It was stupid, Taryn knew that.
No, it was more than idiocy. It was purely suicidal.
Yet, she couldn’t think of an alternative. Part of her mind screamed to just run, to never look back. And yet… the rest of her knew that running would not work. It would only delay what would be becoming. The last thing she wanted to be was for Toya to end up on her doorstep.
Stephanie was the first to respond. “Are you crazy!” she snapped. “You want us to leave you here? After all the flack you gave me for coming back, you expect us just to do it? These people are insane! They’ve killed God knows how many, and you intend to do what exactly? Stop him? How?”
Not to Rachael’s surprise, Taryn answered calmly. “He’s only after me. In his mind, I’m the one he wants. He made that abundantly clear when I was in the underground. You should know too; you saw the painting.”
Stephanie faltered, but she wasn’t willing to just let someone possibly sacrifice themselves for something that could easily be avoided. “Do you thank sacrificing yourself will do any good? So, what if there’s a painting that just so happens to resemble you? That could be anybody! You should just forget all of this and get the hell out of here with us!”
“If I do that, he’ll follow, he said that he would.”
“It’s a bluff!” Stephanie pressed. “It has to be! There’s no way he’d come after you when we return home, not after all this!”
“You don’t know that!” she snapped back.
“Even if I don’t, there’s no way in hell I’m going to let you go, so what if he wants you? The man is crazy if he thinks any of us are going to let you go back in there!”
At that moment, Taryn pictured what she dreaded most. Of her loved ones lying dead in the dirt, by Toya’s hands. It was the thing she feared most, something she desperately wanted not to happen, no matter the cost.
“I DON’T WANT TO LOSE ANYONE ELSE!!!” she screamed, ignoring the pain in her throat, looking Stephanie right in the eye as she let out heavy breaths. “Not again,” she said softly. “I can’t, not again. And if that means I have to do something extremely stupid by risking my own life to keep the rest of you safe, then I’m okay with that. Toya now fervently believes that I’m the one he’s been waiting for. He has no intention of stopping, not now, not when he believes he’s finally grasped it and has no intention of letting go.” She glanced back towards the mansion before looking back to Stephanie. “If the roles were reversed in this situation, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same as me.”
Stephanie flinched, for Taryn’s words were right, Stephanie would have done the same. Damn it. She cursed. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! Her body shook in frustration. Frustration at Taryn, at this whole thing, the death of her boyfriend, at her powerlessness. “Even still! I can’t just let you go off and—”
“Three hours,” Rachael said, suddenly cutting Stephanie off. “We’ll give you three hours. If you think you can stop him, then do it.” She then looked at her friend with a stern gaze. “But once three hours are up, we’re gone, do you understand?”
“I do.”
“Rachael!” Stephanie gasped in outrage, shocked that she’d be allowing her friend to do this. “You can’t be serious about letting her go back in there!”
“I don’t want her to either, but…” Rachael looked at Taryn with a knowing stare. “You haven’t seen what we did. What she has, those things… they aren’t even human anymore. There’s no telling what or how many are down there.”
“That’s all the more reason for us to leave!” Stephanie argued but saw that both seemed to have come to an agreement she was still greatly against. “I can’t believe this…” she said mainly to herself as her mind raced to give a plausible argument but couldn’t find anything to say that would change their minds before shaking her head in frustration. “Bloody hell, fine!” she then turned to look directly at Taryn with tears in her dark blue eyes, pointed at her with a cracked acrylic nail. “You go back and do whatever the hell it is you think you have to do. But you come back. Do you hear me? You come back alive!”
Daichi looked at all three women before his gaze remained firmly on Taryn. Though his English wasn’t the best, he was able to understand most of the conversation and what had ultimately been decided. He looked at his injuries with a narrowed gaze. In his current state, he wouldn’t be able to go after her or be any form of backup like this.
Cursing at his inability to help or stop her reckless resolve, he spoke in Japanese. “Do you know how to use a gun?”
