I woke up a little past nine in the morning. My head still felt heavy, and the thought of leaving the comfortable futon was agonizing, but I managed to psych myself up and sit the bed. It seemed I had slept for about three hours. Looking at the single set of futon laid out in the middle of the spacious room, I felt strangely luxurious. Morning light streamed into the room through the curtains of the large window. Scratching the collar of my yukata, I stared blankly in that direction. I checked my physical condition, but nothing seemed particularly wrong. Perhaps that mysterious medicine had worked. When I left the room to look for Master, he was talking with a group of four office ladies in the first-floor entrance lobby. They all had their luggage with them. It looked like they were about to check out. "In the end, no ghost showed up at all." "Why do you say that so disappointingly? You were the most scared of all of us." "Oh, come on! I wish I hadn't heard those weird rumors. I barely got any sleep!" "Still, didn't you want to see one, just a little?" The office ladies were full of energy even in the morning. Master just smiled and listened. "Well, see ya. Bye-bye to the younger boyfriend too." With those words, they waved at us and hopped into the inn's van parked outside. The inside of the inn suddenly grew quiet. After watching Kansuke-san slowly drive the van away, I ate the breakfast prepared in the main hall. It was a simple menu centered around grilled fish. However, there was an onsen egg on a small plate that looked ridiculously delicious, and I struggled over whether to eat it first or save it for last. The other group of parents and children had already checked out, meaning only Master and I were left as guests. Well, there was no longer any need to play the part of guests anyway. As I explained everything I had experienced in meticulous detail to Master, who had finished his breakfast early, I placed the remaining onsen egg on top of my leftover rice and drizzled it with dashi soy sauce from a small bottle. "It disappeared on the fourth chime, did it?" "Yes." I tore open a packet of seasoned nori, shredded it, and topped the rice further. As I shoveled it down hungrily, Master spoke. "The fact that you understand the meaning of the *sute-gane* (discarded chime) confirms it's a spirit native to this land. There's no doubt it's not the sort of wandering ghost that just drifted in yesterday or today." His casual words carried his philosophy, driven through like a wedge.
Master doesn't put much stock in universal definitions of ghosts. His belief is that the lingering memory of the deceased—"this is what an after-death spirit is like"—determines the density and characteristics of its existence. For example, in Japan, where legless ghost paintings are widely known, legless ghosts appear, whereas in foreign countries without such an idea, ghosts firmly have legs. He argued that the spirit vanished the way it did precisely because it accurately knew the timing of the beginning of *ake-mutsu* (dawn), which signals the crossing of boundaries. "Once you finish eating, we're going." "Yes." I washed down the tea and wiped my mouth. We were heading to Wakamiya Shrine now. To the place that might be the stronghold of the culprit. Just thinking about it made me a little nervous. Leaving the main hall together, we intercepted the landlady in the office. "We intend to settle this tonight," Master stated with a serious expression. When the landlady asked for clarification, he repeated the exact same words. "Tonight." In response, the landlady sought an explanation in gentle terms. "There shouldn't be any overnight guests today, right?" Master asked instead of explaining. "Yes." Because of this request, they had avoided taking in overnight guests until New Year's Eve as much as possible. Guests with reservations made far in advance, like the four office ladies and the other family, couldn't be helped, but she confirmed that even those guests would be gone tonight. Starting from the afternoon, the other staff would also take time off, leaving only the landlady and the Iguchi parent and child at *Tokano*. Indeed, tonight seemed like the ideal setting for a showdown with the spirit haunting this inn, but what on earth made Master confident he could settle it? As I watched his profile wondering this, Master began rummaging through his trouser pockets and pulled out a folded sheet of hanshi paper. "Please prepare what is written here. It is important. Can you do this?" The landlady looked at the handed paper with a puzzled expression. "I believe we can mostly prepare these..." she said, but her eyes lingered on the latter half of the list, and she wore a troubled expression. "Ah, the last item should be at Wakamiya Shrine. I will go borrow it myself. So, I'm sorry, but could you make a phone call now so they will lend it to us?" "Understood."
