the mirror or at any reflective surface. Shaken by these freakish events, Maiko had gone crying to the one who seemed to know the most about things spirit-related: her aunt.

Which was how she had ended up seated in front of Naoe.

“This is a difficult case,” Naoe said, face grim. “This is—how should I put it... The dreams you’re having of you brother are probably...well, I suppose something like a telepathic sending. You can think of them as a message from him.”

“Does that mean that my brother is conscious? That he’s not dead...?”

“It’s almost as if he wants to regain consciousness but cannot. That is probably why he’s asking for your help. But this reflection in the mirror...”

Maiko peered at Naoe’s dubious expression.

“It’s strange, isn’t it. In cases like this, we can consider two scenarios. Both have to do with vengeful spirits.”

“‘Vengeful spirits?’” Maiko shuddered at the words.

Naoe continued, “There are two kinds of what are commonly called vengeful spirits. The characters that form the word for ‘vengeful spirit’ can also be interpreted as ‘living spirit,’ and the first type is exactly that: ghosts that are alive. In other words, spirits separated from their bodies. The second type points to a thought-sending from a living person, created so that they can appear in front of someone far away and somehow harm them. It’s also called astral projection.”

“...”

“In your case, the former sounds more likely. Your brother’s soul has been separated from his body. It has come to you, and you are able to see it in mirrors... Or perhaps...”

“...”

“The mirror itself has become a kind of medium and is transmitting your brother’s messages. I would guess it’s one of the two. Why your brother is asking for your help, what circ.u.mstances prompted it—in order to answer these questions, we must first determine which of these two is happening,” Naoe explained. He looked calmly into Maiko’s eyes. “I do not see any trace of your brother’s soul around you.”

“Wh—”

Maiko sat up abruptly and looked around, a chill running through her. Could he really see things like that? she wondered.

“You can still see your brother every time you look into a mirror? That fact has not changed?”

“Yes, I still see him.”

She had glimpsed him just that morning as she’d been stepping out. After a moment of thought, Naoe stood and asked her to follow him.

They walked down the corridor toward the main temple. Naoe stopped Maiko in front of a large full-length mirror along the way. Standing beside her, he asked, “Please look into the mirror. Do you see your brother reflected within?”

Maiko gazed at herself in the mirror. Though she should have been used to it by now, she still started as she saw her brother at her right shoulder. She could only see his naked upper half, his pale face. She met her brother’s eyes in the mirror before looking away in bewilderment.

“He’s there. In the mirror. I can see him so clearly.”

“...”

Not so Naoe. He studied the s.p.a.ce around her before looking back at the mirror.

“I cannot, as I suspected would be the case. This appears to be a message directed at a specific person, using mirrors as a medium.”

Maiko turned and looked up into Naoe’s face. She saw no trace of deception. “Then... Then what’s happening to my brother?! What do I need to do to help him...?!”

Naoe’s knowing eyes glowered into the mirror, and he stood deep in thought for a moment.

“Very well. Let us visit your brother tomorrow. We won’t know anything until we do so in person,” Naoe decided, before regarding Maiko coldly. “Are you free for the day tomorrow? I would like you to take me to your brother’s hospital.”

“Ye-yes...”

Maiko wanted to shrink back from Naoe’s sharp glare. But everything else was secondary to her brother right now. Maiko nodded and bowed gratefully. “An-and how much should I pay? For the investigation and such?”

“Investigation...?”

Maiko was evidently still stuck on the religious cult idea. Naoe blinked, and the edge vanished from his eyes. She saw him smile again for the first time since the beginning of their conversation.

“That’s rather funny. ...I see. Please put your mind at ease. You could say this is something of a philanthropic enterprise for me—I would never charge for it.”

A day later, Takaya and company would arrive in Tokyo on their own investigation.

Asaoka Maiko’s family ran a j.a.panese inn near Lake Chuuzenji in Nikkou City.

The next day, Naoe left the house early and headed for Nikkou. They had arranged to meet at Toubu Nikkou Station before visiting Shinya at the hospital together.

Utsunomiya’s bachelor monk arrived on the dot. Maiko didn’t recognize him at first, and started when he called to her.

“Yoshiaki-san...?”

The man standing next to what appeared to be a new car was unmistakably the Tachibana Yoshiaki from yesterday. What had changed was his attire; in the dark suit and sungla.s.ses, he gave the impression of being a young businessman at first glance—possibly even someone with connections to a gangster organization. He looked, at any rate, like a totally different person, and the masculinity now layered on his usual poise dazzled her all over again.

