化物狩団

As soon as he arrived home, he changed out of his school uniform in preparation for that night, then promptly fell asleep while waiting. Unfortunately (or luckily), someone stormed into his room and threw something at his head.

"What are these," an accusing voice shouted.

Kintarou was dazed for a moment, having just rudely been awaken. He pushed aside the magazines now surrounding him and looked up. Oh, it was just his sister. "What?" It was all he could ask at the moment.

"My magazines." As if that was supposed to answer everything.

"What about them?"

She glared intensely at him through her glasses. "These are the last five issues of my magazine, but, somehow, I've received them all at the same time!" Her eyes narrowed. "You took them didn't you."

He frowned. "Why would I want to read your girl magazines?"

Ginmi growled at him; she could be pretty scary when angry. Time to change the subject.

"What time is it?"

"I don't know, 10:30 maybe?" She went on accusing Kintarou of being a magazine thief, but there were more pressing matters at hand, especially since it was so late. He had intended to go through his compendium a bit more, but since it took so long to walk to Raizou's house, he probably didn't have enough time.

Unless...

"Sis, I'm going to borrow your bike for a little while," he muttered at Ginmi, hoping she couldn't hear over her tirade. He stood up and walked out of his room to go find a flashlight.

"WHERE are you going? I'm not done yelling at you!" She followed him.

"Sorry, I have other things to do right now." He looked around in a cupboard for the flashlight. Not there.

"What do you mean, 'things'? It's nighttime!" She continued to follow him around the house.

Kintarou kept ignoring her. Ah, there's the flashlight. Time to leave before Ginmi decided to follow him outside, too. "Look," he said to her, while putting on his shoes, "you can talk to me about this later, when I get back." He stood up and opened the door, the flashlight and compendium in his bag. "Also, thanks for letting me borrow your bike."

He quickly shut the door before Ginmi could react.

It was harder than he thought to keep the light in front of his bike while actually moving. It didn't really matter if he couldn't see where he was going, as long as he didn't fall into the river. The last thing he needed was to come home soaking wet with another broken bicycle.

Kintarou was too busy thinking that he almost ran into someone instead. He slammed his hand around the brake and dragged his feet against the ground. The bike screeched to a halt right before colliding with the figure. The figure stopped moving and turned around.

"I'm sor- oh!" It was Mihoko.

She looked a bit surprised and confused. "Ah, Kin-kintarou, is that you?"

"Yep. Are you heading over now?"

She gave a slight nod. Hesitantly, she resumed walking. Kintarou stepped off his bike and walked beside her. "A flashlight was a good idea," she said quietly. "I didn't even think about that."

"Do you have one at home?"

Mihoko shook her head.

They stayed silent for a while, walking along the river.

"Do you remember which turn it was?" Mihoko scanned the surrounding houses and streets.

"Uhm..." Kintarou looked around for a minute. He spotted a tree that vaguely looked like the one Raizou pointed out earlier. "This way, I think." He started walking towards it, and she followed.

Eventually, he saw two figures next to the tree. On closer inspection, they were definitely Ezra and Chihaya. Ezra sat against the tree, talking to Chihaya about something. He was still wearing his school uniform, so he must have not gone home. Chihaya had changed into a simple, faded kimono.

Chihaya looked at the two and waved them over. "Hey, you two! I was worried that you'd be late," she said quietly.

"Are we?" Mihoko looked a bit worried.

Chihaya shook her head. "Right on time!" She motioned for everyone to follow her and walked over to the door. Kintarou set his sister's bicycle against the tree and followed her. Chihaya had climbed up to the porch and was knocking on the door. "Raizou, everyone's ready now." Some mumbling came from the other side of the door, which caused Chihaya to frown and speak a little louder. "No, you had the chance to sleep earlier, but you didn't." There was some shuffling behind the door, and then it slid open. Raizou knelt, looking exhausted and glaring at his friend.

"Everyone can come in now," he said quietly, "but you all have to be really quiet..." He glared at Chihaya. "My mom and brother are asleep right now." He opened the door wider to let everyone inside. It was hard to see in the dark room, but everyone sat close together around the small table, so it was easier to make out the others.

After a while, Chihaya spoke up a bit too loudly, "Well, I haven't seen anything yet."

"I don't think it's late enough," replied Raizou.

"When did you wake up last night?"

"Uh," Raizou thought about it, "it had to have been after midnight, I guess."

Ezra leaned against the wall. "What should we do for a few hours, then?"

Kintarou remembered something. "Oh, I know." He opened his back and took out the compendium. He placed the large book on the table with a thud.

"What is that, exactly? You always are looking through it."

Kintarou turned on the flashlight again and opened the book, flipping through the pages. "It's a compendium. There's details about man monsters, spirits, demons, et cetera in here."

"Oh, neat," Chihaya tilted her head to get a better look at it. "I didn't know there were so many."

Raizou stifled a yawn. "Have you read through all of it?"

Kintarou shook his head. "No," he answered, "usually I just read it for fun. I found it in my dad's library."

"You're dad has a library," Mihoko stated softly.

"Yeah." He stopped turning the pages. "Maybe we should go over the details again."

"We just did that this afternoon," Raizou sighed.

Kintarou eyed Raizou but didn't ask anything else. This page didn't have any helpful information on it. He flipped to a few pages ahead.

