Chapter 9: Kimura’s Ordeal (Part 5)
“Fura Ward… just how vast are we talking, horizontally?” Ōgami Yōsuke pressed, a new urgency in his voice. He was a stranger to Fura Ward’s geography. Nagano Ward alone was an eight-kilometer stretch; if Fura was of a similar, or greater, expanse, then Kimura’s nocturnal journey was tipping from the bizarre into the realm of the truly impossible.
“Fura Ward dwarfs Nagano, I’m afraid,” Yomikawa Tsuko stated, her voice calm, almost matter-of-fact, which somehow made the information more chilling. “The straight-line distance? You’re looking at over ten kilometers. To walk it… at least two and a half hours, probably more.”
The unspoken calculation hung heavy in the air: a sleepwalking journey of at least eighteen kilometers. Over four and a half hours of unconscious pilgrimage.
A cold dread, sharp as a needle, pricked Ōgami Yōsuke’s spine. “That far… My God. Kimura-san… he must have stumbled home in broad daylight, then.”
“He did,” Itō Takuma confirmed, his voice flat. “Full daylight. It was past eight in the morning when he finally made it back. His mom, by then, was frantic. Knew he was gone.”
“Cornered, questioned by his parents, Kimura couldn’t keep it entirely secret anymore. He confessed to the sleepwalking. But not everything. He was still terrified of their anger, of the consequences, so he kept the part about the cave on Mount Kara's-Go locked away.”
“He was a wreck, utterly drained. His mom called the school, told them he was sick. She decided then and there – one more night. If the sleepwalking happened again, he was going to a doctor, no arguments.”
Ōgami Yōsuke scribbled furiously in his notebook. “So, this was the night of Sunday, the week before last. Kimura’s second sleepwalking episode.”
Itō Takuma grunted, a sound of grim affirmation. “Even after telling his parents part of it, Kimura had this sinking feeling, this certainty, that the sleepwalking wasn’t just going to magically stop. So, after a few hours of exhausted rest, he was back online, digging, searching for answers he couldn’t find. Right up until evening.”
“Before bed that night, Kimura did something… practical, almost desperate. He changed into pajamas that had pockets. And into those pockets, he stuffed his wallet and his phone. His reasoning? If he ended up miles from home again, at least this time he could call a taxi.”
“And that night… the dream returned.”
“Exactly the same as the night before. Which, you have to admit, is profoundly weird, right? I mean, sure, people have recurring dreams, or dreams that continue from one night to the next. But usually, it’s all within the same sleep cycle.”
“But Kimura… on two separate nights, he plunged back into the identical, terrifying dreamscape. That same oppressive darkness, those same beckoning voices, pulling him forward, ever forward.”
“When he snapped awake this time, the cold was the first thing he registered. And the silence. He found himself completely outside the city limits. The land around him sloped upwards to the north, downwards to the south. He was slumped at the base of a massive, ancient tree, the rough bark digging into his back.”
“He fumbled for his phone. The screen glowed: 5:00 AM. Still pitch black. He couldn’t see much, no lights anywhere. But he didn’t need to see. A primal, instinctive dread, cold and sharp, told him exactly where he was.”
“He was on Mount Karasu-Go.”
Ōgami Yōsuke’s voice was a hushed whisper, heavy with dawning horror. “So, Kimura-san, in the depths of his sleep, was being lured by those voices. Drawn, step by unconscious step, back towards that cursed cave on the mountain. Something… something wanted him to return there, didn’t it?”
Itō Takuma nodded, his eyes haunted. “It was like… like something had forged a connection directly into his mind. Kimura suddenly knew, with a certainty that terrified him, that placing that monstrous stone head back on the altar hadn’t just been a stupid mistake. It had been the trigger. The start of some ancient, unholy ritual. And once a ritual like that begins… it demands a sacrifice. An offering. And since he, Kimura, was the only one who’d been there, the only one who’d touched the accursed thing… he was it. Both the unwitting priest who’d started the ceremony, and the designated sacrifice.”
“And when that realization hit him, when he understood the sheer, cosmic unfairness of it all… something snapped. He was just a kid who’d stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time. And now he was being tormented, hunted by these… these terrifying forces. It was monstrous. Unforgivable. Whatever dark god or ancient power was behind this, he wouldn’t just lie down and accept it.”
“Fueled by a desperate, almost insane rage, Kimura made a decision.”
