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Rui shrugged. “Hahh... You’re a drama queen, Susumu. Don't freak out so much.”

She led me into the building. We headed along another hallway which looked a bit more modern than the ones in the building where Rui’s office was. We walked up to another elevator bank. My stomach dropped through the floor, even though this one was more modern and operated more silently. Rui punched the button. We waited a moment, but since the elevator was at the first floor already, we would be able to board it right away. She put a hand up when I moved to join her. Her eyes were steely. “If you jump on top of me again, I’ll kick you where it counts.”

I clapped my hands to my face to protect my mask. We were trying to save my face!

She laughed. “Noh-brains. Get in, and stay away from me.”

I followed her inside, and realized she probably meant somewhere else. I felt a burning sensation down below. We stepped out on the fourth floor. She led me around the corner. We stepped to a door along the corridor. Alongside it was a sign, and it was quite old. “Nagata Antique Shop,” I read.

“Are we shopping?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why we’d go to a store like this first.

“I didn’t answer your question before. Yes. Don't touch anything. The reason why this store is hidden is because it has a special clientele. Yokai. There are a lot of ancient artifacts. A few can be quite dangerous to the uninitiated.” She opened the door, and when she did, a strange cute jingle played over a sound system. Apparently this person was focused on appearances like Oni was.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I looked around curiously. After what Rui had said, I couldn’t resist an urge to scan the surroundings. I saw human skulls on animalistic bodies. The biggest one drew my attention. It was like a mannequin. There were many shelves and tokonoma of varying sizes holding figures and other objects. The animals varied, and the features on the skulls differed as well. There were various boxes with weird depictions of yokai with tongues sticking out, some with twisted bodies. There were creepy dolls galore, all positioned lovingly to display them to great effect. I felt as though they might come to life and pile on me. I drew back from them to feel safer.

I saw a corner with portraits. The frames on those were ancient, but well cared for. The subjects of those pictures held their own kind of horror or mystique. Some were abstract, others were pictures of fierce-looking creatures. There were pictures of variations of noh-face yokai and some of them were oddly cute creatures which were mixed in amongst those for some reason. Pictures of Cthulhu-level horrors or dragons mixed with unicorns, pegasus, and other mythical creatures. Oddly enough there was a shelf full of good luck cats with waving paws. Perhaps it was to combat the bad luck of some of the frightening items I saw. They started to wave their raised paws even more on their own as we passed them.

I followed Rui deeper into the store. It seemed it would be small, but there was quite a bit more to it than meets the eye. The lighting grew darker as we went, and I began to see more gruesome items such as body parts of various animals and even humans packaged in bags. On many of them seals were attached, probably to ward off evil spirits. All looked quite ancient as ‘antique’ implied. There was even a cursed sword section.

After we passed through the horror-fest, we approached a hallway cloaked in shadows. There weren’t any any clerks or customers in the store. It was eerily silent besides the faint jingle playing and the room was illuminated as faintly by candles and strange glowing orbs, possibly lightbulbs.

Rui pushed aside a bead screen hanging in the passageway. Upon closer inspection, they looked like a variety of dried eyeballs. I winced. My heart started to pound as she bravely led me forward. I admired her for her tenacity. At the end of the dark tunnel-like passageway, the lighting was blindingly bright.

And I fell over.

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