“What happened?” Shiraishi sounded slightly desperate as Akiko turned back to her.

“We purified the river.” Akiko suddenly realised that she was exhausted.

“With the flood!” Shiraishi was almost shouting, and her breathing was fast, from fear or excitement, Akiko couldn’t tell. Fear, most likely.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see the flood.”

“What?”

“I was looking at the spirits. What happened?”

“The…” Shiraishi paused, looking confused. “The river suddenly started flooding, rising rapidly, covering our feet. Then the water fell back to the channel, but it was still flowing very quickly. And now, well…” The priest gestured to the river, and Akiko turned to look. The water was flowing smoothly, and although it looked no cleaner than before, Akiko thought that it, somehow, felt better. “So,” Shiraishi continued, “what happened?”

“The spirit of the river got angry when you started the purification. I was able to drive it back with the kagurasuzu while you finished, and the harae purified it.” Akiko paused as she remembered the purified spirit. “It was… beautiful.” She shook her head slightly, in wonder. “Then,” she said, looking back at Shiraishi, “the spirit seemed to finish the job of purifying the area.”

“Spirit? Kami?” the priest asked. Akiko shrugged.

“I don’t understand the difference.” She paused. “No, that’s not quite right. I don’t know where the boundary is. There were a lot of small kegare spirits, and those are definitely just spirits. But the spirit of the whole river…” She turned to look back at the water, and could almost see the snake undulating in the flow. “That might actually be a kami.”

Akiko glanced back, and the priest was looking at the river, biting her lip.

“Why can’t I see these things?” she asked, almost wistfully. Akiko couldn’t suppress a short laugh.

“Most of it is things you don’t want to see. Corruption. Pollution. Kegare.”

Shiraishi shook her head angrily, and turned back to Akiko.

“No, I want to see. I am part of this, what, battle? Just as much as you. I have to perform the purifications. But you get to see Tamao and speak to him, and can see the pollution we cleanse.”

“If I can trust what I see,” Akiko interjected, but the priest just shook her head again.

“It’s more than I have. I have to trust what you say.”

Akiko winced. She hadn’t really thought of it from that angle.

“Do you trust me?” she asked. Shiraishi looked at her for what seemed like a very long time, and then nodded.

“Yes, I trust you. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. And I can see the tree, and hear about the Tanakas. And you came out of the burning shrine alive.” Akiko thought the priest blushed a little as she said that, but then she could feel her own cheeks heating up. The priest sighed, and looked down at her sodden feet, then turned to leave the park.

“We should get back, Akira can’t stay that long.”

“Mm.” Akiko started after her, lost in thought, but the priest suddenly stopped and turned back to her.

“I trust you, Akiko. I believe you see what you say you see, and I believe that what you see is important. It’s just…

“I want to see.”

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 1 Comment »

Shiraishi went to bed once they got back to the shrine, so that she could watch the shrine for part of the night, and Akira had to go back to the office. The weather was still nice, though, so Akiko decided to wander round the shrine grounds. She kept thinking about what Shiraishi had said, and tried switching her vision to seeing the spirits within the shrine.

A deep fire pulsed within the iwakura, sending out pulses of light that burned away tiny fragments of kegare that were trying to take hold. There was no sign of Tamao, though, nor of Mr Takenaka. Akiko remembered the other shrine precincts, the ones that still had a building, and guessed that they must be there. For a moment she wondered how she could get there, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be keeping an eye on the protesters, and switched her vision back to normal.

As she did so, she heard a short commotion from below, followed by the sound of someone running up the steps. A high school girl, in uniform, her black hair cut short, came into view, looking around with a puzzled expression on her face until she spotted Akiko. A smile briefly crossed her face, soon replaced by a look of embarrassment.

Akiko recognised the reaction; it was how she had been the first time she came to the shrine. She smiled and walked over, noticing as she did so that the girl was wearing her skirt very, very short. Girls today, she thought, and then caught herself. She can’t be more than ten years younger than you, she chided herself ruefully. Remember the things you did at that age.

“Can I help you?” she asked, as she came closer.

“Ah, yeah. How do I, er, whatever it is you do here?” She was looking around, clearly slightly surprised.

“If you’re looking for the shrine building, it burned down a few weeks ago. It was on the news.”

“Oh.” She looked a little nonplussed for a moment. “So, er, can I do, like, whatever it is?”

