Pathway to Japanese Literature

Prelude Poem O fetus O fetus Why do you leap Understanding your mother’s heart, Are you afraid?

…………Buuu————————nnnn————————nnnnn………………。

When I hazily awoke, this sound resembling a honeybee's drone still lingered clearly within my ear canals, its deeply resonant afterglow stubbornly clinging.

As I listened intently... I intuitively realized it must be midnight now... And thinking... that somewhere nearby a bong-bong clock was chiming... I drifted back into a doze once more, and as I did, that lingering afterglow resembling a honeybee’s drone gradually faded away one after another until everything around fell utterly silent. I abruptly opened my eyes.

From a fairly high white-painted ceiling hung a single naked light bulb, its surface shrouded in pale whitish dust. On the side of that reddish-yellow glowing glass bulb, a large fly had alighted, as motionless as death. On the hard, cold artificial stone floor directly below it, I seemed to be lying stretched out in the shape of a large "dai" character.

……How strange…………. I remained motionless in the shape of a large "dai" character, eyelids stretched wide open. And then I tried rolling just my eyeballs frantically in every direction.

It was a room of about two ken square surrounded by bluish-black concrete walls.

The three walls each bore a large vertical ground glass window fitted with black iron bars and double-layered wire mesh—three in total—giving the impression of a room constructed with utmost security. At the base of the wall without windows lay an equally massive iron bedstead positioned with its head toward the entrance; yet judging by how the pristine white bedding remained neatly spread out atop it, it seemed no one had yet slept there.

……This is strange………….

I slightly lifted my head and looked down at my own body. Two layers of stiff new white cotton kimono had been put on me, and a short gauze obi was tied around my chest. The four plump, protruding limbs extending from there were entirely dusky black and caked with grime... The filthiness of it...

……This is getting stranger and stranger…….

Trembling fearfully, I raised my right hand and tried stroking my own face. ...a pointed nose... sunken eyes... hair wildly disheveled... beard grown into a tangled mess...

……I bolted upright.

Once again, I stroked my face. I glanced around wildly. ……Who…… I don’t know this person……. My heartbeat rapidly intensified. It began hammering in wild disorder like a frantic temple bell... My breathing grew ragged in time with it. Soon, I began gasping so violently I thought I might die. ...Then just as suddenly, everything fell into a deathly hush. ……How could such a strange thing exist……. ……I’ve… forgotten myself entirely…….

……No matter how much I thought, I couldn't recall who I was or where I came from. ……As for memories of my past, only one thing remained—the lingering buu——nnn hum of the bong-bong clock I'd just heard. ……That…… was all there was…… ……And yet my mind remained clear. I could clearly feel the serenely silent darkness encircling the room, spreading endlessly, limitlessly onward…….

......This isn't a dream......it couldn't possibly be a dream........ I leapt up.

……I dashed up to the window and peered into the ground glass pane. I stared at my own features reflected there, trying to summon some memory... But it amounted to nothing. On the surface of the ground glass, only my own demonic silhouette—with its tangled, disheveled hair—was reflected. I whirled around and rushed toward the entrance door at the bedstead's headboard. I pressed my face against the brass fitting where only the keyhole gaped open. However, the surface of that brass fitting did not reflect my face. It merely reflected a dim yellow light.

……I frantically searched around the bed’s legs. I flipped over the bedding. I even untied the obi and turned my kimono inside out to inspect it, but I couldn’t find so much as initials, let alone my name. I stood dumbfounded. I remained an unknown self in an unknown world. I was a self unknowable even to myself. As I pondered this, I began to feel as though I were swooping vertically through infinite space toward some unknown destination, still dragging my obi behind me. Along with a shudder welling up from the depths of my innards, I lost myself and let out a scream.

It was a metallic, absurdly shrill scream... yet... before that scream could make me remember anything from the past, it was swallowed by the surrounding concrete walls and vanished without a trace. I screamed again. ……But still it was futile.

After the voice had surged and swirled violently before vanishing away, only the four walls, three windows, and one door remained—standing all the more solemnly silent.

I tried to scream again. But that scream—before it could even become sound—recoiled back into my throat's depths. The terror of silence deepening with each scream... My molars began clattering. My knees started trembling on their own. And still I couldn't remember who I was... this suffocating weight. Before I knew it, I'd begun gasping. Enveloped in terror—unable to scream, unable to flee—I stood rigid as a post at the room's center, gasping for air.

……Is this a prison……or a mental hospital…….

The more I thought, the more I listened to the intensifying sound of my own breath echoing through the four walls like a wintry wind in the depths of midnight.

Gradually, I began to grow faint. Before my eyes swirled into pitch-black darkness. And so, with my entire body rigid as a rod and drenched in cold sweat, I nearly collapsed backward with a thud—involuntarily squeezing my eyes shut in resignation… or so I thought… but then, with a start, I mechanically replanted my feet. I snapped my eyes wide open and stared at the concrete wall on the far side of the bed. It was because a strange voice had come from beyond that concrete wall.

……It sounded unmistakably like a young woman’s voice. Yet its tone had grown so utterly hoarse—unlike any human voice—that only a heartrendingly sorrowful, agonized resonance seeped through the concrete wall.

“...Beloved brother.”

“Beloved brother.” “Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother.” “……Once more……that voice of yours now……let me hear it……Eeeh…………”

I recoiled aghast. Involuntarily, I looked back over my shoulder again. Even while being keenly aware that no other person besides myself existed within this room... I then stared once more at the section of concrete wall through which that woman’s voice seeped, as if to bore a hole through it with my gaze.

“Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother…… The Beloved Brother in the room next door…… It’s me.” “It’s your humble servant.” “I was Beloved Brother’s betrothed… I was to be your future wife—your humble servant… It’s me.” “It’s me.” “Please... please let me hear that voice of yours once more... I beg you... let me hear... let me hear Eeeh—— Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother... Beloved brother Aaaah——”

I opened both eyes so wide that my eyelids ached. I opened my lips agape. As if drawn by that voice, I shakily took two or three steps forward. And pressed both hands firmly against my lower abdomen. And then I stared single-mindedly at the concrete wall with white-eyed intensity. It was a scream so pure-hearted it could suspend the listener’s heart in midair. It was an unbearable scream of utter desperation—one that would freeze one’s innards to their very core without fail. I couldn’t tell when she had first begun calling me... and it was a voice of profound resentment—sincere and deep—that might continue calling for thousands, tens of thousands of years to come. Was that... me... from beyond the midnight concrete wall? That voice was calling out to me.

“...Beloved brother…… Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother.” “Why…… why won’t you answer me?” “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me it’s me.” “Beloved brother… have you forgotten?” “It’s your humble servant!” “It’s me.” “I was Beloved Brother’s betrothed… your humble servant… have you forgotten your humble servant?” “…I died by your hand on the midnight before we were to be wed… on the very night before our wedding ceremony. …Yet I was properly revived… returned from the grave to be here now.” “I’m not a ghost or anything… Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother.” “Why won’t you answer me…… Beloved Brother… have you forgotten that time……”

I staggered unsteadily backward. Once again, I stared with saucer-like eyes in the direction from which the voice was coming……. ……What bizarre words these are.

......The girl beyond the wall knows me. She claims to be my fiancée. ...Moreover, she herself claims to be a woman who had been killed by my hand on the night before our wedding...and then came back to life. And confined in the room just beyond a single layer of wall from me, she seemed to call out to me like that ceaselessly, day and night. While continuing to scream unimaginably bizarre facts, she seemed to be making desperate efforts to awaken my past memories.

……Is she mad?

……Is she serious?

No, no. She's mad, she's mad... That's absurd... Such an impossible thing happening... AHAHAHA... I involuntarily began to laugh, but the laughter froze in my facial muscles and remained immobile.

……An even more anguished, desperate voice came piercing through the concrete wall. I couldn’t even laugh... filled with certainty that truly knew me as myself... earnest... tragic...

“...Beloved brother Beloved brother Beloved brother.” “Why won’t you answer me?” “Even though your humble servant suffers so… Just a single word… Just a single word… A reply…”

“……………………” “Just a single word… Just a single word… If you would but reply… That’s all I ask. …Then the doctors of this hospital would realize… that your humble servant is not a madwoman…” “And then… if the Director were to realize that Beloved Brother too has come to recognize your humble servant’s voice… we could leave together… Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother… Why… Why won’t you answer me……”

“……………………”

“...Does Beloved Brother not comprehend your humble servant’s torment…… Day after day…… Night after night, this voice that calls out thus—does it not reach your ears…… Ah…… Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother…… Too cruel, too cruel too cruel…… Ah…… Ah…… I…… My voice is already……”

As this went on, yet another new sound began to be heard from beyond the wall. It was unclear whether it came from an open palm or a fist—in any case, the sound of a soft, living hand pattering against the concrete wall. It was the frail sound of a woman’s hand continuing to pound, undeterred even if her skin tore and flesh split. While imagining the blood that must have splattered and clung to the other side of that wall, I kept staring with all my might, clenching my back teeth.

“...Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother…… It’s me who died by your hand.” “And thus your humble servant is the one who has come back to life.” “I am that pitiable sister who has no one else but Beloved Brother to turn to.” “I’m here all alone…… Beloved Brother… have you forgotten your humble servant……”

“Beloved Brother is just the same. “In all this world there are only two of us—your humble servant and you—here together. “...and are thought mad by others, separated and confined in this hospital.”

“……………………”

“If Beloved Brother would but reply… what your humble servant says would be proven true.” “If you would but remember your humble servant… then they would see… that neither your humble servant nor Beloved Brother are mad… Just a single word… Just one thing… If you would but reply… If you would but call me… Moyoko… Ah… Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother… Ah… Your humble servant’s voice… eyes… eyes have gone dark……”

I involuntarily jumped onto the bed. I clung to the blue-black concrete wall where the voice seemed to be coming from. I wanted to reply immediately… to relieve the girl’s suffering… and driven by an unbearable impulse to confirm who and what I truly was as swiftly as possible—that was why I did so. But… I gulped down my saliva once more and held back.

I slowly slid down from the bed. While keeping my gaze fixed on a single point of that wall, I backed away inch by inch toward the window positioned directly opposite, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and that voice. ……I couldn’t respond. No…… I shouldn’t have responded. Am I not someone who has no idea whether she’s my wife or not? Am I not the one who, while hearing her profoundly earnest, agonized cries of pure devotion, cannot even recall her face? Am I not this utterly incomprehensible dementia patient whose only retrievable memory of my true past is just the sound of the clock I heard now—that lingering "boo-un... nnnn..."—and nothing else?

How could I possibly respond as her husband? Even if replying to her did somehow lead to my freedom being granted, who’s to say that my true lineage or indisputable real name would be revealed at that moment? ……Am I not someone who lacks even the basis to judge whether she’s truly sane or a psychiatric patient……. That’s not all.

Suppose she were indeed a genuine psychiatric patient, and the target of her fervent calls was nothing but her own profound hallucination—what then? If I were to carelessly respond, there’s no guarantee it couldn’t lead to a grave mistake. Moreover, what if the person she’s calling out to truly exists in this world—and moreover, what if that person were someone other than me? Wouldn’t that mean I’d be stealing another man’s wife through my own recklessness? Assailed by waves of anxiety and terror—*What if I’ve defiled another man’s lover?*—I kept gulping down saliva, my hands clenched tightly even as her screams ceaselessly pierced through the wall to assail me head-on.

“Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother.” “Too cruel too cruel too cruel too cruel too cruel……”

That faint... agonizing, ghostly scream of boundless pure-hearted resentment...

I grabbed my hair with both hands. I raked my scalp with my ten long fingernails until blood welled up. “...Beloved Brother Beloved Brother Beloved Brother.” “Your humble servant belongs to you.” “Yours.” “Quickly… quickly, take me into Beloved Brother’s arms……”

I fiercely scrubbed my face with my palms.

......No no......No that's wrong... No that's not right. *You're* the one who's mistaken. I don't know you— —I was this close to shouting—but gasped and bit back the words. This current me who couldn't even clearly state such facts... Who knew nothing of my own past... Who held not one shred of proof to refute her words... Of parents or siblings or birthplace—let alone those... This me who until this very moment hadn't even known whether I was pig or human...

I clenched my fist and knocked knock-knock on the bone behind my ear. But from there, no memories surfaced. And yet her voice persisted. Breathless... it built to a climax so profoundly sorrowful it was nearly inaudible.

“……Beloved Brother… Beloved Brother… Please… please save me… save me… Ah……” Driven by that voice, I looked around once more at the four walls, the window, and the door. I started to dash out, then halted. ……I want to flee somewhere beyond all sound…… As this thought formed, an icy shudder rippled through my body, raising gooseflesh. I rushed to the entrance door and slammed my full weight against its blue-painted surface—unyielding as iron. I peered into the dark keyhole... Numbness creeping through me from the relentless noises and fading scream... I seized the window bars with both hands and strained against them with every ounce of strength. At last I managed to warp a lower corner, but no human could have wrenched them free beyond that.

Disheartened, I returned to the center of the room. Trembling violently, I once again looked around every corner of the room.

Am I truly in the human world... or have I just now crossed into the netherworld to undergo some torment?

No sooner had I regained my senses in this room than I was assailed by the unending hell of self-oblivion before I could breathe a sigh of relief... No echoes... Nothing audible but the clock's toll... ...No sooner had that thought formed than I was plunged into a living hell of relentless torment—hounded by screams from some unknown woman in who-knows-where—a mortal crisis where neither salvation nor escape existed from this eternal persecution of tragic love so profound it seemed beyond earthly bounds... I stamped my feet until my heels throbbed……plopped down…………lay on my back……then stood up again to survey the room. To tear my attention from the neighboring cell’s fading noises—barely audible thuds and fragmented sobs—to recall my past as swiftly as possible…to rescue myself from this agony…to give her a definitive answer…

In this way, I didn’t know whether I had run around madly inside this room for tens of minutes… or perhaps hours. But my mind remained hollow. Not only had I recalled nothing related to her, but I had also discovered nothing whatsoever about myself. Within hollow memories, an empty self lived on. That was me—chased by the woman’s unseemly screams, thrashing about blindly in the dark.

Before long, the girl’s screams from beyond the wall began to weaken. Gradually growing as shrill as a taut thread until at last they became nothing but gasping, faltering sobs, finally retreating back into the four walls’ former midnight stillness.

