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crimsonstonetranslations · 5 months ago

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Shinrei Tantei Yakumo Another Files - The Lamenting Doll - file 02

Shinrei Tantei Yakumo novel translation

Another Files - The Lamenting Doll ( file 01 )

file 02 - shadow of the departed

1 -

The window wiper moved nonstop. Despite that, large droplets of rain fell onto the freshly wiped surface and continued to wet the windshield. It almost felt like they were underwater.

The sound of raindrops violently hitting against the roof of the car irritated him. Although Gotou had started the car, he couldn’t even leave the parking spot where they had stopped due to the overwhelming downpour.

“This rain is just the worst,” he grumbled as he glared across the windshield. “If you have time to complain, you should figure out something else to do,” said Yakumo, sitting in the back seat.

He leaned against the seat and yawned nonchalantly whilst messing with his dishevelled hair. “Even if you tell me to do something...” Gotou shrugged in earnest.

Earlier, they had heard news through the radio that the Chuo expressway had been closed due to a landslide. From their current location in Yamanashi, Tokyo was roughly a hundred and thirty kilometres away.

Not an impossible distance to travel through the regular road, but it would take them longer than usual to drive amidst this pouring rain, and most importantly, the roads in this mountain were steep. Making the wrong move would only make matters worse for them. “Good grief. What a useless bear, only good for being large,” said Yakumo, mocking him.

“My bad for being useless. Besides, you’re the one responsible for this entire situation,” Gotou replied loudly until his voice echoed throughout the car. Even so, Yakumo maintained an innocent look. Instead, Haruka, who had been sitting next to him, jolted. Gotou seemed to have startled her.

He felt guilty towards Haruka, but Gotou couldn’t help complaining. They were rendered helpless in this rainstorm because of Yakumo. Besides, he was no comic book superhero. No way he had a method to stop the landslide.

Yet Yakumo spoke as if everything had been Gotou’s fault. It would’ve been strange for Gotou to not be irritated instead. “For your information, I wasn’t the one who led us into this situation,” said Yakumo, throwing a cold look towards Isshin, sitting on the front passenger seat.

Isshin’s age wasn’t too far from Gotou, yet how he donned monk robes, with a dignified expression like that of a Buddha’s, combined with the way he carried himself, made him appear more senior. He was great at taking care of others and couldn’t sit still upon witnessing those in trouble.

In the first place, everything had started because Isshin hadn’t been able to refuse the request to resolve a spiritual phenomenon at the sake factory acquainted with one of the families supporting the temple, so he had to ask for help from Yakumo. Regardless, the person with the idea to use Gotou as a driver had been none other than Yakumo.

“You’re the one who got me involved even though I had nothing to do with this!” threatened Gotou, turning towards the back seat. Such threats did nothing to shake Yakumo, who simply responded, “To think you could say something like that.”

“Ha?” “Who was it again that’s been involving an unrelated university student into all sorts of cases, countless times?”

Having that brought up was a critical hit. All this time, Gotou had been relying on Yakumo’s abilities, bringing in a variety of cases to get his assistance.

While Haruka had been the one who had brought more cases to him recently, that didn’t change the fact that Gotou himself had involved Yakumo in a number of cases. “Aah, fine. I was the one at fault.”

“Good thing you understood,” said Yakumo nonchalantly. Gotou felt like beating him, but Isshin interrupted.

“There’s a hotel about five kilometres ahead. Let’s try asking if they have any vacant rooms,” Isshin suggested as he looked at his phone. “Riverside Fuji Hotel that’s next to the Kamanashi river, right?” said Haruka, who was also staring at her phone.

Apparently she had come across the same hotel as Isshin after making a search. Saying this and that wouldn’t improve their situation.

“Anyway, let’s try heading there—” After receiving the hotel’s address from Isshin, Gotou entered it into the car navigation before starting the car.

- 2

- Upon alighting the car, Haruka was immediately struck by pouring rain.

She had known how heavy the rain was ever since she had been inside the car, but after exiting, it was worse than she had imagined, her hair was soaked instantly. “Waah,” she exclaimed whilst running into the hotel lobby.

Despite it only being a few metres away, not just her hair, her blouse was also drenched and even the insides of her shoes were wet from stepping in a puddle. “How awful,”

Even after wiping the droplets from her hair and blouse, the wetness wouldn’t go away. Gotou and Isshin were drenched as well, but they didn’t appear to pay any mind and directly walked towards the front desk.

Haruka turned towards the side to see Yakumo, shaking his head like a dog to get rid of the water clinging to his hair. Yakumo’s bed head was a trademark of his, but now that his hair was all flat and stuck together, it gave a different impression than usual.

This is not bad. “What are you looking at?” asked Yakumo, lifting his left eyebrow.

“I-I’m not looking at anything in particular…” Haruka hurriedly averted her eyes.

Her face started burning, feeling as if her heart’s contents were exposed. “This hotel seems rather old...” said Yakumo, casting his gaze throughout the hotel lobby as if he had lost interest with Haruka.

“Is that so?” Haruka responded in disbelief, but upon closer inspection, the hotel did look old. The hotel’s interior walls were white, with brownish red carpet. As Yakumo had said, the hotel appeared to have been established for a long time.

“Furthermore, it’s dark,” commented Yakumo as he lifted his gaze. Now that he mentioned it, that was probably true. The ceiling was like an atrium that extended to the second floor, which normally would’ve given the feel of an open space. Yet for some reason, it felt dark and gloomy here.

Even so, it might’ve felt that way partly due to the constant downpour outside. Rather than the hotel’s age, Haruka was more curious about how few employees there were in this hotel. There was but a single young man employed at the front desk speaking with Gotou and Isshin; beside that there was no other people in sight that could be a hotel employee.

The lobby was quiet and felt deserted. “That’s...” mumbled Yakumo as he stared in the direction of the front desk.

What is it? Haruka turned to look, finding Gotou and Isshin discussing something with the employee at the front desk.

Could it be that they weren’t able to get a room? Not long afterwards, Gotou and Isshin approached Yakumo and Haruka.

“Are there rooms available?” asked Haruka to the two men, though she already suspected the reply. The two simultaneously made a difficult face.

“There is, but there’s only one twin room that’s vacant,” said Isshin, rubbing his bald head troublingly. “One room…?”

“Well, if we’re all guys, we could’ve just squeezed in to fit into the two beds, but that’s not the case, right,” said Gotou, glancing at Haruka. I see.

Honestly, Haruka wasn’t too keen on having four people in one room either. Not that she was wary towards Isshin or Gotou. As a woman, there were things that she wouldn’t want to show.

But she couldn’t act picky in this situation. Rather than sleeping in the car, squeezing to sleep in a cramped room was still the better choice. Since she was drenched, she wanted to take a shower as well.

“It’s fine even if we’re in the same room,” said Haruka, making Isshin and Gotou look at each other in response. After a brief silence, Gotou grinned. “Even if Haruka-chan doesn’t mind, it’d be bad if something happens, right?”

“Don’t worry. I trust that Gotou-san nor Isshin-san aren’t the kind of person to do anything strange.” “No doubt about us, but we don’t know for sure about him,” said Gotou with an implied gesture as he peered towards Yakumo.

Feeling Gotou’s stare on him, Yakumo’s eyebrow twitched and he exhaled a long sigh. “Don’t tell me Gotou-san thinks I’m going to do something?” he said, glancing at Gotou.

“Precisely,” said Gotou in reply, riling him. “I have the right to choose as well. Whatever happens, I’m not touching that troublemaker,” said Yakumo, sounding fed up.

Even though he meant to refute Gotou’s accusation, it really pained Haruka to hear that. Yeah, I am in fact a troublemaker! Besides, I also have the right to choose!

While Haruka cursed in her thoughts, the young employee at the front desk ran in their direction. Seeing him up close, his face didn’t look dependable at all.

The nametag he wore said ‘Oohori’, and above his name the word ‘trainee’ was printed. Well, if he were still under training, it wasn’t surprising for him to not seem dependable.

Despite that, to think that they would make a trainee tend to the front desk alone—this hotel seemed to be more understaffed than Haruka had imagined. “Um...” Oohori greeted hesitantly.

“What?” asked Gotou. Oohori appeared to stutter briefly, but he immediately cleared his throat and said, “My deepest apologies. Upon checking again, there’s also a single room available...if you wish, I could get the room prepared.”

“Thank goodness,” said Isshin in relief. “We’re in luck. With this, we have one problem settled,” said Gotou in agreement.

Haruka stroked her chest in relief as well. Yet for some reason, Yakumo’s expression appeared complicated.

“What’s wrong?” asked Haruka. Running a hand through his hair to get rid of the water, Yakumo mumbled, “Something’s off.”

“What is?” “If I could put it into words, I would’ve said it already.”

Well, that’s true. “If it’s bothering you that much, feel free to stay in the same room as Haruka-chan,” Gotou chimed in with a grin.

“Who said I wanted that?” Yakumo glared at Gotou. “Oh, pissed off, are you?”

“Not really.” “Just be honest.”

“Please stop talking like I’m some kind of deviant. I’m not so starved that I’ll go for any woman whoever they are.” “Enough already,” Haruka spontaneously interrupted.

Perhaps to Yakumo, he was merely getting back at Gotou’s mockery. But to Haruka, it hurt to hear Yakumo say such things. She couldn’t stand being dragged into their unproductive conversation any longer.

After checking in and receiving their keys, they proceeded to board the elevator. The room keys weren’t the keycard type, but were instead cylinder shaped old keys with a plate of the room number.

Yakumo and the rest were on the third floor, room 301. Haruka was one floor above them on the fourth floor, room 404. The elevator door opened at the third floor and Yakumo, Isshin, as well as Gotou stepped out.

“Have a good rest,” said Isshin, waving his hand with a friendly smile. Haruka nodded, “Yes,” before pressing the close button on the elevator.

Right before the door closed, Yakumo suddenly shoved his arm to halt the door. The elevator door creaked and opened once again. “What’s wrong?” asked Haruka.

Yakumo stared at her with a serious expression. “Once you’re in the room, check places like underneath the bed, inside the closet, and the bathroom cupboard. If there are any picture frames, check behind it as well.” “Why?”

Haruka didn’t feel that she needed to go out of her way to do those things. “Just in case.”

“Hence, in case of what I have to check them?” “In case you find something that looks like a talisman pasted, let me know immediately.”

“T-talisman?” “At hotels, they tend to put talismans in places that are hard to see inside rooms that have ghosts.”

“Eh?” What’s the meaning of that?

Haruka wanted to confirm, but the elevator door had closed before she had the chance to ask. Hearing the sound of the pulley being pulled upwards made her realise how serious the situation was.

Yakumo’s words earlier signified the possibility that a ghost may be present in this hotel. Perhaps Yakumo had already seen something back in the lobby. In that case—

While she was deep in her thoughts, the elevator arrived at the fourth floor and the door opened. The corridor that extended straight ahead felt awfully long. She was aware that the glum atmosphere could be attributed to the heavy rain, yet it was terrifying regardless.

Don’t worry about it. Although she tried to tell herself that, Haruka wasn’t able to make a single step from the elevator. If she were to encounter a ghost while all alone, screaming wouldn’t solve anything.

Thinking that, without her realising, the elevator door began to close again. Haruka hurriedly slipped through the gap in the door, exiting the elevator.

With its doors closed, the elevator descended to the lower floors. She shouldn’t have forced herself to alight at the fourth floor. She could’ve returned to the third floor and asked Yakumo to inspect the room together at least. That way, perhaps she would have a better peace of mind.

But if she were to do that, Gotou would probably let the two of them be by themselves on purpose. That wouldn’t be so bad—no, that would be impossible.

Not that she disliked Yakumo, but her heart wasn’t prepared. Wait, if that were the case, that would mean she’d be okay with it so long as her heart was prepared. Haruka changed her mood and walked towards room 404.

As soon as she reached the room, she would inspect the entire room and as Yakumo had instructed, contact him immediately if she discovered a talisman or the like. Haruka convinced herself as she stood in front of the room she would be staying in.

It’s still scary after all. Why did Yakumo had to say it at the last minute like that? She felt like she’d be able to sleep peacefully if only Yakumo hadn’t said anything.

No use even thinking about it. Haruka prepared her heart before inserting the key into the keyhole.

- 3

- Once they had entered the hotel room, Gotou immediately let out a long sigh.

It was a simple room with two beds and a sofa, but at the very least he could breathe easy now. Today had been a long one.

He never would have thought he’d come all the way to Yamanashi Prefecture and had no choice but to spend the night here. All because of Yakumo.

He had a mountain of complaints, but if he were to say it aloud, Gotou was certain he would be retaliated with insults a hundredfold. Besides, their situation wouldn’t change even if he were to complain. Rather than that—

“Is it really alright?” he asked Yakumo, who was already sitting on the sofa. “About what?”

Yakumo’s expression was showing clear suspicion. “About Haruka-chan.”

“What about her?” “Earlier you spoke as if a ghost would appear,” urged Gotou.

“Oh, that,” Yakumo answered listlessly. “I never said a ghost would appear.” “That was what you said.”

“No. I only sensed something was off, so as a precaution, I asked her to do an inspection.” Now that he mentioned it, that was true. Yakumo never said a word implying that a ghost was present, just that—

“What was it that was bothering you?” “If I knew, I would’ve explained it already. As I said before, it was just a precaution—”

“If you say something like that, Haruka-chan would get scared.” “She’s not going to get scared over just that,” said Yakumo with a shrug.

That may be true. Haruka had resolved a number of cases with Yakumo thus far. She had experienced so many spiritual phenomena that she’d gotten sick of it, not to mention having seen crime scenes more terrifying than a typical police detective would.

Even if a ghost were to appear, she might get scared, but surely she’d be able to handle it calmly without panicking. Haruka used to be a frail woman who could only cry, but humans could grow stronger with time.

“Well, you’re right.” “Gotou-san, instead of worrying about others, you should worry about yourself instead.”

“Ha?” “Perhaps a ghost might appear in this room instead—is what I’m saying.”

“W-what?” Gotou frantically walked all over the room to check below the bed and inside the closet. Witnessing Gotou’s antics, Isshin complained, “What a busy man,”

It was impossible for him to stay still. There might be a ghost in this room. “If you have time to complain, come help out as well,” urged Gotou. “That isn’t necessary,” Isshin replied with a calm look on his face.

“Why not?” “There are no ghosts in this room. Right, Yakumo?”

The moment Isshin threw the conversation at Yakumo, the man simply extended his arms in a joking manner. Seeing that made Gotou understood.

If there really was a ghost in this room, they wouldn’t have to go into all the trouble of searching for a talisman as Yakumo’s left eye should be able to see it. To think he hadn’t realised something as simple as that; perhaps that was the very evidence that Gotou was the scared one.

“Dammit...” Gotou grumbled, landing his bottom on the bed right as their room door was knocked. Isshin replied, “One moment,” whilst moving to answer the door.

The employee named Oohori, who had been in the front desk previously, stood there while holding a folding mattress and a fitted sheet. “I’ve come to prepare the bed,” Oohori said politely.

“Ah, please do.” Isshin ushered Oohori into the room.

“Excuse me. I need to use the sofa, is that alright?” said Oohori. Yakumo then stood up to make room. After temporarily placing the mattress and fitted sheet on the bed, Oohori began working with the sofa. Apparently the sofa could be turned into a bed, such that the once twin room could have one more bed for a third person.

“Are there no other hotel employees around?” Yakumo asked Oohori, who was doing his work. Unlike his typically rude and roundabout manner of speech, Yakumo sounded very polite.

