Chapter 85: Kagome Hall (Part 13)
Chapter 85: Kagome Hall (Part 13)
Fujimatsuri Shigeyoshi’s injuries were not serious, and after some bandaging, he was fine…
Everyone moved him to the sofa, and Kotaro went to knock on Hirakawa Tsurutada’s door.
He knocked for a long time, but there was no answer.
Kotaro immediately sensed something was wrong and began to slam against the door.
“Mr. Toriumi, what are you doing?”
His face was stern, and his tone grew irritated. “The room is locked from the inside. I think there might be a problem in there.”
“Then I’ll find something to break the lock.”
“No need for that trouble.”
Fang Jing stepped forward and kicked the door again. This time, he held back a little, only breaking the lock mechanism.
“See… this way, we don’t damage the door, and we can still open it.”
He reached through the broken hole and pulled the bolt from the doorframe.
“Th-that works too…”
Utsumi, who hadn’t seen the basement break-in, wiped cold sweat from his forehead.
“What Nishizuka said makes sense.”
Watanabe had nothing to add and simply nodded in agreement.
“Madam Esumi, are you in there?”
Fang Jing entered the room first, but after only a few steps, he slowed down and froze in place.
By the moonlight, he could see a figure lying in one corner of the room, behind a table—a beautiful kimono, a hand resting on the floor, lying there silently. It was undoubtedly Madam Esumi, but her head was missing.
The stern old lady, Madam Esumi, had become a headless corpse.
“Ah…”
Watanabe, who had approached, stiffened, covering his mouth with one hand. The sound in his throat caught.
There was another death in Kagome Hall.
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Madam Esumi was dead too.
Everyone retreated from the room and closed the door.
Only Toriumi Kotaro held up a candlestick and insisted on examining the body.
When they broke the news, several of the women began to cry, especially the young maid Wakae, who had lived with Esumi for years. She wept uncontrollably.
Fuyuko held her tearfully in her arms, and Madam Fumiko quietly wiped away tears with a handkerchief.
“It must be Madam Esumi… and Mr. Tsurutada is missing too.”
Toriumi Kotaro set down the candlestick and sighed. “No weapon, no other traces. The killer cleanly took her head… Sorry.”
Noticing the grieving women, he stopped.
“But, luckily, I found this in a drawer…”
He held up a black metal object. Everyone saw it was a gun.
“There are bullets too, but unfortunately, only six… Oh! Right, if no one objects, I’ll keep it. I doubt anyone here knows how to use this thing!”
“Mr. Toriumi? You know how to use a gun… then what exactly are you?”
“Haha! Sorry for the late introduction. My profession is that of a detective.”
Toriumi Kotaro gave an awkward, bitter smile.
“…They’re here.”
Fujimatsuri Shigeyoshi sat up as if waking from a nightmare. His face was pale, and he began muttering to himself.
“Hey, hey! This is bad… It looks like someone really is coming toward Kagome Hall.”
Utsumi pressed close to the glass window of the main entrance. He saw a blaze of light in the mountains outside Kagome Hall—the glow of many torches, turning the dark forest crimson.
“Who are those people? Villagers from Aishū Village?”
Watanabe moved beside him and saw the strange scene too. The villagers of Aishū Village had gathered eerily at night, wearing white robes and pointed hats, with only their eyes visible.
The villagers held sickles, iron pitchforks, and shovels—tools originally for farming, now gleaming with a cold metallic sheen in their hands.
They didn’t rush to break down the door or force their way in.
An old man was dragged out from the crowd, his arms pinned behind his back by the villagers.
Everyone saw clearly—it was Mr. Saeki.
“No… let me go.”
The villagers ignored him. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was pushed to the ground, held down.
What happened next was like a scene from a movie—clear, cruel, and cold.
Several villagers began driving a thick, sharp wooden stake upward through his groin.
It was an ancient punishment, considered one of the most brutal in recorded history.
Old man Saeki let out agonized screams like a pig. Everyone could hear his cries, but in that moment, they stood frozen in place, not one of them rushing out to save him.
Impaled on the sharp stake, old man Saeki was hoisted up like prey skewered by a shrike on a branch. The villagers raised the stake, leaving him to wail upon it.
By then, the old man’s exhausted body could no longer hold on. He weakly cried out a few times, then hung his head and fell silent.
As if performing a ritual, the villagers’ actions held an indescribable eeriness.
(Wait! This feeling… I’ve experienced it before. And this scene—I’ve seen it somewhere.)
Fang Jing wasn’t frightened by the horr sight, but he didn’t rush out to save anyone either.
In that instant, he felt a strange sense of dissonance, as if his current experience were a dream.
(Dream… wait, I think I remember something!)
The cold air flowing over his skin reminded him clearly that he wasn’t dreaming. That’s right… he suddenly recalled—he had dreamed about Kagome Hall before. In that dream, he had lived through this very scene.
Thump!
Toriumi Arisu had somehow come over and stood beside him. She probably wanted to be near her father, Toriumi Kotaro.
But then, standing in front, her legs suddenly gave way, and she fell backward.
Fang Jing quickly caught her. There was no sensation of holding something warm or soft; it felt like he was holding a block of ice… Toriumi Arisu’s body was terribly cold.
“Dream… it’s a dream.”
Her unfocused eyes gleamed strangely, and her lips murmured the words.
“You… don’t tell me you had that dream too?”
Fang Jing asked in surprise.
Toriumi Arisu suddenly reached out, gripping his wrist tightly, and whispered to him.
“Go… stop him.”
Her eyes suddenly closed, and she fainted.
“Let me.”
Toriumi Kotaro noticed the girl’s condition and picked up Toriumi Arisu.
Aaaaaah—!
Wakae, who had seen her own grandfather subjected to such cruel impalement, couldn’t take it anymore.
She cried out once, then her whole body went limp.
At the same time, the villagers of Aishū Village took new action. They gathered dry firewood around the base of the stake and lit a fire, intending to burn the old man.
“No, I have to go out and save him.”
Watanabe, filled with a strong sense of justice, couldn’t tolerate such brutality. He insisted on going out to rescue him.
“Don’t act recklessly. They outnumber us. Going out alone is suicide.”
Utsumi held him back, shaking his head.
Whoosh! Crash—the glass window shattered, shards flying everywhere. Everyone hastily retreated in panic, and the scene descended into chaos.
“They’re throwing stones! Everyone, stay back!”
Fang Jing shouted. In the next instant, stones rained down, smashing through the glass.
“What do we do now? There are too many of them!”
“Let’s go out through the glass balcony of the Activity Room, circle around to the Back Room. The Back Room has only one door, no windows. If we barricade it, they can’t get in.”
Kagome Hall’s main building was simply too large to defend. The only safe spot they could find was the Back Room.
“But it seems some of us might want to deal with that mob outside.”
Fang Jing grinned. “Any of you interested in joining me to open the door and greet those villagers?”