At the same time, I too grew tired. I was exhausted from madness, worn out from thought. Listening to the tick-tock of a large clock rhythmically moving somewhere near what I assumed was the corridor’s end beyond the door—uncertain whether I was standing upright or sitting… when… what… how things had come to this—I sank back into that initial unconscious state where nothing made sense……. ……Click… came a sound.

When I came to my senses, I found myself leaning against the corner of the wall opposite the entrance, limbs splayed forward, head drooped heavily to my chest, staring fixedly at a single point on the artificial stone floor just beyond my nose.

When I looked... the floor, window, and walls had somehow begun glowing with a bright, ghostly pale light.

......Chirp chirp......Tweet tweet......Tweet......Chirp-chirp-tweet......

The quiet chirping of sparrows... The sound of a train sliding away in the distance... The ceiling light had somehow gone out.

......Night had broken...... Vaguely thinking this, I vigorously rubbed my eyeballs upward with both hands. It must have been because I had slept soundly. I—who had cleanly forgotten the countless uncanny, terrifying events that occurred in the predawn darkness this morning—vigorously stretched my grotesquely stiffened, aching body in one go and began a massive yawn with all my strength, but before I could fully inhale, snapped my mouth shut.

Beside the entrance door on the far side, the small service hatch installed flush with the floor opened, and through it, what appeared to be white tableware and a plain wooden tray bearing a silver plate began to enter.

The moment I saw that, I was somehow startled. Unconsciously, the numerous questions from this morning must have begun to stir in my mind... Oblivious to myself, I stood up. On tiptoe, I rushed to the service hatch and—taking careful aim—grabbed barehanded at the red, plump woman’s arm that was inserting a plain wooden tray... And... the tray, toast bread, vegetable salad plate, and milk bottle clattered as they fell and rolled across the floor.

I strained my hoarse voice. “Please… please tell me. What... what is my name?” “……………………” She didn’t move a muscle. The cold upper arm resembling a red radish that protruded from the white sleeve rapidly turned purple beneath both my hands. “……What… what is my name…? ……I’m not a madman… or anything…”

“Aieee—” A young woman’s scream—the one that had gone *Aieee—*—erupted from beyond the service hatch. The purple arm I had grabbed began to struggle feebly. “Someone... someone please come! “The Patient in Room Seven… Ah!” “Someone come hee—…” “Shh… shh.” “Quietly, quietly… Please be quiet.” “Who am I?” “Where… what time… where am I… please… if you tell me… I’ll let go…”

……Waaah—… a sob erupted. At that moment, the strength in both my hands seemed to slacken—the woman’s arm slipped cleanly out through the service hatch—and simultaneously her weeping ceased abruptly as the clattering sound of running footsteps echoed down the corridor beyond.

As the arm I’d been desperately clinging to was yanked free, the sudden release sent me sprawling backward to land with a hard thud on the unyielding artificial stone floor, flat on my rear. As I nearly toppled over backward, I caught myself with both hands and looked around vacantly.

Then... again, a strange thing occurred.

The tension that had been stretched taut with all my might until now began to slacken the moment I landed on my rear, loosening visibly by the second—and as it did, an indescribable absurdity began welling up from the pit of my stomach until I found myself utterly powerless to stop it. It was grotesquely absurd beyond all endurance… an absurdity so intense that each strand of hair quivered restlessly at its roots. It was an absurdity welling up from the very depths of the soul—shaking my entire body—surge after surge rising ceaselessly—an absurdity that demanded I laugh until my bones and flesh came apart, laugh until there was nothing left to laugh.

……Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah! Nah, this is absurd. What does a name even matter? Even if I forget, it won't inconvenience me one bit. I'm still me, aren't I? Ahahahahaha… When I realized this, it became utterly unbearable, and I flung myself backward onto the floor. Clutching my head, beating my chest, flailing my legs, I laughed. I laughed… I laughed… I laughed. Swallowing tears only to choke, twisting my body, writhing and thrashing about, I rolled about laughing.

……Ahahahaha. Could such an absurd thing happen again? ...Had I descended from heaven? Or sprung from earth? Here existed a person of unknowable nature. I don't know this person. Ahahahahahaha…. ……What manner of person had I been until now—where was I, what had I done? And then... what did I mean to do hereafter? I couldn't make heads or tails of anything. I had only just now, for the first time since birth, become acquainted with this being. Ahahahaha….

……What in hell was happening? What a strange, what an absurd thing this was. Ah... ah... absurd absurd... ahahahahahaha…. Ah... this was agony. Unendurable. Why was I so absurd? Ah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah… Laughing uncontrollably like this, I rolled about on the artificial stone floor—but as my capacity for laughter finally exhausted itself and the absurdity abruptly ceased, I jerked upright where I sat. Rubbing my eyes and looking closely, I saw three pieces of bread left over from the earlier commotion, along with a plate of vegetables, a single fork, and a still-capped bottle of milk scattered near my toes.

The moment those things caught my eye, I blushed fiercely for no reason at all—utterly alone. At the same time, realizing I was being assailed by unbearable hunger, I no sooner tightened the sash lying beside me than reached out my right hand to grasp the lukewarm milk bottle while seizing the butter-slathered toast with my left hand and began devouring it ravenously. Then I speared the vegetable salad with my fork, stuffed my cheeks full with its irresistible deliciousness, mashed it noisily between my teeth, and gulped it down with milk. Once completely satiated, I crawled onto the bed behind me, flopped heavily onto the fresh sheets, stretched out languidly, and closed my eyes.

Then I thought I had dozed off for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Perhaps from being full, all strength had slumped away from my entire body—the palms of my hands and soles of my feet growing tingly warm—as the inside of my head gradually transformed into a dim hollow cavern... Within it, various morning sounds darted about near and far, crossing paths only to disappear... That languor... that utter helplessness... …The hubbub of the street. The sound of hurried shoes. The slow drag of wooden clogs. A bicycle bell… the rhythmic whack of a dust cloth from some distant house…

…In some distant, high place, crows cawed—caw-caw… From what seemed a nearby kitchen came the clattering crash of cups breaking… Then, right outside the window, a woman’s voice suddenly pierced the air—shrill and strident… “……Disgusting… utterly absurd… such blatant lies… preposterous… fabrications… heeheeheehee…” ……As if chasing after that came the gurgling sound of my stomach churning in my belly…. These things dissolved into one another, gradually receding into a distant world as I slipped into an entranced dreamlike state… That pleasantness… That blessed relief…

……Then, gradually, a single distinct strange sound began to reach me from somewhere far away. It was unmistakably an automobile horn—a peculiarly high-pitched sound that resonated like a large steam whistle... *peep*... *peep*... *peep-peep-peep-peep*—but somehow I felt it bore down on my location with terrifying urgency, as if racing toward me for desperately urgent business. Overriding and menacing the morning stillness with its *peep-peep-peep-peep*, it veered through city-like intersections—swerving this way and that—as it rushed toward my sleeping head at astonishing speed. But just as it closed in, poised to plunge into the tangled thicket of my hair, it abruptly veered sideways and made a wide detour. Emitting a high-pitched whine while slowing down, it seemed to retreat about a block away—only to change direction again. Raising a scream so piercing it seeped into my ear canals, it hurtled toward me at breakneck speed before apparently coming to an abrupt halt. All sound vanished. ……Simultaneously, the entire world fell silent as my sleep grew thick and deep………….

As I lay there musing, basking in this pleasant state for all of five minutes, the keyhole in the door by my pillow suddenly snapped with a sharp metallic click. Then the door creaked open heavily with a GIIII—— sound, and sensing something rustling its way inside, I reflexively sprang up and whirled around. But... when I focused my eyes and looked properly, I was startled.

Before my eyes, in front of the slowly closed sturdy door, a single small rattan chair had been placed. And there before it stood a single startlingly bizarre figure—towering as if to pierce the clouds—looking down upon me from above.

It was a giant whose height appeared to exceed six feet. His face was as long as a horse’s, and his skin bore the ashen-pale hue of unglazed ceramic. Beneath thin, elongated eyebrows, whale-like eyes sat small and close-set, their pallid pupils—resembling those of a decrepit old man or a deathly ill patient—clouded dully and listlessly. His nose towered prominently like a Westerner’s, its bridge gleaming brilliantly with a white light. Beneath it, the color of his lips—clamped shut in a straight horizontal line—appeared ashen-pale, blending seamlessly with the surrounding skin. Could this be due to some grave illness? Above all loomed his sprawling forehead—its slope resembling a temple roof—and his massive jaw jutting like a warship’s prow… At a glance, he could only be thought to possess a superhuman, utterly aberrant character. His glossy black hair parted sharply down the middle beneath a luxurious black-brown fur coat from which swayed a thick platinum watch chain. Slender, pallid fingers—knuckles bristling with hair—rubbed together before what seemed a delicate rattan chair meant for a woman, his entire figure appearing like some Western specter conjured through sorcery.

I timidly looked up at that figure before me. Like a creature newly hatched from an egg, I held my breath, eyes fluttering incessantly as my tongue faltered uselessly in my mouth. But gradually... I seemed to intuit that this gentleman was the one who had arrived in the automobile earlier... and without conscious thought, I turned to face him properly and readjusted my seating. Soon after, a cold light imbued with solemn dignity began seeping from the depths of the giant gentleman's small, dulled pupils. Then, as he commenced scrutinizing me with an intensity that felt somehow inverted, I found my body inexplicably shrinking inward, compelled to bow my head of its own accord.

However, the giant gentleman seemed not to mind this in the slightest. With an extremely composed demeanor, he finished scrutinizing my entire body, then raised his eyes and began deliberately surveying the state of the room. As that pallid, clouded gaze traversed the room from corner to corner, I felt—for no discernible reason—as though every shameful deed I had committed since awakening this morning were being laid utterly bare, causing my body to shrink further into itself. *What business could this unsettling gentleman possibly have with me?* I dreaded in the depths of my heart…

And then it happened. The giant gentleman suddenly shrank his body as if threatened by something and leaned forward. Flustered, he thrust his hand into his overcoat pocket, pulled out a white handkerchief, and hurriedly pressed it to his face. No sooner had I registered this than he twisted his body away from me, his entire frame shaking violently as he continued coughing—a small, feeble cough utterly mismatched to his imposing figure. After some time had passed in this manner, once his breathing had finally settled, he slowly turned back toward me and bowed formally.

“My… apologies… My constitution being rather frail… I must beg your pardon for remaining in my overcoat…” That voice was indeed incongruously feminine for his frame, just as one might expect. Yet hearing it somehow brought me a sense of relief. As this giant gentleman began seeming like an unexpectedly gentle and kindhearted soul despite his appearance, I let out a sigh of relief and raised my face—only for him to cough again while respectfully extending a single business card toward my nose.

“I… Hnk… hnk… Pardon… please forgive me…”

While accepting the business card with both hands, I made a slight semblance of a bow. Kyushu Imperial University Professor of Forensic Medicine Kyōichirō Wakabayashi Dean of the Faculty of Medicine After reading and rereading this business card two or three times, I was once again dumbfounded. Once again, I found myself compelled to look up at the giant gentleman standing rigidly before me, suppressing a cough—unable to tear my gaze away. And then,

“……Here… Kyushu University…”

I muttered like a soliloquy, unable to stop myself from darting my eyes left and right.

At that moment, the muscle beneath the giant Dr. Wakabayashi’s left eye twitched faintly. It was a peculiar expression that might have been taken for this person’s unique smile. Then those white lips began slowly moving.

“...Precisely... This is the Seventh Ward of Kyushu University’s Psychiatry Department.” “I must offer my most profound apologies for disturbing your rest, but my reason for this abrupt visit concerns no trivial matter.” “To come directly to the point—it appears you earlier inquired of the meal-attendant nurse regarding your own name... Having received notification of this fact from the night-duty physician, I have come at once to ascertain... How do you fare?... Have you by now recalled your name?... Have you completely regained all memories pertaining to your past...?”

I couldn't respond. I must have remained agape like an imbecile, eyes rolling wildly as I stared up at the colossal jaw looming before my nose... or so I thought.

……How could I not be shocked? Haven't I been haunted since this morning by the ghost of my own name?

From when I asked the nurse my name until now—no matter how long it felt—less than an hour had passed. In that brief span, he had pushed through illness, prepared himself to this extent, and rushed here to interrogate whether I had recalled my name… That eerie urgency and inexplicable fervor…

Why would the mere fact that I would recall my own name be such a momentous event for this doctor…

I remained doubly and triply overwhelmed, doing nothing but compare the business card in my palm with Dr. Wakabayashi’s face.

Strangely enough, Dr. Wakabayashi was also staring down at my face without so much as a blink. He appeared to be waiting for my response, his mouth tightly shut as he stared at my face as if to bore holes through it—his tense expression plainly showing a grave expectation toward my reply. That whether I would recall my own name along with my past history bore some profound connection to Dr. Wakabayashi himself had now become unmistakably clear from his expression, causing me to grow even more rigid.

The two of us remained like this for a short while, locked in a mutual glare... but... before long, Dr. Wakabayashi seemed to perceive that I was incapable of offering any response, and closed his eyes with evident disappointment. However, when those eyelids fluttered open once more, a smile deeper than before seemed to appear from his left cheek to his lips. At the same time, seeming to misinterpret my bewilderment as being taken aback in some other sense, he moved his lips while nodding faintly two or three times.

“...Your bewilderment is perfectly reasonable.” “Your finding it strange is perfectly reasonable.” “Originally, as one who must strictly adhere to forensic medicine’s principles, my involvement in psychiatric work is wholly incongruous. However... in this matter... there exist profoundly unavoidable circumstances...”

Breaking off mid-sentence, Dr. Wakabayashi once again assumed the posture of one about to cough—but this time, it appeared to subside without incident. Blinking rapidly behind his handkerchief, he continued speaking with labored breath.

“...The reason I say this is nothing other than— “...To speak truthfully, until very recently, this psychiatry department had been under the stewardship of Chief Professor Keishi Masaki—a scholar of great renown.”

“...Masaki... Keishi...”