“It’s just me alone at the moment,” replied Oohori with a bitter laugh. He appeared to be holding back in front of guests, despite actually wanting to air his grievances.

“Are you always by yourself?” asked Yakumo again. “Not always. But today everyone’s out because of something, so I’m by myself...”

“Aren’t the rooms fully occupied? Must be tough if there’s no one else to lend a hand.” “A majority of the rooms aren’t usable as they’re under renovation. Only two groups of guests had booked a reservation, so I thought it’d be fine, but…”

Oohori stopped his hand momentarily and his face turned sour once again. It appeared that Oohori, who was still under training, had been entrusted with running the hotel since the number of usable rooms had been limited, but then Gotou and the others had suddenly arrived.

“Since the situation became like this, they said they’ll come to help, so I believe your stay here wouldn't be impacted.” As Oohori finished setting up the bed, now drenched in sweat, he spoke, “If you’ll excuse me—” as he was about to leave the room.

At that moment, Yakumo called out to stop him. “Do you need something?” Oohori turned around, still holding the doorknob.

“Pardon, but do you have any children, Oohori-san?” Oohori was stunned upon hearing Yakumo’s sudden question. “No. I’m still a bachelor…”

“I see. Sorry about that.” “Then, excuse me—”

Yakumo stopped Oohori from leaving once again. “One more thing. Have you ever heard any rumours of a ghost appearing in this hotel?“

“A ghost…?” Oohori was flabbergasted over all the questions directed at him. Well, anyone would’ve had the same reaction if they were interrogated like that.

Yakumo waited for an answer, staring straight at Oohori. Oohori appeared confused for a moment, but eventually replied, “I’ve never heard of such rumours even once.”

“I see. My apologies for asking all these questions,” said Yakumo, bowing politely. Oohori responded, “Not at all—” before leaving the room.

“Oi, Yakumo. Why were you insisting about a ghost earlier?” said Gotou after waiting for the door to close. He had mentioned that something had been bothering him, but from the way he had spoken to Oohori earlier, he now seemed certain about it.

“I know now what’s been bothering me,” said Yakumo as he brushed his bangs upwards. “What?” asked Gotou.

Yakumo placed his index finger between his eyebrows. “When we entered this hotel, I saw someone’s figure entering the area behind the front desk,” he said calmly. “What about it?”

That didn’t sound particularly strange. Gotou had seen an entrance to and from the area behind the front desk that had been covered with a curtain. Perhaps an office space was behind there. It would be normal for employees to enter and exit to and from that office.

“Do you still not realise?” “Ha?”

“Earlier, Oohori-san said he was all alone.” As soon as Gotou understood what Yakumo was trying to say, his body began to shiver.

Come to think of it, when he had been talking to Oohori at the front desk, he hadn’t seen anyone entering the area behind the front desk. In other words, that person had only been visible to Yakumo.

And they had been none other than a ghost. -

4 -

“Huh?” Haruka exclaimed spontaneously. She had managed to insert the key into the keyhole and unlocked it. Yet somehow the door itself wouldn’t open.

No matter how much she pushed or pulled, the door refused to budge. As she deliberated calling the front desk employee, for the final time, Haruka attempted to push the door whilst putting her body weight onto her shoulder.

The door opened with a creaking sound. As it turned out, the door frame didn’t seem to fit properly. Like this, she would have trouble entering and leaving the room. Haruka decided to contact the front desk later on.

Thank goodness. She entered the room feeling relieved. The next second however, Haruka spontaneously halted her steps.

This room was incredibly dark. The further it was from the door, the darkness became more intense, to the point that the furthest part of the room appeared to be painted with black ink. “What’s with this room…?”

Haruka wavered at first, but she soon discovered the cause. The windows inside the room were entirely covered by blackout curtains. Typically when a guest first checked in to their hotel room, the blackout curtains would be left open. Someone seemed to have left it closed.

Haruka released her hand from the door and began stepping further into the room. Walking in as the door closed with a thud, the room became enveloped in darkness.

She fumbled around for the curtains and opened them. Due to the rain, you couldn’t exactly call the room bright, but she could at least see the state of the room.

She wouldn’t have to go through this trouble, had she turned on the lights first earlier. Embarrassed by her poor technique, Haruka walked towards the bathroom. First of all, she needed to dry her wet hair. Otherwise, she would catch a cold.

The bathroom was in the same room as the toilet, similar to that of one person apartments. Perhaps because it hadn’t been used in a long time, the washbasin and the toilet lid was covered in a thin layer of dust.

Well, not that she could complain. “Towel, towel...”

She tried looking for them, but didn’t find any. Perhaps it could be in the bedroom?

Haruka exited the bathroom and gazed across the bedroom. There was a bed, and a sideboard with television and a telephone on top. She couldn’t find a towel anywhere she looked.

I give up. Haruka reached for the telephone handset on top of the sideboard to contact the front desk.

There should have been the beeping sound normally heard from the speaker, but she couldn’t hear anything even after putting the handset against her ear. Haruka continued to try and press the extension number written on the telephone, but forget being connected, she couldn’t even hear the sound of a button press.

It seemed that this phone was completely broken. This left her no choice but to leave the room and approach the front desk directly.

As she headed for the door, Yakumo’s words came to her mind. In case you found something that looks like a talisman pasted, let me know immediately.

He had mentioned that talismans would be placed in rooms that were haunted by ghosts. Haruka could just inspect the room upon returning from the front desk. But once it piqued her curiosity, she couldn’t ignore the thought in her mind.

No, towel comes first. Haruka told herself that.

Yet as soon as she reached for the doorknob, she felt someone’s stare from behind. Don’t turn around.

Despite thinking that, her neck slowly turned as if pulled by something. There was no one there.

Only the sound of rain hitting against the window. Perhaps her nerves were becoming too sensitive.

Haruka decided to leave for the front desk immediately. Yet when she was about to face the door again, somehow her gaze was drawn towards a shadow underneath the bed. There was nothing over there.

Although she thought as much, she still grew restless. It was all Yakumo’s fault that she felt this way. Because of all that talk about talismans, Haruka grew anxious and unable to remain composed in the room.

Surely her nerves would calm down once she confirmed that there was no such talisman sticking underneath the bed. Firming her resolve, Haruka approached the bed, went down to her knees, and crouched to peek underneath it—

- 5

- “I’m going out for a bit.”

After Oohori had left their room, Yakumo seemed to be thinking about something, before suddenly saying that and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” asked Gotou.

Yakumo stopped walking and turned. He appeared unenergetic as usual and it was impossible to read what he was thinking.

“It’s bothering my mind, so I’d like to take a brief look.” “You mean Haruka-chan’s room?”

“Why did it come to that? I saw a ghost at the front desk. It has nothing to do with her room.” “I see...”

It was true that since he had seen the ghost at the front desk, Haruka’s room had nothing to do with it. “Wait up. I’m going too,” Gotou slapped his knees and stood up.

When Yakumo had said that it was bothering him, it was possible something might happen. Gotou felt uncomfortable ignoring it. “I’ll go as well,” said Isshin as he also stood up.

“Even if the number of people increases, it wouldn’t make a difference,” said Yakumo, messing with his dishevelled hair in annoyance. Gotou could tell just by looking. Yakumo appeared slightly flustered, far from his usual self.

“This police detective will assist you. You should be thankful,” said Gotou, puffing out his chest. Yakumo burst into laughter. “Gotou-san is a police detective?”

What did you say now? “What do you think I am?”

“A bear whose only quality is his loud voice.” “You little—”

Even though someone had the intention to help him, he had to say something that made that intention disappear. “Don’t get all baited like that. Surely you’re well aware of Yakumo’s personality,” Isshin reminded Gotou so that he managed to swallow his nearly erupting anger within his stomach.

Isshin was right after all. Yakumo wasn’t the type to say things honestly and was a handful to deal with. If he got riled up over the smallest of things, his body wouldn’t last instead. “Anyway, let’s go,” said Isshin.

Once they were in the corridor, Gotou looked upwards to the ceiling. Perhaps due to having just listened to a ghost story, the whole atmosphere felt glum. “So, where do we start?” asked Gotou.

“Right,” Yakumo touched the tip of his chin. “Actually, I’d like to ask around to gather information, but Oohori-san’s the only employee around at the moment.” “In that case, just ask him.”

“Gotou-san, are you really a police detective?” “What?”

Gotou wanted to lay a hand on him, but Isshin, sensing what was about to happen, put himself between Gotou and Yakumo. “We’ve already questioned him. Even if we were to ask him again, he may not know much since he’s still a trainee,” explained Isshin.

Yakumo nodded. “Precisely.” Having mentioned that, Oohori’s nametag did have the word ‘trainee’ above his name. Knowing so, Yakumo hadn’t pried too deeply when Oohori had come to their room.

Yakumo wasn’t only remarkable due to his ability to see ghosts, the sharpness of his mind played a part as well. That was how he had managed to solve many cases thus far. Gotou understood the situation now, but the problem remained on how they should proceed onwards.

“If we can’t question that Oohori guy, who else should we be questioning?” asked Gotou. Yakumo shook his head in disbelief. “I feel like crying, thinking about all the valuable taxpayer money used to pay such a useless man’s salary.”

“This bastard! Say that once again!” Gotou lifted his fist upwards, but Isshin stopped him once again.

“Please calm down. Your brain could deteriorate if you’re so quick to get emotional.” Yakumo’s words may be harsh, but Isshin’s were just as harsh despite being spoken calmly. He really was Yakumo’s uncle after all—

“None of your business. If you’re saying that, does that mean you have any ideas?” said Gotou, attempting to pressure Isshin, yet Isshin’s friendly smile didn’t subside. “There was a convenience store on our way to this hotel, right?” said Isshin.

Indeed, there had been a convenience store about fifty metres away near here. “Don’t tell me you want to go shopping at the convenience store?”

“If there isn’t anyone we can question at the hotel, why don’t we try asking around there?” So that was what he meant.

If there was a ghost in this hotel, that meant someone had died here previously. Convenience store employees had to be made up of local residents, so they should be able to gather information by asking there. Gotou understood the fact, yet he didn’t want to agree just like that.

“Well, let’s give it a try,” he said with a sour face, and Isshin nodded. Gotou felt incredibly uncomfortable as it was like he had been caught acting all stubborn and narrow-minded. If he said anything further, perhaps he’d really be exposed.

“Let’s be on our way—” said Gotou, walking towards the elevator with quicker steps. Isshin followed suit, but Yakumo remained still in the corridor. His gaze seemed empty, as if he wasn’t looking at anything despite having his eyes open.

“What’s up? You’re not going?” called Gotou. Yakumo slowly turned. “Yes. I’ll leave it to you two.”

“What are you going to do?” “I’m going to find out where the ghost went.”

I see. Only Yakumo could confirm where the ghost he had seen had gone.

“Understood,” Gotou replied before boarding the elevator with Isshin. -

6 -

With fearful movements, Haruka peeked underneath the bed— There was nothing like a pale figure lying there in a pool of blood; only shadows were present.

As it turned out, she had simply imagined the eyes of someone staring at her. Furthermore, there were no talismans pasted anywhere.

With this, I can be rest assured. Haruka was about to stand up when she noticed an object that had dropped under the bed. Behind the bed frame leg, around an angle that was difficult to see.

That object was a red shoe. Even so, it wasn’t a size any human could wear. Around a centimetre in size, the shoe likely belonged to a doll.

Haruka extended her hand and picked up the shoe. Why did something like this drop here?

Perhaps someone had forgotten about it. An object as small as this could remain undiscovered when the room had been cleaned. Either way, she needed some towels first and foremost.

Her hair had gotten fairly dry, but having gotten rained on, Haruka would like to take a shower to feel refreshed. When inquiring about the towels at the front desk, she would hand over this dropped item as well. Haruka pocketed the doll shoe and as she headed for the door, someone called to her.

“Hey.” She turned around immediately.

And yet, no one was there. Her nerves were becoming sensitive after all. She needed to think about something else—

At the corner of her vision as she turned for the door again, was a person’s face. “Hya-!” Haruka screamed as she jumped back.

As her back crashed against the wall, the television on top of the sideboard shook. What was that just now?

With all her might, Haruka held herself back from panicking, her eyes scanning across the entire room. Then—

She spotted the face that she had seen earlier. Displayed near the bed headboard was a framed piece of painting. It portrayed a woman standing at the seashore with sorrowful eyes.

A bust-up view of the woman, its composition was similar to that of Da Vinci’s renowned painting, Mona Lisa. Due to the oil painting’s realism style, it appeared almost lifelike.

Haruka felt relief after knowing what she had just seen earlier. Yet once again, Yakumo’s words came to her mind. Yakumo had requested her to examine the back of any picture frames as well. Upon further observation, the picture frame’s placement above the headboard appeared unnatural.

There’s no way. Despite thinking so, Haruka climbed onto the bed, took off the picture frame and flipped it around.

Thank goodness. There was no talisman at the back.

With this she could really be at ease. It was only as she was about to put the frame back in place that Haruka noticed the fist-sized hole on the wall where the frame used to hang.

The painting seemed to have been deliberately hung above the headboard to cover up this hole. Could this hole be connected to the room next door?

Haruka brought her face closer to the hole. Dark—

There was no sign of a light source from the other end of the hole. Still, she felt terrified at the thought that she was being observed through this hole.

Simply putting the frame back in place didn’t sit right with her, so Haruka decided she’d bring it up with the front desk. They might not be able to seal the hole shut immediately, but perhaps they could at least cover it up. Haruka was about to draw her face away when—

Her eyes met with it. On the other side of the hole, an eye suddenly appeared, gazing intently at Haruka.

Wide open, the whites were clearly visible. In contrast, its pupil was small and the blood vessels appeared prominent and red.

Haruka couldn’t let out a sound. Her body was thrown backwards and she fell on her back. Her breathing grew difficult.

Haruka tried to lift her body and stared at the hole once more. I must’ve been seeing things. That has to be it.

Haruka tried to convince herself before she hurriedly returned the picture frame to its place to block the hole. The woman in the painting stared at her.

Haruka felt like their gazes met. The eye she had seen from within the hole earlier came back into her mind.

Had she really just been seeing things? She truly felt there had been an eye staring at her through the hole. Haruka could simply get the picture frame out of the way and look into the hole to confirm. Even so, it’d be impossible for her to peek into that hole once again.

Anyway, let’s get out of this room. Haruka got off the bed to head for the door.

That instant, her legs became weak from fear, causing her to fall to her knees. She turned to find the woman in the painting looking at her still.

That was obvious since it was a painting after all. But in Haruka’s current state, she wasn’t able to think clearly. I have to run.

Using the wall as a support so she wouldn’t fall, Haruka stood up and walked towards the door. She reached for the doorknob and pulled it, but somehow the door didn’t budge.

“Why?” Desperately, Haruka tried her hardest to pull it.

The door still wouldn’t open. You’ve got to be kidding me.

She continued turning the doorknob as she occasionally turned to look at the room. At that moment, the picture frame fell onto the bed with a thud.

The hole— The hole in the wall became visible.

And then. From within that hole—

An eye— Wide open, the eye moved from left to right as if searching for Haruka.

So she hadn’t been mistaken after all. Haruka couldn’t bear it anymore.

With lightning speed she opened the nearby bathroom door and jumped inside. Her hands were trembling.

No, it wasn’t just her hands. Her entire body was shaking nonstop that she lost control of it herself. Haruka struggled to calm her uneven breathing before contemplating what she had to do next.