The landlady went to make the phone call and returned shortly after. "They said they can lend it to us anytime." "Thank you. Then we will head to Wakamiya Shrine right away. Honestly, we're still groping in the dark as to how this will turn out. But I'll somehow make it work. I am a professional at this sort of thing, after all." Master bluffed, making a reckless promise. "Please be careful." The landlady bowed with a well-controlled expression that made it impossible to tell whether she had expectations or not. However, as if suddenly realizing something from her own casual words, she looked startled and covered her mouth. Did she feel something ominous? Was there something waiting that demanded caution? It started making me feel scared, too. I thought we'd walk to the shrine, but the landlady lent us bicycles. It seemed the inn kept several for guests. She fetched two from the parking lot behind the building and brought them around to the entrance. "We won't need lunch," Master told the landlady. "After we hear what they have to say at the shrine, we have some research to do, so we plan to head straight to the town library. We'll eat around there." Straddling the bicycle, Master asked, "Where's Kaede-san?" "She's still sleeping," the landlady said with a wry smile, wearing the expression of a mother. "That girl, really." The wind is cold. It's freezing outside. The temperature might be even lower than yesterday. I thought I dressed warmly, but my body wanted to curl up. "We're off." I started off following Master. From the entrance, Hiroko-san was holding a cardboard box and waving with just her fingertips while looking at us. She wore that same smile with her facial features strangely scrunched toward the center. It made me smile back involuntarily. Without making any detours, Master rode straight in the direction of Wakamiya Shrine, which we had seen from the back mountain yesterday. When cars aren't involved, Master usually makes me pedal the bicycle while he hitches a ride on the back, bossing me around on where to go—a truly luxurious setup. But when he is rarely the one driving, he pedals ridiculously fast. Living up to his claim of being all-around athletic, his physical ability and sense of balance were remarkable.
Due to the subtle performance differences of the borrowed bicycles, it was all I could do just to keep up with Master so he wouldn't leave me behind. I kept pedaling hard down the narrow countryside road, where even the roadside weeds had a withered color. We must have ridden for about fifteen minutes. The mountains that had been visible in the distance loomed before us, and the road suddenly began to slope upward. We entered a gentle mountain road, passed a few settlements at its foot, and arrived at a corner where exceptionally magnificent trees grew densely. "A *chinju-no-mori* (shrine forest)," he murmured. Evergreen tall trees like cedars and hinoki cypress seemed to form a mixed forest. Through the gaps in the branches and leaves of those tall trees, the roofs of wooden buildings peeked out. We stopped our bicycles where the road widened, and the moment we stepped into the shrine forest, a red *torii* gate came into view. "A *myojin-torii*. It lacks secondary pillars; it's a standard one." Though simple in shape, its aged appearance made one feel the long passage of time that continued to protect the forest and the approach beyond. "Huh. But at the shrine we went to the other day, I saw one with the exact same shape, and wasn't it called a *Kasuga-torii*?" Master turned around and pointed to the top of the torii. "Look at the *kasagi* (horizontal top beam). Both ends curve upward compared to the center, don't they? That's called *sorimashi* (upward curve), and torii with it belong to the Myojin lineage, while those without it belong to the Shinmei lineage. Kasuga torii belong to the Shinmei lineage. Besides, the shape is completely different from the other day. There are even base stones." Since a lecture seemed about to start, I looked away from the torii and approached the *komainu* (guardian dogs) flanking it. "These are quite magnificent komainu," I said, touching their moss-covered bodies. The one on the right side of the torii had a stern expression with its mouth closed, and it was patting the head of a small komainu nestled against its chest. However, Master critiqued that as well. "Look closely. That's a lion." "Huh?" "It has a *hoshu* (sacred jewel) on its head. The one over there with horns growing out of its head is the komainu." When I looked at the stone statue placed on the opposite side as told, it indeed had horns. Its mouth was opened in a roar, and it was stepping on a round ball at its feet. "Originally, a pair consisting of a lion and a komainu was the formal standard, but as time went on, the distinction between lions and komainu was lost, and now both are generally called 'komainu'. Strictly speaking, the right side facing the shrine is the lion, and the left is the komainu. Similarly, the right side has an open mouth (*A-gyo*), and the left has a closed mouth (*Un-gyo*). The arrangement here is reversed. But this right one clearly has the characteristics of a lion."