She turned to the detective with a faint frown and spoke Japanese. “Yes, I do.”
Daichi then pulled out a second handgun hidden underneath his vest along with an extra cartridge of ammunition. “Use this. Originally, I had no intention of bringing it. However, with the circumstances as they were, I wasn’t about to take that chance. My partner never liked guns, he preferred to use other tools, but he had given me this if I were ever off duty.”
The gun he handed her was a semi-automatic 9mm pistol. This surprised her, for she knew the Japanese Police Force only used a “New” Nambu M60 revolver, which had been in use since the 1960s. It was a somewhat ironic name for how long it had been in police circulation.
What’s more, the gun had a dragon designed into the gun’s grip. Immediately, she believed that this “partner” Daichi spoke of wasn’t in law enforcement since guns were, ultimately, illegal for use besides for the military or police.
However, she wasn’t about to question it or decline.
She checked the safety, and the current cartridge as well as the chamber.
Thirteen rounds, as well as one in the chamber, that’s fourteen in total. And with the extra cartridge, I have twenty-seven in total. Keeping the safety on, Taryn placed the gun in the back of the waistband of her jeans while the cartridge was in a back pocket. It was better than nothing. However, she had no clue if guns would even work on something like them. “Thank you, Sakamoto-san. I’ll bring this back to you.”
“If I were in better shape, this wouldn’t be happening.” He says as he looks to the mansion. “There’s something wrong with this place, besides all that has happened, it feels deeper than that. But,” his gaze fell on Taryn. “I believe you will overcome it.”
The confidence in Daichi’s tone was unexpected; even in his expression, he truly believed that she would come back.
Taryn could only smile at him. “Thank you.” she caught sight of Fuyuko Miyamori standing at the edge of the stone steps on the outskirts of the mansion’s entrance. She was silent as she watched them.
“Taryn,” her gaze was pulled from the Japanese woman to look at her best friend, who looked as equally determined as Fuyuko made her way over to them. “Remember, three hours. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” before turning her back to them she headed back inside the mansion and disappeared inside.
“Are you really okay with just leaving her behind like that?” Stephanie asked Rachael.
“Hell no,” Rachael stated. “When three hours are up, I’m heading after her. I’ll burn through the lot of them if it means I can get her out in one piece.” Though she only meant half of it, she did intend to go after Taryn. She just didn’t wish to fight anyone or burn them for Ayako’s screams still haven’t left her head. And probably never will.
“Burn them? What the hell happened down there?”
“She means the creatures that take human shape are susceptible to fire,” Fuyuko spoke in Japanese when they reached her as she hadn’t gone a single step forward. “Fire is the only thing that can kill them, that, or an item blessed at a Shrine.”
Stephanie looked at the woman with a pointed look. “You sure seem to know a lot about this. Did you know, then? About what was happening here?”
She shook her head. “I did not know the details, only that the mansion held much in the way of malice and death,” Fuyuko tells her before looking at the entrance where Taryn had gone. “I once told Lowell-san that she was surrounded by death; she wasn’t the least bit surprised when I said it.” And yet, something about her aura has changed…
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Stephanie shook her head in frustration; she had no idea what the woman was going on about. “Look, I don’t care about that. Were you able to get a hold of the Tokyo Police Department?”
Hearing that seemed to snap the woman out of her train of thought. “Yes, they said that a great deal of officers has already been dispatched and that they would be arriving within four hours or so, perhaps more.”
Daichi frowned. This wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have taken them that long to arrive here given how Stephanie was not only right behind him, but the others tasked to join should have been as well. “Did they say why it would take that long?”
Fuyuko turned her attention to him. “It was a landslide. Rock and debris just gave way from one of the adjoining mountains. They’re in the process of clearing the road, but with how dark it’s become, it might take them a bit longer. Landslides are typically common in rural areas such as this.”
Rachael frowned and glanced at the detective; he was thinking the same thing. “That seems rather too connivant.” He says, and Fuyuko seemed to agree with him.