That eye wouldn’t be able to find her while inside this bathroom. However, she couldn’t shut herself in here forever. That’s right, Yakumo-kun.

She could contact Yakumo to ask for help. Haruka hurriedly searched for her phone in her pocket, but couldn't find it.

She had left her phone on the sideboard. Haruka thought about retrieving it, but she immediately rejected the idea. Heading to retrieve the phone on the sideboard meant she would be seen by the eye inside the hole.

Honestly, she didn’t have the courage to do that. What should I do?

Confused, Haruka sat in place whilst wrapping her arms around her own shoulder. Gurgle—

Haruka jolted at the sound and lifted her face. “What is it now?”

Gurgle— Gurgle gurgle—

It sounded like someone coughing. Took her a while until she realised that the sound had come from the water pipes.

She didn’t know whether the pipes had made such noises merely out of their poor condition, or because of a spiritual phenomenon. Even so, perhaps the bathroom wasn’t a safe place either.

Scary— Yet in order to escape her fear, she had to open the door once more and leave this room.

Haruka gathered her strength and stood up to exit the bathroom. Right then, she spotted a black shadow standing on the other side of the frosted glass on the bathroom door.

The shadow was somewhat spread out so she couldn’t tell whether it was a male or female, but it was unmistakably the shadow of a person. “No way...”

Don’t come any closer! Haruka screamed within her heart, but the shadow came closer in her direction as if mocking her. This is bad.

Haruka held the bathroom door from the inside. She didn’t know whether such a thing would be effective against a ghost or not. Either way, she had no other ideas.

Please! Don’t go in! Haruka couldn’t even open her eyes. She closed her eyes shut, chanting those words over and over in her heart.

Just how much time had passed since then— Suddenly, she had a feeling that the shadow before her eyes had disappeared.

To tell the truth, she was scared. If the shadow were still standing where it had been once she opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to maintain her sanity. Regardless, standing still like this wouldn’t solve anything.

Surely it’ll be fine. Haruka convinced herself and slowly released the tension on her eyes.

Her vision gradually returned. The shadow—wasn’t there.

The shadow that had been across the frosted glass had disappeared without a trace. Haruka sighed in relief.

However, the problem was what came after this. Her courage to leave the bathroom had vanished entirely. “What should I do…?”

As she lowered her head came an unsettling click, and the bathroom lamp started flickering. “Please…enough already...” Partly sobbing, Haruka begged as she looked upwards to the lamp fixed on the ceiling.

As if signalled by her gesture, the lamp with its once flickering yellow light then went out— The bathroom became dark.

Why is it like this? Maybe the lamp hadn’t been installed properly. That had to be it.

Haruka gulped before extending her hand in the direction of the lamp. At that moment, her reflection came in the mirror.

She mustn’t look. Despite knowing that, she had already seen it unintentionally. The mirror didn’t reflect just her.

A doll with a faint smile was also reflected there. “Nooooo!”

In full blown panic, Haruka screamed until her throat felt like it would rip. -

7 -

“Anyway, this rain sure is awful,” Gotou mumbled as he turned to watch the neverending rain from the hotel lobby. The rain was comparable to a bucket of water turned upside down.

“It certainly is,” said Isshin, who stood next to him, nodding as he stared at the rain. “Like this, we wouldn’t be able to see Mount Fuji even though we came all the way to Yamanashi.”

“We’re not here on holiday. Mount Fuji isn’t going anywhere either, we can always see it some other time.” “Well, that’s true,” Gotou replied with a sigh. As Isshin had said, they hadn’t come to Yamanashi for a holiday. Besides, the downpour might subside tomorrow.

For now, it was more important for them to find the identity of the ghost Yakumo had seen. “In that case, let’s quickly head there,” he said, looking at the convenience store located about fifty metres ahead.

“You’re planning to go through this pouring rain without an umbrella?” asked Isshin. The rain was so heavy that it would obstruct one’s line of vision. Gotou would’ve liked to use an umbrella, but unfortunately he didn’t have one with him.

“Let’s just make a run for it.” “That’s not necessary—”

Isshin was about to say something, but Gotou had ignored him and dashed outside. Obviously he got drenched in an instant, but if he sat still worrying about the fact, he would only get even more soaked.

Gotou crossed the road that had practically turned into a river and ran for the eaves of the convenience store. He took deep breaths upon reaching. He was drenched until water dripped from his hair. His socks were completely soaked as well.

“This rain is really…” Gotou wiped the droplets off his jacket as he turned towards the road he had just passed earlier.

He thought Isshin would’ve followed right after him, yet amidst the rain, the monk’s figure was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t able to see clearly thanks to the rain, but Isshin was probably still inside the hotel, hesitant to go outside.

Geez, Gotou grumbled on the inside as he lit a cigarette. Surely Isshin would give in soon enough and come over here. Even if he didn’t, Gotou could simply gather information all by himself.

As he had that thought, he saw Isshin walking over towards him. The entire opposite of Gotou, Isshin calmly walked through the heavy rain.

To no one’s surprise, Isshin’s hand was holding an umbrella. “If you have an umbrella, why didn’t you say so earlier?” protested Gotou after waiting for Isshin to arrive.

Gotou disliked the idea of a pair of uncles walking around sharing an umbrella, but it was a better option than getting drenched from running through the rain. Isshin went underneath the convenience store eaves and said as he folded the umbrella, “I told you so.”

“I didn’t hear anything.” “I said let’s borrow umbrellas from the front desk, but you had run off by yourself.”

“Ugh.” Come to think of it, when they were about to leave the hotel, Isshin had been saying something, but Gotou hadn’t listened and ran off alone instead.

“Don’t go running into things without considering the consequences. It’s better if you stop for a moment and use your head.” “Shut up. I don’t need an umbrella with this much rain.”

“As expected, wild bears sure are tough.” “Who are you calling a bear?!”

“Anyway, let’s hurry up and ask them,” Paying no attention to the irritated Gotou, Isshin entered the convenience store.

Gotou felt annoyed, but as Isshin had said, they better settle matters quickly. Gotou threw the cigarette he had been smoking to an ashtray in front of the convenience store, and followed Isshin inside. “Welcome,” greeted a woman who seemed to be in her fifties, with a voice so devoid of emotion.

It left Gotou to wonder, shouldn’t it be written in convenience store employee handbooks that the employees should greet customers full of emotion? “Excuse us, but we’d like to ask something...” said Gotou, approaching the female employee tending to the store.

“Yes?” replied the woman with a confused look as she took a step back. A drenched man suddenly walked towards her. Her response was understandable.

“Actually, this is my job,” said Gotou, showing his police badge. “A police? Really?”

The woman’s voice became guarded. Furthermore, her hand was already reaching for the emergency call button underneath the counter. “A real one, of course.”

“From which department? Is there an ongoing case?” said the woman, bombarding him with questions. He was being heavily suspected. Did he not look like a detective all that much?

“No, that's why…” “He may look like this, but he’s the real deal,” said Isshin to help. “Although he looks like a bear with a scary face, he’s cowardly and gets lonely easily like a rabbit.”

Acting familiar, Isshin patted Gotou’s shoulder. Who’s a lonely rabbit around here—!

Gotou really wanted to protest, but held himself back. Saying the wrong things now would only raise further suspicion on them.

Isshin displayed a friendly smile, softening the woman’s expression in response. “What a strange combination,” said the woman as she stared back and forth between Gotou and Isshin.

Certainly, a police detective and a monk standing next to each other might be an uncommon scenario. “I think so too. The truth is, we came here to ask about something—” Isshin said in a polite tone.

“About what?” “Actually—we’re staying at that hotel over there,” Isshin pointed at the hotel.

“Yes.” “As I said earlier, this man is a coward and he made a ruckus saying he’d seen a ghost at the hotel. I’ve told him that there’s nothing to worry about, but being a coward, he said he wouldn’t believe it until he knew for certain.” Isshin explained while looking at Gotou, acting like he was in disbelief.

You’re joking me! The person who had made claims about the existence of a ghost hadn’t been Gotou, but Yakumo. Aside from that, he wasn’t that much of a coward to be complaining simply because there was a ghost.

He had a mountain of things to say, but decided to stay quiet to avoid overcomplicating the conversation. “It felt rude to ask hotel employees whether there were any rumours of the place being haunted, so we decided to ask local residents while going shopping,“ Isshin continued politely.

Gotou couldn’t accept that the story placed all the blame onto him, yet he was also impressed that Isshin could make up a story as smoothly as that. “Did you really see a ghost at that hotel?” The woman asked Gotou, her face filled with suspicion.

Gotou hadn’t actually seen a ghost, but explaining the real situation was too much of a trouble, not to mention it would go against Isshin’s story. “I did.” Gotou gave her a short answer.

“Was the ghost of a little girl?” said the woman as she lowered her voice. Come to think of it, he had forgotten to ask Yakumo what the ghost had been like. But based on her response, it might be better for him to align the conversation.

“Yes.” “So it was true...” said the woman, reaching for her mouth.

“Do you know anything about it?” “Please don’t mention it elsewhere that I’m the one who told you this.”

“Understood,” Gotou replied with a nod. The woman glanced at the hotel across the rain before she began her explanation—

- 8

- “Nooooo!”

Haruka screamed to the point that her throat felt like it would rip. Strength left her knees and they trembled, making her fall sitting down in place. Haruka covered her face with both hands and closed her eyes shut.

Even so, she was well aware that the entity she had seen wouldn’t disappear just from her doing that. The reflection on the mirror returned to her mind once again.

This bathroom was cramped. There shouldn’t be anyone else but her in here. Nevertheless, she was certain that she had seen the shadow of a person standing behind her when she had been looking at the mirror. The shadow was black, so she hadn’t been able to see its face clearly. Yet she had felt as if the shadow had faintly smiled at her.

Haruka kept still for a while. The next second, something suddenly grazed her nape— It made her jolt and stood up.

Out of reflex, the mirror that she had been avoiding came into her sight. However—

Reflected on the mirror was her face, tense out of fear, and nothing else. The shadow she had seen earlier had already disappeared. Was I mistaken?

No, that couldn’t be it. She was certain there had been a shadow reflected in the mirror. If it had been a ghost, perhaps the ghost was still inside the bathroom. Waves of terror washed over her.

Let’s get out of here quick. As she touched the bathroom door, there was a thud and the room shook lightly.

Surprised, Haruka halted her movements. She had forgotten all about it from panic, but she now recalled the reason why she was in the bathroom.

In her room was a hole in the wall, and someone had peeked at her through said hole. Scared, she had evacuated into the bathroom to escape from that eye. Thinking about how she might get stared at again by the terrifying eye after getting out of here made her body paralyse in fear.

Despite that, she couldn’t stay inside the bathroom forever. She wanted to leave the hotel room, but the door wouldn’t move even when pushed or pulled. She’d like to ask for help, but her phone was on the sideboard next to the bed.

What should I do? Haruka sat down again and covered her face with both hands.

“Yakumo-kun...” she whispered a name as she held back the tears that welled up. Along with that, she remembered the line that Yakumo had always said.

Spirits of the dead were no monsters or a new kind of entity, they were clusters of emotions of humans that had passed away— Yakumo, with his red left eye and its ability to see spirits of the dead, had been able to understand the feelings of wandering ghosts and had resolved various cases based on that theory.

Nothing could get solved by sitting around in the bathroom. Following Yakumo’s theory, she might be able to resolve this situation by finding out the reason why the ghost had been wandering.

Haruka firmed her resolve. She took her hands off her face, stood up, and faced the mirror. She would be lying to say that she wasn’t scared.

Her knees were still shaking and her breathing was irregular. Regardless, there was nothing else she could do now. Things wouldn’t sort itself out if she were to sit around hoping help would arrive.

“Hey, are you there?” Haruka called towards the mirror. No response.

“Who are you? What’s the reason you’re wandering around?” Haruka asked once more. The silence continued.

Unlike Yakumo, Haruka couldn’t see ghosts. Occasionally she could, but only partially, like the eye and the shadow from earlier, not to mention unstable. She had doubts on whether she’d be able to clearly sense what they wanted.

But she couldn’t think of any other way besides this. Haruka gulped until her throat made a sound, and stared back at the mirror.

She nodded firmly at herself, tensed up from fear. “Hey, why are you wandering around? Can you tell me?”

As if answering Haruka's call, the bathroom lights that had gone out began to flicker. Then—

Within the dimness, a dark shadow emerged behind Haruka’s reflection in the mirror— -

9 -

“Two uncles sharing an umbrella together, how gross—” As Gotou and Isshin returned to the hotel lobby, they were greeted by a mocking smile from Yakumo.

“Not that we’d like to, more like we had no choice,” They only had one umbrella, so they had no choice but to share during their return trip from the convenience store.

“Seems to me that you liked it though,” Yakumo grinned and sat on the lobby sofa. “There’s no way.”

“I wonder.” Gotou had a lot to say, but he had a feeling the more he denied it, the more he’d get cornered. He swallowed his anger and sat on a sofa across from Yakumo. Isshin sat next to him as well.

“So, did you two find anything?” asked Yakumo. “Before that, how are things on your end?” asked Gotou in return.

Yakumo said he had been searching for where the ghost had gone. Prior to sharing the information he had gathered, he would like to hear Yakumo’s side of the story. “How are what?”

“You were looking for the ghost, right? Did you find it?” “No,” Yakumo shook his head.

“What? You were speaking so arrogantly, yet you turned up with no results, huh,” cursed Gotou. Yakumo blatantly scowled. “I never meant to say it arrogantly, and although I couldn’t find the ghost, I did get some results.”

To Gotou, his words had merely sounded like he was trying to act tough. “What kind of results?” “A number of things.”

“That’s why I’m asking, what are those things exactly?” urged Gotou. Yakumo laughed bitterly with a troubled gesture before he began speaking. “I told you that the ghost I saw had entered the area behind the front desk, right?”

“Yes.” He had certainly said so.

“Since the ghost had gone there, there had to be something there. So I went to check for myself.” So that was how it was.

“You asked that trainee employee Oohori to let you get inside?” “No.”

“You just went inside as you liked?” “Yeah. Since that person wasn’t aware of any ghost story here, I thought it’d be troublesome to ask for his permission, so...”

As it turned out, Yakumo had stealthily sneaked inside while Oohori was away from the front desk. Gotou glanced at the front desk, unable to spot Oohori’s presence there.

“Don’t act too reckless. What would you do if you were discovered?” If Yakumo were caught trespassing into the area behind the front desk, he might get reported to the authorities.

“I’ve got that taken care of,” “Taken care of?”

As Gotou questioned him back, Yakumo turned in the direction of the stairs. There, Oohori could be seen descending the stairs, walking towards them. He held a lightbulb in his hand. “Apologies for the inconvenience. I’ve replaced it, so it should be fine now—” said Oohori, bowing politely to Yakumo.

“Thank you.” Seeing Yakumo respond to him with a smile, Gotou could hazard a guess as to what he had done.

Most likely, Yakumo had deliberately sabotaged the light bulb in their room and had requested Oohori to replace it. That way, he could freely get into the area behind the front desk. “Ah, could I ask you one thing?” Yakumo stopped Oohori who was about to leave.

“What is it?” “Is Oohori-san really the only one working today?”

“Ah, yes. What about it…?” “No. I just thought it must be tough…”

“Thank you for your concern—” Oohori made a business smile before returning to the front desk. “Is something bothering you?” Gotou asked Yakumo after waiting for Oohori to be some distance away.

“When I went to the area behind the front desk earlier, I found a strange object,” said Yakumo, narrowing his eyes. “A strange object?”

“A shoe.” “A shoe?”