“O-mairi? Yes, you can.” Akiko was getting quite puzzled, though. She was being very persistent about performing o-mairi for someone who didn’t seem to have the faintest idea what it was. Could she have seen something? “This way, please.” Akiko didn’t want to say anything yet, and she showed her how to cleanse her hands. As the girl bent over to spit the water out, her knickers were clearly visible. Come on, I never wore skirts that short, Akiko told herself, but she didn’t mention it, instead guiding her over in front of the iwakura, and showing her how to perform o-mairi. As she started, Akiko glanced round to make sure that no-one was standing behind them, but the shrine grounds were empty.

“Is that it?” the girl asked as they finished.

“Well, you can make an offering if you want, but we don’t have an offering box at the moment.”

“Oh. Right, yeah.” She put her bag on the ground and squatted to rummage through it. Akiko glanced down quickly, confirming that her knickers were on display again, and then looked away, suppressing a sigh. Girls today. “Here you are.” She was holding out a 500 yen coin.

“Oh, um, yes, that’s fine.” The girl broke out in a smile.

“Excellent. Oh, I’m Kazumi Miura.” She bowed, and Akiko quickly bowed in return.

“Akiko Tanahata. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, see you around.” She waved as she ran back to the exit, stopping at the top of steps to turn back and wave again, before running down. Akiko stood there for some time, looking at the coin in her hand.

That was peculiar.

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 3 Comments »

After the dance lesson that night, Yoshiko took a small lunch box out of her bundle and passed Akiko a small sweet rice cake wrapped in a leaf.

“Please, it’s nothing much, but you might enjoy it.”

“Thank you.” Akiko took the sweet and bit into it. It was very good, and she nodded enthusiastically. “It’s delicious.” Yoshiko smiled.

“I’m so glad. Er…” Yoshiko paused, looking around the clearing, and it was obvious to Akiko that she wanted to say something, so she just waited. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” Akiko finished the last of the rice cake, and wiped her fingers on the leaf.

“Have you ever seen Tamao?”

“Yes.” There really seemed no point in lying at this point.

“What colour are his scales?”

“What colour?” Akiko was a bit puzzled. “Well, purple, green, red, gold, and silver. Have you seen him?”

Yoshiko nodded, looking relieved.

“Yes, I have, and he looks like a giant snake with scales in those colours. But no-one else at the shrine has seen him, and I was starting to wonder whether I was just imagining it.”

“I know what you mean,” Akiko said, feeling a great sense of relief at discovering someone else who had seen the kami, even if that someone else might be a kami herself. “Actually, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever found yourself in, what to call it, another version of the shrine? With a different shrine building, and no iwakura. And it seems to be on top of a very high mountain.” As she was saying it, it suddenly occurred to Akiko that that might be the shrine Yoshiko normally served at, and she became very nervous.

“I go there often to pay my respects to the kami. That is where I see Tamao.”

“Have you never seen him in the ordinary shrine?”

Yoshiko shook her head, looking surprised.

“No, never. I didn’t think he could go to the ordinary shrine.”

“Well, no-one else can see him when he’s there, but I’ve seen him there several times.”

Yoshiko looked thoughtful, and nodded.

“No-one else seems to be able to go to the shrine where Tamao lives. How do you get there?”

“I’m just there. The very first time, it happened as soon as I passed through the torii. I don’t know how to get there deliberately.”

“Well, I go through the normal shrine. If I pray to Tamao and ask for passage, then I can open the doors to the honden, and they lead out of the shrine building in the other shrine. It only works if I’m alone, though.” Akiko pulled a face. “What’s wrong?” Yoshiko asked.

“We don’t have a honden at the moment. It burned down.”

“That’s terrible!” Yoshiko gasped. “What…” She came to a sudden stop. “No.” She shook her head. “No,” she repeated, “I don’t want to know about that. We’re getting too close to things I don’t want to ask. I’m sorry.”

Akiko shook her head. She realised that Yoshiko was treating her like a strange supernatural vision; much the same way she was treating Yoshiko, in fact.

“No problem. I think we should leave this subject alone.”

“Yes,” Yoshiko agreed. “Now, I think we have time to do a bit more dance practice.”

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 1 Comment »

Akiko got up around noon the following day, and Shiraishi told her that Akira had visited the shrine in the morning, and told her that he would be free to take her looking for kegare the following day. They ate a meal together, and then Shiraishi announced that she was going back to bed; the purification had taken more out of her than expected.

