When I was a university freshman plunging deep into the occult, I had a mentor we called Shisho. He wasn't just your average thrill-seeker; he was a man with an unfathomable, hard-to-pin-down aura.
Aside from Shisho, there was someone else who introduced me to another world. Her name was Kyosuke, a female net-friend from an occult forum whom I occasionally met offline. Both of them felt like extraordinary people living in a completely different world from mine.
I had assumed they might know each other through Shisho's girlfriend, who was also a regular on the same internet boards, but when I mentioned it, Kyosuke said she didn't know Shisho. I found myself wanting to see what kind of chemical reaction would happen if I introduced the two of them. So, one day, I brought up Kyosuke to Shisho and asked, "Would you like to meet her?"
Shisho crossed his arms, let out a low groan, and said, "If I'd known you were slacking off on our hangouts, I would've known you were cheating on me."
I didn't need that kind of jealousy. But then he warned me, "Nothing good ever comes from getting mixed up in black magic." As it turned out, we had both been hanging out on the same black magic forums.
When he asked me what kind of stuff we did, I replied, "We don't really do anything that intense," but then I mentioned a specific episode. It was about an incident where Kyosuke had snaked her way into her alma mater, a local all-girls high school, and Shisho instantly reacted to the name of the school.
"Wait, what's that girl's name? Is it something like Kyoko or Chihiro?"
Now that he mentioned it, I only knew her by her handle, Kyosuke.
According to Shisho, right around the time he entered university, there was a bizarre incident at a girls' high school in the same city that made the local newspapers. A female student had been rushed to the hospital suffering from severe anemia, claiming, "My classmate drank my blood." The local papers jumped on the story, causing quite a stir. Later on, the police ruled it an attempted suicide, and the case fizzled out with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.
However, after that, two female students were quietly suspended.
"Back then, that incident was a hot topic among local occult fans. They called her the '○○ High School Vampire,'" Shisho said. "It apparently involved a secret fortune-telling circle that was popular at school, and the two suspended students were the ringleaders. From what I heard somewhere, that was one of their names."
A vampire in this day and age? I couldn't help it; I laughed out loud, though I felt a bit bad for Shisho.
"This isn't a laughing matter. You shouldn't get close to that woman," he said, pressing me with an unexpected, dead-serious expression.
"But it's not like Kyosuke is necessarily the one who got suspended," I tried to brush it off, keeping my distance. Still, the name "Kyoko" stubbornly lingered in a corner of my mind.
Given that it was a local university, quite a few people around me were graduates of that girls' high school. A senior in my department was an alumna of the school, so I went out of my way to ask her about it. It turned out she was quite curious about it herself.
"Kyoko? Of course I know her. She was a year ahead of me. Oh yeah, she got suspended. Kyoko-something and Chihiro Yamanaka. Doing fortune-telling or whatever, and apparently drinking blood. Eww, gross. They say both of them were out of their minds. Especially Kyoko—there was even a rumor among the underclassmen that you'd get cursed just by saying her name. Um, right, Kyaki... I mean, Masaki Kyoko. Oops, I said it."
That senior introduced me to two people who were in the same grade as "Kyoko." Both were from different departments, but I tracked them down to an on-campus café and a club room to ask them what they knew.
"Kyoko? That woman is dangerous. Apparently, she used to perform weird rituals to summon demons. She was so unhinged you wouldn't believe a high schooler could go that far. At first, she had a bunch of followers who liked fortune-telling and stuff, but in the end, it was only Kyoko and Chihiro left. I've never heard of her graduating and moving away, so she's probably still somewhere in the city. Who knows what she's up to."
"You really shouldn't say that name. No, seriously. Quite a few kids got into accidents just for making fun of her behind her back. I'm serious. Huh? Oh, right. She had short hair and was pretty tall. Her face was gorgeous, but... she was so unapproachable, it seemed like she'd never have a boyfriend."
On my way back from gathering these stories, I stepped in chewing gum. I had a bad feeling about this. It matched Kyosuke's story about engaging in "games" serious enough to cause injuries since her high school days. And wasn't Chihiro Yamanaka the female ringleader of the black magic circle whom Kyosuke had been close to? *Masaki Kyoko.* The name kept spinning around in my head.
