Chapter 1

VOLUME 2 - THAT WHICH CONNECTS SOULS

file 01: vessel (TRANSLATION NOTES)

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1

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The rain that had started at dawn did not seem as if would stop even after noon; rather, it was just raining more heavily.

The endless pitter-patter of the raindrops created a hazy mist.

It had become warmer with the arrival of March, but with the weather like this, even spring would hesitate to visit.

She really shouldn’t have gone out in this weather. Mayuko regretted her decision as she walked along the riverside promenade.

The rain had made its way into her sneakers, making her feel uncomfortable.

In the first place, it was Miki’s fault for calling her out on a day like this. She had said that she was lonely because of her broken heart, but when Mayuko thought about it, it was already Miki’s fourth broken heart this year.

At the end of the season, her heart was broken, and at the beginning of the season, she fell in love. She was a calculating person. In any case, she was just going to start a love once spring called.

The more Mayuko thought about it, the stupider she felt.

Mayuko stopped in front of the water gate and held her umbrella between her shoulder and her neck so that she could breathe on her hands.

It was cold. Her breath was white. Her red fingertips were trembling slightly.

Dummm.

What sounded like subterranean rumbling reached her ears.

Mayuko examined her surroundings, moving only her eyes.

She found the source of the sound immediately. It was the river, swelling as it swallowed up earth and sand.

The water level had risen, and the current of the now brown river was just like a drove of violent oxen.

Dumbfounded, Mayuko took in the sheer intensity of the current.

The wind suddenly whooshed by.

‘Ah!’

It was already too late when Mayuko cried out. Her umbrella had been carried away by the wind that had blown from below.

Her white plastic umbrella spun as it tumbled down the embankment.

'Oh, come on.’

Mayuko grumbled her displeasure to nobody in particular and chased after her umbrella. She tried to head down to the lawn of the embankment, but her feet were caught by the soggy turf and she fell on her bum, so she ended up sliding down the embankment like that.

'Argh! This is the worst!’

Resisting the urge to cry at how miserable she was, she stood using both of her hands to prop herself up. Her back and elbows were pulsing with pain. She might have grazed them.

The umbrella was being blown about by the wind on the riverbank.

Water dripped from Mayuko’s fringe. While thinking that it might have already been too late to pick it up now, she started walking towards the umbrella.

’… o… p..’

Just as she was about to take the umbrella in her hands, she heard somebody’s voice.

'Who’s there?’

She tried asking, but nobody answered. She might have mistaken the sound of the wind for something else. Mayuko sniffled and stooped over to pick up the umbrella.

Whoosh.

There was another gust of wind.

'Ah.’

The umbrella escaped her fingers and fell into the river, where it was finally swallowed by the muddy waters.

Mayuko couldn’t do anything but stare, completely dumbfounded.

I’ve really got no luck –

She’d go to a nearby convenience store and buy a new umbrella. She’d give up on going to Miki’s house for today. She would just hurry home and take a warm bath.

’…St… op.’

Just as she turned away from the river and took one step, she heard that voice.

She hadn’t misheard. It was somebody’s voice.

'Who’s there?’

Mayuko asked as she turned around. There was no reply.

'Pl… e… se.’

She heard the voice like it was coiling around her ear.

Who was it? Where were they? Mayuko looked around for the source of the voice. Her heart was beating quickly. She had a unbelievably bad feeling about this.

Finally, Mayuko’s eyes saw something incredible.

She couldn’t let out the breath she had been holding. In the middle of the river. In the middle of those violent muddy waters, there was a person. A girl who looked to be in middle school.

She was up to her shoulders in water and swaying in the waves.

Her hands were reaching up towards the sky like she was struggling. There were fifty metres between the riverbank and where the girl was. The distance was much too large for Mayuko, who had no confidence in her swimming ability.

Even if she was confident, it would just make for two disasters if she jumped into save her in this current.

Mayuko yelled as loudly as she could. As if ridiculing her efforts, the river’s muddy waters roared.

'I’ll call for help, so hang on a little longer!’

Mayuko shouted out to the girl in the river.