“...Indeed... This Dr. Keishi Masaki was a scholar of immense stature—not merely within our nation, but across the global academic sphere—who boldly established a revolutionary new doctrine of ‘Psychic Science’ capable of upending the stagnant research into mental illness... Yet let me clarify: this was by no means akin to the unscientific studies conducted thus far, such as spiritualism or necromancy.” “That this constitutes an epoch-making new doctrine devised upon a foundation of pure science is readily affirmed when one observes how Dr. Masaki established within these very halls a psychiatric treatment facility unparalleled in the world, thereby steadily substantiating the veracity of his theories… Needless to say, you yourself have been undergoing this novel treatment as one of its foremost subjects…”

“I… undergoing psychiatric treatment…”

“Indeed… Therefore, for myself—a specialist in forensic medicine—to be inquiring after your condition in this manner, when it was Dr. Masaki who had been personally overseeing your treatment with full responsibility, constitutes nothing less than a gross impropriety. I fully acknowledge how deeply suspect this must appear to you at present… However… To our profound regret, Dr. Masaki entrusted his final affairs to me before passing away suddenly one month prior… Moreover, as no successor professor has yet been appointed and no suitable associate professor remained in position beforehand, I have—by order of the university president—been serving concurrently in this department’s duties for the time being… Among these responsibilities, what I undertook at Dr. Masaki’s behest was none other than attending to you with particular care and utmost dedication.” “To rephrase—the reputation of this psychiatry department, nay, the entire honor of Kyushu University’s Faculty of Medicine currently hangs upon one matter alone… whether you recover your memory of the past… whether you recall your own name. When I state this, I assure you there exists ample justification.”

When Dr. Wakabayashi finished saying this, everything around me suddenly seemed to grow dazzlingly bright, and I blinked rapidly. The ghost of my name—halo blazing—seemed poised to materialize from somewhere nearby because...

...But... The very next instant, I was overcome with such wretchedness that I couldn't lift my face—my head bowed itself without my knowing.

...This must indeed be a psychiatric ward within Kyushu Imperial University. And I—as a single mental patient—in this Seventh Ward...? There could be no doubt I was a human confined within this Seventh Ward. ...That my head had felt somehow abnormal since waking this morning was because I had been suffering from some mental illness... No—it was proof I remained afflicted now. ...Yes. I was a madman.

Ah… I, a wretched madman…. ……All such unbearable shame—every last wretched humiliation—had only now become clearly conscious through Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation, delivered with excessive, even overly polite meticulousness. Along with that, my heart began pounding so hard it felt suffocating. Was it shame? Fear? Or sorrow? For emotions I myself couldn't clearly discern, my whole body felt pricked by countless needles as the area from my ears to nape once again flushed fiery hot. ……My eyes naturally grew hot, filled with such emotion that I wanted to throw myself facedown on the bed. Sorrowfully pressing both palms against my face, I gently pressed the corners of my eyes.

Dr. Wakabayashi appeared to swallow his saliva twice with audible gulps while looking down at me in such a state. Then, as if addressing someone of noble station, he clasped his hands before him and comforted me in a tone that bordered on sycophantic sweetness—infusing his voice with even greater kindness than before. “Your reaction is perfectly reasonable. “Absolutely… Your reaction is perfectly reasonable.” “Anyone who discovers themselves in this hospital room experiences a shock akin to despair… However, there is no need for concern.” “You have been admitted to this hospital ward in an entirely different sense from the other patients here...”

“...I... I’m... different from the other patients...” “...Precisely... You are the individual who offered your entire being as the most precious research material within Dr. Masaki’s groundbreaking psychiatric experiment—the ‘Liberation Therapy for the Insane’—which he established in this psychiatry department...” “I... I... experimental material for Liberation Therapy for the Insane... liberating and treating lunatics...”

Dr. Wakabayashi nodded while slightly leaning his upper torso forward—as if expressing reverence for the name "Liberation Therapy for the Insane."

“Indeed, indeed. That is precisely as you say. That Dr. Masaki—who founded this ‘Liberation Therapy for the Insane’ experiment—possessed such an epoch-making character and devised such revolutionary theories will soon become clear to you. Moreover… through your own brain’s precise functioning, you have already brought Dr. Masaki’s new Spiritual Science experiment to astonishingly successful completion, thereby imprinting this university’s name upon academic circles worldwide.” “...Not only that, but you—who had completely lost your esteemed consciousness due to the intense psychological impulses arising from that experiment—are now, at this very moment, vividly in the process of recovering your self-awareness.” “...Therefore, to put it plainly, you are not only the central representative of a certain astonishing experiment conducted within that Liberation Therapy facility but also none other than what one might call the guardian deity of Kyushu University’s honor.”

“H...how could I... be at the center of such a terrifying experiment...”

I leaned forward from the edge of the bed in my haste. I myself was growing terrified as I became rapidly entangled in the heart of this increasingly grotesque tale... Dr. Wakabayashi looked down at my face and nodded with even greater composure than before. "That is an entirely reasonable doubt of yours. However... regrettably, I cannot provide a clear explanation regarding that matter at present. Before long—until your esteemed self recalls that sequence of events..."

“……I’ll remember myself……th…that…how am I supposed to remember…”

I stammered with growing impatience. Dr. Wakabayashi’s manner of speaking once again made me painfully aware of the wretchedness of psychiatric patients…

However, Dr. Wakabayashi did not stir. He quietly raised his hand to stop me. “W-wait… Please wait.” “Such are the circumstances.” “To speak truthfully, regarding how your esteemed self came to enter this Liberation Therapy facility—profoundly complex and utterly mysterious circumstances lie concealed here, ones defying brief explanation.” “Moreover, were I alone to organize this tale’s threads through personal reasoning, it would risk becoming pure fiction… In essence, unless your esteemed self—who directly experienced these events—recalls those unfathomable circumstances through your own memory, none could accept it as truth… Such is the phantasmal, wondrously extreme tale of fate embedded within your past recollections… However… For your present reassurance, I may explain this much: Namely… The ‘Liberation Therapy for the Insane’ was designed by Dr. Masaki shortly after his February appointment to this university, completed in July, and operated four months before closing upon his death one month ago on October 20th. Furthermore… Dr. Masaki’s experiments during that brief period focused singularly on restoring your past memories.” “Consequently, Dr. Masaki had explicitly prophesied that your esteemed self—long trapped in a peculiar mental state—would inevitably recover to your present condition ere long.”

“……The late Dr. Masaki… prophesied today’s matters concerning me…”

“Indeed, indeed. As long as we continue tending to you with utmost care as this university’s most precious treasure, you will assuredly return to your original state of consciousness. Dr. Masaki himself solemnly declared that your esteemed self would demonstrate both the foundational principles of his grand theory and the experimental effects arising therefrom... Moreover, should you indeed fully recover all past memories in accordance with Dr. Masaki’s words, I must inform you that even I believed without question you would simultaneously recall—as an inevitable consequence—the truth of that grotesque and heartrending crime of near-unprecedented nature with which you were once involved. Of course, I remain equally convinced of this even now, but...”

“...An unprecedented... unprecedented crime... I was involved in...” “Indeed. Though I have provisionally termed it ‘unprecedented,’ it may well prove to be an abnormal incident of such magnitude that one might consider it ‘unrepeatable’ in the future, I must inform you.” “Th...that...what kind of crime...”

And without even a breath, I leaned out from the edge of the bed.

Yet Dr. Wakabayashi remained utterly composed. He continued speaking smoothly while standing steadfastly. With those pale eyes of his, quietly gazing down at me… “...The incident in question is none other than— “...What could I possibly conceal? “Regarding the esteemed research on psychic science conducted by Dr. Masaki—which I just mentioned—I must inform you that I myself had long been receiving guidance from him concerning these matters, and even now continue to diligently pursue studies regarding what we term ‘Crimes Applied from Psychic Science’...”

"...Psychic science... applied to crime..." “Indeed… However, being such a novel subject on its own, you may find its content difficult to grasp—but having presented it thus, I believe you can achieve a general comprehension.” “...In other words, the primary motivation that led me to commence research on such a subject—I must inform you—was my discernment that the very substance of Dr. Masaki’s proposed ‘psychic science’ was rife with principles and tenets of an exceedingly terrifying nature.”

“For instance, within the field of *psychopathology*—a branch of this psychic science—there exist countless horrifying theories and case studies demonstrating how a form of suggestive influence could abruptly transform a person’s mental state into that of an entirely different individual… obliterating their present psyche in an instant to replace it with ancestral personalities lying dormant deep within their subconscious… generations removed from their own. Yet while these theories’ applied experimental effects remained rigorously scientific in their precision and gravity… their explanatory frameworks and implementation methods differed utterly from conventional science—being so elementary… so simple that even women and children might nod along with amusement depending on how one phrased them… rendering this, depending on perspective, the most perilous research imaginable. Of course… I need not elaborate further here, for their full details shall soon unfold before your very eyes with unmistakable clarity…”

“Wh... what... such terrifying research... before my very eyes...” Dr. Wakabayashi nodded with ceremonial gravity.

“Indeed, indeed. “As you are the one who has bodily proven the truth of this doctrine, not only have you developed a form of immunity to the terror and dread these principles evoke, but upon recovering your past memories in the near future, you will inevitably awaken to your inherent right and qualification to participate in this new scientific research. However, I must inform you that should the contents of this secret study ever leak to others, we cannot begin to predict what calamities might arise.” “For instance, should someone discover a single terrifying hereditary psychological trait lurking within the depths of a person’s mind and apply a tailored suggestion to it, they could instantaneously drive that person insane.” “And should an era arrive where even one’s memory of the culprit who drove them mad could be extinguished—what then?” “The harm would ultimately pale in comparison to how Mr. Nobel’s invention of gun cotton manufacturing methods intensified wars across the world.”

“...Therefore, from my professional standpoint in forensic medicine, it would be catastrophic should theories of this psychic science become common knowledge in society—on par with how materialistic scientific theories are treated in modernity. When that occurs, you must resign yourself to the inevitable consequence that crimes applying psychic science will proliferate just as those applying materialistic science run rampant today—but once that happens, there will be no undoing it. For should crimes applying psychic science manifest—unlike contemporary materialistic science-based offenses—it is perfectly clear beforehand that nearly unprosecutable crimes would undoubtedly emerge worldwide. Thus we must exercise utmost caution to ensure Dr. Masaki’s new theory remains absolutely undisclosed.” “Simultaneously—though this may appear a self-serving justification—I concluded we must thoroughly research preventive measures and investigative techniques for such crimes, anticipating worst-case scenarios... Hence under Dr. Masaki’s guidance long ago, we have been advancing comprehensive investigations under strict secrecy regarding what we term *Crimes Applied from Psychic Science and Their Evidentiary Traces*.” “In essence... it assumed the character of a joint enterprise between Dr. Masaki and myself.”

...Yet—despite having taken such meticulous precautions—what oversight could have existed between Dr. Masaki and myself? Through means and timing we cannot fathom, someone stole and brilliantly put into practical application the most potent and profound theory from our psychic science research. Thus, an inexplicable criminal incident suddenly occurred not far from this very university. ...To describe the outward appearance of this crime: it was structured around an act of utmost cruelty and cold-bloodedness, wherein several men and women belonging to the lineage of a certain affluent family were made to kill one another or drive each other mad without any discernible reason. Moreover, the fact that the methods of these atrocities maintained a connection to the psychic science we have been researching first became apparent through an incident involving a gentle, intellectually brilliant young man—the last remaining member of that wealthy family’s bloodline. To elaborate: this young man, seeking to preserve his family’s dwindling lineage, had arranged to marry his beautiful cousin who adored him. Yet on the night before their wedding, he unexpectedly fell into a state of somnambulism and strangled the young woman to death. It was only after this extraordinarily peculiar and inexplicable fact—that he had calmly spread out paper and sketched while the girl’s corpse lay before his eyes—was exposed to great public outcry… yet… even now, the two fundamental questions of *what purpose* drove plunging the bloodline of the family to which this young man belonged into such a wretched state, and *who* the culprit responsible was, remain entirely unknown… rendering this an incident whose depths of strangeness and gravity remain unfathomable, I must inform you. …As for Fukuoka Prefecture’s judicial authorities—referred to here as the Kyushu Metropolitan Police—they have, in this case alone, utterly and completely chosen the path of incompetence. Simultaneously, I myself—who commenced investigating this incident with full force under Dr. Masaki’s esteemed guidance—must inform you that even now, I remain in a state akin to wandering in a dense fog, without grasping a single clue toward the incident’s truth.

“…And… such being the circumstances, I must inform you that the sole investigative method now remaining at my disposal is this singular path: when your esteemed self—who survived as the central figure of this incident—recovers your past memories through Dr. Masaki’s esteemed legacy, you must directly judge the incident’s truth… identify both the crime’s purpose and the criminal’s true identity… No alternative course remains possible. “By such divinely elusive means has the monstrous criminal behind this incident obscured their traces… Having stated this, you must surely comprehend now. “The reason I find myself unable to provide a concrete explanation regarding that incident from my own mouth is—I must inform you—that I myself have not yet ascertained the truth of the matter. “Furthermore… my venturing into psychiatric work outside my specialty to personally attend to your esteemed self stems from a desire to prevent the leakage of such critical secrets—and simultaneously, from the conviction that should your memory ever recover, I must rush here without delay to have you disclose the incident’s truth before all others… to have you expose the true identity of the monstrous criminal obscuring that truth. “…Moreover, should your esteemed self’s recovery of past memories lead to the clarification of this incident’s truth, it would inevitably result in research findings of doubly and triply profound significance being presented to both modern scientific circles and general society alike—thereby sparking a worldwide sensation. “Namely—the research that Dr. Masaki provisionally termed ‘Liberation Therapy for the Insane’ on its surface… In truth, not only will a certain critical fact—one that should serve as the ultimate conclusion to a grand experiment capable of transforming modern material culture into spiritual culture in a single stroke—be scientifically proven, but simultaneously, under that same gentleman’s guidance, we shall flawlessly complete one of the most vital exemplars within my ongoing thesis titled *Crimes Applied from Psychic Science and Their Evidentiary Traces*. “And thus, the research into psychic science that Dr. Masaki and I have dedicated our very lifeblood to these past twenty years shall simultaneously be granted the opportunity for publication. “Therefore… whether your esteemed self shall indeed recall your own name— “As for whether your esteemed self shall recover past memories and clarify that incident’s truth… due to these doubly and triply layered implications, not only this university’s internal circles or Fukuoka Prefecture’s judicial authorities, but indeed the attention of the entire world has converged upon this matter… Yet…”

Having explained everything up to this point in one breath, Dr. Wakabayashi suddenly cast me a strange, pale glance. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than he turned sharply sideways again, pressing a handkerchief to his face as he began coughing with desperate intensity. While gazing at his wrinkled, twitching profile, I was left in a daze as if engulfed by smoke. Not a single event that had been chaotically unfolding around me since morning failed to instill fresh anxiety and shock… And yet, Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanations about them only grew more exaggerated and supernatural by the moment—so utterly divorced from reality… Though they sounded like matters intimately tied to my own existence, I felt them transforming into something entirely disconnected from me, like fragments of a fever-dream…

Then, having finally subdued his coughing fit, Dr. Wakabayashi once again fixed me with a piercing, pale-eyed glance. “Excuse me.” “...as I grow weary.” As he spoke, he slowly turned to the flimsy rattan chair behind him and began lowering himself into it—but when I saw his demeanor, I couldn’t help but avert my eyes. When I first saw that rattan chair placed behind Dr. Wakabayashi, it looked ready to collapse the moment anyone even slightly large sat down—so much so that I’d even wondered if perhaps someone else—a woman, maybe—was coming… However, as I now observed, Dr. Wakabayashi’s massive torso slipped effortlessly into the narrow space between the chair’s armrests. Then, folding his chest and stomach into a double layer, he lowered his face—only his eyes visible above the handkerchief—until it nearly rested on his kneecaps, as if declaring… *I am the monstrous fiend lurking behind that bizarre incident*… before sluggishly shrinking into himself and plopping down into the chair with a *chokonan*. The overall size was no more than half what it had been before, no matter how one looked at it—so however emaciated he might be... however thin the fur of his coat... it seemed an impossible feat for any ordinary human. And yet, from within that shrunken form, only his voice remained unchanged—no, rather, having settled into position, it resonated even more calmly… *I am fully aware of everything*… in such a tone.

