Chapter Text
Case #0253010
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CHIHIRO
Testing… Testing… It’s working.
My name is Rokuhira Chihiro, son of Rokuhira Kunishige, and I’ve recently been appointed to the position of Head Archivist… should I say more?
HINAO
Yes please, if you could? An introduction, a bit about your life, and something about your previous work, maybe? For archiving purposes.
[CHUCKLES]
CHIHIRO
Alright… umm, I work for the Kamunabi Institute, Tokyo, an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal. In the wake of the Seitei War, there’s been an apparent increase in reports of unexplainable happenings, supernatural encounters, and other things of the sort, and the Institute has found itself overrun with cases in need of investigation, explanation, and debunking. As for my being here, my Dad’s friend— I mean, my boss, Mr. Azami Soshirou, assigned me to replace Mr. Shiba Togo, as Mr. Shiba put in his two-week notice last month.
I’m admittedly fairly new to the Institute, and some might call my position nepotism given my connections to Mr. Azami and Mr. Shiba, as well as my own surname being fairly well-known. Still, connections are less important than actions, and I shouldn’t let my family name get in the way of my work. Apparently I’m too focussed and straightforward for my own good, so no one will have to worry about me slacking off — although, Dad was also good at getting into work mode when he needed to, so maybe I should be more grateful to the Rokuhira name?
There’s a tiring road ahead. I’ve known Mr. Shiba for a long time and he never wanted to be an archivist, so I was aware that the archives weren’t in the best condition, but I never would’ve guessed it was this bad. In here there are folders strewn everywhere, nothing to make of follow-up reports, or even a decent filing system. It shouldn’t surprise me. The higher-ups here are far more concerned with formal academia, less so this stuff. The libraries on the fourth floor are so expansive that I could never read even a hundredth of the books in them. But, for as well-kept as our libraries are, it seems the archive has been neglected, and Mr. Shiba was never going to fix anything in here, so I guess Mr. Azami has made it my job to tidy everything up…
I don’t really understand why. I was doing field work before this, travelling around, following up on any supposed sightings — and I do mean supposed, because most of the Institute’s leads end up being either yakuza, informal gang activity, or simply misunderstandings. In fact, I think the only reason I was able to believe in any of this supernatural stuff in the first place was because Dad was so adamant that it did exist out there, somewhere… I’m here now, and I’ll have some assistance from Hinao and Hakuri with research. They can follow up on any statements I think are worth investigating further. It could be a lot worse.
Is that enough for you?
HINAO
Perfect! I’ll make a transcript when you’re finished here today. You seem pretty well-settled already, so I’ll leave organising this place up to you. You know how to use a tape recorder, right?
CHIHIRO
I do. I presume we have to use these because the computers sometimes react… negatively to the statements?
HINAO
Only sometimes, but we like to be consistent. It was Mr. Azami’s idea to make these tape recordings for posterity. Typewriters aren’t exactly en vogue anymore.
CHIHIRO
Understood. I’ll get started now.
HINAO
Nice! Oh— also, you might sometimes see a little kid running around here. I don’t know if you’ll remember her but—
CHIHIRO
Char, right? The Kyonagi? I remember her. Me and Mr. Shiba were there for her rescue from Kaburato Castle. I think Mr. Shiba took a statement from her back then, too. It’ll be in here somewhere.
HINAO
I don’t think I’ve ever read it. If you find it, let me know. I’ve been looking after her since the rescue, you see. It’s easier to bring her to work than leave her back home, so she might let herself in here to say hello… anyway, I need to get going. I’ll bring you a coffee at about 2pm.
[DOOR CREAKS SHUT]
CHIHIRO
Alright… ah, this thing’s still running? Well, I’ll have to start somewhere...
[PAPERS RUSTLE]
This one doesn’t look too long…
Statement of Machi Kazane, regarding the tragic passing of several work colleagues. Original statement given October 30th, 2025. Audio recording by Rokuhira Chihiro, Head Archivist for the Kamunabi Institute, Tokyo.
Statement begins.
