Occultic;Nine: Volume 1 Read online

  Ryotasu tilted her head in confusion as she checked the time on the cuckoo clock on the wall. The little hand was past the four.

  “You didn’t eat lunch?”

  “I didn’t eat lunch, and I didn’t eat breakfast either.”

  Mom had been out working and wasn’t there when I woke up again. My mom’s job didn’t really give her days off.

  “Oh, but you don’t really eat a lot, do you, Gamota? Are you just one of those boys who doesn’t eat?”

  I could hear Master Izumin’s sarcastic voice from behind the counter. I activated my “ignore” skill to completely shut out the sound of his voice.

  “Gamotan, Gamotan! If you only eat one meal a day you’ll get fat, like a sumo wrestler. Plumpy and dumpy! ☆”

  “NEETs are either super-thin, or super-fat. I’m the former, so I’ll be fine.”

  “I see! ☆”

  Ryotasu brought her face up so close that I thought she might be trying to head-butt me. Her eyes were shining as she looked in mine.

  “Y-You’re too close.” What was so interesting about what I just said, anyway? I didn’t understand why Ryotasu found that impressive. It was a mystery.

  I waited, but Ryotasu refused to move her face away. So I looked down, awkwardly.

  I saw my bag near my feet. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a bag. It was a laptop case with a built-in shoulder strap. I’d made it myself.

  My Zonko strap, from MMM (Master Must Murder), shook as I lifted it up, and put it on my lap.

  Yup. So cute.

  Inside the case was my BCL (Broadcast Listener) radio, which I always kept with me. This was a powerful radio that let me listen to international shortwave broadcasts. It was a model called a Skysensor. I didn’t come up with that. I would’ve come up with a less geeky name. That was just the name of the product.

  Dad had given it to me when he was still alive. It was quite an antique since it had been manufactured in 1975. But I thought it had a sleek, modern design that didn’t really look old at all.

  You didn’t have to be a radio hobbyist to love this design. Any kid would love it. In fact, it had been popular with both kids and adults. I felt like I knew why.

  Its body was the size of a large bento box, and heavy. Its main tuning dial and bandspread dials were big and sturdy, like the dials on a safe at the bank. The frequency panel had the numbers carved into it. There were switches to move between AM and FM, and to turn the device on and off.

  It was fun just to play with the dials and switches, even if you weren’t actually doing anything.

  Ryotasu was watching me as I moved my hands. She was so close I could almost feel her breath.

  I turned on the power switch. White noise came out of the speaker.

  --PWWEEEWWW-----BZZT

  Just listening to the sound of the white noise made me feel nostalgic, and kind of special.

  I spun the dial at random.

  —Don’t look at the saved settings. Don’t rely on your ears, either. Just feel it with your hands.

  That’s what Dad taught me, I think. The sound coming out of the speakers was constantly changing, and you could actually feel it in the tips of your fingers as you touched the dial. That was one of the unique things about radios that used gears instead of threading to connect the dials on the outside to the rest of the machine.

  I’d been raised in a single-parent household, by my mom. My dad had died from an illness seven years ago. He was a radio DJ. Not a famous one. He had a mini-FM radio station in Kichijoji, and he had a day job where he was just a normal salaryman. He’d started the mini-FM station as a hobby.

  The station was just something he’d done on his own, and he didn’t even have anything you could call “programs.” It was mostly unimportant local information, like local news and the specials the local restaurants were running. But he would tell me with pride that his “Music for Kichijoji” show was actually kind of popular.

  And so I’d taken after my dad. In an age when every other kid was on the internet, I’d gotten into radio.

  The Skysensor my dad had given me was my treasure. I remember when I used to sit right outside during his broadcasts and listen on it.

  I was the only regular listener he had.

  I could hear his voice come out of the speaker a moment after he spoke. I always sat just close enough that if I listened carefully, I could hear his actual voice. It made me feel special, like I had my own seat to the show that no one else had.