After a few minutes, he still hadn't found anything helpful. Granted, it was a very large book, and he didn't have that much information about the phenomenon, but it was still a bit disheartening. Chihaya kept moving closer and trying to read the pages over his shoulder. It was still very quiet in the room, so everyone heard when the floor started to creak in the hallway.

Everyone froze and looked at Raizou; he was the closest to the door. He turned around slowly and slid the door open a crack. After looking out into the hallway for a minute he closed the door again. "I didn't see anything," he reported.

"False alarm then," Chihaya laughed nervously.

Kintarou looked back at the compendium. The creaking had sounded like a small animal, a stray cat or a small dog, something like that. He hadn't noticed any strays on the way over, though, he hadn't been looking.

The door slid open with a slam.

"Hi everyone!"

Kintarou almost dropped the large book. He looked up; it was Raizou's brother.

"Hey, bro," the small boy said.

Raizou looked as if he was going to have a panic attack. He turned towards his brother. "Raiki," he said quietly, "do-don't ever do that again. You scared me half to death."

He just laughed at that.

"Please don't be so loud, either. Mom is sleeping," he paused. "At least I hope she still is." Raizou looked out into the hallway again.

"Oh, sorry," Raiki lowered his voice.

"Hey, Raiki," piped up Chihaya, "why are you awake right now?"

"I wanted to have fun, too!" He pouted a bit.

"It's way past your bedtime," scolded Raizou, "go back to sleep."

"Aw, but bro-"

"No, go to bed."

"Fine," he groaned. He was making a big show of this, like when usually children don't get their way. "Is your arm all better yet?"

"What, yeah it's fine..." he trailed off and sat for a moment. "How did you know about that? Did Mom tell you?"

"Yeah, she told me earlier."

"Oh, okay. Oh," Raizou looked like he remembered something, "where were you last night?"

"What?"

"I didn't see you with Mom last night."

"Oh," the kid laughed, "are you sure you just weren't paying attention? I was here all last night."

"I see," replied Raizou. He stared at his brother for a while. "Hey, how was school today?" It was like listening to an interrogation.

Raiki glanced away and sighed. "It was fine, but we didn't do much today," he answered. Chihaya frowned at this.

"I see. Hey, could you actually go get some water for Chihaya? She's been thirsty for a while."

"Please," added Chihaya.

"Sure!" He smiled at Chihaya. "I'll be right back, sis!" With that, he left. Raizou closed the door behind him.

"What was that about," started Chihaya. "Raiki doesn't go to school today."

"I wonder why he would lie to me." Raizou laid against the table.

"Possession, maybe?" Mihoko suggested quietly. Kintarou thought about this for a while. This sounded familiar, but he still couldn't think of anything in particular...

"Wouldn't he be a better liar, then?"

"Do you have the same memories when you're possessed?" Ezra wondered out loud.

"Um," Mihoko was quiet for a moment. "Shape-shifting, then?"

"Is there any way to figure out the difference?" asked Chihaya.

"Well..."

While the girls talked and Raizou and Ezra watched them, Kintarou flipped through the large book. He had definitely just read about a kind of shape-shifting monster or demon. Many demons seemed to like shape-shifting, but considering the other signs it had reminded him of a certain one. Good thing he reads some of these entries every week instead of doing important things, like schoolwork...

Oh, this was the right one. He skimmed over the page to make sure it was the right entry.

"Okay, I know what it is, I think," he announced, interrupting whatever discussion was currently taking place.

"What is it?"

"A bake-neko."

"Ba-ke-ne-ko," Chihaya repeated. "What is it?"

Kintarou summarized the description. "It's a long-lived cat that turns into a demon. They take the places of humans and cause a lot of trouble."

"What does that mean," asked Raizou.

"They eat the person and turn into them." Raizou looked pretty alarmed at this. "Uh, but they don't always kill them," Kintarou added quickly.

Raizou groaned and put his head back on the table.

"Is there any way to tell the difference?" asked Chihaya.

"Yeah," Kintarou said as he read through the page, " 'A bake-neko's shadow will stay the same despite any form they take.' "

“That should be easy to determine, then, huh.”

“Hey, Commander,” Ezra suddenly spoke up, “When exactly did your brother start acting differently?”

“Well,” answered Raizou, his voice muffled slightly by the table, “he seemed fine yesterday. I didn't notice anything today but I wasn't paying attention, really.”

“That's possibly when the switch occurred, then.”

“Maybe Raiki's still at the school!” Chihaya jumped up.

“Yeah...” Raizou sat up again and looked at Kintarou. “You rode your bike here, right?”

“Well, I rode a bike here,” clarified Kintarou.

“Okay, you and Chihaya should go over to the elementary and look for him. She knows where the school is.” He turned toward Ezra. “Ezra, you and Mihoko stay here, and we can figure something out, I guess.”

“Here,” Kintarou placed his flashlight onto the table, “you can use this to cast the shadows.”

“Thanks.” Raizou picked it up and turned it on. The bright light flashed in his eyes, causing him to look away.

“We'll be back as fast as possible,” said Chihaya.

“Good luck.”

Chihaya waved to everyone and hopped outside. Kintarou followed her, making his way over to the bike.