For the next few days, I stayed off the internet. In a way, I was kind of afraid to talk to Kyosuke. I was worried things would feel awkward. On the other hand, a part of me thought, *Well, even a Kyosuke like that is fine by me.* It's not like she was going to eat me alive. In fact, it sounded kind of interesting. But the fact that four different people had told me "stay away" in such a short span of time made me a little cautious.
While I was living my days by just postponing the problem, I stepped in chewing gum again while walking down the street. As I scraped my shoe against the edge of the sidewalk, something strange happened. The surroundings went dark for a split second, then immediately lit up again. It wasn't the kind of darkness caused by a passing cloud. For a fraction of a second, it was practically pitch black. As I froze in place for a moment, the same thing happened again. My surroundings flickered on and off, flash-like. It was as if someone were blinking very slowly. Of course, I wasn't stupid enough to be startled by my own blinking. Terrified, I got out of there.
The next time was at home, while I was brushing my teeth. *Click, click.* Twice, my vision was shut down into total darkness. Startled, I swallowed what was in my mouth.
After days of this, bordering on a nervous breakdown, I cried to Shisho for help. His very first words were, "I told you so." Easy for him to say. I had no idea what was going on. "You were snooping around about that woman, so the other side noticed you. That was definitely blinking." What was that supposed to mean? "You know what spiritual vision is, right? Haven't you ever heard stories where the face of the person using clairvoyance appears right in front of the person being watched? It's a bit different from that, but I think those blinks belong to the 'one who is watching.'"
No way. "You mean I'm being watched?" "That woman is dangerous. You'd better do something about it." "Do something? What am I even supposed to do?" Shisho replied with complete detachment, "Why don't you go apologize?" I begged him, "Please come with me," but he wouldn't give me the time of day. When I pulled out my trump card and asked, "Are you scared?", he just brushed it off with, "Women are terrifying."
On my way to Kyosuke's apartment, I walked the dark night streets with a grim, tragic resolve. My bicycle tire had gone flat. It didn't feel like a coincidence. I stepped in gum again. It didn't feel like a coincidence. Just as I was about to scrape my shoe against the pavement, I happened to look at the sole. My heart almost stopped. There was nothing on it! Not only was there no gum, there wasn't even any mud or dirt. Then what on earth was that sensation of something pulling at the bottom of my foot? Since I started snooping around about "Kyoko," had all those pieces of gum I kept stepping in... not been gum at all? As I stood frozen, the blinking—which wasn't mine—assaulted me again. At the very edge of the world, closing from above, I thought I caught a glimpse of something black and long for a split second. Just a fraction of a second. An eyelash? Thinking that, I broke into a run. *Please, spare me!* I screamed in my heart as I sprinted toward the apartment building.
After I rang the bell, the door opened with a lazy, "Yeah?" "I'm so sorry!" Kyosuke looked down at me and immediately squatted down. "Why are you suddenly kneeling and kowtowing? Anyway, get inside," she said, letting me up into her room.
I apologized through half-tears and must have told her everything that had happened up until then, though I don't remember much. After listening to my incoherent story, Kyosuke let out a sigh, fumbled around in the pockets of her jeans, and pulled her automatic motorcycle driver's license out of her wallet. *Chihiro Yamanaka.* That was what was written on it. With a blank look on my face, I stammered, "B-but you're tall and have short hair..." To which she replied, "My hair was long the whole time I was in high school. Are you stupid?" Then who the hell was Masaki Kyoko...? "You've got a death wish. You really shouldn't get close to her." I felt a surge of relief, followed immediately by goosebumps.
