# Three Months Later
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Midnight Pour, Shibuya - Late Afternoon
The café was quiet in that drowsy way late afternoons get in Tokyo. Outside, cicadas buzzed over the distant rumble of trains, and inside, the air smelled like coffee and cinnamon. I wiped down the counter for probably the third time, half-listening to the trio of office workers in the corner booth.
One of them looked terrible. Hollow cheeks, dark circles under her eyes, barely touching her drink. Her friends were worried.
"Eiko, you look like hell," one said quietly.
"I'm fine. Just work stress."
"You've been saying that for three weeks. The sleepless nights, the bruises, and now you're hearing things?"
Eiko's voice dropped. "It's not just sounds. Someone's in my apartment. I can feel them breathing, watching me. But when I look..."
"Creepy. You sure it's not your landlord?"
"No, it's... I keep dreaming about my grandmother. She's angry. I wake up soaked in sweat and the bathroom mirror is fogged up even though I didn't shower."
I paused mid-wipe. Something flickered in the espresso machine's reflection—residual cursed energy clinging to her like smoke. And for just a second, something dark crawled across her shadow.
When they got up to leave, Eiko trailing behind her friends, I reached under the counter for one of my cards.
"Miss," I called out.
She turned, startled.
"If your insomnia continues, I offer help for problems that don't fit in hospitals or therapy offices."
Her friends giggled. "What kind of help? Is this some holistic healing café?"
"Nothing spiritual," I said. "Just effective."
Eiko hesitated, then took the card. Her eyes scanned the text: *Cormac Virelli — Discreet Consultation & Resolution.*
"Thanks," she mumbled, and left.
---
Three days later, my phone buzzed.
"This is Eiko Shiba. From the café. I know this sounds crazy, but I think I need that help you mentioned."
"Not at all. When works for you?"
---
Rain was falling when I reached her apartment building in Nakano. Eiko met me in the lobby, looking even worse than before. The cursed energy around her had gotten stronger.
Her apartment felt wrong the moment I stepped inside. The air was thick and damp, smelling faintly of decay. Water stains marked walls that should've been dry, and there was a dark ring around the ceiling access hatch that pulsed with residual energy.
I sat across from her while she curled up on the sofa with cold tea.
"Tell me everything," I said.
"It started three weeks ago with nightmares. I'd wake up gasping, heart pounding. Then I started hearing breathing in empty rooms, footsteps in the hallway." She paused. "Furniture would be moved slightly when I came home. The bathroom faucet dripped even when turned off. My bedroom always smells like stagnant water now."
"What about your grandmother?"
Tears started falling. "She raised me. My parents worked constantly, so she became my real mother. She cooked for me, helped with homework, listened to everything. Called me 'Eiko-chan' even in university, worried about everything."
The apartment grew colder as she spoke.
"I started pulling away as an adult. Too busy with work to visit, sending texts instead of calling. She lived alone, and I told myself she was fine." Her voice cracked. "There was a heat wave in July. I kept meaning to check on her, but work was crazy. When I finally went..."
"She was gone?"
"Dead for three days. Collapsed by the broken AC unit, trying to fix it herself." Eiko's voice became a whisper. "I killed her. Through neglect. I abandoned her, and she died alone."
At midnight, everything changed.
The temperature plummeted. Lights flickered. A wet dragging sound echoed from the hallway.
The thing that crawled through the wall was a nightmare made flesh—twisted, elongated, its skin pale and swollen like a drowned corpse. Its face was a grotesque mockery of an elderly woman's features, eye sockets empty black holes, mouth frozen in eternal accusation. Black mold trailed behind it.
"You abandoned me," it hissed in a perfect imitation of the grandmother's voice.
Eiko screamed. The curse lunged at her.
I stepped between them, pulling my revolver and a soul-binding slip from my coat. "You don't belong here."
The curse shrieked and launched itself at me. I sidestepped as it crashed into the kitchen wall, tiles exploding everywhere. It recovered instantly, whipping around with one elongated arm sweeping toward my ribs. I dropped into a crouch, feeling displaced air ruffle my hair as the limb shattered Eiko's dining table.
"Stay down!" I yelled at her, rolling backward as the thing pursued me with that nauseating spider-human movement.