After being told, I looked back and forth closely, but I couldn't figure out what made them different from regular komainu. "Well, whatever. Komainu vary wildly from shrine to shrine. They're the craftsman's individuality and have almost nothing to do with the enshrined deity." Let's go ahead. Master quickly passed through the torii. I hurried after him. The approach was long, and lining its edges were relatively small camphor trees stretching out their branches and leaves as far as possible. Passing beneath them, the chirping of birds—*chichi-chichi*...—echoed from overhead. There was a *chozuya* (water purification pavilion) along the way, so we stood side by side and rinsed our mouths. The *haiden* (worship hall) came into view at the end of the approach. It was considerably larger than the impression I got from afar. As we proceeded through the grounds, stepping on gravel, a man was sweeping fallen leaves with a broom near the worship hall. He wore a black kimono layered over a white ritual robe (*hakui*), with light blue *hakama* pants on the bottom. It looked freezing. However, the man turned toward us with a composed demeanor and smiled, saying, "I've been expecting you." It was Ishizaka Shoichi, the head priest of this Wakamiya Shrine. He was Kazuo’s father, and his deeply carved facial features bore a strong resemblance. He must have been over fifty, but his posture was straight, and he was quite tall. It seemed he had already heard about Master from the landlady. After exchanging greetings, we immediately got down to business. "We're talking about the spirit in the guise of a Shinto priest that appears at *Tokano*, but you have no idea who it could be?" "No." Shoichi-san sighed and said, "I am baffled." "I asked Kazuo-san as well, but your vestments haven't been stolen or anything like that, right?" "That's right." "Well, I'm not thinking along the lines of this being someone's prank either, but it's not entirely impossible that someone riding the coattails of the rumors is up to no good." "May I offer a prayer?" Master asked, approaching the worship hall. "The enshrined deities are Hachiman, Emperor Ojin, right? Is the proper etiquette two bows, two claps, and one bow?" "Emperor Ojin, Emperor Chiai, and Empress Jingu. That etiquette is fine." Master tossed a coin into the offering box, bowed twice toward the inner part of the worship hall with precise movements, clapped twice, and bowed once more. His waist was bent at a ninety-degree angle.
I tried to imitate him, but I couldn't get my back to bend into a clean right angle. It seemed to take some knack. "Beyond this *mizugaki* (sacred fence) is the main sanctuary, right?" Beyond the worship hall was a space enclosed by a fence, inside of which the slightly smaller *honden* (main hall) was visible. "I heard that this shrine was spiritually transferred here by the Sengoku warlord Takahashi Eishi, but were the shrines that existed before that merged here?" "I don't know much about very old times. Records of mergers remain from the Meiji period onward, so I'll show them to you at the shrine office." "Then, if you could please do so later." Master began walking around the grounds. "Are the subordinate shrines over there?" At the end of Master's pointing finger was a building resembling a miniature, long shrine hall. "The nearer ones are the *sessha* (associated shrines), enshrining Emperor Nintoku, Yamato Takeru, Takenouchi no Sukune, and others. The *massha* (subordinate shrines) are beyond that." The subordinate shrines consisted of a single small building with several vermilion-painted doors, their paint peeling, lined up under the eaves. "Is there an ancestral shrine (*zoreisha*)?" At Master's question, the current head priest's face grew slightly tense. An ancestral shrine, it seemed, was a shrine dedicated to the spirits of successive priests and parishioners. "This end one is it." Confirming the plaque hanging above the locked door, Master stood directly in front of it. The spirits of successive priests inside here... Thinking about the meaning of that, a chill ran down my spine. This morning's experience rushed back into my mind. Master closed his eyes and gently touched the door with his right hand. After holding that pose for a while in front of Shoichi-san and me, he suddenly relaxed his shoulders and turned back to us. "This isn't it." Shoichi-san looked surprised at Master's flat declaration. He must have looked at this young, self-proclaimed psychic with suspicious eyes as well. He had merely given Master the appropriate treatment because the landlady had hired him out of a sense of obligation toward *Tokano*. Yet that self-proclaimed psychic had declared it wasn't the work of ancestral spirits. If they just left it at "that's what it is," the matter would be simple and much easier to handle. "Is that the time bell?" At the end of Master's gaze stood the belfry. It was in the corner of the shrine grounds. Approaching it, a large bell hung beneath the roof of the hall.