“My profound apologies… However, having now observed your esteemed condition firsthand, even I—a layman in this field—can clearly perceive how Dr. Masaki’s prophecy has been proven divinely accurate.” “You are currently striving and striving to recover your memories of the past, yet find yourself in such distress as to be unable to recall a single thing.” “That is merely a single phase in the process of your returning to the healthy mental consciousness you possessed prior to undergoing this experiment, I must inform you.” “...That is to say, according to Dr. Masaki’s esteemed research, within your cerebrum—specifically within the region reflecting and interacting with your past memories—there existed a certain locus governing the subconscious that belongs to your oldest memories: a hereditary weakness, that is to say, a point of extraordinary sensitivity.”

Yet on another front—I must inform you—there must have existed somewhere an enigmatic individual who had long been intimately acquainted with these facts. By applying an intensely potent psychic-scientific suggestive agent—one that stimulated that most sensitive weakness to its very depths—the result was plunging that locus into extreme tension. Consequently, the memory of a bizarre and profoundly grim romance belonging to your ancient, thousand-year-old ancestors—hereditarily latent there—detached itself completely. Emerging upon the surface of your consciousness, it culminated in casting you into a deep, deep somnambulistic state. ...And having reached this day, the somnambulistic psychology that emerged from your subconscious had been entirely expended, returning to a state of emptiness—thereby resulting in your present detachment from that dreamlike condition. However, the region of your subconscious that had persisted in such abnormal activity, along with the cerebral area nearby that reflectively interacts with past memories, retained profound fatigue from prolonged tension. Consequently, these faculties remain entirely nonfunctional at this juncture. In short, the older the memory, the more profoundly you have fallen into a state of being unable to recall it—I must inform you. …Consequently, only the portion reflexively interacting with recent events—those less fatigued and bearing vivid new impressions—has provisionally awakened since this morning. Yet despite your conscious mind’s frantic efforts to recover still older memories, not a single one surfaces… Such is the current state of your mental consciousness, we may conclude. “Dr. Masaki had provisionally named such a condition ‘Self-Oblivion Syndrome,’ but…”

“...Self... Oblivion Syndrome...” “Precisely… As a result of falling victim to the psychic-scientific criminal methods employed by the monstrous culprit concealed behind that bizarre incident, you subsequently continued existing in an abnormal somnambulistic state for several months—as an entirely separate individual from your present self. …Of course, such profound somnambulistic states or extreme cases of dual personality differ entirely from the mild dual-personality sleepwalking—what is termed ‘Negoto’ or ‘Netoboke’—commonly observed in ordinary people. Though exceedingly rare, historical records nonetheless clearly document their factual occurrence.” “For instance, bizarre cases such as *An Elder Who Recalled His Homeland After Fifty Years*, *A Gentleman’s Memoir of Realizing He Was a Murderer Only After Confronted with Evidence*, *A Lonely Spinster’s Confession Upon Meeting Her Biological Child Whom She Had No Memory of Bearing*, *A Pauper Youth’s Journal of Becoming a Bald-Headed Tycoon While Unconscious from a Train Collision*, *The Tale of a Young Wife Who Slept One Night Only to Awaken as a White-Haired Crone*, or *A Saintly Monk’s Penitential Account of Committing Grave Sins After Confusing Dreams with Reality*—all such strange instances remain preserved across various literature, plunging the public into a limbo of skepticism. Yet when these examples are examined under Dr. Masaki’s original theoretical principles—as I have just outlined—they leave no room for doubt whatsoever.” “Not only has the actual existence of such phenomena been clearly and compellingly proven to be scientifically possible, but it has also been demonstrated both theoretically and practically—I must inform you—that when such individuals return to their former mental consciousness, they must inevitably undergo a certain period of ‘Self-Oblivion Syndrome.’” “That is to say, in the strictest sense, within our daily lives, our psychological state—continuously stimulated by what we see and hear—ceaselessly undergoes transformation.” “Thus, even when one grows angry, grieves, or smiles to oneself entirely alone, this too constitutes a form of somnambulism. At every fleeting moment wherein such psychological states shift and transform, these processes—‘somnambulism,’ ‘ego dissolution,’ and ‘ego awakening’—repeat themselves with extreme brevity. …The fact that ordinary people remain wholly unconscious of this… has likewise been proven by Dr. Masaki, I must inform you.” “...Therefore, needless to say, Dr. Masaki had clearly foreseen that you too would undergo that process and before long recover to your current esteemed condition—leaving only the matter of time unresolved, I must inform you.”

Dr. Wakabayashi here again paused for breath and seemed to lick his lips.

However, I did not know what expression I wore at that moment. Bewildered yet rigid under the scholarly authority of Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation—each phrase advancing with blade-like sharpness—my entire body had stiffened as though jolted by high-voltage electricity... Could it be that this bizarre incident he described truly involved me?... That I now stood poised to recall both my own name and that horrific past event?... Drenched in cold sweat dripping from unspeakable terror, I focused every nerve on the pallid elongated face before me... or so I believe.

At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi slightly lowered his pale blue eyes and adopted an even softer tone than before. "I repeat—Dr. Masaki’s prophecies of that nature have, up until today, been fulfilled without the slightest deviation—I must inform you." "You have already—since this very morning—completely departed from your previous somnambulistic mental state, and now stand upon the brink of recovering your ancient memories, I must inform you." "...Therefore, I must inform you that I have, for the time being, inquired with the nurse earlier—and have thus come here to assist your esteemed self in recalling your own name."

“M… Making me remember… my name…” Having shouted this, I was suddenly struck breathless—my heart lurched. …Could it be… that I myself was the true culprit behind that monstrous incident? …Was Dr. Wakabayashi’s intense focus on my name not evidence of precisely that? …Such was the fleeting flash of insight that pierced me… Yet Dr. Wakabayashi answered quietly, with practiced nonchalance.

“...Indeed.” “Should your esteemed self recall your own name, all other memories shall consequently rise to the surface of your consciousness—I must inform you.” “How fearsome are the principles of psychic science that have consistently governed that bizarre incident’s circumstances?” “Under what reason and by what motive was such a monstrous crime executed?” “The very identity of the monstrous fiend at that incident’s core—down to truth’s deepest marrow—you shall recall all simultaneously, I must inform you.” “...Therefore, assisting you in recalling this constitutes my foremost responsibility—I must inform you—as he who accepted charge of you from Dr. Masaki...”

Once again, I shuddered at some indescribable, dreadful premonition. I involuntarily sat up straight and let out a frantic cry.

“...What is it… What’s my name…”

The moment I asked this, Dr. Wakabayashi clamped his mouth shut as if he were some kind of machine. He stared fixedly into the depths of my eyes with dully glinting eyes—as if searching for something within my mind… or perhaps hinting at some grave matter.

Looking back now, I think I had undoubtedly been ensnared in Dr. Wakabayashi’s unfathomable scheme at this moment. The scientific—and simultaneously, extremely sensational—thread of narrative that Dr. Wakabayashi had spun up to this point was by no means a meaningless one. It was undoubtedly a psychological stimulation method designed to focus all “my attention” on “my name” to its utmost limit and compel me to recall it at all costs. ...Thus, as I became obsessed with demanding my own name, he simultaneously clamped his mouth shut—in that silence—attempting to drive my agitation to its very peak. He must have been attempting to sharply stimulate me to trigger the recurrence of past memories congealed within my cerebrum.

However, at that moment, I hadn’t the slightest inkling of such a delicate stratagem. I had simply convinced myself that Dr. Wakabayashi was about to tell me my name at any moment, doing nothing but stare fixedly at those pallid lips. Then, Dr. Wakabayashi—who had been observing my demeanor—seemed disappointed once more and quietly closed his eyes. Shaking his head slowly from side to side, he let out a soft sigh—but then, quietly opening his eyes again, produced a voice even colder and more delicate than before.

“That will not do.” “If I were to tell you myself, it would amount to nothing.” “Should you declare you recall no such name, that would conclude matters.” “It must still be recalled naturally by your esteemed self...”

I suddenly felt a sense of relief and, at the same time, a creeping unease.

“……Will I be able to remember?”

Dr. Wakabayashi answered firmly.

“You are capable of this. “You will most assuredly succeed. “Furthermore, when that time comes—not only will you comprehend that everything I have recounted is no fictional fabrication—but simultaneously, having made a full recovery and been discharged from this hospital, you shall find preparations long since fully arranged for assuming your legal and moral rights… namely, an exemplary household and all happiness pertaining to that estate. “To put it plainly, the act of transferring all these matters to you without discrepancy constitutes my second responsibility—inherited from Dr. Masaki—and thus…”

Having thus declared, Dr. Wakabayashi fixed his cold blue eyes on me once more with an air of conviction. I was overwhelmed by the force of those eyes and compelled to bow my head... Once again, it felt as though none of this concerned me... Hearing nothing but these strange, convoluted tales left me utterly exhausted, still unable to grasp their meaning...

However, Dr. Wakabayashi paid no heed to my state of mind; with a light cough, he altered the tone of his discourse.

“Now then… We wish to commence the experiment to have your esteemed self recall your name at once… We—and Dr. Masaki shared this conviction—shall present in sequence various articles we firmly believe bear the deepest connection to your past history… Through this process, we humbly request permission to conduct an experiment verifying whether your former memories are thereby revived… How does this proposal meet with your approval, I must inquire?”

As he spoke, he placed his hands on the arms of the rattan chair and stretched his posture tautly. While watching his face, I lowered my head slightly. ...I don't mind at all... ...In a manner that said... "Do as you please..."... Yet within my heart, I was hesitating considerably. No—rather, I was even feeling a sense of absurdity.

Could it be that both the girl from Cell Six who has been calling out to me since this morning and Dr. Wakabayashi now before my eyes were similarly mistaken in their recognition? ...Could it be they had mistaken me for someone else—this fervent calling and reproaching? Was it that no matter how much time passed or how harshly they pressed, I remained like this, unable to recall a single thing?

...Could it be that these so-called mementos of my past they intended to show me were in truth nothing but relics belonging to complete strangers—utterly unconnected to myself?... Might I instead be bombarded with grotesque mementos from unspeakable crimes—the handiwork of a cold-blooded, vicious lunatic lurking unknown in the shadows?... And would they then hound me endlessly—Remember! Remember!—as if demanding I claim these horrors as my own?

Indulging in such outrageous imaginings, I had involuntarily pulled my neck in and made myself small. At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi—maintaining his scholar-like elegance and humility to the last—quietly bowed to me and rose from the rattan chair. When he slowly opened the door behind him, a small man who seemed to have been waiting briskly strode in with large steps. The small man had a close-cropped buzz cut, sported a stiff black mustache flaring out at the ends, and wore an unfamiliar ensemble: a white high-collared jacket paired with black trousers, and slippers made from old shoes. He carried a square black leather briefcase in one hand and a somewhat grubby tatami chair in the other, but when the nurse who had entered after him placed a steaming bowl in the center of the room, he briskly unfolded the tatami chair beside it. He then placed the black briefcase beside the chair and snapped it open. Pulling out barber’s scissors and a brush that had been haphazardly tossed inside onto the lid, he gave me a shallow bow. “Quickly now, if you please...” he seemed to say. Then, Dr. Wakabayashi also pulled the rattan chair closer to the head of the bed and, while doing so, gave me a meaningful look that appeared to urge, “Now then, if you please.”

Ah, so I was going to have my hair cut here... I thought. So barefoot, I got down from the bed and climbed onto the tatami chair—and almost simultaneously, the small man with the mustache threw a white cloth around me. Then, as he wrapped a towel wrung out in hot water tightly around my head and pressed it firmly against me, I turned to look at Dr. Wakabayashi. "The same style as last time, if that's acceptable..." When he heard this question, Dr. Wakabayashi seemed momentarily startled. He appeared to steal a furtive glance at my face but soon replied in an unhurried tone.

“Ah. Did I ask you to do this last time as well? Do you recall? The way you cut it last time…”

“Hey. It was exactly one month ago, and since it was a special request, I still remember it well. I shall make the center high so that your entire face appears as a gentle oval shape… with the sides very short, in the Tokyo student fashion…” “Yes, yes. I ask that you do the same this time as well.”

“Understood.”

Amidst these words, the scissors had already begun snipping above my head. Dr. Wakabayashi once again settled into the rattan chair at the head of the bed and appeared to be pulling out a Western book with a red cover from his overcoat pocket. I closed my eyes and began to think.

My past was thus becoming clearer, piece by piece, in any case. Even setting aside the outlandish tales of fate and such that Dr. Wakabayashi had told me as entirely separate matters, it seemed the facts I could safely accept as true were gradually being pieced together like this—bit by bit.

