Chapter 2
2. The God Descending One by One
A small crane truck moved about like a bird pecking at the water's surface, lifting up the giant ear that had crashed through the gas station roof.
The truck waiting directly beneath the crane backed up and extended its bed, and the earlobe dropped with a plop onto the cushioning material laid out inside.
"They're pretty good at this."
Covered in dust, Miyaki and I exchanged wry smiles as we looked at the scene cordoned off with yellow and black tape.
A middle-aged man wearing a yellow vinyl coat over his suit, resembling a raincoat, wiped sweat from his forehead as he rushed toward us.
"Well, you must have been surprised... Things like this happen occasionally—though they really shouldn't—but no matter how we try to explain it to outsiders, they just can't understand..."
He was probably an influential local. Behind his polite smile was not only anxiety but a cold, oppressive air as if he were probing us for something we couldn't refuse.
"Oh, no worries. This isn't our first time dealing with something like this."
The man's awkward smile peeled off his face as if caught off guard.
"You mean ears and eyes falling from the sky?"
"No. I mean these kinds of situations—things that can't really be explained to outsiders. That's what we're here to investigate."
A conspiratorial glance passed between the man and me.
Miyaki whispered in my ear.
"Katagishi-san, your phrasing."
"Would it have been better to say we once visited a village where well water turned into amniotic fluid around the time of the Bon Festival?"
A sharp elbow lightly jabbed my side.
Riding in the passenger seat of the man's small car, I watched the golden waves of rice stalks flow by as the truck followed behind. The driver's face was reflected in the side mirror.
I averted my gaze and searched for a topic to break the awkward silence.
"I heard from the villagers that the fallen object was dedicated to the shrine. Is it still there?"
"It got too big to fit, so now we store them in a closed-down elementary school. Each one's pretty large. If we put them in the classrooms, we can lock the doors, and the curtains keep them out of sight. We're managing somehow."
The man took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed his greasy cheek.
In the overhead mirror, I saw Miyaki busily taking notes in the back seat.
The dry air from the heater felt like it was evaporating all the moisture from my body, so I lowered the window a bit before asking for permission. A cool breeze blew in, carrying the burnt smell of field fires.
As the tires bounced over a bump in the road, I saw a pile of stone fragments like the ones we saw in front of the gas station gathered by the roadside.
Covered in mud, the writing was illegible, but it was at least twice the size of the previous one.
"What are those statue-like things? I saw one earlier too."
"Oh, that?"
As the man revved the engine, the tires splashed mud while entering a deep rut, and the truck picked up speed again.
"You could say it's our village's guardian deity—or something like a roadside god. In the old days, we'd place them all around the village to show that the god was watching, whether for good or bad."
"But most of them are broken now, right?"
Miyaki interjected from across the seat.
"Yes... Back when the village was being developed, we built a lot of roads to let trucks and such come through tunnels from the mountains. It's a bit unpleasant to admit, but the more we built, the more subsidies we got. So we had to move them temporarily. Of course, we didn't treat them poorly—we had the priest perform purification rituals before relocating them."
Miyaki and I exchanged glances through the mirror.
The man flicked the turn signal.
An old school building towering against the blue sky came into view.
"We're here."
The man parked the car beside the school gate and unbuckled his seatbelt. We followed his lead and got out.
I shivered in the chilly air and looked up at the sky.
Through the mesh of the rusted green fence, I saw the school building, frozen in time with a stopped clock and a basketball hoop still in place.
The man unlocked the gate by removing the chain and padlock wrapped around the fence. The truck slid into the schoolyard, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The brown paint was worn by rain and vines, and the protruding AC units and potted plants looked like they'd crumble into dust at a touch.
"Hey, what do you think?"
Making sure the man walking ahead couldn't hear, I asked Miyaki in a low voice.
"Well, I think the fact that all the village's stone statues are broken is a big problem."
"Thought so."
The man stopped in front of a sepia-colored dusty window and opened the door leading into the school building.
A wave of lukewarm air rushed out.
"We'll handle the rest from here. If you could just observe for Tokyo..."
After letting us inside, the man bowed deeply several times before leaving. A faint click sounded, and orange light illuminated the darkened school.
"Shall we go?"
I took a penlight from my chest pocket and started down the hallway.