"Did you ring the bell?" Master made a motion of striking it. The head priest nodded. "It seems rare for a shrine to have a time bell, but it's a remnant from the days of the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism." "It's been around for quite a long time, hasn't it?" "Tradition says since our shrine was founded." "The bell itself is a new one, though." "Yes, this one was cast in the Showa era. The old one is over there." In the innermost corner of the grounds stood another belfry that looked decayed. It didn't even have a *shumoku* (striking mallet) attached. That bell looked thoroughly ancient. Rust covered its entire surface, and its original color was unclear. Master walked under that old bell and began observing it while walking around in circles. "Is there an inscription?" He asked, poking just his head out from the opposite side of the bell. "No. There are traces of one, but it seems to have chipped off. It's said to be the first bell brought in by Takahashi Eishi, so we preserve it like this even now, but it might actually be from a later generation." "Hmm," Master muttered, tracing the bottom of the bell with his finger. Then he stared intently at the rust on his finger. Looking closely, there was particularly heavy rust around the area Master had been tracing. It felt as if a different pattern wrapped all the way around, spanning several tens of centimeters from the bottom. "I see," Master muttered, then asked Shoichi-san. "Is there any tradition regarding how this rust formed?" "Rust?" Shoichi-san asked, looking puzzled. "No." "I see, I see," Master repeated, brushing the rust off his finger and clapping his hands. "Then, could you show me those records of the shrine mergers?" After that, we returned together to the shrine office near the worship hall. We were led into a tatami-matted room, and after waiting for a while, Shoichi-san appeared carrying a rolled-up piece of thick paper. "This is a copy, but..." he said, spreading out a large sheet of paper densely filled with small characters detailing the shrine's deities and history. Though he called it a copy, it wasn't a photocopy; it was something that had been hand-copied. "The merger records are... ah, starting from here." Master traced the paper with his finger.
"I see, only things from the Meiji period onward. Seven shrines were merged? Their shrine ranks are none or village shrines... Most of the enshrined deities are unknown. They were simply village tutelary deities called 'Kami'. The fact that it lists items like the square footage of the shrine grounds, the number of bays in the shrine buildings, and even the distance to the governing authorities means this record was probably compiled during the investigations for creating the 'Shrine Detail Books' in the twelfth year of Meiji." Master gave me a brief explanation concerning the Meiji-era "Shrine Consolidation" policy. Apparently, in the early Meiji period, the government investigated various shrines scattered across the country as a national policy. They reformed shrines that used Buddhist statues as sacred objects and forced small shrines with unclear histories or deities to merge with neighboring shrines, promoting consolidation to revitalize the functions of local shrines. This Wakamiya Shrine was no exception, having a history of merging such neighboring "Kami." The merged Kami were apparently enshrined mainly in the subordinate shrines we had just seen. "All seven of the merged shrines were tiny ones without even a worship hall. They wouldn't have had resident priests. During festivals and the like, priests probably traveled out from this Wakamiya Shrine, didn't they?" Shoichi-san nodded at Master's conjecture. "That is what I have heard." Ultimately, it seemed that in this Matsunoki Township, all events related to the gods were handled by this Wakamiya Shrine. "This Wakamiya Shrine has no *Sengu* (periodic rebuilding of the shrine) either, does it?" "No. It has always been right here." "I heard there are no branch shrines around *Tokano* either." "That's correct. There are none." After saying that, Shoichi-san carefully added: "At least, none that we are aware of." Master gazed at the ceiling of the shrine office for a while. Then he slowly lowered his head, said, "I understand well," and lifted his hips. "Thank you very much." As he bowed and said that, I was surprised and nudged his sleeve. "Are you already done?" "I'm done. I've heard what I needed to hear." We'll take our leave. When Master said that, Shoichi-san bowed in return, saying, "I couldn't be of much help," with a stiff expression.
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