Yori’s house was dark. I called up to him. I banged on both the front and back doors.
“He’s not here,” Moya said, running through the side garden.
“Can’t you, like, smell him out?” I cried.
“Smell him out? What does that even mean?”
“With your nose! With your fox nose. Gods, Moya, don’t you care?”
“Of course I care!”
“Then find him!”
But all my yelling didn’t do any good. Yori was not at his house. He was nowhere near his house. The Tengu Road had carried him far away into the wastelands of Tōkyō. Once there, Rain Spider rushed forward to battle Desert Punk for the honor of all of Japan. Those wastes, however, were actually a set of train tracks north of Kusaka. And Rain Spider was a thirty-ton railcar.
KUSAKA TOWN NEWSLETTER
2006年10月31日
Yori Yamamoto, age 41, expired last night in an accident on the JR line to Kusaka. Witnesses reported seeing Yamamoto running back and forth on the tracks, yelling and swinging at several cars before the fatal accident occurred. At approximately 5:30 p.m., Yamamoto charged the kakueki teisha from Kōchi, attempting to, as the conductor stated, “punch the front of the train.” Yamamoto expired at the scene. An investigation into the mysterious cause of the accident is ongoing. Intentional death has not been ruled out. His sister claimed no knowledge of Yamamoto’s whereabouts prior to the accident, stating that she thought he was still in the house. Yori Yamamoto worked as a driver for the Kusaka Motoring Company for ten years until he took work at the Kusaka Town Hall. He is survived by his sister and mourned by the town of Kusaka.
The police cars were pulling away by the time Moya and I got there. The body and whatever parts could be found were hurried away so the trains could run again. I reached down and picked up Yori’s welding goggles. The left lens was cracked. I slipped them quickly into my pocket because I really didn’t want to see those last traumatic moments. A flock of crows hopped along the ground, bowing here and there to peck at the gore on the tracks.
“You should leave,” Moya said. “Go to the kaki tree. Wait for me there.”
“Leave me alone,” I shouted, turning and pushing through the weeds and bushes. Moya didn’t reach out to stop me.
“You have to see how desperate he’s becoming,” she called behind me. “Kōtenbō knows he can’t break into your mind, so now he’s just trying to break it.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong!” I yelled, wiping furiously at my face. “Yori was a nobody.”
“Innocence doesn’t mean anything to Kōtenbō. We’re on the right path here, Koda. Kōtenbō knows it. He’s moving his final pieces into play.”
I spun on Moya. “Is this a game to you?” I asked.
“What?”
“Is that what people are to you … you creatures? Pieces in some sick game you play to pass the time?”
“Koda—”
“Is that why Aiko died? And Ichiro and Taiki and Yori? To amuse your disgusting boredom?”
“No.”
“It’s not like you’re in any real danger. You won’t die! We’re the ones getting poisoned and broken and cut open! Not you! Not Kōtenbō! Why can’t you all just go back to where you came from and leave us alone?”
Moya looked down at the ground. I turned back to those horrible tracks, my breath coming on in sharp, painful bursts.
After a few moments Moya said, “Why do you think I won’t die?”
“Because you’re not human!” I yelled back. “None of you are human.”
“Death doesn’t only belong to humans, Koda. Death is change and transformation and loss. Everything dies. Humans, plants, animals, stars. Even … us creatures.”
My vision rocked from side to side. My knees caved inward.
“If we can find where Kōtenbō is hiding,” she said quietly, “I’ll make sure he never does this again.”
The crows hopped from one side of the tracks to the next, flapping up here and there to fight over a wet spot. Their beaks were cracked, their feathers missing in big patches. Their eyes were dead and watching. Always dead and watching. I stumbled away from the tracks, pushing the crows out of my mind.
“Burn them,” I said.
“What?”
“Go to the tracks and burn them. Burn Kōtenbō’s eyes.”
“All right, Koda.”
“Do it now!”
Moya disappeared behind me. A few moments later, the tracks along the ground flashed orange from the fireball that devoured Kōtenbō’s desperation. The screaming of birds filled the air. Hundreds of shrill voices flapping and melting into the slow roar of a distant bonfire. I stood in a field near Kusaka Station and watched the flutters of fire that spun up into the dark sky and then plummeted back to earth. The air was sweet and sickening. The smoke drifted up like funeral incense.
“Everything dies,” I whispered to no one.