7th of September, 2022. The time was 10:57 PM.
I woke up in my bed, and for some reason, I didn't have that feeling of having forgotten something, like I did in my past returns. I stood up, and in front of me was him—the Kamikakushi that had led me to the book titled Kamikakushi, which contained the secrets of the strange beings targeting me and my mother. The same one who had protected me from the leader... and the same one who killed me.
It stood in front of me, and I thought to myself that its existence meant there was more than one abnormal oni other than the leader. I had many questions to ask it, since I now knew from its conversation with me and the leader that it was capable of speech. But out of all the questions I had, there was one I knew I had to ask first.
"Who are you?" I said as I looked straight into its clear white eyes.
It took a moment to answer, but after a short silence, it replied, "I do not know."
The answer didn't really help me, so I proceeded to ask another question.
"Why did you lead me to the records?"
Again, after a moment of silence, it answered, "I do not know."
This continued for a while. I asked several questions like, "Who is the leader?", "What is your goal?", and others, but the answer remained the same: "I don't know."
But there was one question that was different from the rest.
"Why did you help me?" I asked.
As usual, it took some time before answering, but this time, its answer was different.
"I don't know. But what I do know is that I can't let you die."
With that answer, I could tell I was getting somewhere with this interrogation. But before I could ask it why it felt the need to protect me, a loud sound came from below my room. From what I had experienced in the last round, I was certain it came from the basement.
The image in front of me immediately ran toward my mom's room—the entrance to the basement. I ran after it to see what was going on, to find the source of the loud sound. We reached my mother's room. She was asleep. I would have thought that the sound would have woken her, but for some reason, she was still asleep—as if it wasn't even natural.
He—the image—went through the bookshelf and down to the basement. I quickly removed the books in the order I had the last time I entered, and I ran down the stairs to see what was down there.
After I came down the stairs, I looked around the small room under the house for the image I was following and whatever else could be there. I looked forward and saw the table in the center of the room like in the last round, but something was different. The records—the book titled Kamikakushi—were missing.
And in front of the table was something I hadn't seen in a long time.
It was my oni, the Kamikakushi that was supposed to be targeting me. And beside it was the image that resembled my mom—the oni that was targeting her.
The image that, up until now, was on my side—the one that led me to the records in the previous round—slowly walked backwards toward me. When it reached me, it said, "I hope you can hold out for one minute." Its hands transformed into long, sharp claws, and it rushed toward my mother's oni. The two quickly engaged in a fierce battle.
As they fought, I started getting the feeling that something else was coming toward the basement—something similar to the leader from before.
Suddenly, my oni ran toward me and jumped into the air with its hands clenched into a fist. It threw a punch at me, but luckily, I was able to dodge. And then I finally understood what he meant when he asked if I could last for one minute.
Its punch broke the floor beneath us and caused its hand to get stuck. I thought that gave me an edge. I started to believe that I could actually touch it and stop it from targeting me. But just as I was thinking that, it broke its hand free and launched several broken pieces of the floor flying toward me.
I dodged most of them, but unluckily, one of the longest pieces pierced my thigh as I tried to dodge. I fell to the floor and screamed in pain. He—the image that helped me—was still fighting my mother's oni.
My oni stood up and began walking toward me. Its raised hand reshaped into a long, sharp blade. It rushed at me, and at that point, I had already given up. I started thinking about what I could do in my next round, if I got one.
But before it could reach me, something broke into the basement from the room above us. It landed on the oni.
There was a large hole in the ceiling of the basement—and at the top of the house—which let in a bit of the moon's light. As the light slowly illuminated the room, I saw a man—one who could only be described as a very handsome individual.
He had white hair, red eyes, and wore a traditional Japanese kimono. On that kimono was a long katana, sheathed inside its scabbard and held firmly by the sash around his waist.
But all these things weren't what made this person seem odd to me.
His most distinguishing feature wasn't his appearance—it was his presence.
He had a presence similar to the abnormal Kamikakushi recorded in the records. The one believed to be the leader—the main body of the ancient god kamikakushi.