“Yes. A red shoe that was probably a woman’s shoe, and it was missing the other half—” said Yakumo, with a face as if he had known everything. A single lone shoe was indeed peculiar, but someone could simply have forgotten it in the hotel room and the front desk had been holding on to it.

Or perhaps, it could belong to another employee that had forgotten the shoe there. “Did that shoe have anything to do with the ghost?”

“I have no idea,” said Yakumo, full of confidence. “You have no idea…? How careless of you…”

“I refuse to accept being told that by a clumsy bear like Gotou-san.” “Bear this, bear that, you’re so noisy!”

“What’s wrong with calling a bear, a bear?” This bastard!

Gotou was at the limit of his patience. He wanted to beat this man even if just for a single punch. He raised his fist, ready to land it on Yakumo’s face, but Isshin immediately caught his arm and calmed him down. “Now, now.”

The bug in his stomach wouldn’t sit still, but Gotou knew more obviously than seeing fire that if he were to hit Yakumo, he’d be retaliated constantly afterwards. Gotou clicked his tongue and cooled his anger.

“So, did you two get anything on your end?” asked Yakumo, as if the conversation earlier had never happened. “There weren’t any stories in particular about a ghost in this hotel,” said Gotou.

“I see...” Yakumo responded with a slightly disappointed look. “However, there was a case that took place in this hotel one year ago.”

“A case?” “That’s right. Once, a woman and her four-year-old daughter stayed in this hotel previously.”

“Then?” “When the mother left her child inside the room to go shopping, an incident happened—” said Gotou, pausing his sentence to observe Yakumo’s expression.

“Cut the suspense and continue the story.” It was blunt of him, but perhaps Gotou was acting a little too dramatic. Gotou cleared his throat and continued.

“The girl, who was left alone in the room, fell from the window—” Putting it into words, Gotou felt a squeezing pain in his chest.

He had to deal with all sorts of cases on the regular and he should’ve gotten used to handling tragedies with fatal casualties. Even so, the deaths of young children had always left an unpleasant feeling in his chest no matter how many times he encountered them. After a moment of silence, Yakumo muttered, “Rather than a case, that was more like an accident.”

“I thought so too. But from what we heard, something was amiss,” Isshin added. “What was amiss?”

“Apparently, the window that the girl had fallen from should’ve been out of reach for a child of her height.” “And yet, she fell from it...?”

“That’s right. According to the person who discovered her, there was a chair under the window.” “A chair that was part of the hotel room?”

“Uh-huh. Judging from the circumstances, that meant the girl had shifted the chair all by herself, climbed on top, and fell from the window—” “How did you find out about the situation to that level of detail?”

It was understandable for Yakumo to question that fact. “The husband of the convenience store employee that we visited to gather information from had been working in this hotel when the incident happened.”

“I see...so what I saw...” Yakumo mumbled as if talking to himself whilst folding his arms. Gotou couldn’t clearly grasp what he was saying as his voice was too quiet.

“What? Say it clearly.” said Gotou. Yakumo grimaced in displeasure. “No need to make a ruckus, I’ll explain eventually.”

Yakumo shook his head in disbelief, throwing a sharp gaze on Gotou before he continued, “The ghost I saw at the front desk was of a little girl around four years old—” “In that case…”

“We still have no evidence, but I think it was unmistakably her since the girl in that story died a year ago here.” “The problem now is why the girl is wandering in this hotel,” said Isshin as he rubbed his bald head.

Certainly, that was the most important point. According to Yakumo’s theory, ghosts linger in this world due to some unfulfilled desire. In other words, the ghost of that little girl had lingered for a reason.

The local police had closed the incident as an accident, but Gotou had another thought. “Seems like you have something in mind, Gotou-san,” said Yakumo who was able to guess what he was thinking.

“It’s my own instinct talking, but—” Gotou said before he continued, “perhaps the girl didn’t die from an accident, but was murdered.” “That’s an unpleasant line of thinking. Do you have any basis for it?” Yakumo threw him a look full of doubt.

“I told you it was just my instinct.” “Like this, Gotou-san is a police officer after all, right? Surely you’re not so stupid as to carelessly say things according to instinct without some kind of basis.”

“That first part was unnecessary.” “Save the complaints and get talking,” said Yakumo, lifting his left eyebrow.

Geez. What an unendearing guy. “However you look at it, I felt the part about a chair being moved under the window was off.”

“Well, that’s true.” “If she was older, there’d be a possibility of it being a suicide, but for what reason would a four-year-old child deliberately move a chair under the window?”

“Perhaps she wanted to climb to play? Nao often does that too. She’ll climb onto a chair and then jump down,” interrupted Isshin. Having no children of his own, Gotou had no opinion, but as Isshin had spoken from experience, such a thing might be possible after all.

Despite this, the odd feeling within Gotou didn’t go away. “Suppose she did want to play that way, she wouldn’t jump out the window, right?” Children had very little sense of danger. Particularly once they were fixated on something, they had the tendency to not pay attention to their surroundings.

Even knowing that, it felt impossible for the girl to have played by climbing onto the chair and then jumping out the window. Isshin also responded, “You’re right...”

“What do you think happened, Gotou-san?” asked Yakumo. His gaze was as if testing Gotou.

“I’m thinking the girl might have been pushed out the window by someone.” “Pushed out...”

“Yes. After pushing the girl out the window, the culprit placed the chair next to the window to make it appear like an accident.” “Interesting analysis coming from someone like Gotou-san, but the basis is still weak,” said Yakumo.

“I’m well aware that the basis is weak. It’s just that, if she had died from an accident, there’d be no reason for her to be haunting this hotel, right?” If she had died from being killed and now held a grudge towards the person who had killed her, that would be reason enough for her to still be lingering about this hotel.

“I’ll take Gotou-san’s analysis into consideration for the time being. Rather than that, do you know where the girl had fallen down?” Yakumo asked as he stood up. “Yes. I’ve asked about it.”

“Please take me there.” “Got it,” Gotou stood up in response, before walking outside. Yakumo and Isshin followed behind him.

Once he had passed the automated door at the hotel lobby entrance, he stopped. Large droplets of rain were still pouring just as hard as before.

The spot where Gotou and the rest stood had a roof so they weren’t hit directly by the rain, but it was almost like they were being sprayed with water because of the raindrops blown by the wind. “I was told she had been lying there—” said Gotou, pointing about 10 metres in front of the hotel lobby entrance.

“From which floor did she fall from?” asked Yakumo. “The fourth floor,” replied Gotou, starting to feel uncomfortable.

It was about fifty metres above ground. If only there had been shrubs underneath to cushion the fall, yet the ground was made of concrete instead. The moment she had fallen, she’d already be beyond saving.

“Hold on. Which room number was she in?” asked Yakumo, frowning with a serious expression. “If I’m not mistaken...404.”

As soon as Gotou said that, Yakumo reached for his phone and called someone. Watching him made Gotou come to his senses.

The room from where the girl had fallen was the same room Haruka was currently staying in. Looking from outside, the room lights weren’t on. It was incredibly dark outside from the rain, so it was unnatural for her not to have the lights on.

Yakumo clicked his tongue as he ended the call. “How is it?”

“She’s not answering,” said Yakumo, gritting his teeth, Gotou then shouted, “Let’s go!” and started running.

- 10

- Suppressing her fear, Haruka stared intently at the reflection in the mirror.

Its face was indiscernible, but based on the stature and hairstyle, Haruka could tell that she was a little girl. Why would such a small child be wandering?

As Haruka questioned that fact, her chest stung as if she’d been stabbed. Haruka had no idea what had happened, but since this little girl had emerged as a ghost, that could only mean she was already dead.

Why did this little girl had to die— The fear that had once enveloped Haruka’s entire body disappeared at the thought.

Perhaps this girl was carrying a deep sorrow. Haruka couldn’t understand the feelings of ghosts like Yakumo could. Yet even if just a bit, she could sympathise with this child’s feelings and wanted to do something for her.

“Please. Tell me, why are you in a place like this?” asked Haruka to the shadow on the other side of the mirror. The girl gave no answer.

Perhaps she had actually said something, but Haruka couldn’t hear her. In times like this, Haruka became incredibly envious of Yakumo.

If only she had an ability like Yakumo’s, she’d be able to respond to the reflection in the mirror— “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you properly…” said Haruka without realising.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Not out of fear. A mixture of sadness, frustration, and disappointment overflowed from her chest. Seemingly out of pity for Haruka, the girl in the mirror appeared to be saying something.

“Hey, what should I do to break your attachment to this world?” asked Haruka to the girl as she held onto the mirror. No reply.

In exchange, the girl pointed in the direction behind Haruka. Following the girl’s fingers, Haruka turned around.

There was nothing but the white bathroom walls there. Could there be something on these walls? Haruka felt around the wall and tried examining it, but she didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

“What’s the meaning of this?” asked Haruka, turning towards the mirror again. The girl kept pointing behind Haruka.

Sorry, I don’t see anything, Haruka mumbled in her heart, when a thought emerged in her mind. She had assumed that this girl had been pointing at the bathroom wall, but perhaps she had instead been pointing at the room on the other side of the wall.

“There’s something in the room?” Haruka’s question made the shadow in the mirror nod.

So that was it. Due to her panic, she hadn’t looked at the room interior closely, but perhaps therein laid the reason that this girl had been wandering.

Haruka touched the bathroom door. The image of an eye came to her mind.

The eye that had watched Haruka through the hole in the wall— She’d be seen by that eye once again if she returned to that room.

Haruka briefly had that thought, but she got rid of it immediately. Surely that eye had really been the girl reflected in the mirror.

There’s no need to be afraid. Haruka firmed her resolve and slowly opened the bathroom door.

Its hinges creaked and the door eventually opened. The room was dimly lit and quiet.

She could see the door leading to the corridor. Earlier, the door hadn’t budged at all, but if she were to try again, perhaps it would open. Once she escaped from the room, she would ask Yakumo for help—

She considered the idea for a moment, but Haruka shook her head, attempting to rid herself of said thought. If the door still refused to open after she tried again, she would remain trapped in this room.

Furthermore, the girl in the mirror might become angered if Haruka tried to escape, and could make her go through something even more terrifying. Most importantly, her desire to help the wandering girl was stronger.

Why would the ghost of a little girl be wandering in a hotel room? Even if just a little, she wanted to understand her feelings. Haruka drew her breath, gathered all the courage in her stomach, and walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom.

The painting had fallen on top of the bed. Then, a fist-sized hole where the painting had used to hang.

Earlier, an eye had been staring at her from that hole, but now there was nothing there. Haruka sighed in relief before scanning the entire room and turning the gears in her head. What exactly was the girl trying to show her?

No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t come up with an answer. Haruka was about to give up when at that moment, she remembered something.

Back when she had been searching for any talismans pasted under the bed, she had found something. Haruka had picked it up and kept it in her pocket. She hurriedly shoved her hand into her pocket and took out the item.

A red shoe that seemed to be that of a doll’s. Perhaps the reason why the girl had been wandering was because she had been looking for this shoe.

For little girls, losing such an important doll shoe full of memories would be considered a huge problem. If she were to return this, the ghost of the little girl might be able to rest in peace.

Haruka firmly held onto the red shoe. She felt someone staring at her back and slowly turned around— A girl was standing there.

Her face had been blurred when she had appeared in the mirror, but now it was clearly visible. She was an adorable girl with a round face and big eyes.

“Is this yours?” Haruka handed over the red shoe she’d been holding on towards the girl.

In an instant, a smile formed in the girl’s face. Seeing her overjoyed face made the tension Haruka had been feeling this whole time disappear without a trace.

She even had to hold herself together so she wouldn’t collapse on the spot. However, that sense of relief was short-lived.

The girl made a terrified expression and pointed behind Haruka. What is it?

Turning around, Haruka’s eyes widened. Once again, an eye peered from within the hole in the wall—

Was I mistaken? Was what the girl had been looking for not this shoe? The eye—

Its appearance red and angry, the eye glared at Haruka. Haruka couldn’t act calm anymore.

She then held her head and screamed— -

11 -

The moment Gotou stepped out of the elevator, he heard a scream. After briefly exchanging glances with Yakumo and Isshin, they sprinted as fast as they could towards room 404, where Haruka was at.

“Oi! Haruka-chan! Are you alright?” he called out whilst banging on the door, but there was no reply. A terrible premonition passed through his mind.

He turned the doorknob, trying to open the door, but the door wouldn’t move an inch even when pushed or pulled. “What are you doing? Open it quickly!” urged Yakumo.

Yakumo was usually composed, but he must’ve grown restless after hearing Haruka’s scream. “I know,” Gotou responded. With his entire strength, he slammed his body against the door until it opened with a bam. Gotou nearly got knocked forward.

“Move out of the way,” Yakumo shoved Gotou to the side and went inside the room. They immediately found Haruka there.

Sat in the middle of the room, her body was shaking violently. “Are you alright?” asked Yakumo.

Haruka, who couldn’t grasp the situation at first, gradually showed an expression of relief and hugged Yakumo as she shed her tears. She had to have gone through something terrifying.

Gotou understood how she felt, but somehow he felt embarrassed watching them instead. Yakumo stayed quiet for a while, and only spoke after waiting for Haruka to calm down. “What happened?”

Haruka nodded quietly upon hearing Yakumo’s words, wiped her tears, and began explaining after she stood up slowly. Occasionally she would sob as she hadn’t stopped crying completely, but the gist of the story was conveyed.

As it turned out, Haruka had experienced a spiritual phenomenon in this room. Despite that, Gotou was impressed that she had continued to deal with the situation by thinking about the reason why the ghost of the little girl had been wandering, and had subsequently taken action.

All that remained was to leave the rest to Yakumo. “Yakumo, did you get anything?” asked Isshin after Haruka finished her story.

“Wait a moment,” said Yakumo, stepping away from Haruka and walking further into the room. Gotou and the others couldn’t see anything. But such wasn’t the case for Yakumo.

Gotou, Haruka, and Isshin waited as they stared at Yakumo’s back. Yakumo’s red left eye would surely discover something unbeknownst to the three of them. “So that was how it was...” muttered Yakumo shortly after.

“What did you get?” asked Gotou eagerly. “Please calm down a little,” grumbled Yakumo before facing Haruka. “Your analysis was half correct.”

“Eh?” Haruka exclaimed in surprise. “Firstly, the ghost of the little girl that you saw was of a child named Mahiro-chan that had died a year ago.”

“The girl whose story we heard at the convenience store?” asked Gotou to confirm. Yakumo nodded. “When her mother had gone out to shop a year ago, Mahiro-chan had been playing with her doll in this room. Unfortunately, the window was open at the time.”

The tone of Yakumo’s voice instantly turned depressing. Without needing to mention it, Gotou could more or less predict what came afterwards.

“Don’t tell me, Mahiro-chan accidentally dropped the doll through the window?” said Gotou. With a gloomy expression, Yakumo nodded. “That’s right. She had been throwing it upwards, imitating how adults would play with young children the same way, but the doll had gotten thrown out the window. It would’ve been better if the doll had fallen all the way down, but it had gotten stuck on the awning below the window instead.”

“So Mahiro-chan had fallen over whilst trying to retrieve it—was what you meant,” said Gotou. Isshin closed his eyes with a pained look on his face, while Haruka pressed her hand onto her chest as if holding back something.

Gotou himself couldn’t help but feel suffocated. Surely Mahiro had wanted to retrieve her doll, but since the window had been out of reach, she had moved the chair inside the room under the window and had climbed onto it.

