Chapter 61: Tōkigan (Part 5)
Takada Shōji jumped back into the conversation, his brow furrowed. “Okay, so what about the third taboo? The one that says a failed doll must be burned by fire. What’s the hidden meaning there?”
Kana tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling as if the answer might be written there. After a moment, she sighed in defeat. “I can’t even begin to imagine. I mean, the whole concept of a ‘failed’ doll… without having seen how they’re made, it’s impossible to understand. At what point, exactly, does a simple mistake become a complete ‘failure’?”
Junko nodded in agreement. “Exactly. The story doesn’t give us any details about the doll-making process. So what a ‘failure’ or even a ‘half-finished product’ actually looks like… probably only Tōkigan himself would know. Right, Yōsuke-kun?”
Ōgami held up a hand, a preemptive note of caution in his voice. “The hidden meanings we’ve discussed for the first two taboos… those are just the results of speculation and a close, detailed reading of the text. The truth is, for all three of these taboos, whether our guesses are right or wrong, we have no concrete evidence to prove them. We can’t even be certain if we’re just… over-analyzing a simple ghost story.”
Then, he continued, a note of genuine frustration in his voice, “As for the hidden meaning of the third taboo… honestly, I don’t know. I’ve thought about it over and over, from every possible angle, and I simply cannot come up with a logical, satisfying answer.”
Kana looked surprised. “But Ōgami-san, didn’t you say you’d read all the detailed materials? Weren’t there any interpretations from professional scholars, from experts?”
Ōgami Yōsuke shook his head. “Other scholars have certainly tried to interpret it, including my father. But, just as Junko-chan said, because we don’t know the precise process of making the dolls, or what a ‘failure’ actually looks like, it’s impossible to offer a concrete, evidence-based theory.”
“Ah… seriously…?” Junko slumped onto the table, her face a mask of unconcealed disappointment.
Takada Shōji, on the other hand, grew quite excited. “So, that means it’s a genuine unsolved mystery, right? If we can figure out the meaning of the third taboo, wouldn’t that mean we’ve surpassed the professional scholars?”
Kana, however, seemed to have lost all interest, her expression unenthusiastic. “But… if even the professional scholars, the experts, can’t figure it out, how are we supposed to get the right answer with just our wild, amateur guesses?”
“Tch. How do you know if you don’t try?” Takada Shōji said, then, after a moment’s thought, offered the first theory. “Could it be a problem with the materials used to make the dolls? For example, what if they used some kind of hazardous, toxic material? And if it wasn’t incinerated, maybe it would pollute the environment, or make people sick?”
“Wow~ The villagers on Mie Island were as brilliant as you, Takada-san! They were already concerned about environmental protection way back in ancient times! Such good, progressive children,” Kana cooed, her voice dripping with a thick, viscous sarcasm as she reached out to pat Takada on the head as if he were a small, slightly dim-witted child.
Takada Shōji shot her a glare. “The god said that a failed doll is like an unborn infant, that it emits its own resentment. Isn’t that a kind of… spiritual pollution?”
Even with all her effort, she couldn’t come up with the right answer. Junko, looking bored, rested her head on the table. Ōgami Yōsuke, however, seemed somewhat interested in the intellectual exercise. “Pollution… not very likely. But if the purpose of destroying the half-finished doll was to prevent others from… stealing the proprietary technique… that seems to have a tiny bit of plausibility.”
“But not much, right?” Takada Shōji shook his head, then stroked his chin thoughtfully. “If you tried to make a doll from a half-finished product, at best you’d just end up with another half-finished product. And besides, if the goal was simply destruction, why specifically by fire?” He paused, a new thought occurring to him. “No, it’s better to think about it from the perspective that the doll’s essential nature is that of a yōkai. A yōkai that is only halfway through being cultivated or created…”
“A hanyō? Like Inuyasha?” Junko suddenly burst out laughing.
Kana immediately chimed in, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Red eyes, much stronger than usual, and way, way more handsome.”
“Ah—the classic shōnen manga trope—the dark, powerful, and tragic transformation.”