The weather was not good, so Akiko found herself sitting in the office, staring out at the shrine through the rain. The stones of the iwakura looked darker than ever, slick with rain, and Akiko remembered the light she had seen pulsing within them. Then she remembered Yoshiko, and the spirit, or kami, in the river, and the kegare spreading over the whole area.

For a moment, panic seized her, and she stood up, convinced she should be doing something about the problem, not just sitting there. She looked frantically around the office, but then sat down again. There was nothing she could do about the problem, not right now. Well, apart from look after the shrine. More problems there would almost certainly just make things worse, she thought.

There was movement at the entrance, and Akiko looked round sharply, pulled from her reverie. Mr Fujimura was standing there, in haori and hakama as ever, and coming over to the office. Akiko stood up and bowed to him, pulling the window open. She really wished that Shiraishi were awake.

“Mr Fujimura, thank you for coming. Do you have time to come inside and have some tea?”

“Thank you, that is very kind.”

“I am afraid that Revd Shiraishi is not available at the moment.” Akiko realised that she had better say that as quickly as possible.

“Oh. Not ill, I hope?”

“Thank you, she is well. We just have to stay up all night to make sure the protesters do nothing to the shrine, so we have to sleep in shifts.”

Mr Fujimura frowned.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Akiko bowed in acknowledgement.

“No, I don’t think so, but thank you very much for the offer. Please, come in.” She gestured in the direction of the door, and went round to meet him.

There was no choice but to leave him alone in the reception room while she got the tea, even though she felt that it was being very impolite. Mr Fujimura, of course, looked as imperturbable as always, and when she returned he had taken some small stacks of leaflets out of his bag and placed them on the table. Once she had served the tea, he indicated them.

“I have brought you some leaflets that you might find useful. I noticed last time that you had little to give to worshippers.”

Akiko looked at the titles of the leaflets, and quickly glanced through them. Our Imperial Family, Shinto: Japanese Spirit, The Male Succession… They were all standard publications from the Association of Shinto Shrines, but the choices made Akiko uncomfortable, reminding her of the accusations of fascism. Still, they weren’t fascist literature; a little right-wing, maybe, but entirely conventional, really. She looked up, and forced a smile.

“Thank you, you are most considerate. I am sure these will be very useful.”

“You are most welcome. It is a shame that Revd Shiraishi is not available to perform a ceremony, but please convey my regards.”

“Of course.”

He stood and took his leave, and Akiko waited by the door, bowing until he was out of sight by the steps. Returning to the reception room she picked up the literature and looked at it again.

Something to talk to Shiraishi about.

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 3 Comments »

As Akira drove her round the area the following day, Akiko had to keep forcing herself to concentrate on looking for kegare. Shiraishi’s reaction to Mr Fujimura’s literature bothered her; the priest had just shrugged and said that they should put it on display. Akiko was sure that they should be thinking about it rather more carefully, but she still couldn’t formulate exactly what she was worried about. That, of course, just made it even more irritating to her. She couldn’t even suggest that they talk about it more, because she had no idea what she wanted to say.

Concentrate! she reminded herself, and switched her vision back to looking at the kegare. The houses and shops all looked to have roughly the same level of pollution, although it took different forms on different houses. Akiko thought that it looked heavier than it had before, but she couldn’t be sure. In any case, she couldn’t see any concentrations.

And then she looked forward.

A curtain of writhing darkness blocked the road, apparently solid, and as they approached it, she screamed.

Akira quickly stopped the car, and looked over at her.

“Are you all right?”

For a few moments, Akiko just sat there, breathing heavily and trying to calm down. She had let her vision return to normal, and she could see that they had stopped under the Tokyo to Nagoya expressway. To normal eyes, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Sorry,” she said, finally. “I saw a lot of kegare. It looked like you were driving into a wall.”

“Here?” Akira asked, and she nodded. “What can you see now?” he continued, and Akiko took a deep breath.

“One moment. Let me look again.”

She shifted her vision back, and everything vanished in darkness. Slowly, her eyes adjusted, and she could see things crawling along the underside of the road, great black worms, slime dripping from their bodies, hissing as it fell through the air, but vanishing as it touched the ground. They were wrapped around the pillars supporting the expressway, and hanging down from the edges like a curtain, but the space within was clear, like being in a box. The things seemed unaware of them, or at least unconcerned, but Akiko did not want to risk drawing their attention, and switched her vision back to normal, shuddering.

“The whole place is covered with kegare spirits,” she said. “More than I’ve seen anywhere else. We need to go back to the shrine and get Revd Shiraishi out here.”