“Yes, it is rather strange.” Suddenly she glanced around with a narrowed gaze before looking back to the others. “But for now, we’ll wait in the village’s square. Better than here where anyone from the mansion could emerge.” She then cast a look to the mansion’s entrance once more, as a look mix of sorrow and regret rested in her eyes before she closed them and turned her head away as if she was forcing herself to. “I wish all the best for your friend. And whatever awaits her within those depths…”
* * *
Taryn slowly made her way inside the mansion’s depths. She didn’t need to look inside her compact to know where to go. Toya had told her of another way to get into the underground. As she walked through the dimly lit halls of the mansion, she found her body growing tenser with each passing step. As though her body would simply shatter into a thousand pieces like glass. No one else was around. All she could hear was the sound of her footsteps and the creak of wood underneath her weight before she came to a halt at Toya’s room.
She closed her eyes and let a slow breath in the hopes it would ease her nerves. It didn’t.
For the briefest of moments, as she went to open the sliding door, her mind immediately went to a thought of Toya standing right behind it, waiting for her with that faint smile of his as he looked at her with knowing eyes.
Of course, he wasn’t, but it did little to ease her nerves as she grasped her brother’s ID-Disc that was still underneath her shirt. She was surprised that she still had it, but then her earrings were still in place too. Nothing had been removed from her that rested along her skin. Grateful to even have it, she let out another breath and entered Toya’s room for the second time.
Ignoring the painting that stared back at her, the cover removed, she moved towards the back of the room where a screen had been, where Taryn saw what looked to be a dead-end, at least, at first.
Moving closer to the dead-end, she noticed that something was off. What looked to be a type of ceramic mural design of the Priestess looked odd. One piece, in particular, was different, in the corner of a mural made of ceramic tiled squares built within the wall. The artistry alone was impressive, with vibrant paint and details with the image of, what Taryn could only assume to be, the Priestess ascending the heavens atop a mountain as the village below burned with demons depicted at the bottom burning alive with others fleeing to the forest in fright.
Is that supposed to be the villagers?
A morbid depiction as it looked like the Priestess was dressed like a god while being held up with red ropes as though she were a sacrifice. It was hard to tell.
Taryn went and adjusted the one piece. She immediately heard something click, the faint groaning of gears turning could be heard beyond the wall, followed by a part of the wall opening at the very end.
It was a hidden passageway with stairs that led deep underground.
The cold, damp air pulled on her as if trying to draw her back down into the depths. She found herself unable to move as she continued to stare into the endless darkness. She pictured her friends, alive and well, then of them dead.
Squaring her shoulders, she descended. Keeping her left hand on the cold stone wall, she slowly made her way down with only the faint groaning of wood from the old creaking stairs that kept her company all the way down until Taryn finally reached the bottom—still shrouded in the darkness, she reached out and felt something blocking her path. Slowly, her hands ran along what blocked her path before realizing that it was a door when she felt the cold metal of a handle. It took her a second to figure out that she had to pull it a certain way, for it was a locking mechanism and opened the wooden door.
There was no creaking. Surprisingly, it opened as silently as the grave and a warm orange glow of candlelight filled her vision. She remained where she was for a moment allowing her eyes to adjust before going to the new path that lit the way.
It was a tunnel, behind her a dead end. It looked strangely like the wall she had seen when she was investigating what was beyond the village’s temple. Both the mansion and the long, sealed entrance were about the same height, but god knows if this was even the same thing yet the mansion and Shrine were at opposite ends of the village, so this couldn’t have been what was at the mountain. Yet the uncanny resemblance of it was hard to ignore.
But what held her attention most was what lay across from her carved within the stonewall. It took her a moment, but she soon realized what she was looking at.
It was another depiction of the Priestess. The details were incredible. It looked like it was a real person and not some artistic rendition of the woman, much like how the first Emperor of China made the Terracotta Army, only that these statues were a part of the stonewall itself and not baked clay. From where she stood, it looked as though the whole underground passage was carved out to tell her story from start to finish.