The girl bobbed up, like she was replying to her. At first, Mayuko thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she was wrong.

The girl’s shoulders, chest and waist were slowly but surely coming out of the water.

Finally, the girl was standing on top of the raging river.

'Eek!’

The unbelievable sight of the girl’s figure was vividly burnt into Mayuko’s mind.

She couldn’t see the girl’s face clearly. She could tell that the girl had long black hair tied into a ponytail and was wearing a school uniform with a blazer.

That girl slowly started walking on top of the river towards Mayuko.

How can she walk? People can’t walk on top of water –

Mayuko was bewildered by this act that defied comprehension, and her body was stiff – she couldn’t move even one step from that spot.

The girl approached.

'No! Don’t come here!’

Mayuko screamed so loudly it felt like her throat would split. At the same time, the girl’s figure disappeared.

There was only the raging river, as if that girl hadn’t even been there in the first place.

Were her eyes playing tricks on her? Was it a dream?

Mayuko pressed a hand against her chest and breathed deeply to try to organise her disordered thoughts.

Gurgle.

A sound came from near her foot.

Gurgle gurgle.

Air bubbles were coming up from the river bank and popping. What? What was it?

Splash.

Something touched Mayuko’s foot.

It was cold. It felt slimy. It couldn’t be –

Mayuko timidly looked at her foot.

From the river, a purplish red rotten human hand had thrust out and grabbed Mayuko’s foot.

'Agh!’

Mayuko’s horrified scream was drowned out by the sound of rain.

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2

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Though the rain had lightened to a drizzle, it showed no signs of stopping.

Hijikata Makoto looked up at the sky from under an umbrella while waiting for the light at the intersection to change.

The sky was a solid grey, making for a depressing mood.

The rain wasn’t the only reason Makoto felt that way. She couldn’t get any information today at all. When she returned to the office, her boss would definitely complain.

Her boss’s mouth was so spiteful it wouldn’t lose even to this weather.

Since she was a new employee who had only been working at the company for two years, there was nothing she could do about the complaints.

However, she hated it when her father came up in conversation. 'I hired you because you were the police chief’s daughter, but you’re telling me you can’t even bring back one piece of news?’ That phrase rubbed Makoto the wrong way.

She hadn’t mentioned that she was the police chief’s daughter even once during the interview. She couldn’t remember ever claiming that she could use her father as a source of information.

It might sound like she was just evading responsibility, but the company had just went and thought that on their own.

Even though she was his daughter, there was no way that the police chief could just chat about incidents with her. In the first place, Makoto didn’t even have one memory of her father talking about work at home.

Looking at it from the police’s point of view, there was nothing more troublesome than having the chief’s daughter work as a newspaper reporter. They couldn’t just spill the information, but they couldn’t handle the situation coolly either.

The chief detective Ideuchi, for example, would openly run just from seeing her face.

Only one detective would ignore her position as the daughter of the chief. He was an extremely detective-like and uncouth man named Gotou.

Even though he would ignore her position, it wasn’t like he would give her information. 'You’re annoying!’ 'I don’t know!’ 'Get lost!’ Those were the only three phrases he would say. Still, it was better than being treated like a fragile article.

On that topic, she hadn’t seen Detective Gotou around lately.

According to a rumour, he had had an accident while chasing a criminal, so he had been transferred to a do-nothing job.

Screech!

There was the sound of metal scraping against metal, bringing Makoto’s thoughts back to reality.

Without a pause, there was the sound of a collision with something falling –

When she looked towards the direction of the sound, she saw the bloody figure of a person collapsed in the middle of the intersection.

Makoto immediately dropped the umbrella she was holding and rushed towards the person who had fallen face-up.

He was a man in his early twenties. He had refined features, but he was so thin he seemed sickly, and his sunken eyes had lost their light.

The back of his head was caved in, and a cut ran from his left cheek to his nose like a crack, with blood flowing out.

Makoto knelt on the asphalt and asked, 'Are you OK?’ At the same time, she took out a handkerchief and pressed it against the wound on the man’s cheek.

'Please hang in there.’

She shook his shoulders, but there was no response. She put her ear to his chest. She couldn’t hear the sound of breathing or a heart at all.