Then, she had lost her balance and fell down. Unfortunate was the only way to describe it. If only she had been slightly older, she might’ve been able to realise the danger of the situation, but Mahiro hadn’t had such an awareness.

Her mother probably hadn’t thought that her daughter would move a chair next to the window and climb it in the few minutes she had been away. They had finally discovered the cause behind Mahiro’s death, yet on the contrary, it made Gotou understand less as to why Mahiro would be wandering.

As Gotou raised that question, Yakumo narrowed his eyes. “I’ve said this earlier, but only half of her analysis was correct.” said Yakumo, turning towards Haruka. “What do you mean by half?” Haruka looked back at Yakumo, demanding answers.

“The girl called Mahiro became a wandering spirit because she was looking for her red doll shoe—” said Yakumo. Haruka stared at the one half of a doll shoe pair in her hand. “But…when I handed this over to her, the eye over there…” said Haruka as she gripped the red shoe tightly.

“That’s why I said you were half correct.” “Eh?”

“Mahiro-chan had in fact been haunting this hotel looking for her doll shoe. But now, she’s trying to convey something else.” “Something else?”

“That’s right. I first saw her at the hotel front desk. Why was she in such a place?” “So why was she?” asked Gotou in place of the dumbfounded Haruka.

“The shoe. That was the hint.” “The doll shoe?”

“No, not that. The single lone red shoe that I found in the area behind the front desk.” Now that he mentioned it, Yakumo had definitely said something like that. The problem was—

“What does that have to do with this?” “Instead of explaining it with words, it’ll be faster to see it for ourselves. Things should be reaching its limit—” said Yakumo before exiting the room.

Just what did he mean by all that? Gotou exchanged glances with Haruka and Isshin.

No one seemed to know the answer. Despite their dissatisfaction, they could only follow after the man. Nodding to each other, the three left the room after Yakumo—

- 12

- Haruka followed Gotou and Isshin out of the room.

Yakumo, who was already in the corridor, stood in front of the door next to Haruka’s room. “Is there something in that room?” asked Haruka, swallowing her fear.

Right now, Yakumo was standing in front of the room at the other end of the hole that was in her room. “Yes. To be more precise, this actually isn’t a guest room.”

“Is that so?” “This is a linen room,” said Yakumo.

Looking closer at it, there was in fact a sign indicating that it was a linen room, and a plate declaring ‘staff only’ was also stuck there. Linen rooms were dedicated rooms meant to store fitted sheets, pillow covers, towels, and the like.

She had initially thought that this had been a guest room, but since this turned out to be a linen room, what was that eye from earlier? “Is there something in that linen room?” asked Gotou.

“Yes. Gotou-san, please open this up,” Yakumo pointed at the door. “Even if you say to open it…is it alright for us to enter as we please?”

“It’s fine since this is an emergency.” Despite his words, Yakumo’s voice didn’t sound urgent one bit.

Confused, Gotou grabbed onto the doorknob, pushing and pulling it. The door appeared to be locked; there were no signs of it opening. “It’s not opening.”

“Don’t you carry any crowbars with you or something?” “No way I have something like that,”

“Then it can’t be helped. Let’s ask him to open it,” said Yakumo, looking at the stairs. Who did Yakumo mean by him? Pondering that fact, Haruka turned in the direction Yakumo was looking to find Oohori there.

“What are all of you doing?” asked Oohori. His voice was trembling a little.

“Actually, we’d like to open this door. Could you lend us the key?” said Yakumo, displaying a faint smile. “Why do you want to open it?”

Oohori’s question was to be expected. There should be no reason for hotel guests to open a linen room. Even if he was still a trainee, there was no way he would lend the key to them. “Surely you know the reason, Oohori-san,” Yakumo spoke as if he had known everything, and large droplets of sweat began forming on Oohori’s forehead.

There was no mistaking it, Oohori was hiding something. “There’s nothing but fitted sheets and towels inside,”

He was trying his hardest to hide his panic, yet his voice was shaking entirely. “Is that really true?” Yakumo urged him.

“Really.” “It’s best if you stop lying.”

“Lying?” “From the beginning, I’ve felt odd.”

“I’m saying, what’s so odd?” “Although you’re still under training, you didn’t know whether a room was available. It’d be understandable if the hotel was larger, but at this scale, don’t you think it’s odd?”

Certainly, at first they had been told that there had been one room available. Moments later, they had been told again that apparently there had been one more vacant room, and that room had then become Haruka’s room.

“That was merely my mistake...” “Is that so? Then, what do you have to say about this?” Yakumo handed a single shoe that appeared to be a woman’s—that he had seemingly taken out of thin air—to Oohori.

“W-where did you…” “In the employee rest area behind the front desk.”

“You went trespassing inside?” asked Oohori in an accusatory tone. “Please don’t redirect the conversation,” said Yakumo, glaring at Oohori.

“I’m not redirecting...” “In that case, please answer. Who does this shoe belong to?”

“This was, um...The morning shift staff forgot about it...” “Oh? How strange. In the middle of a rain as heavy as this, would anyone go home forgetting their shoe?”

“What nonsense have you been rambling about? With what authority are you doing something like this...” “We do have authority,” interrupted Gotou.

“Eh?” Oohori exclaimed with a surprised look on his face. “Despite his looks, this guy’s a police officer,” Yakumo clarified.

That instant, Oohori turned his heel and quickly ran away while screaming. “Gotou-san! Catch him!”

Even without Yakumo shouting at him, Gotou had already gone after Oohori. Oohori ran down the stairs intending to escape, but Gotou tackled the man’s back and he fell rolling down the stairs.

Gotou then held him face down. Everything happened so quickly that Haruka had no idea what had happened and was left agape.

“What’s the meaning of this?” asked Isshin, who couldn’t grasp the situation either as he shook his head and reached for his chin. “Before I explain, Gotou-san, please get the linen room key from him,” ordered Yakumo.

While restraining Oohori, Gotou removed the bundle of keys from Oohori’s pants before throwing it to Yakumo. “Here.” Yakumo skillfully caught the throw, separating the linen room key once he had singled it out to open the door.

Just what on earth lies within that room? Haruka peered into the linen room through Yakumo’s back and her eyes grew wide.

Inside there was a woman. Strangely, the woman’s hands and legs were tied with duct tape, while her mouth was taped shut.

“Well, this is how things are,” said Yakumo as if they could understand everything just by looking. Haruka didn’t understand a single thing.

- 13

- Half agape, Haruka sat on a sofa at the hotel lobby.

Right at that moment, Oohori was being dragged away by uniformed policemen. The woman that had been trapped in the linen room had been carried to the hospital as well. Yakumo had just finished explaining Oohori’s actions.

As it turned out, the woman who had been trapped in the linen room had been Oohori’s lover. The night before, Oohori had suspected her of cheating and they had had a huge fight. Oohori hadn’t believed his girlfriend. Because of that, he had suspected that she would meet up secretly with her cheating partner while he had been at work.

He had then come up with the idea of locking up his girlfriend. However, if he were to lock her up in his apartment, the door could easily be opened from the inside.

Hence, he had decided to drag his girlfriend all the way to the hotel where he worked and had locked her in the linen room. This hotel’s linen rooms only locked from the outside, so he could easily lock her up.

It was raining heavily today with strong winds, there was renovation work on some of the hotel rooms, and he was working alone; all those factors had supported the execution of his plan. Furthermore, luckily, the room next to the linen room had been vacant, to Oohori’s relief.

Yet suddenly Haruka and the others had arrived because of the rain. Oohori had wanted to send them away by saying that there was only one room available, but had reconsidered as it would be bad if other employees found out, and therefore had intended to get another room ready—but he had made a miscalculation.

Due to ongoing renovations, the number of usable rooms had been limited, and he had been left with no option but to use room 404. He had planned to take his girlfriend out of the linen room before other employees arrive and lock her elsewhere, but he had gotten discovered by Yakumo beforehand.

“Good grief. Causing nothing but trouble for other people,” Sitting in front of Haruka, Gotou grumbled as he looked outside. “Well, don’t say that. This time, Haruka-chan was troubled the most,” said Isshin, smiling softly as he sat next to Gotou.

“No, I...” Haruka shook her head, but to be honest, she had been so terrified when she had been trapped in the room, that she had thought she wouldn’t be able to come out safely. It turned out the door wouldn’t open due to the poor fitting of the door frame, and the lights had been flickering because it hadn’t been installed properly.

Meanwhile, the room wall had a hole in it because a drunken guest had punched through it about a month prior. As a temporary measure, they had hung a painting to cover it up.

However, the painting had fallen down as the woman trapped in the linen room had been thrashing around. Unable to make a sound as her mouth had been sealed shut, the woman had peeked into Haruka’s room through the hole, seeking for help.

After having it explained logically like this, it may not sound like it was a big deal. Yet Haruka had been panicking at the time.

“Well, either way, this was all thanks to her,” said Yakumo, who had been sitting next to Haruka as he slowly stood up. Standing at the end of his sight had to be none other than that girl called Mahiro.

Haruka had thought Mahiro had been trying to tell Haruka about her red doll shoe, but she really had been telling her about the woman that had been trapped in the linen room next to Haruka’s. Mahiro, who had been searching for her red doll shoe all this time, had witnessed a woman wearing red shoes being forcefully dragged and locked up, and had desperately tried to deliver a message to help her.

Yet Haruka had grasped the message incorrectly. “I get it. I’ll make sure to deliver it, so you can go ahead—” said Yakumo, half crouching to meet the four-year-old girl’s height. His gaze then travelled to a distance.

He must’ve been discussing something with Mahiro. “What did she say?”

“She wanted us to deliver her doll’s red shoe to her family,” Yakumo explained. Haruka stared at the red coloured doll shoe, still within her hands.

“Is that so...” Mahiro had already passed—such was the reality that just hit her, making Haruka struggle to breathe.

Mahiro had fallen because she had wanted to retrieve her doll— She must have been sad, but her mother must be carrying a deep sadness as well, alongside the guilt of causing her daughter’s death by leaving her alone in the room.

“Also, she wanted us to send her thanks to her mother,” said Yakumo, straightening his posture. No matter what, they had to convey Mahiro’s words of gratitude to her mother.

Haruka felt it was the only thing that she could do. “Don’t tell me you guys are planning to go visit that Mahiro girl’s mother?” asked Gotou, frowning his forehead.

“Of course. Any objections?” asked Yakumo, glancing in Gotou’s direction. “No,” Gotou shook his head.

Looking out the window, the rain had stopped for some time before they realised it.

#shinrei tantei yakumo #psychic detective yakumo #shinrei tantei yakumo translation #psychic detective yakumo translation #yakumo saitou #saitou yakumo #manabu kaminaga

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gabriel-gabdiel · 1 year ago

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【Draft】 Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 58: Déjà Vu

For this chapter, we’ll be harkening back to things like “The Mark of Zorro (1940)” and the impressive on-screen duel between Captain Esteban Pasquale and Don Diego Vega.

Yahiko is feeling a bit of déjà vu from battling The Faceless. What is it about him that’s so familiar anyway?

Yahiko Myojin remembered the first time Yutaro "Cat Eyes" Tsukayama came back to Japan and the Kamiya Dojo after years of living abroad to seek treatment for his arm injury.

Yutaro was supposed to be injured by his traitorous "master", Raijuta Isurugi. He went overseas for treatment, which enabled him to regain use of his right arm for the most part but he still went "southpaw" or left handed during sparring matches.

Yes, that was right. Mr. Tsukayama had decided to still practice kendo instead of retire.

Inspired by this, Mr. Myojin promised to give his rival the match of his life, showing off his skill honed by his past battle experiences.

When they had their first sparring match in years, Yahiko expected to blow the one-armed Yutaro out of the water, only for Yutaro, with a one-handed handicap, end up making the fight close.

The goddamn magnificent bastard really was a kendo prodigy. Yutaro's careful counters from Gedan-no-Kamae (Earth Stance)`made Yahiko second guess his shots and miss his attacks from the Jodan-no-Kamae (Fire Stance).

Feeling indignant by these turn of events since he went through so much more than him after they last met, Yahiko dug deep into his soul to summon his past battle experiences into the match point blow that literally blasted Tsukayama's helmet off of his head.

He rocked his socks off and then some.

However, to Myojin's annoyance, he still had to do his best against the one-armed student.

Not only did Yutaro remember what little kendo instruction he got from Kaoru Kamiya. He expanded his knowledge somehow when he went overseas to get his arm treated.

He did not waste his time while undergoing treatment and rehabilitation for his nerve-damaged right arm that Raijuta had nearly lopped off.

The cunning "Cat Eyes" somehow added western martial arts and weapon techniques to his solid kendo arsenal, somehow merging east and west together to form a truly unique repertoire.

His approached his kenjutsu like fencing, fighting at a controlled tempo then bursting in speed at the right moments with fluid motion.

It took some time for Yahiko to figure out how Yutaro bested him half of the time, but he eventually realized that Cat Eyes was using mind games and what was known as the "Tactical Wheel" to outsmart him at every other match.

It was from this flashback that Yahiko figured out what this Brigands Guild member's sword techniques reminded him of.

***

Rurouni Yahiko

A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda

Yahiko has seen the sword style of The Faceless before.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

***

Chapter 58: Déjà Vu

***

Back at a narrow alleyway in the Yokohama Chinatown near the Minakata moneychanger offices…

Multiple things happened at once. Like a hurricane of events.

Meanwhile, the lion dance mascot full of martial artists retaliated against Gan by stretching itself like a snake around him and kicking him with spiked shoes and hidden daggers.

Like a wounded animal fighting for its life, even though it was actually multiple men wearing a costume.

"AUUUGH!" cried The Distressed Gan, who did his best to parry and block the slashing and lacerating kicks with his metal bat.

"GAN!" cried out Yahiko Myojin and Munenori Minoe at their comrade.

Because Fabian La Cerca lost his dagger, he thought fast, grabbed hold of Tatsuya Minakata, and threw him through the already broken windows of a probably abandoned house in Chinatown.

This distracted Yahiko long enough for him to withdraw his thin rapier sword before the frightening strength of the eye-patched Munenori beside him could break his weapon in twain as well.

Then, for a split-second, a shocked Myojin and a pale-faced Minoe stood and stared at each other and the violent scenes before them, this brains barely registering what had just happened.

"H-Hey. Thanks for saving me, Minoe," said Yahiko, sheathing his sword and slipping it back on his cloth belt.

"N-No problem," stuttered Munenori. "You better go, Yahiko-chi! We'll keep the mercenaries occupied while you retrieve, uh, Kinta-chi's uncle."

"Of course. Thanks again. I owe you one! Thank Gan for me too!" answered Myojin before both turned and went opposite directions.

Or they would've had the lion mascot not suddenly appeared beside Munenori and snatched him off the ground with its unhinged puppet jaws, like a real lion biting its prey.

From behind the mascot hobbled the Gasping Gan, spurts of blood making small fountains on his legs and calves.

"AH! Minoe!" yelped Yahiko, intending to run after the eye-patched dual wielder but Gan stopped him cold with an outstretched hand and an open palm.

Without looking at him, Gan said, "Don't worry, Yoshi-boy. I'll take care of Patches. Go after The Masked Rider instead. Time is running out!"

"…Fine. Make sure you finish that mascot off!" said Yahiko, who finally sprinted towards the abandoned building where The Faceless threw Tatsuya.

Their brief hellos and goodbyes kept them from realizing how naïve their presumptions were.

***

Back at the exterior facade of the Minakata moneychanger office building…

The cackling Kai Hidaka briefly distracted the two brothers from the same mother.