There was some damage to some, but it was all relatively intact for the most part. Her history teacher would have a field day if he ever saw this or the underground village.
Thinking that she recalled Robert as a feelings of regret washed over her before turning her attention to the only way she could go forward.
I’m not giving up my ghost just yet. Taryn thought as she began to walk down the tunnel passing many stone carvings along the way, of human and demon alike.
The tunnel stretched on, to a point where she couldn’t see the end until something finally came into view. Another stone Torii Gate.
This one, however, wasn’t strictly stone. It had been painted red with no signs of the paint peeling away. The colour reminded her of blood.
It was here that the last of the carvings remained as the cave became slightly wider, and where to what looked to be the Priestess being deified by the people. Or were they trying to kill her? With how they were reaching for her, it could have been one or the other.
Seeing this made Taryn think back to three large stone statues she had seen of the Priestess and of the smaller reliefs of her carved as markers throughout the village’s grounds. It looked just like this, all the way down to the ropes attached to her wrists, neck, and ankles.
Her gaze narrowed when she noticed something about the statue, mainly the face and hands. The face had markings, as did the fingers and wrists, just like the Doll.
That was when she heard it.
The singing.
Tōryanse, tōryanse
Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja?
Tenjin-sama no hosomichi ja
Chitto tōshite kudashanse
Goyō no nai mono tōshasenu
Kono ko no nanatsu no oiwai ni
Ofuda wo osame ni mairimasu
Iki wa yoi yoi, kaeri wa kowai
Kowai nagara mo
Tōryanse, tōryanse
Hearing this brought a chill down her spine upon hearing Toya’s voice, with this tunnel, made his voice sound as though he was right there with her. Right beside her, singing that song.
“You’re not here…” she muttered to herself. “You’re not here… I know you’re not.” her mind couldn’t stop picturing it of Toya walking alongside her singing that song, over and over.
Without stop or respite.
She knew he wasn’t there. It only felt like he was there next to her at that moment.
The moment she reached the expansive opening of the tunnel, Toya finally stopped singing. He was kneeling in front of a stand that held an old stone offering table, with what looked to be a mirror on the first level, a dagger on the second and a katana on the base, still partly in its sheath. His clothing was different. Gone was the long ornate haori of oranges, reds, yellows, and greens, in its place was one of the same in length, but this one was black with white spider lilies embordered into the fabric. One that she was all too familiar with.
“Okaeri.” He said in Japanese. Welcome home.
“This isn’t my home,” she tells him in Japanese. “Nor will this place ever be.”
“You say that so matter of fact,” he says as he removes his hand from the katana in question, placing his hands back in his lap. “And yet, here you are. You’ve come back to me.”
“You know why,” she tells him. “You know damn well why I came back.”
He was silent for a moment. “Do you hate me for it? For being so… underhanded?”
She didn’t say. Part of her wanted to say yes, but another part was conflicted over what was to come. Toya was manipulative. He killed others, murdered countless people, including Robert. It was something she could never forgive, and yet this whole situation was sad.
Pitiable.
Doing all this to not end up alone in the world was insane as it was heartbreaking.
“Where are the others? The people who worked in the mansion,” she asked, diverting the question to something else. She couldn’t hear anyone else, no sounds of others in doll form, just complete and utter silence.
“Gone,” he says. “I ordered them to leave, for this is a matter between you and I. They will not interfere with us or with your friends above ground. You have my word.”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“I know…” Silence fell between them but only for a moment. “You do realize that now there is only one option left to you.” Toya stood, and as he did so, the all too familiar sound returned. “If you truly wish to stop me, Taryn…”
He turned fully to face her as the sound grew, the creaking, the squeaking of joints as he stood before her. His appearance changed to that of the Doll bringing forth that unnatural feeling back, he looked human, but didn’t at the same time. His jade-coloured eyes looked hollow and empty. Glass reflecting her regretful expression like a mirror as he gave her what she could only assume was a melancholy smile.
“You must kill me.”