The cramped office smelled of old paper and the lingering, metallic tang of ozone from the village. Sae sat on a floor cushion, knees drawn to her chest, staring at a crack in the wall. Akari stood by the window, watching the rain begin to fall again.
The drive back from the village had been suffocatingly quiet.
He finally turned, his expression unreadable in the gloom.
"You've been through a lot, Sae," he said, his voice flat. "Your client fee... consider it halved."
Sae looked up, surprised.
"The other half..." He gestured vaguely at the stacks of unfiled papers and the dusty front room. "Well, you'll work as my receptionist. You'll answer the phone, file the cases, and make the tea. If you want."
For the first time since her sister's death, the tension in Sae's face didn't just ease; it broke. A small, watery smile touched her lips. "Yes. Yes, Akari-san. Thank you. I can do that."
Three days passed.
Sae had proven meticulous. The front room was clean, the files were organized, and the kettle was hot. But the phone was silent. The bell above the door hadn't rung.
Akari was losing his mind.
He sat in his back room, glaring at the ceiling where Izan floated, its massive pupil dilated in the dim light. Sae was in the kitchen, washing cups.
"Come on, you cosmic paperweight," Akari hissed at the eyeball, keeping his voice low. "Do something. A little hanky-panky, some of that voodoo. Anything."
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "For fuck's sake, my business never sits idle for three days. Are you scaring them off? Is your 'all-seeing' gaze acting like a spiritual 'Keep Out' sign?"
Izan's only reply was the faint, wet sound of a slow blink.
The door slid open. Akari flinched.
Sae stood there, drying her hands on an apron she'd found. "Um... Akari-san?" She glanced nervously around the empty room, clearly wondering who he'd been talking to.
"What is it, Sae? I was... meditating."
"Right. Well," she said, nodding toward the front. "A visitor... he's here."
Akari shot to his feet, smoothing his coat. 'About time,' he thought, directing a wave of mental gratitude at the ceiling.
A voice, cold as stone, echoed directly inside his skull.
I did nothing, fraud. Your reputation, however tarnished, precedes you.
Akari slid into his professional persona. He walked into the front room, all calm and collected mystery.
A man sat there, his face hollow-eyed and gray with exhaustion. On his lap sat a small boy, perhaps five or six years old, with his head lolled to the side. The boy's eyes were half-open, but they were milky and saw nothing.
"Sae," Akari said smoothly. "Please guide the boy to the... playroom."
Sae, ever the professional, bowed. "Of course." She approached the boy with a gentle smile. "Hello there, what's your—"
She touched the boy's shoulder. He was inert, unresponsive. Sae's smile faltered, and she looked back at Akari, confused and alarmed.
The father broke.
A raw sob tore from his throat. "He can't hear you! He can't hear anything!" He clutched the boy, tears streaming down his face. "I can't take it anymore. She is torturing him. She's torturing his soul, over and over!"
"Calm down," Akari said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the panic. He sat opposite the man. "Start from the beginning. Who is 'she'?"
The father scrubbed at his eyes. "My wife. His... his mother."
He took a ragged breath. "It was two years ago. I had a dream. I was in a forest, and there was a woman... lying on the ground. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her... her appeal, it was... out of this world."
He seemed to drift into the memory. "That same day, I saw her. In a bar. The exact same woman from the dream."
His eyes unfocused. "She was like a spider. I knew it, even then. I felt... caught. In a web of love, of affection, of pure lust. I'd never felt so... so animal in bed. We... we got married a month later."
"Sir!" Sae interrupted, her face flushed. "Please, in front of the child!"
The father looked down at the limp boy in his arms, and a fresh wave of grief hit him. "It doesn't matter," he whispered. "He's unconscious. Has been for a week."
He looked back at Akari, his eyes desperate. "I've been to priests. Monks. Real exorcists. One went mad in the middle of the ritual, screaming about 'webs' and clawing at his own eyes. Two others... one died of a heart attack right there in my house. The other... the other just vanished from his own temple two days later."
The room went silent, heavy with the weight of the man's story.
Jorōgumo, Izan's voice stated in Akari's mind, devoid of any emotion. A spider-woman. An ancient predator that weaves illusions. It does not hunt for food, it hunts for sport and propagation. It has cocooned the boy's soul and is feeding on it from a distance.
Akari's blood ran cold. He leaned forward. "Your son is in grave danger. This 'woman,' your wife... where is she now?"
"That's the thing!" the father cried. "She... she went missing. Three weeks ago. Just... gone. No note, nothing. And that's when my son... that's when this started."
Sae put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, you poor man..."
Akari held up a hand, all business. "My consultation fee is 20,000 yen. The exorcism, if I take the case, will be 300,000. Half upfront."
The father didn't even blink. He immediately pulled a thick wad of cash from his jacket. "That's... incredibly cheap. The last monk charged me ten times that, and he's the one who went insane."
A rare, faint smirk touched Akari's lips. "Small money in big quantities is better than big money in small quantities. It keeps the lights on."
The father paid, his hands trembling as he passed over the cash. "This is our address. Please... hurry."
He stood, carefully maneuvering his limp son onto his back, securing him with a practiced motion. He bowed low and slid the door open, disappearing into the now-pouring rain.
The door slid shut. Silence.
Akari stared at the empty space where the man had been. Izan floated down from the ceiling, hovering just behind his left shoulder, its unblinking gaze fixed on the door.
Akari let out a long, slow breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Sae."
"Yes, Akari-san?"
"Get me a brandy. The good bottle. From the back of the kitchen cabinet."