“Climb in,” he invited, opening the pa.s.senger’s door for her. He was more like a private secretary to some company’s president than a businessman, Maiko decided, feeling almost like the daughter of said company’s president herself. The Toyota Windom he was driving had been purchased just a few days earlier. She had heard from her aunt that the Tachibana family owned a Mercedes Benz, a Ferrari, and something domestically manufactured. According to Naoe, that last had been totaled by him, so he had been forbidden use of the cars for away trips. He had purchased this Windom for his exclusive use, so he was happy to say that if anything happened to it, he wouldn’t get any complaints from his family.

“Well then, shall we be off?” Naoe said, and started the engine.

“This area is pretty crowded in the summer, not surprisingly,” Naoe commented, looking at the j.a.panese inns lined up on both sides of the street as they drove down the national highway in front of the station. He appeared to have sensed Maiko’s nervousness and was trying to make light conversation.

“That’s true,” Maiko replied, looking at Naoe’s profile. “But summer vacation is almost over, so... It’ll be packed again for the fall leaves season, though. Iroha Hill is usually crammed with cars from end to end, it’s awful.”

“Hahah... I guess it must be. I’ve been here a number of times—it’s such a beautiful place. Those gorgeous red leaves. I’m also quite fond of Nikkou.” He gave her a quick sideways glance, smiling so amiably that she couldn’t help but smile back.

(He said he’s been here a few times...) she thought, suddenly suspicious. (I bet it was with a girlfriend or something.)

“Ah, the statue of High Priest Tenkai,” Naoe interrupted her thoughts almost deliberately as he spotted the figure at the foot of Nikkou Bridge. High Priest Tenkai, who had begun the restoration of Rinnou Temple, was a famous figure who had woven his strategies from the shadows at Tokugawa Ieyasu’s right hand.

A little past it was the famed “Sacred Bridge ,” a beautiful vermilion-lacquered bridge which also spanned the Daiya River. Legend had it that Holy Priest Shoudou, who had founded the first temple at Nikkou, had beseeched the G.o.ds for aid in crossing the violent current of the Daiya River. Great King Jinja had appeared in answer to his prayers and thrown down two snakes, a red and a green, which transformed into a bridge.

The souvenir shops and j.a.panese inns began appearing a little further on; the shrine path to Mt. Nikkou—Toushou Shrine, Rinnou Temple, and Futarasan Shrine—was in this area.

“Speaking of which, I heard something from my brother last night—” Naoe said, tone quiet again. “Some sort of treasure was stolen from Toushou Shrine a few months ago. Do you know of it?”

“Ah...yes...” She had heard of the incident, at least. It had happened two or three months ago. Coincidentally, a college friend visiting the area had been staying with her, and Maiko had noticed the swarm of patrol cars and police officers while showing her around Toushou Shrine. She’d thought it odd at the time. She only heard about the theft on the news later.

“I was rather busy at the time, and missed it on the news... Would you happen to know what treasure was stolen?”

“Um...I think...” Maiko searched her memory. “The Sacred Mirror or something like that?”

Naoe’s eyes suddenly sharpened. “The Sacred Mirror?”

“Yes. I heard that it had some sort of important connection to Lord Ieyasu, and was of significant cultural value. I think it was the only thing that was taken. It was kept in the inner part of the shrine where the general public couldn’t enter, though, so a friend of mine who owns a souvenir shop said that it must’ve been an inside job or something ridiculous like that...”

“... They haven’t caught the perpetrator yet, I a.s.sume?”

“No, I don’t think they have.”

Naoe frowned and turned the wheel. His expression had turned so serious that it practically screamed that he knew something; Maiko unthinkingly asked, “What is it?”

“Ah...nothing. It just caught my attention when you mentioned a mirror. I’m probably just thinking too much. ...Which way is the hospital? Should I keep following this road?”

“Yes,” Maiko answered, giving him a verbal description of the route. The hospital was about four kilometers ahead.

Shinya had a private hospital room at the end of the second floor.

The hospital was relatively large for the area. Maiko, who visited almost daily, could pretty much call the doctors and nurses her acquaintances. After asking a nurse she was particularly close to to convey the reason for their visit to the doctor in charge, she guided Naoe to her brother’s room.

“This is my brother Shinya,” Maiko said, looking at the young man stretched out on the bed. His face in seeming-repose looked younger than his nineteen years, and though he was older than Takaya, he could be mistaken for someone younger. Tubes ran from his body to the imposing line of machines that were somehow keeping him alive.

Naoe took off his sungla.s.ses and looked down silently at Shinya.