  —If I ever die, I’m going to turn into a ghost DJ, and use my radio to say, "Yuta! Come out and play!" from the spirit world. Remember that. Make sure you keep tuning in and listening.

  Dad used to always say that when he was alive.

  When I was a kid, it scared me, but I believed him. I never thought I’d see the day when he actually died, though. When he died, I kept searching for his voice. But a week passed, and then a month, and then a year, and I never found it.

  And then I finally understood.

  The reason that Dad never spoke to me from the radio was—

  In this world, there were no such things as ghosts.

  So why was I still carrying this thing around with me, all these years later?

  “I’m hungry. Let’s have some suta-don today.”

  ‘”You mean like every day?”

  “Garlic-soy suta-don with extra meat is the greatest thing in the world.”

  “If you eat nothing but meat, you won’t get enough nutrients, you know.”

  “There’s nutrients in meat.”

  “Poya? In the Narusawa household, if you don’t eat a balanced diet they get mad at you. Buh.”

  Ryotasu puffed out her cheeks like a chipmunk. She was way too old to be doing that. But it was cute, so I would allow it. From a boy’s perspective, it didn’t matter if she really meant it, or if she was just putting on an act.

  I put the Skysensor and my laptop in the case, and then stood up to go.

  “Master Izumin, put the bill on my tab.” I’d had nothing but water from the faucet, so there wasn’t going to be a bill or a tab, though.

  I left the café and went down to the station to get my suta-don to go, and then sat down on a bench in Kichijoji Park. It was a tiny little park right behind the Kichijoji Theater. There was nothing there but a colorful slide for children and several benches.

  “Why do you always come here, as opposed to Inokashira Park?”

  “A real otaku always chooses the minority over the majority.”

  Inokashira Park just had too many people. And on a weekend like today it was swarming with people who weren’t even locals. There were families, couples, middle-aged joggers, old couples with dogs, girls sitting on benches and reading to try and show off their subculture cred, street performers, roadside stalls, drunks wasted on One Cup Ozeki in the middle of the day, kids running around screaming, and more. There were so many people around that it was impossible to sense the minute changes in the Skysensor.

  But here in my home base of Kichijoji Park, it was always quiet. It was my secret hideout, you could say. There was usually nobody here but us, and today was no exception.

  “So there’s this Japanese-language broadcast called ‘A Message from the Andes.’ That’s our target for today.”

  Once I’d finished my suta-don, I took out the Skysensor again and started to explain to Ryotasu how it worked. Well, today wasn’t exactly the first time I’d tried. Ryotasu was the type of girl who just didn’t listen.

  “If you’re able to listen to their broadcast, you can send them a listener’s report. And they’ll send you this super-rare QSL card. QSL cards are way rarer than trading cards, you know. Honestly, at this time of day, we should be able to hear it.”

  “Bwhom gwihbs ywo tewh cwaado?”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  Ryotasu chewed her food for a while, and then swallowed it down. “Who gives you the card?”

  “The radio station, obviously.”

/>   “Can you pick up radio all the way from the Andes?”

  “Well, we’re going to try and find out.”

  The winter sky was the color of twilight thinned with water. Compared to the noise around the station, this area was very quiet. Even Kichijoji turned into a quiet residential neighborhood once you got ten minutes away from the station.

  I twiddled the Skysensor’s dials as I stared vaguely at Ryotasu’s heaving breasts.

  I listened to the sounds of the meaningless white noise coming from the radio, and the meaningless songs that Ryotasu sang as she danced around.

  This might be my favorite part of the day.

  It was like this place wasn’t real.

  Come to think of it, wasn’t this where I’d first met Ryotasu?

  It was on a summer’s day about six months ago.

  I’d been sitting on the bench alone, just like I was doing today. And then suddenly, without warning, she’d appeared on the slide.

  “I’m your servant familiar, Gamotan!”

  And from that day on, Ryotasu was my servant familiar. She didn’t do anything particularly familiar-ish. In fact, she didn’t even help with Kirikiri Basara. No enemies came for her to fight off with her Poyaya Gun.