It’s too late to save him –

Makoto thought that as she took her mobile phone out from her bag and pressed 119[1] to call an ambulance.

Suddenly, she noticed that there was somebody standing behind her.

Maybe it was the driver who hit him. Makoto turned with the mobile phone still in her hand.

A man was standing there. He was slim and had blood flowing from his cheek.

'Eh?’

He was the same man as the one collapsed in front of her.

Why were there two of the same man?

Makoto was bewildered when she remembered a story she had heard from a senior at work.

When her senior had gone to a traffic accident to gather data, he had seen the person who was supposed to be dead loitering around nearby.

The person’s soul hadn’t realised he was dead and had been wandering.

A boring story made up to surprise a junior. That’s what she had thought at the time. But –

The man’s lips warped into a crooked smile to reveal sharp canine teeth.

It was full of ill will. A cold smile.

Blood dripped from the tip of the man’s chin onto Makoto’s cheek.

Drip. Drip.

She had to run. Fast. She had to get away from here. No matter what she thought, her body wouldn’t move, as if it had been chained down.

Something was flowing into Makoto.

Something else. Something that wasn’t her.

– I won’t.

There was a voice. A man’s voice. It sounded just like it was speaking directly to her mind.

– I won’t die.

Her body was tingling like insects were crawling on her.

She heard the voice of the operator from her mobile phone.

Even though she tried to reply, her mouth wouldn’t move the way she wanted it to.

– I don’t want to die.

She lost her strength, and her mobile phone fell from her hand.

The operator’s voice sounded far away.

Makoto was being dragged into the darkness.

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3

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Ozawa Haruka sat on a park bench.

It was a small park that ran along the national highway. There was nothing except for the bench. When she looked up, she saw the towering Togakushi mountain range.

A familiar place. A children’s park near her home in Nagano Prefecture.

The sunlight was warm.

Pale pink petals were fluttering down from the cherry blossom tree that stood in the corner of the park.

Two girls were playing with a soccer ball.

They were twins.

One of them was me. The other was my older sister, Ayaka.

This is a dream –

This is a memory from my past –

She knew what would happen afterwards.

She wouldn’t be able to catch the ball her sister Ayaka threw, and she would run hurriedly to get it. Her sister would smile.

– You have to keep an eye on the ball.

That was what her sister said.

Her younger self stared at her sister silently after picking up the ball.

She had been mortified. Her sister could catch the ball so well, but it never went well for her.

– Haruka, hurry.

She held the ball up, as if to throw it.

'You can’t! Stop! You can’t throw that ball!’

Haruka stood to call out to her younger self.

However, that voice didn’t reach her.

Her younger self threw the ball.

'No!’

Haruka yelled while running.

Time flowed leisurely, just as if it were in slow motion.

The ball flew higher than normal.

Her older sister jumped to catch the ball, but she couldn’t reach it. The ball went out the park and rolled onto the road.

Her sister went to chase that ball.

'You can’t chase that ball!’

Haruka’s shout didn’t reach her sister.

– Even my big sister can’t catch the ball.

My younger self said that.

I didn’t have any bad intentions. I just thought I’d bother her a bit.

That was all –

Her sister picked up the ball that had rolled onto the road.

A white minivan travelled towards her.

Haruka closed her eyes subconsciously.

There was the squeal of brakes and the sound of a crash that shook the ground.

My temple hurt. The strength left my knees and I collapsed to the ground.

I knew what was going to happen.

That’s why I said to stop –

No matter how much she yelled, the past wouldn’t change.

Her hands felt wet. She opened her eyes.

'No!’

Haruka spoke without thinking. Her hands were dyed red with blood. Blood was steadily dripping from her fingertips.

'Haruka. You threw it far on purpose.’

Her sister stood in front of her eyes.

Her temple had split, and blood poured out endlessly, dyeing her white shirt collar red.

'Sorry. I didn’t think it would end up like this… Sorry…’

'It’s too late to make excuses.’

'That’s not it. This isn’t an excuse.’

'I’m dead… Because of you…’

At the same time that Ayaka said that, her body cracked into countless pieces like glasswork.

