Recently, a particularly rampant gang has been causing trouble in the Asakusa area, delighting in hunting street vagrants. These seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, with nothing better to do, thrive on stirring up trouble. The mere thrill of recklessly riding motorcycles, playing in arcades, or visiting batting centers no longer satisfies them. This fresh, exhilarating form of entertainment is far more exciting than bullying their peers at school.

"Whoosh!"

A firecracker was thrown, spinning through the air before exploding on Sarutahiko's back. More fireworks toys were hurled at him with loud laughter from the delinquents. Sarutahiko curled up on the ground, shielding his head, nearly setting his clothes on fire.

Screaming, he rolled around on the ground. Despite being an adult, he cried like a child.

"This guy's like a wild dog!"

The delinquents, dressed in punk attire, wore skull-patterned masks. Some had earrings, others sported dreadlocks, and they charged forward in a wild pack, resembling nocturnal demons or ghosts.

One delinquent approached Sarutahiko, kicking him hard in the stomach before mercilessly smashing him with a baseball bat.

The others circled in, surrounding Sarutahiko. His nose bled as one of the delinquents twisted his arm back, forcibly raising him up.

"Taste this..."

One delinquent stepped back, struck a pose, then sprinted forward, delivering a flying kick to Sarutahiko's forehead. The others cheered and some imitated, assaulting Sarutahiko in even more malicious ways.

"Hahaha..." They emitted odd laughs, their antisocial, violent urges being fulfilled through assaulting this vagrant.

"Hey, what's that over there?"

One of the delinquents noticed something moving along the riverbank of the park.

It moved quickly, first along the river's edge, then suddenly darting towards them. The "thing" was humanoid, stuffed with straw, wearing a conical straw hat and clad in a bell-shaped robe, reminiscent of a mountain ascetic practitioner.

"What the... is that thing?"

A delinquent brandished a baseball bat, eyeing the figure with a wary expression.

It continued approaching, its speed unabated.

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"A scarecrow?"

Someone glanced at it, thinking it looked like something from a field used to scare away crows.

"No, that's... an 'Ansan-kakashi'."

One delinquent swallowed hard, muttering softly.

"Aren't they the same?"

"No, they're different. In my hometown, an 'Ansan-kakashi' is specifically used for mountain god rituals."

The delinquent took a few steps back, noticing the scarecrow was floating in mid-air.

His calves began to tremble; in his rural hometown, during festivals, farmers would erect these scarecrows as offerings to the mountain gods, meant to be sent into the deep mountains at night.

As a child, he and his friends often saw many of these scarecrows stuck along mountain paths, exuding a gloomy and ominous aura in the forest.

"Those are the mountain god's messengers. Don't approach them, or you'll anger the mountain god..."

Village elders often warned them.

This isn't good! Why do I feel so terrified? I can't stay here! Fear surged within him.

"This thing's floating in the air..."

One particularly high delinquent, his mind muddled, laughed while swinging a wooden sword, approaching the scarecrow.

"Yo, dude, you're carrying a sword!"

He moved closer to the scarecrow, noticing it wielding a katana in its straw hands, gleaming coldly with an ominous metallic glow.

"Let's get out of here..."

The earlier delinquent grabbed a companion, trying to flee, but just then, a flash of cold light swept by, and a bloodied head rolled through the air, landing like a ball at their feet.

"Aaah!"

Someone screamed, marking the commencement of a horrific slaughter.

The scarecrow swung its katana, the blade's chilling gleam constantly streaking like lightning, each strike spraying copious blood.

In an instant, the "monster" charged into the group, plunging the katana into a man's abdomen, savagely stirring it, turning intestines and innards into a bloody mush before pulling out.

One delinquent attempted to escape from behind, but the blade flashed and circled back, cutting him diagonally from the shoulder. A torrent of blood gushed out, with half his body, including the head, slipping down, the incision smooth and exposing bones and viscera.

In less than three minutes, the ground was littered with dismembered bodies—not so much bodies, but chunks of flesh. Severed limbs, blood, and viscera were scattered everywhere, resembling masses of decaying, rotten matter.

By this time, the only living survivor was the vagrant Sarutahiko.

Beaten and in excruciating pain, he lay curled on the ground. Only then did he notice something was amiss.

The silence was too profound. Having been struck on the head, Sarutahiko had been unconscious for nearly half a minute. The boisterous chaos from those juvenile delinquents was now silent, raising doubts about whether his eardrums had been damaged, causing temporary deafness.

"Did they... leave?"

The vagrant raised his head and was met with a hellish scene that drained the color from his face. His hands supporting him on the ground, he kept retreating backward.

But he quickly halted as he realized he had backed into something.

Looking up, he saw a scarecrow with a paper mask leaned down, peering at him.

"Aaah!"

Sarutahiko leapt up like a startled grasshopper, but as he stood, his body trembled like straw, his legs grew weak, and he sank to his knees.

Not just one scarecrow; he saw at least a hundred floating in the air, each with a ghostly face painted on its white paper mask, a face both laughing and crying.

"Oh God! Please save me..."

Tears streaming down his cheeks, he prayed to a deity that didn’t exist.

Of course, the deity did not respond to his prayers. The only response was the penetrating blade, its icy gleam soaked in blood and viscera, slicing toward him.