  I still hadn’t quite figured out what had happened with that strange meeting.

  The one thing I knew for sure was that Ryotasu was cute. She was cute, and that was enough. Who cares about the rest of it? But since I’d remembered, I thought I may as well ask. I tried to make the question sound as natural as I could.

  “Hey, Ryotasu. The first time we met, did you fall from the sky?”

  “Ssh!” It happened without warning.

  Ryotasu put her finger up to her lips and looked at me sharply.

  “Wh-What...?”

  Ryotasu slid down the slide and ran over to the bench I was sitting on.

  She knelt down right in front of the Skysensor on the bench next to me, and stared right at my Zonko strap.

  No, she was listening to the speaker, not staring at the strap.

  The expression on her face wasn’t the usual dopey smile. She looked extremely serious.

  “—ordered our government to communicate to... China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire... provisions of their Joint Declaration...”

  I thought I could hear the voice of a man through the noise, speaking in a detached and dispassionate tone.

  I quickly grabbed the volume knob and turned it up. With my other hand, I adjusted the tuner at nanometer increments. (Okay, not really.)

  The voice gradually became clearer and more understandable.

  “—an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation... lead to the total extinction of human civilization.”

  “This is...”

  “The Jewel Voice Broadcast,” Ryotasu said.

  It was the broadcast from Emperor Hirohito that had brought an end to the last war Japan had ever fought.

  “But why?”

  Ryotasu ignored me and suddenly stood up.

  “Your radio really is amazing, Gamotan. I knew it!” She smiled and left the park, leaving me behind.

  Amazing how? And what did she mean by “I knew it”?

  “And why did you just leave me here?!”

  The Jewel Voice Broadcast happened over 50 years ago. Why did my radio pick it up now?

  I sat there at the park for another half hour, completely confused. By the time I got home, the sun had set.

  The sun set early in the winter. Spring was a long way off.

  “Uwah!” When I grabbed the doorknob to unlock the front door, I felt a sharp pain in my hand.

  “More static electricity? Maybe it’s because I got hit with the PYG today.” I actually heard a crackling sound, so it must have been pretty bad. I don’t know if my body just naturally built up electricity, but this happened a lot. It would be cool if I could use it as some kind of electrical attack. Every kid wants to be able to shoot fire or electricity from their hands, and maybe I could use it to fight back against Ryotasu’s PYG.

  I grabbed the knob (it still stung a little) and opened the door.

  “I’m home!” I shouted into the empty room. Of course, there was no answer.

  I turned on the light switch, but my mom wasn’t there. She was probably still at work.

  Mom had gotten a job after Dad died. She was raising me all by herself. Sometimes during busy times she would be gone when I got up in the morning and not get back until late at night.

  I turned on the oil stove in the living room, shivering from the cold. I’d been talking with Ryotasu so long outside that my body felt like it was frozen solid.

  “It’s so cold...” I lived in a condo three minutes’ walk from the Seimei Street intersection.

  The red brick facade outside gave a clue to age of the building. It was 35 years old. Of course, there were no floor heaters, air conditioners, or anything like that.

  I took my laptop out of the case and powered it on while I waited for the room to warm up. A laptop computer could be just as hot as your average pocket warmer, after all.

  I suddenly remembered that Woodberrys place that Ryotasu had mentioned, and decided to look it up. I was primarily interested in how expensive it was.

  “Hmm... a small is 320 yen. A medium is 390, and a double is 530 yen. That’s even cheaper than a suta-don. Of course, the great thing about a suta-don is the absolutely crazy portion size. The name means ‘stamina bowl,’ after all.”

  If it was this cheap, I could take Ryotasu there, no problem. She really seemed to want it, after all. She was the rare 3D girl who actually hung out with me. I needed to treat her every once in a while. I wanted to make her happy. And I wanted to see her smile. If she was smiling at me, that made me happier than anything in the world.

  “Wow! I’m thinking like a normie! That’s disgusting! It’s making my skin crawl! But I kind of feel like a grown-up.”