STATEMENT
I never did enjoy work parties. I was a lot younger than my colleagues, you see. They liked to tease me for getting to my position before the age of thirty, and they talked to me like I was a baby. I know they didn’t mean anything by it but… anyway, because I was so much younger than all of them, I always ended up feeling very out of place whenever we went drinking. For almost my entire time employed with them, I was too young to drink for myself, being fresh out of high school, so I was stuck sipping juice while everyone else was downing beers.
I should pull back a bit. When I was nineteen I miraculously got hired to an investigations bureau, where I worked for about seven months. It wasn’t the most exciting thing out there but it sounds cool to anyone who doesn’t know exactly what we did. The police informed us of cases that needed a more delicate, specialised hand, and we were deployed based on our skillset to look into and document evidence that the courts or police could use in the future. I know it sounds like epic, crime noir shit, but most of it was just typing up reports and dealing with pushy cops.
There were six of us in my division, me being the sixth, youngest, and last to join, of course. We were in charge of the more physically dangerous cases that couldn’t yet warrant a swat team. Mr. Hagiwara and Mr. Kugara covered violent crime, Ms. Harima usually dealt with domestic disputes, Mr. Uzuki was in charge of tracing drug and contraband trafficking rings, and Mr. Kasahara handled human trafficking. As for me? I was placed in charge of crimes that could endanger civilians. Terrorist plots and the like. Most of the time, the tips I received from the police would end up with more than a few arrests. Again, someone as young as me really shouldn’t have been in that position, but I guess the adults around me had that much faith that I could do my job well, so I rolled my eyes at their teasing like a stupid, edgy teenager, and went about my work.
As you’ve probably surmised by now, we would often go out for drinks after work. Once a week, in fact. It was a sort of ritual for the division, and Mr. Hagiwara especially was fond of building team spirit. At first I would just sit awkwardly at the edge of the table, half-listening to the others spouting the same boring stories about their lives outside of the workplace. After a few months though, I did find myself able to sit a bit closer to them, and for as much as I still disliked the atmosphere and pretending that Mr. Kugara was funny, I guess I did gradually start to get used to these weekly nights out.
But then I turned twenty… I know it makes me sound like a total wuss, but I’d never tried alcohol before then. It wasn’t like I’d made the conscious effort to wait until I was old enough to drink legally. The thought of it had just always repulsed me somehow. Not from a goody-two-shoes perspective — it was more like when you just know you’ll dislike a food even though you’ve never tried it before. That’s what it was. There was something in my gut telling me that drinking wasn’t a good idea.
I should’ve just listened to my gut. Yes, it wouldn’t have changed a thing that ended up happening, but maybe I’d feel less angry and guilty about it today if I hadn’t— I don’t know…
I was old enough to drink, and Mr. Kugara was making fun of me for never having tried beer. We also had an interesting job coming up the next day — a case that the entire division had been commissioned to investigate. Something to do with a weapons dealer. I think his name was Sojo Genichi? I don’t really remember, only because we never had the chance to get close to him… but the night before, we went out for our usual evening at the bar down the street from our office.
Obviously, it’s bad to coerce someone into drinking, and my colleagues all knew that, but I wouldn’t say there was no peer pressure involved in me taking my first sip. Ms. Harima tried to reassure me that I didn’t have to, but you know how guys can be, joshing and prodding you until you do whatever they want you to. So I eventually relented to the guys’ pushing and… it was strange. I hesitate to call it bad, because I truly didn’t feel bad in the moment, only afterwards. But after finishing my first glass, asking for another, and finishing that as well, my brain was already starting to get that buzz — the telltale sign of tipsiness. I guess I was just a lightweight. It didn’t take much more than that before I was completely drunk.
And for about an hour, everything was fine. It was easier to talk to my colleagues. It was nowhere near as stressful as it’d once been, less awkward too. I think for the first time since joining the bureau, I could say I was a true, genuine part of that group, not just the new kid shunted to the sidelines, or being forced along to a social event. We talked, we laughed, we drank some more…
But then I saw the hands.