“He was already on the mountain. He would go back to that cave. And he would tear it apart.”
Kana let out a small, strangled gasp, her face draining of color. “In the dark? He actually dared to go back to that place? Alone?” If it had been her, she’d be running for the nearest shrine, begging for an exorcism, anything to get away. Facing that kind of horror head-on… it was unthinkable.
Yomikawa Tsuko, however, merely crossed her arms, a flicker of something that might have been approval in her cold gaze. “He should have done it sooner.” If she’d been in Kimura’s shoes, if she’d experienced even one night of such targeted sleepwalking, she’d have been back at that cave the very next day, demanding answers. She might have even considered camping out there, just to see what crawled out of the woodwork. Kimura’s delayed reaction, in her pragmatic view, was almost… sluggish.
“If it were me… no way. I wouldn’t have gone back in a million years,” Itō Takuma admitted, a sheepish grin briefly touching his lips before vanishing. “But Kimura… once he decided, he moved fast. Grabbed a thick, sturdy tree branch – a makeshift club. Fired up his phone’s flashlight. And then, running on pure adrenaline and rage, he retraced his steps, following the path from memory, back towards the source of his nightmare.”
“It didn’t take long. And there it was. The cave entrance, a black, gaping maw in the pre-dawn gloom. Like the mouth of some colossal, unseen beast, patiently waiting for its prey to deliver itself.”
“Kimura didn’t hesitate. He charged in, a wild yell tearing from his throat. The cave was just as he’d left it, cold and silent. He swung the branch like a madman, smashing the grotesque statue from the altar, sending it clattering to the stone floor. Then he stormed into the back chamber, the burial site. He kicked the rotting wooden chest apart, stomped on the rusted candlesticks, the ceremonial knives, the ancient bells, crushing them underfoot before hurling the twisted metal into the pit of bones. The crumbling wooden artifacts, he either smashed or threw into the darkness.”
“Back in the main chamber, the rage still burned hot. He picked up the fallen statue head, now a weapon in his hands, and began to hammer it against the eerie, carved faces on the walls. The ancient stone was too hard, it wouldn’t break. But the pig-nosed, ox-headed idol… it buckled, dented, flattened under the furious assault, until it was just a mangled, unrecognizable lump of dark metal.”
“But even that wasn’t enough. His fury wasn’t spent. He grabbed the ruined statue by its twisted horns, dragged it out of the cave, and made his way to the nearby cliff edge. And with a final, guttural roar, he hurled it into the abyss, watching it disappear into the darkness below. Destroyed.”
Ōgami Yōsuke let out a sigh, a hint of academic regret in his voice. “A pity, that, the statue being destroyed. It would have been… illuminating… to examine it. Kimura-san acted rather rashly.”
Kana, however, was firmly on Kimura’s side. “Rash? I think he did exactly the right thing! When you’re in a situation like that, who’s thinking about folklore or archaeology? Your life is on the line! Survival comes first!”
Junko immediately jumped in. “But destroying it didn’t actually fix anything, did it? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be sitting here, picking through the pieces of this nightmare.”
Takada Shōji found his gaze drifting, despite his best efforts, towards Yomikawa Tsuko, towards the elegant lines of her legs clad in those signature black over-the-knee socks. He quickly looked away. “Senpai… what’s your take on all this?”
Yomikawa Tsuko tapped a thoughtful finger against her chin. “A pity, indeed,” she mused, her voice soft, yet carrying an unsettling weight. “If the statue were still intact… I confess, I would have been tempted to replicate Kimura-kun’s actions precisely. To place it upon the altar myself. It would be… an interesting experiment… to see if I, too, would develop these peculiar somnambulistic tendencies.”
A sudden, profound silence fell over Ōgami, Junko, and Kana. As one, they subtly shifted their positions, creating a small, almost imperceptible, but definite, increase in the distance between themselves and their club president. No one needed to say a word; their collective discomfort was a palpable thing in the air.
Takada Shōji looked from their unnerved faces to Yomikawa’s serene, almost predatory calm. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, the unspoken words dying on his lips.
“No matter,” Yomikawa Tsuko said, breaking the charged silence, her eyes glinting. “Let’s return to Kimura-kun’s account. After his… rather thorough… redecoration of the cave, and the destruction of the idol, his sleepwalking episodes surely didn’t just… cease? What did he tell you happened next, Itō-kun?”
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