“I see no external injuries of any kind.”

Maiko replied haggardly, “It’s what people call a vegetative state, I guess. No matter how we call to him, he doesn’t wake up.... It’s already been two months.”

Maiko looked down, biting her lip lightly.

“The car wasn’t even damaged that badly, and the accident wasn’t a very big deal. His girlfriend was riding with him, but she only suffered a bit of whiplash—she walked away without any injuries at all. So why was he the only one...”

“...”

Maiko stopped and fell into a silence filled only with the hum of the machinery. There was no sense of life from the doll-life face. It seemed Shinya was just barely able to breathe on his own. He possessed the corneal, pupillary, and pharyngeal reflexes which indicated that he was not brain-dead—and yet...he languished in some kind of sleeping sickness.

“He’s such a mysterious boy...” Maiko finally said despondently. “There’s never been any hint of supernatural abilities in my family’s blood—until him. Even though he couldn’t see ghosts or anything.”

“...?”

“He sometimes had precognitive dreams,” Maiko explained, looking up at Naoe. “And it wasn’t just déjà vu. He really knew things before they happened. A while ago, our cousin accidentally fell and died while working at a construction site. My brother saw it the night before it happened. He suddenly came crying to my room in the middle of the night and told me ‘Kazuo-Niichan is going to die. He’s going to fall from some tall place and die.’ It sounded ridiculous to me, so I tried to comfort him by telling him that it was only a dream. But the next day, our cousin died just like my brother said.”

“...”

“It happened again maybe twice more after that... My brother’s precognitive dreams only predicted when someone was going to die. At first, he would tell somebody every time he had one of those dreams, but they were too accurate, and he was afraid that people would think he was creepy, so he stopped talking about them. He would try to warn people when he foresaw accidents, but they never listened, or maybe the accident still happened even if they did... I think it was like that sometimes... Even though he dreamed about the future, the place and time were often obscure, so he couldn’t change them. ...No, even when he saw everything clearly there were always circ.u.mstances or reasons that somehow compelled people to take those paths. I guess you could say that he would only have been able to see those deaths in his dreams because they could not be changed. ...But he never talked to me about them again.”

Maiko looked at her brother with pain on her face.

“But I knew. Whenever he heard about someone dying, his face would go white—like he was thinking ‘I knew it’ or ‘it’s happened again.’ Because of that, there were times when he seemed withdrawn... But recently it feels like he’s finally opened up a bit and gradually gotten more upbeat, but...” Maiko sighed deeply. “Maybe I’m just guessing at everything. But it must have hurt him so much. Maybe he would be happier just sleeping forever like this.”

“... I...wonder about that.”

Maiko abruptly raised her eyes at Naoe’s words. He looked straight back at her.

“Your brother was asking for your help in your dream, was he not? I believe he must want to wake up. To return to consciousness as soon as he can.”

“But...” Maiko said in bewilderment, “I’m probably just having that dream because I’m thinking too much. And the mirror is probably just an illusion.”

“No, that’s not true.”

Maiko’s mouth closed at Naoe’s almost violent denial.

“Asaoka-san, in order to save your brother, you must first believe in yourself. Which means you must believe in what your brother is trying to do, after conquering so much pain to get to where he is.”

“... Tachibana-san.”

“I believe that Shinya-kun would never want to run away from reality, no matter how painful,” Naoe said quietly, looking down at Shinya lying lifeless and still in the hospital bed.

“Now that I have seen him, I finally understand the reason why he does not awaken...”

“Wh—...”

“This body is empty. No soul resides in this flesh. That’s why I do not feel his ‘energy.’”

Maiko gasped and peered at Shinya in shock. “His soul...isn’t in his body...?”

“His body is here. But Shinya-san himself is not.”

“Then...so that means...that my brother...”

Naoe muttered grimly, “For whatever reason, his soul has departed from his body. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his soul was parted from his body.”

“My brother... What’s happened to him, then? Does that mean he’ll never wake up?!”

“If his soul returns, he’ll wake up immediately. The body missing its soul only appears dead, at least for a time. But if too much time lapses, there are many instances in which the body will truly die. In Shinya’s case, his body is being kept alive by these machines...”

Face twisted almost demoniacally with desperation, Maiko demanded, “Then my brother’s soul is...! Where is his soul?!”

“I don’t know,” Naoe replied, glaring at nothing. “We must find it. Let’s start with the place where we believe his soul left his body—the part of Iroha Hill where the accident took place. I won’t be able to say anything until I’ve done a spirit-sensing at the site. You’ll come with me, Asaoka-san?”

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