'No!’

Haruka jumped up at the same time that she called out.

Her clenched fists were sweaty. Her breathing was erratic.

My memories are returning. Retribution for my jealousy towards my sister.

My sin will never be forgiven –

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4

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While the sun had not yet fully risen, the area in front of one residential dumpsite was teeming with people.

There was only an iron fence and a net to scare off crows above it across from a telephone pole – not a particularly extraordinary place. Naturally, the people had not gathered to toss their rubbish. There was currently something that should not have been at the dumpsite.

The corpse of a female middle-school student.

A businessman who had come to put out his rubbish before work was the one who had found her.

Hata Hideyoshi knelt and looked down at the face of the girl who was not yet an adult. Her eyes were open, and her face was frozen in a surprised expression.

Matsumoto Miho-chan. Her whereabouts had been unknown since yesterday. Did she know that she was going to die in pain? That suddenly came to mind.

It was the job of the coroner to accept requests from the police to autopsy the corpse.

People were needlessly afraid of corpses. However, Hata had never felt that fear, even towards the goriest of corpses.

Hata was driven by a simple interest. How much blood has to flow out? From where? How much of an impact can be taken? Which organs can be taken out –

Before a person dies?

If people have souls, death would be the separation of the body and the soul. What, accordingly, ties the body and the soul together? At what moment do the body and soul separate?

People said he was perverted, but to Hata, it wasn’t strange at all.

Didn’t people want to know the divide between life and death?

'Look, they’re serial.’

One of the detectives said that. Hata felt uncomfortable hearing those words.

'What is supposed to be serial with what?’

'Come on. I’m talking about the incident last month.’

'Ah, the one who was strangled and then thrown into the river.’

Hata remembered the incident immediately.

That had been a gory incident as well. A girl called Kinoshita Ayaka who went to the local middle school – she was the daughter of a doctor, if he remembered correctly.

On the way home from school, she had parted with her friends and then her whereabouts were unknown. The police started investigating it as a kidnapping, but a few days after, there were still no ransom demands, and her corpse was discovered at the water gate at Tama River.

It was believed that she was thrown into the Tama River after she was strangled.

She was carried by the strong current, so there were many small injuries on her body.

This girl had also disappeared a few days earlier when the police had been asked to look for her.

Following that, there had been no demands, and her body had been discovered. Last time, it was strangulation. This time, it was drowning. The reasons for death were strangely different, but the area the incidents had occurred and the modus operandi of aiming for students heading home from school were certainly the same.

'It seems that there’s another girl whose whereabouts are unknown.’

'Another one?’

'Yes, I got the confirmation now. She goes to the same school as Miho-chan, the victim this time, and her name is Katou Keiko-chan. There have been no demands since her disappearance.’

'No demands…’

If that were the case, it would make this a serial murder case with murder as the final goal.

What an unpleasant incident –

Hata stood up and left the scene of the crime, which was surrounded by blue sheets.

It wasn’t a festival, so why were people making so much noise? If they wanted to see so badly, Hata thought they should just let them see.

The people making so much noise would shut up in an instant.

Unexpectedly, Hata felt a gaze that was obviously different from that of the curious onlookers.

A tall man wearing sunglasses. In the middle of the noisy bystanders, there was just one man with a thin sneer.

– The criminal will return to the scene of the crime.

Hata suddenly remembered something that the police were taught.

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5

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Ishii Yuutarou stood in front of the door after checking his tie countless times.

His heart was thumping loudly from nervousness.

'Calm down – first impressions are essential.’

While Ishii told himself that, he looked at the plate on the door. [2]. In a post that had just been created this month, Ishii had been assigned here starting today.

He hadn’t thought such a day would come. Ishii was so excited he couldn’t calm the loud beating of his heart.

On the other side of the door, there was a legendary detective who had led the way to the solution for many difficult cases.

A peculiar point of view and outstanding deductive powers. On top of that, he had a strange source of information.

It was said that he gathered his information from the spirits of the dead victims.

He was known as the psychic detective.

