Free Web NovelChapter 71: That Umbral
Streetlights cast moving shadows across the pavement as block after block passed beneath his feet.
Anyone looking from a distance would have seen nothing unusual. The coat was correct. The pace was correct.
The silhouette belonged to Fujino.
The details were wrong.
Each step landed with the same force. Each stride covered the same distance. The countless unconscious variations that accompanied ordinary movement had vanished.
Four blocks later the body stopped before a high stone wall surrounding a private residence.
Its gaze settled on the gate for several seconds before shifting toward the wall itself.
Then it began to climb. fгeewebnovёl.com
The hands found narrow cracks hidden within the stonework.
The feet followed immediately after.
The ascent unfolded with an unsettling certainty, the body moving upward through the darkness without searching for purchase. Each handhold appeared beneath the fingers exactly when it was needed.
A few moments later his body crossed the top of the wall and dropped into the garden beyond.
The landing traveled through his legs and spine.
His knees absorbed the impact.
Then the body stood motionless among the trees.
Its gaze moved slowly across the house.
Window after window.
Floor after floor.
Until it stopped.
Third floor.
Corner room.
A thin line of blue-white light escaped from beneath the curtains.
The body crossed the garden.
Reached the house.
Then began climbing again.
Its hands moved through the mortar joints between the stones while its feet followed behind.
The climb carried it upward with the same unsettling confidence as before until the balcony railing came within reach.
A hand closed around it.
The body pulled itself over.
Its feet settled onto the balcony floor.
The hand reached for the door.
Turned the handle.
Opened it.
And went inside.
.
The room was dark.
A large bed occupied the center of it. A man slept on the far side.
A woman slept on the near side. The curtains were drawn, leaving only a thin strip of blue-white light leaking through the gap and stretching across the floor.
Fujino stood at the foot of the bed.
The man stirred beneath the blankets and opened his eyes.
For a second he looked confused, caught between sleep and waking, then his gaze settled on the figure standing motionless in the darkness.
The confusion vanished instantly.
He jerked upright.
The scream started before he was fully awake.
Fujino moved.
The mattress dropped violently beneath the impact.
The bed frame slammed into the wall hard enough to shake the room. The man threw himself backward in blind panic, dragging blankets and sheets with him as he tried to put distance between himself and the thing standing over him.
There wasn’t any.
The woman woke to the noise.
Her eyes opened to darkness, movement and screaming.
She stared for a fraction of a second without understanding what she was seeing.
Then she saw the figure standing over her husband and watched him struggling desperately to get away.
Her body reacted before her mind did.
She scrambled backward across the mattress, slipped off the edge, hit the floor hard on her hands and knees and threw herself into the corner between the wall and the bedside table.
The screaming started then.
Not words.
Just sound.
Continuous.
Raw.
The man was still fighting.
His hands grabbed at Fujino’s coat.
His feet kicked against the mattress.
He tried to shove himself away, tried to roll off the bed, tried to reach the floor, but every attempt ended the same way.
Fujino caught him and forced him back.
The headboard cracked.
The bedside lamp crashed onto the floor.
One of the drawers tore halfway out of the bedside table when the bed slammed into it.
The room seemed too small to contain the struggle.
The woman pressed herself harder into the corner.
She couldn’t look away.
That was the worst part.
Every instinct told her to close her eyes.
Every instinct told her to run.
Her body refused to move.
The man was crying out now.
Begging.
Promising things.
Saying words she couldn’t process because terror had stripped meaning from them.
Fujino never answered.
His expression never changed.
The thing wearing him carried out its purpose with the same emotion someone might show while walking through a doorway.
The certainty of it was more frightening than the violence itself.
The struggle weakened.
The man’s movements became slower.
Less coordinated.
More desperate.
The room was filled with ragged breathing, broken furniture and the woman’s continuous screaming.
Then the movement stopped.
Silence spread through the room in its place.
The woman remained frozen in the corner.
Fujino stood beside the bed.
