《Gaijin In Hell: Kyokenbyo Hanzai-sha lofi》 (1) Dreams of Sickness and Execution 病気と処刑の夢 Byōki to shokei no yume Somehow he always knows he is asleep, but it doesnt mute the torment and disillusionment of what comes. Feeling cold hands on his neck, or corpse-like claws grasping for him as he runs past as a small child playing alone in the abandoned housing projects. His father named him Fuji Fujiwara before he abandoned the family and his mother petitioned the court for a name change. He remembers being small, not quite old enough for school and wandering around a submerged tunnel where the train enters the city. It was closed for repairs so his friends wanted to explore and use their disposable polaroid cameras to find graffiti art in the shadowy depths. Glimpses of a world you only see in flashes while riding the train between San Francisco and the barren gentrified slums of Silicon Valley where only millionaires can afford crumbling 2 bedroom homes. It was cool down here, despite the day being nearly 100 degrees on the surface streets. Down in the tunnels it was about 50 degrees, but under their raincoats it was hot and uncomfortable from running all day. It was strange weather where humid rain came down all week. This is the first time they got to play since school was cancelled and their parents wanted some peace and quiet in the house. Days like this make the insects angry and the hungry dogs run into dark places to wait out the unseasonal tropical storm. Down in the dark where the fleas and water logged insects breed, a deep silence fills the blackness like a hurricane passing through an airlock ripping the breath from your lungs and out into the vacuum of space. Reassuring mantras of parents saying there is no such thing as monsters in the dark causes a temporary armistice with the denizens of the underworld, a fleeting and false sense of security among the empty train tracks bellow the streets. Where junkies fix and teenage maniacs come to practice satanic rituals, vivisect pets and set the homeless on fire. The kids ran far beyond where the daylight would save them. Sprinting into dank depths where the only passers-by are vandals busy spray painting, city utility workers working on wiring and homeless ghosts who eye them with suspicion. Jaundiced eyes and liver spots on the living, fetid breath and exploded capillaries on the undead. While taking photos of eerie paintings, ghostly figures scrawled on the sooty walls, he realized his friends had disappeared down a staircase to the lower depths. He could hear sound of running, water echoing down there and sounds of groaning pipes but he had no flashlight. Hearing giggling out of sight he called to his friends, no doubt having more fun than him. Shadowy faces crossed behind his eyes as he blinked. He would press as hard as he could on his eyelids when he was scared, making black and white apparitions float in his optic nerve. Kids played dumb games like that or hunching over, hyperventilating then standing up and holding their necks so the hypoxia would give some fleeting euphoria of juvenile intoxication. Foolish games for tender hearts. It wasnt so scary, of all the places in the dark tunnel, the stair case had damp yellow lights. He was curious about the rushing water and the sounds of laugher but a voice in his head told him if he went down there and got into trouble he would never see his family again. Looking at his Scooby-doo lunchbox for courage, he opened it and looked at his best action figures for reassurance. Their expressionless plastic faces had no words of wisdom to share, only the dumb stare of cheap Hong Kong knock offs with rough plastic lines down the sides from over worked assembly lines. His Japanese Sofubi toy monsters seemed to have more courage. Go see what wonders await in the storm drains. Of coarse a monster toy would say that. So he carefully put away his toys and held onto the rusting iron hand rail as he navigated creaking grate stairs. One by one he made it to the next floor where a big steel door was firmly shut. Down one more floor. He looked between the stairs and saw it went down at least another 80 feet. He called to his friends, he didnt want to meet any Morlocks that far down. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The next floor down had no door, the metal around the edges broken up from coastal moisture like an old battleship. Seeing phantom images in the dark of giant centipedes, cannibal giants and female ghosts who wanted to snatch kids to drown them in silted pools made him want to run up and forget his friends. He heard a man say once his mom suffered from hallucinations, was that what it meant when his imagination filled the darkness with ghoulish faces and dead men? Down here there were new sounds, machines pumping bay water out, storm drains diverted through big pipes into cement culverts and a woman crying. For some reason his first instinct was to say, Mommy? Into the echoing depths. No reply. There was some light reflecting as he looked way down to the left, that was strange His internal compass told him the end of the tunnel was to the right. As he crunched along on gravel and old nails he started to smell flowers and candy under the smell of dirty water and old pipes. Coming to a bend in the tunnel he found his friends. They were gathered around a wounded frog trying to right its self on its back. The frog was big, bigger than most medium sized dogs. The children laughed and kicked it, beat it with radio antennas and garbage power cords. Its eyes pleaded for him to help but as with most kids, he didnt want to be first to object, breaking the camaraderie of friendship. The frogs red and yellow eyes asked for help, its silent voice screaming for mercy, a reprieve from a wrongful execution. Fuji felt shame and powerlessness, wanting to help, wanting to do something else. Freeing the frog back into its happy home in sewer water. He reached out to turn it over and his friends turned on him, punching him hard in the eye and throwing his lunch box into the storm drain running down the middle of the tunnel. The frog died, not from their abuse but something else. Maybe heart disease or lung cancer. His last memory of being swept away by storm water after his toys. As cold as he feels, water pushing into his nose and mouth. It all seems so abstract. Somewhere outside his psyche, he is aware of a hard steel prison bunk. Of echoed yelling and gates slamming. He almost wants to stay in this sad dream where he is about to drown. Just one more moment with forgotten toys and people he hasnt seen in decades. Even as he washes away into some yawning abyss, its better than the emptiness of where he really is. What sweet bliss can we steal from the reaper. Just one more kiss, or dream of a summer day. A day on a boat or running beside a freight train. No, it has come time to open his eyes for real. The warden and priest stand in silhouette, the morning light frame the stoic shapes, assaulting his eyes like a boxers merciless fist. In a solumn tone the Warden announces the Death Warrant his execution at the bars to his cell. He must have known today was the day. He wonders what choking on sodium cyanide pellets turning into a caustic vapor of sulfuric acid beneath the chair felt like? Cramps and nausea or punishing smoke melting this sinuses and burning out his eyes? The dead mans family and members of the press looking into the death chamber with cold eyes and blank stares. (2) Sometime in the early 1990’s 強制送還された偽日本人 Kyōsei sōkan sareta nise nihonjin Fuck! Wake up! He is so thankful that his night terrors are just dreams. Being in the adjustment center with Death Row overflow does that to the mind. Lethargic hallucinations, fever dreams and glimpses of phantoms are the result of irregular sleep patterns. In the dim cells, behind a double row of black steel grate, bars and a final locking food port there is a lack of daylight to set the circadian rhythm as buzzing artificial lights and PA announcements terrorize the psyche. Takes you into hellish trips into deep introspective dreams. Harsh realities in dimensions of hate and malice like the Twilight Zone. As soon as he opened his eyes, he knew the calendar had that big circle on it. End of the road! So this is it, this is the day he is getting released. Furyo almost stopped counting the months he has been in prison. Not like he was getting any good time. 6 Years and 10 months. He only got 3 originally for a strong arm robbery, but a couple riots, getting caught with knives and pruno put another 3 years on his sentence, minus all the good time. Furyo Matsuno (Ұ ]) is his name. His mother was a famous folk singer in the Bay Area Hippie scene, his dad he doesnt know much about other than he was abusive, had a stray eye for other women and went back to Japan when he was a baby. His mother said his dad was a Yakuza but the only pictures of him show a hardworking fisherman. Furyo grew up in San Francisco, ran with a gang called Murder Society. After 5 years of no letters or girls from school writing him, he was pretty much open to any thing. He read a lot of people making it big in Alaska working on pipelines, or hauling frack sand in Texas, being private mercenaries in Central America. All of that was out the window when he got his Deportation Order with his Release paperwork. He was speechless. All his life he thought he was born in the city. His mom must be waiting at the gate the straighten this out. There was going to be no hugs as kisses at the gate. Just a perp walk through SFO to be trapped in his seat by Feds. He was taken from San Quentin to INS detention in San Francisco. Some beady eyed clerk reads some legal jargon and before he knew it he was chained up to Guatemalan and a Haitian on the way to the Airport. Feeling like a condemned man he tried to ask questions to the stone faced Immigration Agents. They had no answers or room for small talk. They wouldnt even let him get uncuffed until the plane was taxiing from the gate. The stewardesses looked at him like he was a serial arsonist. When every one else got drinks and chips he got sneers and it was like pulling teeth to get sleeping pills. This wasnt a direct flight, the refuel stop in Honolulu was brutal. Every one else got to get out and walk around. Not him, he was stuck between two pissed off Federal Marshals who were happy to start their own vacation once the ground crew was done draining the toilet tanks and refueling. He got a quick glimpse of the ocean and the hotels from the middle seat. The Marshalls left and now he was free to take the window seat, longingly staring at the last bit of American soil he would ever see. New passengers board the and the next shift stewardesses are all smiles and flirtatious talk. Sitting beside him is a cowboy named Calvin Buddy, who was quick to bring up prostitution all over Asia. The other seat next to him was occupied by Lenny Webb, a geeky reporter who worked on a movie magazine about samurai and yakuza flicks. Drinks were on Calvin who was asleep halfway though the flight as soon as the sun set. Going through magazines in the front seat-back, he finds a guide to local crime in Tokyo. Its in English but just barely intelligible. He reads articles on the suicide epidemic in businessmen and students living unfulfilling lives, about subway perverts pressing up on female commuters during rush hour and an article about old houses being shunned by the Gen X workforce who prefer western style condos over beautiful traditional style homes. When abandoned they are called դ Akiya, usually left with all the former residents belongings. Furyo had quite a liquor tolerance from making batches of hootch inside. He managed to stay awake the whole flight with Lenny who was sweet talking 3 exotic dancers in the seats behind. Furyo knew the look like they had something itchy between their legs and despite hearing he was somehow drafted into meeting them for drinks when they landed, he was more interested in the stewardess Cynthia who was giving him shy but interested looks the whole flight. He excused him self to chat her up while waiting for the restroom. The stewardess Cynthia was a student, half Japanese and had an apartment in { (Ebisu ward) in Tokyo. He got her phone number and address but played it cool like he was only half way interested. She gave him a couple free Japanese beers that had fallen out the packaging and werent all dented up. (Asahi), åݥ (Sapporo) and һ (Kirin Ichiban). He weaseled some fine ȥ` (Suntory) and ˥å𥹥` (Nikka Whisky), but noticed the Japanese stewardess avoided him once he had gotten comped half a bottle of expensive whisky. Cynthia was surprised he didnt know a word of Japanese and asked a million questions about Tokyo. She thought he was cute, but his full length prison tattoos gave her a little pause. He lied and said he was a tattoo artist. That was half true, really he wasnt good at any thing besides plunging improvised stabbing instruments into rivals lungs. But that wasnt polite conversation so he didnt mention, prison, deportation or the fact he didnt know a soul in Japan and didnt have a place to sleep. Approaching Japanese airspace broke the magic of the moment. She ushered him back to his seat and the captain put on the seat belt sign. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. They left SFO around 10am, got to Hawaii around 4pm and now it was around 2am the next day when they landed. Circling the landing zone, he discovered a land of the future. There were no abandoned buildings or tents on the sidewalk like home. Everything here was well lit, orderly and full of points of interest. He saw a fascinating coastline, Mt Fuji bathed in warm silvery moonlight and covered in soft white clouds. All he knew about Japan he learned in gangster movies or Kurosawa flicks. Not useful information when dealing with customs and immigration who wanted to know his criminal history, known associates and about his drug habits. They yelled at him for not knowing Japanese and made up their own answers to his mailing address. He felt like they wanted to send him back as defective. Before he knew it he was roughly shoved out a nondescript door to the taxi stand where his friends from the flight were huddling around the 3 exotic dancers smoking. They boarded a shuttle van and in 10 minutes were in the dazzling lights of Tokyo. Every thing here was so bright. TV screens and neon signs like old gangster movies filled the skyline. Every conceivable surface was covered in some kind of signage, reflective strips or winking advertisements. It reminded him of the movie Blade Runner. Everywhere smiling faces and cartoon caricatures sold him on soft drinks and whiskey. Blue birds, McDonalds clowns, Geishas selling Coca-Cola and Suntory Whiskey. It was a lot to take in. The 3 exotic dancers ghosted them. As soon as the shuttle pulled up, they dashed off while the guys lugged heavy suit cases. Furyo had no bearings for where they were. He realized he had some American money in his pocket but it was only good for tipping here. Soon the 3 merry marauders were making a nuisance of them selves in bars, getting loud and disorderly. Twice they were thrown out, once by an angry chef the next time by a group of Yakuza in pin stripe suits. Furyo blacked out and woke up to the frost of dawn and his feet feeling asleep from the cold. He could feel his spirit leaving his body. He had a strong instinct that if he didnt get up and walk, he wouldnt wake up. The Japanese nights are bitter cold, a bone breaking cold that comes from all the moisture in the air. The reverse is the humidity that starts as soon as the sun is high in the sky. He wanted more than any thing to doze off some more. The light hit his eyes like Mike Tyson, shooting pain into the back of his brain like a hammer. Little sounds of life startled his last chance at rest. A pressure washer, a beeping truck delivery, insects screeching, bits of feminine gossip and giggling about the EäѤ餤 Yopparai Gaijin. He was on the ground in a puddle of vomit at being nudged by an old man with a power washer shooing him away like a cat who pissed on the nice floor. Feeling like a piece of shit, he realized somebody stole his shoes and wallet. He was penniless and his red Hawaiian shirt was ripped and missing several buttons. He realized he pissed him self during the night and felt bruises around his eyes and blood on his hands. Must have been a wild night. Standing up he is greeted by the warm rising sun. It wasnt a myth, the sun here was actually red, or a kind off deep pink you would round off as red. Furyo felt like shit, but at least this bath of the rays of dawn made him feel some solace. This wasnt all bad, despite losing all his friends, every thing he knows and being in a hostile foreign country known for its xenophobia and rejection of outside ideas he always wanted to come here. Some instinctive DNA in his bones felt at ease. Looking over the stark contrast of the black city waking up to magenta light. Sing song messages came from the Subway PA system, advising of weather conditions, products for sale and line closures. He marveled at the complexity of Tokyo. Every possible Inch of the city was crawling with catwalks, antennas, bridges, billboards, radio towers, esoteric rooftop air-conditioning mazes and power lines. Everywhere urban blight mixed with natural beauty in seamless harmony. Thousands of birds circling the morning sky as he looks out at the dawn cityscape from the subway platform. From his vantage point on an elevated rail station, the city seems like some futuristic setting for a video game. He imagines Gojira and his rogues gallery stomping across this magical lip on the edge of darkness. The sky was so beautiful with electric peach colored clouds and everywhere it touches, flowering trees and sparkling lakes. He decides to go and find some tranquil spot by the water to get a few more hours of rest. He sets out, down the stairs that are so cold his feet ache from every step. Stepping over the refuse of a wild night, he trips out on the wild packaging on every piece of trash. Bright pink and red logos, selling some gibberish slogan on a bottle of pink flavored milk or seaweed wrapped pork rice ball, candy and cigarettes litter the path while navy blue clad utility workers scowl at him while they busy with some task of cleaning the metropolis for the morning commute. His stomach is growling and isnt too proud to steal a plate of someone elses order from the counter of a breakfast stall under the bridge. Shoving some nameless blob of egg and spinach in his mouth, tearing into some sweet bean roll and chomping hungrily at pickled fruit and slices of purple yam. He groans with pleasure as it reminds him of some breakfast his mother used to make. He is almost hit by a speeding taxi one lane and a yellow flashing street cleaner in another. Making it to the sunny side of the street, his sore and bleeding feet thank him for rest from the harmful nights chill, still lurking among the shadows. The sidewalk is warming up and he has stopped shivering. Making his way past endless rows of beige cement office towers until the scent of flowers and the songs of birds mark the entrance to a park, where he can see glistening blue water and white egrets. Almost running to the distant lake, he realized he must be still drunk from the night before. He makes it to a bench and feels like he barely survived a high stakes video game on the last man. Rocking back and forth in the warm sunlight, he feels tears in his eyes. He made it, this is home. Even with out a single friend or place to rest, there is a feeling of victory just being here in his ancesteral homeland, the land of anime dreams and consumerized craziness. (3) Bullshit でたらめ Detarame At some point in the morning he fell asleep again. Waking up to a dirty bum sitting beside him cough and yowling some old song, buzzing out of his grotesque vocal cords. The man has a sour stench like wet shoes and rancid underwear. Noticing Furyo is awake the bum croaks some request in Japanese. Furyo scowls at him and turns over away from the noon sun, covering his face in a damp news paper. The bum howls off a list of insults until he gets to a word Furyo recognizes, (Fursha) meaning Bum, and (Gaijin). He remembers the Yakuza sneering that term at him last night. By instinct he guesses it means foreigner or American. The bum turns to the lake, taking out a little spoon from a soft pack of Camel cigarettes and a lighter. Furyo cant believe what he is seeing. In this beautiful place this asshole is going to fix. Melting the Heroin in the spoon, then begins the ritual of the syringe. Filling it with a tiny black spurt of darkness. Carefully loading it in his arm. Furyo knows the look, nirvana in the eyes and the bum immediately releases his bowls, sinking into the bench with piss streaming down his pants and a stupid smiles on his linty beard. Furyo has no respect for junkies. All his childhood trauma came from his parents addiction, leaving him to fend for him self in foster homes and juvenile placements. Its all he can do to not smash this bum in the mouth with his fists, beating him to death. Furyos time in prison came from kicking in the local dealers door, zip tying the family and stealing 10 grand. Little did he know the dealer was working for dirty cops, and the entire building was under heavy surveillance. Then with no ceremony, the bum stands and shakes a spray can, writing something dirty on the sidewalk and struts off. Furyo smiles. Just like home. Looking at the homeless mans scrawl, he cant read it. Its in English characters but so poorly written, it seems like nonsense. It looks like it says, Turdshave but he cant be sure. Dashing off to catch up with the bum, the man turns around brandishing a box cutter when he hears Furyos heavy footfalls gaining on him. The bum slashes the air like a samurai and seeing who is behind him, turns away uninterested in conflict. Furyo pummels him with questions in English. The bum snarls some dismissive quacks in Japanese, or maybe Korean that is intonated with snarls and hisses. Furyo loses his composure and spins the bum around but is caught off guard as the bum decks him in the nose. They mix it up but Furyo feels bad going full power so his punches only land at about 40% of what he could be throwing. The bum shrieks, եå`\ˡFakkyu, kokujin! Fuck you, Gaijin Nigger! Furyo is at a loss for words, how do you even respond to that? He isnt black but he guesses this is the extent of the bums English.The bums nose exploded in a gout of blood, tears in his eyes and all the details of this mans pain become crystal clear. The yellow crust around his eyes, the stale drool stains all over his shirt, his sun greyed clothes and awful stench. Furyo has never been known as an empath but the torment of this mans life is all so clear. He feels tears in his own eyes and watches the man shamble out of the park and in to the city. Furyo remembers the Stewardess note from the plane. He feels around his pockets, wet coins, note in shreds and miraculously the paper is still legible. Red marker smeared with an address that seems like its written in gibberish. He stumbles into the city, drawn by squawks of a cartoon girls, car horns and the metallic sound of rushing trains out of view. Seeing the city with out all the neon and busy night-time foot traffic is a stark difference. Its so grey and every thing seems to be made of plastic, metal and glass. So clean in the bright daylight, spartan, integrated and orderly. The white and black buildings gleam, signs of alluring women peak out of dim voids in places only open at night. Its tranquil if you dont count the zooming traffic. No one is on the sidewalks, like exploring a school between the bells, every one is off in some cubicle or attending to some business like drawing manga or preparing noodles in sweltering kitchens. Walking until his legs felt stiff and useless he found a part of town that wasnt so futuristic. Here there was a long drainage ditch along rows of small houses and apartment buildings. The drainage ditch was deep, over 12 feet and full of fish and turtles. The sides were stacked stone that reminded him of the walls of a samurais castle. Watching the water meander down the creek he sees toys floating in the water, paper hats and lost on a little island of grass a tiny silver kitten with gold eyes. He doesnt feel like playing the hero, but the kitten enters the water and immediately starts struggling. Making Bonnie Tyler proud he leaps into the garbage and black water. It is far deeper than it looked. He plunges into the water over his head and is repulsed as the sour water goes in his nose. Its sewage! Panicking he forgets how to swim and ends up with a mouth full of brackish water. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The sounds of frogs, buzzing insects and biting turtles surround him. Fish nip at his legs and still the pained cries of the kitten do not feel close. The current is taking him and each time his foot brushes a turtle shell or submerged bicycle it fills his heart with loathing. Reaching a mossy rock near the kitten, he rises from the black water totally covered in green moss and filth. He remembers the name of a Shaw Bros horror movie, The Oily Maniac. Yep thats him, Swamp Thing up in this bitch. He hears annoyed elderly people yelling and pointing at the transgressive foreigner who dares to trespass in their open air toilet. The kitten has stopped moving, claws out and still in the murk, it has stopped convulsing. He picks up the still warm shape. He feels like shit. All this for nothing. Sitting there in the island in the drain, tears stream and he feels an emptiness in his heart. He squeezes the little chest and tries to breathe in the mouth in CPR. Coming to consciousness, the kitten struggles, opens its magical eyes slits of suspicion as water comes from her nose. He is amazed as the little eyes open and it meows at him. He feels so goofy, laughing like a madman. Above him on a little bridge the local elderly have been cheering and lower a rope bridge. Several smiling old men with headbands and fishing hats come down and ushered him up. Clambering over the metal railing, a concerned old woman wraps the kitten in a blanket and a monk has come with a bell and incense. Even the local police have arrived but keep their distance as the shit smelling hero is too wet and troublesome for any police work. Before Furyo knows it, he is swept into a local house where he is stripped of his clothes, forced into a bathtub and dressed in dry clothing, next he is dragged into an empty restaurant where a full coarse meal is laid out for him and the same royal treatment for the cat, fussing with an old women chasing it with a hair dryer. The elderly community figured out he is American. They rush to get all the English speakers in the community and want to know about his life story. Furyo doesnt want to talk about prison, gangs and violence so he makes up some nonsense about being a reporter, artist and singer. Before he knows it he is painting a community mural project of fish climbing a stream on a long cement wall. Incorporating some graffiti letters, its pretty much finished by dusk. Some womans anglo husband drives him to Cynthia the stewardess address. He catches her returning from grocery shopping. She lives in a cramped little apartment, that has the bed and bathroom on different levels like a jungle gym. There is a panic when he realizes he left the cat but loses all thoughts of its wellbeing when Cynthia begins undressing and leads him to her cozy loft bed. Their lovemaking lasts until midnight when she cant stay awake any more. Feeling strange in her little astronaut type bed space. Looking at the bizarre things she keeps there. Cartoon car alarm clock, pictures of vacations to Europe and esoteric pieces of Japanese spiritual life. He doesnt want to wake her up with his heart racing, masterbating all night or trying to kiss her in her sleep. He sets out on the streets to find some action. The elderly who lauded him as a hero, also packed his pockets with wads of money. He cant believe the huge denominations, 10,000 yen, 100,000 yen, stacks of them. Furyo wonders how they could spare such a massive wad of money. Finding a pocket of westerners he is quickly buying 100 yen beers and sampling the local sushi. The college kids and local executives dont like his humor and escape to more polite haunts. Furyo wants to explore, finding record stores, little clothing shops and hole in the wall bars. He is drinking way too much but when he runs into his friends from the plane, he gets a second wind as they drag him into an anime themed hostess bar. Discovering the amazing quality of cheap ˥å֥å` (Nikka burakku uisuk, Nikka Black Whisky) and fruit drinks. He isnt surprised when he awakens on a rooftop alone again, in a state of undress. Having somehow acquired a samurai sword and some kind of STD. His balls itch and he thinks he got the green drip. Thats not a way to start life on shores far away where only assholes and tourists look his way. (4) Hell Priest 地獄の司祭 Jigoku no shisai Somehow while Furyo was blacked out, he wandered onto the roof of a Shibuya high-rise. Massive passenger jets cross overhead. From the corner of the building he sees the Monk and the Kitten. Standing on the edge of a vast gulf is a bald monk ringing a bell and chanting, in his arms the cat he rescued. Approaching apprehensively, the monk turns and smiles at him. Furyo senses that the world around him is covered in darkness, and only the monk is surrounded by warm orange light. Coming to the edge, Furyo sees the streams of pedestrians bellow. The Monk says in perfect English, You are on a dark path, it you continue on this path in life you will surely end up spending eternity in Hell! Furyo doesnt know how to respond to that. Feeling pulled to the edge, Furyo joins the monk on the edge of the roof. Roughly grabbing his shirt, the monk pulls Furyo over the edge and instead of falling to his death, discovers a path of rumbling storm clouds appeared where the city was just far bellow. The Monk continues. In Buddhism we are judged by not just our actions and memories, but how we feel about them. Kicking a dog or stealing a plate of food may be a passing transgression in a long life of crime but this is balanced against good deeds and mournful feelings about misdeeds. You have committed so many crimes, a countless amount of violence, womanizing, bullying but there is a sprinkling of good deeds that acts as a counter weight. You are not wholly damned, but the suddenness of your death with out repentance and acts to placate the gods of death you will suffer evermore. They walk through shrouded cliffs, dark forrests and raging coastal storms to arrive at the river of Hell. Alone with only the kitten, Furyo boards a raft with a corpselike creature pushing off the dark shore into the mist of lost souls. Around him, Furyo can hear anguished cries of the damned. In the water thousands of ghastly faces float in the murky water, eyes bloodshot, black tongues swollen and skin gaunt. The kitten does not like this place and struggles, hissing and scratching. He drops the cat and sits as they cross a vast gulf to a black shore dotted with funeral pyres. Arriving at the opposite shore, he steps off into a beach of ash and grey sand. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Strewn on the beach he sees gold teeth, glass eyes and discarded jewels. The Monk whispers, The dead have no use for riches. Walking up a rise made of bones, he sees a great festival of fire. Walking closer Furyo sees in the darkness beside him wailing souls with missing eyes and chopped limbs in old fashioned dress. Samurai walk carrying large pots of boiling victims. Great Lords on horse back glare with black eyes over battlefields of shivering wounded. Regal ladies in formal wear show signs of violence on their carved bellies and wounded necks. Seeing a familiar face, the Heroin addict bum is there pleading, falling to his knees and begging uncaring phantoms for some explanation. Amaterasu, Amaterasu, Amaterasu, Tasuketekudasai, Sukutte kudasai! He sees Furyo and tries to scream but his tongue is gone and his throat shows some open gash deep into his larynx almost causing his head to fall off. Furyo has no urge to join in this mans story. He carries on to the fire festival. Massive beasts with horns like rams and tusks like boars busy them selves with the work of execution and torment. (Oni) are savage demon ogres with bodies of primitive men. They stack fire wood under cauldrons and cut limbs from stooped down souls on workbenches. The festival of death greets the newly dead. Song and dance displays by famed (Noh) and 輿 (Kabuki) actors frame the dark deeds among horse headed demons and other monstrous forms of cruel faced dark Angels. Beings with faces of Hawks and Jackals fight over the bodies of men and women torn to shreds by these savage Angels of wrath. Seeing enough Furyo gathers his nameless cat and walks on to see what other malicious events this land of the dead has to show him. Coming to ponds full of boiling sulphur and streams of blood, he listens for some clue as to what he is doing here. In a stand of trees he sees severed heads on sticks, flayed skin and wounded minstrels singing songs of suffering among the brambles. He sees a deep moat around a fortification beneath circling ravens. Great vultures and rabid dogs circle crucified saints whose names are forgotten in this dark land. Sirens and sodomites scream until their dry throats can only hiss like cats. This causes the kitten to hiss back. Moving on to the foot of a hill with a great burning castle. Furyo remembers ("Ran" by Kurosawa), old Hidetora Ichimonji was up there no doubt with his bow and haunted eyes. Searching the horizon for someone to blame his lifetime of misdeeds and poor choices. On the ramparts men with flint lock rifles and black bamboo hats look at him as if he isnt some mirage in the swirling smoke. Seeing winged creatures with eagles faces, swords and cruel black wings makes him shudder. He awakens in bed with the stewardess Cynthia. It all must have been a terrible dream. Was it a dream or a warning? (5) Shibuya Roll Call 渋谷ロール·コール Shibuya Rōru Kōru Having learned nothing from his dire nights rest. Furyo kisses Cynthia goodbye and rushes into the quest for adrenaline and serotonin. Stealing a kids skateboard from a balcony, he is in the wind. Pushing into the cement alley ways and strange vistas of this new landscape. He wants to check out the underside of Tokyo, the graffiti, the abandoned buildings, nexus of bad kids and street gangs. Coming to a parking lot of an abandoned factory he sees the leftovers of a rowdy night of biker gangs and local chimpira thugs having an illicit street takeover. The names were all in Kanji but some had flags with English writing. Names like Death Machine, Eternal Torment, Charlie Manson Gang. That one rings a bell. He remembers some Japanese Bszoku in San Francisco from Charlie Manson Gang. Their patches were different. In SF they dressed like Rockabillys with greaser jackets with Charles Manson emblazoned on the back surrounded by a ww2 Japanese war flag with red streaming rays of the sun. Their (Kyokujitsu-ki, battle flags) are covered black Kanji professing allegiance to several different street gangs. Here they wore pressed blue, white and black khaki mechanics suits and trench coats covered in yellow and white diatribes down the legs and arms. It looked like some kind of punk rock battle uniform. The biker gangs streamed in dizzying formations, darting between each other and screaming like devils. The bikes were customized to be offensive to society, screaming mufflers with out baffles welded to stick up over the bike like something the Hells Angels wouldnt have dared to do even in their 60s heyday, fairings installed to poke up at odd angles, paint jobs in vaporwave color schemes to evoke a sense of cyber punk Mad Max. All of them screamed and chanted slogans of the L (Kamikaze), making their war band seem ferocious to the squares who complained to the police from behind curtains. From boomboxes blared every thing from punk rock and hair metal to gangsta rap and city pop. The (Bszoku) Thunder Tribes had a contingent of tough looking girls with dyed hair in blonde and red. They looked like they had kabuki wigs and had eyes full of resentment and contempt. The men circled Furyo with sticks, chains and clubs as he approached. Walking to a loading dock where the leaders sat. He didnt say a word, sat with them and before long side talk ended and they accepted him as a silent watcher, witnessing the warlike displays of the rival groups. Somebody passed him a cigarette and jug of wine. With out a word of Japanese his vibe had found his tribe. Just being here made Furyo feel a demonic lust for violence and crime. The Bszoku sneered at him with a mix of caution and interest in his strange American clothing and unfazed attitude toward the fearsome horde of killers, shunned by the mainstream public. Seeing a large wall and cases of spray paint. He helped him self to a couple colors and began making his mark. Taking white and yellow, he drew intense geometric patterns. Pushing lines and 3d shapes that displayed letters crossing over with arrows and complex back masked slogans hidden in the execution. Before he could select fill in colors or how to fill out the back ground. He noticed a couple female admirers with white faces like ghosts. Just as he smiles and starts to ask them, their names. Police lights break up the party. Red and blue strobes cut across the horde of kids. He didnt even notice a photographer among the throng of swarming biker gangs taking his photo. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Cops came in battering metal buckets with wooden clubs. The cops were more interested in taking away cigarettes and beers than arresting any one so long as every got a couple swats with their batons. A frenzy of violence gave Furyo and a couple girls the perfect distraction to flee into the shadows of the opposite side, Furyo stopped to grab both crates of aerosol cans before following the girls to a hole in the fence. They ran along a dark industrial street along urban decay and noticed around here there were actually homeless everywhere in the shadows. Coming to a row of apartment buildings, the girls ushered him up some stairs and into a nice family apartment with a zoned out couple of parents smiling like idiots at the tv. In the girls room it could have been any where in the world. Heavy Metal and Anime posters, smells of perfume and hair products and pink beds covered in teddy bears. Furyo couldnt believe his luck. The girls pulled out their American magazines and started pointing to pictures and jabbering questions. Furyo smiled and nodded while another girl lit up some marijuana and passed him an ornate bottle of her parents scotch. They quickly decided they didnt speak a word of each others language and started to make out with all three girls while watching some violent horror manga. He was pretty satisfied as the girls took turns practicing fellatio on him and vice versa. Their only means of communication thumbs up or down. Furyo started to think this was the life before the Police busted in and dragged him out. Rushing down the stairs the police clubbed him over the head with sticks and sent him flying down several flights of stairs. Outside of mob of elderly pointed and gestured with brooms, now emboldened by a large police presence to break up the youthful hellions. Furyo doesnt get an explanation or mirandized, he is beaten, shoved in a van full of street punks and taken to a jail several stories bellow street level. Hearing the familiar buzz of halogen lights, roar of freezing cold air conditioning and seeing the down cast eyes of the broken suspects Furyo wants to fight. Sitting in a long and narrow cell with wooden benches and educational posters, Furyo flies into a rage. Ripping down framed posters and smashing furniture. A couple hot tempered cops in plain clothes come in and spray him with mace. This only makes him angrier. He wants to test their martial arts skills, kicking their knees and dodging lunges and wrist locks. The cops seem out of their league so they retreat and come back with an attack dog. This is where it gets nasty. This fucking mongrel hound seizes on his hand and tears gaps between his bones. Its a prolonged and vicious fight with Furyo kicking the dog in the nuts while guarding his own. This trained killer is reducing his clothes to ribbons, tearing the sleeves of his sweatshirt, pulling holes in the ass of his trousers and it was all Furyo could do to not be castrated when they send in a second dog. Despite punching and kicking, slamming the dogs backs into walls and knocking at least one tooth out. Furyo is bloody and tired. He goes limp and allows the dogs to go to work on his arms and legs. Puncturing his thighs and shoulders. This gets him in the ice box. They leave him with no medical attention in a black hole naked. He spends a week there until he is released with out a word in a blue paper suit. They must have shot him with darts because all his wounds are sewn up but he has no memory of medical care. (6) Vision Questing Surfer Trash 1987 ビジョンを求めるサーファー?