***
The beginning was just fortune-telling, they said. If you're a girl, you probably went through a phase of getting hooked on it in elementary or middle school. When girls are still obsessed with fortune-telling even in high school, the methods tend to get a bit eccentric, and to outside observers, they might even seem creepy. Kyosuke was one of those creepy kids, doing simple divination mostly using tarot cards during every single recess. Eventually, a temporary fortune-telling craze swept the school, and fortune-telling groups popped up everywhere. Since she'd loved fortune-telling since she was a kid, Kyosuke had a wealth of knowledge and became admired by many students. More elaborate groups started appearing, moving beyond tarot and playing cards to use horoscopes and the Kabbalah. Among them, a gloomy, deeply unsettling faction emerged—what you might call a black magic group. The boss of that group was a student named Masaki Kyoko. Kyosuke and Masaki Kyoko acknowledged each other while keeping a wary eye on one another. You could say they were close, or you could say they hated each other—it was a complex relationship that couldn't be summed up in a single word. Then one day, Kyosuke noticed a scratch on a classmate's wrist.
When she questioned her, the girl said it was necessary to have Masaki Kyoko read her fortune. When Kyosuke flew over to Masaki Kyoko herself, Kyoko replied with a cool expression, "You divine with blood." You cut your fingertips or wrists with a razor, let the blood drip onto a piece of paper, and read the meaning of the patterns. When Kyosuke told her, "I don't recognize that as fortune-telling," Kyoko's sycophants dismissed her by saying, "Yours is outdated."
After that, students stopped leaving visible wounds on their wrists or fingertips, but blood divination seemed to continue. In short, they just stopped harvesting blood from places that stood out. With fortune-telling this popular, an egoistic desire to do something different from everyone else took root, and as a result of seeking something deeper, students seemed to be sucked one after another into Masaki Kyoko, a gravitational source that catered to those desires. Masaki Kyoko's presence in the school was somewhat akin to a cult leader, and her words and actions were even a subject of awe. The rumor that "you'd get cursed just by saying her name" wasn't just born from a fear of her sharp ears; it apparently stemmed from the fact that mysterious accidents genuinely kept happening around her.
Several weeks after Kyosuke learned about blood divination, one of her classmates suddenly collapsed during recess. When Kyosuke, who was nearby, held her up and supported her, the girl said, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a little dizzy," and tried to walk away as if nothing had happened. "You're obviously not fine," Kyosuke said, but the girl brushed her hand away with surprising force. Even when told, "Leave me alone," she couldn't just ignore it. After all, that girl was a follower of Masaki Kyoko.
That afternoon after school, Kyosuke headed for the second science laboratory. That room also served as the clubroom for the biology club, where Masaki Kyoko nominally served as president, but not a single student wanted to step foot anywhere near that corner. Everyone secretly knew that even though shadows could sometimes be seen moving past the windows late at night, no actual biology club activities took place in there. The closer she got to the second science lab, the more she felt the illusion that a bizarre, oppressive aura was warping the space of the dim hallway. This was probably a sensation only students understood, entirely lost on the teachers. "Kyoko, I'm coming in." Kyosuke casually shoved open the door to that kind of room. In the dim room with blackout curtains drawn over the windows, a female student with her short hair pulled back even further by a headband was peering down at a boiling flask. "My, how unusual." "Are you alone?" Kyosuke's steps toward the table in the back paused for a fraction of a second. This smell. "Hey, what are you boiling?" "A homunculus." To Masaki Kyoko's casually dropped line, Kyosuke furrowed her brow. "What idiot came up with the idea that mixing blood and semen could generate a human being?" Masaki Kyoko smiled with just her lips and turned off the heat. "Just joking." "That's no joke, not with this smell." Kyosuke stood her ground right in front of the table.
"I heard from the fortune-telling crowd. What are you doing with the blood you collect?" The female student who had collapsed in front of her today had a hypodermic needle mark on the inside of her left elbow. Evidence of blood being drawn from a vein. What's more, there wasn't just one needle mark. It was far more than the amount needed for some mere fortune-telling. Masaki Kyoko stared straight at Kyosuke with her long, narrow eyes. Neither of them said anything; only time passed in the tense, heavy air.
