The village of Tsumagoi was buried deep in the mountains of Gunma, a place that felt unstuck from time. To reach it, Akari had to navigate his rattling, rust-eaten truck up a series of winding, single-lane roads where the pavement cracked and gave way to gravel. The air grew thinner, cleaner, and carried the sharp scent of pine and damp earth.
From the passenger seat, Sae stared out the window, her reflection a pale ghost against the passing blur of green. She had been quiet for most of the three-hour drive, a small, tense knot of anxiety. But as the valley opened up below them, her posture changed.
The mist that had clung to the peaks was pulling back like a curtain, revealing a hamlet nestled in the bowl of the valley. It was perfect. The roofs were a deep, rich brown, thatched with a precision that spoke of centuries of tradition. A small, crystal-clear river cut through the center, spanned by a delicate red-painted bridge. Gardens, vibrant with late-season chrysanthemums, were visible beside every home.
"Akari-san... it's beautiful," Sae whispered, her voice tinged with an awe that Akari couldn't share. "It looks so... peaceful."
Akari grunted, his eyes scanning the ridgeline, not the village. "Yeah. 'Peaceful.' Predators always build their nests in the safest-looking places."
Sae flinched, the spell broken. "Right. Sorry."
He pulled the truck to a stop on a gravel patch just outside the village proper, the engine ticking as it cooled. "Stay here."
He got out, the air crisp and cold, and went to the truck's bed. Above him, unseen by Sae, Izan detached itself from the truck's roof and floated, a silent, omniscient moon in the daylight, its massive pupil contracting as it took in the new domain.
Akari pulled his worn leather backpack out. He began his ritual, the part of the job that felt the most real and the most fake. He checked his "tools." Bundles of cheap, unscented incense. A small stack of ofuda talismans he'd bought in bulk from a tourist shop in Kyoto, the ink already fading. A compass that always pointed north, which was useless.
Finally, he reached for a medium-sized pouch made of heavy, dark blue silk. It clinked softly. Sae, watching from the truck, might have imagined it held blessed crystals or ancient relics. Akari knew it held two dozen polished river stones he'd collected from the Kamo River, and a handful of Showa-era coins with holes in them because they looked mystical.
He zipped the backpack shut, slung it over one shoulder, and put on his "face"—a mask of bored, professional calm.
He nodded to Sae. "Let's go. And, Sae?"
She fumbled with the door handle, hopping out. "Yes?"
"Don't touch anything. And try not to say much. Just... look supportive."
"Right," she murmured, her face falling slightly. She was just the receptionist.
The client, Masamune-san, was waiting at the door of his home, which was one of the largest and most pristine in the village. He looked worse than he had in the office—his eyes were webbed with red, his skin a pasty gray, and he vibrated with a desperate, sleepless energy.
"Akari-san! Thank you, thank you for coming," he said, bowing low, his voice cracking. "Please, come in. Can I get you... tea? Anything?"
"Nothing," Akari said, stepping past him into the genkan. He toed off his boots, Sae following his lead. "Just show me the house. And the boy."
The house was immaculate. The floors were polished to a high shine, the paper shoji screens were pristine white, and the air smelled faintly of cedar and... something else. Something sweet and floral, like jasmine on the verge of rotting.
As Masamune led them down the main hall, his hands twisting together as he explained his son's condition again, Sae's gaze drifted. She stopped.
In a high corner of the hallway, where the wall met the ceiling, was a large, intricate spiderweb. It was a work of art, shimmering with threads that seemed too thick, too strong. And in its center sat a dark-bodied spider, its legs delicately poised.
Trapped in the web was a moth, its wings a beautiful pattern of white and gray. It was still alive. It gave a feeble, convulsive flutter, its wings beating against the silken threads. The struggle only seemed to anchor it more firmly.
The spider didn't move. It just waited. Patient.
A cold shiver traced its way down Sae's spine. "That's... awful," she whispered, unable to look away. "It's just... waiting for it to die."
"It's just nature, Sae," Akari said, not even looking. His focus was on the father, and on the oppressive weight he was starting to feel in the air. "Now, where is the boy's room?"
"This way," Masamune said, pointing down the hall. "But... the priests who came before, they all started their rituals in the main living room. They said it was the 'heart' of the house..."
Akari sighed. Of course they did. "Fine."
He was led into a large tatami room that opened onto a beautiful, and perfectly still, rock garden. He dropped his backpack in the center of the room, the heavy pouch thudding on the mat. This was the stage.
He began the performance.
He knelt, pulling out the incense and lighting it, the cheap smoke curling in the air. He set the compass on the floor, frowning at it as if it were telling him deep secrets. He pulled the silk pouch open and began placing the polished river stones in a specific, meaningless pattern around him.
Masamune watched, his breath held, his eyes wide with a desperate hope that made Akari's stomach turn.
'Right. That's enough of this,' Akari thought, closing his eyes to "meditate." He projected his voice inward, toward the cold presence hovering above his left shoulder. 'Hey. Izan. You see this? It's a Jorōgumo, you said it yourself. A big, nasty spider-bitch. Just... nuke it. A quick blast of your cosmic-eye-juice, whatever it is you do. Let's get this poor guy's kid back, get paid, and go home before lunch.'