I had been an inpatient in the psychiatry department of Kyushu Imperial University since Taisho 15 (though I didn't know when that was), and it seemed until just yesterday I had been living in a somnambulistic daze. And whether during that period or perhaps before it—I couldn't tell—it appeared about a month prior I'd had my hair cut in a stylish student fashion. I was now returning to how I'd looked then... or so...

……But……though it may seem so, how meager a thing it is to serve as a single human being’s past memories. Moreover, even that much was merely information heard from a complete stranger—a medical doctor—and a barber, so in truth, what I remember as my own past consists solely of events occurring during these several hours since this morning when I heard that... buo-o-on... clock sound until now. As for that... buo-o-on... time before—to me, it is an utter void; I cannot even discern whether I was alive or dead.

Where on earth was I born, and how did I grow up like this? This ability to discern one thing from another… this knowledge… this intellectual capacity to grasp Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanations with a profound comprehension that made me tremble—where did such things ever become mine? How could I have forgotten such vast, seemingly endless past memories so cleanly and completely…

Closing my eyes while turning these thoughts over and staring fixedly at the hollow inside my head, my soul gradually shrank smaller and smaller until it came to seem like a microorganism wandering aimlessly through an infinite void. ...Lonely... dull... growing sad... my eyes burning somehow...

...A chill... something cold touched the nape of my neck. It was the barber—who had finished cutting my hair without my realizing—now applying shaving foam to my neck in preparation for shaving. I let my head drop heavily.

But... when I reconsidered, I realized that even one month prior, this head of mine had once more been restored by Dr. Wakabayashi. If that were the case, then I might have had a terrifying experience like what I witnessed this morning even one month prior. Moreover, judging by Dr. Wakabayashi’s tone, it seemed he hadn’t ordered just this barber to restore my head. If that were the case, then I might have repeated this very act not only before but even further back in time—countless times—so that in the end, could it be that I am nothing but a tedious sleepwalker-like being, reenacting such things over and over… I found myself considering.

Could Dr. Wakabayashi be yet another heartless scientist conducting nothing but such experiments? …No. Could it be that all the events continuously occurring around me from this morning until now were merely hallucinations of me—a somnambulist? ……At present, I am here, like this, dreaming that my head is being stylishly cropped and groomed from my sideburns to the areas above and below my eyebrows—so the real me… my physical body is not here. Somewhere entirely different, in some preposterous place, engaged in some preposterous somnambulism...

...In the midst of these thoughts, I jolted upright from the chair... I thought I had bolted straight ahead with the white cloth still wrapped around my neck—but that wasn’t what happened....Suddenly, an immense commotion erupted above my head—eyes and mouth forced shut—so that without thinking, I dropped my half-risen hips back into the chair and hunched my neck tight. It was because two round combs had lined up atop my head and begun racing about so chaotically I could barely breathe… yet… the sheer pleasure of it… In an instant, I could no longer tell whether I was the lunatic or who exactly was mad....Joy, sorrow, fear, resentment—past, present, all phenomena of the cosmos—severed from everything, I became like some wandering spirit. Slumped exhaustedly against the chair, I was made to feel—through every pore of my body, seeping into my very marrow—the pleasure of that maddening itch being scraped to the very core, a bottomless abyss churned without end....There was nothing I could do now.I didn’t quite understand why, but from now on, I would obey Dr. Wakabayashi’s orders absolutely.I didn’t care what became of my future… as if I had completely resigned myself to everything… I had sunk into a state of utter dejection.

“Please come this way.”

A young woman’s voice spoke right beside my ear, startling me into opening my eyes—only to find two nurses who had slipped in unnoticed now gripping both my arms from either side like a criminal’s. The white cloth around my neck had been removed by the barber without my noticing, and he was energetically shaking it outside the door. At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi—who had been engrossed in reading a red-covered Western book—snapped it shut and stood up. Elongating his already gaunt face with a hacking cough, he gestured toward the door as if to say, “Please proceed that way,” sweeping both hands in its direction.

From the tangle of hair and dandruff matting my face, I managed to open my eyes. Still gripped by the nurses on both arms, my bare feet meeting the chill of the artificial stone floor... for the first time in my life...? ...I stepped outside the door. Dr. Wakabayashi had come to see me off outside but seemed to have vanished somewhere along the way.

Outside the door stretched a wide corridor of artificial stone, with doors identical in color and shape to my room's door facing each other—five on either side. In a dim alcove at the corridor's end hung a grandfather clock encased in iron bars and wire mesh matching those on my room's window, nearly human in height. This was likely the very clock that had groaned *Bwoooonnn* in midnight's depths... the one that startled me awake this morning. Though I couldn't discern where to insert a winding key, its antiquated arabesque-patterned hands—imposing hour and minute pointers—marked 6:04 while clack-clacking as they swung a massive brass pendulum. The whole mechanism resembled some punished human soul condemned to endless repetition of these motions. To the clock's left stood my room, its door flanked by a three-foot white nameplate where Gothic-style black characters read "Psychiatry, East, First Ward" in small print above bold "Room No. 7." No patient's nameplate existed.

I started walking with my back to the clock, guided by the two nurses' hands. Before long, we emerged into a bright outer corridor where a two-story wooden Western-style building painted blue appeared ahead. The corridor's left and right sides were pristine white sand where blood-red bean chrysanthemums, dream-white cosmos flowers, and crimson-yellow cockscomb blooms shaped like strange internal organs grew wildly. Beyond these stretched deep green pine groves on both sides. The morning sun cast a gentle glow through thin clouds drifting over the pine grove while from some unseen distance came the quiet-quiet sound of waves—a soothing sensation...

*Ah... it's autumn now,* I thought. I filled my lungs with crisp air that flowed coolly around me and felt momentary relief—but before I could pause to survey the scenery, the two nurses vigorously yanked both my arms and dragged me into the dark corridor of the blue Western-style building ahead. When we reached a room on the right-hand side, another nurse who had been waiting there opened the door and entered inside together with us.

The room was quite large, a bright bathroom. Steam welling up from the stone bathtub by the far window glittered and trickled down all three glass windowpanes. Within it, three red-cheeked nurses—all uniformly raising their plump red arms and red legs high—suddenly seized me, twirled me stark naked, and drove me into the bathtub. Once I had warmed up sufficiently and stood up, they immediately yanked me onto the wooden planks of the washing area. Pressing cold soap and sponges against me from all sides, they scrubbed vigorously without a hint of restraint. Then they pressed my head down unceremoniously, rubbed bare soap against it to heap up a mountain of foam, and raked through it with a roughness unthinkable for women. Without warning, they splashed scalding water over me until I couldn’t open my eyes or mouth, then once again yanked up both my arms without a word of consent—

“This way now.”

Commanding in a shrill voice, they forced me once more into the bathtub. The violence of their methods… It was so extreme I suspected one of these three nurses might be the very one who’d brought me breakfast that morning and suffered my cruel retaliation—now exacting revenge. Yet upon closer observation, their handling felt routine—the practiced motions of those who dealt with lunatics day after day—until I was plunged into utter despair.

Yet toward the end of this ordeal, they trimmed my overgrown fingernails and toenails, scrubbed my mouth clean with a bamboo-handled brush and salt, let me warm myself once more in the bath, then dried every inch of my body with a fresh towel and vigorously combed my hair with a new yellow comb—until at last I felt reborn. Despite feeling so refreshed and certain, when I wondered why I couldn’t recall my own past, I ended up feeling so good it was almost bewildering.

“Please change into this.” When one of the nurses said this, I turned to look and saw that the patient clothes I had taken off and left on the wooden floor had vanished somewhere, replaced by a large light-yellow cloth bundle. When I untied the knot, inside were a university student’s uniform in a white cardboard box, a school cap, a salt-and-pepper overcoat, a knit undershirt, trousers, brown half-socks, newspaper-wrapped lace-up boots… And when I opened the small leather pouch placed on top, out came a small wristwatch glinting silver.

I had no time to question such things as I received each item from the nurses and put them on, but upon casually checking during the process, none of the articles bore anything like initials that would indicate they were my belongings. However, every single one of them had sharp creases as if freshly tailored, and when I shook my body, they fit as snugly as old familiars. The only thing was that the new stiff collar of the jacket felt slightly tight around my neck, but I was astonished at how perfectly everything else fit—the brand-new square cap, the gleaming button-up boots, even the size of the black band on the wristwatch showing 6:23. Because it was so strange, I thrust both hands into the coat pockets—in my right hand was a new handkerchief folded into four and tissue paper; in my left hand, though I couldn’t tell how much was inside, I felt a small, smoothly bulging drawstring pouch.

I felt as though I’d been tricked by a fox once more. Wondering if there might be a mirror somewhere, I glanced around restlessly, but unfortunately, not even a fragment-like object could be found. The three nurses opened the door and left, glancing back repeatedly at my face with those same darting eyes.

Then, passing by those nurses, Dr. Wakabayashi entered slowly, lowering his head beneath the lintel that his stature nearly grazed. He looked me up and down as if conducting an inspection of my attire, then wordlessly led me to the room's corner where he removed a sun-bleached yukata hanging midway on the opposite wall. What lay concealed beneath was an enormous full-length mirror beyond anything I could have anticipated. I staggered backward involuntarily—shocked by how youthfully my own reflection stared back at me.

When I had imagined my appearance this morning in the dark of Room No. 7 by running my hands over myself, I had thought I must be a bearded warrior in his thirties with a terrifying countenance and sinister features—but even after being groomed, I never imagined there could be such disparity between the tactile impression from my palms and the actual visage before me. In the life-sized mirror before me stood I—appearing no more than a greenhorn barely twenty years old. A round forehead, a narrow jaw, large eyes—a face frozen in perpetual surprise. If not for the uniform, one might take me for a middle school student. When I realized this greenhorn was me, the tension I’d maintained since morning began draining away—replaced by an indescribable sensation… a kind of uncanny revulsion… a sort of joy… a type of sorrow… until nothing remained but an utterly bizarre emotional state.

At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi called out from behind as if prompting me. “How about it… have you remembered… your own name…” I hurriedly removed the hat I’d been about to put on. Swallowing a mouthful of cold saliva, I turned around—and finally grasped why Dr. Wakabayashi had been manipulating me through those strange methods since earlier. Dr. Wakabayashi had promised to show me mementos of my past, and as his opening move, he had first confronted me with my former self. In other words, he must have committed every detail of my pre-hospitalization appearance to memory; after restoring me to that exact state, he thrust it before my eyes to trigger recollection. ……Yes, this left no room for doubt. This was unquestionably a relic of my past… Even if everything else proved mistaken, this alone—the remembered image of my very self—could never be wrong…

However... regrettably, Dr. Wakabayashi’s painstaking efforts went unrewarded. Despite being confronted with my own appearance for the first time and startled by it, I remained utterly unable to recall anything as before… Not only that—realizing I was still such a youngster left me feeling even more self-conscious… mocked… gripped by a vague dread… As sweat streamed unbidden down my forehead, I hung my head, wiping it away again and again.

Dr. Wakabayashi, who had been intently comparing my face with the one in the mirror with an expressionless gaze, eventually nodded significantly. “…You are quite right.” “Since your complexion has grown markedly paler than before, and you appear to have put on some weight, your present state may differ somewhat from your pre-hospitalization appearance... Now, please come this way.” “I shall try the next method...” “This time, you will surely remember...”

I retraced my steps along the corridor lined with cockscomb flowers, following behind Dr. Wakabayashi as I stiffened my ankles in the new button-up boots and locked my knees. I thought we were returning to Room No. 7, but Dr. Wakabayashi stopped before the door marked “Room No. 6” and rapped firmly on its nameplate. When he pulled the large brass handle, a woman around fifty—likely an attendant in a pale yellow apron—emerged from the half-opened door and bowed with formal courtesy. The old woman gazed up at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face while,

“She is currently sleeping soundly.”

While respectfully reporting this, she departed in the direction of the Western-style building we had come from.

Dr. Wakabayashi cautiously craned his neck and entered after her. With one hand gently grasping mine and the other quietly closing the door, he muffled his footsteps as he approached the iron bed that lay at the base of the far wall. There, after gently releasing my hand, he turned to face me piercingly and quietly indicated with his hairy fingers the face of a young girl sleeping atop the bed.

I firmly gripped the brim of my hat with both hands. I doubted my own eyes and blinked rapidly two or three times.

……There lay such a beautiful girl, sleeping soundly. The girl’s glossy, abundant hair—styled into a strange shape resembling black flower petals—lay wildly disheveled upon a pillow wrapped in a white towel. She wore the same unbleached cotton patient gown I had worn until moments ago, her freshly bandaged hands neatly folded atop a white blanket draped over her chest. Seeing this, I became certain: this girl must have been the one who tormented me since dawn with her wall-pounding and cries. Of course, I found none of the ghastly bloodstains I had imagined on those walls earlier—yet even so, the serene innocence of her slumber made it impossible to reconcile her with that same being who had wailed with such suffocating intensity… From her slender crescent brows and long lashes to her elegantly arched nose, faintly blushed cheeks, clover-shaped lips drawn taut, and even the delicate translucence of her double chin beneath poised features—her entire sleeping form radiated such purity that she might well have been a porcelain doll crafted for display. ……No… In that moment, while genuinely doubting her humanity, I forgot everything and became transfixed by that doll-like visage in repose.

Then… before my very eyes, an inexplicable and indescribably mystical transformation began to manifest across that doll-like sleeping face.

Within the large pillow wrapped in a new towel, her red ears enveloped in natural hair softly arranged, the girl’s sleeping face—with long eyelashes properly, almost joyfully lowered—began to change, imperceptibly slowly, into an expression of sorrow. Moreover, her slender eyebrows, thick eyelashes, and the contours of her small clover-shaped lips all remained stationary in their original beautiful positions. Only the color of her cheeks—which had borne a youthful peach hue—shifted imperceptibly into a melancholic rose tint; but even so, her sleeping face, which until moments ago had appeared seventeen or eighteen years old with childlike innocence, transformed into a dignified expression that now seemed akin to that of a twenty-two- or twenty-three-year-old distinguished young wife. And then, from its depths, the sorrow’s hue—somehow transparently visible—how divine…

I began to doubt my own eyes once more. Yet even as I found myself unable to rub my eyes—unable even to breathe—and continued staring without blinking, translucent droplets began seeping forth between her long, finely tapered double eyelids. They swelled into large dewdrops before my eyes, tangled in her long eyelashes and sparkling—then in what felt like an instant, trickled down both sides… No sooner had this happened than her small lips began trembling faintly, and dreamlike words spilled out fragmented.