Well, not so much hands as they were… corpses… grey, sunken hands. Large, monstrous, twisting, and somehow damp and slimy-looking, as if there were chunks of flesh rotting off the bones beneath. There were four of them, at least I think there were four. There had to be, considering they were hovering around the necks of... the four of them. My colleagues, Ms. Harima, Mr. Kugara, Mr. Uzaki, and Mr. Kasahara, floating as if meaning to seize them at any second and squeeze the life out of them.
I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at, let alone how to respond. All I could do was stare, frozen, as those horrific, ghostly hands remained where they were, not quite ready to attack. I remember thinking in that moment that I must be experiencing some sort of first-time, alcohol-induced hallucination, even though I’d never heard of such a thing existing. I… I don’t think I was hallucinating. I know it sounds crazy but I know what I saw. Those hands were real, even if no one else was acknowledging them. But at the time, even I myself didn’t think that what I was looking at could possibly exist, and knowing the others, they would either tease me for being such a lightweight or insist on calling an ambulance, throwing the next day’s plans into disarray in my absence, so I kept my mouth shut and tried my best to ignore those disgusting corpses as the night went on. By the time we were all leaving, I couldn’t bear to look directly at anyone except Mr. Hagiwara, since he didn’t have a hand around his neck. Only him. And then he was the only one who…
I’m sure you’ll know the rest of the story. Forgive me for struggling to recount it — it’s still so fresh in my mind. The next morning, we arrived at the rendezvous point for our investigation. It was a foggy dawn near Uraga Dock, so much so that I could barely see a few feet ahead. The air was cold, not freezing but still uncomfortable, and I was distinctly looking forward to getting out of that place once we were done with the job. We were supposed to have been tailing that Sojo guy I mentioned, with plans to intercept an arms deal and stall for time so the police could show up. It was meant to be pretty hands-off outside of preventing anyone from leaving the scene.
That isn’t what ended up happening. I hate, truly hate, that the combination of the fog and my first-time hangover prevented me from understanding what was going on. One moment we were all there, waiting, ready to do our jobs, the next I was lying sprawled on the wet concrete, pain erupting in my right side, my right arm completely missing. There were no screams or sounds of struggle from anyone else, let alone the ability to see any of them. It was as if everything were being swallowed up in that awful, silencing fog, as if it were drowning out the entire world around me.
The pain was the worst part of it. Have you ever— no, that’s a stupid question, of course you’ve never had a limb ripped off. The fact that I don’t even know how it happened makes it so much worse. My arm was there one second, gone the next. It burned as if I had dipped my entire right side in acid… or at least, I think that’s what it felt like. The agonising pain and the gross, cold air and the sinking feeling that I was utterly alone as I was about to die was completely, utterly crushing. And then...
... I was in the hospital. Apparently when the paramedics found me I was passed out and on death’s door, probably from blood loss or the pain, maybe both. Everyone in my division except for Mr. Hagiwara was dead. You remember the news reports, don’t you? It seemed to be all anyone could talk about for days. I hated it. I hated everything that was happening. I hated myself. And the entire time, all I could think was that the night before, those ghostly corpse hands had been hovering so close to my colleagues’s throats, as if telling me their time was coming.
What if I’d told them? What if I’d messed up the plans and we’d thought up a new strategy? Me telling them probably wouldn’t have done anything, I get that, but something wasn’t normal about the way they all died. It wasn’t just typical gang violence. I’d seen plenty of that already, more than any twenty-year-old should’ve been exposed to. No, this was different. It was so much more dangerous, and that fog was so thick, it was as if it were trying to hide the evidence of their murders. And yet, the bureau ruled the entire thing as a mere unfortunate consequence of the line of work, as if it were an everyday occurrence, and they went about their business like nothing had changed.
I quit the bureau after that. I just couldn’t carry on in a place where everyone could go on living as if everything were the same as before. And of course I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since. I don’t think I could bring myself to, not without panicking. I didn’t tell anyone about the corpse hands, mostly just because they would probably send me to a psychiatrist to get me checked for PTSD and schizophrenia. But I know what I saw that night at the bar. I know their deaths weren’t normal. I think that’s why I came here, to tell you. I mean, you guys aren’t exactly known for being concerned with concrete evidence. I don’t know, maybe this is just me trying to get the guilt off my chest? If there’s anything you can do with my story, please use it. I can’t bear the thought of others having to experience what happened to me.