He waited. The only sound was the faint buzzing of a fly somewhere.
Then, the voice echoed in his skull, dripping with a smug, ancient amusement.
Perform, little fraud. The stage is set. The audience is waiting.
Akari's jaw tightened. He resisted the urge to open his eyes and glare at the ceiling. 'You useless, oversized-contact-lens! You're enjoying this, aren't you? Fine. Fine!'
He opened his eyes, his expression now one of grave seriousness. "The presence... it's strong," he intoned, his voice an octave lower. "It has woven itself into the very... spiritual framework... of this house." He waved his hand over the smoke. "A shadow, ancient and hungry. It has... an anchor. A... a 'parlor' where it feeds."
While Akari continued his nonsensical blabbering, mixing terms from Shintoism, Buddhism, and a half-remembered physics textbook, Sae stood awkwardly by the door. She felt like a fifth wheel. Akari was in his "zone," the father was hanging on every word, and she was... the receptionist.
She looked down the hall, toward the room Masamune had pointed out earlier. The boy's room. An empathetic pull, the memory of her own grief and helplessness, drew her forward. Quietly, she slipped away from the "exorcism" and padded down the hall.
She slid the door open a few inches. The room was dark, the curtains drawn. It was a normal child's room, with colorful drawings taped to the wall and a small wooden train on a shelf.
And on the futon, the small, still form of the boy.
He was just as he'd been in the office: limp, his skin pale and waxy, his eyes half-open and milky, seeing nothing.
Sae's heart ached. She knelt beside the futon. "Hello?" she whispered, the same way she had in the office. "My name is Sae. We're here to... to help your father."
The boy didn't move. The room was silent.
Sae reached out a hesitant hand, brushing a strand of matted hair from his forehead. His skin was cold.
"It... it must be so scary," she said softly, more to herself than to him. "But it's going to be okay. Akari-san... he's... he's very powerful."
A full minute passed. Sae sighed, about to stand up, when a sound, like dry leaves scraping, made her freeze.
The boy's cracked, dry lips moved.
A voice, not a child's voice, but a distant, agonizing rasp, filled the room.
"...it... hurts..."
Sae's blood turned to ice. She stared, wide-eyed.
"...it hurts... so much..." the voice whispered. "I'm... I'm right here. I can see them. I can see... you..."
"We... we see you," Sae stammered, her heart hammering against her ribs. "We're here to help."
The boy's head twitched on the pillow.
"Why?" the voice rasped, a new, frantic edge to it. "Why... WHY... why can't you see me? I'm... I'M RIGHT... HERE! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY—"
The boy's head snapped up, his movements impossibly fast, like a puppet on a string. His eyes rolled back into his skull, leaving only quivering white orbs.
His jaw unhinged.
It didn't just open; it dislocated with a wet, popping crack, stretching far too wide for his small face. From the impossible, black cavern of his throat, a high-pitched, chitinous screech erupted.
And then they came.
A black, wet, writhing river of spiders poured from his mouth. Not small ones. Big, black-bodied, long-legged creatures that scrambled over his face, onto the pillow, onto the tatami. Thousands of them. They flooded the futon, a living, clicking tide, spreading across the floor, their legs moving in frantic unison.
Sae scrambled back, her hands flying to her mouth, but it was too late. The sight—the sound, the smell of dust and ozone—overwhelmed her.
She let out a single, piercing scream of pure, undiluted terror. Her vision tunneled, the world dissolving into a black-and-red blur, and she collapsed, her head hitting the tatami mat with a dull thud.
"SAE!"
Akari's "ritual" was instantly forgotten. He bolted from the living room, clearing the hallway in three strides, and skidded to a stop in the doorway. Masamune was right behind him, his face a mask of confusion and fear.
Akari stared.
Sae was unconscious on the floor, pale as death.
And the boy... the boy was normal.
He was limp on his futon, his head resting peacefully on the pillow, his jaw perfectly intact. His eyes were half-open and milky. The room was clean. The floor was empty.
There were no spiders.
Akari rushed to Sae's side, his hands shaking. He knelt, checking her pulse. It was fast and thready, but she was alive. "Sae! Sae, wake up!"
"What... what happened?" Masamune stammered, looking from Sae to his son. "Did... did she see something?"
Akari didn't answer. He was frozen, staring at the empty floor, his mind racing. An illusion? A warning?
The illusion was a warning, Izan's voice stated in his mind, as cold and clinical as a surgeon's scalpel. A psychic trap. The web is breached. The next time she, or you, touch it so carelessly, she will not return.
The dispassionate voice continued, And you are wasting time, fraud. The boy's soul is cocooned, and the predator is feeding. If you do not sever the thread, it will be fully consumed. It will die.
Akari's hand, resting on the floor next to Sae's arm, twitched. His gaze dropped.
There, on the dark wood grain of the tatami border, less than an inch from Sae's pale hand, sat a single, black spider. It was identical to the ones from the vision.
It wasn't moving. It was watching him. Its multiple, pinprick eyes seemed to catch the dim light.
Akari held his breath.
The spider raised one delicate leg, then another. It turned, slowly, and crawled with unhurried, arrogant patience, disappearing under the boy's futon.