One was a Eurasian bastard child who somehow ended up as part of the Brigands Guild of international mercenaries.

The other was the grandson of a samurai turned pharmaceutical tycoon with generational wealth and significant government clout as an oligarch.

They then realized that somehow, the high-flying spidery ninja somehow defeated the formidable shinobi that the bastard with the bastard sword couldn't finish off.

"…You know what? I don't hate you, mate. You're a fine bloke to me," Lucas Grant said to his estranged half-brother, Kinta Minakata. "You spared me from having to deal with both you and that troublesome ninja bodyguard of yours so this ends up a fair fight."

Kinta spared a glance at the motionless Zan, whom he presumed had critically injured Lucas, but was actually somehow like a steam train running on fumes.

Maybe they should've double-teamed the bloody Prodigal Son while they had the chance. Maybe he was too "honorable" for his own good.

Their pattern from before resumed. The wounded but aggressive Luke plodded on, only blocking the most bone-cutting of sweeping slashes from Kinta to avoid getting his limbs lopped off.

Meanwhile, on Minakata's part, every last chopping blow or lunging stab from Grant was potentially a one-hit kill. He also had to watch out for his half-brother's pommel strikes too.

This was confirmed with how, despite outlanding Lucas in strikes, the Sanada Demon Zan succumbed to internal bleeding from a blow or stab.

Nevertheless, like with most of his fight with Zan, Luke couldn't land a significant blow on his big brother and his superior swordsmanship skill.

However, the bastard son of the Minakatas had started clipping and slicing bits and pieces of Kinta's flesh.

"It kind of irritates me that you're as good as you are despite being given everything in the world," confessed Luke.

They clashed swords again. The Akatsuki held true, but it could not stave off the longer reach and thicker steel of Lucas's bastard sword and its superior steel.

"I didn't know what to expect. A spoiled little rich boy, maybe? Someone who has no idea how cruel the world can be. An entitled dishrag of a man drowning in wealth and privilege. But you're something else, Big Brother."

Like a lion to a gazelle, Lucas stalked his prey, his strikes that previously whiffed and got countered slowly clipping and slashing his tiring brother, wearing him down.

However, like a gazelle to a lion, Kinta evaded Lucas. The bastard child of the Minakatas had yet to land a significant blow on him even as his collection of flesh wounds increased.

Even when Luke blocked the Mangetsu O Tsuku Nari (Full Moon Slash) with his much longer, sturdier bastard sword, Kinta's Akatsuki (Red Moon) katana could still penetrate the block and leave cuts on him.

Deep cuts. Cuts that almost dug deep into his bone. His nerves. His veins. Or even his very soul.

Like a dashing stag's horns piercing through the lion's hide from mid-pounce. The prey fighting for its life, injuring its predator.

'Of course it wasn't going to be that easy,' thought Lucas with a smile that formed on his bloody mouth, his teeth dyed red. 'Fine. Anything that's worth anything should be this hard to get!'

***

Inside the nearby abandoned warehouse building…

Yahiko wandered into the area where The Faceless threw Tatsuya Minakata into, the banker's body messily crashing through the structure's western-style windows.

His slippers stepping on shards of glass that glistened in the moonlight, crushing them under his soles.

"HEY! Thin Man! Where are you? Are you still alive?" called out Yahiko, referring to the V.I.P. he was guarding.

Tatsuya Minakata, the banker son of the famous hatamoto-class samurai oligarchs of both the Shogunate and the Meiji Government, the Minakata Family.

One of the heirs of the huge Minakata Zaibatsu (Conglomerate), Tatsuya was next in line to inherit his family's vast fortune after his mother kicks the bucket. Or so Myojin heard.

He was followed by his younger brother the lawyer and their swordsman nephew, the former member of the Shogunate's special guard.

These people were so filthy rich, they'd make Chizuru Raikouji's family look poor. Or the drug dealer Kanryu Takeda look downright middle class. Or fellow oligarch Jusanro Tani quaint.

'Wonder what that's like,' thought Yahiko with a smirk and a head-shake, repressing memories of him pick-pocketing for the mob to help pay for his family's debts.

Even just one of the trinkets or heirlooms here, like a painting or a suit of armor, would've been enough to pay for his parents' debt with the yakuza. Maybe. It looked like they wanted to have him for keeps.

He maneuvered his sandaled feet through the glass shards like he were walking on eggshells. Shiny, sharp, painful eggshells.

He found Tatsuya in the nick of time. He lay there but not in a pool of his own blood, though he did receive several cuts from going through the window.

"Whew. Thank goodness I found you before The Faceless could get you, Thin Man," said Yahiko, his voice barely above a whisper. "…Uh, Tatsuya-san? You okay, bud?"

"…Y-You're fired," groaned Tatsuya. "I'm going to have my brother sue you for the injuries I've sustained, you teenaged brat!"

Myojin sighed in both relief and exasperation. "Yeah, you're welcome. Save your life? No prob. Think nothing of it."

"Save my life? My assassin just threw me through a window! I almost died!" yelped Kinta's uncle.

Yahiko then barely had time to parry and back away from the attacking Faceless in his next breath, its tip clipping his clavicle, drawing blood.

He cursed under his breath. If John Rathbone could get away with it, he'd kill him with a thousand cuts.

"You didn't kill Minakata Tatsuya yet?" accused Yahiko. "You had every chance to do so."

"I like to play with my prey," answered The Faceless, who now wore a different mask than before. "Half the fun of my assassination missions is the thrill of the hunt and triggering the primal instincts of my victims. Fight or flight."

Yahiko groaned, realizing he now had to deal with this pantomiming foreign invader with a mask shtick worse than the late Hannya from the Oniwabanshu (Castle Guardians).

Tatsuya himself said to The Faceless, "Forget the kid. Whatever your sponsor is paying to assassinate our family, I'll double it! Triple it, even! Stay and become our bodyguard and you could earn a fortune!"

"Watch your filthy mouth, my little piggy bank," said the master fencer. "Once the kid dies, I have no reason to let you live either."

"What a coincidence. I feel the same way about you, Faceless," said Yahiko, surprising even himself with the boldness of his words.

The Faceless smirked. "O-ho. You wouldn't care to translate that feeling into action, would you?"

"I might be tempted," the Son of Tokyo Samurai said.

"Would you, now?" The Faceless proceeded to put his right sword arm forward, pointing his rapier at Yahiko's face while his other hand rested on his hip, his left arm bent on its elbow.

He also had his right leg bent forward, his lead foot pointed at his opponent while his left rear leg and foot pointed to his left side.

The Faceless—who now decided to refer to himself as John Rathbone instead of Fabian La Cerca—told the samurai kid, "Didn't realize you brought your friends along. I miss my dagger. Now I can't show off Fabian's sword and dagger technique."

'Good,' thought the teenager, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at the fencer lest he cut it out. 'I can barely land a hit on you with that dagger around as is. Thanks, Minoe.'

As the moonlight touched the naked blade of Yahiko's inherited sakabatou, The Faceless remarked, "What is with that sword of yours? Is it a sickle you're wielding or a sword? The blade is on the wrong side. You can't cut someone down like that."

Yahiko then said, "It's not for cutting down people. It's for saving people. It's the sword of life."

***

Kinta Minakata didn't mean to retreat. He got forced to do so.

Like sheep being herded back to their corral by a farm dog. Or a pack of wolves picking the herd apart for lunch.

Was he really luring his half-brother to a trap or was he being herded by him instead? It depended on which one of them would ultimately survive this encounter.

He'd actually been waiting for a counter opportunity that never came. Instead, he faced constant, unrelenting pressure from his supposed half-brother.

The literal Minakata bastard.

He didn't know what to think about it. His mind whirled of memories of being bullied and made fun of by his peers for having his father cuckolded or invaded by a foreigner, stealing away his wife who birthed a bastard.

The child whose father ruined his parents' marriage and led his own father to commit sepukku (ritual suicide) by hara-kiri (disembowelment) and later decapitation.

This devilish blond man was like all that past trauma of his personified. This son of a bitch.

No, wait. He'd never call him that. He'd never shame his mother that way.

Rather, he was a son of a gun by the truest sense of the term. A "gun" referred to a foreign military person, he believed. Sons of guns tended to be children of navy sailors.

The phrase potentially originated in a Royal Navy direction that pregnant women aboard smaller naval vessels had to give birth in the space between the broadside guns to keep the gangways and crew decks clear.

He would've pondered on this more had his relentless half-brother gave him enough breathing room and time for his brain to process this bombshell of a revelation.

He'd nailed several counters at Lucas already but he wouldn't go down. As if him attacking while already bleeding and injured by Zan was a lie or ruse to get Kinta's guard down.

The man's stamina was impressive. Unlike his stamina, which was the complete opposite.

Lucas had been fighting, beating, and killing bodyguards left and right for what felt like hours and there he was, fresh like a daisy.

Or rather, the presence of blood seemed to sharpen his senses, activating his fight-or-flight instincts. Or a shark going into a feeding frenzy. Even if it was his own blood.

Luke's wild, beastly eyes shone in the dark, lit by a sliver of moonlight. Like the eyes of an animal ready to pounce. To prove that sometimes even the savviest of humans had to let nature take its course and succumb to getting mauled by a lion or bear.

Cunning and careful planning could only take you so far in the wild.

Kinta also had one serious problem. Try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to hate this stranger who tried his best to kill the entire Minakata Family.

He shouldn't feel this way, especially against such a dangerous man who already murdered so many of his family's elite guards as well as several of the Sanada Ninjas.

Everyone's lives were at stake against the Brigands Guild of assassins and mercenaries.

***

Yahiko remembered Kaoru's words like it was yesterday.

"The Kamiya Kasshin Ryu is a sword style that my father developed during the Meiji Era after surviving the turbulence of the Bakumatsu."

Her father and the founder of the Kamiya Dojo, Koshijiro Kamiya, didn't approve of murderous swords. With the ambition for swords that gave life, Koshijiro and his daughter Kaoru gave this sword style everything they had for 10 years.

"The sakabatou is a sword that gives life instead of takes it. A life-giving sword," said Yahiko, echoing what Kaoru and even Kenshin had told him in the past on why they chose to teach him Kamiya Kasshin Ryu instead of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu.

"A life-giving sword? What utter hogwash is that? Next you'll tell me you want a healing gun, or a bomb that puts your limbs back together!" mocked The Faceless.

"You're lucky because I follow a non-killing sword style. Even though I want to kill you to avenge the people you've killed, I'll settle on defeating you," said Yahiko while falling into his Water Stance.

He inwardly cringed at his audacity for saying those words but knew deep down that even though he didn't share Kenshin's past regrets, he also wasn't too keen to spill blood himself.

He promised both Kenshin and Kaoru he wouldn't. Let the endless murders end with the Bakumatsu, they said.

"You are aware that this is a duel to the death, child. I'm under no obligation to spare your life even if you're foolish enough to spare mine," said The Faceless.

"A sword is made to kill. Let me teach you that painful lesson, boy."

"Spare me the speech. I've heard it all before. 'Swords are weapons.' 'Swordsmanship is the art of killing.' But even if you think I'm sugarcoating the truth, I can and will show you what a life-giving sword is all about."

Myojin wondered if he could back up his bluster or if he wasn't merely bluffing. A sword that gave life instead of taking it away was patently ridiculous and totally contradictory.

What pushed him to say such things? What made him choose to believe Kaoru's flowery words and her father's idealistic beliefs like Kenshin did when they first met?

"Heh. Is that so? Spoken like a child who has never gotten blood in your hands," harrumphed the masked Faceless, his mask-covered nose seemingly upturned at Yahiko.. "You're a child."

"Yeah, and? So what?" said Yahiko. "I'd like to keep it that way. I don't want to be a murderer. I just want to beat you."

Yahiko did a Simple Attack from the Jodan-no-Kamae (Fire Stance) of having the sakabatou raised high up over his head, his muscles tense and his shuffling footwork gauging the distance by feel.

Whether it was a slash or a thrust after a miss from any of the eight directions as shown in the Kuzu Ryu Sen, it didn't matter.

He expected the Parry Riposte to happen and was actually baiting him to strike to do a combination strike or Compound Attack (attacks with feints) or even a Counter Attack (responding in a way that avoided the riposte while landing the counter).

Patiently, Rathbone's riposte turned into another circular parry as he danced around Yahiko's probing swings and answered with blocks and deflection, as though figuring out the kid wasn't committing fully to the strikes enough to land an effective counter to the counter or Counter Time.

Yahiko did more feints to draw out a possible counterattack from John Rathbone that he could counter or do his own Counter Time. Or he even countered an obvious feint from Rathbone, hoping to react fast enough to counter the resulting Counter Time with his own Feint in Time or a feinted counterattack.

'So he's another samurai who knows the Tactical Wheel,' thought Rathbone. 'Fascinating. Kenjutsu isn't the primitive, ineffective martial art I thought it was.'

The Faceless then read and parried all his feints until he found an angle where he could do an off-time riposte before Yahiko could react.

The thrust didn't stab the teenager in the heart, but only because John slashed at the last second to avoid Myojin's Hadachi (Sword Catch) technique.

"You're a funny fellow, kid," said Rathbone with a chuckle while wiping Yahiko's blood from his triangular blade. He then turned towards the injured Minakata and declared, "You have a champion with you, Minakata Tatsuya. And what a champion."

For his part, Tatsuya Minakata managed to crawl to the nearest boxes and rest his back there, sitting away from these two dueling fools.

He'd give a king's ransom to have both of these dangerous idiots beheaded.

***

Judging by the additional wounds Kinta Minakata gave his bastard brother, the gulf in skill between the two was apparent.

So why didn't it matter? Why didn't the long-lost "Takuto Minakata" crumple down and die from his strikes?

Did he really need to cut him through the bone, lop off his limbs, or decapitate him to kill him? Otherwise, he wouldn't die?

He still kept standing. Biding his time. Parrying endlessly, like his (presumably) sword master The Faceless would, in order to find an opening.

Luke's defense was practically nonexistent compared to Rathbone. However, he more than made up for it with his limitless stamina and out-of-this-world resiliency.

In comparison, the only blood staining Kinta's clothes were that of his brother's or any of the Brigands Guild he'd faced off against so far.

And yet a he felt a sense of gloom at the back of his head. He had to keep his guard up as long as Lucas kept moving.

The blonde foreign devil looked injured but to be honest, none of his bleeding wounds were fatal. They were just flesh wounds.

Also, Lucas noticed that he hadn't landed a significant strike on his brother for quite some time. Injured and bleeding, Luke charged forward, cutting the distance between them and making it harder to land full-strength counters.

Like he'd been prolonging this fight to memorize his older brother's tempo, range, tells, tactics, techniques, tendencies, and rhythm. As though a war of attrition favored him the most.

Now every time Kinta attempted a Full Moon Slash, Luke braced himself to block the strike with a two-handed parry before it could reach its apex.

He also sidestepped the slash with a blade deflection. He even minimized the impact of an unblocked or belatedly blocked technique by hopping backwards and letting the arcing slash push him away.

And just like that, Kinta's ultimate attack had been sealed. He couldn't even do a Blue Moon Slash anymore because Lucas wouldn't let him even land one Full Moon Slash.

On his part, Luke didn't relent on any of his attacks either, with every slash, stab, and chop of his with the potential to maim, bisect, dissect, draw, or quarter anyone it hit.

Again, Minakata felt like a helpless child dodging carriages or a stamped of spooked horses in open traffic.

His brother really swung for the fences. And even if his full commitment to his strikes left him wide open, he was more than willing to take a shallow slash to land a deeper one.