At first, he was the target of scorn. However, that changed with time to awe, and now, even the police had to acknowledge his power. Thus was born the Unsolved Cases Special Investigations Room. There were a number of rumours, but that was what Ishii thought.

The police were forced to acknowledge the legendary psychic detective, Gotou Kazutoshi.

Ishii had always loved the occult. When he was in middle school, he watched a show which used clairvoyance to search for those who had disappeared, and it excited him from the innermost depths of his heart.

He had been deeply moved when faced with the mysterious powers that people held.

From then on, he read a great number of books related to the occult. Clairvoyance, telepathy, seeing spirits, special powers that science didn’t explain – he believed they existed.

For Ishii, who felt so strongly about the occult, Gotou was naturally the object of his reverence.

He kept a picture he had secretly taken of Gotou in his notebook as a charm.

He had wanted to talk with him at leisure one day. To have been reassigned to Gotou’s post made him truly glad that he became a detective.

OK, I’m going. While he murmured that in his mind, he knocked.

There was no response.

For a moment, he was perplexed, but soon, he shook away those feelings. He wasn’t a guest. Starting today, he would be working here as a detective. What was the point of waiting for a response?

Do your best, Ishii Yuutarou. He gave himself some encouragement and resolutely opened the door.

'Excuse me. My name is Ishii Yuutarou, the policeman who will be working here from today on. Though I am inexperienced, I would like to ask for your guidance.’

He spoke up as he bowed.

There was no response. The room was completely silent.

He took a look around. In the wide eight-tatami room[3] with not even one window, there were two desks facing each other in a small space.

Nobody was there.

Shoot. He had shown up to work on time of all things. Gotou was a detective of such merit – he had definitely left to investigate already. Ah, what to do.

Ishii cursed his own foolishness.

Roooooar.

The sound of something like the bellow of a beast reached the discouraged Ishii’s ears.

What was that –

Timidly, he went to look for the source of the sound.

'Ah.’

Behind the desk, two chairs were lined up, and a man was using them as a bed. In contrast with his muscular body, his arm lay sloppily on the floor, and his mouth was wide open as he snored.

Detective Gotou –

His face was unshaven, and his shirt had turned yellow. Just looking at his appearance, there wasn’t much difference between him and a drunk who had slept at the station.

No, that wasn’t right. Detective Gotou, after all his hard work, was taking a breather.

That said, he couldn’t leave the situation like this.

'E-er… Excuse me…’

Ishii approached the sleeping Gotou and shook his shoulders. Gotou brushed away Ishii’s hand with his eyes still closed and turned over.

He fell from the chairs.

Surprised by the dull thunk, Ishii jumped away a step.

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6

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Ogouchi, an English lecturer at the university, gave a photo to the student sitting in front of him.

His name was Saitou Yakumo.

With sleepy eyes, he draped himself slovenly over the back of the chair. His attitude showed his apathy.

His hair looked mussed up from sleep, but it might have been the so-called bedhead hairstyle. His outfit consisted of worn-out jeans and a white shirt.

He had composure unusual for his age, or perhaps it could be called an enigmatic vibe.

Ogouchi couldn’t calm down – he felt like Yakumo could see right to the bottom of his heart.

Yakumo gave the photo a glance and then smirked, like he understood.

'I see. I was wondering what task you had for me, but it was something like this.’

'It’s gotten a bit terrible,’ Ogouchi said with a weak smile.

He had handed Yakumo a photo that had been taken when he and his daughter went to a holiday house. His smiling daughter, Satoko, stood in front of a beech tree. At first glance, the photo wasn’t anything special.

However, he’d noticed something strange when he put it in an album.

There was something that looked like a person’s face in the trunk of the beech tree.

Ogouchi had heard a rumour about Saitou Yakumo from a student called Aizawa.

Yakumo had every spiritual ability, and he was the one who solved the murder incident last year which had been a disgrace for the university. Ogouchi was only half-convinced, but he knew that Saitou Yakumo’s uncle was the chief priest at a temple, so he decided to consult Yakumo just in case.

'And?’

Yakumo let out a huge yawn.

'I heard that you were an expert in this sort of thing.’

'Since I’m a university student, my expertise is studying.’