Ōgami Yōsuke, clearly having no desire to engage with their pop-culture-fueled nonsense, turned to look at Yomikawa Tsuko beside him. Noticing her thoughtful, almost distant expression, he suddenly asked, “Senpai, have you thought of something?”
Yomikawa Tsuko’s train of thought was suddenly interrupted. She looked up, a faint smile on her face, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “It wasn’t my idea, precisely. It was Takada-kun’s theory just now. Perhaps the third taboo’s hidden meaning is not about the making of a doll, but a method for… destroying… one that has gone berserk. In other words,” she said, her voice cold and clear, “the yōkai’s ‘weakness’.”
As the person who had proposed the original, if somewhat crude idea, Takada Shōji’s face lit up with a mixture of surprise and profound delight. He pressed, his voice eager, “Really, Senpai? You agree with my theory?”
“Well,” Yomikawa said, her tone carrying a subtle, condescending weight of authority, “while the order of your reasoning was a little off, if we continue to speculate along the lines of the yōkai metaphor, it seems to be the only plausible answer, does it not? As for what you all were saying about environmental protection and hanyō… that is, of course, completely unrealistic.”
“Haha! See, Ōgami? I knew it! We really did crack the third taboo!” Takada Shōji laughed, a little too loudly, a little too triumphantly, like someone who had just, against all odds, beaten the final boss of a video game.
“Yes, yes…” Ōgami Yōsuke forced a smile. If Takada Shōji had come up with this theory again on his own, he might have been a little surprised, even impressed. But hearing it from Yomikawa… something felt… off. “Let’s just assume that’s the case for now.”
It’s too shallow, he thought, a familiar unease creeping back in. Too superficial. A neat, tidy, and ultimately, unsatisfying answer.
If it were Senpai, she should have easily been able to think of a deeper, more disturbing possibility. Like the one he himself had considered, the one he had discussed with his father. The one that still made his blood run cold.
Plague.
Burning the failed, imperfect dolls could very well have been a desperate, ritualistic measure to prevent the outbreak of a devastating plague. In ancient times, a single, virulent plague could easily, and with terrifying speed, wipe out an entire village.
And if human corpses were not handled properly, were not disposed of with the correct, sanitary procedures, a plague could very well occur.
The story explicitly states that for every doll created, a human sacrifice is required. So, is it not reasonable to suspect, to at least consider the horrifying possibility, that humans were, in fact, one of the primary materials used to make the dolls?
Or rather, that corpses were the material.
However, his father had ultimately dismissed this gruesome theory. The reason was simple and logical: the first doll, the one Tōkigan and the god had made together, the one that had started this whole bloody affair, had been created without a sacrifice being prepared beforehand.
Of course, this particular theory and its subsequent, horrifying implications were a bit too gruesome to share with the rest of the club. And besides, it was likely incorrect.
“So, with that, all three taboos have been deciphered!” Takada declared, his voice filled with a smug, self-satisfied finality. “And you mentioned earlier that the god told Tōkigan to prepare a sacrifice immediately upon his return, right? If our theory is correct, that means he had to offer a sacrifice for that first doll. Which means… a human life. So what did Tōkigan do? Did he just go out and kill someone?”
“Or did he, in his carelessness, just forget about it, and then, as a result, suffer some kind of terrible, curse-like misfortune?” Takada Shōji asked, urging Ōgami Yōsuke to continue the story.
“I think you’re about to suffer some misfortune, Takada-san.”
“Yeah, yeah, that smug look on your face is just like Tōkigan’s, right before the fall.”
Junko and Kana looked at Takada Shōji with a synchronized and deeply unimpressed expression of disdain, pointing and whispering amongst themselves.
“Tch. Bunch of jealous girls.”
After their childish, bickering banter had finally subsided, Ōgami Yōsuke at last began to speak again, his voice slow, steady, and now tinged with a new and deeply ominous note. “Takada-san's guess… is very close. Faced with the god’s solemn and terrifying instructions, Tōkigan gave a perfunctory, and ultimately disastrous agreement. Then, he bid farewell to the god and, carrying the successfully and rather ominously created doll, headed back towards the unsuspecting village…”
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