How very Japanese of him for a gaijin. He embodied the very definition of the Japanese saying, "Let them cut your flesh, and you will break their bones."

***

By the age of fifteen, Yahiko had become a national champion level swordsman feared and revered in Tokyo as "The Catcher of a Thousand Blades" thanks to his shirahadori (blade catching) mastery.

At that time, he had also mastered Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, proving as much with the feat of stopping the first five attacks from Kenshin's Kuzu Ryu Sen (Nine-Headed Dragon Flash) technique once.

Nevertheless, Myojin grit his teeth as he faced off against The Faceless' comparatively tamer yet more methodical attacks.

Having to deal with an elusive opponent who picked his spots, took his sweet time to attack, you couldn't hit, could read all of your attacks and feints felt like pulling teeth.

Or a thousand paper cuts while submerged in a lemon bath. These little nicks that were shallower than a wound yet somehow felt worse, like you'd been set on fire.

The difference between death and torture, even.

"We have a hero with us," mocked Rathbone, daring Yahiko to strike all the way with circular parries and inviting thrusts. "I'll gladly play the role of the villain now. Don't disappoint me, hero."

John Rathbone really was the spirit and image of Yutaro Tsukayama's fencing-like kenjutsu, right down to slowing the pace to a crawl in order to peck and prick the enemy to death.

Or at least anger an opponent enough to make him charge recklessly and commit with full bone-cutting slashes then make him pay for his recklessness.

'…How did this gaijin defeat the echolocation ninja anyway?' Yahiko thought as they again exchanged parries and dodges. 'A ninja who could detect and react to him instantly. And could mess with his rhythm. What is his secret to solving those problems?'

Yahiko observed that no matter how hard he feinted or attempted to interrupt The Faceless' rhythm, he'd find a way to recover, parry, or dodge then reset the assault or counter off any of the samurai teen's attempts at charging.

He had a safety zone he could shell up into or retreat towards to cover up any gaps or openings in his stance or his actions.

Even when the Sanada Demon interrupted his rhythm, he could still counter off any openings presented to him by a charging opponent.

He always set the pace and countered at more flexible or awkward angles compared to the comparatively frigid stances of kenjutsu.

He was one step ahead every time and did mind games on what he'd do next. His wait-and-see strategy also allowed him to adapt and counter any tactics thrown at him.

Just like Yutaro's modus operandi.

Because of his injured hand, Tsukayama relied more on an overall strategy that used his opponent's strengths against them instead of relying on tactics and discovering his opponent's weaknesses throughout the course of the battle.

However, this persistent sense of déjà vu (French for "already dreamed") merely pushed Yahiko further, his curved sword clashing in sparking flashes with Faceless' thin straight blade with endless probing parries to find openings or to create them.

Fortunately, Yahiko's newly acquired skills of dodging, blocking, parrying, and cutting the distance from a retreating opponent limiting the amount of thrusts and ripostes from John.

His endless drills with May Brooks/Satsuki Sakaguchi had paid dividends. Otherwise, he would've been skewered by the Faceless long ago.

The Kamiya Kasshin Ryu master also remembered why he went into his Musha Shugyo (Warrior's Pilgrimage) in the first place. To defeat his rival, Yutaro, and his defensive kendo skills.

***

You shouldn't let his crimson mask of blood deceive you. Lucas Grant was more dangerous now than he was before he started bleeding.

It could be that Lucas was stronger and more durable than Kinta the same way Luke's bastard sword could break the samurai's katana because of its higher grade, carbon-rich steel.

However, it didn't necessarily matter.

Kinta was no mere injured animal fighting tooth and nail for his life by letting his base instincts take over either.

The Mimawarigumi Battousai was as dangerous to his fellow men as men were to animals.

Humans were weaker than most animals yet they somehow ended up becoming the dominant species in the world.

Kinta was no mere beast. He was more than a lion. He was a man. A hunter. The human animal that was on top of the food chain. The apex predator of apex predators.

Granted, a human wasn't faster than a cheetah. Nor stronger than a gorilla. Nor more brutal than a tiger or lion. His nails weren't as sharp as bear claws. Without clothes, he was as exposed as a naked mole rat or a chick that fell off its nest.

By all accounts, in the animal kingdom, a human should be prey instead of the apex predator.

However, humans weren't as weak as one would think.

They had opposable thumbs like apes and monkeys, allowing them the ability to make tools and tightly grip sharp weapons to make up for their lack of claws and raw strength.

They were long-distance endurance runners. While animals could outrun any human at any given time, a human was adept at stalking and tiring such animals down with unrelenting determination.

Any animal could beat humans in a race but they'd tire out trying to outpace a human in a marathon race.

Humans could also sweat, which allowed them to efficiently cool down and prevent themselves from overheating due to activity.

Most animals did not have as effective of a cooling system as humans, so any exertion of commensurate effort on their part, like fleeing or fighting for their life, will leave them more exhausted compared to the self-cooling human.

However, the weapon Kinta had in between his ears was what made him the most dangerous.

The human weapon of intelligence.

A human was able to plan, work with groups of other humans, and make tools. He was no mere animal acting on instinct.

The most intelligent and methodical of humans could turn hunters like any of the big cats into the hunted by springing traps on them or using projectiles against them, from rocks to spears.

Humans could also communicate with each other through language. They could take down even huge animals like elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses by tactics, traps, subterfuge, and cooperation.

Even as Lucas pressured Kinta to retreat from an endless barrage of decapitating strikes—knowing his large chunk of steel he called a sword could withstand a strike better than the thinner though sharper katana—the samurai conserved his energy.

He'd memorized Luke's tactics, which kept him safe from even the wildest strikes through pattern recognition. Like a human stalking his prey and memorizing their movement and habits before going in for the kill.

Even as Kinta panted and sweated from the effort, his intelligence kept him from succumbing to wild beasts like his reckless brother.

Even as he tasted the rusty tang of his own blood in his mouth after clearing his throat, his brother still could barely touch him.

Alas, his brother was no mere beast either. Lucas also resembled the human animal, particularly in terms of his tireless stamina, quick recovery, hand-eye coordination, and ability to outlast his prey like an ancient hunter-gatherer.

A modern human with caveman-like strength and instincts.

***

"…In the next attack, I'll parry thrice then do a riposte," said The Faceless all of a sudden, alarming Yahiko. "Pay attention now."

Was he going to really do it? Was he going to tell him his next attack and still land, confident that Myojin couldn't come up with a counter? Or was he lying about doing that and he'd counter a different way?

And so Yahiko attempted to fly and bash Faceless on the noggin, only for him to get parried.

He then attempted to break the sword with the Tsui Gami (God Hammer), with got neutralized with two parries, followed by a riposte that he tried to counter with the Shippu Jinrai Dotou no Ken (Gale Thunderclap Billow Sword) to the wrist.

However, the riposte ripped through regardless, with Rathbone turning his wrist to parry the blow with his elongated sword handle. He was landing at will now.

Damn you, Cat Eyes. Oh wait, this wasn't Cat Eyes. This was The Faceless.

Rathbone said, "Wipe yourself, kiddo. You're bleeding."

"…I needed that scratch to awaken me!" responded Yahiko.

Fine. Whatever. He'd been planning to use this technique against Yutaro but… what the hell. He might as well use it on this mirror image of Yutaro's kenjutsu.

Yutaro's swordsmanship was such that it didn't matter if you used your best techniques at him, he'd use your strengths as your weakness with a strategy that figured the whole essence of your own kenjutsu out.

Yahiko was different. He was the Yang to Yutaro's Yin. Or vice-versa.

Instead of figuring out a strategy to take out an opponent, he'd rather wing it or improvise, like when he figured out the weakness of the high-flying Hennya Kariwa was someone who could fly like him.

Any strategy Yahiko exhibited was purely incidental. He was more a think-on-your-feet kind of guy who relied on gut instinct to think up new tactics on the fly.

And his gut instinct told him that The Faceless had the same fundamental weakness as Yutaro.

"Next we'll do a Beat Parry Riposte," bragged Rathbone, only for him to frown when Yahiko charged at him. Like an enraged bull annoyed by all the cape waving of the matador.

'Huh. Fine. If he wants to play to my strengths, I'll indulge him,' thought John, preparing to do a Beat Parry Riposte regardless of what attack, counterattack, or feint Myojin had in mind.

Yahiko instead responded with a Counter Time. So it was a feint.

'No problem, time to adjust…?!' thought John before getting blindsided by a simple head strike, the blunt end of the sakabatou hammering his noggin and leaving a crack on his mask.

To himself, Rathbone wondered, 'What just happened?'

"Maybe next time, you'd have the common sense to not tell me what you're about to do next, old man," the petulant teenager answered back.

***

Back after The Faceless recently faced-off against Kinta Minakata, he relayed the following information to Lucas Grant.

"...I didn't notice it at first since I'm no a spring chicken myself, but Minakata Kinta has stamina problems. He slows down the longer you prolong a fight. Just like me, because of my age. Your youth will win out as long as you can withstand his extensive swordsman experience."

"Does he now?" Luke had asked with a twinkle in his blue eyes. "That's fascinating. Tell me more about Niisan (Big Brother)."

"Make your duel into a war of attrition. I haven't met anyone who has ever outlasted you in a fight. Turn it into a brawl. Throw away all technique. Don't bother outthinking him, just keep on striking. Take him into deep waters. Drown him. Show him how you've survived after all these years."

And thus Lucas did just that. Running high on adrenalin and testing the limits of his monstrous stamina, Luke kept his breathing low to conserve his energy.

He kept his frenetic pace by taking breaks while Kinta second guessed his next move and using twitch reflexes to counter or respond without thought in the middle of his rest period.

Boy, was his big brother a tough nut to crack. Most other swordsmen would've succumbed to him by now. However, the Minakata boys were apparently built different.

He'd thrown everything at him but a kitchen sink, and all he had to show for it were minor scratches and bruises.

Like he'd merely been roughhousing him on the playground like his childhood bully instead of doing his best to assassinate him then and there.

He'd poured the pressure on him, each of his full-power strikes killing blows in their own right, but the high-ranking hatamoto samurai remained cool under pressure. He had ice water in his veins.

The plan was to push his half-brother to his limits and run him ragged, knowing full well that he had respiratory problems stemming from his time with Hidden Christian rebels.

However, the red-faced Luke himself ached all over. He had a splitting headache as well. He underestimated the toll of exerting himself so much, yet he ended up swinging at nothing but air every time.

That cunning bastard. Even as Grant attempted to tire Minakata out, Minakata turned the tables on him and tired him out instead with all his missed swings and over-exertion.

His threshold for pain might be high, but he was testing its limits with all the cuts and lacerations he kept barely blocking from the Mimawarigumi Battousai.

He was also left to wonder: Was Kinta's deadpan face the look of someone out of breath and dying from his effort? He couldn't tell.

Kinta looked like he just went through a light jog. He'd broken a sweat, finally, but what of it? Did it compare to the buckets of blood Luke had already spilled?

Which one of them really was the more tired of the two?

Luke gulped hard, bracing himself for a long volley of attacks to come just to break apart his half-brother's clam shell defense and counters.

He had to do this though. Kinta Minakata was the biggest hurdle towards him getting his revenge against the family that abandoned him and his mother. That turned his life into a living hell.

Even with The Faceless' cunning strategy in mind, everything was still going to go down to the wire. Survival of the fittest.

'No hard feelings, Big Brother.'

***

Yahiko fell into his neutral Water Stance once again.

A basic kendo stance that invited all sorts of fencing attacks or counters at every corner from the more mobile sword style.

The Faceless' sword arm swung like a pendulum again, ready to parry, slash, or thrust at a moment's notice, with it serving as his means of gauging his opponent's next…!

The floor buckled beneath him. In a second, Yahiko had struck the ground with a Dou Gami (God on Earth).

Dammit. That technique had a wide berth and swing! Why couldn't Rathbone anticipate it this time?

Caught flatfooted, John Rathbone hopped to stable ground, away from the sudden explosion of rubble and debris, his sword ready to preemptively attack or counterattack.

Yahiko emerged from the smoke with a running start. Rathbone did a counter thrust that turned into a parry at the last second.

They ended up pushing off against each other with the strength of their swings, John's rapier trembling from Myojin's attempt at a blade-breaking Tsui Gami.

"The Faceless's blade is not so firm," the samurai kid said in jest.

The Brigands Guild member answered, "Still firm enough to run you through."

"Is that right? Make sure to keep your wrists safe from harm, then."

"What…?"

While Myojin was initially intimidated by The Faceless calling out his attacks, he realized it was no different from kendo matches calling out the part of the armor they hit when they were having formal matches.

It was up to the opponent to register what was said and respond. And respond he did.

"KOTE! DOUTOU NO KEN!"

As Yahiko's original signature move as a child—the Gale Thunderclap Billow Sword—landed on Rathbone's wrist, disarming him, the samurai teen inwardly grinned.

That was the weakness of The Faceless. Same as Yutaro Tsukayama.

When push came to shove, they'd wait for an opportunity to counter rather than attack 9 times out of 10.

Even when they attacked, they tended to bait a counterattack first to make their attack a counterattack.

The only time they attacked was when they had run out of options, but at that point they become vulnerable to counterattacks themselves.

Timing a Counter Time right in a way that they didn't see it coming was the key to success.

To John's chagrin, he heard Tatsuya holler at him. "Well, well, well. The fencing master has met his equal."

'My equal, you say?' thought the indignant Faceless while rubbing his wrists. 'Excuse me? Him? My equal? Balderdash.'

***

From the high-pace exchange of slashes and parries, the fight between blood brothers ground to almost a halt.

They paced themselves equally, with Luke pushing for the action while Kinta defended and kept an eye out for counter opportunities.

Their breathing was heavy. They panted like tired dogs in the middle of a summer heat wave. Their fight that lasted minutes felt like hours of nonstop trench war.

Neither willing to give ground. One fought to salvage his honor. The other fought to enact revenge upon the family who abandoned him.

On one hand, there was Kinta Minakata. He glistened with light perspiration from the effort and a couple of cuts and bruises, but his breathing was as ragged as his half-brother's.

The only blood on him was his brother's, among others. As expected of the sole Mimawarigumi survivor given the same moniker as the Ishin Shishi's own Battousai.

His wheezing and occasional coughing belied his pristine condition. He also looked paler, perhaps even bluer, then usual.

On the other hand, there was Lucas Grant. He was supposed to be named Takuto Minakata, but his blond hair and blue eyes after he was born gave him away.

He looked like he'd gone from hell and back after taking on two of three Sanada Demons. However, his movements looked somehow sharper and livelier than his brother from another father.

For someone who looked like he was tortured, there remained a spring in his step. As though the blood on him was not his own. Or perhaps bleeding somehow invigorated him.

Which one of them was more exhausted? Which one of them was on the verge of death? The one who looked like he was almost dead or the one who sounded like he was almost dead?

Those were the thoughts filling Lieutenant Satoru Sakaguchi as he cradled his daughter near him while warily giving the side eye on the other remaining Brigands Guild member.

For his part, Kai Hidaka himself watched the bullfight of a match between fellow brigand Lucas and his brother, Kinta. If he were unmasked, perhaps he'd show an agape mouth.

Neither of the three moved from their positions as tensions rose between the panting, gasping Minakata Brothers.

The heavy breathing and groaning soon relaxed and slowed until they stopped altogether.

The two Minakata Brothers then stood up at the same time. They had saved up all their strength for this last salvo.

They controlled their breath and measured the distance between them by eyesight. They seemed to breathe almost in cadence with one another.