  I rubbed my arm and decided to check out the comments on Kirikiri Basara. As the site admin, I wanted to be able to look at it at least 5 times a day. On school days I often didn’t get the chance, though.

  “All right, did I get some more comments?” Like always, I started by checking the top comments on the most recent article.

  “Sarai... hasn’t commented yet, huh? Slacker.” As I mumbled to myself, I saw a comment from an IP address that I didn’t recognize.

  Check Out This Super-Sexy Genius Fortune-Teller with a 99% Accuracy Rate!!

  http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv13448XXXX?ref=rtrec&zroute=recent&tab=live&sort=view_counter&order=desc&tags=

  “Did he say... Super-Sexy?” It had nothing to do with the article, but I was still interested. Kirikiri Basara sometimes dealt with light occult stuff like fortune-telling, right?

  “No, no, wait. Wait. Don’t be fooled. How many times have you seen the words ‘super-sexy’ on the internet? She’s just an amateur. Compared to an idol or an actress, let alone a 2D character, she probably isn’t that great. The bar for ‘super-sexy’ is really high.” I had to be careful.

  And there was a good chance that the link might lead to something nasty. It could just be a spam link to a porn site too

  “Wait a second. Isn’t this address...”

  It was an address that I recognized.

  This was a link to a Niconico livestream. Every NEET knew about those. Hell, even people who weren’t NEETs knew.

  “Hmm... It’s suspicious. It’s extremely suspicious. I feel like if I click on this, I’ll be admitting defeat.”

  But... if she really was super-sexy, it would be a good article for Kirikiri Basara.

  What to do?

  “Well, whatever. I’ve got anti-virus installed. A free one, though.” I decided to give it a click.

  Actually, I was really excited to discover where it led. Super-Sexy Genius Fortune-Teller, here we come!

  When I clicked on the link, the familiar layout of a Niconico livestream appeared on my screen.

&nb
sp; Let’s see... What’s the name?

  “Myu’s Nicco-Nico Live Fortune-Telling. ☆” Was Myu the streamer’s name?

  “Oh, looks like it’s just about to start.”

  The screen had just switched to a live camera.

  It was a dimly lit room, with the back wall covered in a black curtain.

  A girl came into the frame from the left, and sat down in a chair in front of the camera. The screen showed her from the chest up.

  She looked to be about my age, maybe? She was pretty cute. She was wearing a combination of a hoodie and a blazer. It made her look like a modern fortune-teller.

  She smiled a little and waved at me— that is, at the camera.

  “Sometimes I’m right, and sometimes I’m wrong! Believe, and be saved! Or maybe not?” She spoke in a high-pitched voice, like an anime character.

  Her eyes narrowed on the other side of the screen. And then—

  My heart skipped a beat as her voice became a hushed whisper.

  “Show me your vision.”

  site 02: Isayuki Hashigami

  Thursday, February 11th

  The light shone down from several directions. It had been carefully adjusted to not be too bright, but there was nothing they could do about the heat.

  I sat in a corner of an elaborately decorated set, feeling the sweltering heat as I quietly began to speak.

  “To scientifically prove the existence of ghosts!”

  A TV studio is a very special space. It’s a world of dreams, but also a world of fakery. It’s both of these things at the same time.

  All you had to do was look in a slightly different direction, and you’d see a whole different world. The boundaries were clearly drawn.

  There was a huge difference in the world you saw looking in on the set and world you saw looking out. That difference sometimes felt deep and profound.

  “Will it make me the greatest fool of the century, or will I become a 21st century Galileo?”

  A whole row of celebrities, fellow university professors, and psychics were listening to me.

  “Either way, I think it’s a scientist’s duty to give it a try.”

  I’d been spending a lot more time on TV over the past year. It had all started when they’d asked me to do a little commentary about the supernatural on a variety show. The viewers seemed to have taken a liking to me, and ever since then, I’d been asked to appear on a lot of different programs.