The single woman he had been stalking for a long time, the lost child he encountered at the amusement park, the student with a reclusive personality and sickly appearance.
He derived pleasure and gratification from it; that right and power to dominate others' lives brought him unparalleled joy. It was an exhilaration akin to the feeling of being flattered after winning against everyone at a gambling table, as his blood, breath, brain all clamored to transmit particles of joy.
He hadn't been able to stop since his first attempt, especially since being a taxi driver was a profession that provided him with considerable convenience, while also making it easy for him to screen his targets. Furthermore, having committed three consecutive crimes without being caught, those incompetent police officers hadn't even realized they were all committed by the same person.
This was also thanks to the fact that he used a different method for his entertainment with every careful selection.
When he saw this customer, he immediately realized that he was an excellent target. The young man looked gloomy and solitary, his thin frame suggesting he had little ability to resist, his destination was a sparsely populated area.
Although the middle-aged man was not very familiar with that area, he had heard that after a massacre occurred there a few months ago, the few remaining families had all moved away.
This is simply wonderful!
The middle-aged man felt that this was simply a magnificent opportunity bestowed upon him by heaven. He wanted to praise God, but on second thought, something seemed a bit off; based on his own actions, he ought to be singing praises to Satan instead.
“So, I still prefer a more direct and efficient approach.” The young man sitting in the back seat suddenly began talking to himself. “Luring someone into a trap or using torture and interrogation would be much more suitable for me.”
Could his target this time be some kind of lunatic?
As the middle-aged man was thinking this, he suddenly felt the temperature inside the car drop, causing him to shiver involuntarily. Just as he was wondering if there was something wrong with the air conditioning, he subconsciously glanced at the rearview mirror again, this time, he saw three people sitting crowded in the back.
Author's Note:
----------------------
Thanks to the little angels for the collection, kisses to everyone one by one 030
Chapter 10
No, no, no, that could not be called human at all.
The middle-aged man almost forgot how to breathe. His bloodshot eyes widened to their limit, nearly bulging out of their sockets. The visual and mental shock left his mind blank, as fear and terror occupied his every thought, yet he found himself unable to look away, completely losing all control over his body.
That was.. that was
In the back row, the student he had brutally murdered with a shovel was holding his own head and smiling at him, his blue-gray fingernails caked with soil, as he slowly brought the highly decomposed skull closer to him. Amidst the intense stench of decay, the middle-aged man caught a whiff of a familiar scent of rain and tide.
He remembered; it was on that night of torrential rain that he had killed that student.
"Everyone is looking forward to greeting you." The long-haired man, a complete stranger with no impressionable features, said to him with a smile. His exposed skin was pale and tinged with a faint bluish-gray, despite his handsome appearance, it was difficult to hide the fact that his chest did not rise or fall, nor did he ever need to blink.
He was not human either.
The middle-aged man felt a numbing sensation rush through his scalp as he reached this conclusion, his brain, on the verge of losing its ability to think, struggled to process the words the man had just spoken.
Everyone.. couldn't.. wait..
Everyone..
In a daze, the middle-aged man seemed to realize something. The bones in his neck made a cracking sound as they rubbed together, despite his intense reluctance, his head turned uncontrollably. He saw the Girl in white dress sitting in the passenger seat less than an arm's length away from him, her eyes remaining wide open as she wept tears of blood.
Hands with blue-gray skin and red nail polish lunged toward his eyes, a sharp laughter erupted from the lips, piercing his brain like a sharp hammer.
“And what else, what else.” The Dark-purple-eyed Wraith loved to watch the chaos unfold; he waved his hand casually, the white mist instantly surrounded the car.
That cold white mist seemed to possess life of its own. The middle-aged man heard a faint sound, things constantly twisting within the white mist condensed into physical forms. They probed through the gaps, forcefully controlling the middle-aged man's body and forcing him to straighten his head.