Akira nodded, and started the car again, driving in silence for a few minutes.

“Akiko,” he said at last, “do you ever get a break from this?”

“From what? Dealing with the pollution?” She glanced at him, and then back out of the window. A break. It would be nice, but the problems wouldn’t go away while she was resting. She shook her head. “I can’t take a break while the problems continue.”

“You’re…” Akira paused, apparently looking for the right words. “You’re not going to be able to do anything if you’re completely exhausted, you know.”

It was very tempting, and a very plausible excuse, but Akiko shook her head again.

“Once the problem is solved. Not before.”

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 1 Comment »

Akiko hadn’t realised just how public the location was until they started getting ready to perform the purification. They could stand a little way back from the road, off the pavement, but people walking past could clearly see them, and more than a few drivers slowed, their curiosity piqued. Even before they had actually started, they had gathered a curious audience, and Akiko could hear them discussing what might be happening, even though she couldn’t follow any individual conversations in detail.

She looked at Shiraishi, and the priest frowned briefly.

“Nothing for it, I suppose. We’ll just have to rely on good manners to keep them from interfering,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Let’s get it done and get back to the shrine.” Akiko nodded in response, and, as Shiraishi composed herself to start the purification, she raised the kagurasuzu in both hands, holding it in front of her chest, and switched her vision to watch the kegare.

The worms reacted as soon as Shiraishi started to recite the norito, one swinging down, aiming at the priest. Akiko stepped forward and swept the kagurasuzu through the air, and it twisted back in the air, spraying hissing slime that vanished before it could reach them. Another worm dropped to the ground, and then reared up over them, and Akiko stepped between the priest and the creature, driving it back.

“Don’t give up the day job, love!”

The comment shocked Akiko out of her concentration, and she lost sight of the spirits. Behind her, there was a ripple of laughter from the crowd. And then Shiraishi stumbled in her recitation, and gasped.

Akiko focussed again, and could see a worm wrapping itself around the priest, blindly probing at her robes, still held off by the faint light around her. Akiko thrust the kagurasuzu at its front, and it recoiled, losing its grip and falling off. Shiraishi picked up the norito again, and now Akiko could see light within the ohnusa.

“Stop it!” This time, Akiko managed to hold her concentration, as she spun round to drive back two worms approaching them from behind. But other people from the crowd took up the idea.

“Go practise your superstition elsewhere!”

“We don’t need this sort of display in a pubic place!”

“What do you think you are up to?”

“Disgusting. Isn’t there a law about forcing religion on people?”

The worms were dropping more quickly now, but the growing light within the ohnusa was apparently making them nervous, and they hung back long enough for Akiko to get to them and drive them away with the kagurasuzu. There were still enough of them to keep her running, and it was with relief that she heard Shiraishi intone the final words of the prayer.

Akiko turned to look at the priest as she raised the ohnusa, light streaming from the strips of paper, and swung it. Waves of light flowed off it, dissolving the spirits on the ground, washing around the crowd and the bases of the columns, as the worms desperately climbed higher. Shiraishi swung it again, and the light rose higher, catching more of the worms. On the third swing, there was an explosion of light, scouring the underside of the road, momentarily dazzling Akiko. As her vision returned, she could see no spirits, but there was still a faint glow around the priest. Smiling, she nodded in response to Shiraishi’s questioning look, and they turned towards their car.

The heckling crowd was already beginning to disperse, and Akiko recognised one of them as a protester from the shrine. He stared at them for a moment, then shook his head in apparent disgust and turned away.

One of the spectators, however, was standing perfectly still, looking up at the underside of the road. Akiko glanced round, but she could see nothing where she was looking. Slightly puzzled, she got into the car next to Shiraishi, suddenly realising just how tired she was.

“Let’s go home.”

05: Spirit Busters, Episode 33 | 3 Comments »

The sun was setting behind her as Akiko walked down the path towards the torii, her shadow stretching out over the beach and the sea, the water turning dark as the first stars became visible in the east. A breeze blew from the shrine, ruffling Akiko’s hair and carrying the smell of pine trees. The gentle whisper of the waves was calming, and Akiko put one hand on the upright of the torii as she looked out over the ocean.

The wind got stronger, and the surface of the sea was churned into white-capped waves, stained red by the light of the evening sun. The waves were louder now, and Akiko realised that the water was rising, rising quickly, and threatening the shrine. Grabbing an offering dish, she ran through the gate, out onto the sand, and bent down, scooping up some of the water and casting it away.

