Chapter 273: The Mystery of the Vortex
To Shuichi's mother's horror, the centipede coiled its long body and transformed into... the same twisted vortex pattern as Shuichi's father before, and a human face that resembled his appeared on it!
This horrifying scene, not to mention Shuichi's mother, even Kenji Tanaka, who was reading the manga, felt his heart stop for an instant!
What the hell is this?
Shuichi's father must have been affected by something unclean at that moment, and he turned into that kind of impure thing after his death!
"Hey! Wife!"
Shuichi's father's distorted face uttered spooky words, "You will soon become a vortex...".
"No! I don't want to!" shouted Shuichi's mother in horror.
However, Shuichi's father's fierce gaze reappeared in the manga, repeating over and over, "Why do you hate vortices so much? You already have one in your body!".
Faced with Shuichi's mother's absolute terror, her twisted father repeated:
"Ah... I want to enter your ear...".
"I want to enter your ear...".
"Deep inside your ear...".
With this extreme fear, Shuichi's mother's mental state deteriorated again.
She also wondered why her father had said that she had a vortex in her body and that he wanted to enter her ear.
The next day, due to her nervous breakdown the previous night, Kirie accompanied Shuichi to see her again.
Meanwhile, Shuichi's mother asked the nurse who came to take her temperature, "Nurse, may I ask...".
"What is deep inside the human ear?".
"Deep inside the ear... isn't there a vortex?".
Shuichi and Kirie exchanged apprehensive glances, but luckily, the nurse knew not to tell Shuichi's mother about the cochlear implant.
Given her mother's mental state, she would undoubtedly have gone mad and self-harmed.
However, Shuichi's mother said in disbelief, "Really...?".
She got up and ran to the dean's office, where the human anatomy diagrams were, despite Shuichi's efforts to stop her.
But Shuichi's mother, tormented by illness, somehow unleashed a wave of strength.
Shuichi couldn't stop her, but she reached the dean's office...
The human anatomy diagrams that originally hung on the wall had long been removed at Shuichi's suggestion.
Unconvinced, Shuichi's mother continued to search the shelves behind the dean's office, trying to find the human anatomy diagrams, the "hole in the ear" that Shuichi's father had mentioned.
But she still couldn't find it.
"The doctor said it was gone. Mom, you're very rude," said Shuichi, crouching in front of his mother.
He felt relieved to have already told the dean to remove everything related to the anatomical diagrams of the human head.
"But... Shuichi," said Shuichi's mother with bloodshot eyes. "Your father said last night... that I feel a whirlpool in my ear."
"Dad is dead!" exclaimed Shuichi quickly. "You were dreaming!".
But after what happened at the crematorium that day, he wasn't sure that his father... even dead, wouldn't turn into something impure.
But Shuichi finally convinced his mother and returned to the hospital room to rest.
Kenji Tanaka watched as the situation became more and more horrifying, and his anxiety intensified.
"Why haven't they left yet?" he asked, bewildered. "If they go to another hospital, they should be able to escape this horrible and strange thing."
If he had been in this situation, he would have fled on the first day.
The inhabitants of this small town were also mentally strong. They hadn't even left Kurozu Town, a place so obviously full of strangeness.
Wasn't it inevitable that something bad would happen? But just as Kenji Tanaka was thinking this, something unexpected happened.
The nurse connected the IV to Shuichi's mother and said, "Ma'am, this is your last IV."
"The director said they will transfer you to a hospital in Midoriyama Town tomorrow. Please rest well tonight."
Kenji Tanaka, however, felt some unease. "Wait... even if we are being transferred, nothing will prevent Shuichi's mother from leaving, right?".
Sure enough, after the nurse left the room, a vortex suddenly appeared in the IV bottle next to Shuichi's mother's bed! "No... no...".
Shuichi's mother noticed the sudden vortex, and just then, the terrifying face of Shuichi's father reappeared. "No!".
Inside the vortex, a ghostly being, like Shuichi's father, looked at her and said slowly, "There is a vortex... in your... ear...!".
These words terrified her.
She tore the IV needle from her arm and, frightened, threw the bottle, which fell to the floor and shattered.
However... the long IV tube swirled on the floor, forming a new vortex.
At that moment... Shuichi's father's frantic voice reached him, still uttering gibberish. This time, however, it was not the voice Kenji Tanaka had imagined, the voice coming from the new vortex on the floor that had transformed into Shuichi's father's face.
Instead, it came from Shuichi's mother's ears! "There's a vortex in your ear..." the chilling voice echoed in Shuichi's mother's tightly covered ears.
"It's his voice..." exclaimed Shuichi's mother in horror. "I heard his voice... He got into my ear! He got into the vortex in my ear!"
Terrified, she looked at the bedside table next to the bed.
"No... no!" she screamed, taking out a pair of sharp scissors. "I have to get it out!"
"Ugh... ugh..."
Driven mad by the voice of Shuichi's father, Shuichi's mother, frantic and desperate, stabbed the scissors into her ear.
A scream broke the silence of the hospital. "Ahhhhhhhhh!".
After this, Shuichi's mother's fear of the vortex intensified, and her self-harm became more frequent.
However, by piercing her cochlea with scissors, she not only lost her hearing but also affected her ability to maintain balance, which caused her intense dizziness.
"No...! Ah, my body won't stop spinning!".
"No! I don't want to become a vortex!".
In the end, she was completely bandaged and died... from self-harm.
Meanwhile, on the day of her cremation, the black smoke vortex reappeared over Kurozu Town.
Kenji Tanaka felt a tingling in his scalp, but compared to the fear he felt in the first episode, the second was less intense.
He was simply more curious to know what was causing the strange phenomena in Kurozu Town. So he continued reading.
Episode 3 - "Scars."