'Well, that’s true, but… Er, I was just wondering if you could give me your expert opinion of this photo.’

'I see.’

After Yakumo murmured that, he took another look at the photo and put his left index finger between his brows in thought.

'How is it?’

Ogouchi couldn’t bear with the heavy silence and opened his mouth. Yakumo looked up from the photo and let out the breath he had been holding.

'Professor. This is extremely dangerous.’

'Dangerous?’

'Yes. Has anything strange occurred recently?’

'Anything strange?’

'Any little thing will do.’

Ogouchi recalled the past few days. There wasn’t anything in particular that sprang to mind.

'No, not really…’

'Please try to remember. I feel a very strong sense of regret from this photo.’

'Come to think of it, yesterday, I slipped on the stairs and skinned my knee. But that’s just…’

'That’s it!’

Yakumo raised his voice and pointed his index at the tip of Ogouchi’s nose, interrupting Ogouchi’s words.

Ogouchi was startled for a moment.

'But that was just a little thing…’

It wasn’t anything special. Slipping on the stairs was something that could happen to anybody on any day.

'If you continue overlooking it, it will eventually bring about a terrible catastrophe. With the situation like this, your daughter’s life will also be in danger,’ Yakumo said, peering up at Ogouchi.

His tone was indifferent. That only stirred Ogouchi’s uneasiness up more.

'Really…’

'You can’t treat this lightly. It’ll be too late to regret after the fact.’

Ogouchi certainly had thought it was frightening, but for it to be a matter of life or death –

'What should I d-do…’

'I’ll exorcise the spirit. I can’t ignore this knowing that a catastrophe may occur.’

'But…’

Yakumo put up his hand to stop Ogouchi’s words.

'I won’t ask for money. I won’t tell anybody about this either. However…’

'What?’

'I’m enrolled in your class, professor, but I’ve practically never shown up to class.’

'Really?’

'You know what I’m getting at, right?’

Yakumo said that like a reminder. After waiting for Ogouchi’s nod, a faint smile graced his thin lips.

-

7

-

'Er, Detective Gotou.’

Ishii, who was sitting on the seat across from Gotou, spoke to the detective hesitantly. Gotou ignored him and turned his chair so his back faced Ishii.

It was Detective Ishii’s first day on the job. He was doing everything wrong.

With a face that looked like it belonged to a delicate woman, his silver-rimmed glasses seemed a bit affected.

Ever since he came to the room, he had been squirming while looking over at Gotou.

When he opened his mouth, he would say things like 'What are your interests?’ and 'What are your favourite foods?’ – it wasn’t a marriage interview. Gotou started suspecting that Ishii was gay.

Even under normal circumstances, Gotou could die of boredom after being thrown into this ridiculous newly-established post, but being stuck with this guy just depressed him further.

Though newly-established post had a nice ring to it, in the end, they were just getting rid of a troublemaker.

Currently, the police’s solve rate for cases didn’t reach twenty per cent. It was the job of this post to investigate those unsolved cases.

It sounded nice at first, but it was just organising files in the end.

It was too stupid to do.

'Er, Detective Gotou, could I ask you something?’

Ishii leant forward as he asked. Even though Gotou had gone out of his way to ignore him – the man should take a hint.

Just as Gotou clicked his tongue, the internal telephone rang with good timing.

He picked up at the first ring.

'Hello, this is the police department’s something or other investigation room.’

It was his boss, the chief detective Ideuchi. He had goggle eyes and was always finger-pointing at the most trivial things.

He was an annoying man who put on airs, though he’d worked his way up too.

'What was it?’

'The name of the room.’

Ideuchi sounded displeased as he replied.

'Ah, right, that’s it. Can’t it be a bit shorter?’

'Are we going to play shogi[4]?’

Gotou unconsciously held the phone away because of Ideuchi’s shrill yell. Hysterical men really were unsightly.

'Yeah, yeah. I’ll go right now. I’ve got nothing else to do anyway.’

Gotou turned around and looked at Ishii.

He was leaning over with a frivolous smile on his face. If he had a tail, he’d probably be wagging it wildly.

'That’s a bit…’