On the windshield, a little girl in a red dress was tapping against the glass repeatedly, her sweet smile fixed on her face, as fine cracks spread in all directions like exploding fireworks. The red-eyed rabbit balloon wrapped around her neck had opened its mouth at some unknown moment, revealing two rows of sharp upper and lower teeth.
Just as the middle-aged man's eyes rolled back and he was about to lose consciousness, he heard an even more loathsome voice.
“Wake him up! Don't let him pass out."
He wasn't just carrying a lunatic; he was clearly carrying a devil.
The man felt a sense of regret unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
As you command.
After Kisaragi Chiyo spoke those words, the Long-haired Wraith, who had been itching for a fight for a long time, could hardly wait to strike the middle-aged man several times with his tentacles.
"Confess and be lenient." After the middle-aged man, who had been struck several times in the face from both sides, opened his eyes, he met those misty gray eyes; the other looked at him as if he were something of no consequence.
That look didn't even treat him as a living being.
“Words of resistance..” Kisaragi Chiyo pulled a voice recorder from her bag. She looked at the man, whose face had been whipped into the shape of a pig's head by the tentacles. It seemed that only now, when his life was being threatened, did remorse finally appear on the face of this fellow who had committed three murders.
Kisaragi Chiyo had absolutely no interest in the other man's tearful, boring, repetitive apologies and expressions of remorse; such things were the most useless of all, even less valuable than the weeds by the roadside.
“I have a hundred ways to make you spit everything out obediently.”
Kisaragi Chiyo said with a calm expression.
*
Is that enough?
The Long-haired Wraith floated by Kisaragi Chiyo's side, watching as she pulled out the dashcam's memory card and deleted the order records on the middle-aged man's phone. After skillfully wiping away all the traces she had left behind, she sent all the saved case screenshots to a single number.
[The killer is here.]
Five words without context were followed by an address.
"The rest has nothing to do with me." Kisaragi Chiyo was not worried that the police would trace it back to her; even if they followed this number, they would ultimately only find that the user of this number was a ninety-year-old man living far away in Yahara Town who was hard of hearing.
Those three wraiths vanished after the killer confessed his crimes in meticulous detail; it seemed they had remained in the human world until now solely to await this very moment.
"I thought there would be a fierce battle," the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith said in a rather relaxed tone.
“They weren't bad people when they were alive, they didn't commit any evil deeds after they died.” Kisaragi Chiyo seemed to be used to all of this. "Even after becoming vengeful spirits, once their wishes were fulfilled, they went smoothly to Hell to line up for reincarnation."
Does hell really exist in this world?" the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith asked, his tone tinged with surprise. "And besides, I thought that as victims, they should be going to heaven?
"Since ghosts exist, isn't it only natural that hell exists as well?" Kisaragi Chiyo said, laughing softly as if she had suddenly thought of something.
For some people, their time alive is probably their last moment of relaxation.
“As for heaven, the requirements to go there are no easier than passing the civil service exam. Being able to go to hell without suffering punishment and successfully being reincarnated is already the best possible outcome.”
"You really sound like a mastermind villain when you say things like that." The Long-haired Wraith had untied his braid at some unknown point; he floated and clung behind Kisaragi Chiyo, his ink-black hair cascading down from above. Even though it would have been impossible to touch him, Kisaragi Chiyo still subconsciously felt a slight, tickling sensation against the side of her cheek from his hair.
"You don't look very happy." The Wraith tilted his head and looked at him, his dark-purple eyes framed by thick, long lashes.
"We have to walk back." After being rejected seven times in a row, Kisaragi Chiyo finally chose to accept her fate.
"No, let me correct that." Seeing the trace of annoyance appearing on Kisaragi Chiyo's face, the Wraith laughed gloatingly.
I am a ghost; I don't need to walk on two legs at all.
After the other party said those words, Kisaragi Chiyo's expression soured noticeably.
*
"Actually.. if it's a place like this, I can probably understand why the platform has rejected your orders seven times in a row," the Wraith murmured, tilting his head.
Although the house before them was a luxurious three-story villa with a sea view, it didn't change the fact that this was the crime scene of a massacre; even the coagulated, black blood on the steps had not yet been cleaned up.