Also, thank you for writing this down for me. I’m still not quite used to writing with my left hand. My prosthetic is okay, but the lack of wrist movement has made writing with it rather difficult.
CHIHIRO
Statement ends.
Well, just from reading this, I think it would be safe to say that Mr. Machi was experiencing an acute symptom of PTSD. I do remember the case he’s speaking about from the news, and it was attributed to yakuza activity at the time. Sojo Genichi is a well-known weapons dealer in the criminal underworld, still at large to this day, so it would make sense that he took a high-calibre defence team with him on the day of the killings. I’m sure Mr. Machi’s guilt from losing almost his entire division at once was very taxing on his psyche, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the story of the corpse hands was just his mind inventing some way to deal with the trauma. I’m not a psychiatrist though, so I can’t make any concrete claims about his mental health.
I do sympathise with him though. Dad’s death was also ruled as a normal, unfortunate consequence, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that.
It looks like Hakuri has already done a follow-up for this statement… It seems as though Mr. Machi did indeed eventually see a psychiatrist, who did diagnose him with C-PTSD, and the corpse hands have been attributed to his mind conflating the previous night’s drinking with the loss of his arm and the deaths of his colleagues. Mr. Machi himself was willing to comment and has stated that he still believes there’s more to the deaths, but he’s no longer willing to discuss anything with paranormal investigators from this point onwards.
All of this would lead me to consider the case discredited, but I do find one thing interesting — Hakuri checked the weather report logs for the morning of the attack, and while it was a cool morning with fairly high humidity, there’s no report of there being any fog in Tokyo Bay at the time of the attack. It could just be that Mr. Machi was remembering wrong, but his insistence that he couldn’t even see or hear his colleagues being killed through the fog is making me consider that perhaps something else is going on…
For now, this case will remain inconclusive. As such, it can go over—
[DOOR CREAKS OPEN]
HAKURI
Hinao asked me to— oh? You’re recording? Want me to come back later?
CHIHIRO
No no, it’s fine, I was just finishing up. Is that my coffee?
HAKURI
Y-yeah. Hinao asked me to bring it to you.
[CUP CLINKS ON TABLE]
Hey, Chihiro?
CHIHIRO
Yes?
HAKURI
Thank you for letting me stay here… Working with you, I mean. You asked for me to be moved to this department when you first heard you might be transferred here yourself, didn’t you? So if there’s anything I can do to be useful, just ask.
CHIHIRO
Of course. You’re a valuable person here, never forget that. In fact, it was your follow-up I just looked at from the Machi Kazane case.
HAKURI
Really? Do you think it’s a genuine encounter?
CHIHIRO
Hard to say. Whatever the truth is, the man doesn’t want us investigating him any further, so getting more information about it won’t be possible unless we want a restraining order on our hands. For now, I think I'll continue making my way through the statements in these files. I’ll probably need your help with some more follow-ups soon.
HAKURI
I’ll do whatever I can to help. Just say the word, Samurai!
CHIHIRO
Still keeping up with that nickname?… Thank you, Hakuri. You're already such a big help.
HAKURI
Don't mention it. Anything for you! I mean— anything for the archives, as in anything to help you do what you need to do here in the archives, like — just shout if you need anything.
[DOOR CREAKS SHUT QUICKLY]
CHIHIRO
It’s good that he's settling in. The archives seem like his natural habitat far more than anything he was doing upstairs. And he will be useful. Hinao too. I’m going to need all the help I can get if I’m to have a hope of organising this mess. I might contact Mr. Shiba if things get particularly dire. Mr. Azami’s too busy for extended consulting. For now, I’ll start with the most recent statements I can find and work backwards from there, although given the complete lack of an archiving system, some earlier cases might get mixed in by accident.
Anyway, this case can go into my newly-appointed Inconclusive Section. I imagine the Discredited Section will look a lot bigger by the time I’m done, though. If I do find anything that might relate to Dad… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
End recording.
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