The Dark Onmyoji: Exploitative Type and the Shadow of Prophecy

Chapter 1: There Is No Ghost Story Cheaper Than Free

Kijima, an editor at a stuffy Tokyo publishing house in charge of an anthology project of true ghost stories, scoffed while staring at his computer screen.

“In the ghost story book your company released last month, my real-life experience, which I had posted on my blog, was used almost exactly as is without permission. Could you at least report the publication and send me a complimentary copy?”

Kijima threw the email into the trash without a second thought.

He was making a killing by collecting “true scary stories” written by amateurs from social media and personal occult blogs without permission, and publishing them after slightly changing the endings or place names.

He believed there was no need to pay a single cent in manuscript fees to amateurs. “You should be honored that I published it,” and “Once you write it on the internet, it’s free material, right?” were Kijima’s pet theories. Of course, he had never even expressed a word of gratitude. To him, ghost stories were nothing more than “ink stains” and convenient gold nuggets to increase his bonus.

“What fools. They don’t even know their own terrifying experiences are worth money, just spilling them onto the internet for free.”

Kijima finished his cold coffee and accessed an underground occult bulletin board near the deep web to look for his next “free material.” There, he found a few strangely eerie yet captivating ghost story posts and smirked.

Chapter 2: The Life That Words Devour

Kijima’s strange occurrences began immediately after the release of his new book, “Modern Hundred Ghost Stories: Taboo,” which compiled stories collected from that underground bulletin board. At first, it was a heaviness in his shoulders. He thought it was a frozen shoulder, but it didn’t get better even after going for a massage. On the contrary, with each passing day, it became as heavy as if he were carrying lead, and even breathing became painful. Next, his luck plummeted through the floor. The new book, which should have been doing well, was returned one after another from bookstores nationwide with comments like “It’s too creepy to keep on the shelves” and “There’s a strange smell coming from the book.” Furthermore, his past unauthorized reprints were exposed on the internet one after another, and Kijima was promptly fired from his company for disciplinary reasons.

“Why... I should have been doing it right...!”

In his apartment, which had turned into a filthy room, Kijima held his head in his hands. His bank balance had hit rock bottom, and his physical condition was at its worst. The face reflected in the mirror was muddy with an earthy color, his cheeks were sunken, and he looked just like a dead man. At that moment, the pages of his own book, “Modern Hundred Ghost Stories: Taboo,” which had been lying on the floor, flipped over even though there was no wind.

“...Give it back.”

The voice echoed directly in Kijima’s ears. When he looked, the printed type on the pages of the book was moving around like a swarm of pitch-black ants. The characters became black lumps devoid of meaning, crawling off the page and swarming toward Kijima’s feet.

“Eek...!”

“You sold me for free.” “You didn’t thank me, you didn’t know the pain, you just consumed me.” The swarm of characters was the very “passion” of the hundreds of amateurs from whom Kijima had stolen stories without permission. Ghost stories harbor the narrator’s fear and sadness as a soul. By continuing to exploit them without the compensation of money or the memorial service of gratitude, Kijima himself had become a massive “vessel for a curse.”

“S-stop! Don’t come near me!!”

The black bugs of type crawled up from the hem of Kijima’s pajamas, tore through his skin, and invaded his body. They were literally “sucking out” Kijima’s body temperature and luck.

“...You are empty now.”

After hearing that voice, Kijima went completely insane, collapsing in the corner of the dark room while clawing at his own body.
Chapter 3: The Dark Onmyoji

A few months later. In a dimly lit hideaway bar, a little ways away from the hustle and bustle of Kiyamachi in Kyoto, there was a man in traditional Japanese clothing quietly tilting a glass of cold sake at the corner of the counter. He was the dark onmyoji, Saku Tsuchimikado.

“...I heard that man from the Tokyo publishing house went insane and died a lonely death.”

Saku muttered this to Masago—that is, to me—sitting next to him, sounding as if he found no amusement in it. I nodded and replied, “Yes. They say he kept stealing amateur ghost stories without permission and was cursed to death by the resentment. It’s poetic justice.” Saku smiled thinly and set his cold sake glass down with a soft clink.

“Resentment? ...Hmph, you’re half right, but half wrong. Can the mere grudges of an amateur really suck a human being’s life and fortune dry to that extent? What was fatal for that man was that he ended up binding ‘something that should not be touched’ into a book without permission.”

“Something that should not be touched...?”

Saku’s narrowed gaze became sharp, as if piercing through the darkness of the shop. “The strange ghost stories that man gathered from the last underground bulletin board. Those aren’t just scary stories. They are fragments of ‘Prince Shotoku’s Mirai-ki’ (Record of the Future).”

“Mirai-ki...! That legendary book of prophecy said to contain the future of Japan?”

“Yes. The power of such a great prophecy cannot appear in the modern world as it is. That is why the fragments of the Mirai-ki changed their form into ‘urban legends’ and ‘ghost stories,’ drifting in the deep sea of the internet. Ordinarily, it is the most potent of dangerous drugs, which must be deciphered by someone with spiritual power, with the proper rituals and respect.”

Saku took a folding fan from his pocket and snapped it open as if playing with it.

“That fool, however, paid not a single cent for it, showed no respect, and simply copied it haphazardly as ‘free material’ for the sake of making money, trapping it inside a third-rate ghost story book. As a result, he could not withstand the immense waves of karma dwelling within the Mirai-ki, and the man’s very existence vanished as ‘food for the words.’”

I felt a chill run down my spine at Saku’s words. Kijima hadn’t just been cursed by the resentment of an amateur. Because of his own greed, he had stepped on the shadow of a massive book of prophecy lurking behind the history of Japan, and destroyed himself.

“Words harbor spirits. Those who do not pay the price, those who do not hold respect, will eventually be devoured by the words themselves. You, too, must never forget this when you tell ghost stories...”

Saku Tsuchimikado’s cold warning quietly dissolved into the night darkness of Kyoto. In the empty glass the man had left behind, a single drop of muddy water, looking just like pitch-black ink, clung stickily to the bottom.