“Dear Older Sister… Dear Older Sister… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” “…I… your humble servant has adored you, Brother… with all my heart…” “Even though I knew he was your dearest, most precious Brother… I cherished him… from long ago… and so… it came to this… Ah… Forgive me… Forgive me… Please… Please grant me pardon… Pardon me… Dear Older Sister… I beg you…”

It was a halting tone that one could only barely infer from the trembling, faltering movement of her lips. Yet those tears welled up anew, one after another, flowing between long eyelashes to the corners of her eyes… to her faintly pale temples… and then disappeared into the translucent hairlines of her bluish-black sideburns.

However, those tears soon ceased. And as the lonely rose tint that had settled in both her cheeks shifted back to their original youthful peach hue—like night breaking into dawn—her expression, still as immobile as a doll’s, gradually returned to the healthy visage of a girl of seventeen or eighteen. ……In the brief span of a dream, she had aged five or six years and grieved. And then she had reverted to her original youthful state… As I watched, a gentle smile even began to form at the corners of her lips.

Once again, I found myself heaving a long, deep sigh from the very core of my being. And then, still feeling as though I hadn’t fully awakened from a dream, I timidly glanced back over my shoulder.

Dr. Wakabayashi stood rigidly behind me, maintaining the same expressionless countenance as before, both hands clasped behind his back as he stared down at me intently. Yet I could discern from his waxen, hardened complexion that he was internally tense; when I turned my face back, he met my gaze quietly, softly licked his pale lips, and spoke in a voice entirely different from before—flat and toneless.

“…Do you… by any chance… know this person’s… name?”

I turned once more to look at the girl's sleeping face. I shook my head stealthily, as if wary of being overheard.

“……No… Not at all…” In such a manner… Then, as if pursuing this opening, Dr. Wakabayashi whispered once more in a low voice: “…Then… might you… recognize her face at least?” I looked up at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face as he spoke these words and blinked several times with exaggerated emphasis. ……Preposterous…… How could I—who hadn’t even known my own face—possibly recognize another’s……

As if to say... In that moment when I did so, an indescribable look of disappointment crossed Dr. Wakabayashi's expression once more. With eyes turned hollow, he gazed intently at me for a while; then, reverting to his usual lonely expression as though nothing had happened, he nodded lightly two or three times before quietly turning with me toward the girl. With an exceedingly solemn gait, he stepped half a pace forward and looked down at me, clasping his hands before him as though swearing an oath before a deity. He spoke in a suggestive, measured tone.

“…Then… I shall explain.” “This person is your one and only cousin, and she is betrothed to you.” “Ah…”

I choked back a gasp of surprise. Pressing my forehead, I staggered backward unsteadily. I let out a hoarse cry while doubting my own eyes and ears simultaneously.

“Th... that... such a th... thing... th... this... so beautiful…” “Indeed, she is a lady of extraordinary beauty.” “But there is no mistake.” “This year… on April 26th of Taishō 15 (1926)… exactly six months ago… she was your one and only dear cousin who was just about to hold a wedding ceremony with you.” “Due to an incident of unparalleled strangeness that occurred the night before, she has been forced to live in such a pitiable existence until today…”

“……………………”

“Therefore… to ensure that both you and this lady are safely discharged… and to arrange for your return to a happy married life… remains my final and most crucial responsibility, entrusted to me by Dr. Masaki.”

Dr. Wakabayashi’s tone was slow, as if to intimidate me, and solemn. However, I remained as before—staring wide-eyed as if bewitched by a fox—able only to look back at the bed. ……The sheer eeriness of having a girl like a celestial maiden—someone I’d never laid eyes on before—suddenly pointed out as yours… The doubt… And that indescribable absurdity… “My… one and only cousin… but… just now… she called me ‘sister’…”

“She is dreaming.” “As I have just explained, this young lady has never had any siblings from birth—she is an only child—but historical records show that the woman who was her ancestor one thousand years ago did have an elder sister.” “...She is currently dreaming of this ancestor’s sister as her direct elder sister, hence...” “How... can you... possibly know... such a thing...”

In the midst of this, my voice trembled. While looking up at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face, I could not help but retreat inch by inch.

I began to doubt Dr. Wakabayashi's sanity... To discern the contents of another's dreams from without was something only a sorcerer could accomplish... let alone calmly explain bizarre facts from a thousand years prior—utterly beyond human deduction or imagination, impossible to fathom through mortal means—this uncanny display... Dr. Wakabayashi had never been an ordinary man from the very beginning. Perhaps he was another special patient like myself, confined within this psychiatric hospital... such suspicions began taking root...

Yet Dr. Wakabayashi showed not the slightest look of surprise. He answered in the same matter-of-fact tone befitting a scientist. He continued in the same toneless, fragmented voice— “—That… is because this young lady says and does such things even while awake, making it evident.” “…Observe this strange hairstyle.” “This hairstyle—the way it is bound—is modeled after that of married women during the era when this young lady’s ancestor from one thousand years ago lived, and she occasionally redoes it herself in this manner… That is to say, even now, this young lady remains a pure and unsullied virgin. However, whenever she styles her hair thusly, it serves as evidentiary basis that her entire mental life has reverted entirely to the habits, memories, and character of a certain married woman who was her ancestor one thousand years ago. Thus, during such periods, not a trace of maidenly quality remains—from her gaze down to the very bearing of her body.” “She takes on the appearance of a graceful young married woman, matured to the point where her apparent age becomes unrecognizable.” “…However, while she is in a state of forgetting such dreams, her hair is kept in tightly wound braids like those of any general patient—at the attendant’s discretion…”

My mouth hung open, unable to close. I could not help but compare in a daze the mystical hairstyle with Dr. Wakabayashi’s solemn expression. “…Then… then… when she said ‘brother’…” “That too refers to your esteemed ancestor from one thousand years ago.” “The ancestor of yours who had become the husband of her elder sister at that time—that is to say, you who were this young lady’s brother-in-law from one thousand years ago—she is now dreaming of the scene in which she lives together with you.”

“Th... that’s... shameful... immoral…”

I started to shout—then caught my breath sharply. Restrained by Dr. Wakabayashi’s slowly moving, ashen hand… “Shh… Quiet… If you were to remember your own name now, everything would…” Dr. Wakabayashi also fell abruptly silent, cutting himself off. Both of them simultaneously glanced back at the girl on the bed. But it was already too late. Our voices seemed to have reached the girl’s ears. Her small, crimson lips twitching restlessly, she quietly opened her eyes and, upon seeing my face standing right beside her, blinked two or three times with large, deliberate flutters. Then, the moment her double-lidded eyes glittered for an instant—she seemed utterly startled, her cheeks rapidly draining of all color. Her moist black eyes grew larger and larger, beginning to shine with a beauty so profound it seemed almost unearthly. As this happened, the color of her cheeks suddenly flared up, spreading all the way to her ears in an instant,

“Ah… Brother… Why are you here…”

She cried out as though her soul had left her body and sat bolt upright. Barefoot, she leapt down from the bed—her hemline slipping loose—and tried to cling to me.

I was astonished. I brushed away her hand without thinking. I instinctively leaped back two or three steps and glared—utterly flustered… And then, at that very moment, the girl also stopped. With both hands still outstretched, she froze as if struck by electricity. Her face turned deathly pale, her lips losing all color—and as I watched, she opened her eyes wide, staring fixedly at my face, staggered unsteadily backward, and braced both hands against the bed. Her lips quivered uncontrollably, yet she continued to stare fixedly at my face.

Then, the girl timidly looked around at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face and the state of the room… until, gradually, both her eyes filled to the brim with glistening tears. Limply hanging her head, she collapsed onto the stone floor. Then, pressing the sleeve of her white patient gown to her face, she let out a wail and threw herself onto the bed, weeping.

I grew increasingly flustered. While wiping the sweat pouring across my entire face, I compared the back of the girl sobbing in hiccupping gasps with Dr. Wakabayashi's face. Dr. Wakabayashi... however, didn't move a single facial muscle. Coldly meeting my dazed stare, he calmly approached the girl and bent down. He asked, bringing his mouth close to her ear: "Have you remembered?" "This person's name... and your own as well..."

When I heard these words, I was more startled than the girl. Could it be that this girl, like me, had fallen into an "ego-loss state"—awakening from a somnambulistic trance... and was Dr. Wakabayashi now subjecting her to the same experiments he was conducting on me...? My ears rang with a piercing whine from the tension as I awaited her reply. But the girl did not reply. After stopping her crying for a short while, she buried her face deeper into the bed and merely shook her head from side to side.

“Then… does this mean you at least remember that this person here was your Beloved brother, to whom you were engaged?” The girl nodded. And then she burst into tears in a high-pitched voice even more intense than before. It was a truly grief-stricken, gut-wrenching cry—one that would pierce even a listener who knew nothing of the circumstances. It was the heartrending lament of a girl who now seemed to be realizing with acute clarity—for the first time—that her inability to recall her own lover’s name had left her stranded in the far-flung world of mental patients… and that even when she miraculously encountered her beloved and tried to cling to him, she found herself coldly cast aside.

Though there may be a difference between men and women, having fallen into the same mental state and being made to endure the same suffering, I found myself drawn to that hoarse, broken weeping down to the depths of my soul. This was entirely different from when I had been summoned in the darkness this morning… no, I had been thrust into a suffocating predicament several times worse than before. Still unable to recall either this girl’s face or name, I was tormented by guilt—as if I alone bore responsibility—as her excruciating sobs and pitiful form, collapsed weeping and trembling violently upon the white bed, demanded immediate remembrance and action. Pressing both hands to my face, I felt cold sweat stream down my entire body. My vision swam until I nearly staggered and collapsed where I stood.

But Dr. Wakabayashi—whether aware of my suffering or not—continued leaning forward as he gently stroked the girl’s shoulder. “Th... there... calm down… calm yourself… It will return soon.” “This person… and your Beloved brother… have both forgotten your face.” “Yet… they will remember everything shortly.” “When they do… they will tell you at once.” “Then you shall leave this hospital together… Now… rest quietly.” “Await the appointed time.” “For it draws nearer than you think…”

Having said this, Dr. Wakabayashi raised his head... Then, taking my hand—as I stood there stunned, weakened, wiping away dark tears—he briskly led me outside the door and shut the heavy door firmly behind us without a trace of reluctance. Dr. Wakabayashi clapped his hands sharply to summon the elderly attendant—who had been tending to the cockscomb flowers at the far end of the corridor—then urged me onward as I lingered in hesitation, leading me back into the former Room No.7.

When I listened carefully, the girl’s weeping seemed to have subsided considerably. In the pauses between her gasping sobs, I got the impression that the elderly attendant was speaking to her. Standing upright on the artificial stone floor, I let out a deep sigh—Hoh…—and composed myself. For now, I looked up at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face and waited for his explanation. Not only had I never even dreamed of such a thing until this very moment, but even people in the world at large had likely never seen such a peerless beauty outside of dolls—and yet here she was, confined as a wretched mental patient in the neighboring room, separated from me by just a single wall.

Moreover, this beautiful girl was not only my sole cousin and betrothed but also dreamed of cohabiting with an utterly bizarre version of myself—"the me who had been her sister’s husband one thousand years ago." Not only that, but upon waking from that dream, the moment she saw my face, she cried "Brother!" and tried to cling to me.

...and because I had brushed her away, she collapsed onto the floor, now wracked with gut-wrenching grief.

I waited with bated breath to hear what kind of explanation Dr. Wakabayashi would offer regarding such an utterly bizarre, convoluted fact of the world. But at that moment—whatever Dr. Wakabayashi was thinking—he abruptly fell silent as if struck mute. Then, with cold, pale eyes, he cast me but a fleeting glance before quietly lowering his gaze. With his left hand, he fumbled through his vest pocket, retrieved a large silver pocket watch, and placed it on his palm. Then, gently placing the fingertips of his right hand against his left wrist, he peered at the dial indicating 7:30 and began measuring his own pulse.

Dr. Wakabayashi, in poor health, may have made it a habit to check his pulse like this around this time every morning. However, even so, in Dr. Wakabayashi’s demeanor as he did this, not a trace remained of the tension that had been so palpable until this very moment. In its place appeared the indifference one might show toward complete strangers brushing past on the roadside. Observing his figure—small eyes lowered like a ghost’s, pale lips pressed into a rigid line, middle finger rhythmically pressing and releasing the pulse point on his left wrist—it seemed as though he were using that demeanor to suppress my frenzied agitation over the inexplicable events thrust upon me in the neighboring room mere moments ago. ...And yet—despite parading before my eyes this peerless beauty who defied existence itself—a girl writhing in layered loves within a world where past, present, future...dreams and reality collapsed into chaos...unimaginably profane yet supremely pure...neither maiden nor wife, sane nor mad...Dr. Wakabayashi not only introduced her as "your cousin and fiancée," but now appeared to deliberately evade my questions about these preposterous facts even as he brandished their supposed evidence.

So I, feeling a dissatisfaction I couldn’t fathom how to resolve, found myself helplessly fidgeting with my hat before finally hanging my head. Moreover… it was precisely at that moment of hanging my head that I felt—as though the doctor were making a deliberate fool of me. Though I couldn’t fathom why, I couldn’t help but wonder if Dr. Wakabayashi was exploiting my addled mental state to foist some outrageous fabrication upon me—attempting to make me swallow this rootless falsehood whole. And then a suspicion flashed through my mind—that he might be trying to use me for some academic experiment… No sooner had this thought arisen than it began to feel undeniably true, spreading through every corner of my mind.

Capturing me—who knew nothing—and making me dress up as an unexpected university student, introducing a beautiful girl as my supposed fiancée… Seeing how he was going to such lengths with all this made everything seem terribly suspicious. I wondered if these clothes and hat hadn’t been tailored to fit my body while I drifted in that dreamlike haze. Moreover, that girl might simply be a nymphomaniac or some such confined in this hospital—perhaps she made those bizarre gestures to everyone she saw. This hospital might not even be part of Kyushu Imperial University. Perhaps even Dr. Wakabayashi standing before me was some sort of incomprehensible fraud—someone who had dragged me here from who-knows-where, whether scrambling my brains for some reason or not, to plunge me into an elaborate illusion for his own purposes. If that weren’t the case, there’d be no reason for me—faced with such a beautiful girl claiming to be my own fiancée—to remember nothing of the past. I should have felt something—nostalgia, joy… anything at all.