His coat hung in torn folds. His hands were marked by what he had done.
For several seconds he simply looked at them.
No satisfaction.
No anger.
No curiosity.
Only the detached attention of something confirming that its task had been completed.
Then his head turned toward the woman.
The scream caught in her throat.
She pressed herself harder against the wall.
For one terrible moment she thought he had finally noticed her.
Then his attention drifted away.
Whatever purpose had brought him here had never involved her.
He turned from the bed, crossed the room and stepped through the open balcony door.
The night air stirred the curtains behind him as he climbed onto the railing and stepped forward without hesitation.
And Jumped.
Three floors below, the impact echoed through the garden.
The sound rolled through the night.
Above, the woman began screaming again.
The dark energy spread outward from the points of impact slowly.
It had no anchor now. The body it had used was beyond repair.
The dark energy thinned at the edges.
Then thinned further.
The fraying became dissolution, piece by piece, the cold of it releasing into the night air and dispersing.
Fujino lay still on the paving stones, bleeding, with his coat spread around him, and the last of the dark energy left him, and was gone.
.
"Do you get it now?"
The Umbral set her spoon down and looked at him across the table.
The restaurant had thinned out. It was late.
Most of the tables stood empty now, the staff moving lazily between the kitchen and the few remaining customers. The lights had been dimmed for the evening.
Three empty plates sat stacked at the edge of the table.
A fourth sat in front of her, half finished.
She had been eating since she arrived.
Kaito was beginning to suspect she could keep going all night. freewebnøvel.coɱ
He looked at her.
Light green hair cut neatly at her jaw.
Pale eyes that reflected light a little differently from everyone else’s.
She sat with an ease that never seemed deliberate.
She simply lacked whatever instinct made people self-conscious.
Her coat lay over the back of her chair.
The top underneath left very little to the imagination whenever she leaned forward over her food, which she did frequently.
She either didn’t notice.
Or didn’t care.
Kaito suspected the second.
He nodded.
"The hospital conducted illegal trials," he said. "Patients were told they were being relocated. They weren’t. The experiments failed. The patients died."
"Mm."
She loaded another spoonful.
"The ghosts were the patients."
"Were?"
"They aren’t people anymore."
There was no cruelty in the statement.
Only certainty.
"I found them before they understood what they had become. I wanted to see what they would do." A small smile appeared. "Whether they would find the people responsible."
She laughed softly.
"I wasn’t expecting three exorcists to show up in the same building."
The smile widened.
"Poor ghosts. They got so close."
Kaito remained silent.
The Umbral pointed her spoon at him.
"So tell me something."
He waited.
"What should have happened to Fujino?"
She leaned forward onto her elbows.
"What should happen to people who do something like that?"
Her eyes remained fixed on him.
"If the ghosts can’t kill them, then who does?"
Kaito picked up his glass.
Drank.
Set it down.
"They shouldn’t die like that."
"Why?"
"Because ghosts aren’t judges."
She tilted her head.
"And humans are?"
"No."
"Then what’s the difference?"
"The spiritual world and the physical world are separate for a reason."
She made a face.
Kaito ignored it.
"If the dead start passing judgment on the living, there isn’t a stopping point. Every grudge becomes a sentence. Every injustice becomes an execution."
"And?"
"And the world is full of injustice."
He looked down at the table.
"There are too many guilty people. Too many selfish people. Too many people who’ve hurt someone and walked away from it."
The Umbral listened quietly.
"For something to clean all of that away," he said, "it would have to destroy half the world."
A small smile tugged at her lips.
"Only half?"
Kaito looked up.
The Umbral pointed her spoon at him again.
"You’re a hypocrite."
He didn’t argue.
Because she wasn’t entirely wrong.
She looked at him for a few seconds longer with that expression on her face.
It wasn’t quite contempt. It wasn’t quite amusement.
Both were there.
Something else sat beneath them, something older that he couldn’t quite identify.
Then she looked down at her plate and resumed eating.