トラッシュ 1987 Bijon o motomeru sāfā torasshu 1987 Furyo thinks back to the spring before he got sent to prison. At the end of the school year he cut class with all of his friends and decided to do acid. There was big party in San Francisco based around the scientist Albert Hoffman who discovered LSD. The day it all happened he had accidentally spilled a couple drops from a vial in his pocket that leeched though his pocket onto his skin. He had set out to run some errands on his bicycle when the LSD cocktail kicked in. Sending him on a bizarre odyssey of hallucinations in the visual spectrum. Young Furyo had no interest in strange and esoteric mysteries of the universe or scientific breakthroughs used by the CIA to break the minds of convicts and suspected spies. He just wanted to trip out and wander around. Furyo met a strange man in a Kikaida red and blue mask with luminous orange eyes that looked like turn signals on a motorcycle. The man had insane blonde hair styled like wolverine from marvel comics and a large stuffed hawk looming over him attached to his back like a roman standard. Furyo and his fiends almost went back to kick the guys ass when every thing got weird. All the sudden music came from nowhere and filled his head with new and tripped out ideas. His friends were all taggers too, they had spent the earlier part of the day painting a mural at psycho city and hitting up some roof tops with quick bubble letters that could be seen from the freeway. Now as they walked through the city the cars all seemed far faster that what was safe. Every cross walk held the life or death reality of a ferocious city of speeding maniacs. Looking around the faces of drivers snarled with fangs and glowing eyes like the cantina in Star Wars. Every glass window and billboard held some cosmic joke that had them all crawling out of their skin with laughter. Trying to do tags with markers and putting up stickers just looked goofy. Primitive scribbles that were far bellow their stylistic norms. Pretty soon every body was getting bad vibes from on lookers on the streets. Convinced they were now in a spy movie staring neighborhood watch and federal old ladies, pretty soon they were running full speed towards golden gate park. Unlike most American cities, this park was almost totally filled with schitzophrenic hobos, singing Hare Krishnas and dancing David Koresh type priests and every other buzzing freak and fairy SF had to offer. All around crazy eyed hippies strummed guitars and sang intentionally bad songs for the tourists, break dancers made circles to spin on their heads to boomboxes and pimps lurking around trying to get runaways interested in heroin. The beginning of the park wasnt the trip they were looking for. Deeper into the park were roman ruins, statues and insane art installations where they would splash around fountains and not be harassed by the cops or gentrifiers. As the shadows grow in late afternoon the vibrant light and mellow vibes of the park changes into cunning junkies, rowdy cholos and plain clothes narcotics agents skulking around like the devil, seeking whom they may devour. Furyos crew of taggers, renegade artists and schizophrenic bent minds on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide are like lambs to the slaughter when the ghosts and evil spirits come out to stalk the living. Laying on his back in a green fountain rich with duck shit nutrients, he muses on the post apocalyptic prospects for love when the world burns in nuclear fire, hordes of freaked out zombie hipsters run the streets like the Omega Man and all you have to trade with the bandit queens and cannibal warlords is heads of your enemies. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The thoughts he has of missiles streaking down from the sky, colors flashing like police lights coming from the sun and stories his father told him about war made the world seem like a crazy place. Every crack in the sidewalk and storm drain held some craven hunger, unnatural cravings for missing children and stolen organs. Now he was almost full grown, he was the hoodlum all must fear. His friends recreational beer looting, spray paint theft and walking out of stores with 6 layers of designer clothes they didnt pay for makes him unwelcome in all the stores with in an hour bus ride. Cops kick his ass just to make sure and most of his real friends have been set up for long bids in California Youth Authority or Mental Hospitals like Napa, Agnews and Atrascadro. The sounds of a fight breaking out wake him from a pleasant dream of sex with a gang of satanic nuns, no doubt inspired by School of the Holy Beast or some similar filth from Jess Franco or Jean Rollin. Opening his eyes and realizing he is starting to get an ear infection. He peaks over the fountains lip to see a group of subhuman morlocks and vampires attacking his friends. Furyo feels like reality is pushing in on him, somehow the influence of Outer Limits, Dr Who and Twilight Zone have so corrupted his mind all his friends look like Henshin Cyborgs. He rushes into the violence and realizes his acid connect in the Kikaida mask with hawk wings is ripping one of his friends throat out with tusk like teeth straight out of a Tibetan tantric temple. Hungry ghosts overwhelm them and as gurgling death rattles fill the air, there is nothing to do but break and run. Deeper into the park past the Japanese garden and winding avenues, they are being herded into the trees. Inhuman shrieks and surrounding wings of unseen beings fill him with abject terror. Every thing he loves and cleaves to in this life is under attack. Glowing eyes, putrid breath of the grave and glimpses behind of gaining feral beats make his skin crawl. Monstrosities like something from Hindu mythology, ghoulishly stalk him as he seems like the last living creature on earth. The darkening sky and gnarled dead trees have no sympathy, only the blazing glory of the scarlet sun over ocean beach keep the creatures at bay. Dashing into traffic to make it out of the edge of the park make his lungs wheeze with smokers decay. Marijuana and cigarettes laced with PCP make him feel like a white hot hole is burning into his lung, a heart murmur and the absence of an uncaring god give him no rest. Making it to the sand he is alone, blood covering his clothes, cuts and splinters maul his hands, fingernails bent backwards and throbbing pain from a twisted ankle leave him ready to scream a last pleading prayer to the dying as his eyes scan the half-light for some friendly face. Faltering bonfires abandoned give him some hope to fight off phantoms seeking his blood with a half a burning stick or crucifix made from garbage strewn across the beach. Police sirens fill the park and a helicopter has begun sweeping the tree-line with its spotlight. Furyo feels bitter about this life lesson as he wakes up in a mental ward strapped to a gurney in a pool of his own ice cold vomit, laying on a plastic mattress groggy from a cocktail of Thorazine, Ativan and Haloperidol in what they call a chemical lobotomy. His hands strapped at 12 and 3 oclock allow him to see a number of teeth marks and punctures on his arms. He feels like a gang of homeless vampires had sunken their black rotten teeth into his soul, yet beyond the racing thoughts and panic his immune system purges vile snot and blood from his lungs while the room spins. (7) Bum Life ホームレス生活 Hōmuresu seikatsu Furyo gets kicked out of the jail on a frosty morning in a blue paper suit and covered in bandages. They gave him some socks covered in rubber tread on both sides. Furyo feels like he got in a car wreak with a cracked skull. Despite his painful headache and throbbing feet from the cold, he feels and urge to run. The familiar urge to stick to sides of the street warmed by the warm yellow sun, made being barefoot bearable. He knows he needs to find a pair of shoes and real clothes asap. Straying out of the metropolitan area into high-rises of condos with the odd single family home. Coming to an abandoned house դ (Akiya) that looks like its long been abandoned for demolition. He tries the sliding glass door and with out any effort it opens. Inside its musty and spider webs cross the hallways. No signs of life as he traverses the large home. Coming to the stairs, he feels some apprehension. He doesnt want to discover an old lady who has been rotting in the bath tub or had her face eaten by neglected cats. Finding the bed room, the furniture all smell like mold and drawers stick. Finding some cool kimonos for men, he takes out a couple but feels like somebody is watching him from the shadows of the hall. No one is there but his urge to run from the sound of every creak and groan of the old wood floors is almost overpowering. Smiling faces in pictures seem to be lying, trying to seem happy for the camera but with an emptiness in the eyes, an unpleasantness in the corners of the mouth. Painters plastic covers book cases and act as airlocks from room to room. Giving the place an eerie vibe, man size silhouettes are easy to mistake thought dull plastic and dim lights. There is a sound from next door of some kind of machine, louder than a vacuum and more jarring than a fax machine. The house feels like a void of light, a bright day outside is muted here among the forgotten signs of a life lived in seclusion, a lonely death in a house not even the bank wants. Maybe this place would be better as a parking lot or souless high-rise, but there is a feeling of wasted potential and yearning for better days in the stained wood and cheap linoleum. There is signs of pet food and grandchildren of decades past. No one bothered to put away toys from 40 years ago or mittens for a cat that died before Furyo was born. Grasshoppers and Cockroaches are the only signs of life besides ivy breaking in through the ceiling and windows. Winding curving hallways, Furyo spooks him self on glass reflections in darkness. Large gold frames around bad art you find in an asian dentists office, paintings of Art Deco womens faces as porcelain dolls with sad expressions, pictures of Lillies right out of Pink Floyds The Wall, colorized lithographs of stoic Samurai women in bathing suits of a lost era. To Furyo all he sees is light and dark, his face bending like a carnival mirror. Long enough to have an existential crisis of his new prowling for crumbs and clothing habit. He almost feels the judging eyes of some old woman, a harmless ghost wondering what the fuck this prowler is doing looking through her cupboards wearing a blood covered paper jail suit? Furyo can almost hear whispering of ghostly old ladies talking about him like a leech swimming in their bathtub. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Gathering some socks and canned food with identifiable pictures he understands like beans, carrots, canned fish, strained chicken, pineapple chunks. He creeps to the backyard to soak up some sun as the house as a coldness that got into his bones. Thankfully the house had some French bottles of wine, so he sits beside a stagnant koi pond as listens to the wind. Before long the wine and the peaceful backyard make him drift off to sleep. In a couple hours, its now overcast and he hears somebody yelling. A couple construction workers in yellow and blue hardhats are throwing stones from the fence. He doesnt know the exact words but the meaning is unmistakable. This place has become unwelcome. Quickly gathering any other useful clothes and beverages, he rushes out the front door past a demolition crew laughing at the madman wearing sparkling funeral formal wear like something from a period drama. Raiding the homes of the recently deceased դ (Akiya) is a tactic he has to remember in the future. These abandoned homes are shunned by the modern Japanese who prefer western style tiny apartments. Heading back towards the noise of the city, he is tempted to sneak onto a train. The security is not interested in people hopping over the gates as much as harassing smokers or chasing perverts away from the school girls. Coming to a map of the lines, he looks for parts of the city he picked up in conversations. ԭ (Harajuku) the fashion district, (Shinjuku) the central hub of restaurants for business men, 輿 (Kabuki-ch) the red light district, i (Shibuya) the hip tourist area for bars and record stores, dz (Asakusa) where old fashioned buildings and temples still exist, ~ԭ (Akihabara) where toy stores and video game sellers draw Otaku (Nerds) in anime costumes. Every region of Tokyo has its time of day where they could be deserted at the wrong hour. Shinjuku, Shibuya and Kabuki-ch are known for their night time foot traffic, where as dz (Asakusa), `} (Kamakura) and ~ԭ (Akihabara) are as much fun during daylight hours. Furyo doesnt feel like seeing the city alone, but also doesnt remember where Cynthia or his new (Bszoku) pals are. Tokyo is so massive with uniform streets that are deceptively similar, its easy to walk for miles in the wrong direction if you arent familiar with the street names. He cant make his mind up and just zones out staring at the map until he feels a furtive hand in his pocket. Slapping the hand away he sees a giggling group of school girls. He isnt sure how to react so he yells at them and waves his around around like a maniac. They retreat to a far corner of the pedestrian tunnel, still giggling and pointing. He feels stupid now and wonders why they are laughing. Looking down he doesnt notice any obvious problem. Is his dick hanging out or are the clothes put on wrong? He cant find any thing wrong. He marches up to the girls and exclaims What the fuck is so funny? The girls hand over a red wanted poster. He looks at it confused. He asks What does it say? In perfect English they tell him. Panty thief, Pervert, Serial Killer! This isnt funny any more so he hops the gate to the dz Asakusa line and decides to spend the rest of the day at the temple. (8) Familiar Haunts 見慣れた幽霊 Minareta yūrei Being deported to a country with no knowledge of the language leaves you at the mercy of tourists or the good will of locals. Most Japanese professionals in Tokyo speak very good English, but will deny they speak a word if asked questions by someone they dont know. This means that outside of drunken girls looking to hook up, the other people eager to talk to you are either con artists or creeps. Which despite its reputation as a sophisticated and progressive society Japan has its share of criminals. At the airport you may come across smiling men eager to give directions and walk with you, they arent doing this for free. They will get aggressive about payment. Same thing with fake Buddhist or Hindu priests who will follow you trying to make conversion or lunge at you placing a good luck charm in your hand and demand money. dz (Sensji, Asakusa temple) is behind a couple long rows of tourist stands selling wind chimes, small buddha statues, carved fish and brass coins. Among the crowd were several smiling grifters preying on the lost and foreign looking rabble. Furyo didnt have a polite reaction. The first time he was accosted by a fake Hare Krishna in a saffron robe, following him and asking intrusive questions He ignored the man. The second time he was followed by a mousy little man who was happy to sit with him and answer a million questions, then said Furyo owed him 1000 yen, roughly 10 bucks American. Furyo laughed and spun off, leaving the man grabbing at his sleave and demanding 500 yen. Furyo turned to sock the man in the mouth but as he recoiled back to swing, the man ran off yelling for police. Furyo took this time to lose the mans line of sight and relax beside the temple where there was a calm stream full of orange koi. Seeing the con artist he had tried to punch looking through the crowd to snitch on him. Furyo kept his head down and like a gypsy professional shoplifter, grabbed a traditional style bamboo farmer hat from a rack and melted into the endless streams of tourists until he was behind the temple and ducked inside. In the shrine it was very smoky from incense and candles. Large angry guardians stood to each side of the door and the interior put him in awe. Gold statues and perfumed wood carved inside was beyond what he could have expected. It was magical but the streams of gawking tourists made him feel rushed to get back outside. Seeing the cops walking away from the conman and back out towards the gift shops, Furyo decides to explore a different area, the opposite way from the station. Furyo really want to check out the statues of Raijin and L Fujin, the temple guardians off to each side of the entrance. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Among manicured bonsai trees and buildings that likely stood when this was the feudal capitol of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he found little art studios, dance and kempo studios where masked swordsmen practiced with bamboo swords. He was feeling hungry and wondered how he could find Cynthias apartment to get a meal and some loving. As that thought bounced around his head, he noticed a rowdy group of European students. He could hear something that wasnt French or Spanish being spoken by the coeds. What drew his eye was the shady way they were dressed, like something out of a `󡤥 tan Kuran (Wutang Clan) video, the paint stains on their clothes and familiar clink sound of ץ`ڥ spray paint in their bags. Silently merging into their group and into the middle of the ones leading the pack he says. Aye, you fools do graffiti? He must have looked strange in an old fashioned kimono, black low traditional farmers hat, swords and general air of Frisco hoodlum. The girls looked to the main ones shaking their heads as if even talking to Furyo would lead to some bad end, likely picturing Yakuza or Ninja movies. The main guys smiled and said, Yeah, we are from Amsterdam, I write Basic, and this is Silver, Plaster and Daffey. Furyo smiled and said. Thats dope, I write Sadist, but I used to tag Crime and Budget too back in the 80s. This gets him in the group. They are super fascinated by his stories of SF back in the day, of prison and being deported. They have plans to get on some rooftops in Harajuku and have rented a panel van to get around the city. (9) Hitting up Graffiti on Rooftops in Harajuku 原宿の屋上に落書きをする Harajuku no okujō ni rakugaki o suru Inside the van, Furyo was instantly at ease as the European taggers blasted underground hip hop from Lost Boyz, Boot Camp Click, Black Moon, The Pharsyde and Black Sheep. The girls warming up to him, offered him some pot brownies they made and instant noodles. Furyo devoured the food and wasnt shy about asking for more. The girls laughed and made a game out of stuffing his face with almost alcoholic fruit salad, rice balls filled with chicken and pork in seaweed wraps and washing it down with beer they had rolling around the back of the van. The girls were also vandals, they were school mates of the guys. Their names were Smurf, Dinky and Angelina. The girls seemed to be half asian but maybe just had some stray ancestor as they all claimed Caucasian heritage. Arriving at a paid parking lot. They unloaded ladders and buckets of paint. They were near a construction site of a new row of buildings adjacent to the rail station. Brand new windows, empty escalators and best of all. The Guard was in on it, he was also a graffiti writer from Tokyo named Kreature. He had been offended by the security company so he decided to quit in spectacular fashion allowing the European vandals to fuck up the roof. They all hurried in the big lobby of the still unoccupied shopping center. Taking the fire stairs to avoid being seen by nosy neighbors in the high end shops of Harajuku. Coming out onto the roof just as the sun was setting making the shadows stark as they were in a sea of darkness among the flashing lights and massive tv screens of the elite shopping district. As the Euro guys began busting fat graffiti letters and fill ins. Furyo was trying to figure out who was single, who had a crush on who and if it would be a problem if he hooked up with any of the chicks. 2 of them were spoken for. Smurf and Dinky were on again off again with Plaster and Daffey, were the sisters of another tagger who didnt make the trip because immigration found out about a criminal record named Hostage. This left Angelina open for some fun. She was tattooed all over her hands and cleavage and told Furyo she was a stripper and hangs out with outlaw bikers back in Holland. She wouldnt have been his first choice, he tended to go for nice girls but she was sweet and interested in hearing his life story. They smoked some weed and ended up sneaking off to have sex overlooking the city. They must have been at it a while because the girls came looking for them and started giggling when they caught them fucking on the gravel in the blinds around the backside of the roof. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Before long they returned to the group to smiles and offers of laughing gas. The had some canisters of nitrous oxide, like whats in whipped cream and dust off. This made the lights of Harajuku blur like warp speed in Star Trek. Before long it was time for Furyo to add to the piece. Furyo started laying out complex geometric letters and Angelina added some satanic looking figures of naked nuns, voodoo goats and skeletons. It was pretty epic, stretching from one end of the skylight to the other end. About 120 feet long and 9 feet tall. Furyo outdid the rest of them who did simplistic stuff. Furyo went full wild style with fading colors, 3D and angular letters that looked like a cyborg about to sink its teeth into the characters beside. Furyo started sensing a bad vibe, so he and Angelina decided to go check out the stores and score some more alcohol. Angelina didnt tell him she was stealing and they got chased out of a shop by a group of nerdy looking men in headbands and waving around kitchen knives. This didnt startle Furyo has he made short work of the pursuers when they were cornered in an alley with no way out. The men screamed and charged with weapons held high, Furyo swatted down the knives, kicked them and threw some nasty punches. In seconds he had their wallets and were back in the store carrying out arm loads of stuff as the police roared by. Feeling like the night was too good to test their luck, they waited beside the van for every one to return. There was a big misunderstanding and Furyo ended up dropped off back in area where Cynthia lives. She wasnt home and he was alone again as the rain started to come down. He ended up spending the night in an alcove where vending machines were stacked so deep, he found a warm place behind them to doze off safe and sound. Sometime during the night a pregnant stray dog curled up next to him for warmth. Was a grey pitbull with blue eyes, clipped ears, likely raised for fighting but seemed like a sweet dog with a hard luck story like his. (10) Sepultura Festival and Thrasher Magazine セパルトゥラ フェスティバルとスラッシャー マガジン Separuto~ura fesutibaru to Furyo woke up to the buzzing of neon halogen lights turning off as the wind was banging wooden signs as dawn crept on the horizon. It was cold and morning brought new sounds, deliveries, trains, chanting monks and exorcise groups of the elderly singing together as they power walk. A closer sound made him alert the banging of the attendant restocking the vending machines a few feet away. While the guy had his back turned Furyo helped him self to a crate of Snapple of assorted flavors and a box of snacks. He returned later and gave a half dozen bags of trail mix and beef jerky to the pregnant dog. He also got the soon to be mother some water from a bucket he found under a drain spout. Furyo figured he wasnt far from Shibuya because he could hear sounds of a grunge concert. He heard bands he knew like Seputura, Alice In Chains, The Melvins, Soundgarden, Mr Bungle, Stone Temple Pilots, Primus and Nirvana. Coming around a corner to find skateboard ramps, food booths and people yelling in bad English. Before long he had bullied his way backstage by handing out free drinks and putting on an orange vest somebody had dropped over the door of the outhouses. Furyo gets this overwhelming urge to tag when he checks out the live graffiti wall. Grabbing a can of yellow spray paint he prowls the parameter of the festival hitting up tags. Being in prison for most of his 20s didnt mean he was totally out to lunch. He knew instantly what the members of major bands looked like. He shared a cigarette with Kurt Cobain, took shots with the Cavalera brothers from Sepultura, drank beers with James Hatfield and almost had an incident with Lars Ulrich. Who was saved from a severe beating by Kirk Hammett and Jason Newstead who turned out to know some of the same people in the Bay Area. The bands had to hurry off to a press junket but gave him free reign of their tour bus and trailers, which Furyo turned into an excuse to start grabbing the hottest chicks from the crowd to come back stage. After some sex stains left the tour bus trashed, Furyo decided to check out the festival. Lurking near the side of the stage, he learned from a couple sponsored skaters that there was a contest to skate though an all out brawl between female wrestlers and local perverts who thought they could do some free groping. After the first pro skater to attempt the tunnel of death ended up with a broken jaw and fractured tail bone, none of the foreign sponsors wanted their guys to do it. The set up was pretty straight forward, smash through the wrestlers, jump over a pit of fire and crash through several large sheets of glass. The contest had a brand new 1993 Acura Legend with aftermarket lights, turbos, in full (Bszoku) style with custom lowered kit, air vents, crazy spectrum neon ghost paint grids that changed in different light and a powerful engine. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Furyo eagerly signed up and waited for the countdown and roar of the crowd. Climbing to the starting position, about 40 feet up a ladder to the top of a neighboring building. Up there he started to feel light headed and dizzy. He had smoked so much weed the night before that he likely had a hang over from that. Stealing his nerves, he counted to three, closed his eye and kicked off the top of the ramp. Speeding down the sheer drop, he opened his eyes just in time to hit the slant and bend his knees. Racing up the opposite side to the edge where he went flying. Landing wrong and jarring his knee. He heard the jeering of the crowd and realized all the female wrestlers were looking at him with curiosity and a complete lack of hostility. Furyo leaped up and kicked full speed into the middle of the female wrestlers and perverts who were dead tired and basically play fighting now. Besides elbowing a middle aged guy who must have thought he was a thug in his youth, he was more worried about the female wrestlers groping him. Ending up slipping on the ramp over the fire pit had him end up in the flames. Not willing to give up, he climbed back up and jumped through the plate glass windows at the end. Furyo didnt realize he had cut him self seriously on his forearm and inner thigh. As he was carried to the stage to give a speech, blood was splashing from his wounds like a faucet, causing yells and panic from the crowd. As he climbed the stage and looked over the horrified crowd, he felt a black wave of unconsciousness spread over his vision. Waking up to singing nurses with voices straight out of hentai, he finds himself at the mercy of the hot asian nurses. When awakening he is surprised to see Nirvana, Metallica and Sepultura have surrounded his hospital room with a drunken entourage. Feeling like a king, his chest and head are massaged by the hottest female wrestlers and nurses. A Thrasher camera crew was there and despite feeling on top of the world, his throat was too dry to make any meaningful statements, he managed some yes and no answers to questions but before long he lost interest in talking to them. The bands stayed to make sure he was ok, but before long were pulled off by tour managers to not miss their flight. He got some contact info from King Buzzo, Mike Patton, Igor, Max, Kirk, Jason and the Nirvana guys. Thrasher gave him some forms to sign, likely releasing them from medical expenses or liability and gave him keys to his new car. (11) Unnatural Death House 心理的瑕疵物件 Shinriteki Kashi Bukken Learning to drive illegally in a sports car with out a license and with several deep wounds needing staples in the body is not the ideal way to learn about Tokyo traffic. It was raining and first things first was finding a cool radio station. This took some time, but as luck would have it. Cynthia, the stewardess from his flight to Japan had seen the sensational contest, injury and hospital interview on the news. She came running up with a cute umbrella and red raincoat. She took for granted he knew what he was doing, and was quickly screaming as peeling out of the hospital parking lot into the wrong side of the street and spinning out of control on the onramp to an elevated freeway, had her screaming and slapping him over the head until he was out of the seat and helping her get the car back in the on-ramp before it tilted over the edge. Cynthia was mad, and he could tell she was second guessing their future as a couple. Furyo wasnt interested in her attitude and directed her to take him to the alcove of vending machines where the pregnant dog was living. Finding the new mother sleeping with new born puppies, Cynthia wasnt sure she wanted to rescue them to her apartment. So deciding to break up, she drove around until he could find another abandoned Akiya to stay the night in. She wanted to talk more, but he wasnt interested if she wouldnt take the dogs. He let her keep the car and decided to try his luck staying in haunted houses. As soon as Cynthia pulled away, he felt kind of stupid taking such a hard line stance about a stinky dog and its puppies but he felt as much a connection to the dog as the girl. He named the dog Malice but didnt bother naming the puppies. This abandoned house had some red tape blocking the door. He carried the mother dog inside with the puppies. The house was fully furnished and despite a nasty purple stain on the tatami mats in the front sitting room. It was a comfy house. He had no doubt some elderly person had died here and rotted but there was no foul smell or bad vibes. Enough water came out of the sink to fill a water bowl for the dog and to wash his hands before it ran out. The place was cold and he didnt want to raise any suspicion about him being here but there was no way he was huddling up with the puppies for warmth. Finding some books and magazines, he filled an old fashioned stove and lit a nice fire. Walking around the house in the gloom of the overcast day was just bearable. His mind started to play tricks on him. Seeing lurking shapes in corners of rooms and pools of darkness. Walking around opening the inner shuttlers enough to get some light, the house was actually more scary once he knew the lay out. Every where was blind corners, alcoves, sliding walls and stair cases into recesses of the house. He decided not to explore or psych himself into bad vibes. He went into the kitchen and found some cans of tuna to feed the mother dog, and he was happy to stuff his face with junk food with pictures on the bag. The mother dog whimpered as thunder and lightning rolled in but he was feeling pretty content. Surprised to find out the lights turned on around dusk. He felt more comfortable exploring the upstairs, maybe finding a TV or radio. Upstairs was a winding hallway like an S shape. There were several bedrooms overflowing with junk, others with barely any furniture. Just boxes of old pictures and records. Finding a portable TV, some clean smelling blankets from a closet and a huge stash of whisky he was startled as the power went out while he went up again to find more clothes and cool stuff like swords or jewelry to make up with Cynthia. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Being upstairs with only the light of a lighter was something else. He could see his breath catching in the air and every where outside of a small illuminated sphere was dancing shadows and horrific silhouettes in the pools of darkness. He went room to room looking for cool stuff like ww2 flags or clothes he could wear that wouldnt make him stand out like his sparkling silver, black and pink funeral kimono did. Hearing sounds that startled him and imagining the kind of hellish spirits would be angry about his looting he decided to head back the way he came. The lights flickered a couple times, enough to scare him into stumbling and falling through a paper door. His lighter stopped working, only flicking enough to bounce fleeting light over ornate picture frames on the wall and an altar to ancestors. Furyo had enough and on his hands and knees found his way back to the stairs. All the time feeling as if some angry Yurei was looming over him with hateful intentions. The mother dog was whimpering and that was actually good as he would have had trouble finding his way back in the blackness. A long stream of orange light came in from a tear in the paper covering the window. He made the rip bigger so he could see better. Arranging blankets for him self and the puppies, he stocked the oven with more books. There was a buzz and the lights flickered on and off, he didnt know if the storm would cause them to go out again so he set out to find some proper firewood. He found the backdoor and outside a shed full of chopped wood. He was able to get 2 armloads inside before the lights went out for good. He dozed off until around 1am when Cynthia had come back, pleading with him to go home with her and leave the dogs. He refused but welcomed her to stay here with him. Apprehensively she did and they both woke up later to the lights turning on, and strangely the TV turning on full volume when he didnt remember plugging it in. By morning they were interrupted from their sleep by men in white plastic suits and gas masks from a decomposition cleaning service who were very angry they were sleeping there. Above them on the wall was the bloody scrawl that said Suicide House! (覴) in kanji. Rushing to collect the puppies and mother dog they flee into the morning light. Furyo thinks this is so funny he cant breathe, Cynthia feels a deep shame and repeatedly makes pleas to the clean up team to not report them or their license plate to the authorities. Meanwhile the mother dog looks alarmed at so much human attention after living life as a stray and pees in the back seat. (12) Dirty Foreign Dog 汚い外国の犬 Kitanai Gaikoku no Inu Cynthia was quickly becoming fed up with Furyos antics. Its one thing to run around fighting and getting into conflict with the police. Its another thing to try to force her into taking care of an unwashed dog and its brood of puppies, then breaking into a haunted house covered in police tape. This morning there was a clean up crew, dispatched to sanitize houses where lonely deaths have caused a stigma with neighbors and potential investors in the area. Murder, Suicide and rumors of great sadness cause specialized care from specialists who rip out walls, grind down cement and fumigate windows for body fluids and miasma released when corpses bloat and burst from prolonged neglect. One such team was here today fumigating the walls and throwing the contents of the house into a dumpster. Cynthia is quiet the whole way back to her apartment. She doesnt let the dogs in until they are scrubbed down and dried in the alley beside her apartment. She is kind of alarmed at the staples and oozing wounds on Furyo from his accident at the skateboard event. But she is won over at least temporarily to see the signed pictures and phone numbers left while Furyo was in the hospital from her grunge heros. She day dreams about the rock star life if Furyo started a band with these connections and she became his manager. Her neighbors give her uncomfortable looks at the American she has dragged home. Japanese by birth means very little when they see aggressive looking gang tattoos and baggy clothes that remind them of ԥ, Chimpira, L, Banch, and Х, Sukeban. Here it is common to leave nasty notes saying Shine! (Kill Your Self!) Giving Furyo some driving lessons broke the bad vibe in the air, still she harbored resentment and the evil notes of the neighbors were pushing her over the edge. She had to leave again for work and was reluctant to trust him with her key, but she didnt want him to end up dead in an alley or getting beaten up by Yakuza for walking around belligerent in the night. They ate some local versions of American food, pizza, Mexican food and hamburgers all day. Furyo had come up with a check list of things he wanted to see like the giant Buddha from in Kamakura, Japanese Disneyland, where they make Gundam and several violent anime studios like Madhouse where they were turned away but given a couple free posters. Furyo never realized exactly how much he loved Japanese movies until he started thinking about cartoons of his childhood, Ike Reiko and Miki Sugamoto girl gang movies. Suddenly he was on a quest to rent every Yakuza, Sukeban and Hentai Horror tentacle porn. Cynthia had never seen so much perversion in her life. Her childhood was made up with being treated like a princess and learning to paint and play classical instruments like piano, violin and trumpet. Furyo casually blurted out horror stories of abuse, violence and neglect. Every story he told was mentally harmful and likely to have produced a dangerous sociopath. He had scars all over his face and chest from being stabbed, shot and burned with boiling water by his own parents. His father had let him play with a gun at 4 years old and only took it away at the last minute when young Furyo shot him self in the corner of the mouth. How awful, she imagines what he could have been with out drugged out and absentee parents. A famous painter or scholar, not a skateboarding vandal who did 6 years in prison for stabbing a drug dealer who refused to give up a stash of money. Hidden in the dry wall until 6 of his toes where broken with a hammer with one eye totally unsalvageable. She wonders what he would do her if she turned her back on him. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Furyo was not at all in his deep introspective mood. He was on a quest to buy video games, drink him self to death and catch up on lost years of his youth. He came up with lists of manga and vhs tapes he wanted to buy. Before long Cynthias little studio was full of dozens of boxes of action figures and presents she didnt even want. He bought her jewels and dresses but also gross sex toys and perverted geisha and French maid outfits, lingerie and cartoonish makeup. At least he is concerned about animals. He also wanted to scour the area he walked when he first arrived looking for a monk and a kitten he had saved from drowning. Cynthia cant help but think it was cute he had dived in a drainage ditch to resuscitate a dying animal. While Furyo had been drinking all night reading instructions to build something he bought and drinking sake all night Cynthia had a missed call from a strange number from an uncommon area code. The message was hard to make out, the volume was so low it sounded like birds chirping or a tea kettle shrieking in the distance but there was a sweet sounding female voice behind all the noise. Cynthia could only make out a couple words for dirty foreign dog, giant, Korean, song, sin and grandmother. Cynthia was haunted since she played the message. Furyo was asleep on the floor in his boxer shorts like a wild animal. Snarling and making accusations in his sleep at least he wasnt a violent sleeper. Cynthia had a grandfather who fought in ww2 and used to howl to lost comrades and fight off demons in his sleep. While Cynthia was thinking of these sad memories the phone rang again. Picking it up, she is greeted by the soothing voice of a nurse. She asks for Furyo but Cynthia says he does not speak Japanese. Walking over to where Furyo is asleep in the middle of the floor, she nudges him with her foot. Taking a message and contact info, the nurse tells Cynthia she works in a care home in Aomori at the Northern tip of Honshu. Furyo has a grandmother who is not well, but when Furyo came on TV she was instantly certain he was her lost grandson from America. Cynthia hangs up but is unsettled by the whole thing. How did they get her phone number? Cynthia prepares lunch and tea for them and presses her foot over Furyos face until he opens his eyes. Furyo looks unearthly for a second, his bloodshot eyes showing anger and his legs spasm for a second before he smiles and drags her to the floor for a kiss. Cynthia recoils as his breath and body smell like sour alcohol. (13) The North is the Land of the Dead 北は死者の国だ Kita Wa Yurei Nokuni The way to Aomori took all day. They set out around 10am and the drive took them into real Japanese wilderness. Arriving at the care home as the last rays of day light turned the sky red as storm clouds rolled in from the sea. Aomori is a mountainous region that is most well known for a place rumored to be the gateway to the afterlife, a cremation ground beside a mountain shrine called Osorezan. The address for the care home seemed off as it was in a rural area that once held a fortress and monastery long burned down. As they wind the mountain roads they see wild deer, flocks of birds, eagles, Tanuki raccoons who look far more like wolves than their US counterparts. Crossing the road they see a family of horned Serow Horses that looks like a cross between a wooly goat and an muscular antelope. The animals have no fear of people and when Cynthia opens the window to feed them pear slices they bite her fingers. Furyo screams at them until they move off the road. At the gate of the care home they cant get a response and turn back to find an inn for the night. They come to a row of cottages near a traditional hot spring. The caretaker is a little old lady hunched over from advanced arthritis but she is kind and brings them warm soup, biscuits, cookies and mochi ice cream balls. Breaking in the new digs with rough sex, they are started as they notice a family of mischievous red faced snow monkeys have burrowed though the bamboo rafters and darted down the wall to steal their leftover cookies. This put a damper on the lovemaking as the monkeys strange golden eyes stared at them as if they are the intruder. A baby monkey was the first to come down and interact with them, when they woke up they see the entire tribe of Japanese macaques was curled up around them for warmth but darted away screaming at the first sign of movement. The caretaker brought them a steaming tray of breakfast with warm tea, sake, eggs, fish, sweet beans and pickled yams. The food was under a heavy wire crate to keep out of the hands of wild monkeys from spoiling it. The Onsen in beside the inn was filled with sleepy monkeys resting in the warm waters. Finding one of the pools with out any forrest life, they glided into the peaceful waters. It was cold here at this high elevation, the warm waters bubbled with geological thermal heat and the grey pools gave off steam that wafted in the lazy wind. It was lightly sprinkling rain and the trees danced with the breeze. Far off they heard lightning but the traditional architecture of the roof and grounds made Furyo think of Samurai movies he saw as a kid. The Inn keeper had friendly Akita dog to keep the bear away, but he wasnt doing his job as he slept through a small black bear stole a bag of garbage and ran into the forrest. They paid for another day and left their belongings in the room. Returning to the care facility around noon, they had stopped to go grocery shopping to bring some candy to Furyos grandmother. Pulling into the gate, they find a massive traditional building that looked like a castle. The walls were wood that was stained black with age. Along the high walls were statues of ferocious buddhist protector gods with spears and swords, fu dogs and pagodas. At the door they are met by the nurse named Mariko who told them Mrs. Matsuno was unwell, she is in the garden temple praying for death. They are ushered through a maze of hallways with golden mural walls and though several paper doors until they reach the back entrance to the meditation pond. The garden is full of manicured trees, fluttering butterflies, ladybugs and dragon flies. The way the light bounces off the pond almost makes Cynthia pass out, as the beauty of the area makes her think about death and the afterlife. A large statue of Buddha looms over the pond surrounded by white flowering plum trees. Orange and silver koi are friendly in the pond. Coming to the edge seeking alms from the visitors. Beyond the pond and over a red bridge is the memorial shrine where Furyos grandmother sits in a wheel chair with her back to them. She is so small with her grey hair tied up over her head and a grey and red kimono covered in translucent flowers and birds in the design. The nurse turns her wheel chair around and they are greeted by a smiling woman with hands in prayer. She bows to them and the nurse speaks for her since her small voice is a whisper. She tells Furyo she hasnt seen her daughter in years but she thinks Furyos mother is living somewhere in the Fukushima province to the south. They offer her the sweets they brought and she passes them to the nurse for safe keeping. Furyo looks at the tomb stones and altars beyond. His grandmother tells the nurse that these are his ancestors and he fights back tears in his eyes. He vaguely remembers his grandmother but his mother never told him any history of the family other than his father was mixed blood, Japanese and Korean, descended from invaders in the era of the Imjin war in the Sengoku Period. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Furyo doesnt even know his fathers name since his last name comes from his mother. Through Cynthia and the nurse Furyo asks about his father and hears the words Kuroi Inu \Ȯ Black Dog comes from his grandmother in a hiss. With this she becomes enraged and starts pounding the arm rests of her chair and rips her prayer beads to pieces that scatter at their feet. Rocking back and forth in a rage, the nurse ushers them back to the side path back to the front and tells them to come back the following day. Furyo feels sad he upset his grandmother. He was surprised to see her tantrum, his father must have been a real bastard to the family. The word she used sounded familiar. Black Dog was something he over heard the Yakuza say when he was out drinking in his first days as a deportee. They drive into Aomori proper to see the coastal beauty. They visit some temples and do some shopping downtown. Spending the rest of the day picnicking at the beach. The sky cleared and it was a bright sunny day despite the ocean breeze being ice cold. The trees here are permanently twisted from the constant wind. It reminds Furyo of the bluffs above the Sutro Baths where the trees are look tortured and contorted into anguished shapes. They drink sake in the tide and dance to music coming from a resort nearby playing sad love songs from the 70s. Finally they get tired of the beach as the sun sets and the bottles of sake have been long emptied. Returning to the Onsen Inn, they fall into their western style bed and sleep though the violence of fighting monkeys in the rafters and wind rattling the paper windows. Returning to the care facility the next day. They are met with tears from the staff, his grandmother had died in the night. Furyo wants to see her and they enter a long dark room like a church with hundreds of candles along the walls. At the end of the vast room lies his grandmother in an opulent carved wood casket, covered in ornate gold flourishes and surrounded in a sea of pictures and flowers. Furyo cant believe the only family member he knows of in the world died the day he came to see her. He feels a pain behind his eyes and wishes there was some opportunity to start a fist fight to have the anger and frustration he feels pour out of his fists like a whirlwind. The staff is very polite, bowing and trying to not cry. They tell Cynthia that his grandmothers family has left him a large inheritance with specific conditions to the trust and to expect a call from the lawyers. Markio hands him a piece of paper with his mothers phone number and address. They decide to stop in and see her. Taking the eastern coast roads down to the Fukushima prefecture. Coming to the place, its another strange locale. A sea side cottage that is completely burned and deserted. If his mother lived here once, she doesnt know. Furyo is curious and wants to go inside. The street is abandoned and there doesnt seem to be any one to complain. Cynthia waits in the car as Furyo explores inside. The estate was once likely very nice but now rain streams in holes in the roof and all thats left here is blackened wood, cobwebs and pieces of burned pictures. He finds a couple worth saving of him self and his mother when she was young. Publicity stills from her music career and a couple magazines about organized crime that has pictures of his father circled in red pen with English captions. The Black Wolf. They find the local police station and the man at the desk doesnt know much, the property burned a few years ago and they have no information on where the woman who lived there moved after. No one died in the fire and the cause was believed to be old wiring. They decide to drive back to Tokyo overnight and they dont talk much. Furyo is glued to the Yakuza magazine until he remembers the journalist from the plane specialized in Yakuza in movies and reality. Maybe he would have some info on his father if he really is a Yakuza. Furyo had a strange dream as Cynthia drove them back. He was in the care facility alone, the corridors looked like a castle from a movie. Women with worm eaten faces and nuns habits follow him and he comes to a room full of 100 men in traditional funeral clothes. Each takes up a sword as trapped birds struggle to be free in the eves of the room. Monks chant in a hellish ferocity with chimes and bells. In a ceremonial metal bowl papers with names and pictures burn. Each of the 100 men places a small sword to his stomach as Furyo walks to the from of the room and sits on a throne made of demonic deities and fearsome animals. The nuns who look like long mummified bodies take candles to the walls and light the room on fire. The 100 men all plunge the swords into the stomaches, falling forward and screaming in agony. Smoke burns his eyes and chokes his nose. Furyo wakes up both screaming and profusely sweating in a puddle of urine. (14) Rough Housing With Satan サタンとのラフハウジング Satan to no Rafuhaujingu Furyo remembers his time in San Quentin Adjustment Center. Where the worst of the worst of the non-Death Row inmates are thrown in with the most rabid killers the California system has to offer. Furyo liked it here, the howling screams of rage, the burning towels thrown out on the tier, the look of fear and respect in the guards eyes. That was until they did a shift rotation and brought in a group of Correctional Officers with a true hate for inmates and a cold sadism streak. The Cleanup Crew would come in ripping up cells, throwing pictures and drawings into the toilet, breaking bones of guys who minded their business for decades, and got a serious vendetta going with the heads of all the most powerful gangs. These were the useful idtots, loud mouths and non chess playing minds that would have scream outs with the guards rather than make a plan to destroy their lives and leave them shadows of human beings. Down the tier from Furyo was a quiet guy on Death Row for supposedly killing his girlfriend and a series of stabbings, arsons and pushing transients into the path of commuter trains. His name was Nicodemus Cyanide Vadik. He was unassuming, made underground hip hop beats in his cell, was on several tech magazines described as a trend setter and visionary. One day the Cleanup Crew came in his cell, broke all his smuggled computer pieces and pushed him naked into a cell with a known prison rapist, whom he somehow overpowered and nearly decapitated. Nicodemus was called the vampire by the guards because he was only awake at night and many suspected the violence was hired out from enemies he had on the outside. The Cleanup Crew would wear hockey masks like Jason Vorhees, they enjoyed breaking legs and throwing inmates from the 5th tier. One day Furyo was reading Evil Ernie comic books he was copying for tattoo designs and a kite came under his door. Kites are little prison notes, shot between cells with a string line and weighted car that was usually a bar of soap inside a plastic shampoo or toothpaste tube. The note was from Nicodemus and was basically offering him 100k per broken leg on each of the cleanup crew and 500k if he could get his hands on one of their hockey masks. Furyo was quick to agree but wanted to work out the logistics of how the money would be transferred and how all this would be done if he ended up injured, stuck in isolation or killed by guards. Nicodemus sent a large sum of money to Furyos people on the streets to show how serious he was. After watching two transfers of 300k to his Chinatown contacts just to take the job, Furyo made a plan on how to cause a riot to mask his movements. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Furyo started spreading rumors that the cops in visiting were taking upskirt pictures of the gang members wives during the strip search, also said he say one of the guys girl friends who stopped visiting making out with one of the Cleanup Crew in the parking lot. On the other hand he paid a trustee who was able to move around the grounds to tamper with the guards personal items in their lockers, pop their tires on their cars and leave tacks in their boots. This created a hostile climate where the cell searches and abuse of inmates property escalated. Treasured cassette tapes were smashed, porno mags taken and personal letters read aloud on the PA system that included unflattering admissions and concessions from broken men waiting for their date with death. Furyo made his move during the daily afternoon count. A lone cop named Roid Rage was walking the tier with his flip book of names and pictures. This guy was a cowboy, hated rap music so Furyo left a tape deck playing Dre Dog, Askari x and Paris, hiding it in an air duct where it took the cops a couple hours to find it. Furyo has been buying blood, used needles and feces from an HIV positive drag queen down on the first deck. Inside the tape deck was rigged explosive, razor blades, screws and a milk container filled with putrid body fluids intended to infect every one in a 7 foot radius. Blowing off Officer Roid Rages fingers and injuring the eye of another cop they called Honkey Donkey. Furyo had worked it out with a Black Guerrilla Family shot caller named Satan to take credit for it. When the Cleanup Crew came in that night, Furyo had rigged his cell door to pop the lock when they rushed in to attack Satan at the back of the tier. Once they opened Satans cell and began beating him, Furyo bounced out his cell with a improvised shank in one hand and a razor in the other, taped up tight so he couldnt be disarmed. He rushed up behind the cops and began slicing the tendons in their legs and arms, puncturing lungs and kicking knees sideways. Then he opened 6 other cells with the guards keys. This caused hell on earth. Furyo was pretty sure they hadnt seen his face under the improvised ninja mask he had rigged with a spare t-shirt. Now as the fury of decades of abuse was unleashed on these cowardly guards, Furyo delivered the mask to Nicodemus. He found out Nicodemus actually wanted to die. He had a bunch of star lawyers from Silicon Valley working on his behalf, but now he just wanted to go peacefully. Furyo gave him the hockey mask and true to his word, another million was wired to Furyos mother. Furyo also scored a Sega Genesis with Splatterhouse 2 and 3, Altered Beast and Chakan the Forever Man, some underground Hip Hop tapes and smut magazines. Pretty good score. Furyo played his video games while the riot played out. Hostages traded, tear gas canisters shot in and a promise those specific pigs were out of a job after somebody hacked their personal computers, leaking dozens of abusive pictures taken with Death Row inmates wives and sisters to the press. (15) Black Days 暗黒の日々 Ankoku no hibi Cynthia has had enough. She likes him, but the bad vibes and explosive energy he brings to her life is something she isnt prepared to cope with. She knows he is suffering so she doesnt want to wound him any more but she doesnt want to confront him directly. The next time she goes to work, she takes all her things and gives notice on the apartment. She leaves a note that says simply. This isnt working. Furyo has plenty of money but not speaking the language is going to make renting an apartment difficult. When he returns from being out for he day the land lord and some workmen are putting all his things out on the street. He is able to fit most of it in the car but the cool stuff and any thing of value is already missing. The dogs are missing and the wind has turned violent. He has to walk down the street to salvage any paperwork or pictures of family left before it gets ruined by thunder and lightning. Furyo still doesnt know the city well and ends up driving until he comes to the waterfront and passes out in the parking lot of a commercial building over looking the abandoned fort on Odaiba island. The next day he makes his way back to Shibuya and doesnt feel like spending money. Every thing he has is a couple thousand yen, not enough to rent a place or even do much drinking. Feeling let down and defeated he parks the car and walks around aimlessly. He needs a job and to learn some Japanese. He is lucky for the fact most tourist areas have names in American characters beside kanji. Making finding things similar if you can remember the names in Japanese. Shibuya is like any major city. Skyscrapers, high-rises and bars full of the happy and wealthy. He is neither but his streetwise nature makes finding new friends easier but in this weather its not the joyous nights of partying he expected. Every one here looks kind of down, drinking away their own suffering, walking fast with umbrellas and wondering what the fuck this American is doing with no umbrella walking down the street like a hoodlum. Coming to a bar with a decent view of the city. He points to several drinks and sits there thinking about kicking out the window and jumping from the 10th story. He is alone in a sea of spoken Japanese. He hears some English coming from Australian tourists who take one look at him and move their seat. Like that huh? He thinks. He falls asleep and is woken up by the police. The owners must be Yakuza because they joined up several tables and placed every food item and empty drink on the menu in front of him. The police are screaming about money with a bill for 300,000 yen. Roughly 3,000 American. Furyo doesnt have it, and even if he did he wouldnt tolerate being extorted. He pretends to smile and reach in his pocket to pay, shoving the police and snide owner out of the way only to run into an elevator that wont open. He dives past them again and this time a nightstick catches him in the teeth, chipping them. Spitting blood and fighting like a rabid animal he makes it to a door he can smash though the glass into a stairwell. Feeling too drunk to outrun cops he begins leaping down each flight of five stairs until he gets to metal door that leads to the dumpsters. Down there waiting are 7 Yakuzas with knives who didnt plan on doing any talking. Furyo is stabbed 72 times in the chest and arms only to fall into the cops as they come running. The Yakuza smile at the cops and pile into some waiting luxury cars and the police let them go. Furyo isnt done fighting but as he tries to breathe he feels his lung collapsing. Feeling pink bubbles coming out of his shirt he starts to panic as the world starts spinning. He hears screams of the police over radios and hears an ambulance coming. The blue and yellow swirling light makes him dizzy. He sees the cops disgusted faces leering at him as he loses the battle to sleep. He doesnt feel like he died. Doesnt know how much time passed or how bad his injuries are. All he knows is his bones feel uncomfortable and his dreams are of endless suffering. He thinks of the cat he saved and the hell priest. When he awakens its to a Buddhist monk praying over him and a smiling nurse in a medical mask changing his bandages. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The nurse walks out and comes back in with the police. One of them speaks English but Furyo refuses to tell them any thing. A stoic doctor comes in asking about his living arrangements in perfect English and lets him know they will have to kick him out if he doesnt have a way to pay. Furyo doesnt mind as his first thought is of his car parked in Shibuya probably being towed. He is released to the street but at least they called him a taxi. His clothes were cut off him in the ER so he is walking around in a white gown open to the breeze. Furyo must have a demon on his shoulder from this misfortune streak. The cabby doesnt speak English but understands Shibuya. When Furyo starts to recognize the famous spots he dashes out of the taxi with out paying at the first opportunity. The cabby isnt going to let this fly and chases after him. Coming to his car as the guy tries to strangle him from behind, Furyo spins and two pieces the poor guy, leaving him snoring face down in the street. Furyo knows this will be a bad deal. The cabby will certainly call the police and the hospital will know his name and identity. By a stroke of luck he finds his way back to the first abandoned house he slept in his first few nights in the country. Its damp inside and he wonders what happened to the mother dog and her puppies. He falls asleep shivering and wakes up to an old couple bringing him a blanket and smiling. They feed him a big meal of traditional grilled meat. He feels so blessed by their kindness but in the but in the back of his mind he feels like they are ghosts. They dont speak English but smile and talk to each other jokingly. When he wakes up he feels the soft blanket and feels like he has been fed a large meal. Walking though the house he finds pictures of the couple from his dream and the stained bed where they must have died, left rotting for months. He feels a reverence for their spirits, he lights incense and leaves an offering. Furyo has one plan for the day. Find the owner of the bar who extorted him with his Yakuza friends and kill them all. Parking in the exact same space and walking around until he found the bar, he comes out the elevator to find the place is totally empty. The furniture, fixtures and even the bar has been removed. Nothing there but bare cement pillars and black marble walls. Furyo screams FUCK! He isnt alone, from an adjacent room come the 7 Yakuza who stabbed him wearing the Noh mask of enraged yase-otoko and kawazu phantoms. He remembers each face, joined with a new man wearing an alligator skin suit and wearing 5 thousand dollar Italian sunglasses who is the only one smiling. Furyo isnt here to make friends so he pulls a knife from his waist band and rushes forward to go to work. They are separated by about 20 feet and before he can take 3 steps, he is staring down the barrels of a firing squad. Each of the 7 Yakuza pulls a pistol, more men rush out of back with submachine guns. The man in Italian sunglasses raises his hands in surrender and says. Hear me out, our guy in the hospital said you refused to talk to police. We respect that and after some digging we found out a little bit about you American. We control this area, so we wont apologize for what happened but to soften the blow we will make it up to you. The owner is roughly brought out and thrown down on his knees. The owner is squinting at the gun and hysterically pleading for his life in Japanese. The man in the sunglasses hands Furyo his own nickel plated 45 and says. Welcome to the family. Furyo cocks back the slide, causing the owner to clasp his hands in prayer shrieking. Furyo places the gun in the back of his waste band and begins beating the man until he is sure he will be permanently disfigured. Breaking his jaw, knocking out all his teeth and digging one of his eyes out. The Yakuza are a mixture of laughs and groans. The man in sunglasses puts his hand on Furyos shoulder. I think he learned his lesson. Let me buy you dinner. (16) Red Light District and Indoctrination into the Yakuza Life 歓楽街とヤクザの生活への洗脳 Kanrakugai to yakuza The Yakuza have good taste. They drink 1000 dollar bottles of whisky and eat food fit for royalty. Rooster, the Yakuza in the Italian shades is an underboss. He explains the makeup of their family. They are ħ The Akuma Bryokudan Family, meaning the Devil Mafia. They share power in a fragile alliance with the ʳˡHito kui Kyojin Cannibal Giant Gang, The 둻ᥴ`ȥޥե Akury-kai Evil Spirit Ancient Shinto Priests, ҰM The Yaj-gumi Beast Clan, ȤĤ줿L The Toritsukareta Buzoku Possessed Men Tribe and Kyketsuki doho-dan Vampire Clan that were once organized crime but now control the Police and Government. Regular criminals and deviants were referred to as Monstrosities or Yokai, who have no standing with the Yakuza and were expected to keep their crimes from interfering with their rackets. While they are talking ravishingly beautiful hostesses join them, Rikki and Machiko. Rooster tells Furyo to take his pick so he cozys up to Machi. Rooster is called away and tosses Furyo keys to his house and tells him to keep both the girls. Only Machi speaks English but they are both alluring, they areex models. The girls smile as they sip their drinks like rabid nymphos. Furyo has seen hookers before and these look expensive. He has never had to pay for sex and isnt going to start now. The girls are so worldly and wise, they speak about current events in the world, esoteric genres of music and places they have travelled. Lives free of the heavy burden of years in prison. He lets his guard down as it gets late, Furyo is escorted to a waiting car with the girls. They arrive at a non-descript house on a hill surrounded by a high wall and thick hedges. The girls have been here before so they know the way. Coming up some stairs to the main room, Furyo can all the lights of Tokyo glimmering from a floor to ceiling window. Before he can sit down or mix a drink the girls have his clothes off and are trying to get him erect. Starting their mouths and racing into every possible hole and combination of depraved activity in full view of the city bellow. Furyo is worn out by dawn. He wakes up alone with a phone number written on his chest in lipstick. The house is empty but Furyo looks around. Checking out the mansion. The dining room has another floor to ceiling window, this one facing a garden with a pond, fruit trees and roses. Beyond the garden is a low wall that overlooks a million dollar view of Tokyo bay. The bathroom is marble with a separate shower and bath tub, a glass toilet and sink made of a single carved stone that shines in the light. The kitchen is huge and full of bottles of expensive French wine and Irish Whisky. In all there were a half dozen rooms and offices. The house is missing any personal touches like pictures or the clutter you expect from a lived in home. Furyo smells like sex so he takes a shower. The water felt good on his face but turns into sharp pain as it gets into the stab wounds in his ribs and back. Looking at the dozens of wounds in the mirror, he can see some of them are leaking blood while others arent as bad. Half the bandages fall off in the water so he peals the rest he can reach off. The wounds are pretty ghastly. In all he probably has over a thousand stitches and a couple hundred staples. He wonders what his mother would think of her abandoned son on the other side of the world getting stabbed half to death by Yakuza. Furyo keeps getting a whiff of something strange like blood and gunpowder masked by floral smelling cleaning chemicals. Looking around he is shocked to see a man and womans corpses, hands tied behind their back and shot in the head submerged in the party sized bathtub. Around the corner in a second shower behind a glass brick wall where two more bodies much smaller than the others and heads covered in black plastic. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Furyo puts on some of Roosters expensive designer suits and comes outside to find his car has been brought to him and washed. As he goes to get in his car, two Yakuza who dont speak English prevent him from getting in his car. They instead usher him to the same black car from the night before. Furyo feels kind of weak as his wounds have started bleeding through his shirt. He spends about an hour in the car. Driving on the freeway away from the city. They come to another grand house surrounded by a gate with a courtyard full of a fleet of black cars and their attending Yakuza drivers. In the corner of the yard he can see workers in yellow rubber hazmat suits throwing bodies in a grave behind the rose bushes. Furyo has been around death and crime before, but he draws the line at innocent people. He will need to confront Rooster about corpses in the house. The last thing he needs is to be framed for murder. Rooster is coming down the stairs with the Bosses and representatives of several major crime families. Rooster brushes past Furyo but winks at him. Furyo watches as Rooster walks them to their cars and bows as they pull out. Furyo cant believe his eyes as some of the dignitaries look otherworldly, some like bloated corpses, others translucent like ghosts and one who looked like a 12 foot tall ogre. Turning to Furyo, Rooster says. Putting out fires. introduces Furyo to the guys in the courtyard. The stern faced Yakuza dont speak English and Furyo doesnt pretend to memorize their names. The Yakuza give slight bows while looking at him like an insect. They dont look interested in making new friends either. The procession of mobsters bring him into the house that might as well be a castle. Expressionless Yakuza stand at attention as they open a paper sliding door into an attending conference hall were all the new recruits kneel before an elevated platform where the boss sits. He is wearing a mask like that of a Noh play with wild red hair coming off it like a lions mane. The boss wears a beige kimono covered in gold leafing and purple silk flowers. Furyo sits in the back of the room off to the side. All around him new members whisper and shift as they sit uncomfortable on the floor and every one looks nervous. Every one else is wearing black or blue kimonos but no one seems to notice the disparity in his outfit. Before long a speech is given in Japanese, a tycho war drum is banged and older women come in placing sake plates in front of each man. Every one in the room raises the plate reverently in front of them and Furyo does his best to mimic the movements of the ceremony. Furyo doesnt mimic the oath that is being chanted but when its time to drink he does. The sake is hot and not like any he has had before. It has a salty tint to it like soy sauce or blood. Once the ceremony is over each man is handed a small sword, like those used for ritual suicide in the movies. Running his finger along its blade, it instantly digs in like it has a mind of its own and thirst for blood. Rooster comes into the room and congratulates Furyo on becoming a brother in the Yakuza. Furyo doesnt realize that was what was happening but doesnt make a fuss. He feels kind of good. In the highs and lows of his life, he has gone from sleeping under bridges to being treated like an honored guest. Everything is moving so fast he does have the time to weigh the pros and cons of his choices. He is now obligated to defend people who were jamming knives into his body only a few days ago. Furyo looks to the Master of the Akuma Bryokudan Family, still sitting at the head of the room like Lucifer in Paradise Lost. Furyo feels uncomfortable at the whole thing. Now he has to learn the rules of a whole new world that has opened to him. Furyo asks about the bodies in the bathroom and Rooster laughs it off. Part of this life is not asking questions or having conflicting sympathies during a regime change. By the way, if its to your liking that house is available for you. Furyo thinks about it and tells Rooster he would prefer a place with out the former owners buried in the bushes. (17) Low man on the totem pole トーテムポールの上の低い男 Tōtemupōru no ue no hikui otoko Furyo was given some low jobs. He was a step well bellow the big earners who broke legs to collect debts or carried out hits. He was basically a dancing monkey. The kind of job asian countries use westerners with no grasp of the language for like holding a sign or recruiting women for modeling that was the gateway into sexual exploitation. Furyo was given a smart wardrobe a fancy fleet of cars and sent to areas where western tourists and students congregated with a camera to lure women into the brothels or to work in adult films or hostess clubs depending on their ability to be sweet-talked into taking their clothes off. The first day he got 3 girls interested in doing artful nudes in a studio but none eager to do sex work. Furyo felt like a scumbag, this was a real piece of shit job. He remembers stories of girls sold off to Arab countries and never seen again. Held captive by some oil mafia tribal warlord in the Mid East. He always had an empathetic sense in his heart but the rough way he grew up rarely gave him the ability to do any thing heroic. Once or twice he broke up domestic violence or took a dog away from an abusive jogger. In prison he tried to save a dude getting punked, when he transferred to another facility he heard it was all for nothing as the former victim was now living as a woman with a lifer. Now he feels the same tinge of regret but he had no other option to survive with out the Yakuza and as it stands he is sworn by oath to do as he is told. Standing in the smoking circle of Shibuya he meets all kinds of westerners. Blondes, Latinas, Red Heads, Filipinas, Russians and French women all with the friendly eyes of the newly single and interested in mingling. His new business cards are impressive with raised lettering and a faint watermark of a roman pillar and lakefront balcony. Every where he goes he gets at least one girl to agree to come with him for drinks or a lunch meeting. Before long he is running a booming adult film business where nude modeling turns into hard core pornography. Sweet girls from small farms who never thought about lesbian sex or orgies entered a whole new world. Furyo was the star, set up the lighting and ended up cutting the film into 10 minute clips he would turn into Rooster once a week. For this he was paid over 100 thousand American a year, not including the studio rent or expensive cars included in the payment. Two times the first month he caught something from broken condoms. Getting the itch or the green drip was no problem since the Yakuza had a full staff of private doctors who could cure pretty much any thing. From fixing up his stab woulds to curing STDs or digging out bullets, he was covered no matter what was happening. One day while cruising around Kabuki-cho he remembers the three girls from the plane who ghosted him. Running into them again, now they are eager to get to know him. He gets the impression they were comfortable with prostitution already if they are prowling around the Kabuki-cho red light district of Shinjuku looking for a job. So he brings them directly to a whore house the Akuma Boryokudan controls, a few steps away from where they are standing. He rings them in to the front office and brings them up to rooms where they can live and turn tricks in. Its not like they were friends or he had any reason to feel sympathy for them, but part of him feels dirty not knowing what will become of them. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He doesnt really dwell on these things as he drives around in a Ferrari listening to grunge and gangster rap from the states is a cure to any mental duress. Learning the city he finds more and spots full of Americans and gradually learns some simple Japanese greetings. Calling up Angelina, the Gothic European tagger chick. He makes plans to meet again, not sure if she is involved with any body back home he is assured on her end its not a problem. Furyo has a different woman for every day of the week so he doesnt bother asking for permission to have side chicks outside the business. Furyo does keep wondering about the mother dog and her puppies. Wishes he had some info on the monk and the kitten but now that he is living the rockstar life there is little room for mourning lost pets. Meeting Angelina in the new studio, she inquires about the lighting equipment and cameras. He lies and says he is a film student. She doesnt buy it but doesnt argue. Before long she is fucking on camera with him. To his surprise Angelina was into every thing everything. Especially sex in cemeteries and abandoned buildings. Angelina wanted to see all the abandoned homes where dead bodies were left for days or weeks to putrefy. She loved the idea of taking candle lit tours of famous cemeteries, straying from the tour group and having public sex among the tombs. Eating mandarin oranges left in temples, drinking sake, eating apples and plums on graves and bags of nuts left as offerings to the dead. This wasnt strange to him as offerings left to the dead where often a source of free food of him growing up. Furyo meant no disrespect by this but in his heart it felt wrong. Angelina was the the kind of girl friend who bought out the most toxic and scandalous impulses in him. Far from her personality to try to break up fights or bad behavior, she encouraged it. Often instigating feuds between Furyo and other local toughs. Furyo spends more and more of his free time hanging out with Bszoku car enthusiasts and biker gangs. As Furyo experienced more and more of Tokyo s counter culture, he yearned for home. Tokyo in all its exotic beauty and crazy night life could never replace the San Francisco Bay Area in his heart. (18) Cannibal Warlords 人食い大将 Hito-gui taishō Being summoned to a gang meeting was a weekly thing. Furyo thought nothing of it but he was the center of a controversy. The Akury-kai was a former rival in an uneasy alliance. They were ⤤ Noroi Yrei, cursed spirits who exist in darkness, lingering on earth to settle malicious feelings from life. 둻ᥴ`ȥޥե Akury-kai gsutomafia who held dominion over all memorial offerings and alms left at places of the dead. They were a group of evil spirits who watched over 覴 Ƥ֤ä (Shinriteki kashi Bukken) homes of the dead, Jinja (Shrines) and Ĺ, Hakaba (Cemeteries.) At the meeting Rooster is no where around so Furyo sits quietly as the meeting begins. The room is dark and there are no candles burning. As he sits wondering what is the purpose of the meeting a door is opened and he wonders if he is actually seeing ghosts entering. The skin on his neck tightens, his palms and toes go cold. A procession of evil spirits! Pale figures with a dark aura and luminous eyes. The Yurei look grey but have a blackness at the same time that is hard to describe. Like dropping ink in water, spiritual miasma in the air make the breath of the living freeze in the air. The room and even the day light beyond the paper window frames seem to be darkening. Two rows of 20 shuffle in, sitting in the center of the room. With an awful voice chanting like a traditional horror Noh play, begin reading a list of their grievances. The Master of the Akuma listens quietly and with out saying a word, the spirits rise and leave. Furyo is shocked when the Master begins screaming and pointing in his direction. The Yakuza beside Furyo seize him and drag him before the master who is glowering with his intense Oni Mask. The Master is shaking with rage and screaming in Japanese. Furyo almost feels like he understands a piece of what is said. Centuries of tradition, wasted on a slithering worm with no honor, risking war in our heartland over foolish earthly pursuits! Rooster appears out of nowhere wearing a gold suit and with out his usual shades. He explains that Furyos history with breaking into homes of the recently dead as well as bringing women to have sex in cemeteries has enraged the 둻ᥴ`ȥޥե Akury-kai Ghost Clan who are threatening war if the ħ Devil Clan doesnt surrender the core of their territory, an unacceptable demand. Furyo tries to explain he had no where else to sleep and he had treated the դ Akiya, Abandoned homes of the Dead with reverence, even honoring an alter to the former residents. Furyo doesnt get to explain before he is swatted in the teeth by the Master with a closed traditional fan. Furyo panics as he is dragged into a room he understands to be a killing floor. Falling on his hands and knees in a putrid and sticky puddle of blood. He doesnt look up as he expects a bullet crushing the back of his skull eminently. His eyes were beaten shut and possibly suffering a brain injury, one of the palms of his hand feels broken when he tries to brace himself off the killing floor. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Furyo is left alone and before long realizes he is not going to be killed immediately. Looking into the darkness across the room he sees a small figure sitting between 2 candles chanting quietly. Furyo cant help himself, he carefully walks over silently. He is shocked to see the Hell Priest, the lost Kitten and the Mother dog with puppies laying happily in front of the priest. Chanting stops and the monk opens his eyes and smiles. Furyo is too shocked to speak. The Hell Priest rings a bell and stares unblinking as Furyo wonders what the fuck is happening. Instantly overwhelming feelings of a mix of joy, regret, horror and powerlessness come over him. In his minds eye he sees for all his hard work the mother dog was put out on the street by Cynthia and was hit by a truck before returning to her brood, the orange eyed kitten had caught a lung infection and suffocated in the night. This was a place for the dead to rest. The Hell Priest grabs the etherial spirit of the orange eyed kitten and says, Walk with me They come to a sliding wooden door that opens into a warm corridor that functions as a sunroom. Exiting into a cemetery, they walk among the tomb stones and trees. Its a magical place that is at once suffering neglect but also has signs of some rituals of Shinto priests for the dead. The Priest says. You are the source of controversy. Allegedly you have been dishonoring homes of the dead, eating their food and sexually violating cemeteries. This angered the Ghost Clan who seized on this as an excuse for war. The Akuma Boryoku has been weakened by the alliance it once held with the ҰM The Yaj-gumi Beasts Clan and {줿Ф Hyi sa reta otoko-tachi Possessed Men Cult fracturing the peace and siding with the 둻ᥴ`ȥޥե Akury-kai. Their oldest allies ʳˡHito kui Kyojin Cannibal Giant Gang acting as if they want to remain in neutrality. You must go to their stronghold in the west on Kyushu and beg for their support in the war that is coming. You have one week to fix the rift you have caused. Otherwise you will be banished and killed on sight. (19) The Ghost Lantern 提灯お化け Chōchinobake A familiar feeling of being kicked in the ass hits Furyo. A spiritual abandonment, like winning the lottery only to have them cite a trick in the rule book to seize your winnings. He still has plenty money but they have taken his fancy cars and studio. He is functionally homeless and back to square one. He needs to travel hundreds of miles to beg sympathy from a tribe of giant cannibal warlords. That familiar itch of self sabotage comes calling. He decides to get a motorcycle and raise some hell with the Bszoku before departing to the west. Their familiar haunts are desolate, places where the girls chill to watch the dudes burn out and ditch the cops are empty. Maybe they were rounded up or laying low after violence. No legit business will sell him a motorcycle with his credit, but the Bszoku will. Driving his Acura Legend around he just kind of cruises until he sees some mayhem on the roads. Crossing a bridge he comes to highway interchange and as luck would have it, two factions of Bszoku fighting it out. Riding double on their bikes, they are lighting fire crackers and throwing them at each other, using lances made of rebar to knock each other into on coming traffic. Furyo cant read the kanji but the colors and design look familiar. Watching some out-of-towners smash into the pavement. He stops to give the guy a hand. Furyo can see he is dying but the bike is still in pretty good shape. He says a prayer and takes the guys ride as the light leaves his eyes. Furyo races up to catch up to the guys he knows. They react like they see a ghost and buzz the accelerator but they decide to fight so they peel into a parking structure. When they realize its Furyo on an enemies bike, they give cheers and quickly chug some beers. Now they are on the prowl for trouble. They end up drinking in a sleepy little fishing village outside Tokyo proper. The inn keeper is rowdy woman in her 30s who flashes them for tips and drinks like a fish. Furyo thinks This is the place! Until riot cops storm in and every body has to run out the side door while frustrating the cops with fireworks and zip guns. Racing into traffic they loop around to a couple more bars outside the scope of the all points bulletin. The Bszoku all arrive with more groups of girls and allies at a bar that looks wrong as soon as Furyo sees it. It looks like an old house but it is full of red neon and antique lanterns. Furyo thinks it looks like a feudal period whore house or gambling hall as ivy is covering much of the front and its surrounded on all sides by a cemetery. Someone friendly screams Dead Men Tell No Tales! and disappears into the adjacent cemetery. Furyo gets a strange vibe like this is not entirely an earthly establishment. Walking in he sees massive juniper beams and lanterns with moth eaten paper lighting up a dark hallway. Skulls and shrunken heads fill the walls with demonic masks and a Yokai theme. Coming to a bend, he sees the riotous energy of a swinging bar. It likely started as a restaurant but clearly drinking is the main thing. Geishas and gangsters are the only patrons. The biker crowd is at a table in the back singing some punk rock song in bad English. Everyone here is spending money but the tables are covered with money like shrine offerings. The girls look odd like their makeup has a bluish pigment, eyes sunken back and skeletal hands count payments. The walls are covered with pictures of otherworldly images, ghosts, funerals polaroids of accident scenes. Furyo sits down and orders beers and sake. Swimming in booze until he feels woozy. Excusing him self to the bathroom he bumps into a man he thinks he has seen. One of the {줿ԥ Possessed Men Cult from his induction ceremony. The man is bloated and has bursting veins covering his skin. His eyes are pink and skin blue like he has the plague. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Pushing into a stall, Furyo can hear groaning and growling like a wild animal is in the next stall. The stench of the place is awful as toilet paper and soggy pissed on clothing fills the latrine. He doesnt even want to sit down in here, he would rather shit in the street. Pissing and reading graffiti he tries to walk straight to the sink but slides in some body fluids and slippery debris. Steading him self, he hears an awful voice ask for a light in perfect English. Looking around he is alone except for the snarling wolf in stall 3. The voice calls again. Hey shithead! You ignoring me? Furyo thinks the window must be open but as he looks in the mirror something beside him is moving. Looking at the old fashioned lantern next to the sink, he sees a face and eyes smiling. Its a horrid face with glowing eyes and a face withered from centuries of suffering. Got a light ace? His spirit feels like its sinking. Somebody must have drugged his drinks. But sure enough this old paper lantern has a ghostly face that is talking. Hey slick, got any matches? I dropped mine. The ghost lantern has a cigarette in its mouth and is struggling to breathe, coughing up non existent lungs. Furyo looks to the floor and sees a book of matches and strikes one up to light a smoke for the damned thing. The ghost lantern groans with pleasure, taking a long drag and looking halfway drunk. I needed that. Furyo is puzzled, How did you become a lantern and get stuck in a bathroom? The ghost says I was created in the Edo period when this was a sea front tavern. When I turned 100 I became conscious. Its called Tsukumogami. Happens to tools, houses, castles and even streets. Around older part of the country even the mountains, streams and trees are living beings. I am Ф Chchin''obake. Furyo knows he on is something but plays along. He takes a low bow. Pleased to meet you Chchin''obake-san. Im Furyo Matsuno, bastard son of the Yakuza and most hated American in the city limits of Tokyo and the Kanto region. This makes the ghost lantern howl with laughter that causes him to choke and drop his cigarette. He asks, Take me out of here will ya? Furyo takes the lantern down from its hook. Where do you want to go? The lantern considers this and says. Take me out front. Furyo obliges. From the back stall, two red eyes peer over the top of the door as they exit the bathroom followed my a growl and kicked out open door. Most of the Bszoku have left only a few merry drunks sway to songs as they doze off into sleep. The bar matron smiles and waves as Furyo walks out into the street. Furyo asks How did you come to learn English? Mr Ghost Lantern replies I was once hanged in a private quarters of the Emperors family during the Meiji restoration, I learned several languages before being given away after a fire broke out. I have been slumming it here since the great earthquake of 1855. I move every time there is a great loss of life, either by the wind or hands of fate. The ghost lantern takes a deep breath and smiles. Ah, its been decades since I have smelled the sea. Furyo is puzzled all he can see is cemeteries and over grown buildings long over due for demolition. Falling down shacks, rusty car lots and pools of darkness where trees have broken though pavement, creating dense forrest among the broken up street. Furyo hangs the lantern and the ghost looks sad to see him leave. Where are you going human? Furyo explains his road trip and his quest to meet the ʳ Cannibal Giants to make peace. Take me with you, I have been wanting to go on a road trip for centuries. Last time I went any where it was by horse cart some time during the Meiji era. Furyo sees no reason to say no. Attaching the lantern to the back of his stolen motorcycle, they pull off into the night. A savage entity comes spilling into the street with black fur, evil eyes and inhuman hostility. (20) Western Tori Gate to the Land of the Cannibal Giants 人喰い巨人の国への西鳥門 Hito kui Kyojin no tochi e no It looked like rain so Furyo decided to ditch the stolen bike and take the Acura Legend he won in the Thrasher contest. His Bszoku homies modified it some more with a raised drag slick back wheel, blacked out head lights, round after market tail lights like a Ferrari and engine mods that made it double the horse power. Riding shotgun was Mr Ghost Lantern who turned out to love modern music and told him the esoteric lore of Yokai, Demons, Ghosts, Giants and Beasts. Turns out he knows Furyos missing father The Black Wolf of the Beast Clan who are now his sworn enemies. Likely stalking him for purposes of murder if he has become aware of Furyos presence in this country. Furyo remembers the growling in the bathroom stall where he met Mr Ghost Lantern. It sends a chill down his spine he was so close to death. According to Mr Ghost Lantern the breakdown of these Yakuza groups are the Cannibal Giants control abandoned mines, shunned caves and meat production. The Beast Clan controls accident scenes, eating the dead of battlefields and political corruption. The Possessed Men Cult like the Akury-kai are former Shinto Priests who control suicides, gambling and acts of terrorism. The Vampire Clan that has become heads of the police and Government control war profiteering, sexual blackmail and malicious investments in foreign markets. Meanwhile the Devil Clan controls prostitution, organ harvest, pornography and has a hand in grave robbing to feed the Vampire Clan and lesser Yokai. Keeping all of the groups out of each others markets. Furyo had no idea about the secret masters of crime being ancient cults of angry spirits, monsters and ghouls. Makes sense but still feels like he is sleeping with Unsolved Mysteries on full blast in the back ground. Furyo talked the Bszoku into rolling with him as backup. They were happy for the gas money and to get away from the Tokyo cops for a couple weeks. Passing through the central mountains of Honshu was magical. They tore though little farming villages and mountain hideouts. Coming to Kyoto to spend the night checking out its gambling dens and vice houses. Every town Furyo tried to clear his head and relax, the shadow of the coming war and his involvement weights heavy. This led to some bullshit as several of the Bszoku punched out a couple local Yakuza, this got them chased out of town and into a big brawl in Kure City outside the Osaka city limits. No one died and they kept pushing west towards the island of Kyushu. They spend a foggy morning in Hiroshima to eat and find some cough medicine since the Osaka hookers likely gave them all mononucleosis. Moving into the end of the world, the bridge into Kitakyushu from Shimonoseki by dusk. Flying over the bridge like a pack of pregnant termites, they blaze a trail deep into the wilds towards Nagasaki where they will meet an emissary of the other clan. During the trip Furyo had heard bizarre stories about ʳ Cannibal Giants riding giant Centipedes into battle and being descended from ancient mythical emperors of Japan. They were set to meet at a funeral home in Nagasaki which was far too large and ornate to be a mere civilian facility. The building which was the Giants embassy in the human realm was the source of their human organs where they were able to eat with out hunting and killing human beings. They were served organs from autopsies and accident scenes to satiate their diet of human flesh but maintain an air of civility. Furyo waved his Bszoku escort back, as it would be unwise to insist uninvited humans join the meeting. Furyo is starting to realize not only are the Yakuza groups all meeting in similarly themed castles, but also his grandmothers care home followed the same design and presentation. Could these things be linked? Arranged on the map to the four cardinal directions on Japans land mass as if each group dominates a spiritual direction of the islands, owning some significance he is yet to understand? Inside he sees no giants, only the Possessed Men who might be even more ghoulish to look at. Furyo is ushered to an upstairs meeting hall where a stage is set up with traditional Noh actors sitting, waiting for the dignitaries and representatives to fill in the seats against the walls. Furyo recognizes Rooster and The Master who are sitting with their captains and honored guests. Furyo deeply bows but only Rooster gives him a smile and a nudge as he sits beside him and tries to fit in despite feeling like a cat on a hot tin roof. Masks are handed out to the Devil Clan members like the ones worn the day he was stabbed. A Noh mask of a tortured spirit with golden eyes and an anguished mans expression. Across from them the Possessed Men Cult look sickly like corpses who decomposed in their pressed business suits until their eyes turned red and bulged out of their bluish sockets. Food and drinks are placed before them and with some ceremony of clacking sticks and lowering the lights the Noh play begins. On the stage actors have arranged in silence and a slowly rising gold light is the only source of light in the room. Furyo is watching from a skewed angle as his Yakuza group is arranged to one wall and others fan out in a semi circle around the stage. The food is delicious and traditionally dressed women slink around to refill sake jugs and bring more food. Furyos instincts tell him something is off. He looks at the walls of stained wood and waxed paper, hung with scenes of historical battles, the ceiling decorated in plaster decorations of birds taking flight in gold leaf. He cant quite place the source of his discomfort so he tries to focus on the Noh play where it looks like rival generals and their women sing about a coming conflict. The voices are not peaceful or calming either, the tone of each actor is like a howling spirit from hell trying to replay the final moments of its gravest mistake before the judges of hell. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. He cant sit still, he wants to get out of this place and run far away. Excusing him self to the bathroom, he goes outside and checks in with the Bszoku who seem half asleep on their bikes, ready to leave. He checks on the Paper Lantern Ghost who has lured on other spirit into the car and appears to be having his way with a female spirit of a traditional bamboo umbrella. He looks around the castle, and sees a path up a small mountain where there is a Tori gate and a pile of broken stones beside a massive dead tree. The winds is peaceful as he looks at the lights of Nagasaki bay bellow. The wind is warm and carries smells of good food, drink and song. This sets Furyo at ease and waves off the biker gangs to pursue their own fun for the evening and walks around the corridors of the facility. Feeling the staff uncomfortable with his patrol he returns to his seat in time to see the Noh actors carry out a stabbing and bloody death scene. Subtle movements of a group of grey ninja with funeral shrouds written with the zodiac sign of their birth year written in blood stalk the halls. Fertively lowering them selves from the roof into the parking lot. Their funeral shroud face covering has no holes for eyes, showing a distinct skeletal shape thought the grey cloth. Rooster leans in and describes the story of the original gangs alliance, The Ghost Clan is the oldest, ruling the north of Japan. The Giant Clans domain to the west, The disbanded Ten no-Tsukai to the East and the Plague Clan to the south. The Japanese invasion of Korea 500 years ago provided a chance for supernatural forces to aid humanity but it ended up damning most of the old guard. The Yokai refused the call so all petty criminals and lower spirits are condemned to be abused by the ruling houses. A dispute among the supernatural warlords led to defeat in Korea and the warring states period, also the Christians coming into the territory of the West further destroyed the old world order of Japan. The Ten no-Tsukai Tengu were betrayed by their vassals The Beasts, The Plague Clan was betrayed an assimilated by the Ghost Clan, The Giants were almost killed until they sued for peace, destroying their once fearsome standing. The Plague Clan and Ten no-Tsukai Tengu were replaced by our clan, The Devil Clan and the Possessed Men who owe allegiance to the Ghosts. This held the balance. Clans who fought in these wars and lost like the Fox Spirits, Poisoners Guild, Sting of Heaven Ninja Clan, Monstrosities and Vampire Tribe all faded away into human society. Proud linages removed from history books, castles burned, graves dug up and only survivors are the bastard sons, married off daughters and dishonored captains banished forever. Furyo thought about the idea of Cursed names blotted out from history, fallen clans damned to be prayed against by the ancestors of the victors. Ten no-Tsukai Tengu, Plague Family, Poisoners Guild, Monstrosities, Beast Clan, Possessed Men all descended from wars lost 500 years ago. Several eras in human scale, but a blink of an eye for immortal spirits. The Ghost Clan must be truly cunning to defeat the Cannibal Giants and install puppet regimes to rule in their eves. Furyo tries to figure out the difference between Oni, Yokai, Evil Spirit, Ghost, Devil, Beast, Cannibal Giant. They all seem similar but the iconography is as different as a masked Noh play and Kabuki, similar to the outsider but light years apart in tone, dress and ritual presentation. Like samurai and ninja, effortless Bushido against slinking around in darkness to spy or assassinated. Armor in combat verses knives in the back and concubines trained in assassination. As these thoughts take Furyos mind off the Noh play, he starts to feel uneasy. Subtle movements in the corners of the room, grey shadows peaking from paper screens or ghostly white courtesans almost translucent walking among the groups of men. As he tries to convince him self that if something was wrong sentries would raise the alarm, a coordinated attack of simultaneous stabbings and wrenching from poisoned drinks overtakes the audience. Rooster and the Devil Tribe vanguard take The Master out a side vestibule as the shooting starts. The Ghost clan has launched a sneak attack, drawing overt violence from the Possessed Men. Gunshots ring out, dignitaries flee and Furyo can only cower behind crumpled bodies of the dead and dying to scurry from one pile of corpses to the next to make it out of the room. The snaking hallways outside are just as gruesome as women in guise of servants stab unsuspecting dignitaries to death, ghostly shinto priests use poisoned darts and arrows to fell their targets. Furyo has luck on his side has he passes in silence just as the assassins turn their back and attention to other victims. Crashing through paper walls into a vestibule with an open inward, he drops 10 feet into a pool of shadow in the bushes. He watches as cars flee and the Bszoku long gone have left only his Acura Legend in the parking lot. Diving beneath the car and fumbling for his keys, Furyo opens the door just in time to miss a volley of bullets where he just was lying beside the car. Turning the engine over and kicking the clutch into gear, he peels out and tries to catch up with the Devil Clan who have fled with The Master. Furyo hits a dark shape in the road, sending his car into the path of a road crew repaving the road who follow him over a cliff. Climbing back to the road with the Ghost Lantern, he sees the shape he hit is the Swiss cheesed body of The Master, whose last act is handing over his famed Oni Mask before dying. Furyo barely knew the man, but feels a deep sense of loss. Looking bellow he sees his prized car burning next to the exploded shape of the asphalt mixer that forced him over the edge. Feeling exhausted he sits down next to a giant tree to sleep. Nothing is the way he understands the world. Only thing that is real is cuts, bruises and burns that remind him despite the odds he has fooled the reaper again. In the first rays of dawn he sees headlights and despite knowing they likely mean imminent death, he is too tired to move his aching body. As he steels his nerves for what is to be the final confrontation with assassins of the Ghost Clan, he is puzzled to see Rikki and Machiko pull up in his car! They pull him into the back and he falls into the blackest sleep of his life, clutching the ancient red lion manned Oni Mask that symbolizes leadership of the Devil Clan. The car still smokes from being engulfed in fire before its ghostly inhabitants manifested on the road. (21) Dreams of Violence, Dreams of Paradise 暴力の夢、楽園の夢 Bōryoku no yume, rakuen no yume Furyo knows he is asleep and struggling to stay so, but every few minutes he thinks he is awake watching Machi stuff her face with seaweed wrapped rice balls. Something about his mouth disturbs him. He thinks he sees a mouth like a spider, mandibles of an inhuman nature protruding from a mouth he had spend hours making out with. Her hands and eyes seem to be black like the parlor of a cockroach or cricket and as his sleeping eyes clear from the haze of sleep they go back to the smooth and soft women pale skin. He knows he is asleep, conscious of the stiff armrest poking his back, the cramps of injuries further excited by being stiffly cramped in a small sedan. Machiko smiles and he falls back into dreams of infants with spider faces crawling across ceilings lit by the drifting lights of passing cars. All night he dreams of being stopped in an American gas chamber, cold steel rivers and chairs full of holes where sodium cyanide falls into a bath of sulfuric acid and filling the turquoise painted octagonal airlock with pungent smoke that smells like almonds dipped in bleach, ripping the fibers of his lungs and drowning in blood. He has dreams of an elderly police inspector who tends a garden in his retirement, too pained by being forced into corruption to remember his glory days as an honest detective, so he loses him self in the wealth from turning a blind eye to school girls sold to brothels and doctors forced at gunpoint to put the stolen organs of missing Korean day laborers into the chest cavities of foreign corporate tv executives. Awful dreams of torture and medical abuse. Furyo dreams of his mothers face, but she is not friendly. A cold hostility is in her glaring eyes. He sees his grandmother smashing the armrests of her wheel chair, sneering about his father, (\) The Black Wolf, Kuroi kami. He thinks about his father, trying to reconcile the pictures of his childhood home with the legendary assassin spoken of in fearful whispers by Yakuza who dread a visit by a personage known for leaving bodies in broken peices. Furyo thinks of (ߥ``ȡ󥿥) Mr Ghost Lantern and his stories about legendary Monsters, Yokai, Evil Spirits and Cannibal Giants who live in the mysterious islands of the west, where all the dead of Japan are sent instead of burial to satiate the Cannibal Warlords of antiquity, now being hunted by the Ghost Clan and Possessed Men in a coup he has choses the losing side of. Tribes of Monstrosities and great evil spirits orchestrate organized crime, oppressing the public as ghoulish the Vampire Clan impersonates law enforcement. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Furyo wants to wake up but his injuries seep any energy he has into a tortured, restless sleep where only cruel out of focus pictures guide a story by unreliable narrators as the gods have no mercy for him. He thinks of all the time lucky kids found money or new toys. All Furyo found was violence, beaten by rival gangs, framed by cops, accused by store owners out of the blue just for being there. A hundred times he remembers being picked out of a crowd as if slanderous liars sensed something about him they wanted to destroy by the way he dressed or the look in his eyes. He must represent every old womans memory of some Romeo who left her abandoned and pregnant or never showed up to pick them up from the airport. He has the mark of cain on him. A black curse devoted to misery and ever increasing pressure. He dreams of the car being loaded on a Ferry to the Island of Giants, (ʳˤ΍u) Hito kui Kyojin no shima. Furyo thinks he can hear Albatross, Petrils, Skuas & Jaegers. Japanese sea birds songs as he listens for the horn to signify landfall. He imagines walking the deck of the ferry and seeing the mist shrouded land of the Giant Clan where fire breathing blue roosters stalk the beach, bird women and glowing eyed psychic apes stalk the forrest. Where single horned Kirin horse-dragon frolic among the sea foam, snake and spider shape shifters take the forms of beautiful women like the () Kitsune fox spirit who sings songs to tempt travelers into being eaten alive beside roads. A terrible land of magic and compromised physics lays before him as evil spirits of the sea try to drag the ferry down to the depths of blackness bellow. Somewhere like a mountain rising from the stormy waves, the mythical () Umibozu watches unfeeling as hundreds of clawing () Funayurei spirits rip lines and tangle the propeller. (22) Devil Furyo and the Land where Human-kind are Meat 魔王風涼と人類が肉となる土地 Maō kaze suzu to jinrui ga ni Furyo awakes to being alone in his car, the windows down and (ߥ``ȡ󥿥) Mr Ghost Lantern screaming they are sinking. They arent. The ferry dumped them on the beach and the tide has come in, all 2 feet of it. Enough to stall in the engine and trap the tires in half a foot of water logged sand under small waves coming in through open windows to send a chill down his spine. Furyo feels no panic. He is relieved to be free some endless cycles of panic dreams that fill his sleep with dread. The car is fucked, at least for now. Unless some act of god or benevolent giants changes it. He climbs out the window and is careful to keep Mr Ghost Lantern from getting wet, as one wave would be the end of his 300 year journey. The island is bright and sunny. No evil spirits or ghostly processions of phantoms frequent the bright sunny day here. Just as he enjoys the view of Rikki and Machiko dancing nude, frolicking in the waves. He feels all his optimism leave as a horrible face rises beside him. Its skin falling off, turning from something vaguely human to a creature that seems more like a catfish or lion with rotting flesh. He is surrounded by Giants rising from the water as if portals to hell allowed 15 foot ogres to hide in 18 inches of water. Furyo refuses to show fear as he sees the stubby horns and tusk-like teeth on hungry faces of brutes 3 times human scale. They wear skin of jaguars and other spotted cats, tiger skin and wear human heads as jewelry. They carry iron clubs, barbed whips and strange Hindu looking pitch forks like ones held by Shiva and Vishnu. Their eyes are hellish shades of fire, with corneas like stalking beasts. He remembers at least in theory these are his allies. He attempts to greet the Cannibal Giants and only enrages them. Machiko runs over to explain they hate the English language and its best to let her translate. As Furyo feels dressed down he puts on the Oni Mask of the Master and all the howling in rage ends. The Cannibal Giants bow deeply and attach a chain to the car to haul it out of the on coming tide. The Cannibal Giants vanguard say, (褦gΐħ˽Ϥΰgˤװ¤ˤʤεتzΤ褦ʥ`ҊƤޤǤʤ˽񡩤˻碌뤳ȤѤ˼ޤ) Ykoso, nakama no akuma, watashitachiha kono awarena ningen no shinikake no niku no ish no shita ni anata no jigoku no yna ra o mite imasendeshita. Anata o watashitachi no kamigami ni awa se rareru koto o kei ni omoimasu. Machiko translates. Welcome fellow demon, we did not see your hellish aura under this pitiful human costume of dying flesh. We are honored to bring you to meet our Gods! Furyo and Mr Ghost Lantern are guided to a kings litter where the Giants women who are not dissimilar than human women wait with offerings of hot soup and fresh bread. The women being only 8 feet tall and with out the horrible faces or severed heads, they walk around totally nude, displaying their strange purple, blue and yellow patterned skin. From the sides of the litter glowing eyed blue apes and fire breathing basilisk run beside them in the shadows. Half human half peacock women with bountiful breasts and golden Balinese crowns frolic beside their chariot, carried by () Kijimuna, translucent forrest guardians. The island is tropical, far more primitive than mainland Japan, but preserving the ancient Buddhist aesthetic of temples and shrines beside the roads. Furyo watches the sky as horrific and beautiful creatures swoon in complex aerial displays of strength and lust, military formations and mating songs. The trees here have nothing similar in the human world, species lost to time grow tall enough to hold whole cemeteries of odd shapes who became like stone over millennia. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Starving men in cages howl for water as Furyo glimpses of barbarous acts dot the countryside as cages filled with bones, impaled corpses and crucified evangelists are used as lamp posts in the deep forrest and stark cliffs. Dark Soul of Violence, Captain of the Cannibal Warlords says. (ϐt؉ˤI֤ĎεǤħιǤĤؤΤtǤ礦˽ˤLӛꡢڤƤΤϡ˽򚢤ŮԤʳ٤뤳Ȥˤ󤶤ꤷˤޤ) Kore wa warugashikoi nij bainin o jobunsuru khai no michidesu. Akuma no kuni de no chikai o mamoru no ga kenmeideshou. Watashitachi ni wa nagai kioku ga ari, jinrui ga sonzai shite iru no wa, watashitachi ga o koroshi, josei o taberu koto ni unzari shitakara ni sugimasen. Machiko translates This is the road of desolation, where we dispose of the unwise and double dealers. You would be wise to honor your vows among the land of demons. We have long memories and humankind only exists because we have tired of killing your kings and eating your women. Furyo kind of jumped at the Cannibal Giants voice, it was like being beaten with a molten chain while walking across permafrost barefoot. The sound alone made his balls shrink and recede in retreat. He actually felt like this place made his eyeballs shiver. Involuntary spasms bringing more horror and otherworldly questioning of this all being some fever dream while he dies in a burning car. Seeing his destination, a massive pagoda on a high mountain in the clouds. Furyo feels like he is in a fantasy video game, almost hearing the 8 bit theme music of his childhood Nintendo games. Every where giants pass going down the trail, holding elephants and massive fish on skewers. He sees roadside venders seeing fabulous kimonos, fruit spears and rare stones. Every time they stop, Furyo is bombarded with gifts from merchants and shy looks from venders comely giant daughters. Furyo wonders the physical nature of pleasing an 8 foot tall woman, using his whole arm or leg. This seems funny to him but he sees some of the Giant women look more human, varying in size with a feminine vibe despite being full of demon blood and a cannibal diet. Maybe he should sample some of the earthy enjoyments of this fabled land? Still as he oogles their women the smell of cooking human flesh and skinned corpses of human beings are every where in full display, being fed on by children and goatish half human creatures that defy description. Coming to the domain of the rulers, he is happy to think food and drink await him in the Hall of the Mountain King. The pagoda is amazing, likely 900 feet tall and covered everywhere in gold and bronze statues of their great rulers. The Giant language is horrible, sounding only like deep baritone grunts, shrieks, howls and hisses. In this land of fabled beasts he sees peacock women, fu dogs and bird women working on daily tasks like sweeping, washing stone floors and drying dyed silks. Furyo thinks this place reminds him not of Japan, but more of National Geographic spreads on Thailand, India and Tibet. Some more ancient forms of design and dress than what he has found in modern Japan. Maybe this is the lost city of Shangri-la or Lemuria? Just as they arrive a massive gong rings in the distance and drums welcome their presence in the lost city. Doors 60 feet tall open showing a brilliant golden interior beyond, where smiling faces and bowing Chimera greet their procession inside. (23) Stone faces laugh at mankind 石の顔が人類を嘲笑う Ishi no kao ga jinrui o azawarau The Pagoda of the Cannibal Giants (ʳˤ) Hito kui Kyojin no t was unlike any thing Furyo had ever seen, even in books and movies. It was a yawning chasm, that spanned from deep in the earth where vast underground seas delved into the magma belt, driving steam and pyroclastic energy high into an open ceiling where only the most daring bird creatures roost. The procession came to stairs they could not climb with out ropes and grappling hooks, so a mighty lift was lowered on screaming chains as the counter weight of tons slowly raised to lower the platform. The lift its self was so vast the opposite end was not visible in the dark space. Echoes of distant chant, symbols and war drums made the place feel ominous. Voices so deep and slow they sounded like geological processes turned to music haunted their vision. Sound waves so slow and scary they made the ear drum and eye stop communicating where the humans had to be carried so they wouldnt go into convulsions and suffer other worldly visions from disturbances of the neural context and spine. Above them shafts of light showed walls and pillars so old the very materials used to build them were petrified. Like a ruined cathedral, pieces of the walls and ceiling had crumbled, leaving faces of statues and floral motifs the size of cars lying forgotten on the floor like a vandalized place of worship. Ferocious statues of Buddhist protector demons filled every wall and alcove. Furyo notices a queer effect of light and shadow where Giants seemed to stand so still that they ceased to exist, or birds flocking around the open shafts of light would fall from the sky and be picked up by benevolent sentinels translucent to the human visual spectrum. Everywhere the empty space revealed luminous eyes on towering specters only half way perceptible, possibly as a greeting or a warning. Furyo bowed to every creature that made him want to abandon every thing and run, but Machiko stopped him as projecting power and silence was the only way to not be mistaken for Food of the Gods. This is the domain of the benevolent demons Buddha blessed with knowledge of the universe for their protective devolution to the early Bodhisattvas. Pantheons of Hindu and Zoroastrian Devas mixed with the Asura and Ahuras. Who gave subtle nods to each other as they are the manifestation of light and dark in opposing cultures who demonized the other sides celestial caucus along the ancient Silk Road. Coming to a midway mark, the entourage stopped to interact with a hall of courtiers of the Giant monarchy. Here statues of Giants fill every wall, generals with faces like malevolent tigers, horses, lizards, oxen and great beasts half eagle half lion reared back in poses of warfare. Glowering executioners and famous death scenes rendered in stone stood nearly 100 feet tall. Machiko explained these are not statues but the ancient Cannibal Giants themselves who slowly turned to stone as epochs passed, making this place their memorial tomb. Many moved from the earlier realm lost to sea level rise since the last ice age. Horses the size of jumbo jets and fu dogs as large as mountains lived here in these beautifully rendered stone edifices. Furyo shuddered at the enemies monsters of this scale would have been fighting. Ghosts live here by the thousands, tribes lost to eras so distant only the rocks and tree spirits remember them. Among the throng of moving races of myth and curse, there are cremations beside ritual suicides, immolation and flayed families meditating for some unknowable purpose. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Now around them they see plainly the Ghost Tribe Shinto priests walking among the deposed groups like the Fox Spirits, Tengu, Tenshi, Yurei, Yokai and creatures so strange only ancient Chinese hell scrolls could name them. This was a place where the hell of the human being was the paradise of the etherial. Crossing other processions and what looked like a strange carnival of dancers, jugglers and fearsome beasts made Furyo feel insecure. Nothing in the world was as strange as the vistas here. Shadowy silhouettes of blackness watched with glowing red eyes as the phantom mountains of the sea made their yearly trip into the Giant kingdom to settle disputes and offer tribute to the Cannibal Gods. Deer men and horse faced demons carried skins and hidden gold of ancient kings lost to the human histories, Bird Women and Rock Apes traded pearls with the Whale Gods and Cephalopod race that gave up the land when earth was still reshaping from the impact that created the moon. This place is so large it hosts its own atmosphere spitting odd hail and phantom lightning bolts among the mist of electrical chaos above. Is this some magic or unknown technology to use alternating violence of storm and rain to power unseen vessels of power? The final lift was densely packed with cults and dignitaries from other celestial spheres. Furyo sees what look like Angels but lack any feeling of holy wisdom, these monsters of fire and sparking electricity looked at him like a cockroach crawling across their silverware. Uninterested in his story, seeing only a lesser being with the audacity to stand beside entities that watched stars die and supernovas turn into black holes. Some Celestial Women smiled at him, Hawk faced Tengu and Giant centipedes regarded him as food but stayed a comfortable distance out of regard for the Cannibal Giant warlords who escorted them. Coming to the top of the Pagoda of Hell, Furyo sees the windows turning amber from the dying sun rays struggling with black storm clouds grumbling thunder into the space. Here the grey sky and blackness of space touched the great painted ceiling showing a battle between primitive forces of light and dark at the dawn of time. Ghoulish armies of terror clash in a volcanic field of burning shapes and feasting beasts, painted by inhuman hands in a time so remote it bends ideas of the origin of the universe. Abrahamic faiths lifted from earlier traditions have no way to process the deep histories of the Eastern cults buried in caverns and hidden valleys. This place causes mental illness and fractured spiritual beliefs in even the most resolute shamans, steadied by decades of mystic devolution and meditative practice. A terrible baritone shakes the floor here. Sounds so intense and rhythmic they cause human beings to start coming apart on a molecular level. These songs of creation and destruction are ended so as to not wipe out the lesser beings among the royal heights of the inhuman vanguard. Here is a space made of so much precious stone and metal its a wonder the entire structure isnt free falling under immense weight. Gold and diamond pillars hold up a roof of stone unknown to human eyes that sparkles with the fires of stars in blackness. 