……That’s right—I was indeed being completely fed a line. ……As I came to realize this, all the doubts, confusions, and astonishments that had been obsessing my mind until now began hissing away and evaporating before my very eyes. And so, before I knew it, my mind had reverted to its original state of clattering chaos. No responsibilities… no worries…

However, as this happened, I found myself utterly alone, assaulted by a vague sense of being adrift and a profoundly lonely mood, so I let out a faint sigh and raised my face once more. At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi—apparently having just finished examining his pulse—calmly dropped the pocket watch from his left palm back into its original pocket and reverted to the same meticulously polite demeanor he had shown when we first met that morning.

“How are you holding up? You aren’t feeling fatigued, are you?” Once again I found myself somewhat flustered. Through Dr. Wakabayashi’s excessively casual demeanor, I felt increasingly ridiculed, yet forced myself to nod with feigned composure. “No. Not at all…” “Ah… Then we may continue further with the examination to help you recall your esteemed past history.” I nodded once more with affected nonchalance. With a feeling of… whatever… Seeing this, Dr. Wakabayashi nodded in unison.

“Then I shall now guide you to the professor’s office in this Kyushu Imperial University Department of Psychiatry main building—the room where Dr. Keishi Masaki, whom I mentioned earlier, resided until the very day of his passing.” “As you examine the mementos of your past displayed there, I am certain the strange enigmas surrounding your very existence will gradually unravel, and ultimately you shall fully recover all your past memories in splendid fashion.” “Furthermore, I believe this will simultaneously dissolve the truth of that supremely bizarre incident entwining you and that young lady—”

Dr. Wakabayashi’s words rang out with an iron-clad conviction, as though laden with some profound implication.

However, I remained indifferent to such matters and bowed my head once more. ...Take me wherever you like. After all, what will be will be... with a sense of reckless resignation... At the same time, I felt a flicker of curiosity about what bizarre thing they might produce next... driven by...

Then Dr. Wakabayashi also nodded with satisfaction. “……Then…… this way please……”

The Kyushu Imperial University Faculty of Medicine Psychiatry Department Main Building was a blue-painted, two-story wooden Western-style structure that included the aforementioned bathhouse.

Retracing their path straight back along the outer corridor flanked by flower beds they had just come through—its long central passage cutting through the building—when they emerged on the other side, they came upon an imposing iron-clad door that seemed like a prison entrance. No sooner had this thought crossed their minds than the door rumbled open to one side by the hand of a guard who must have been watching from somewhere, leading them into a dark, hollow entranceway. The entrance door was tightly closed, likely due to the early hour. Relying on the faint blue light leaking through the transom window above the door, they climbed the left of two steep staircases lining both sides—their footsteps clunking heavily—then turned right to find themselves in a brilliantly bright south-facing corridor. Along its right side stood several rooms bearing wooden signs reading "Laboratory" and "Library." At the end of the corridor stood a brownish door affixed with a white paper sign boldly brushed with “Strictly No Entry... Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.”

Leading the way, Dr. Wakabayashi took out a key with a large wooden tag from his inner pocket and opened the door. After turning around and ushering me inside, he removed his overcoat with a reverent demeanor and hung it on the coat hook affixed to the wall immediately beside the door. So I also followed suit and hung up my marbled overcoat and peaked cap side by side. From how our shoe marks remained as they were on the floor, it seemed the entire room was covered in a thin layer of dust.

It was a splendidly spacious, bright room. Of the twelve windows—four aligned on each of the northern, western, and southern sides—the eight on the north and west were entirely shrouded by dark green pine branches. But the four on the southern side, unobstructed, let the blue-blue morning sky's light flood in dazzlingly alongside the nearby roar of waves like a deluge. Within this space, Dr. Wakabayashi's grotesquely elongated morning-coated figure and my own stubby uniformed form stood side by side, forming such a strange contrast that I felt we'd somehow drifted far from the real world.

At that moment, Dr. Wakabayashi raised his slender right hand and swept it around the room. Simultaneously, a weak voice emanating from above created a gentle reverberation that lingered in every corner of the room.

“This room originally served dual purposes as both the library and specimen room for this psychiatry department. However, the books and specimens in question consist entirely of psychiatry research materials painstakingly collected by Dr.Sōhachi Saitō—the former head professor of this department—alongside documents intended as reference materials, works created by patients who resided in this hospital, or personal items and records related to their circumstances. Among these, not a few are worthy of pride in the global academic community.” However, after Dr.Saitō passed away, when Dr.Masaki assumed the position of head professor and arrived in February of this year, he decided this room was brighter and more suitable, moved all books and documents occupying the eastern half to the former professor’s office, and transformed the vacated area into his own living quarters—as you can see—even installing that magnificent fireplace. Moreover, when it was discovered these alterations had been made arbitrarily without obtaining the university president’s approval or filing proper documentation, Mr.Tsukae from headquarters reportedly became greatly flustered and hurriedly came to plead with Dr.Masaki in humble terms to submit required forms. Yet at that time, Dr.Masaki allegedly dismissed the matter without responding to the request and instead made the following remark.

“Oh, it’s nothing… There’s no need for you to worry so much." “It’s just a matter of rearranging the specimens’ positions a bit, that’s all.” “Tell the president that for me… this is the reason here.” “Hear me out.” “...What need is there to hide it? Though I myself—the very one speaking—have managed to become a university professor thanks to this, if I’m to be perfectly honest, upon reflection, I am undoubtedly a sort of research maniac and megalomaniac combined.” “The fact that I am fully qualified to serve as research material for those psychiatrists is something I have clearly diagnosed myself... However, even so, I can’t exactly step forward now and admit myself into my own hospital room.” “It’s merely that I wanted to exhibit my own brain as a living specimen alongside these reference materials for the time being… Of course, such measures might be unnecessary in fields like internal medicine or surgery, but in psychiatry alone, one must treat even the head professor’s brain as a research material—one must conduct thorough investigations—and since this constitutes my signature academic research methodology, there’s no helping it.” “I believe Dr. Saitō—the one who created this specimen room—would of course raise both hands in agreement beneath the earth...”

"With that, he burst into uproarious laughter, and even the seasoned Administrative Officer Tsukae was reportedly thrown into such confusion that he withdrew." Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation had been delivered in an utterly flat, smooth tone—yet even so, it sufficed thoroughly to astonish me. In that instant when I perceived Dr. Masaki’s true intellectual audacity—which until then I had heard described only through adjectives—now shining vividly forth from such seemingly trivial banter, I was struck by an involuntary shiver. Not only did he transcend the common sense and rules so cherished by society at large, but even in half-jest—through a mindset that deemed himself little more than a specimen of madness—he utterly mocked the entire university, nay, scholars worldwide. The transparency of his mind...the acridity of his irony, its grandeur...became so glaringly clear to me that I could only stand there agape, dumbstruck.

However, Dr. Wakabayashi, as was his custom, continued speaking utterly unrelated to my astonishment. “...Now then, the purpose for which I have accompanied you to this room is none other than—” “As I mentioned earlier in Room No. 7 downstairs, first and foremost, I wish to conduct a test to determine which item among these specimens and reference materials lined up here most profoundly captures your attention.” “This is a method to probe the human subconscious—that is to say, to extract memories buried deep within that cannot be recalled through ordinary means. Moreover, it has been proven innumerably that this subconscious ceaselessly operates without the individual’s awareness, exerting profound control over them. Thus, we may reasonably conclude that your own past memories—sealed within your subconscious—will inevitably guide you toward some memento of your past displayed in this room and vividly awaken those related recollections… Dr. Masaki once learned this technique during his travels in the Balkans from a local female shaman called an *Ismera*, with whom he reportedly achieved repeated experimental successes. However… should you prove to bear no relation whatsoever to the aforementioned young lady—to be a complete stranger—this experiment will assuredly fail.” “Why, you ask? Because there are no mementos in this room that could awaken your past memories... Therefore, it matters not what you choose—kindly begin by inquiring about whatever catches your eye here in this room.” “Kindly assume the mindset of one conducting research into mental illness… If you do so, before long, a flash of insight will strike you regarding some item here.” “That will serve as the first clue to awaken your past memories, and from there, in one sweeping torrent, you shall likely come to recall the entirety of your recollections.”

Dr. Wakabayashi’s words had once again spilled forth with extreme casualness, flowing smoothly. He spoke with an easy, kind-hearted intent—as though an adult explaining something to a child… Yet as I listened, I found myself unable to suppress a new kind of shudder—one I had not experienced since morning—welling up from the depths of my heart. All the doubts I had been harboring since earlier—that everything was utter nonsense—had been overturned from their very foundations as I listened to Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation.

Dr. Wakabayashi was indeed an authoritative forensic scientist. Even if he truly recognized me as her lover, he was by no means trying to force that belief upon me through coercion. Through the most fair and impartial—and yet most circumspect—scientific method, he was enclosing my psyche without a single chink, compelling me to directly point to myself as her lover with my own hand. The depth of that conviction… the calmness of the plan… its thoroughness…

……If that were truly the case… then all these events I’d been witnessing and hearing since earlier must have been actual matters connected to my own life. And that girl—could she indeed be both my rightful cousin and betrothed…? ……If so, then whether I willed it or not, I now bore the responsibility of unearthing mementos of my past from within this room—for her sake. Thus I stood here now, fated to rouse my buried memories through this act and thereby rescue her from madness.

……Ah… That I must search for “my own past” within the “madhouse specimen room”… That I must unearth proof—from among “psychiatric research materials”—that a peerlessly beautiful girl, whom I could only perceive as a complete stranger, was in fact my fiancée… What an utterly bizarre position I found myself in! What a shameful... terrifying... and inexplicable fate this was. As my thoughts shifted in this way, I—unconsciously wiping the sweat beading on my forehead with a new handkerchief from my pocket—began timidly surveying the room’s interior once more. With a dreadfully eerie imagination—that some unforeseen past self of mine might be lurking right beneath my nose—trembling deep within my heart and making me shrink inward, I cautiously scanned every corner of the room anew.

The western half of the room—divided north-south from its center—had ordinary wooden flooring, blocked by rows of glass cabinets filled with specimen-like objects. In contrast, the eastern half’s floor was entirely covered in linoleum blanketed under a thin layer of dust, its center occupied by a large desk approximately 4–5 shaku wide and 2 ken long, flanked midway by two swivel armchairs. The green baize stretched taut across the surface of the large desk—still blanketed under a thin layer of dust—dazzlingly reflected the rays of light streaming in from the southern windows, as if further heightening the solemnity of this room. Furthermore, at the center of that green reflection lay several document-like bundles sandwiched between canvas-backed cardboard and a blue square merino cloth bundle, all arranged reverently and precisely. Yet seeing how the same gray dust blanketing the desk’s surface now wholly covered these items, it appeared they had been left untouched by anyone’s hand for a considerable time. Moreover, before them sat a red Seto-ware daruma ashtray—abandoned and likewise coated in gray dust. With its back turned to the documents, this figure crossed its hairy arms over its head, mouth agape in an eternal yawn. Its placement felt so deliberate, as though someone had intentionally positioned it there, that it inexplicably unnerved me.

The eastern wall standing directly opposite the red daruma was entirely coated in a fresh eggyolk hue that seemed newly painted. At its center was installed a large fireplace—spacious enough to comfortably fit a person—fitted with a black-lacquered square cover. Directly above hung a round clock measuring over two shaku in diameter, silently displaying the current time—7:42—likely powered by an electric mechanism rather than mechanical works. To the right hung a large oil painting in a gilded frame, while to the left were displayed an enlarged photographic portrait enclosed in black framing and a calendar. Further left of the portrait stood another door presumably leading to an adjacent room. As I surveyed these elements—some dazzlingly bright, others sharply defined in the crisp morning light—all combining to create the solemn stillness befitting a university professor’s study, I found myself instinctively straightening my collar.

In truth… at this moment, I felt struck by a sublime inspiration. All the resigned detachment I had harbored since earlier and my curiosity about her fate had vanished somewhere... Filled with a sacred mood as if everything were according to divine will... I adjusted my stiff collar with both hands. Then, with a pilgrim-like resolve guided by the mysterious hand of fate, I slowly and deliberately moved forward, stepping into the rows of cabinets displaying reference materials.

I first approached the cabinets lined near the brightest south-facing window, but inside the glass doors facing that window were arrayed various strange documents and scroll-like items, each affixed with a slip of paper bearing a brief explanation. According to Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation, all these items were petitions submitted by hospitalized patients to the head professor—each essentially declaring, “My mind has recovered to this extent, so please discharge me”—or so the story went.

――A hanging scroll of a Hina doll drawn with blood from the gums――(Created by a women’s university graduate) ――Petition for the Conquest of Mars――(Submitted by an Elementary School Teacher) ――*Tang Poetry Anthology*: Five-Character Quatrain “Bamboo Lodge” in Clerical Script――(Penned by an illiterate farmer who, after falling ill, reproduced the subconscious of his great-grandfather—a Chinese-style physician—across generations) ――Dozens of sheets of Western-style paper with memorized transcriptions of dozens of pages from the Encyclopædia Britannica――(Submitted by a university student disqualified from the Higher Civil Service Examination) ――Dozens of student notebooks filled with nothing but repetitions of the phrase “Katyusha kawai ya wakare no tsurasa” (“Oh Katyusha, how lovely yet bitter our parting”)――(Self-proclaimed “creation” by an unemployed actor styling himself a great artist)

――Paper-made pocket sundial―― (Crafted by an elderly barber)

――A statue of the Virgin Mary carved into red bricks with bamboo pieces――(Created by an elementary school principal who believes in Catholicism) ――A Kannon statue molded from nasal discharge, encased in a glass box―― (Created by a Sōtō Sect missionary) I found myself overwhelmed by the relentless parade of miserable, pitiful objects emerging one after another. Before I could finish surveying the entire row, I instinctively turned my face away to move on—but in that moment, at the farthest end of the cabinet where a glass door lay broken in one corner, slightly apart from the other exhibits, I discovered something peculiar. It was an inconspicuous item that had only just barely caught my eye at first thanks to the broken glass, but the more I looked at it, the stranger the exhibit appeared.