Eventually, Masaki Kyoko pulled a small glass bottle from her chest pocket and tilted her head. The bottle contained a dark red liquid. "I'm just drinking it." Stopping Kyosuke, who looked like she was about to raise her voice in protest, Kyoko continued. "It tells you far more than dropping it on a white paper. Lack of sleep, overeating, worries, how things are going with your lover." "And you call that fortune-telling?" Kyosuke glared at her, shrugging her shoulders as she spat out the words.
"You mean hematomania?" Listening with bated breath up to that point, I couldn't help but chime in. Kyosuke emptied her beer can and shook her head. "Nah, nothing that classy. It's 'no fate.'" "Huh? What's that?" I asked, but looking back now, those words were almost like Kyosuke's catchphrase. She used the phrase *no fate*—meaning "it is not destiny"—in her own unique way. I suppose you could rephrase that as "willpower."
In this case, Masaki Kyoko drinking blood was the embodiment of her own sheer will. "Back in biology class, the teacher once talked about the classic 'which came first, the chicken or the egg' question. Kyoko, sitting in the back row, muttered, 'The egg came first, obviously.' When I asked her why, guess what she said? 'Because the egg is change itself.'" Kyosuke reached for her next beer. I was listening to this in the awkward posture of sitting straight on my knees on the sofa. "She has an abnormal yearning for 'change.' And it's on a completely different dimension from the typical adolescent girl's wish to change herself. For instance, if a demon appeared before her and said, 'I'll turn you into a monster,' she'd refuse without a moment's hesitation. And she'd probably say this: 'Just teach me *how* to become one.'"
Masaki Kyoko opened her mouth as she poured the contents of the foul-smelling, teardrop-shaped flask down the drain. "They say 'Dracula' means 'son of the dragon.' Did you know that? Vlad II, the Prince of Wallachia, was a knight of the Holy Roman Empire nicknamed Dracul, meaning 'the Dragon.' But his son, Vlad III, was a historical mass murderer nicknamed the Impaler. He was Dracula, the son of Dracul. But he didn't become a dragon." She said this with an expression of sheer ecstasy.
"She must have had a strong desire for transformation. If you're the child of a hero, you want to become something special too." "So you think you can transform yourself by imitating Dracula the vampire?" With those words, Kyosuke suddenly snatched the glass bottle right out of Masaki Kyoko's hand. Then she took off the lid and, without a moment's hesitation, poured the contents straight down her throat. She threw the bottle back at the dumbfounded Masaki Kyoko while choking back a cough. "It's just blood. Water, iron, and hemoglobin. Do you really think doing something like this makes you a special human being? Well, now I'm the same. You're not the only one. You don't need to gather blood from your classmates under the guise of fortune-telling and intimidation; you can just go buy a suction cup or something and drink your own blood."
Far from being taken aback by Kyosuke's rant, Masaki Kyoko's eyes soon began to sparkle as she broke into the brightest smile imaginable. "You really are wonderful." And just as she raised both hands to the height of Kyosuke's cheeks and started to lean in, a piercing, blood-curdling scream echoed through the room. When they turned around, the entrance door—which should have been closed—was open, and several female students were staring at them with faces twisted in horror. One of them, whose eyes met Kyosuke's as she wiped the blood from her mouth, collapsed as if her legs had given out. Then, shrieking at the top of their lungs, a few of them grabbed the girl and fled in a tumbling scramble. The two people left behind in the second science lab looked at each other.
***
Before long, Masaki Kyoko let out a resigned sigh and sat down on top of the table. "Well, looks like this game is over. I won't say it's your fault. We're accomplices, after all." She said it without a shred of remorse, wearing an innocent smile. Exhibiting an air of exhaustion at the troublesome matters bound to follow, Kyosuke sat down on the edge right beside her. "Every time I'm around you, nothing good ever happens." "Yeah, well, you're completely innocent in this." "I drank blood too. I'm just like you." "Oh?" Masaki Kyoko said with a delighted look on her face, leaning her lips close to the ear of a slumped Kyosuke and whispering: "That blood was mine." The moment she heard that, Kyosuke threw up.
I sat there without moving a muscle, still kneeling on the floor as I listened to the story. "So that's why you got suspended?" Kyosuke nodded and placed an empty beer can on the table. Nobody spoke.
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