10,000 ancient giant kinds frozen in time sit on mighty thrones along the walls. Caustic incense and cooking fires bring violent tears to human eyes. More and more Furyo has come to suspect Rikki an Machiko are not fully human. They present as asian women so beautiful they hurt the eyes and please the soul just by looking at them, but an otherworldly grace mixes with an undercurrent of hidden knowledge of the secrets of the universe. Something he cant place leaves Furyo in awe and discomfort. They could be the Ten no-Tsukai (ʹ), Celestial women or some other form of shapeshifter. Could they be ancient vampires of trickster Fox Spirits here to betray him at the 11th hour for some political advantage yet unseen by his dim mortal mind? (24) How resolute can a boy be? When the universe has come to life to shit on his pursuits? Their journey has come to an end, despite Machikos insistence they are under no threat, they are ambushed by both the Beast Clan and Possessed Men. Queen Enma and King Yama of the Giant Clan stare with cold eyes and almost fossilized faced. Their bodies covered in gold and jewels like a Catholic ossuary but with a distinct Buddhist aura. They could be great peacocks or fiery roosters for the way their gleaming gowns gift life to beings nearly dead from age and time. Time has brought this kingdom to a the edge of oblivion but their cunning and cutthroat political maneuvering are something to behold. Furyo can only smile, of coarse the Cannibal Giants betrayed them. Furyo looks at these brooding monoliths. A man who is surely dead with his eyes open, and wife so ancient the monarchs fused with the wall behind them. Crowns, rings, and fine metallic kimono frame primal misshapen faces gnarled by evil are no match for their beaded regalia of severed heads dipped in molten gold with eyes pierced by rubies, emeralds and sapphires. Where the Queen and Kings tusk-like teeth should be, instead they had replacements of diamond and colored glass. He considers their treason, a perfect trap for a naive hoodlum out of his depth. The meeting in Nagasaki was by their invitation, not only did they never show up but they gave the Ghost Clan the perfect advantage to wipe them out. Furyo begins laughing and just as he is about to be skewered by General of the Cannibal Warlord Vanguard, the voice of the Queen of the Giants stops every one in their place. Her voice is like music of such a pitch and resonance that it soothes and savages the soul all at once. She speaks perfect English and smiles. What is so funny hairless little monkey? Furyo sneers and with a voice like dropping a sledge hammer on a drum kit from the roof of the Empire State Building, he challenges her. So this is the cowardly final move of a scared little haven of fairies and bird brained ghosts too stupid to have survived on the mainland? The Queen likes this little black eyed infidel, too stupid or full of bravado to see the walls closing in. Despite having a soul no better than an insect or vapors from a bloated corpse, you seek to lecture us on honor and protocol? Furyo doesnt have a thoughtful response to his. He almost feels drunk with rage turned to bitter resentment, leeching his body of any enzymes meant to create inspiration in times like this. Despite being a titan among convicts known for disrespect since the age of 16 when he went up for a torture robbery of a drug dealer. He learned to excel in acts of butchery during prison disputes using razors kept in his cheek beside his gums. Honestly starting to feel the his teeth ache from clenching his jaw as the reality of his entire world being crushed by this journey into a land that feels like a highly charged storm about to crack as the waves rise 60 feet tall and your freighter is not rated for a load guaranteed to bring you into the ice water hell you fear most. Not willing to go out like a punk, he does the most disrespectful thing he can think of. With the swagger of Elvis 11 drinks into a night of hookers and cocaine, he slowly unzips his pants, whips out his dick and takes a minute and a half piss all over their gleaming floor, pushing a bloated pool of dark and unhealthy piss easily 20 feet away as the ashes and lost teeth on the floor flush up to the mummified toes of the royal host. The Demonic creatures all around wide eyed and waiting for his opportunity to rip this fool to pieces. Monstrosities close in with barbed whips, spears and pitchforks. The queens eyes betray no emption. Her body almost totally stone as only slight movement of her face is possible. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Furyo gets the distinct feeling she would turn him into a breeding slave in a harem to satisfy the royal ladies at court if he wasnt the size of a mosquito on their nipples. The Possessed Men surge forward and Furyo instinctively wipes out a group of six with his barehands and feet. The Queen of Hell stops the Giants from intervening as every single Possessed Men tribe member is beaten to death. Then as the Beast Clan comes from the other side, Furyo like a magician using sleight of hand, pulls a nasty looking ice pick from nowhere. Furyo is only able to attack one Beast, despite being of subhuman and feral wholly shape, isnt quite a Werewolf more like a Yeti. Something so odd it defies classification. Furyo had dances out of its initial charge, broke its knee as it passed and like a gymnast hopped on its shoulders and piercing its eyes and temple 2 dozen times before the creature fell and went into involuntary death throws, trying to run in place and draining its bowels. Furyo did not relish the thought of taking on Cannibal Giants but he figured at least one would need to die before he could continue any discussion with the Queen. This was enough violence for the point to be made. The mighty Ghost Clan had picked substandard allies who were so easily bested, any thought of changing the paradigm was out the window. The Giants respect ferociousness, attacking first, making grotesque examples of enemies and the Queen had no doubt if Furyo was allowed he would carve up every surviving member of the Beast Clan and if allowed to leave hunt them into extinction. This Brought tears of joy to her eyes, reminding her of the time when her tribe had dominance on the mainland, controlling human worlds by dominating cross roads, deep Forrests and bridges where lurking Cannibals could lie in wait to startle kings and put whole armies into stew pots. With out saying a word, two Tenshin Tengu appear beside Furyo is bolts of lightning. They look like fearsome angels built for war, one has a red stone mask with a long penis-like nose on an ogres hateful face, the other a stoic hawk entity clutching strange weapons of cosmic fire. Tengu are a lost group of Kami spirits who regard humanity as a fleeting amusement, like fireflies slowly suffocating in the great jar of drunk gods with no concept of good and evil, only the whims of their own esoteric delights. The Queen speaks in a voice of power, stopping all the violence and giving pause to the proceedings. Funny little human, you have given us glorious entertainment. We seek no more peace with your enemies, we stand as the final line of the fallen peoples of the shapeshifter, the heavenly armies, the lost languages and extinct races of higher minded entities. Despite our savage nature and ghoulish practices, we are a spiritual race of mystics and hold on to lost teachings of the celestial spheres. If you will forgive our attempts at neutrality, we will ensure your fight with the Ghost Clan is fair and with out any more sneak attacks. I will bless you with these might Tengu warriors, they will be invisible at your side and able to cross any spiritual barrier or ritual curse used by your enemies. I do want you to have the opportunity however to meet your parents. Your Mother is the living head of Ghost Clan, and your father as you know is the Black Wolf, chief executioner for the Beast Clan. Before you set out on a path of self destruction and eternal torment, take their counsel and truly weigh if you are on the side of this conflict you belong. (25) Washes away like ash in the rain 芙蓉は雨の灰のように洗い流される Fuyō wa ame no hai no yō ni arainagasa reru Furyo feels like his head is cracked open. He feels water in his nose and had dreams of drowning. Feeling sand under his eye lids and cold cramps seizing up his stomach, he awakens in silvery moon light on a black beach alone. His car is burned out and still smoking at the base of the cliff. Picking him self up is hard, one of his arms in broken and touching his chest he feels warm gouts of blood pumped out of holes in his shirt. His back feels burned and one of his knees is barely holding his weight. Coming to the bodies of Rikki and Machiko, both have taken machine gun rounds to the face, leaving empty pits where pieces of ruptured eyes and sinuses reflect the cruel moonlight. The cliffs above are full of activity, flashing lights and a helicopter coming along the beach towards him. He has to run but his legs wont carry him. Finding some shelter in darkness he slinks along the treelike, drawing like a wounded crab into ruined bunker made of broken cement and jagged rebar. Like a dying animal, he retreats into a quiet place while hunted down by the police. He doesnt know whats real any more. So many strange scenes fill his mind, regrets and missing pieces of a life that feels distant from his. Only thing thats real is his freezing temperature, gunshots and broken bones. Its funny when you get really injured and most of your body goes dormant like a solider with a missing limb. The only screaming pain you cant get away from something stupid like a torn off fingernail or stubbed toe. Torment that robs you of sleep for days. A knife in the gut, bullet in the stomach or cracked open head fades away with sleep but not those retarded little injuries that chase you like rabid hounds in the small hours of the night. Furyo thinks of Rikki and Machiko, nice girls who ended up executed on a dark beach because they came to rescue him. Thats the odd part, how did they know to come and at what point in the night did they get killed beside him? Was this some thing of setup to frame him? The helicopter has found the car and the bodies. Pools of blinding light search the scene for survivors. From above him on the road he hears yelling of police and rescue crews. Furyo tries to search the dark rubble for some exit deeper into the tunnel but every where he claws in the dark is more cold and broken stone. His heart races as he hears search and rescue dogs in the distance, adding more terror to the rush to flee. Finding an old rope he follows the line to pieces of drift wood and a collection of old glass fishing floats. Then he sees a shape in the shadows of the cliff, a floundered fishing boat on its side. Crossing the distance of 70 feet with pained steps, he makes it to the open hatch and crawls in the hull. Inside its tangle of broken appliances, radio equipment and furniture toppled over. Still even in darkness and a broken up boat, there is a little light. Finding a cushion and some dry fabric he takes off his wet clothes and bundles up in what could have been the sail. Its not very warm on his feet or hands but keeps his core functional. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Sometime in the night the dogs leave, the police lose interest and all thats left is the burned out car. Besides stepping on a nail, Furyo is remarkably more able to walk around. His clothes dry and wounds washed in sea water, he looks less like a zombie and more like a run of the mill ex con living in an abandoned boat on the beach. Making it to the road he walks until he comes to a town with pay phones. Useless when he goes know any one to call. Again he lives by his whits. A sad reality of Japan is about one third of all traditional homes in real areas are abandoned due to lonely deaths of the elderly and high inheritance tax. This is his saving grace as finding an abandoned Akiya is never a problem. He remembers the cause of the downfall of the Devil Clan being a dispute over his disrespect of these abandoned properties. He doesnt buy that, he believes the opposite. Honoring of a shrine where spirits welcomed him must be the real issue. Not eating canned food or drinking sake in a haunted house. Furyo has no life skills, he is a thief and can talk girls out of the underwear but only in English and only self destructive girls who are using him like he is using them. Finding a seaside home, he sees no signs of life in the windows. Opening a wooden door, it slides open with no problem. Inside the familiar dead air, dust mites and spider Webbs. He comes to a floor pillow where the corpse of a dog is mummified. A sad think when pets become trapped In houses once their owners have stroke or heart attack. Animals with no wild instincts must pick flesh from the bones of their owner but have no way of getting water and die of dehydration when no one comes to check on the house. Furyo says a prayer for the dog to find peace and finds some way to fix up his own wounds. His arm looks nasty but he is no doctor so has no way of telling if there is a best way to reorient the injury. Finding some holiday clothing of the former owner, Hawaiian shirts, aviator sunglasses and a collection expensive Italian loafers. Furyo looks around for medication or whisky. He finds some obvious cough syrup and a bottle of scotch. He makes him self a little nest of blankets, pillows and lays down looking out the sliding glass door at the ocean. The house is full of manga in English and western adventure novels. Furyo feels a yearning for home as he looks at mid 20th century pulps on ww2 and spy novels. Its too sad, he find some real escapist manga about demons, monsters, nuns and tentacles. Warming up in the sunlight and finding a little peace from the pain of his injuries. Sometimes he just wants to slip away into a calm death in his sleep but his curse is being hard to kill. (26) Hell is not a place but a state of mind that follows you. 地獄とは場所ではなく、あなたに従う心の状態です Before he opens his eyes, he knows he is not alone. Smelling incense and hearing the chanting of shinto prayers he knows he has been found out. Expecting to see the Hell Priest with his entourage of rescued animals, Furyo dreads to see a room full of malevolent shadows. The Ghost Clan surrounds him. Feeling his arm reset at the joint but firmly tied, he is surrounded by candles and esoteric markings in chalk. The Ghost Clan are black spirits but shines in pale radiance, like the two faces of the moon. Like trying to remember a dream, looking directly at the phantom priests does not give visual information, its like instinct feeling they are there and by default remembering it wrong. Little black hats of a bygone era, ceremony robes, chanting and esoteric mudras. They are preparing to spill his blood. A magus with a long thin knife is anointing his head with sacred oils before plugging the ceremonial dagger into his lungs. Furyo has no energy left to scream or fight. Like a flu where you are too weak to take off the covers that make you feel like you are boiling alive. Furyo welcomes the release. As he readies his chest to be pierced by a swift blade, he starts to question what he is actually seeing. As he searches the ghostly eyes and oily dark aura, he sees something unexpected. The house is full of medics and police. Machiko is there and when she sees him awake, she reintroduces her self as Detective Akagi from the Organized Crime Division of the National Police Agency. She is deep cover and has infiltrated the Devil Clan. Furyo is impressed, the things this woman did to get her man is proof of a hard worker. He guesses they will have to stop sleeping together if she is trying to send him to prison. He thinks of her dead on the beach and realizes he cant trust any of his memories as it seems he is drifting between delusions and realities he cant piece to gather which is the actual truth and where his mind is creating fantasy out of head injuries. The medics sign off on his lack of life threatening injuries, he is in good enough condition to face the music. Being walked outside by male cops, he is loaded in Machis police cruiser. She doesnt offer and explanation and he isnt asking. Occasionally their eyes meet in the rear view mirror and her eyes are the same amused women he rolled around countless mattresses and floors with. The things they have done together and now she is a cop on a mission to take him in. He realizes she never read him charges, but not having a full grasp of Japanese legal protocol that doesnt mean much. He thinks this could all be a trap, he remembers the stories of the Vampire Tribe that has overtaken police and politics. He wonders who she is working for, could she be a blood sucker or a triple agent? He knows spies are encouraged to use sex to compromise a target. Its called Honey Trapping, but he never thought it was a lowly police tactic. He wonders if they paid her extra for all the porn star penetration she took over the coarse of their association, or if she had to be graphic about it in her report. As if reading his mind, she asks. You dont trust me do you? After years of betrayal he as learned every one may not be out to get you, but every one will disappoint you. Not out of selfish spite or narcissistic acts of sabotage, people just dont care very much about each other and even when they understand completely a persons deep rooted wants and yearnings, there is always a pull to take food from your brothers mouth, ruin your childrens dreams or betray a lover on a whim. People have an almost gravity like urge to harm each other, slander and back stab each other. It never fails and he doesnt feel the need to state the obvious. Its a strange thing messing with women who are ideologically and socially the enemy. Machiko is hot enough he might have fucked her even knowing she was a cop, but the addition of feeling out smarted leaves him with a grudge that isnt going away. He smiles thinking he ruined her for her husband, fucked up the way she will walk forever. Wonder if the Dept knows she can dislocate her hip or her lust for less than ladylike backshots. Getting more and more agitated he finally asks If she isnt dead, who were the bodies? Machiko tells him. We were dead, in human form. We dont follow the same rules as humans. He asks. What am I charged with? She tells him. Rikkis death, its more useful for her to remain a corpse. He smiles and says. Did getting your brains blown out hurt? She doesnt smile and glares in the mirror. Is it true the police are vampires? She gets an intense look and asks if you really want to know, I will pull over and show you. Maybe she psyched him out or the wounds in his body make him feel vulnerable, he doesnt press the issue. They are silent all the way back to Hiroshima where she books him into a local police station to spend the night in a secure facility before the rest of the trip to Tokyo. It was a nondescript yellow cement building with only offices showing to the street. Around back there was a tunnel bellow street level to an airlock and sally port in a secure garage. Local cops look like they are seeing a celebrity. He doesnt have to tolerate the usual bullshit questions. Straight to the backrooms to housing. Getting left in dark cell till midnight alone, he is awakened to switch to another cell where 3 other prisoners are already sleeping. The door is open to rest of the unit, locked in from the police side but open to a hallway adjacent cells in other 4 man tanks to darkness at the end he assumes is a shared bathroom. Furyo has been in a couple set ups and the doors between cells being left open all night and the unit devoid of cops makes him think somebody is coming to punch his ticket. Furyo finds cup full of razors and a lighter laying around so he goes into a bathroom stall and fashions a crude slicing instrument out of 2 razorblades melted onto the head of a toothbrush. Wounds dont need to be deep, in fact its better they arent. If you can get 4 or 5 nice slashes to each guys head and neck, you will deprive them of several liters of blood in short order. Going from one attacker to the neck as they feel that hot flash of sharp pain and back off, begin tripping over each other. Then you slice up the inside of their bicep, tendon in legs or make sure they wont be giving a statement verbally as the wind pipe and larynx is shallow enough to compromise with a disposable razor snapped in half. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. This is a cunning weapon as it makes several rows of double cuts with a string of flesh hanging down like a tongue that is impossible to stitch up cleanly, leaving a wound that is a quarter inch wide but following a string cheese laceration in the middle that has to be removed to sew edges turns into a easy half inch wife scar the length of the face. The key to using a razor is anticipating the other guys stabbing, punching, kicking or wrestling motion. If you meditate on how they will come at you, almost like swimming you can negate their power and turn offensive threats into recoiling cowards howling for help as no one wants to get sliced across the face, lose an eye or walk around like the crypt keeper with out a nose. When applied to the face or neck it intentionally leaves a nasty scar that is far wider than a single razor attack. Causing whats called a Buck 50, 150 stitches in two rows. Singling out the victim for future assaults as no good in the world of hard core convicts and prison gangs at least in the States. In Japan all this means is somebody is going to have their teeth showing through their cheek. Not fatal but will leave an attacker pausing to assess damage long enough for secondary attacks on knees and jaw with brutal kicks and punches to leave them involuntarily spasming on the floor. Furyos mind flashes back to his first time using an improvised weapon, sometime around his 17th birthday. Either the Possessed Men or Ghost Clan has gotten word, some brainless local thugs will be sacrificial lambs as he is well versed in ambush assaults where he is outnumbered. This is the type of situation where his American killer instinct thrives. While his enemies are sitting around jacking off or playing cards waiting for a signal or arbitrary time on a clock to psych them selves up, he is analyzing the layout for the best lay an ambush. Making a double bladed Tomahawk is relatively easy, picking a place where the cops wont break it up until its most advantageous and also where he can funnel the enemy into a kill zone to negate their numbers is his main focus. Deciding a dark bathroom in the back of the unit with high stalls and no camera is the best spot to lure the enemy, he makes sure all the inmates see him back there pacing. Seems the bad guys are procrastinating, leaving him enough time to go back in the cells and steal more items. Grabbing a stinger for heating coffee, a stack of plastic cups and a bottle of baby oil, he makes something truly evil for his encore. Before long he is aware of the tell tale sounds of 3 inmates walking together looking for him. As he prepares to attack, he jumps on top of the toilet to get the jump on who ever is coming like lambs to the slaughter. Unlocking the latch and tensing into kill mode. He hears hushed talking as they are looking around, kicking open stalls. Hearing a big guy in the next stall, Furyo reaches over the top and pierces the eyelid of one guy and like a ninja kicks his own stall door as a face peeks in and gets a big slash from the eyebrow to the chin and the stall door pinning his neck. According to plan, Furyo can hear their knives hitting the ground, he kicks them away where only he can reach them under the sinks. With a plan in motion Furyo wraps a braided sheet around the door and into the next stall, trapping one guys head in the middle stall and leaping over the top into the third stall. Leaping out to make ribbons of the third guy who held back. There is no one there. Furyo rushes out to find another victim and sees a slashed inmate crawling away backwards like a cockroach, screaming and pleading. Furyo felt his spider sense go off just too late as a heavy wooden mop handle smashes him in the back of the head and from behind black mop water is thrown over his back, followed by crushing blows from the mop bucket. Although the water is nearly boiling, this doesnt have the desired affect. Furyo shakes it off and hits the Adams Apple of the guy with the mop, kicking his knee all the way backwards and cutting clean though the nose of the guy who threw the mop bucket. He took out 2 different mens eyes, caused a total of 7,200 stitches and took off a nose that was rumored to have been flushed down a toilet along with the improvised tomahawk. As the guys wail and pray for mercy like bozos, Furyo shows them his final trick. He has made three cups of boiling baby oil and careful splashes it over their faces, disfiguring them. Since no one is running in to stop him, he boils more and splashes it down their backs, on their groins and into their eyes. A sadistic glee takes over as he makes the whole housing unit listen to their screams just to be sure every one knows the King is in town. Now he is just having fun, kicking elbows and knees backwards. Knee dropping the spine and corner of the jaw over and over again. Stomping on nutsacks, breaking ankles and wrists just because he can. Certainly these fine gentlemen will spend decades in reconstructive surgery to learn how to walk and feed them selves as their injuries are intended to impact their quality of life. By the time the cops come in Furyo has raided his attackers property bins, stuffing his face with junk food and smoking cigarettes double fisted as the attackers scream for medical attention. In all it took Furyo less than 4 minutes to disable his would be assassins for life. Using theyre own smuggled in kitchen knives to shove them into their crotch until medically speaking they have undergone a sex change. He was tempted to hack out whats left of their teeth as trophies but theyre all black and brown, no sign of gold or silver fillings or caps. Furyo spent the rest of the night in a cramped isolation cell the size of a coffin made to keep the inmate in a stress position to never be able to lay down flat, bend their neck or fully extend their legs. By the time Machiko came to get him, Furyo was half mad with hearing growling and scratching until dawn. Machiko arrived pissed off, as the local cops were not in on her subterfuge and were crying for blood. Once again they road in silence but this time she got him breakfast of pork rice balls and American apple juice, a treat he forgot how much he loved. She didnt even complain when after 5 minutes in the car, he had freed his hands with a plastic-polymer composite handcuff key stitched between his thumb and first finger for such occasions back in San Quentin. Furyo wonders if the Police are Vampires, they seem to not have a problem driving around during the day. Maybe Machiko is something else. A shapeshifter or Yokai? Seems she has some tricky loyalties and doesnt totally play by the police handbook. They arrive in Tokyo in the late afternoon and instead of another Jail, she takes him to a safe house in the suburbs. Furyo watches tv until he is board and when her demeanor shuts down any more romance, he escapes from the bathroom and goes to find some thrills in the night. Defying explanation, the first time he thinks of the Devil Clan mask of the Master, its in his hand like it had been there the whole time. (27) You know getting murdered hurts, right? 殺されるのは痛いことは知っていますよね？ Furyo was back in town! Knowing Machiko and her police buddies would anticipate him returning to usual haunts, he decided to break the mold. Not sure if today was time for an all out blitz against his enemies or a chance to relax and chill out, he decided to go somewhere unexpected. He decided on Akihabara Electric Town. Thats like nerd heaven for the Otaku Jet-set and local Anime Perverts who go to buy action figures from girls dressed as cutesy anime girls in sailor outfits modeled on private school outfits. Furyo dips into a grocery store to buy some cheap alcohol, whisky, sake and beer. He also bought all the kitchen knives, screw drivers and meat tenderizers they had in the hardware section to figure out if today was time for a Mad Max suicidal attack or to have a cartoon orgy with squeaky prostitutes fresh in from the country side. Furyo looks like Akuma from Street Fighter since ditching his clothes and picking up a costume, of coarse he picked the most outlandish karate gee with a bright orange wig under a Hunter Thompson style fisherman cap and aviator sunglasses. Honestly he looked like a dangerous lunatic but the cartoon girls outside hostess bars and video game shops didnt think so, he was stopped several times to take photos with foreign girls. He decided to walk in circles around the outskirts of the area to find some Yakuza hanging out in alleys or dim lit side streets. It didnt take long for him to see a group he was not familiar with. Seeing as the Devil Clan was mortally wounded and presumed dead, any one hanging out in the open was assumed as a rival. Sitting down in a dry doorway as rain came down like cats and dogs, he drank his Nikka Whisky and watched these bozos smoke cigarettes under umbrellas. Listening for some keyword, eventually he heard the name of the Beast Clan. So there were his fathers henchmen? Not impressed he walked up and pretended to bum a smoke. As the Yakuza turns with a sneer to slap him across the face the imbecile walked right into Furyos up swing with a flat head screwdriver, punching into the guys mustache and tongue three times before abandoning that tool and going to work with a large block meat tenderizer. Smashing in another idiots sinus cavity and sending an eyeball flying from the last guy. Then Furyo gets to stomping on their legs and arms so they cant get off the ground. Disarming them, he enters the door they were guarding and ascends the stairs. Looks like this is a brothel. Hearing sounds of distress from several rooms, he decides today they are going out of business. Pouring Whisky and Vodka on the curtains he begins throwing the Johns out the windows. Every time he runs into a Yakuza he blows the guys knees out and shoot them in the bladder. Furyo is digging this place as they play cool Grunge music and all the girls are tied up in bondage, he tries to politely tell them its time to flee the scene. Rising floor after floor, he knocked the teeth out of any one with a shade of hostility. Still not finding the Beast Clan, he knows there is some room where they are all gambling. Coming to the final floor, its more upscale, must be their private lair. Girls here are all drugged in stupors, leaning over tables or face down in their drinks. Furyo doesnt want any collateral damage so he runs two girls at a time down to the street, making three trips. Finally he can kick off some real unpleasantness Taxi Driver style. Finding a Beast Clan thug abusing a girl in a back room, Furyo buries a butcher knife into both his lungs and gives him a Chelsea smile, while sending the girl running to gather any more innocent bystanders out of the now blazing building. Furyo sits down for a drink and waits for somebody to come stop his chicanery, dressed as an Otaku while wielding a silenced UZI submachine gun he took off a body. Hearing dozens of footfalls rushing up the stairs its time for Blitzkrieg. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The Beast Clan is named not just for the savage cruelty of its members, but their origins of the group is otherworldly. Beasts are feral beings from a nebulous stage of history. Brutish and sporting ugly tusklike teeth. Beasts can appear human but when confronted, they can devolve into a form far more bestial. Like the video game Altered Beast, adherents of the Yaj-gumi are involved in black magic and said to be able to transform into creatures like Lions, Dragons, Bears, Wolves and Basilisks. Running the Yaj-gumi are two figures of legendary status. The White Wolf and The Black Wolf his father. Of all the esoteric loyalties, layers of intrigue and secondary players waiting for advantage to get off the fence. Furyo knows one thing, if both his parents are out to kill him unprovoked, he will tear down every thing they have built. Furyo kicks back and picks up a smoking joint, taking a drag and waiting to see how entertaining this next barrage of assholes will be. Running up the stairs are a mob of at least 45 members of the Yaj-gumi. Furyo pops the clip to check how many rounds he has. It has an extended clip, but that is only about 30 rounds. Aiming carefully at head level, he does a slow sweep left the right. Bullets hitting bodies make a strange sound, like a bug zapper going off. Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack, Crack! Heads splatter but its fatal too, although far less than he intended. Ten are on the sound brain dead with 35 hopping over them. Another burst to the legs of the group and a second after another 8 fall with 7 more catching the remainder of the clip. Ten more brutes come dashing towards him. Furyo looks around for a table leg or broken bottle to even the odds and as luck would have it, a Katana is leaning behind the bar on the floor. Furyo is no renowned martial artist, he had taken some Karate, Taekowndo as a kid but he is no Samurai. This doesnt stop him from hacking off arms, legs and heads. The onslaught of Yaj-gumi show no fear and pause for some feral display of aggression Furyo guesses is supposed to be a werewolf transformation, doesnt give them a chance. While they tear open their shirts and howl like Hulk Hogan, Furyo stabs chests, pokes lungs, disemboweled intestines and hacks off hands and feet to negate any magical advance they may have. Feeling the heat in the air and smoke burning his eyes. Furyo kicks down a door to the roof. Getting shot in the back with a double barrel shotgun is something he never would have expected. He tries to hop behind a bank of air conditioners but loses feeling in his left side as blood fills a void in his ribs. Furyos father steps from behind the stairwell with a horde of monsters. Surrounded and trapped, he laughs as under the best of conditions he could never best 100 fresh fighters in combat. Furyo goes down swinging but he is beaten unconscious, broken with cruel punches and kicks, battered with chains and barstools thrown over the edge to sail six stories down onto hard pavement. (28) Japanese Hell 地獄 Jigoku Furyo feels pain, coldness and completely alone. Feeling like he fell off a roof, like his face splattered, his arms splintered, his organs burst and his legs are oriented in a way they couldnt be attached to his spine. As he sits across the alley it hasnt hit him yet. His body is over there. Pieces of his brain are in a U shaped pattern going twelve feet from whats left of his skull. Its too much the rain is washing away his blood. He hears Mr Ghost Lantern making jokes but they fall on deaf ears. Furyo needs to take a walk. Looking down at his hands, he is reminded of the Ghost Clan with their pale corpse like aura and poisonous blight around their soul. There is no mistake, he is dead. Gathering his things, he puts on the Masters Devil Mask and holds up the Chchin''obake. Akihabara is weird now, only faces he sees share the hallmarks of a sad death. Girls standing alone bear slashes to their throats, men stumbling around are riddled with gunshots, families standing in the middle of the street have dented in ribcages from car accidents. An echo of buildings on fire, soldiers wailing for lost loves and mothers carrying charred children of the ww2 Tokyo firestorm. Startled by sounds of screams, motorcycle crashes and mass shootings craze his fragile psyche. Soon the street disappears under an ebbing tide. Ghostly flames and jovial Yokai sing songs off in the darkness of a swamp of lost souls. He hears spirits calling his name in the miasma of endless misery. He hears Rikki calling a name Fujin. A name so familiar. He comes to an ancient mound with a giant stone lantern, beside it Rikki whispers prayers. When she sees him she runs into his arms, speaking fast in Japanese, crying, screaming, sobbing. They dont understand each other but he tries to comfort her. He only knew her briefly and spoke though Machiko as an interpreter. Furyo gets the impression she is blaming him for her death. She falls to the ground and her voices becomes hysterical then silence. The sound she makes is a low hiss, turning slowly with snake-like yellow eyes, her mouth twisted in a grimace of hunger. She is a Yokai, Ů Nure-onna, Snake Woman. Furyo dashes away and can hear her slithering into the water inches behind him then nothing. Stumbling through a the black swamp, he feels like he runs for hours. Mr Ghost Lantern is not scare and begs for a cigarette. Furyo has exhausted him self, his lungs and legs ache. Stopping to smoke, he thinks about the name Fujin, it sounds so familiar from his childhood. Watching the full moon rise over gnarled trees, Furyo laments his life. He never lived like his future mattered, now he has none. Blue orbs of spirits dance over the still waters, wind picks up and frogs sing in putrid blackness. Looking around he has come to a graveyard. Getting up to walk, he feels a little better. On the wind he hears funeral bells and smells incense. Lightning far off illuminates a ruined shrine in silhouette. Moving towards it he hears the name again Fujin Fujin Fujin in a sweet feminine voice. Coming to a grove of burned trees and a stone Tori gate, he enters the courtyard of the Shrine. Stone lanterns light the boundaries of the place against broken stone walls. He sees a figure walking around inside the Shrine, a small old woman in a Kimono. Its his grandmother. He climbs the stairs cautiously and she smiles and gestures for him to sit. She serves him tea and cookies. Mr Ghost Lantern interprets when she begins speaking in Japanese. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. I apologize for our short time together. I had suffered with many health issues of the body and mind. Now I am at peace here. I wish we had more visits as your grew older but your mother was very rude and only called me to ask for money. She refused my visits after the day I tried to drown you. Furyo doesnt understand. You were born under a harsh curse, that aggravated our own shame. Your fathers family were Japanese from Korea, living there since we lost the Imjin War. This left a stain on you that still follows you. A great injustice was committed by your ancestors and the fact you are drawn to a life of evil only proves that I was right in trying to drown you. Furyo isnt sure whats going on, but his grandmother does not remind him of a Holy Spirit calling to him for his welfare. He knows stories of Hungry Ghosts who can only feed on their own families, causing generational misfortune and spiritual torment. Begging her forgiveness he quickly leaves the Shrine and hears echoing laughter that fills him with an emotional pain he has never felt before. He walks on with Mr Ghost Lantern into lands of the dead. He thinks he hears his mothers famous songs. A flower for the unloved a song she wrote as a young girl that became a hit in the 50s. Simple hearts yearn together her hippie era bubblegum hit, Walking in the rain, singing your name a song she never recorded as her career faltered in the 70s when she came to the USA. Furyo sees a festival in of torches climbing a mountain. Every one wears Ghost Masks and has sunken eyes. A fire festival in honor of the dead. Furyo has no torch so he follows the stragglers along a winding trail up the mountain. Passers by have the same ghostly injuries as him, burning children, skin and bones corpses of the sick, skeletons walking in feudal costume, Samurai in full armor and Shinto priests coming down the other way glaring at him and whispering curses. His mothers songs stop and at the crest of the hill he is shocked to see an exhumed casket surrounded by corrupted Shinto priests, their white ritual robes covered in dirt and mold of the grave. Ghostly ninja pull the casket up with heavy ropes. Possessed Men dance in a grotesque display of bloated corpses falling apart and splitting from putrified liquids in the chest cavity. Singers and Onna Yurei cut open the throats of chickens and ducks over the casket. Finally the drumming and symbols go silent. Pallbearers approach with pry-bars to open the ornate casket bathed in blood. Furyo cant help but approach, transfixed by the spectacle of this blasphemous exhumation. Deep set, black ringed eyes of the crowd of Priests and henchmen of the Akury-kai and Yaj-gumi. Furyo gasps when he realizes the green and shriveled corpse exposed to the night is his mother! Shinto priests spit sake into flames, toss gold coins and seize the corpse, hoisting up up from her casket. Furyo cries out in horror as her eyes open with an accusing glare. Her gnarled finger points at him. As if she held him responsible for her untimely death. This couldnt be! Furyo didnt even know about his mothers death. Shame tackles him as he surrounded by the Ghost Clan. Falling and and scurrying away backwards in spiritual revulsion as all the faces of corrupted souls of Shinto priests of the Akury-kai look his way. A hand gently grasps his shoulder. He would have had a heart attack right there if he wasnt already free of his corporal form. Its the Hell Priest! Furyo blinks out of existence. (29) Fujin and Raijin, Demon Guardians of the Wind and Rain 風神と雷神、風と雨の守護者 There is a story from when the world was young. When two monstrous elementals did battle for supremacy, they were so fearsome Buddha made them guardians of humankind. They became devout and across Japan shrines are built to them as Temple Guardians. Raijin is depicted as a drummer, creating storms with his mighty songs. Fujin, equally fierce hold a sack over his shoulders containing the worlds winds. You cannot have one with out the other. They do battle and the result is thunder storms. Demons who are worshiped as holy personalities in Shinto is a concept unique to Asia. Their depiction changes along the Silk Road, but there is some form of these entities from Japan to India. Furyo feels a cold shiver down his spine. He is naked on an autopsy table, a sheet is covering his face and in an adjacent room he can hear a bone saw buzzing into a human skull. Tearing off the white sheet, the light pounds into his eyes. Seeing angelic beings floating in the light, he remembers the story of the sun goddess Amaterasu. He wishes more than any thing her warm embrace would lift his broken body from his cold and dismal place. Tears come to his eyes and before he can stop him self he is wailing to the point of choking. Rolling off the table he hurts his toes on the ice cold tile floor. Walking out of the room, he comes to a changing room with a full length mirror. What he sees is awful. Flashes of his smashed skull, open chest cavity and legs turned like a propeller laying on black asphalt shimmering in the rain glance through his mind. One of his eyes is totally purple except for a blueish grey cornea, his other eye yellowish. His skin is a color they dont teach in school, silver-puce like a white peach with indigo veins and lavender bruises. His chest has a Y incision on the top, but a portion of his torso is blue medical plastic with bolts to attach to his pelvis. Something you would only see if you had a friend in a horrific traffic accident where the chest was unsalvageable but the head and arms were still useable for an open casket. Only tell tale signs of braces and brackets showing from a subtly caved in chest and pvc pipe making limbs into a stick figure of lipstick and morticians wax to fill out the face. Whats left of Furyo is held together by aluminum, plastic and screws like the rubber band in a GI Joe. He isnt even a corpse, his stomach is gone. Whats there is more like a foldable hanger for taking suit jackets on business trips. Even in the worst B movie, Frankenstein was never this ghoulish. He looks like something from a Filipino monster movie, Beast of the Yellow Night or Curse of the Sun Demon. Totally inhuman, full of staples in his face and feeling around his mouth, he feels cheap reusable fake teeth as half his jaw and check bone arent there, something the constituency of a rubber glove makes up the rebuilt portion of his mouth. Unable to take it he punches the mirror and raids the lockers for medical scrubs. Finding a surgical mask, hair cover and doctors outfit, he rushes out of the building not making eye contact. He feels like his legs are squeaking when he walks, like he is about to fall apart like crutches held together with glue and bandaids in a hurricane. Smashing a car window he comes up with nothing, no guns or car keys. Just his luck a police officer jumped off his motorcycle and ran inside. This was the opportune moment to get away clean. Riding into the rain, he tries to figure out how to turn off the flashing blue and white lights. Finally getting it off, he tries to find someone to talk to or any distraction from the terror and torment he feels. Ending up along a cement barrier where waves are breaking and pouring over the street, he sees a barricade too late and wipes out on a row of cones and feels his body rag doll into he doesnt sense his head is attached to more than one of his arms, getting pushed by rushing white water. He might as well be a rubber ducky as the coastal road he was speeding down is washed out by violent tide and wind. Furyo can only laugh at this. No matter the temporary reprieve the gods grant him, his overpowering urge for self destruction wins. Like a bird compelled to dart at big rig windshields or a moth drawn to the glow of an electric bug zapping lamp, he is pulled by unconquerable gravity like planets circling a black hole. Unquellable rage and powerlessness, with a hint of narcissistic anti social personality disorder comes to a predictable end. Feeling darkness pulling him towards Hell, he surrenders to the sleep of death. Failing to blink out into the emptiness of the universe or absence of consciousness he finds him self whole again. Sitting peacefully in a temple full of chanting monks. Seeing the Hell Priest and his rescued orange kitten now peacefully sleeping in the afterlife. Furyo is kind of shocked to see he is whole again. He has hands feet and even a saphron Buddhist monk robe clothing a spiritual body unblemished by his violent death. His astral body stands up and follows the Hell Priest with out any of the black aura, mean spirited spite or cursed luck of Furys miserable life. They walk into a golden morning of brilliant light in a garden with a koi pond and flowering cherry blossoms. Furyo tries to talk and is shushed by the Hell Priest. They come to a less manicured part of the grounds. Where broken stone and dry weeds poke up from ash covered ground. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Among the toppled stones lie gnarled bones of a great fortress, among battlements covered in ivy and charred posts leaning amidst unburied bones and rusty swords. The Hell Priest points to two large statues. They are covered in ash and mostly grey with streaks of black from rain. Raijin and Fujin, our namesake. Furyo doesnt think about this, he lets the words pour over him as his mind is totally blank. Not a calm blank of nirvana, but a panicked blank of ptsd as he waits for the world to take its next pound of flesh. Did you know you had a twin? Two children who were sickly, one grew up in poverty, crime and lack of love. Too mad with endorphins and misplaced hate to realize the stupidity of his ways. The other grew up with discipline, suffering and a deep understanding of all things. Too introspective to grow much beyond the study and meditation of this place. Both died due to shortcomings of how they felt about their place in the universe and how they delt with the suffering in the world Furyo starts to murmer the beginning of a question, but realizes any thing he can say is just noise with out wisdom. Ego driven, listening only to react with no understanding. Th Hell Priest continues. I was brought here at 36 months old when our grandmother tried to murder us in the Palace of Fine Arts fountain in San Francisco. Raised to study sutras and mantras, meditation, martial arts, healing arts. There was something lacking. Despite knowing the cause of suffering, I felt no meaning, no connection to the world or family. Abandoned like you. One day I walked along these battlements on this ancient castle and I saw no reason to not let the wind take me away. I tumbled 90 feet down into darkness, a crack in the ruins and remained there for 4 days, chewed on by raccoons and finally died of exposure. My bones slipped father down the rocks into a little hole where squirrels scamper over my skeleton to store acorns. Just over there, under boulders fallen from a war no one remembers Furyo looks over the place, where great 400 year old Oak trees roots break up battlements. From a distance the ruins look like a place where Hawks and Falcons nest among grass, not betraying the broken spears, ritual suicides and anguished screams of worlds in transition. Black walls once supported a great Japanese castle, twisting fortifications hide nearly 1100 bodies, where peasants from the town bellow tried to wait out a siege during the warring states period. A vast graveyard too remote and lost to time to be a world heritage site. A shunned place where modern surveyors avoid it due to unstable rocks and geothermal vents, prone to earthquakes and fires. Perfect for a monastery devoted to saving wayward spirits from eternal suffering in Hell. An invisible sanctum of spiritual travel, a secret starting point for etherial avengers of the spirit realm to stage raids on wicked souls and unjust deaths. A training ground of exorcists and barrier to the decaying flesh of life we cling to because its all we know in the mysteries of the universe. I can see you arent to be trusted with your physical body in its state of transition. I will keep your remains here in the temple, we will pray for your soul and keep a week long vigil so no perverse spirits can steal them. You will be free to move around the 3 realms in spirit form. If you can follow directions and live for something more than your self, an arrangement can be made to restore your living form. After you have helped seek out and guide home suicides and lost souls around the Kanto prefecture and neighboring areas. You will be equipped with all the knowledge you need to call forth ghosts, cleanse homes, exorcise evil spirits and give peace to the tormented souls. You must avoid our parents as they made devilish transactions that left shadows over both of our mortal bones. In moments of weakness, they both attempted to trade our lives for their own. It did not work out well for any one involved. Furyo. Furyo felt a sensation like pulling G force on a roller coaster as reality transferred from the misty ruins of a castle to the studio apartment of Angelina. She was washing dishes and listening to the radio when she saw Furyos ghost in the window. Turning and seeing the spot where he is standing empty, she shudders as the lights go out as a powerful wind slams the window. She says a prayer and lights a candle. Walking from room to room blessing the space where she instinctively knows she is not alone. Furyo doesnt know how to react, being a vouyer to the living is not a skill he knows. Thinking of ghost movies about scaring cats or using telekinesis to communicate is not his first instinct. Maybe he could find some refrigerator letters to write something vulgar or use the shower faucet to turn the water cold. He really doesnt know what to do other than act as a guardian as she sleeps, watch the lightning out the window and try to find some way to light a cigarette on the stove. Somewhere Mr Ghost Lantern makes crazy jokes no one can hear, cackling in the glow of his own moldy skull. (30) List of Lost Souls, Lonely Graves and Missing Murder Victims 失われた魂、孤独な墓、行方不明の殺人犠牲者のリスト I guess ghosts dont sleep. While mortals snore, talk in dreams or try to run from phantom attackers. Ghosts pace back and forth, trying to remember things like how to use the bathroom, open a box of sugar or make coffee when they have no body to do it with. The half light of night is the domain of those stuck between worlds. They dont watch tv or listen to the radio. Something about sleeping people makes them so fascinated, little things like breathing, farting and falling out of bed are endlessly amusing at the spirit world. Furyo unlike some ghosts isnt tied to a certain apartment, he isnt reliving a tragic life or hoping for an ancestor to honor their shrine during an estate sale. Furyo leaves before Angelina wakes up. He doesnt remember if he opened the door or left through an open window. Something about death makes moments fuzzy, memories clouded and plans fall apart. Time is also unreliable. For him a day and a half might be weeks to the living. Sometimes he loses time, gets stuck between buildings or lost in the malaise of post modern landscapes of the damned. Along for the ride is Mr Ghost Lantern and The Masters Oni Mask. Acting as a translator and a charm to help him either become visible or interact with the earth world. It alarms him to find him self staring blindly into walls or lurking in closets dormant like a hibernating bear. Part of the mystery of the afterlife is a growing intolerance for human noise. Things like top 40 radio, misremembered song lyrics and old women baby talking animals fills him with hate. He has taken time to figure out how to interfere with broadcast signals when a block of bad music becomes intolerable. Most sing along pop music makes him want to fire a gun into the listeners stupid drooling face. Everywhere he goes sirens, announcements and running children make his brain boil. He understands why ghosts are most active at night, hide during the day in dark crawl spaces and tunnels. Human-kind are assholes, not nearly as interesting as they think they are. Beware O mankind not to offend the spirit world, they will not forget your disrespect! Even while alive he was drawn to sites of violence, battlefields, accident scenes Now as he walks its like a bell going off. Lights flicker and old songs hum on the wind. An abandoned row of ramen stands closed for the night may be mundane to the living, but to him every rustling leaf and dead animal in a puddle holds some omen for a lost soul nearby. Spirits do not always mean to bring discomfort, sickness and cruelty to human-kind but unresolved ugly feelings do. An unsatisfied spirit can easily spell doom to a whole family. A crazy ancestor with an intense aura can stain the survivors like a stench from condoms in a marriage bed or a dead rat inside the wall. Bringing bacteria, lung flus and sinus infections, if allowed longer their mold and hate builds up cancer and blood poisons over years of unresolved trauma. Furyo tries to focus on his list. A girl who died in an abandoned swimming pool in a park, an elderly man pushed in front of a train, a single mother abducted from a jogging path 5 minutes before she picks up her kids from School. These spirits allude him, he moves on to ghosts who arent hiding from his help. Many things cause these psychic wounds in a place. Not all are death, consistent abuse, injustice and unethical medical experiments also can have a congestion of spiritual energies where a bathroom stall or car port can harbor malevolent energies seeking a release. All these pained voices echo a cruel signal into the world. A strange feeling in the woods, or walking along an underpass may reflect events from decades, even centuries before. Battlefields and sites of massacres are now 4 lane highways and where lovely riverside villages stood for 1000 years now its a metroplex where the river is diverted underground and full of syringes and dead childrens raincoats. Stagnant water, mutilated trees, broken paths where spirits walked for centuries can cause parasitic infestation. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Furyo has been sent to check on ghosts who refuse to keep their abuse to them selves. Angry spirits lying in wait to spread their death contamination to others. Luring lone children or mentally ill homeless into places to drown or fall into an open elevator shaft, causing toddlers to jam forks in light sockets or elderly people intentionally crashing into on coming traffic just to have a conversation with paramedics. Furyos first stop for the day is a bank of desolate laundry machines where college student named Marika Sugimoto was beaten and raped by her landlord in 1982. She was wearing a red sweater and a modest navy blue skirt midway to her ankle. The landlord had been passively friendly but Marika was uncomfortable with small talk and spent her days making her own clothes and studying to work in computer code. Her spirit appears to young people in an alcove where she used to smoke. The Landlord is most haunted by this, and despite being the killer has invited 2 different paranormal themed tv shows to do specials on the laundry room in the underground parking structure. Using faked footage, stock sound effects and an actress to recreate the murder brought moderate ratings and the story is largely thought to be mostly fictional. Furyo didnt find her the first day. He followed the landlord until she appeared trying to ignite rags he left in a bin beside the stove. Marika was overjoyed to have a friend after 12 years alone. She was willing to depart if Furyo would help her set the land-lord on fire in his sleep. Sharing a cigarette while the killer burned to death was cathartic for them both. Marika tried to piss on his burning face to keep the blankets from catching and the building from burning down, Furyo helped, they averted a disaster. Another opportunity to settle some unpleasant feelings from the suffering ghosts, was a kid named Hiroshi Kimura. He was playing with metal toy trucks some time in the mid 60s, walking along a reservoir and discovered a downed electric tower, getting some of his friends they decided to try to push the downed tower into the water. Hiroshi was electrocuted and by the time rescuers came to the location, had been reduced to little more than a blackened skeleton. This caused destructive ptsd with his surviving friends who returned to the location for years to drink and mourn what happened as kids. Hiroshi tries to get passing children to fall in the water or climb the rebuilt electric tower, causing the mysterious deaths of 4 other children over 30 years. Hiroshi was not a good spirit and when approached tried to stab Furyo with a piece of metal from the original accident. Furyo decided in this case, the spirit would be best obliterated with exorcism. Lastly a local pervert named Issei Ishimura who had the bones for 79 children in boxes hidden in his elderly mothers apartment. The man was 59 and never left home with his 83 year old mother. Late at night he would sneak out, driving his plumbing van and climb in windows and steal children. Keeping them hostage in his cramped room, then storing their mummified remains wrapped in masking tape and stored under his bed and in his closet. Furyo gained access to the apartment and waited with the mother. Learning more and more how to be seen as more than a blurred shape or figment of the imagination. He startled the kidnapper and forced him to jump from his 19th story apartment. Furyo was proud to lead a whole parade of decades of lost and exploited children back to the temple for reincarnation. As some spirits can drift away as the body desiccates, Furyo isnt sure if 79 was the actual number of victims or just who was left after decades of isolation. Some remains fitting in small shoe boxes after falling apart from years of humidity and attacks by moisture. (31) Death is the lack of control, Life is the lack of understanding, Eternal life is Regret Furyo wants to learn to fly. He has a list of suicides who climbed the top of bridges, high-rises and great mountain trails where they read their last note and flung their earthly form from a great height and sailed down into the yawning abyss of velocity, inertia and impact. This may seem liberating but its the stop that kills you. Furyo is getting used to overcast days. Climbing up the outside of an unfinished tower abandoned by an off shore investment firm. A great graffiti covered edifice in the heart of Tokyos financial district. He is looking for a salary man named Gento Waichirou. He had a drinking problem, was abandoned by his wife for a lover who worked less with more disposable income and never bonded with his children. He spent his days chasing prostitutes and playing video games. One day when he couldnt get past a certain level for 3 days, he decided to go drinking on the construction site. Gento took a freight elevator to the top and finished his first whole bottle of Whisky, Johnny Walker Blue. His job was redundant, he spent most of his days pretending to do anything other than draw manga or try to make his computer crash the buildings servers so they wouldnt discover he was paid to do nothing due to a book keeping oversight. Now he thought of the things he wanted to do in life besides drinking and whoring. There wasnt a whole lot. In 1991 he bought a timeshare in Aspen but he never went there when he found out traveling there was 10 times more than the payment to own it. Now he waltzes around in the dark high-rise where winds come through so fast, they can knock down and drag you 40 across the unfinished concrete of the 66th floor. Broken, abused and feeling blue, he felt more comfortable with the thought of suicide. Nose bloody and knees skinned he begins screaming obscenities at the Kami, trying to throw his empty bottle to the street bellow as the wind reversed. It came back and smashed on his shin, breaking his leg. Not he hops around the edge screaming. He isnt sure if he came here to jump, but with the pain, the alcohol and the life of shame he wanted a release from the pain. He inched over to edge, eyes closed and tried to push half his body over until he was right at the point of no turning back. This is when fate pulled him over and he realized he didnt want to die and tried to claw his way back but he wasnt strong enough and there was nothing to hold on to. Half way down his face smacked a crane so as he fell his last memories were panic and pain. His front teeth taken away by the wind, his face became splattered all over the empty street where the commuter foot traffic to his office from the train would discover his fine suit and cufflinks among a dark stain and pink bits of skull and brain. Furyo found his spirit, sitting on the edge wishing he had some more alcohol. Furyo brought a bag of cheap whisky, the kind of stuff Gento would have neared at in life. Gento took English in college but it was very poor and most of what he said was lost on Furyo. They tried to talk about video games, women and fast cars but most of what he said, Furyo just nodded like he understands. This started to enrage Furyo and he stood up and wanted to fight. Furyo was tired of half stepping so he just dive bombed Gento into the windy sky. Furyo tries his best to soar over the city light like a majestic falcon but didnt, it was terrifying and despite ghosts being as light as feathers, the panic of his own death took hold. He gave up on Gento, if he wanted to be the sullen ghost of a construction site then fuck him, let him stay there. Furyo had so many lost souls on his list, he wasnt going to put up with this bullshit. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Furyos next on the list was a social worker named Aiko Ahmya. She had taken a small girl from a poor family and pawned her off on a rich family who made their money in the prewar years working mines and pharmaceuticals in Manchuria. This made them all board and kind of mean spirited. The girl was raised to be picked on by all the lost souls of the Miyazawa clan who got tired of ballroom dancing, stock speculation and spending money on designer purses. The girl Emi Noda grew up among the finest things, in a lonely mansion and having no friends. Eventually she tried to run away and was attacked and eaten by bears in the rural area around the house. This was a mix of coverup gone wrong and media blitz blaming every one involved. The matriarch of the family over dosed on sleeping pills, the brother moved to America and the father fled the spotlight to run a hedge fund in Hong Kong. This left the social worker to be savaged by the newspapers. Accused of taking the girl from a living but poor family, who had gotten their at together by this time and wrote two best selling books about the dishonest way the papers were rushed though by corrupt county workers who got a kick back for placing unfortunate children with rich families. Aiko had walked out on a bridge in Tokyo bay and jumped into the water bellow. Body never found and her life largely mediocre. Furyo went looking for her and sure enough came on the morbidly obese social worker walking along the bridge with her umbrella torn apart hitting her in the face. She walked a nasty little dog, whom she abandoned to traffic when she jumped. Now her spirit whispers to pedestrians to jump. Causing severe emotional damage to school children and those in a fragile mental state. The spot on the bridge is now a popular spot for high school lovers working the courage for a suicide pact. Furyo didnt like this woman instinctively and when she jumped he watched her plop into the black waters in the early morning chill. His attention came to a lone girl, too young to not be in school who has snot and tears running down her face. Furyo tried to comfort her but not speaking Japanese all he could do was offer his headphones with an American cassette tape of post punk and new wave from the states. This made the girl perk up and after cleaning her face and encouraging her to return to school he was happy to think at least one jumper would make it back home to take on the hard days of life with a new mentality. Maybe one day she will do great things. (32) Those Who Hurt Animals 動物を傷つける人たち Dōbutsu o kizutsukeru hito-tachi In Buddhist teachings there is a dark fate for those who torture animals. It is said you could be boiled alive for stepping on an Ant. The work to benefit all beings has some grey areas like eating meat, or tearing down a forrest to house orphans, killing plants to sustain a monastery. This does not however apply to those willfully and intentionally causing pain and terror to sentient beings. There is a special universal vengeance for those who steal pets to supply the dog meat trade, skin animals alive or boil dogs for festivals. If this is your mother, father or grandmother, take head of what is about to take place. Broken bones and skinned eternal life awaits the cowardly evildoers who partake in the suffering of animals for profit. Cruelty has a time and a place, and it is an obligation to seek retribution against the torturers of animals just as there is for the traffickers of women and children. Furyo doesnt think he is in Japan, the language is too different. Feeling abducted sometimes by these quests, he wakes up in places he has never been to witness things no human ever should. By the sights and smells he believes this is China but it could be Korea. He is walking among food stalls and sounds of suffering. He sees crates stacked full of howling dogs with broken arms tied behind their backs. Men working here do not seem especially evil, probably took any job to feed their family. Loading cages from motorcycles stacked over their head, unloading trucks. Hearing a sound of unimaginable suffering, he is drawn to a soup kitchen where an old woman throws puppies into a cauldron of boiling water. The puppies dont notice the heat right away, but when they do the sound is awful, like torturing a baby. Beside the old woman is an older woman in a wheel chair who is reaching into cages and shocking shivering animals with a cattle prod and laughing. As soon as she sees Furyo she begins wailing, praying and falling from her chair, begging forgiveness. Furyo takes her taser and puts both women out like a light, tying their hands in a way that dislocates the shoulder and breaking their legs so they cant run just like they did to the dogs. Reaching into the boiling pot he saves 3 puppies. He isnt sure if this is more cruel, or if putting them out of their misery is better. But as soon as he places them on the ground they are happily panting, licking his hands and wagging their tales. This makes Furyo feel all the more cruel in his rage against these criminals boiling dogs alive. Furyo works his way though the stalls, stabbing and clubbing other stall workers slowly and quietly to not raise the alarm. Finding an empty truck he begins stacking the dog cages and the unconscious bodies of the worst offenders. Making an entire part of town silent. Once the truck is full of the wounded dogs needing medical attention he sets all the able bodied dogs free, sending a horde of divinely inspired dogs to attack the people trying to buy the dog meat, spreading rabies and tape worms through the families of the survivors. Driving the truck to an abandoned factory, Furyo one by one relocates the injured joints of the dogs. He sets out blankets and food for the suffering animals to recuperate while he goes back to get the heavy pots and knives from the meat festival. As soon as he sets the fires and arranges the pullies overhead he opens the sliding door to the truck and inside these people make sounds no better than dogs as several of them are trying to scream with broken jaws. Furyo uses a meat hook to drag out the offenders one by one, the hook goes in under the chin and works like magic to pierce the underside of the tongue to drag them to the cauldron. He has stolen 10 large pots from the dog meat festival, using rope he lowers the broken legs of each of the 10 first draft picks into a soup of his own making. Many of the cooks struggle and try to contort to escape the boiling water, he lets them as the steam is just as vengeful to unprotected flesh. Many of the dog abusers empty their bowels and urinate down their legs as they cook alive. Since he only has 10 pots, he begins skinning the other inhabitants of the truck. Leaving their shivering bodies beside the dogs who dont want to wait for their dinner to be served. The screams of the abusers fill the building. As the bodies over the pots stop moving, he drops them all the way in over their heads and replaces them with more. This time he finds a way to hang two angles from each pulley so each pot can cook two at once. Furyo needs a break, sitting back and marveling on his handiwork. In all he saved 89 dogs and maimed 57 people involved in the dog trade. Once the work of scalding is done, he lets the cauldrons cool down. As if by some divine messenger, the sounds and smell has dawn all the local homeless animals. Like Noahs arc, his little torture festival has cats, dogs, monkeys and wild animals all sampling his soup, made from the broken and burned bodies of abusers. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Furyo doesnt know when his consciousness shifted but soon he is in a new place. A rabbit breeder who delivers baby bunnies to weapons manufacturers to test pathogens, burning materials to study flesh damage and chemical weapons. The breeders daughter is a nice girl who tries to not think about the atrocities her family takes in. She is nice to the animals and genuinely doesnt want to be a bad person, but all the resistance was beaten out of her as a small child. She delivers crates to a loading dock from the company van. There is no signs of torture or burning animals here. Just a farm smelling loading dock full of wide scared eyes, packed 50 to a plastic tote, full of baby rabbits intended for use in plague and bio weapon testing. Many of these animals are shivering, they instinctively know this is not the calm and pleasant entrance to a forever home. Smells of suffering and tell tale signs of death are picked up by their curious noses. The rabbits silently suffer as Furyo walks in with a syringe full of poison. The loading dock manager gets a shot full of acid in the jugular, same stuff they use to euthanize stray dogs in Turkey. It causes convulsions and screaming as his own muscles break his bones in spasms. Dragging the delivery girl through the interior of the labs, she goes limp with abject terror. Furyo kicks open the lab door and one by one comes up behind the hazmat suit wearing technicians and injects them with caustic acid that paralyzes them, causing spasms and death throes. Coming to a lab with men in silver fire proof suits placing accelerant gel on sleeping animals, Furyo knocks one of the men out and using his broken arms to ignite a flame thrower, sets the rest of the team on fire. Still dragging the delivery girl by her hair, he comes into the bio weapon floor, where they inject plagues and the new yearly flu into guinea pigs. Weapons testing is profitable but also highly illegal so these tests are secret. Furyo says to the delivery driver in perfect Korean. Do you know why I am sparing you? Do you know what you must do? Tearfully she nods and scrambles out into the loading dock to open cages and makes a mental plan to set her parents on fire in their beds and join a radical animal rights group involved in direct action. She is thankful he spared her life, she watches in the rearview mirror as the building begins to burn with the only sign of life hundreds of small animals fleeing from the smoke filled doors. She wonders who the creature was, he didnt look human. She wasnt sure if he was a demon or an angel, maybe a little of both. When he looked at her all she could feel was all the fury of hell, anguish of the Buddha and instructions on how her life can embody divine retribution. Furyo is delirious, moving with the speed of light to another place of great suffering. A cattle ranch somewhere in place that smells of strange herbs and grass. He sees terraced rice patties so this may be the Philipines, Vietnam or even Indonesia. A stench of death and sickness hits him. Rubbing his forehead that has sprouted little horns in his widows peaks. He though he was tripping or had an ingrown hair infected, but no his skin is inflamed from horns coming out of his forehead. Now he is truly a demon in serve of heaven. Furyo hears a sound that is so odd, cattle screaming. He passes a putrid pool of blood, pus, piss and industrial waste that burns his eyes as he walks past. He sets it on fire to draw the slaughterhouse staff out. While screams of alarm and panic fill the facility. Furyo comes to a paddock where mother cows have had chili peppers inserted under their eye lids. With a calm hand and gentle voice he removes the chills form the mothers eyes, opening their gate the veal pens, reuniting the mothers with the babies and giving them one human kindness they have ever known. Coming to the factory floor, some obvious mental defectives laugh and joke as they hit bulls trapped in a steel dog run with heavy wrenches. Furyo walks up smiling and the imbeciles hand him the heavy wrench so he can take a turn. He does, breaking their stupid faces and breaking their knees. Furyo walks into the kill floor, stopping a conveyor belt where several cows scream while hung upside down. Lowering the hoist to the floor and freeing each bull, who go on a rampage into the densely packed butcher room next door. Trampling the workers and sending many flying dozens of feet through the air. Furyo is happy the Hell Priests picked him for this job. As the building burns and the cows flee into the forrest, Furyo considers how his own lifelong habit of eating meat has contributed to thousands of animals suffering. (33) Ravenous Beasts, Lonely Hearts and Scattered Remains 貪欲な獣、孤独な心、そして散り散りになった遺骨 Furyo couldnt stop thinking about the adopted girl left to be eaten alive by animals in the forest. Why was he dispatched for the bullshit corrupt social worker who only felt bad when outed by news media and not the girl sold off to feral beasts who abused her until she died alone in the woods? Divine intervention only for the corrupt or half way redeemable? Fuck that! The Miyazawa clan had extensive holdings in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. They controlled a multinational conglomerate that owned several news papers, hospitals and military contract firms specializing in medical technology. There has always been a stigma over the family going back to their ancestors who were the feudal governors of several prefectures. Ancestors known for torture, mass execution and cruelty kept the little people around their gated compounds wary of walking alone after dark. Rumors of experimentation, radical religious beliefs and child abuse haunted members of the clan in the post war period. The public image was far different with large donations to orphanages and running their own summer camps for unfortunate children was supposed to clean up the image. Disappearances and runaways telling stories of vivisection and murder was never taken seriously by local government that was easily influenced by their lobbyists and lawyers. Little Emi Nodas death was the final nail in the coffin of the clan. A scandal that lasted years in the papers, a little girl was so traumatized she fled the abusive foster family and was torn apart by wild animals. This led to many of their business contracts being abandoned, inheritances squandered on PR firms and several deaths. This led to their grand family home being left abandoned. The house had sat unoccupied, falling to the elements since the early 1970s. Furyo found the estate around dawn. The wrought iron fence in gothic neoclassical style was heavily vandalized. Gargoyles, angels and grim reaper figures. Graffiti in English read Pedophiles! Murderers! Demons! Along with endless similar diatribes in kanji. Once formal western style gardens are overgrown with native trees. Now it is a home for owls, where eerie bird songs haunt the morning light that breaks the dense darkness of the land. Putrid ponds, leaning Greek statues and the ruined edifice of the main house give Furyo shivers. He is not one to be spooked but he wished the sun would come up a little faster. Furyos spirit was able to see easier in the dark than he did in life, but no supernatural pedigree would cut through the blackness of the house. The main Japanese feature was the roof of the mansion, heavy traditional tiles crack under the centuries since they have been repaired. Furyo can hear running water inside the home, leaves litter the floors, priceless art and sculpture lie smashed by decades of teenagers breaking in for parties. Furyo instantly has a bad vibe. The walls are covered in tapestries of bizarre subject matter, Buddhist demons, ghosts, rituals and torture scenes show a mix of history and fantasy. Trying to remember cleansing chants taught to him by the monks, he forgets whole stanzas and feels like his usefulness as an exorcist could be far undermined by some deep rooted curse on these grounds. Evil ancestors or generational curses are things beyond his depth. Besides the fact this spirit is not one of the ones requested for contact by the monks. For all he knew she could be on the wings of paradise with no stage in this hateful place. Sounds from deeper in the house and creaks from walls about to fall down make every fiber of his being want to run the other way. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Even if a ghost cant actually smoke, he feels like he should try while he steels her nerves. Back out front he sits on the edge of a stagnant fountain and lights a smoke. Its a kind illusion to be able to have small distractions from the heaviness of the ghost world. Feeling lost in a perpetual predawn, he curses under his breath. Calls of owls and coyotes strike a cord with him, making him survey the forrest around him. He is paralyzed with fear as he sees grim faces staring at him. Humanoid figures who seem far taller than humans should. These are not Cannibal Giants, something different, more feral like apes or wolves. Remembering he is a spirit, he approaches the figures who seem to be in a ring around the property. Dozens of white furred creatures whisper quietly, Furyo realized they are chanting a protection mantra, hands clasped and holding Buddhist prayer beads. Their eyes closed and giving a less threatening impression than he initially thought. Walking to the one standing in the middle of the path he came on, he asks. Are you demons? The creature opens its eyes, not smiling but not hostile it replies. We are Monstrosities. Ancient Kami of the highlands and mountains. We guard places with dark histories, battlefields, places of injustice and cruel magic so evil spirits cannot flee and trouble outside the spirit world. Furyo thinks about this and ask. Are you Yeti? The creature smiles. No, we are Japanese. Our species is called ҥʥ, (Hinagon) I suspect we have similar reasons for being here. Furyo feeling more bold asks about the state of the little girl and who they think mauled her to death. The creature appears offended, rearing back in a howl. Suddenly dozens of the things circle Furyo. Their leader says. You know very well what manner of Beast attacked the human child. The Master of the Kemono-ry Karate Style! Your father, The Black Wolf! Furyo feels like his mind just broke. Could the Miyazawa clan have something to do with the Akury-kai and Yaj-gumi? Furyo loses his footing and closes his eyes anticipating a ferocious attack. Nothing comes, opening his eyes, he is alone. (34) Hungry Ghosts 餓鬼道 Gaki michi In full daylight Furyo is much more confident about exploring the ݷ Ghost house. Now as mid morning son birds and rays of light penetrate the dismal interior, a blue hue of toxic air and dust fills the building. The windows are all smashes, boards but up ripped down and interior sliding paper walls kicked to pieces. Once there must have been good memories and laughter here, over centuries a mix of cultures poisoned the family into the realm of Countess Bathory or Unit 732. Adopting orphans for explicit purpose of tormenting them physically and emotionally. The downstairs is formal drawing rooms, ballrooms, offices in the 19th century British colonial style with maps and half of the endangered species of the tropics stuffed in menacing poses, meeting rooms with comfortable leather chairs, a large tile pool in the style of Hearst Castle filled with a broken piano and medical equipment. Furyo climbs to the second floor where the bedrooms are all are grand, large as tennis courts but trashed with slashed paintings, dead plants and burned beds. Farther down he sees no obvious childrens bedrooms, no toys, no child-like pictures or signs of light and life. He goes back down stairs and off the kitchen, finds a stone stair case descending to a row of jail cells with heavy wooden doors that have been torn off their hinges and lie splintered inside. These rooms have an aura of sadness, dirty mattresses on the floor, a hole in the floor for a toilet and small skeletons still curled into fetal positions in each room. Furyo collects the bones in a bucket to return to the monks for purification and summoning of the spirit to reach a better afterlife. Furyo sees signs of animals living here. He hopes he wont run into a sleeping bear or pack of wolves. One cell has not been opened, Furyo struggles to unlatch the heavy iron pull bar. Rust and expanding due to temperature changes makes it impossible to open. Looking in though the tray slot, he sees something incredible. The wall behind the cell is totally broken like a bomb went off. Some supernatural power melted the stone into pools of magma on the floor that cooled into strange patterns almost like hieroglyphs. Feeling watched, Furyo turns and sees darting shapes in the corner of his eye that scatter just as he has time to focus. He saw enough to feel like the ghosts of innocent children still live here. Following the direction he thinks they went, he comes to a lower half flooded tunnel bellow. Furyo has learned techniques to create gouts to spiritual fire to light his way but he has not mastered the (Fireball). Furyo feels a sadness that contaminates here, like a sickness of the blood. With a fleeting fireball guiding him, he remembers Mr Ghost Lantern, and is if he was there all along, appears in his hand. This calms him a little as Mr Ghost Lantern is never scared and ghosts are his people. Furyo remembers the incense and prayers. He allows Chchin''obake to float freely so he can use his hands to light incense he holds in his mouth to read aloud from his book of blessings. He reads aloud. The myriad Spirits in the High Plane of Heaven, on the order of the imperial ancestor the Living Kamurogi (The Spirit Takamimusubi) and The Living Kamuromi (The Spirit Kamimusubi), met in the heavenly river plain and discussed the transfer of the rule of Japan from the great Spirit of the Earth to the Spirits of Heaven. The imperial descendent, The Living Ninigi, suggested descending to the Plane of Reeds, Japan. And after serious discussion, the Great Spirit of the Earth agreed to relinquish control of our country. And the mother of The Living Ninigi, The Great Spirit Amaterasu said ?My heavenly child, The Living Ninigi, go and govern so that this country, Japan, remain peaceful for all generations to come?th. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. This purification will be the strong wind that blows down from high mountains, which can blow away the clouds that have piled up thick, and like the way that the morning and evening wind can blow away the morning and evening mist, and like the way the wind can blow a large ship. Berthed in a large harbor, breaking its chains, pulling up its anchor and blow it out into the ocean, and like the way we can clear mountains of trees and bushes by burning them and through the work of our sharpened hoes cultivate mountain sides, in this way, our sins will be gone, purely purified, and cleanly cleaned. The sins and impurities thus swept away, will fall from high and low mountains, with a thunderous sound into the water, the Spirit of rivers, Princess Seoritsu, who lives in the upper reaches of rivers that flow fast like the flow of a waterfall, will take them out into the ocean If they are taken out in this way, the Spirit called Princess Hayaaki, who lives in the whirlpools where hot and cold flows meet and collide, will gobble them all up. If the sins and impurities are all gobbled up in this way, The Spirit, Ibukidonushi, who is the origin of the breath of life, will breath and blow them out to the world at the origin of the world. If they are blow out in this way, The Spirit, Princess Hayasasura, who lives in the world at the origin of the world, will take them off into the distance so that, even these sins and impurities will be lost forever and completely and if they are lost in this way, wherever one searches for them, we will allow ourselves to say, before the myriad Spirits, before the spirits of Heaven and the Spirits of the Earth, to whom we dedicate this purification, this cleansing prayer, that sins will completely cease to exist. As he sloshes through the dark water, the incense and words seem to dispel the darkness. As if smoke is receding and giving some feeling of peace in the shadowy depths of this horrible place. Furyo comes to rooms littered with more medical equipment and signs of distress. Saying aloud he is here to gather up spirits unjustly imprisoned who want to return to the world of light, he rings a chime three times and claps to call forth the children. As if they have been beside him all alone, little faces of children totally white with lack of sunlight for decades appear beside him, the entire hallway is full of them. The children have dead eyes, their bodies as thin as skeletons and they creep towards him with an unignorable intention to feed on his flesh. Maybe as many as fifty Hungry Ghosts close in on him. Furyo smiles and says. You must be hungry, let me take you to a place of plenty where you will never be scared or yelled at again. Where you can reside with all your ancestors in a calm wind of eternal spring. The children seem to perk up from their gloom. He gives them a few minutes to find any missing spirits they can and collect their things. Like an angelic Pied Piper he leads this heavenly chorus of singing children out into the light of day. The forrest seems less threatening as columns of light break up the morning fog, giving the dark forrest a golden quality of hope. As Furyo thinks of how proud he will make the monks, something unpleasant screams and he sees the children have all fled to the afterlife head of him except one. A girl with a intense face, riding a grey wolf who has not followed him from the experimental labs in the depths of the house. Her face is painted with blood and she carries a spear. Furyo smiles at her and says. ˤϡҰ{󡢤ցޤKon''nichiwa, Noda Emi-san, otetsudai ni kimashita. (Hello Emi Noda, I have come to help you.) She glowers at him and her wolf picking up on it, growls with a bone chilling deep throated threat. Furyo feeling unsure continues. I am not here to force you to go, if you prefer this place I wont try to convince you. Only to share the invitation of Heaven any time you are ready. She doesnt respond and turns her wolf to dash off into the trees. (35) Monsastery of Heaven 天の修道院 Ten no shūdōin The Hell Priest Raijin is very happy to take the children to regain the lightness of being lost to decades of suffering. They will be well fed, taught Buddhist sutras and returned to be born again in far better stature, having learned some profound truths about the world. Their spirits will be tasked with ending suffering of other beings, continuing the world of the Monastery of Heaven. Some may choose to stay here or continue in the world as ghosts as their time trapped has afforded them a chance to choose how to decompress from the stress of their memories. Some want to care for sick and wounded animals, try to find surviving family members to act as guardian angels or comfort dying children in hospitals. The Monk Raijin is not totally happy with Furyo. There is a reason he had left the little feral girl Emi off the list. Her spirit has become dark, a Mononoke (Manifestation of Vengeance). She is a Yurei now, with no interest in any thing more than spreading misery and terror. He cautions Furyo that despite his temporary form as a ghost, that does not mean he cannot be injured, entrapped or eaten alive by evil spirits. In some ways he is more at risk outside a human body. What he did was very careless and if the children in the flooded rooms had wanted to feast on his soul, he wasnt nearly equips to spot them. He is lucky their inclination was curiosity and not vengeance on all adults perceived as enemies. Furyo has done great work and despite going rogue, Raijin the Hell Priest wants to show him what has happened since he is gone. Talking him to a temple where the mother dog and silver kitten sleep beside his body. Furyo is happy to see, through prayer and spiritual good deeds his body is mostly restored to life. Still suffering harsh wounds and missing organs but with a distinct pallor of life on the face. The monk tells Furyo he must now seek out other forms of spirits chosen to return to the spirit world for redemption. Yokai and Kami who have worked to help lost spirits in trouble, protect the living and guide humans away from danger. He is given another list of all manner of creature to make contact with and try to bring back to this side. Furyo asks about the things the Monstrosities said and also how he can summon the Tengu Tenshi warriors he was assigned by the Cannibal Giant Queen? The monk laughs at this, that is a lesson for another day. Furyo does not want to budge and instead of becoming angry tells Furyo. They are always with you, when you fight they will appear to destroy your enemies, however they are not to be trifled with. They do not want to be disturbed from their spiritual practice for petty arguments or organized crime disputes. They will go to war when the cause is just and the odds are beyond what you could survive if they failed to intervene. They do not serve you, you serve them. Your good deeds recently have likely impressed them, but they are not the type of spirit to be fooled by temporary changes in behavior, especially those done to benefit you. Trust in their wisdom and ability to discern true intentions, they have seen you exist in hundreds of other lives and know you better than you know your self. Calling them is like tearing a hole in the fabric of the universe, jumping into a black hole or trying to surf in a tsunami. They are beyond your wildest imagination and not pure of heart in the way humans consider good and evil. The same Tengu Tenshi who could stop a plane from crashing with a wild undercurrent of wind could also lay waste to entire countries, causing endless suffering it their goals did not mater yours. Think of them as having a nuclear deterrent that has its own moral compass far more complex than yours. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Furyo asks the what should have been his first question. What is your order of Monks called? The Hell Priest Raijin responds. In life we were a massacred sect of warrior monks who fell to the rage of Oda Nobunagas purge of Kyoto Buddhists. The Shei Ikk-ikki Yamabushi were once famous protectors of peasants and mountain shrines. In death we are called z Armor of God or Heavens Assassins إ֥󥺥, an ancient group of exorcists trained by the Buddha in his conquests against the primeval demon tribes of Asia. That is why we have an eternal war against the Ghost Clan and Possessed Men. To be one of us, you must have died to save others or committed a Death Ritual for the well being of humanity. Very few of us fulfill this requirement, but Amaterasu has smiled on us. We have existed far longer than human kind. Actually our founders were demons who repented and chose to serve the Buddha in guiding all lifeforms back to the Bodhisattva consciousness. As you can see our order does not exist in the human world, but the floating world. Our sanctuaries appear in places of great suffering and our monks visit the dead and dying to gift them some solace as they make transition into the spirit world. We could be mistaken as Angels or Demons depending on the situation, that statue is of one of our order who chose to go to hell to guide back spirits who have found grace among the blazing inferno and frozen wastes of the netherworld. Furyo looks at the statue and remembers a time in his childhood when he saw such a Hell Priest. The statue is of a formidable man crouched in a martial arts stance, covered in raised tattoos of protective scripture and exorcism prayers. His face is covered by a spherical helmet engraved with intricate designs of flowers and geometric patterns under a plain straw hat of a humble farmer. His hand is out stretched with an engraved scar of the Buddha surrounded by a flaming Lotus flower. The monk says. Buddha Palm Exorcist I believe his dying quest was in San Francisco when you were a juvenile delinquent. His story is a frightening one, a learning experience for all Monks who fall victim to their feelings for earthly women. He damned him self in pursuit of an Asura demon goddess in a human manifestation love among humans and demons never ends very pleasant. Furyo whispers a name Sujin (36) Redeeming the Yokai 妖怪を取り戻す Yōkai o torimodosu Many do not realize Dr Frankenstein ե󥱥󥷥奿 was based on a coastal warlord of the Furuyama Clan. They were a great clan near the port where the Jesuits and other foreign traders had set up in Nagasaki. Akuishi Furuyama was a scientist, inspired by western books on enlightenment era ideas of the universe and physical world. He became obsessed with resurrecting the dead after his family was wiped out by a plague brought by European ships. A once mighty sea faring family became an island of mass graves and a lord too unstable to rule. This causes the westerners and his own people to plot on his holdings, held off only rumors of monsters and evil spirits on the island. The mad Lord Furuyama delved into books on sorcery, necromancy and grafting souls of the damned into bodies of executed heretics. The native population of the island were once living peacefully with Yokai. Traditional allies of the farmers and fishermen. They helped fisherman in peril return to port in typhoon season and always helped lost children return from the storm shrouded mountains. This changed with Christian converts becoming intolerant to the Kami and old shrines, hunting down the harmless monsters of legend until the Yokai became desperate and feral. Eating humans at every opportunity. Like similar refuges for cats and rabbits in Japan, Yokai, ghosts and demons had this place to reside free from attacks by ghost hunters and exorcists for millennia. It took less than ten years of Christian dogma to create a climate of butchery on both sides. Many said his alliance with these creatures is what drove the Lord Furuyama to madness but it was a matter of honor. They were his oldest friends and truest allies, if his people denied his orders to coexist he chose the unearthly beings and put all dissidents to the sword. All those who abused the innocent and defenseless Kami were used for vivisection to further his science projects on restoring life to dead beings. Swearing an oath of eternal hostility against the Christians who brought the sickness that wiped out his people, Lord Furuyama was the first to denounce Christian lords of the Kansai, take their ships, burn their castles and seize their books. This spread Furuyamas domain off the archipelago deep into the Kyushu mountains. Seizing a third of the island from Christian landowners who sowed dissent and whispered lies to the Shogun, to set their enemies against each other. Furuyama tired to remain civil and fair, but the sabotage of Christian insurgents on his infrastructure. Mainland Ninja and traveling Ronin were cause for more distrust. Attempts on his allies lives by agents of the Shogun made it seem as if the Jesuits had poisoned his reputation as the one causing instability, as if he has some deigns on more power. Finding bridges burned, ships scuttled and wells poisoned caused the Lord to arrest all Christian ships in his waters. Trespassing Church fathers, bands of Yokai hunters and spies from the Jesuits all ended up crucified on the coast to serve as a glaring message where this islands loyalties lie. Christianity was first outlawed in his domains, the hundred islands of the Kyushu south west. Where Cannibal Giants, Tengu and Yurei lived as equals with full property rights and hereditary claims on their ancient homeland. Furuyama wanted more than any thing to be a benevolent Lord, but disloyalty and subterfuge drove him to burning Church fathers openly, sacking their ports and giving pirates of the coast reprives form execution if they made war on the European traders. Education and experimentation became his life long quest, beyond bringing back his parents and lost loves to life. He was obsessed with the power to raise the dead. Demonology and Solomonic black magic filled his hunger for vengeance. Bringing a Korean Christian nun who lost her faith, a Mexican scholar of the Catholic New Spanish Empire who spent his life translating the magic of the Aztecs and a bride from the Wallachian steppe of Eastern Asia. The great lord brought the invitation to a being of ancient hunger and undeath from the darkest corners of Europe, Vlad Teppish. A ageless ghoul known in western literature as Count Dracula, feeder on corpses and blood who in life was an equally ruthless warlord in his war against the Turkish invaders. Creating distrust and open mutiny by the local christian villages, Lord Furuyamas name was torn to shreds by rumor and murder mouths. Instead of a benevolent man of science and medicine, he was smeared as a kidnapping ghoul who stalked the coast around Nagasaki to bring torment and suffering to followers of the Christ. Some of this was true, but out of context. The sick brought their loved ones to him by boat to benefit from his strange obsession with death. He was Lord, so it was his right to claim the bodies of executed bandits, assassins and foreign invaders who brought crime to his lands. Soon the Christian invaders and their puppet Lords started a rumor of treason on the Island of the Furuyama clan, planting bodies of Ninja around the Shogun, only to take credit for killing these phantom assassins. Furuyama was declared an enemy of the Japanese and ordered to commit Seppuku with no trial or recourse. This enraged him and miscalculated his considerable support in the non Christian lords of the region. Creating a cursed time of great upheaval where nearly one third of all Japanese were killed in the great Yokai war, where Monstrosities, Yurei and Beasts rose from the remote islands of the south and west to meet the Christians and their puppets. Akuishi was the son of the most hated warlord of the Imjin war, who drove a clan of Yeti into battle. Ultimately leaving them sacrificed for the loss of the Korean invasion, all the Yeti were executed. Creating hate in the hearts of the primitive species, but promising to call their spirits back to possess the soldiers of his clan so they could live once again. Furuyama facing defeat in his own war against the Christians and Hideyoshi Toyotomi, he raised armies from the graves of his people and drawing evil spirits to possess his enemies dead. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Before defeat, he called on his foreign advisors to bring forth the spirits of the greatest enemies of Christianity. This brought the spirits of Mictlantecuhtli, Huehuecoyotl, Tezcatlipoca to raise their own armies to resist the Christian warlords with a plague of zombie spirits. Unsatisfied by armies of Yeti possessed ruffians, Aztec demons, Vampire allies, Yokai he sought one last ally from the depths of western dogma, Eblis the islamic fallen angel. This enraged Dracula who had fought the enemies in life, causing him to betray lord Furuyama and his Samurai armies, siding instead with the Shogun in return for a private refuge in the north of Japan to practice his blood letting. This caused Furuyama and his allies to become cursed names, forgotten to time and dying for nothing as the Shoguns own distrust of the Christians and their double dealing would lead to their expulsion years later. Leaving the Island kingdom of the Lord of Undeath once again to its original Yokai inhabitants. Furyo sailed to this unnerving place on a ghost ship to a land always cloaked in a shroud of fog and harbored an endless graveyard always lost in thundercoulds and doom. Gunkanjima now known as battleship island once held a castle and greater landmass, blown away by cannons during the War of the Hunger Plague. Furyo does not sail tot eh modern island with its desolate modern urban decay and shipyards. He sails into the mists of time where the once mighty kingdom stood at the defense point to all western invaders. Long before ww2 forced labor, this place had a cursed reputation as one of the few places where an entire island chain was occupied mainly by graves. Endless tombs and fallen structures fill the remains of the archipelago that once stood there. Western battle ships reduced the proud island chain to the small Hashima seen today. Once this way not the case. Furyo watcher as the years roll back seeing modern buildings disappear and the burned ruins of Furuyama castle rise from ghostly battlements. Once thriving forrest covered this place, abundant life and dozens of villages stood here, mournfully silent of human life due to outbreak of plague and war, but a happy home for Yokai. All manner of strange creature crawls, swims and flies here. Mr Ghost Lantern becomes too excited to wait on the ship and drifts into the fog alone. Leaving Furyo to wait for ghostly rowers to help him touch down on land. As soon as he touched down on shore, phantom Samurai ghosts in black armor rushed to take him captive. Had Furyo gone too far back in time? Is this the era where the Japanese Doctor Frankenstein, Lord Furuyama lived among the endless graves of Got Island chain? Furyo was brought to a local police station where he is left in a cell full of corpses. In the hallway he can hear Yokai and Oni terrorizing other prisoners in adjacent cells. Mr Ghost Lantern has abandoned him. Furyo is greeted by a figure he at once realizes is a vampire, Vlad Teppish who serves as the interpreter. Furyo explains he is here as an exorcist of a Buddhist order on a mission to bring souls of the demented to the afterlife to be reincarnated. Dracula loves this idea and frees him at once to meet the Master of the Island. Traveling through towns of Yokai, working on mundane tasks like chopping wood, crafting armor and creating weapons. Furyo realizes this place is somewhat of a haven for these spirits and ghosts. He know eventually a horrible catastrophe will come but he is not authorized to tell these creatures of their impending doom. He thinks he was meant to land a few years later once the conflict claimed the armies here and left only Monstrosities and Hungry Ghosts. In his castle Lord Furuyama works endlessly on his quest to raise the dead with human consciousness and a soul. Raising ravenous beasts, bodies possessed by spirits of Yeti or half human half anima hybrids is not enough. He wants his wife and family back, as it stand he is only able to raise mindless beasts, perfect for war but incapable of conversation. Dracula thinks all this is foolish, wish only a few drops of blood he could raise any fallen human being into a state of undeath. This is not what Furuyama is looking for. He yearns for lost days of his youth, before his western books and ideas came with terrifying blood pathogens. For now Furuyama is content with his experiments with the atom, giant cockroaches, grafting lion heads onto eagles and working to create more intelligent Ghouls who can take orders. When Furyo explains his quest and what will befall this place, he already knows. It seems this bloodshed has played out 1000 times before and he holds no ill will or claim over the Yokai. They are free to leave. Furuyama knows how this place will be incinerated, reduced to nothing more than windswept rocks to be abandoned for centuries until industrialization bridge coal mines and shippers. He is resigned to his fate and wishes Furyo well on his quest. Allowing him to gather Mr Ghost Lantern and any Yokai willing to return with them. Furyo feels like this time and place will be an important ally in his own war, and asks if Lord Furuyama would help him when the time came to take on the Akury-kai and Yaj-gumi? Lord Furuyama doesnt want to decide yet and asks Furyo to come again when the time comes for open war. Furyo feels sorry, but also like his ancestors had some part to play in the doom of this place. (37) Return to life, Dont fuck it up this time 人生に戻る、今回はめちゃくちゃにしないでください Furyo can feel his whole body ache. His astral form watches the Hell Priests in the dark corners of the room chanting, only light in the temple is a rectangle of candles surrounding his corpse. He closes his eyes and feels like he can see the spiritual winds at work around him. Luminescent gusts of light stifled by darkness, mournful voices of his ancestors screaming not to leave them, his victims clawing for vengeance and the song of the Monks washing away the Rhakshas and Asuras of the spirit realm feel far off, like violent bells of a sinking cathedral claimed by a monstrous tidal wave. Healing energy fills his heart, he can feel his lungs bursting with white light that energizes his blood and starting his heart. Old stab wounds, bullets in his body from teenage crimes, bruises in his brain and staples holding it all together radiate a coldness that is washing away in a holy ritual of regeneration. He opens his eyes naturally, like coming out of a restful sleep. His injuries and pain seem far off as a soothing warmth goes from his toes to pelvis, up his spine into his mind. A sits up and knocks over candles, as his body wasnt ready to tense up and rest on his own knees. The Monks rush forward to clear the candles knocked over. Helping him onto his hands and knees and up to his feet. They walk him a short ways to the outside garden where a centuries old Yew tree guards over the temple grounds with its 300 foot canopy and roots as tall as a standing man. They sit him down in a pool at the base of the roots where lotus flowers grow in warm sunlight. His eyes feel delirious, like golden reflections from the water and sounds of a waterfall bend in his mind. Feeling etherial and otherworldly. He remembers the story of Buddha sitting under a tree and attacked by Mara with temptation and hordes of demons. Wearing the Sapphron robe of the Monks, he feels like Buddha. A strange calm takes him, the Monks leave him in this pool that feels all the warmth and energy of a womb. The morning is too bright, the sounds of bells and charms in the tree branches make him want to sleep but the experience of being alive is too overwhelming. Daylight, wind, slight rain all make tears come to his eyes. The smell of flowers and distant waves breaking make him remember what it is to be alive. All memories of his childhood flood over him. Walking along train tracks to a secret swimming hole in the mountains, watching ships pass in the bay with his father, free outdoor concerts in Golden Gate park, walking among the Redwoods and running along the riptide in Ocean Beach. Moments of stillness as a baby watching the light of swaying tree branches, skate boarding down hills and not being able to stop as traffic zooms past. To his surprise he sees Angelina, the gothic girl he met for only one night in Harajuku on a rooftop. She has 12 angel wings and a golden spear. She is a Tenshin Tengu? She grabs his hand, lifting him to his feet and into the air. Before he knows what is happening, they are hundreds of feet high looking down on the ruined fortress and golden temple. He sees the coastline and maybe even the coast of Korea. She takes him to a dark place shrouded in an endless void of lost souls. There is a fallen temple on an island, surrounded by flooded graves falling into the sea, dead trees house hundreds of black birds that fill him with dread. He feels like these birds eat souls crawling from drowning graves. He tries to ask What is this place but the injuries and mortician filling his body with poison after his autopsy made his voice die in his throat. She leaves him on a black shore, smelling of moss and dead fish. Crawling on his hands and knees over sharp rocks, an Oldman with wild eyes and a ornate ceremonial kimono picks him up and helps him walk to a cliff over looking a dark courtyard of the fallen temple. Wolves howl and bitter cold wind whips Furyos face raw. The Oldmans hands and face white fur, his kimono has a design of a great wold attacking the sun, causing it to bleed onto the Earth, spreading flowers from a field of bones. Furyo cant make his voice cry out, the Oldmans blind eyes and cruel face make him panic. Looking into the shadowed courtyard he sees a Black Wolf with the bristling muscles of man. The Black Wolf is practicing Karate, each movement with such sudden violence and power if makes Furyo feel like the sky its self is cowering, each strike causes thunder and lightning, violent winds and deep bells in the distance. Sounds of screaming, ribcages busted open and teeth scattering across the ground are shocking to his new life and uncontaminated Holy Spirit. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Furyo has never felt such fear, around him on the roofs and walls fearsome Tennin Tengu watch with black eyes, so still they could be made of stone but their kimonos and scarves fight the wind. The Oldman holds a walking stick a with one hand and lantern with he other. Furyo cant believe his eyes and along with the Black Wolf, dozens of Angry Ghosts practice Kemono-ry Karate, each holding a lantern and swinging hooked chain weapon like a mace. Furyo is in the heart of his enemies camp, seeing the White Wolf and The Black Wolf among the Plague Clan, Possessed Man and Evil Ghost Clan fill him with terror. These are the foes stalking to assassinate the Devil Clan. The Oldman pushes him down a path, kicking him and hitting him with a stick until he is at the feet of The Black Wolf. The Oldmans voice is like a snarling wolf, he says. Go! Learn! As The Black Wolf effortlessly tears out beating hearts and collapses lungs with punches and kicks that hit like bullets. Furyo is stuck in this hellish place, practicing the esoteric movements of the Beast Style of Karate. Surrounded by his enemies for what feels like centuries. Suffering violent full contact matches against the warriors of the Possessed Men, Plague Clan and Ghost Clan. His body absorbing each kick and punch, making his skin like wood and his bones like iron. Every impact from a throw or weapon strike makes him feel like a burning sun is flowing in his heart, filling his knuckles with energy. A divine rage manifests as his fists and kicks land on the demonic foes, ghosts and shapeshifters. Breaking open faces, splintering jaws and igniting corpses in blue spiritual fire. As he learns the movements, an ultraviolet spectrum of light becomes visible, showing more and more spirits around him. Skeletons, swooping phantoms and disguised Yokai in the skin of humans draw forth a world only hinted at in the half light of drunken hallucinations. This is the Beast Clan, Assassination Style of warfare. Having seen enough the Ten no-Tsukai Tengu swoop down, making a parameter with their spears. Blocking his enemies and taking him up into the sky. These Bird-Demon-Angels are beyond good and evil, raw forces of nature and the universe. Heads of hawks and long nosed demons, dozens of wings and weapons meant to guard the goddess Amaterasu as she travels across space and time. The crawling terror he felt in the fallen temple leaves him as he returns to the Golden Temple of the Hell Priests. His hopeful feeling leave him right away as the Tengu bring him to their own martial arts staging ground, making a circle around him. He falls to his knees, head pressed to the stone ground, begging for a rest. There will be none, the Tennin Tengu take turns attacking and defeating him. In another training that feels like decades he learns weapon based combat of the Avian Demon Angels of the Ten no-Tsukai Tengu. Angelina is there, watching and smiling. Her eyes hold a reassurance that fills him with a new energy to put his all into surviving this new ordeal. Before long he is able to grasp the movements and concepts of using sword, spear and spiritual light he is able to condense in his fists to bursts of light. Exorcising evil spirits and guiding innocent souls to Heaven. Furyo far from feeling like a corpse newly awakened to a far out reality, is channeling cosmic forces of rival polarities, cycling energy of light and dark, good and evil, water and fire, earth and spirit. Harmonizing the suffering of his life and his ancestors like a dagger into the heart of the predatory and unclean. He is a diamond tearing into the souls of the Kami, maximizing their intrinsic power and radiating it with the help of the sun goddess Amaterasu. (38) Triptych of Extreme Violence 極度の暴力の三連祭壇画 Kyokudo no bōryoku no sanrensaidanga Spiritual forces and the unfathomable wisdom of the universe is not meant for mankind to understand. Furyo wakes up under a bridge. He is surrounded by the luminous eyes of stray cats. A deep chorus of intolerance comes from the horde of cats. They sense he is no longer of this world and want him out of their refuge, this is the domain of the living and they want no feral ghouls to disturb their placid sanctuary beside the river. Furyo almost bursts into tears, was it all a horrible dream? He feels the staples in his face and pain when he breathes and knows what ever it was, it was not a dream. Furyos body washed up in this place, among tents of the homeless, rotting animals and unmarked graves of the unloved. The air smells clean and despite the heavy weight his spirit carries he feels blessed. He stumbles up to a campfire where hunched over winos have forgotten an improvised grill made from a shopping cart filled with local fish. Furyo hungrily tears into the fresh fish, making so much noise the winos wake in alarm screaming at him. He hands over a wad of wet bills and they are all friends again. Furyo warms his newly mended bones, his clothes and walks up the embankment to the road. Like a wraith from a dream, Angelina stands with a knowing smile and with her Tenshin Tengu wings tucked inside her clothes. She has brought him a bag of clean clothes and right there on the side of the highway he strips down and puts on a new outfit. Looking truly like Devil Furyo, the dangerous killer returned to life. Furyo marvels a graffiti mural in a memory of childhood. Buddha tempted under the tree of wisdom, by the king of the undead. Furyo tries to walk but some deep rooted trauma blinds him. He feels a story being narrated to him by a ghostly voice. Once in ancient India, high the mountains. The Buddha sought out a place to meditate after months of a long journey. He came to a great tree where all the masters of wisdom and spiritual thought also ended their journeys. This was a place where the seekers of enlightenment stayed forever, until their bodies became one with the tree. Among the roots and branches were hundreds of mummified monks who meditated and gave up food until they reached a state of bliss. This is also where the great demon Mara waited to tempt the seekers into indulging in food and wine, earthly thoughts and sexual depravity with his army of female illusions. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Buddha was struggling to maintain his noble path, to remember the virtues to renounce the world, maintain proper conduct, to give charity and act wisely. Buddha wanted to fill his soul and others with kindness, patience, generosity and compassion. Mara was cunning and created psychological games where there was no good choice. Buddha acting with his best judgement but each time felt like he was sacrificing others to make small victories that only made the demon Mara grow stronger with each regret and second guess. As Buddha was eaten alive by insects, violated by feminine demons and haunted by angry ghosts he cried out for some end to his suffering. In this moment, Mara traded the split second of respite of the Buddha for impunity of unclean souls to possess all the wise masters in the tree of wisdom. Spreading a plague on the land that exists to this day, hungry ghosts of the vampires. Furyo can feel his skin burning, like molten gold. Lines of Buddhist exorcism prayer burned into his mind like DOS code, burn into his skin like a crucible creating keystrokes for a printing press. His arms, face and chest blistering under intense heat from inside his chest. He screams and tries to rip at his own flesh and bones as the black markings of expulsion prayers, blessings, cleansing and banishment spells circle his body. Creating the armor of god, a ancient system of mysticism used by the monks of his order. Now his body is a weapon in the fight against all parasitic spiritual entities that walk among the realms of men. His hands and feet emblazoned with the holy writ of a thousand generations of exorcists from the mists of prehistory. Mantras, Sutras and esoteric Mudras become as fearsome as his skill in martial arts. (39) The Fox is in the Henhouse キツネは鶏小屋にいる Kitsune wa niwatori koya ni iru Furyo had gotten word of a gang of youth delinquents from a private school called Zombie Perverts They had been suspecting in several abductions but due to pressure from prominent families and a lack of bodies the police were at a stand still. This powerlessness did not prevent the spirit world of the Hell Priests to seek retribution and seek out the souls of the missing girls for astral salvation, sending the restless spirits back into the meat grinder of reincarnation. This could only be accomplished with a brutal series of events that included removing those causing harm and ritualistically cleansing the bodies properly for cremation. Their most famous victim was an abducted schoolgirl named Junko Furuta, they tortured her to death over weeks and abandoned her body in a barrel full of cement discarded in an abandoned lot. Found weeks later because her rotting foot was sticking out, drawing attention from passers by. The private school had a military structure and took only the sons of wealthy business heads. The Zombie Perverts gang hung out in an abandoned mall that was closed to widen a subway line, funding to the project suddenly stopped and the entire mall fell into disrepair, several of its lower levels became inundated with water from a storm a few years ago. This left a sad edifice of broken glass and graffiti, where lone school girls were taken and abused. Never to be seen again. Furyo and Angelina smelled decay as soon as they entered the main gate. Somewhere were the bodies of 7 missing girls. Sounds of mean spirited laughter and thunderous skateboards roared from within the sunken darkness. Trudging into brackish water filling the submerged first level, Furyo feels uncomfortable in his own skin. Coming to a dark video arcade and pachinko room, every thing inside is covered in moss and mushrooms. From an adjacent room, sounds of discomfort and struggling draw their attention. Behind a smashed up wall were 3 girls, gagged and in a state of undress. Angelina helps the girls get free of their bonds and helps them get safely to the street outside to summon the police. Furyo feels a little more like him self as he has no Tenshi observer expecting some kind of angelic conduct from him. As he moves farther into the abandoned mall, he comes to a stuck escalator going up to a sunlit atrium where the Zombie Perverts have an improvised skate ramp. Bathed in dull grey light from the overcast day and broken windows above. This place looks like it was hit by a tidal wave, turning all the walls black and green with crawling life. Furyo smiles as the Zombie Perverts scuffle amongst them selves, wearing cheap knockoff halloween masks and drinking jugs of wine. It almost reminds him of his own childhood associates back in San Francisco. All sentimental thoughts of the old days as he sees two of them taking turns on a passed out girl who looks like her head has been smashed in with a brick. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Furyo screams in rage and kicks an empty bottle across the floor towards them. The Zombie Perverts have far more members lurking in the shadows. As many as 30 of them emerge from burned out shops, from sleeping behind stolen furniture and deeper into the mezzanine. They dont waste any time rushing Furyo with iron bars and chains. Furyo wastes no energy on glancing blows, every movement he makes is engineered to cause permanent injury. Kicking knees backwards, breaking cheekbones, stomping testicles and poking out eyes. Furyo forgets for a moment these are high school Chimpira, but since they have a hobbies of kidnapping girls and leaving bodies discarded in cement filled barrels or dissolving in acid baths in abandoned factories, there will be no political pressure stopping divine justice. Furyo stops short of beating them to death, but not one escapes her feral rage as his sympathetic empath abilities fill his arms with a steal like rage as the voices of the lost and permanently traumatized girls whisper lists of crimes. Furyo doesnt feel the need to beat them to death, he figures stomping their pelvises flat, cutting off noses and eye lids will leave their faces too horrible to lure any more girls into dark side streets or abandoned houses. The horror of some of the things he sees in his minds eye shock him. These cowards burned girls with boiling water, tortured them with jumper cables, broke girls bones and sold some to organized crime groups based on Dubai and Hong Kong. There must be a greater quest for retribution as many of the worst offenders were safe in office towers and working in boiler rooms of container ships. Sounds of whimpering and chittering teeth fill Furyo with a cosmic high. Somewhere deep in his soul a toxic pleasure is felt known this gang of rapists will all need tens of thousands of dollars in reconstructive surgery, physical therapy and likely need therapy to avoid mass suicide as their families will be over shadowed with their crimes for decades to come. Now that the fun part is over, Furyo gathers up the corpses of missing girls. Creating a funeral pyre he says blessings, offering wreaths of flowers and incense, he ceremonially calls each name. Chanting prayers in both Japanese and Sanskrit, honoring Buddhist and Shinto belief systems for the Japanese girls and some limited Korean for others. He chimes a deep resounding bell shaped like a small bowl, writing blessings on pieces of paper he covers the sorrowful face of each victim. In the half light of the cloudy day, a ray from heaven comes down to guide spiritual body of each girl to paradise. Tears fill his eyes but he smiles at each of the ghosts as they meet their ancestors and walk into fields of flowers in a soft and gentle wind. Some of the girls kiss him on the face and ask him if they can be his friends when he comes to the peaceful place between incarnations. He doesnt know when that time will come, but he ensures them he will be their ear to hear them out if they are ever feeling sad or unsure about changing their astral form to a new life when their restful piece of eternity takes them to a new horizon and better place. (40) Dreams in the Witch House 魔女の家の夢 Majo no ie no yume Furya had a tumultuous childhood. His mothers ambitions as an artist often pawned Furyo off on friends of the famous and honorary aunts. One caregiver while his mother had overdosed, was an old blind woman who read fortunes in Chinatown. She was kind and always waiting for Furyo to come home from playing with warm food, games and cheerful songs. The old womans name was Oga Bakeneko. She read horoscopes, gave blessings to the dead and operated a sanctuary for friendly Yurei and Yokai lost among the desolation of North America. Far from her stall in Chinatown, she had made a home in the sewers of the Financial District, accessed through Muni tunnels that cross crossed under the city. In a place that should have been dark and dismal, Furyo had some of his best memories. Half remembered meetings with famous ghosts of martial artists masters, mythical Kirin and even a gambling dragon that swam deep under the bay to collect treasure from sunken ships. Mrs Oga had many other children under her care, runaways, orphans and spirits of murdered children unable to cross to the other side. Her little house build of scrapped lumber and ancient pieces of temples was from a bygone era, before the 1906 earth quake whole streets were built over. Creating a labyrinth of tunnels and lost city streets 20 feet below modern street level. This is where lepers, albinos, singing hobos and fugitive criminals created an underground society. An Grandma Oga was seen as the honorary mayor. The home they made was beneath a large metal grate that allowed in rain and light, allowing Mrs Oga to create a garden with a koi pond, cherry blossom trees and shrines to the ancient kami. She would tell Furyo stories about his father fighting off sea monsters and his mothers pedigree as a famous singer in the 60s. Furyo felt so proud of these stories but always wondered why he was abandoned to live in the shadow of his family. This was a dreamworld where Furyo would leave every day to attend public school, wandering around the city mixing with the eclectic artists and Bohemians who made San Francisco well known for its murals, music and political scene. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. When Furyo was small he would go fishing with Umibzu, Kappa and Funa Yurei. Collecting not just fish but lost souls and collectables from centuries past. Furyo would bring Grandma Oga old gold bars, belt buckles and suit cases from robbers thrown over the sides of boats. It was a good life but soon Oga was too old, passing a spell of forgetfulness over him so that his occult world would not cause him to say any thing crazy to school officials. When Mrs Oga died, Furyo and the living children were taken away to foster homes. This is when Furyo was on the edge of his teen age years and ended up running with a rougher crowd. He met the Murder Society in China Town, it was a group of young hoodlums and martial arts school drop outs shaking up the established order of China Town. When Furyo was 16 he got caught up in a drug robbery where a man was left paralyzed and Furyo was charged as an adult. All his life he spent his days alone and cold, his fiends mostly evil spirits and friendly ghosts. When he became a man it was in the Youth Authority and Level 4 prison yards of old Folsom, Corcoran and San Quentins Death Row, where they did a scared straight program for young gang members and real assholes. All this time all he wanted was to see his parents again, little did he know when both of them faced death, they bargained for his soul. Junkie parents saw no value to his eternal soul, causing him spiritual misfortune so they could have a few more good years running in the underworld. (41) Suicide Cult 自殺カルト Jisatsu karuto Despite godlike powers of heaven and earth, Furyo had not mastered important things like his own rage, power over his impulses and knowing when it was time to go. As he kicked in teeth and pounded eye sockets into throbbing purple puddles. Furyo didnt see the Vampire Clan controlled Police had swarmed in silently with storm troopers and tactical cyborgs. Furyos evil laughter was cut short as flash bang grenades and high powered taser barbs pumped his blood full of thousands of volts. Machiko and the Special Secret Society and Occult Division had him hog tied in a dark bus before he knew he was done for. Machiko doesnt talk, her cruel visage betrays no hint of intimacy or a kindred soul. Furyo is taken into a shunned region of the western hills on the way to Mt Fuji. The 둻ᥴ`ȥޥե Akury-kai Ghost Clan had a fortress among a vast graveyard obscured by miles of former military off limits zones. Keeping people away with signs about toxic ground water from the world war, this was actually to isolate a place where evil spirits and cruel shinto priests held savage rituals of torture and barbarism. Their base was once a great home of a war profiteer from a family name blotted out of history for its hundreds of years of inhumane behavior. Furyo is carried into a room with blacked out windows where a hundred men in formal kimonos read off a litany of ceremonial oaths then in unison stabbing their guts with their own swords. A lone form waits at the head of the room as dead yakuza who owed money, told or had dishonored their old clans fell on their swords. Furyo feels like something more ominous than tasers and drugs had wounded his ability to be in control. The room was a yellowing blue of candle light and luminous souls. One set of piercing eyes brought some recognition to his soul. The accusing eyes of his mother held not light or joy at their first meeting in almost 2 decades. Furyo always deluded him self that she was like a guardian angel, looking out for him but that was just a story he told him self. Somehow he knew deep down she saw him as a burden, like he was born just to cast rain on her social life and every rejection of her singing career could be blamed on a baby who gave her stretch marks and health trouble. Furyo didnt need as speech to know he had been brought here to be killed. He wasnt even curious why, picking up on magical incantations carved into his skin by the Vampire Clan Police Operatives. He looks for Machiko but her eyes held no light as she kneeled with members of the Police Clans Ruling Council. Furyo looks around at the slumped over bodies and shadowy spirits walking among them finishing off the survivors. No one even noticed when Furyo ripped open his bindings and palmed a short seppuku sword. As the dignitaries listed off a list of his crimes in Japanese, Furyo smiled as tell tale signs of his Tenshin Tengu guardians filled the corners of the room. A light wind, falling candles and the smell of ceremonial food left at mountain temples. Before Furyo could make his move, his mother reacted first. Shrieking in rage and fleeing the room as the Tenshin Tengu made short work of the Vampire Clan Police, Possessed Men, Poisoners Guild and Akury-kai Ghosts. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Furyo mutilated members of the Possessed Men and Akury-kai with harsh blows. Breaking open faces and dodging firey swords. The Akury-kai was very old. They made their first gains by reigning over shrines, water crossings and battlefields. A class of warrior monks who communed with spirits and walked a dark path of profiting from death and spiritual black mail. They traded in curses and provided help to ambitious warlords, guiding crime and jingoism from the shadows. Furyo instinctively knew his mothers side had a dark curse going back only god knows, and his fathers side was far less noble but equally invested in the criminal rackets of the spiritual world. Glaringly the Beast Clan was not here. He wondered about the training at their hands and if it was set in stone they had sided against him for his connection to the Akuma Boryokudan. As Tengu armed with arrows and bladed spears, like a whirlwind of violence against Vampire Police and Ghostly Yakuza, Furyo fled to wind out whee his mother went. He wasnt sure if he wanted to kill her or tearfully fall at her feet and ask what he had done be abandoned and treated with such distain. Ever since he stepped foot from the plane he felt a foreboding over his every step. As much as he wanted to live and love, enjoying life like a normal adult in his soul he felt damaged beyond any help. His family was so cold, so selfish that he felt a left a greasy stain on his soul. Picturing him self as a happy peach colored baby inutero, it was as if demonic parasites even then were feasting on his vitality. Piercing every moment of joy or hope with darkness and cold. (42) Hungry Eyes in the Forrests of Night 夜の森の飢えた目 Yonomori no ueta me Furyo hears a ghostly bell from a mountain top. As he surveys the place he sees buildings on fire and has a vision of the Tokyo firestorm. As multitudes of Hell Priests, Tenshin Tengu, Cannibal Giants, Akuma Boryokudan (Devil Clan) take on the Akury-kai (Ghost Clan), Possessed Men, Poisoners Guild Furyo rushes up a path to the Yurei fire festival. In the foothills of Mt Fuji there is a secret time of the year when spirits hold their own memorial festival. This is when the monsters and spirits can mourn their own souls, sell services and regain some control. Furyo is shocked by the different races of Kami, Yokai and Spirit that are showing themselves. Ghoulish sites of ritual suicide and execution litter the path. Shrill cries come from above the trees. Furyo races beside shrouded Shinto Priests with ghostly cadence set him in unease. He knows the Akury-kai Ghost Clan is deadly, but he doesnt understand the mechanizations of rituals and curses only that they exist. The Possessed Men stink of rot and open wounds, The Poison Clan are ninja that stick to the shadows. Something about the blazing line of torches climbing into the hills makes him pause to watch the horizon. In the darkness he sees golden unblinking eyes of The Vampire Clan among the treeline. Furyo loses his cool and blows his relative cover, seizing and stabbing to death any one who makes eye contact and dashing up the path towards the festival. Ungodly screams of rage and deep bellows from evil throats fill the air. All chanting and music takes on a feverish intensity. Everywhere around him shrill flutes, war drums and jangling symbols crash. Something in the vibration in the air makes his eyes vibrate in their sockets, the air feel thin in his lungs and his legs worthless as they struggle to hold up with weight. Among the congregants more and more ghostly faces leer at him with hungry eyes and sallow complexions. Birds of prey squawk and dart at his head. A the zenith of the mountain where an effigy of the sun goddess Amaratsu is being stabbed by swirling dancers in Oni masks. On the tops of temples and tori gates Furyo can see an army of Tenshin Tengu watch so silently and immobile they look like they are made of stone. Lines of angry priests of the Akury-kai Ghost Clan wildly swing swords as part of the ritual ceremony. Above the tumult of violence, Furyo sees his mother and grandmother sitting on a raised platform. Clearly they are the decision makers. With a long boney finger, both women point him out at the target for murder. All celebrants stop and only a subtle wind rings small bells ties to trees and shrines. Like a tidal wave of darkness the entire festival comes towards him thirsting for blood. A single voice cries out above all others. Rooster is there, he has betrayed the Devil Clan. Standing aside smoking a cigarette, he just smirks and shrugs. Betrayal comes easy in the climb to power. Furyo takes no time to think and leaps forward with a punishing kick, that Rooster glances off with little effort striking Furyo twice with mean punches as he dodges. Circling each other, Rooster begins to taunt him. I knew you as soon as I met you, I used to live in San Fransisco I bet you didnt realize I was the same Rooster who betrayed your gang to the Golden Demon Triad. A realization washes over Furyo, a story from when he was young about a missing girl who manifested as Asura a Goddess of rage and brought all the powers of hell down on the SF Chinatown underworld in the 80s. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. This pause to reminisce was all Rooster needed to plunge 2 sharp wounds into Furyos chest. Trying to catch his breath, he knows his lung is going to collapse. This is it, not the first time but he knows the tell tale signs of death. Feeling a delayed sting turn into a sharp ache. Muscles in his chest cramping, twisting and a hot flash of warm liquid filling his clothes. Turning his expensive silk underwear sticky and feeling like he has been running in a pond as his shoes fill with blood. Making his socks and pants cling to his skin like a whore in a wet dress. Furyo catches another strike at his neck and breaks Roosters wrist. Stepping into his danger zone in a quarter circle he catches Rooster in the solar plexus and under the chin. Taking Rooster to the threshold of a knockout and weaving his knee behind Roosters, twisting his body weight to break his stance. Rooster is on his back, wind knocked out and trying to look tough as Furyo stomps his skull flat. Murmuring in the crowd has him worried, moving tentatively forward, the rivals seem unsure. Furyo is in no space to fight, but he mourns not bringing a gun. He could let off two quick shots and see what bullets do his mother and grandmothers ghosts. Furyo falls to his knees, seeing his hands now totally bright red with scarlet tears. As he awaits some coward to strike him while helpless with a killing blow, he sees the Tenshin Tengu have leaped down from the eves. A sound of rage and breaking skulls comes from the top of the path, the tori gate is knocked down as the Cannibal Giants and hundreds of his allies from the Devil Clan come running into battle. Sounds of war, sadism and suffering fill the night. Furyo sees the spirits of his Mother and Grandmother have come to deliver the killing blow themselves. Cruel white eyes stare with unmasked hate. The two women who head the Ghost Clan have no remorse about what they came to do. Raising poisoned daggers and letting out horrible screams. Furyo feels a grace wash over him as a white light engulfs him where seconds before there were only ghostly shadows. Spirits of victims he saved, now Angels appear with the force of a war head, eviserating and disemboweling many of the creatures who seized in to strike him down. Feeling a bright light through his closes eye lids, he opens his eyes to see the spirit of Junko Furuta smiling at him. She was the most famous victim of the Zombie Perverts gang and she brought with her an Angelic host all the other good spirits Furyo has saved from spiritual paralysis from their bodies hidden and undiscovered. Furyo smiles up at her but cant stop his lung from collapsing, seeming stoic but panicking inside. (43) Lion Faced Angel ライオンと向き合った天使 Raion to mukiatta tenshi Furyo awakens in a graveyard temple falling into the sea. He is kneeling in icy water and on sharp rocks. A deep throated chanting in a lost Buddhist tongue resounds off the ancient stone markers and cliffs. A burned out temple looks over him threatening with waves crashing through its ruined interior, the roof has partially fallen in, housing aggressive crows. Dead trees bend in harsh wind and every where dark shapes of angry Angels stare at him with inhuman hate. This must be the opposite of the Devil powers he has gained. Angels with faces of Lions, Hawks, Snakes, Horses, Antelopes and Owls glare at him. He doesnt feel as if this is the Judeo-Christian pantheon, could be something ancient even to the Phoenicians and Babylonians. A voice like steal bending a tornado comes from a Lion form holding a spear. Its unintelligible but somewhere deep on a primal level, he understands it as a challenge to his moral compass, questioning why he is seeking lost spirits of the murdered and kidnapped instead of going on his own quest for vengeance. Thats a fair question, he doesnt really know. His silence is taken as disrespect and the Lion Faced Angel steps forward with a hellish roar, in a flash driving its spear up to the space between his Adams apple and chin, raising his face with the cold metal barb tugging at his flesh. Out in the Black Sea, among waves of violence is a new shape, as if pulling light in like a black hole a portal awakens in the edges of reality. All around him he is suddenly shielded by other angels, spirits he saved and people he didnt know were dead. Angelina, Machiko, The 3 call girls from the plane, the kids he saved and Emi Noda all surge forth to protect him. In life these girls were no angels, promiscuous and deceitful, in death they have acquired the spiritual flames of otherworldly authority. Furyo stands his full height, getting a glare from the Lion Faced Angel. With the help of the spirits as sponsors, Furyo is formally inducted into the Tenshi Tengu, Angels of Fire Clan. These are not Christian Angels of some pastel faced Cathedral, these are the demonic temple guardians of Buddhism. Creatures of a ferocious worldview where great and ancient demons are protectors of souls and the natural processes. Bridging the gaps between worlds and conquering lesser evil spirits who prey on lone travelers and missing school children. These spirits judge over particularly heinous crimes like organ harvest, human trafficking, murder for hire and war for profit. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. A flood of pain comes over Furyo, feeling a history unknown to but a few on the 10 worlds Buddhist souls incarnate on. In the cosmic past an asteroid hit a port earth destroying it and creating the moon. As the dust of stars, glaciers of ice and core geological base metals swirled around the wounded earth in great rings like those of Saturn, a race of primeval predators arrived to feast on the struggling life. The predecessors to vampires were shapeshifters of some fantastic antiquity. These were a god-like race that fed and spiritual pain, suffering and sacrifice. Long before humans hundreds of far more technologically advanced civilizations rose from the primordial clay and slime to wield vast powers in the sky and seas, only to be led astray by the vampires who played them like pawns in a cyclical game of using knowledge of war and science to cause these creatures to destroy them selves over and over again. This drew other more benevolent races of god-like beings to intercede and stop the vampires from causing so much suffering and strife. Outlawing fiendish strategies the vampires used across the universe to enslave worlds. What we think of as gods, monsters, spirits, magic and curses are the influence of these primordial races of god-like beings who have been fighting among them selves in a vacant dimensions parallel to our own. Sometimes great human leaders, prophets, generals, kings and monks have attended some wisdom from the good spirits and other deviant travelers have giants unknown powers of creation and destruction. A small bit of these powers can rend worlds apart, split the atom or free the future of hundreds of generations. Its not cut and dry, good and evil, its a long game of oblivion far outside of what human minds can grasp. Seeing a mere bit of this is enough to drive most men mad, or cast their spirits in exile, living in the vast wastes of deserts on the moon, Venus and mars as punishment for attempting to fly too close to the light. Causing eternal torment to those who would be like icarus on wax and feather wings. Furyo is embued with the Tenshi Tengu powers of the benevolent spirits, wings and hands that can form gouts of fire to rip holes into the spirit. Gateways made of superheated plasma would spill from his eyes and hands as easy as sneezing or blowing his nose. Now with this far greater understanding of the makeup of the universe he has reached the final test of his worldly ways. Would he become a holy exorcist or remain an assassin for hoodlums? (44) Crazy Dog Sickness 狂犬病 Kyōkenbyō Furyo awakens in the rain. He had been sleeping in a graveyard. Looking around he sees a family of raccoons curiously staring at him, their eyes reflecting the light from the setting sun. Furyo has been sleeping during the day and awakening when the sun is low in the dusk. He found a long dissused graveyard where majority of the tombs have been taken over by stray cats. An old woman tends to the graves, she wears a funeral shroud and seems both deaf and blind. Furyo gives her a wide berth to attend to her daily chores, only stopping to help when she stumbles with removing heavy stones or carrying buckets of water to scrub the head stones. Furyo feels a strange peace here, although he could be considered one of the dead. He is present, he feels rain on his skin, pain in his cold toes and sadness in his heart. The peaceful aura of graveyards is due to the vanishing of consciousness, he is still real as far as he can tell. Despite fantastic powers of heaven and spirit, he still feels fear when he sees the Akury-kai Ghost Clan skulking around the graves in esoteric rituals. Ifs hard to understand how an organized crime group, of evil Shinto priests can monetize death. Are they extorting the families of the dead or the spirits them selves? Are they harvesting some raw energy like parasites from the spirit realm? Furyo only wants to know one thing, how to kill them and wipe out the power structure that took every thing from him. The building blocks of the unseen universe are maddening when you instinctively feel something is drastically wrong, you can see the after effects, the people suffering but not the cause. Some hidden hand that guides the corruption and systemic evil of the world with ghostly hands and unspoken loyalties. Her among the large trees, singing bells and soft wind there is only more questions. Beyond the placid walls of the empire of the dead, disquieting sounds come from the street. In the heart of the city screams and tell tale signs of violence surround him. Hearing women shrieking, sounds of running, car crashes and growls make him leave his island of peace. The sidewalk is stained with blood and birds seem jarred by some unseen force, taking flight and fleeing. First he found only pieces of bodies, feet, pieces of faces, eyeballs discarded to feed wild animals. A woman in a red dress dashes into the street in front of him. Fleeing three men in chefs outfits, a speeding ambulance just misses the girl and strikes the men pursuing her. The woman tries to get the attention of any one in the houses and stores, not one will open the door. Seeing Furyo, she comes sprinting towards him. She is covered in blood, eyes bloodshot and crying. Running into his arms, she smells strange like some sweet fruit that has started to turn sour. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Pleading in Japanese, he cant make out more than a few words. Killed self Children dead Corpse powder Looking at Furyo like he is insane, she recoils and dashes off into the night, as she turns to got Furyo noticed bleeding bite marks all over her arms and legs. Furyo apprehensively moves farther away from the cemetary, every step he takes make him feel more and more uneasy. He is never one to panic but the sirens, smells of fire and explosions in the distance remind him of the cold war training drills schools did in the states. Training kids to hide from nuclear missile strikes under desks, like super heated glass and fallout wouldnt kill them all before the looting, gas attacks by their own Govt on sick and starving people, water shortages and cannibalism set in. Coming to an inner-section full of ripped apart bodies, Furyo stops to look at the faces of the dead. Sheer terror like animals who are being eaten alive on safari. Some corpses have their bowels torn out and strewn down the street, others with their eyes, soft parts of the face and legs chewed up. Furyo thinks of stories about Vietnam, the aftermath of bombings and plane crashes. Blackened corpses laying in the sun like chicken on a bbq grill, bodies showing their interiors to the elements. There is something foul on the wind, a putrid chemical stink. Something caustic to the nose and lungs. Furyo notices dust collecting and feels like he is breathing black mold. As he comes to the source of more screams, men with reflective eyes like deer spot him. With inhuman growls, they chase them down. Furyo goes into autopilot, his hands and feet breaking faces into splinters of bone, kicking chests open, knocking legs out of their sockets. Furyo is in shock as the broken bodies writhe and snarl, unblinking eyes leer at him with malicious intent, gnashing teeth and reaching for him like orange chicken in a buffet. Furyo almost laughs. Is this fucking zombies or some kind of rabies? (45) Mythology Episode 神話のエピソード Shinwa no episōdo The case that sent Furyo to prison as a juvenile was a dispute with a local rapper and his girlfriend. Aaron Chubby Chaser Chakon and Alphonse Queenie Lombardozzi used to be break dancers named Mystic and Fat Ninja in a group called Ghetto Lordz. The story every one thought they knew was Fat Ninja moved back east to attend Barber College and was replaced by his sister Queenie who went by the rap name Fatima el Propheta. What actually happened is on their euro-tour Alphonse had a sex change. Now as a rap group they had some local success as a couple. They werent fooling any body with her 5 oclock shadow and kept a kind of aloof detachment from the scene. Queenie claimed to have some pull with the mayors office, which turned out to mean was a meter maid working as an informant for the local cops. This also meant the city turned a blind eye as the couple offset their music loses by selling large amounts of cocaine and marijuanana wholesale. Queenie was not well liked but Chubby had always been a good dude, seemed like as soon as the dynamic changed any one who questioned Queenie got set up for long prison terms. Around late 85, Chubby began to have a problem with powder and their once thriving business turned into hustling local dealers in set ups where the cops bust in and they end up with the dope. Eventually coincidences get noticed. Chubby grew up with the OG of Murder Society back in the 70s, and their childhood friendship was all that was what was keeping the local dealers out of Filmore and HP from necklacing them both with a gas can and spare tire down by the docks. The youngsters Furyo ran with werent a part of the chain of command in the city, and when two of their friends were set up by narcs with a very specific and rare imported Datsun ending up as Queenies new ride. The kids decided enough was enough and kicked in the door. Queenie was always one to make outlandish claims, and every word out of her mouth was like nails on a chalk board. For a supposed female, Queenie had the loud mouth voice of an old wino that sounded like Marge Simpson and Sam Kinneson. Queenie liked to say she was related to every famous person who ever came up, but in reality she was an Italian man who snitched on the mob and was living out here as a woman. This destroyed the credibility of Chubby who despite being known for quoting bible verses and having skills bringing video game consols back to life, was looking like a whipped dog when his girlfriend started talking to dudes in the crew like she was Sgt Slaughter or Donald Trump. Before long the whole city wanted to see their rooftop penthouse in flames. There was no resistance when Furyo and his pals broke down the door. The plan was set up by their main leutenant named Russel, he drew up a map with the codes to the safe and spots on the wall marked off where stacks of hundred dollar bills were plastered behind the sheetrock. Furyo really didnt care about the money, he wanted to get even. One of his road dogs going back to kindergarten was set up by these clowns and beaten senseless by the cops. Suffering severe brain injuries and was never the same again. This created a situation where the younger generation and the older generation were at odds. Chubby and Queenie were hog tied and screaming in the remains of a small glass coffee table. Chubby was making threats between demanding a glass of water and some more blow and Queenie was quiet for once, no doubt making some plan to get out of this. The crew had smashed in the walls and filled up seven trash bags with stacks of money, drugs and guns. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The safe code was no good, so somebody had the bright idea of throwing it out of the window down onto the sidewalk. It didnt open but it made a sound like a bus crashing into a girls choir when it cracked the sidewalk and bounced into the windshield of a surveillance van full of cops. Furyo was really earning his name, flying into a rage. There was a community center with an art program, the teacher was a community activist named Scape who was a part time hacker and ruffled some feathers with the city when he leaked a list of homes stolen by city executives with shady quit claim deeds against elderly widowers with little grasp of English. Queenie was looking to curry favor with the city regime and openly bragged she dropped a dime on Scapes hideout. Space was found beaten almost to death in what was claimed was a suicide although he had several broken fingers and needle marks despite being life long straight edge. Queenie was about as shady as it gets when it comes to sweetheart deals with the D.A.s office, city contracts for a day care she ran that had embezzled hundreds of thousands from endowments for the disabled. Furyo never wanted someone dead so much in his life. Despite knowing all this, Chubbs refused to get away from this toxic control freak, he was never a leader just along for the ride. Furyo decided if Chubbs would stomp her knees backwards and shoot him self in the foot, they would call it even. Chubbs was weak, his entire fragile masculinity was dependant on the constant manipulation by Queenie, who it seemed he actually believed this was Fat Ninjas sister. Rocking back and forth Chubbs smoked his crack pipe and whispered I cant do it, I cant do it. Heaven help me, i cant do it.Queenie was not as loyal and offered to jump on Chubbs knees to get away scott-free, earning her some chipped teeth. Both were sitting on the couch, knees out in front of them. Furyo lost it and jumped on both their knees after taking a savage leap. Watching a knee fail backwards is disgusting. It sounds like tearing an undercooked rib loose. Like cracking a big knuckle mixed with the sound of cartaledge and tendons ripping free. Every body in the room jumped and cringed except Chubbs, he just looked at his broken knee in disbelief. Forgetting they had handed him a gun, right as the police kicked in the door Chubbs shot Queenie in the ear. As smoke filled the room as flashlights and police yells shattered the door. With a slow hand and vacant stare he put the gun in his mouth and blew his brains out as the police watched their prized case shoot a hole out the back of his head. It seems Queenie ran out of deals to make and after saving her from the streets a million times, she has had the house wired with audio and visual. Maybe it was Scapes ghost but none of the evidence was usable. Furyo and his pals were well underage so what would have been life without as adults, they turned 24 in the youth authority instead. Furyo being a real wild animal picked up more time as an adult, not getting out until he was 27 years old. (46) Crazy Dog Sickness 狂犬病 Kyōkenbyō Furyo awakens in the rain. He had been sleeping in a graveyard. Looking around he sees a family of raccoons curiously staring at him, their eyes reflecting the light from the setting sun. Furyo has been sleeping during the day and awakening when the sun is low in the dusk. He found a long disused graveyard where majority of the tombs have been taken over by stray cats. An old woman tends to the graves, she wears a funeral shroud and seems both deaf and blind. Furyo gives her a wide berth to attend to her daily chores, only stopping to help when she stumbles with removing heavy stones or carrying buckets of water to scrub the head stones. Furyo feels a strange peace here, although he could be considered one of the dead. He is present, he feels rain on his skin, pain in his cold toes and sadness in his heart. The peaceful aura of graveyards is due to the vanishing of consciousness, he is still real as far as he can tell. Despite fantastic powers of heaven and spirit, he still feels fear when he sees the Akury-kai Ghost Clan skulking around the graves in esoteric rituals. Its hard to understand how an organized crime group, of evil Shinto priests can monetize death. Are they extorting the families of the dead or the spirits them selves? Are they harvesting some raw energy like parasites from the spirit realm? Furyo only wants to know one thing, how to kill them and wipe out the power structure that took every thing from him. The building blocks of the unseen universe are maddening when you instinctively feel something is drastically wrong, you can see the after effects, the people suffering but not the cause. Some hidden hand that guides the corruption and systemic evil of the world with ghostly hands and unspoken loyalties. Her among the large trees, singing bells and soft wind there is only more questions. Beyond the placid walls of the empire of the dead, disquieting sounds come from the street. In the heart of the city screams and tell tale signs of violence surround him. Hearing women shrieking, sounds of running, car crashes and growls make him leave his island of peace. The sidewalk is stained with blood and birds seem jarred by some unseen force, taking flight and fleeing. First he found only pieces of bodies, feet, pieces of faces, eyeballs discarded to feed wild animals. A woman in a red dress dashes into the street in front of him. Fleeing three men in chefs outfits, a speeding ambulance just misses the girl and strikes the men pursuing her. The woman tries to get the attention of any one in the houses and stores, not one will open the door. Seeing Furyo, she comes sprinting towards him. She is covered in blood, eyes bloodshot and crying. Running into his arms, she smells strange like some sweet fruit that has started to turn sour. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Pleading in Japanese, he cant make out more than a few words. Killed self Children dead Corpse powder Looking at Furyo like he is insane, she recoils and dashes off into the night, as she turns to got Furyo noticed bleeding bite marks all over her arms and legs. Furyo apprehensively moves farther away from the cematery, every step he takes make him feel more and more uneasy. He is never one to panic but the sirens, smells of fire and explosions in the distance remind him of the cold war training drills schools did in the states. Training kids to hide from nuclear missile strikes under desks, like super heated glass and fallout wouldnt kill them all before the looting, gas attacks by their own Govt on sick and starving people, water shortages and cannibalism set in. Coming to an inner-section full of ripped apart bodies, Furyo stops to look at the faces of the dead. Sheer terror like animals who are being eaten alive on safari. Some corpses have their bowels torn out and strewn down the street, others with their eyes, soft parts of the face and legs chewed up. Furyo thinks of stories about Vietnam, the aftermath of bombings and plane crashes. Blackened corpses laying in the sun like chicken on a bbq grill, bodies showing their interiors to the elements. There is something foul on the wind, a putrid chemical stink. Something caustic to the nose and lungs. Furyo notices dust collecting and feels like he is breathing black mold. As he comes to the source of more screams, men with reflective eyes like deer spot him. With inhuman growls, they chase them down. Furyo goes into autopilot, his hands and feet breaking faces into splinters of bone, kicking chests open, knocking legs out of their sockets. Furyo is in shock as the broken bodies writhe and snarl, unblinking eyes leer at him with malicious intent, gnashing teeth and reaching for him like orange chicken in a buffet. Furyo almost laughs. Is this fucking zombies or some kind of rabies?