She felt the cold wetness on her feet, soaking through her socks, and took a hurried step back, back through the torii. The water was still rising, no matter how quickly she tried to bail, and the wind from behind her was getting stronger. She felt the sand shift under her feet, as the sea started to wash it away, and took another step back. Her sleeves were sodden, and the water was now around her ankles, as the wind blew her hair forward, whipping it around her face, in her eyes.

With a groan, the torii collapsed, its base undermined, crashing into the sea, the water thrown up drenching Akiko as she desperately scooped water up with her dish. The wind gusted from behind, and she stumbled, the sand slipping away under her feet, the water, almost at her knees, pulling at her legs. She staggered, but kept her balance, reaching down with the bowl once more.

The wave filled her nose, mouth, and eyes with stinging salt water, knocking her back, and the wind from behind her stole her last chance to stay standing. Her feet slipped away from under her, and the waters closed over her, sucking her down, further into the darkness than should have been possible. Her lungs were agony as she fought to swim up, the wet vestments pulling her down, entangling her.

Akiko sat bolt upright in bed, gulping down tortured breaths as her heart rate slowed back to something approaching normal.

Well, that was subtle symbolism, she thought. I wonder what it could possibly mean. She got out of bed and grabbed her yukata, but she paused at the windows as she heard the sound of falling rain. Sighing, she went round to the front door, taking an umbrella as she stepped out into the shrine precincts.

The smell of the damp earth was somehow deeply calming, as if the rain was washing away the salt water of the sea. She stood there for quite some time, breathing deeply, enjoying the experience.

“What is it?”

Shiraishi was standing beside her, looking concerned.

“A dream,” Akiko replied. “I dreamed I was trying to hold back the tide by scooping it up in an offering dish.”

“Do you think it’s a message?”

“Well, now, what do you think it could possibly mean?” Akiko was sorry for the tone as soon as she had spoken, but, really, the priest had to understand how frustrating the situation was.

“That carrying out purifications in particular areas is no way to deal with the general pollution.”

“Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that!” This time, Akiko realised that she had to apologise. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been worried about that for some time, now.”

“So, maybe it was just a dream? You know, a result of your stress. Not a message from the kami.”

“Do you really think…” Akiko paused. Maybe it was, she thought. “Do you really think the individual purifications are making a difference?”

Shiraishi looked at her for a few moments, and Akiko felt herself blushing. The priest seemed to have noticed that that hadn’t been her original question.

“Yes.” Shiraishi sounded completely confident. “You saw the Tanakas’ grandmother before and after. The purifications make a big difference to the people we purify.”

“But do they do anything about the tide of pollution? I’m sure that everywhere looks worse than it did.”

The priest sighed, and looked away, into the depths of the shrine.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand the tide of pollution at all.” She looked back at Akiko. “But that is the point. I have no idea what to do about the general situation, but I know what we can do to help some people within it. Do you have any ideas for dealing with the whole problem?” Akiko had to shake her head. “So, it’s better to do something that we know does some good, than to do nothing at all.”

“But we might be wasting our effort.”

“We might be. But I think there’s a much better chance that we’d be wasting time if we did nothing.”

Akiko said nothing, staring into the darkness. The priest’s argument did make a lot of sense. But still…

“Does it really mean anything if the general pollution makes everyone suffer in the end anyway?”

“Probably not.” For the first time, Akiko heard real tension in the priest’s voice, and Shiraishi took a deep breath before continuing. “We have to deal with the real problem. Or someone has to. But…” She stopped again, and walked away from Akiko, looking out at the shrine woods, the trees barely visible at the edges of the light. “We can’t do nothing.” She turned round to face Akiko again.

“You are the one who talks to the kami. Find out what we have to do to solve the problem. Get us some supernatural guidance.”

Akiko held Shiraishi’s gaze for a few moments, but then had to look down. It was true. The kami had spoken to her. If they were going to get any answers, then that was where they would come from. She remembered the last time she had spoken to the kami, in the other shrine precincts, and looked back at Shiraishi.

“I’ll try. I’m not sure how I get Tamao to talk to me, but I’ll try. But…”

She didn’t want to say it, as if saying it would make it more likely to be true, but she couldn’t justify hiding it from the priest. She decided to say it, but then couldn’t make her mouth work. She swallowed, and tried again.

“I’m not sure Tamao knows, either.”

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