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Hoshiguma, and Momoka?

Did you need something to tide you over for now? Or do you mean to tell me you've already completed your task?

I... I don't need anything to eat... I'm pretty full. I feel like I swallowed enough wind on the way over here...

The Kinsekikai are still chasing you?

Thanks to the kami-sama's guidance, and by taking a less-traveled route, the journey back went relatively smoothly.

K-Kami-sama... you mean?!

Don't celebrate just yet. Yes, we found a kami-sama, but not the one you were looking for.

That doesn't matter. It's not a problem!

It doesn't matter?

You, you're...?

See? I told you.

No, no, no! I don't have anything here to offer you a proper welcome... but how about some oden broth to warm you—

No. Have all the oden you want!

I'm not as into the oden you make as certain others.

Kami-sama, I wonder if you—

Wonder what? You're wondering if I've seen the maneki-neko you keep talking about, right? The neko's the one you're looking for, not me.

No! Getting to meet a kami is a blessing from heaven. Why would I ever be picky?

Your eyes betray you.

Back when that neko would still talk to me, it talked to me about you, and the one it described was nothing like you here. You were just a kid then, treating it the way any kid would treat a friend.

That is why It left me?

How should I know? It remembers you, but just as one of the thousands of people it's met in its life. It would never waste its time telling me why it 'left you.'

Err...

I came to see you for other reasons.

No problem! What do you need from me? Money, or information?

Information, of course, information about the kaidan.

You think we kami are responsible for all of the kaidan in Mitsukue, but I promise you... we have basically nothing to do with any of them.

Aren't you, in fact, the Wanyuudou from the legend?

I admit that I speed my unicycle down the street every day, but what else makes you think I'm the Wanyuudou?

The old building behind the police station on Doku Street. The 'cursed elevator'.

The building only has fifteen floors, yet the elevator has a button for the sixteenth floor. That extra floor is actually 'hell'. People have disappeared there.

Sometimes the maneki-neko in the lobby, which is normally fixed to the front desk, just vanishes, only to reappear the next day. This seems to be correlated to when the sixteenth floor appears.

The phenomenon isn't limited to the old building. Many others have told me that their maneki-nekos disappear and reappear at odd times.

Speaking specifically about the old building though, every time the 'entrance to hell' thing happens, the maneki-neko disappears.

You have some pretty detailed knowledge there, but I can tell you for sure that the maneki-neko in that building has nothing to do with the 'kami' you're looking for, even if they look alike.

Where's your proof?

Why do I need proof? I'm a kami. Shouldn't I be able to discern between kami and look-a-likes?

You're just talkin'. You haven't proved anything.

Where's all the deference you had just a minute ago?

Well...

I'm not calling you out or blaming you. I like the frankness better than the whole show you were putting on before.

Besides, I've also explored that old building pretty carefully.

First, there's no hidden button. The button for the sixteenth floor is right above the button for the fifteenth floor. It's just covered by a steel plate.

Kami didn't do that, and no human could lift that steel plate.

So you're saying the button for the sixteenth floor has been there all along, just covered by a steel plate?!

A pale look comes over Moriuchi's face.

See, even you think it's silly, right?

Second, that maneki-neko can actually be pressed down. If you push hard enough, the whole thing sinks below the counter.

Did you... push it?

Yeah, I pushed it and nothing amazing happened. When the receptionist came back, he fiddled with the desk a bit, and the thing popped back up.

Then the receptionist started answering the phone, a long string of calls, and kept apologizing and stuff. That was it.

See, what we have here is a quirky receptionist, but you're saying it's a kaidan.

So that's just a weird habit of his? How can that be?

Well, what else could it be? You think he's pushing the maneki-neko below the desk because he has a grudge against that neko?

Um...

What is it, girl? Have you filmed a show in that building or something?

No. But when a variety show came to film here, one of my coworkers floated that idea, only to get an earful from the producer at our agency.

He chewed him out?

The producer went on about a bunch of stuff I barely understood, something about a 'Tekkaba' being a Kinsekikai business. I guess it's some kind of restaurant, and they didn't want a TV show hurting their business.