The hallway was long and dim, filled with air so thick with dust and mold it made me gag. As I climbed the stairs at the end, only the squeak of my shoe soles echoed.
As soon as we reached the second floor, the silver emergency door on the left reflected the penlight, distorting our faces on the wall.
Moving the light to the right, I saw dust particles floating in the dark and the sign for "Class 2-1". I lowered the penlight, but the glass window of the closed classroom door showed nothing but pitch-black, depthless darkness.
"Miyaki, is there a light switch?"
"Hold on a second. Maybe here."
I heard Miyaki brushing the wall behind me, and with a click, the area lit up.
As I started to lower the penlight, I almost let out a gasp.
What I saw through the small window in the door wasn't darkness. It was an enormous mass of hair stretched across the entire classroom. The long coiled strands clung to the glass, leaving behind white streaks of dried sebum.
I heard Miyaki's small intake of breath.
"Let's go."
I gripped the penlight, slick with sweat, and stepped further in.
The walls of Class 2-2 were swollen as if soaked with water, and rusted tacks and posted notices jutted outward.
Peering through the small window, I saw a swelling like a gentle white mountain ridge. The fine texture resembling hemp leaf patterns revealed it was stretched skin.
"Are we going to check all of these?"
At some point, Miyaki had come beside me and spoke in a gloomy voice.
"Might not do any good, but we're here to investigate."
We approached Class 2-3. I moved the light to the small window and saw desks and chairs barricading the room, with a shiny sphere reflecting light at the center. I quickened my pace.
"So the guardian deity here had its stone statue broken and scattered because of land development, right?"
"We don't know if it was the statue breaking or the land being divided by the roads."
Our strides gradually grew longer.
"But isn't it strange? The god here lives in the mountain, right? So why does it fall from the sky instead of coming from the mountain?"
"That's... you know..."
Before I could finish my sentence, my vision shook vertically.
"An earthquake!?"
The entire building groaned like it was screaming, and dust and paint chips fell from the ceiling.
"We're getting out, now!"
We ran back the way we came. The ground lurched up and down, nearly tripping us.
Just as we passed Class 2-3, a dull thud slammed into the wall.
The glass cracked, and I heard a squelching sound like a soft creature forcing its way through a tight space.
I immediately regretted looking. The sphere that had been in the center of the classroom was now pressed against the small window.
A bloodshot eyeball squashed against the glass twisted around, its murky gray and black pupil locking onto me.
Another impact exploded behind us. The door to the next classroom rattled violently, and another massive white eyeball looked ready to burst through. The two eyes housed in separate classrooms rotated and locked gazes with each other.
"Katagishi-san, what is that...?"
"Just run!"
I grabbed Miyaki's arm and bolted down the hallway without looking back, then down the stairs.
The moment we reached the first floor, the violent shaking stopped. Our legs, used to the tremors, nearly gave out, but we managed to stumble out of the building.
The middle-aged man looked down at our sweat-drenched, panting selves with a strange expression.
"No need to rush. I was just about to call you in... You certainly stayed in there a while."
His forced smile and the cold air stole the heat from the sweat down my spine. The sky filling the gaps in the rusted fence had turned red with dusk.
"We weren't even in there five minutes, right?"
Miyaki said, wiping sweat from her chin. I could only nod.
"Managing, my ass... All those body parts were moving..."
I tried to curse at the man guiding the truck away from the school, but only a hoarse whisper came out.
"What the hell is that? Was it trying to gather its body parts into one place?"
Miyaki's voice triggered a memory of something I'd read in the records.
"It's the sacred body."
I leveled the ground marked by the white track lines with the toe of my shoe.
"The records said that the mountain and land themselves were the guardian deity's sacred body. That god's true form is the land itself. So the place the fragmented god would try to return to is this soil. That's why the quake shook vertically—it's trying to return to the ground it was cut off from by asphalt."
Images of the massive eyeball and earlobe that had crashed through the roofs of barns and gas stations and embedded themselves into the ground flashed through my mind.
"It's probably impossible to tear up the road now, but at the very least we need to put that stone statue back... If the whole body comes together, it's going to be a serious problem."
I cleared my throat and straightened my posture.
"What kind of problem?"
"Probably—just speculation—but that giant god will try to return to the mountain or underground and start moving all at once. The village will be torn to shreds."
A mountain, like a shadowy silhouette, loomed as if touching the hem of the crimson sky.