Slowly but surely, Kinta sheathed his blade. Meanwhile, Lucas kept his hunk of sharpened iron stabbed into the ground, waiting for the right moment to pull it out and lift it for an attack.

***

Yahiko thought about running after or even stomping on Rathbone's rapier on the factory floor to break it apart, but its owner had already dove to get a hold of it.

Oh well. Thusly, the Tokyo Samurai Descendant said, "For my next trick, I'll break that sword of yours apart."

John harrumphed. So now the kid was calling his shot as well? "You dare use my own gimmick against me, Myojin Yahiko?"

"Yessir. I sure do dare." The Tokyo Samurai Descendant fell back to his familiar Water Stance.

Rathbone himself fell into his En Garde fencing stance in kind, bouncing on his heels and measuring the distance with probing rapier thrusts.

Knowing what would happen next. They both knew, actually.

Rathbone had figured out how Yahiko was landing his strikes. The samurai kid used the same preparatory stance to initiate all of his offense, transitioning suddenly to other stances from the basic kendo stance if he had to.

This way, he gave no "tell" or "signal" to what he was about to do next. His stance remained neutral at every exchange.

All of his techniques, from the Revisal Techniques to the original Kamiya Kasshin Ryu and even his imitation Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu moves could be done from the Chudan-no-Kamae.

Making Rathbone second-guess which attack to counter allowed Yahiko to react to his belated counters in time and do the appropriate Counter Time.

In this scenario, even a "telegraphed" attack like Dou Gami could land, because if John were to notice it in time and counter, Yahiko had enough time to react and turn the strike into a feint and Counter Time.

"Genei Gami (Phantom God)," Myojin whispered.

Hiding all his techniques' preparatory movements from the neutral stance to better read his opponent was the next step of his Revisal Techniques.

And as the blocked Dou Gami finally gave Yahiko enough room to execute the Tsui Gami, Rathbone's rapier finally broke into two pieces.

Alas, this was what Rathbone bet on.

With a gloved hand, he grabbed hold of one piece of the broken sword and dual wielded the blades, blocking the samurai kid's follow-up strike with the bottom half and stabbing him in the shoulder with the top half.

"My equal? Really? ¡Qué huevá más grande! (What an annoyance!)" said John Rathbone, who'd transformed into the Spaniard Fabian La Cerca at the last second upon finding a way to turn his rapier into his favored sword and dagger weapons.

"AUGH!" said Yahiko, who had gripped The Faceless' wrist in time to keep the rapier from reaching his vital organs, his face twisted in anguish.

"You're 100 years too early to be facing me, child."

***

To Lucas's surprise, it was Kinta who spoke first after his katana slid to its scabbard with a click. He had one question for him.

"What happened to Mother?" asked the heir to the Minakata Zaibatsu fortune.

"She's dead," said the Prodigal Son matter-of-factly. "Your family killed her. Called her a traitor to her nation. A whore to the gaijin invaders. Disowned her. Cast her aside. Banished her as their black sheep. Forgot about her altogether, like she didn't exist. Does that answer your question, Big Brother?"

"…."

Despite himself, Satoru murmured, "So the rumors were true. Damn."

Beside him, the officer's daughter stirred, pretending to be asleep but clearly hearing what Kinta's yonger brother said.

Azuma Minakata committed ritual suicide after his wife slept with a foreigner and bore their bastard son. Afterwards, Aoi Minakata was never heard from again.

The Minakatas pretended she never existed and thus she didn't. Until now.

The two finally addressed the elephant in the proverbial room, clearing the air between them.

It was the very thing that held them back and kept them from going all out. It left them wondering what they were even fighting for.

Now they know. The Minakatas committed an unforgivable sin and their unknown grandchild had come to collect.

Also, like cowards, they used their precious heir to the throne to defend themselves against retribution, making him implicit to their crimes. An accessory to murder.

Lucas would've rather drawn and quartered his cowardly Uncle Kaneda. Or tortured the pride out of his arrogant Uncle Tatsuya before beheading him.

Maybe even mercy-kill his Grandmother Mieko. Then piss on the grave of his late Grandfather Toshiro.

Luke had been disguising himself as their bodyguard all this time for a reason. To gauge whether they deserved retribution or if they changed from their evil ways. What he saw of them steeled his resolve. Most of them deserved what was coming to them.

Alas, their honorable nephew or grandson Kinta was in his way from committing justified familicide.

It couldn't be helped. They were both victims of circumstance.

The two then charged at each other, Kinta waiting for the right moment to draw his Akatsuki (Red Moon) katana and Lucas preparing a full two-handed swing of his bastard sword.

***

The Faceless's body stood up in attention, as though preparing to march. He then shifted to his fencing stance, his free arm settling on his hips, his jousting or fencing hand moving in circles in front of him.

Yahiko was now faced with two problems. One, his shoulder got injured, so his reaction time had been physically diminished.

Two, The Faceless was back to using two swords, so even the Genei Gami's ability to hide which attack he was using could not overcome Fabian La Cerca merely blocking or parrying with his other arm.

They were back to square one. Only this time, the game of cat and mouse was over. The cat won and the mouse ended up too injured to still play with.

The cat was about to eat him now.

'Oh yeah? Well screw that!'

Throwing caution to the wind, Yahiko shifted to the offensive Fire Stance this time. His true signature stance—an all-offense one focused on striking at the precise moment.

He feinted and baited the dual-wielding fencing master for all he was worth.

However, he couldn't land a counter-counterstrike this time because Faceless had one other trick up his sleeve other than the broken tip of his rapier. He also broke his rhythm.

He stopped. Paused. Avoided committing into a regular tempo or pattern to allow himself to react even at the last second in case he again misread an attack or feint from Yahiko's Phantom God.

He shifted from fast to slow at irregular intervals, like the clumsiest and drunkest dance partner determined to step on your feet at every turn.

For, unbeknownst to Myojin, this was how La Cerca ultimately beat the tempo-altering, echolocating techniques of the bat ninja Baku.

Furthermore, La Cerca could shift between attacking and defending with either sword arm. He could turn his swords into dual shields or shift between sword and shield on either hand at a moment's notice, depending on the exchange.

The Faceless outclassed the injured and slower samurai in every single way.

However, before the fencer could finish the samurai off with another stab or even an arterial cut to make him bleed so much he'd pass out and die, he had to deflect shuriken from out of the blue and retreat.

A certain ninjutsu master just came back from retrieving the horses and carriage that got spooked earlier by paid Chinese mercenaries.

The steadfast ninja arrived just in time and almost blinded La Cerca with twin kunai to the two exposed eye slits on his mask.

"Kinta! I mean, Kaita!" said Yahiko, mixing up the names of these people he only recently met. "You came back! I thought you abandoned us!"

"Of course I did," said Kaita with a shrug. "I still have a mission to complete, Yojimbo (Bodyguard)."

"Where's the carriage?" asked Myojin.

"It's parked near an open field. The horses are tied there," answered the shinobi. "I originally wanted to run The Faceless over, but then you entered this building."

"A shadow dares defeat me?" said Fabian, his chuckle echoing from underneath his plain white face mask. "Mierda (Shit). The only shadow allowed to defeat me is the Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior)."

Kaita looked at Yahiko then at La Cerca. "You're right. I am but a mere shadow. And that's how we'll defeat you."

The next thing they knew, like a magic trick, Tatsuya had disappeared, prompting The Faceless to action. He had no choice, they took away his bargaining chip.

***

Just like with Yahiko and his Genei Gami, Kaita's invisibility trick made it tough to predict the trajectory of his projectiles.

Thusly, Kaita disappeared from their midst, melting into the darkness of the already dimly lit building in order to attack in the shadows like the coward that he was.

Such was the deviousness of these so-called oriental assassins. They were the yellow peril for a reason, or so Fabian thought.

Either warrior proved tricky for The Faceless to handle on their own, but now they'd decided to join forces, they were double the trouble.

Fine. He'd take them both on at the same time, if need be.

Yahiko and La Cerca clashed blades once more, only this time the kid samurai wielded his iron sheathe like a second blunt sword but with a reverse grip to counteract Fabian's sword-and-dagger technique, just like before in the narrow alleyway.

Interesting. But what about The Faceless' broken rhythm?

Yahiko answered the baits to counterattack by simply attack. He didn't need to dance to the broken rhythm of Faceless' tempo. He'd rather force Faceless to move to his own beat or get smacked by a wayward strike.

A Simple Attack. Or a series of simple attacks. No Compound Attacks. No feints. No parries. No counters. Nothing fancy. Just pure relentlessness.

His offense was his defense (along with occasional dodges and whiffs).

However, it wasn't all predictable. He swung for the fences using slashes that changed levels from high to low. Head to body. Or even hips, thighs, and knees.

His adrenalin rush allowed him to persevere, his shoulder throbbing from the stab earlier.

"Good effort, Faceless-san," said Yahiko with a smirk after Fabian countered another God Hammer with a crisscrossing double-bladed block.

The Faceless answered, "My next will be even better, my fancy clown."

Yahiko's unrelenting attacks and chase down then became unintentional counterattacks because he wasn't timing them to counter any responses from La Cerca.

He merely overwhelmed him with his own responses, like a talkative person talking over and silencing someone else with his endless stream of words. He did multiple Dou Gami blasts on the floor to mess with his footwork or Tsui Gami attempts to break or disarm what was left of his rapier.

The Faceless couldn't even parry anymore due to rough state Yahiko's sword-breaking techniques left his swords at. However, Fabian couldn't be easily overwhelmed.

He reestablished his broken tempo by finding counter opportunities from Yahiko's own overwhelming offense. Like slipping in side comments or sarcastic quips here and there that silenced even the chattiest fellow.

He also upped his reaction time, knowing he was basically taking on a tiring one-armed young man, before figuring out his tempo and countering the attacks in kind but stopping short from getting baited into a Counter Time.

He also bided his time, knowing full well Yahiko had to exert more effort to land his strikes than he did, who in contrast merely had to react to him and his frenetic pace.

"Are you tiring, Yojimbo?" asked Kaita from the shadows.

"Just sit tight and I'll take you on in a moment!" retorted Yahiko with a bloody grin.

To himself, he wondered if this was how a duel with "Cat Eyes" Tsukayama would've unfolded at this point. A tug of war between timing and tempo.

The Faceless, on his part, had also been dodging shuriken, spikes, nails, and other projectiles from the shadow ninja's guerilla tactics and assistance to slow him down and give Yahiko more opportunities to strike.

His broken rhythm that saved him from even Baku's screaming tempo-dictation technique and Zan's echolocation accuracy also made him a reactive mobile target that avoided both Yahiko and Kaita's shared attempts at swatting him down.

For an attack to land, it needed timing and positioning. The purely instinctual Yahiko made up for missed or whiffed strikes with even more strikes or follow-throughs.

Combinations on top of combinations to the head and torso that forced Fabian on the defensive in an endless series of parries and blocks.

'Ah. He fights just like Luke,' The Faceless realized. 'An endless stream of follow-through attacks and recoveries.'

It really was feast or famine with this child. No middle ground.

Hesitation was what increased the effectiveness of La Cerca's broken rhythm. Yahiko counteracted that by not caring if he missed and simply striking in bunches, using the misses to adjust his range from the target better and correct the miss with successive blows.

However, the untouchable Fabian La Cerca started figuring Yahiko's tempo out while avoiding or parrying Kaita's shuriken from the background with his makeshift dagger like it was an afterthought.

He danced around both Myojin's close-quarter strikes and the Sanada Ninja's long-range projectiles, while sneaking in cutting counters that stopped the samurai kid's charge cold.

Like with Baku, La Cerca assimilated and countered off of his opponent's rhythm completely while dodging their attacks and counters at the same time.

Everyone had their own rhythm. However, everyone else couldn't counter The Faceless in kind because of his own broken rhythm that changed in accordance to the circumstances.

Unrelenting offense was no solution to his broken rhythm because it only made the attacker vulnerable to his counters.

Their dance of parries and thrusts continued as Fabian swooped in for the kill, with him completely memorizing Yahiko's tempo and countering at every turn.

Beat. Parry. Beat. Parry. Parry. Dodge. Counter. Over and over. Predictable. How utterly predictable.

Yahiko started looking pretty rough, like the bloody Lucas did after facing off against Zan.

The kid's tight mini dodges, constant head movement, sword-stealing attempts, and his own school's cross-armed parry and riposte (Hadome and Hawatari) kept him in the match, though.

Yahiko, Kaita, and even Fabian noticed a small window of vulnerability whenever he shifted from defending against the ninja's projectiles and the samurai's swings from his sword and sheathe.

A fraction of a fraction of a second. It was a small window, but the Tsui Gami also used a small window of reverberation to strike the same point three times fast. It was in Yahiko's bag.

Confident he was landing his sharp counters and ripostes at will at this point, Fabian went ham and stopped hesitating.

He indulged in continuous counterattacks without fear of any traps or counter times from Yahiko while having that vulnerability in his mind. Determined to do a parry and riposte if that happened.

A shuriken flew from overhead instead of straight-on to La Cerca's head, which he deflected by reflex. For that split-second, his timing was predictable. Yahiko thusly attacked.

However, expecting this, The Faceless feinted a counter (Feint in Time), only to get smacked in the head with a simple attack. His knees buckling slightly, he sidestepped a follow-through and did a riposte.

He knew Yahiko's pattern by heart now, errant attacks that slipped through aside.

However, his every riposte and counter got blocked and parried themselves with the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu succession technique, the Hadome (Sword Halt) and Hawatari (Sword Crossing).

Myojin couldn't time him while he was waiting for a counterattack, so he baited him with a predictable pattern while spring-loading his own counter time.

It took his shuffling feet and upper-body movement to get out of range of Yahiko's counters and ripostes, with him figuring out that the kid had timed him by baiting him and drawing out his counters.

Thusly, he paused and waited to see if it was bait or a real attack.

Kaita attacked again at that moment, triggering La Cerca's reflex. At the same time, Yahiko attacked again.

On this toss-up, he predicted another bait-and-switch from Yahiko and got a face-full of sakabatou for his trouble.

He then defended again with his footwork and mindless stab to keep the kid off of him, only for his dagger to get stuck inside the samurai's waiting sheathe.

Yahiko pulled the fencer towards him within his range and then wrenched out the dagger from his hands.

Meanwhile, La Cerca himself smiled behind his cracked mask. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this excited to complete a mission. Who was this Yahiko Myojin character anyway?

If it were up to him, he would've devised a proper plan to take him out, just like with Kinta Minakata. The boy proved himself a formidable foe in his own right.

The fencer dodged, slipped, parried, riposted, and countered Yahiko's strikes even at close range, bewildering him.

Then everything went dark, his mask shattering from a concussive Tsui Gami to the side of his temple. Perhaps his skull might've cracked as well.

He fell in a boneless heap at the scratched-up and bleeding Yahiko's feet, his vision swimming as if underwater.

What just happened?

***

To Be Continued...

The dialog between Yahiko and The Faceless is based on the banter between Captain Esteban Pasquale (played by Basil Rathbone) and Diego Vega/Zorro (played by Tyrone Power) during their duel in the movie "The Mark of Zorro (1940)".

Also, naturally, all this shadow talk is based on Tetsuya Kuroko. In my mind, I've transformed the original Kaita from the Rurouni Kenshin Black Knight filler arc into a Kuroko-like ninja.

Danke, Abdiel

#yahiko myojin #the faceless #rurouni kenshin #rurouni yahiko #mark of zorro #zorro #tyrone power #basil rathbone #fencing #poppinjay #deja vu

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