The Wraith lowered his head and looked at the black blood spraying from the main entrance, wondering if this amount of blood loss meant a person had been sliced in half.
"But it can't be denied that the rent here is very cheap." Kisaragi Chiyo didn't care about that; he fumbled through his handbag and pulled out a large ring of keys.
"You can pick any room you like," Kisaragi Chiyo said magnanimously.
"I can't sleep with you?" the Wraith asked back, pushing his luck.
".." Kisaragi Chiyo fell silent for a moment, what surprised the Long-haired Wraith even more about this silence was that he could see contemplation and deliberation within it.
“I don't mind such things.” Having arrived a while ago and finally figuring out the correct door key, Kisaragi Chiyo spoke slowly, "Of course, as a condition of the exchange, you must guarantee that the room remains clean and quiet."
"What do you mean by that?" Although the Wraith sensed a trap, he couldn't resist the temptation and asked sincerely.
"There." Kisaragi Chiyo reached out and pushed open the heavy door.
The heavy door let out a dull, creaking sound as it opened, the scent of dust and coagulated blood wafted from within.
"Let's start with the first step, then." Kisaragi Chiyo reached out and pointed into the darkness within the doors.
"You've certainly gathered quite a crowd here," the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith said in a very sincere tone.
Because in the dark hall of the villa, the six victims of the massacre were gathered in the hall without exception, upon hearing a sound, they all looked toward Kisaragi Chiyo in unison.
That scene was even more shocking than the taxi ghost seen just now, but fortunately, the victims' deaths were not as scattered and gruesome as the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith had imagined.
"A natural haunted house and a filming location for horror movies." Even now, the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith couldn't stop thinking about his cold joke.
“Do you remember when I mentioned that when I first started, before I had any reason, I needed certain methods to vent my power?”
"You never said that," Kisaragi Chiyo refuted with certainty.
"Is that so? Then let me add that now." The handsome Dark-purple-eyed Wraith rolled up his sleeves, revealing his smooth-lined arms, flexed his wrists before flashing Kisaragi Chiyo a brilliant smile.
"During that time, I paid a visit to every single ghost in the vicinity," the Wraith said, placing particular emphasis on the words 'paid a visit.'
"So?" Kisaragi Chiyo lifted her eyelids and looked toward the six hideous ghosts rushing toward them, none of whom even reached the level of a Vengeful Spirit.
"So, I'm quite good at keeping ghosts quiet." The Wraith smiled and swung a fist, punching the nearest ghost so hard that it flew straight out the window.
"That is certainly an efficient way to pay a visit, through physical force," Kisaragi Chiyo praised with sincerity.
Author's Note:
----------------------
Thanks to all the little angels for adding this to your collection, mwah!
Chapter 11
The Wraith's skills were excellent, but Kisaragi Chiyo couldn't be sure if he intended to show off; in any case, this extraordinary visit was a one-sided slaughter.
"How tragic, it actually makes me feel a bit guilty," the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith said somewhat melancholically, before unhesitatingly stepping on a ghost that was trying to bypass him to lunge at Kisaragi Chiyo.
Wonderful." Seeing the expectant look in the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith's eyes, Kisaragi Chiyo continued her praise without reservation: "As expected of Lord Hazama Wraith. It would be even more wonderful if you could use your noble, flexible tentacles to clean the entire villa while you're at it.
“You're even more greedy than I am.” The Dark-purple-eyed Wraith sighed at Kisaragi Chiyo's remarks while simultaneously tossing a cluster of charging ghosts out the window.
“It's truly heartening that you have such a clear understanding of yourself.” Kisaragi Chiyo didn't care what kind of image she held in the other's mind; as long as the Wraith was willing to take responsibility for the cleaning and tidying, Kisaragi Chiyo was even willing to let him sleep under her own bed.
Under the bed? Is that all the sincerity you have to offer?
My apologies, I was being stereotypical. Perhaps you would prefer the wardrobe?