The third episode did not begin with Shuichi and Kirie, but with Asuka, a beautiful new transfer student at Kurozu High School.
"The protagonist... is quite careless. After witnessing the tragedy that struck Shuichi's family, she doesn't even plan to leave?" said Kenji Tanaka with some emotion.
Perhaps it's because Kirie is just a high school student, at an age where everything depends on her family. If her parents don't agree to move, could she leave alone?
But if it were Kenji Tanaka, he would have undoubtedly run away on his own.
He could understand why the protagonist, Kirie, didn't want to leave Heiwo.
The hero, Shuichi, seemed to have completely disappeared, and Kenji Tanaka speculated that Shuichi might have run away alone.
After all, Shuichi is the only one left in the Shuichi family. He witnessed such a horrible event; if he wasn't terrified, he would surely have fled. The plot of the third episode, "Scars," revolves around Asuka and Kirie.
Asuka is beautiful and comes from a big city, which makes her incredibly popular.
Men at school, and even outside of it, offer her love letters and confess their feelings.
Although Asuka firmly rejects them each time, she also receives criticism from the other girls.
One day,
"Kirie, are you still with Asuka?" a girl asks Kirie during gym class.
"Yes..." replies Kirie, somewhat bewildered.
"I advise you not to be with her anymore," the girl continued.
"Why?"
"I've heard she has a bad reputation. She uses her beauty to seduce many boys, who then become desperate and leave them."
"Yes, yes. I've heard she has an incredible power."
The girls, one by one, reveal Asuka's secret.
"Yes, it seems the power that attracts boys resides in her head."
"She has a scar on her forehead, but her bangs cover it. That scar is the source of her mysterious power."
Finally, the girls told Kirie, "Be careful not to lose your boyfriend."
For them, Kirie and Shuichi had always been a couple.
After gym class, Kirie, curious, noticed that Asuka had a crescent-shaped scar on her forehead as she washed her face and pushed back her bangs.
"What's wrong, Kirie?"
Asuka noticed Kirie's gaze and turned to ask her with a smile, "Are you looking at this scar?".
"They were talking about my scar, right? It's very funny... Don't believe it," said Kirie. "Ah... of course not."
Seeing this, Asuka had no choice but to explain the origin of her scar. "When I was little, I fell in love with a boy. To get his attention, I imitated tightrope walking and fell, and that's how I got this scar."
"Maybe it was because of the injury, but we ended up being very close," she said. But she couldn't help it and continued, "Sometimes I think... that this scar has the power to attract the boy I like."
"In fact, my love life would undoubtedly triumph later on..." she said with a smile. "But it was pure coincidence. How could I have that power?".
On their way home from school, Asuka and Kirie suddenly talked about Shuichi.
It turned out that Shuichi had not left Kurozu Town, but had been hiding at home for a long time without going to school.
Asuka was very curious about Shuichi and asked Kirie to take her to meet him.
Kirie couldn't resist and took Asuka to meet him.
"Come up."
Shuichi appeared again, but now he looked very gaunt.
It was unknown if it was because of the shock from the successive and mysterious deaths of his parents, or because... he was also affected by Shuichi's father's ghost.
"Shuichi, this is my classmate, Asuka."
Kirie introduced Shuichi.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Asuka."
Asuka smiled and introduced herself.
"Hello..."
Shuichi was about to shake Asuka's hand to show his friendship, but at that moment... he looked at Asuka's beautiful face and a gap opened in his dense bangs.
"Uh..."
He immediately backed away.
"Shuichi, what's wrong?" asked Kirie with curiosity.
"You... you go back!" exclaimed Shuichi, horrified. "Go back quickly!".
He pointed at Asuka and shouted rudely, "Don't come back!".
In the end, they had no other choice, so Asuka and Kirie left Shuichi's house.
However, on their way home, Asuka ignored Kirie's apologies and explanations, saying with some strangeness, "It's okay, I don't mind, and he's... handsome."
"But she was pale and didn't say a word until we said goodbye," echoed in his mind.
However, Shuichi's strange behavior today prompted Kirie to call him upon returning home.
"Hello, Shuichi? It's Kirie," she asked with curiosity. "What's wrong with you today? Why did you behave so badly? Did you scare her that much?".
"Kirie, don't you feel anything?" replied Shuichi sternly. "I think there's something sinister about her. For example, it's a vortex!".
Towards the end of the call, he continued to reprimand Kirie, "All sinister feelings come from vortices. Kirie, it's a vortex! Be careful!".
But just then... Shuichi's doorbell rang.
He opened the door and saw... Asuka standing in front of his door! Shuichi got scared and fell to the floor, asking in horror, "Wow! What are you doing here?".
However, Asuka looked at her lovingly and said, "You're the first person to be so mean to me... what do you hate about me?".
"Go back!" shouted Shuichi with a look of terror. "Get out of here!".
However, Asuka walked towards Shuichi, "No! I won't go back! The boys I met before were kind to me... but... why are you the only one who hates me?".
Kenji Tanaka was stunned for a moment. Did Asuka... fall in love with Shuichi at first sight? However, from Shuichi's perspective, he saw Asuka slowly approaching and felt a vortex appear on her forehead, covered by her bangs.
"What's hiding on your forehead?" shouted Shuichi in horror.
"Forehead?".
Asuka was stunned for a moment, but then she thought about it and said, "Did you hear what Kirie said? The scar on my forehead...".
"No, that's not a scar!".
Shuichi continued in horror, "It's a vortex! I feel a vortex!"
"What are you talking about? It's a crescent-shaped scar..."
Asuka said, "Thanks to this scar, I have many boys chasing me... Look!"
But when she pushed back her bangs, the crescent-shaped scar on her forehead had turned into... a vortex!
- - - - - -
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