I pulled a modified flash-bang from my coat and rolled it across the floor. The explosion was both physical and spiritual—a pulse of cursed energy that destabilized the apartment's atmosphere. The curse recoiled, shrieking, its form wavering.
But it adapted fast. The thing solidified and lunged again. This time I couldn't dodge completely—its appendage caught my shoulder, spinning me into the wall. Books crashed down as I hit, and I tasted blood.
The curse pressed forward, raising both arms like hammers. I rolled sideways just as they cratered the floor where my head had been. Wood splinters became projectiles, one catching my cheek.
"Persistent," I muttered, wiping blood as I regained my footing.
The thing had positioned itself between me and Eiko, hollow sockets fixed on her with hungry malevolence. I drew my silver knife, its binding sigils glowing blue. The curse sensed the threat and charged again, moving like a broken marionette.
This time I met the attack head-on. Ducking under a wild swing, I pivoted and drove the consecrated blade into its torso. The curse screamed—breaking glass mixed with dying animal—and black ichor sprayed from the wound.
Its retaliation was brutal. One hand clamped around my throat, lifting me off the ground with impossible strength. My vision tunneled as its grip tightened, its face inches from mine. Up close, I could see maggots writhing in those empty sockets.
"You cannot stop guilt," it hissed. "You cannot kill what she has made."
I twisted the knife deeper and activated a sigil carved into the handle. The blade erupted with purifying light, and the thing's grip loosened enough for me to break free. I hit the floor hard but rolled with it, coming up several feet away.
Light was bleeding through cracks in the creature's form, but it wasn't enough. Its connection to Eiko's guilt ran too deep.
I pulled out a porcelain mask—cracked smile, compassionate eyes—and pressed it to my face. My cursed energy shifted, taking on the warm signature of a paramedic who'd died saving his sister. The curse recoiled, confused by the change.
"Eiko," I said, my voice gentler now through the mask, "what did your grandmother always tell you when you were scared?"
Through her tears: "She said she loved me no matter what. That family meant taking care of each other."
I raised the soul-binding slip. "By the name that burns eternal: Akiyama Hatsue!"
The paper burst into flame, creating a binding circle beneath the curse. It fought back viciously, expanding until it filled half the room. Black liquid seeped from the walls and the ceiling cracked.
I removed the mask, my expression hardening. "Eiko, you need to understand—you didn't just attract this curse. You created it."
She stared at me in shock.
"Guilt is powerful, but when it festers, it becomes something else. Your grief, your self-blame, your refusal to forgive yourself—all that negative energy built up for months. It took the form of what you fear most: your grandmother's disappointment."
The curse writhed against its bindings: "Selfish girl! Ungrateful child!"
"But that thing isn't your grandmother," I continued, raising my revolver. The weapon hummed with contained power, script glowing along the barrel. "It's your guilt wearing her face."
"Then how do I stop it?"
"By forgiving yourself. By accepting that love doesn't require perfection."
The curse sensed the shift in Eiko's emotional state and lunged desperately toward her, its form destabilizing as its foundation weakened. My shot was perfectly timed, the blessed bullet striking its center mass.
Instead of destroying it, the shot purified it. The twisted features softened, rage melting into something familiar. For just a moment, the true spirit seemed to shine through.
"I never hated you, Eiko-chan," the spirit whispered, voice gentle now. "I loved you from birth until death. It was never your fault—I was proud of the woman you became."
The curse dissolved into golden light that danced like fireflies before fading.
Eiko collapsed onto the sofa, crying tears of release. "Was that really her?"
I packed away my tools. "Does it matter? Love survives death, but so does guilt if we let it. Tonight, you chose to let love be stronger."
---
Later, I sat alone in my darkened café with coffee that was still too bitter. The successful exorcism should have felt satisfying, but each case reminded me how easily people become trapped by their own emotions.
I carved a new sigil into the back wall—a parasitic spirit crossed by purifying light—and made a note in my journal.
"One more ghost laid to rest," I said quietly.
Outside, Tokyo continued its restless dance. Tomorrow would bring new customers, new stories, new hauntings. But tonight, one person would sleep peacefully for the first time in months.
In my line of work, that was victory enough.