Tekkaba?

Tekkaba?!

Yes. What's wrong? 'Tekka' is the name of a Higashinese finbeast dish, so wouldn't 'Tekkaba' just be a restaurant that sells 'Tekka'?

'Tekkaba' is a code word for 'casino'.

So I guess 'hell' is just a Kinsekikai casino, and anyone who wanders in there by mistake is made to keep their mouth shut.

The button for the sixteenth floor has to be triggered by some kind of mechanism. It probably leads to a hidden mezzanine—or maybe even a basement.

That maneki-neko is probably some kind of signaling device. Press it, and it sends a message. That's why after our dear kami-sama pressed it, the receptionist apologized to them.

Momoka lets out a sigh. It's hard to tell whether it's out of pity for Moriuchi or out of relief that there isn't a real kaidan.

The Nosy Kami scratches Its head in mild irritation. It clearly wasn't expecting the kaidan tale to end like this.

Moriuchi's face grows ever more pale, until the sweat flows down from his eyebrows.

That must just be a coincidence...

After all these years... some kaidan tales have been debunked, but there are still so many no one can explain! The sixteenth-floor 'hell' thing must just be a coincidence!

There's also the 'last remaining Fukui-ke diner.' I remember the kami mentioning to me that It liked that place, back when I still kept in touch with It.

After the restaurant was torn down a couple of years ago, people would sometimes say they caught the scent of fried food drifting through the area. Other people even claimed they could sometimes see the diner still standing on the empty lot. Only they could never get close to it.

That lot has been empty ever since the restaurant was torn down.

I remember that place. I wanted to go try it, back when it was still around, but the owner wouldn't let me in, and I ended up going somewhere else. The restaurant closed not long after the TV show aired.

For the next few days after that, rumors were flying that I cursed the restaurant's owner. People would say 'the Kaidan Queen is at it again' or 'the spiteful woman took her revenge,' stuff like that...

The Kinsekikai are the ones who tore it down.

Obviously I know that! But we're talking about what happened <i>after</i> it got torn down. Momoka, didn't you and your film crew visit the lot after that?

Y-Yes, but... when we went there, I didn't see any restaurant. I smelled some fried food, but that was it.

Anyone can easily make a place smell like fried food. Take the kaidan out of it, and this thing boils down to the Kinsekikai wanting to force the Fuku family out of business, right?

First they planted the idea that something spooky might be going on here. Then they tore the place down. Finally, they sent Momoka over there for one last visit.

But...but...the Ao-Oni! The Haunted House!

Moriuchi-san, are you really going to stand here and talk to me about that?

No offense, but if you didn't cause the deaths that happened in that house, then it could still have been the work of a kami!

Even this kami-sama only started chasing kaidan after the Haunted House rumor took off, right?

That is true.

Momoka, didn't you just recently film a TV show at the Haunted House?

Ahh... ahaha... yes, but it wasn't a ghost who scared me, it was Hoshiguma. I tried to pick something off the floor to hit her with, and—

'Don't forget—out of a house full of trash, she just had to pick up that broken blade. We searched everywhere and couldn't find it, so we had no choice but to hastily forge a fake one.'

'Even if she didn't do it intentionally, that changed everything.'

Momoka?

No, no, no, no...

Though she may be saying 'no', Momoka, hands shaking, pulls the broken blade out.

Hoshiguma, this is just a broken blade, right? Mifune-san wouldn't kill me over this thing, right?

Broken blade?

I picked it up at your place the day we filmed the show. Then, last night, when my TV went haywire in the middle of the night, I thought I heard Mifune-san say it was because I picked up this blade…

Look at this blade guard. This is from the Sanoguchis' heirloom blade, isn't it? Sanoguchi used to love showing it off.

Sanoguchi? The second victim in the Haunted House, the one who used his family blade to kill his wife and then take his own life?

But more than one police officer told me that blade has been locked up in the evidence room. How could it be sitting in your family's old house?

Mifune-san must want that blade, and so he gave the police some false evidence, right?

Then why isn't this blade in his collection? Why would it end up in my house, and broken in two?