It was a bound manuscript stacked to a height of about five sun, apparently read by a considerable number of people—the top few sheets were torn, stained, and beginning to fray. Taking care not to injure myself on the broken glass, I cautiously inserted my hand and examined it closely. The manuscript was divided into five volumes in total, with each first page bearing a large red Roman numeral—Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, Ⅳ, Ⅴ—printed in red ink spanning the entire page. When I turned the half-torn first page of the topmost volume, I found something resembling a waka poem written horizontally in notebook-style red ink katakana.

Opening Poem O fetus, O fetus, why do you leap? Does knowing your mother’s heart fill you with terror?—

On the next page, the title "Dogra Magra" was written in black Gothic font, but there was no author’s name. The very first line appeared to begin with a string of katakana characters: “Buuu——nnn… nnnnnn…”, while the final line likewise ended with the same katakana sequence: “Buuu——nnn… nnnnnn…”. Judging from this structure, it seemed to be a single continuous novel-like work. It was a voluminous manuscript that somehow felt derisive, permeated with an asylum-stained aura.

“……What is this, Doctor… this Dogra Magra thing…”

Dr. Wakabayashi nodded from behind me with an uncharacteristic casualness.

“Yes. “It is, indeed, one of those bizarre and fascinating creations that express the mysterious psychological states of mental patients.” “Shortly after the passing of our department’s director, Dr. Masaki, a young university student patient who was also confined in this affiliated ward wrote it in one sustained effort and submitted it to me, but…”

“A young university student…” “Yes.” “Haa… So this was written to prove his mind was sound—to get himself discharged, then?” “No. The truth is, I remain uncertain on that point—it’s proving quite difficult to categorize—but in essence, this content could be described as a sort of... supernatural science fiction story modeled after Dr. Masaki and myself.”

"...A supernatural science fiction story... modeled after you and Dr. Masaki..." “Indeed…” “It’s not a thesis…?” “Indeed… That aspect remains rather difficult to state definitively… Generally, writings by mental patients are said to lean toward excessive logic, but this particular work stands as singularly exceptional.” “The entire composition appears as a coherent academic thesis while simultaneously evoking the aftertaste of a detective novel unprecedented in both form and content.” “Yet conversely, one might consider it merely a nonsensical screed written to mock and manipulate Dr. Masaki’s and my intellect—a text of truly unparalleled strangeness. Moreover, its factual content proves equally extraordinary: scientific curiosity, grotesquery, eroticism, detective fiction tropes, absurdist humor, and occult fascination—all interwoven with 100% intensity across every crevice of its pages through a thoroughly disorienting structure. When read with composure, one inevitably senses an eerie miasma permeating the entire work—a sinister aura that could only emanate from an unhinged psyche.” “……Naturally, having been recognized as possessing high research value in spiritual science—wholly distinct in nature from trifles like that ‘Petition for the Conquest of Mars’—it has been provisionally stored here. Though I daresay even within this room… No—” “...I believe it may constitute the most peculiar specimen in all global psychiatric academia...”

Dr. Wakabayashi seemed intent on having me read this manuscript and gradually began explaining it with growing eloquence. His fervor was so abnormal that I involuntarily blinked rapidly. “Huh. How could such a young madman devise such a complex, convoluted plot?” “……That is precisely how matters stand. That young student had been a prodigy who maintained top rankings from elementary school through high school until entering this university. However, owing to his obsessive fondness for detective fiction and conviction that the genre’s future lay in psychology, psychoanalysis, and spiritual science, he appears to have developed mental abnormalities—ultimately orchestrating a shocking tragedy after becoming trapped in certain hallucinations and delusions.” “Thus, shortly after being admitted to this psychiatric ward, he apparently felt compelled to write a harrowing story modeled after himself……Moreover, though the novel’s structure is as I previously described—exceedingly complex and meticulous—its overarching plotline proves astonishingly simple.” “In essence, this work merely details the suffering of that young man confined here for Dr. Masaki and myself, undergoing unimaginably horrifying spiritual science experiments.”

"...Huh. Doctor, do you possess such memories?" Under Dr. Wakabayashi's eyes gathered the same ironic, desolate smile-wrinkles as before. Catching the backlight from the window, they shone pallidly, flickering. "There is absolutely no such thing." "So it's all nonsense then?" "Yet when examining the recorded facts, one finds only descriptions that seem far from nonsensical." "Huh." "Strange." "Could such a thing be possible?"

“Well… To be honest, I too am struggling to determine that point… But if you were to read it, you would understand…”

“No. I don’t need to read it, but is the content interesting?” “Well… That aspect too proves somewhat difficult to articulate, but it appears to evoke in experts an interest too profound to be captured by mere terms like ‘interesting.’ Even among non-specialists, those with even a modicum of scientific curiosity or mystical inclination toward matters like mental illness or the brain find it intensely compelling. In fact, experts at this very university who have read it report feeling compelled to revisit it at least two or three times. They say that upon finally grasping its entire structure, they simultaneously realize their own brains teeter on the brink of madness. In extreme cases, one individual abandoned psychiatric research altogether after reading it—transferring to my Forensic Medicine Department—while another lost all faith in their brain’s workings and threw themselves in front of a train.”

“Huh. That’s one hell of a story.” “So sane people are being outdone by madmen, huh?” “So it’s written with some downright mad stuff, huh?” “However, the depiction of its content is exceedingly calm, and its logical coherence surpasses that of ordinary academic papers or novels.” “Moreover, I find myself compelled to admire anew the exceptional memory unique to the mentally deranged regarding what they have seen and heard—such things as ‘The Memorized Notes of the Encyclopedia Britannica’ you just saw cannot begin to compare.” “Furthermore—as I mentioned earlier—the inconceivability of its conception transcends what ordinary people call reasoning or imagination, and as one reads it, their mind becomes gradually ensnared in a kind of bizarre hallucination, delusion, and perverse notion before they realize it.” “In that sense, it can be considered that such a title was affixed…”

“So… this ‘Dogra Magra’ title—was it the person himself who attached it?” “Indeed… It is a most peculiar title, I must say…” “...What does it mean... the true meaning of this ‘Dogra Magra’... Is it Japanese, or...” “...Well... I must confess that even regarding this matter, I found myself perplexed. In short, this text—from its title to its contents—can only be considered something thoroughly engineered to bewilder people from start to finish.” "The reason I say this is none other than..." Having finished reading this manuscript and been bewildered by the strangeness of its contents, I had come to wonder whether the key to solving this enigmatic puzzle might not lie hidden within its very title. The reason I say this is none other than that I came to consider whether this ‘Dogra Magra’ might not be an argot with such a meaning. “However, the young patient who wrote this—exhibiting the manic energy unique to the mentally ill—completed the manuscript in a mere week or so, writing ceaselessly without sleep. Yet having exhausted himself in this feat, he began snoring around the clock day and night, rendering it impossible to inquire about the title’s meaning for the foreseeable future.” However, such a mysterious word could not be found in any dictionary or the like, and of course its etymology remained unclear, so I found myself at an impasse for a time—but then, before long, I unexpectedly noticed something intriguing. “Originally, in this Kyushu region, there seem to remain numerous dialect words of old European derivation—such as *Geren*, *Haraiso*, *Banko*, *Dontaku*, and *Terenparen*—so I came to consider whether this might not be one such term. Thus, after having enthusiasts specializing in such dialects conduct various investigations, I finally understood.” ...The term 'Dogra Magra' is said to have been a dialect from the Nagasaki region referring to illusion magic used by Christian missionaries around the time of the Meiji Restoration, and is now considered a near-obsolete term used solely to mean conjuring tricks or sleight of hand. “As for its etymology and lineage, these remain unclear; but if one were to forcibly translate it, it could be rendered as ‘illusion magic’ of today or assigned characters such as ‘hall-rounding dizziness’ or ‘door-confounding bewilderment’ to be read identically as ‘Dogra Magra,’ yet in any case, it is undoubtedly a term that encompasses all such meanings.” “…In other words, since the content of this manuscript is—through and through—adorned with tricks of an intensely grotesque nature, unambiguously erotic in essence, thoroughly detective-novel-esque in execution, and nonsensical to its very core… a kind of cerebral hell… or rather a psychological labyrinthine game… it is reasonable to presume that such a name was affixed.”

“...A hell of the mind... Dogra Magra... I still don’t fully grasp it... but... what exactly is it about?”

“...Were I to explain the matters described within this manuscript, you might gain some inkling.” “That is to say, every single problem described in this Dogra Magra narrative is not only something that cannot be dismissed by common sense—being both easily comprehensible and profoundly intriguing—but also facts grounded in manifestations of profound truths that might be called common sense beyond common sense, science beyond science.” “For instance—”

...phrases from a satirical folk sutra that gave piercing voice to the fact that “psychiatric hospitals are living hells on earth”... ...a transcript of a spiritual scientist’s discourse substantiating how “all people in the world are mentally ill without exception”... ...an academic paper concerning the grand nightmare of universal evolution with a fetus as its protagonist... ...a record of a psychiatric patient’s lecture that proclaimed, “The brain is but a kind of telephone exchange”... ...a will that seemed written half in jest...

...a decaying portrait of a dead beauty depicted by a master artisan of the Tang Dynasty... ...investigation documents pertaining to a beautiful young man—unconsciously driven to commit acts of cruelty, adultery, unspeakable violence, and murder—who was adored by a modern-day beauty said to be the living image of that decaying woman from her lifetime... ...These elements—alongside various inexplicable events—swirled kaleidoscopically in forms apparently unrelated to the main narrative. Yet upon finishing the text, one realized every word constituted that very narrative’s core... Moreover, beginning with the hallucinatory impression of a solitary clock toll at midnight in its opening passage, as one chased these impressions link by link, they inevitably circled back to that initial midnight chime... It resembled surveying a hellish panorama so vivid that identical terrors and unease resurfaced in fixed sequence, repeating endlessly without reprieve—no escape route to be found... ...for all these events amounted to nothing but a dream glimpsed in an instant by a madman who had heard a single clock chime one midnight. Furthermore, though this momentary dream had felt like twenty-odd hours in reality, academic explanation revealed that the initial and final clock chimes could indeed be identical—a truth proven through *Dogra Magra*’s spiritual science... Such was the unfathomable profundity structuring this work. “...Proof supersedes theory... Were you to read it, understanding would come at once...”

As he spoke, Dr. Wakabayashi approached and began to pick up the topmost volume. However, I hurriedly stopped him.

“No. “That’s quite enough.”

With these words, I violently shook both hands from side to side. Just hearing Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation made me feel like my head was already about to be ensnared by *Dogra Magra*… and at the same time… ...If it’s something written by a madman, then it’s bound to be utterly meaningless in the end. It must be nothing more than a trifle—a mere jumble of “encyclopedia memorization,” “Katyusha Kawaiya” (that popular song), and *Mars Conquest*. ...The *Dogra Magra* I’m already facing is more than enough without being burdened with someone else’s *Dogra Magra* too—if I were to slip into some absurd state of mind on top of it all, that would be disastrous. ...This whole matter—best to forget it entirely right here and now...

With that thought, I thrust both hands into my pockets and shook my head violently from side to side. Then I walked over to the window by the cupboard’s protruding edge and surveyed the photographs and charts plastered there before turning back to demand further explanations from Dr. Wakabayashi. That was…

――Comparative Photographs of Psychiatric Patients’ Facial Expressions Before and After Onset of Illness―― ――Analysis and Comparison Table of Food and Excreta Before and After Onset of Illness―― ...ranging from those belonging to such peculiar research as... ――Paintings Based on Hallucinations and Delusions―― ――Hysterical Women’s Spasms and Seizures Manifesting Grotesque Poses: Assorted Photographs――

――Photographs of Patients’ Attire and Disguises in Various Mental Illnesses, Categorized by Type―― ...and so on—all excruciating specimens of this sort—yet the sight of these things chaotically plastered across every surface, from all three walls to the cupboard flanks, resembled that of viewing a distinctly grotesque exhibition. Furthermore, what lay displayed within the multi-layered glass cupboards arrayed beyond...

――Comparison of an extraordinarily large brain, a small brain, and an average brain (the large one has approximately twice the volume of the average, the small one about three times less). (all formalin-preserved)―― ――Formalin-preserved brains of sexually deranged individuals, homicidal maniacs, stroke patients, dwarfs, and other mentally ill persons (all clearly showing areas of hypertrophy, atrophy, hemorrhage, or syphilitic infection)―― ――A ghost portrait by Ōkyo that became the treasured heirloom of a family destroyed by mental illness――

――A Muramasa dagger said to drive the master of the house insane when polished――

――Several fragments of whale bone that a mental patient peddled believing them to be mermaid bones―― ――Likewise, a gold-and-silver-eyed black cat’s head that a mental patient brewed with the aim of poisoning an entire family―― ――Likewise, five fingers of a mental patient’s left hand that he himself severed and discarded, along with the straw-cutting knife used to do so――

――The cracked skull of a patient who committed suicide by jumping headfirst from a bed―― ――A pillow and blanket-made doll caressed as substitutes for a wife―― ――A brass pipe swallowed under the pretense of performing magic―― ――Galvanized iron plate torn apart with bare hands―― ――Iron Bars of a Cell Twisted by a Female Patient―― ...such terrifying items were lined up, jostling and crammed together alongside elegant, delicate knits, artificial flowers, embroideries, and the like―all crafted by madmen.

I listened to Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanations with bated breath, wondering which of these things might be related to me. I anxiously peered around, worrying what if even one of these outlandish things had some connection to me, but whether fortunately or unfortunately, none seemed to give that impression. On the contrary, it was only that the unmistakable will and emotions unique to psychiatric patients contained within those things pressed relentlessly upon my nerves one after another, giving rise to an indescribable feeling—excruciatingly painful and heart-wrenching.

While struggling hard to endure such feelings and gripped by something resembling a sense of duty, I peered into the cupboard. After finally managing to survey everything through sheer effort, I returned to the side of the large desk from earlier and involuntarily heaved a sigh of relief. I wiped away the fresh sweat once more beading on my forehead with a handkerchief. Then suddenly pivoting on my heel halfway around, I turned my back westward.

Simultaneously, all the items in the room swung around in a smooth half-rotation from right to left, and the framed oil painting hung near the entrance on my right glided smoothly past the central desk to come to an exact halt directly before me. As if to face that framed painting directly—as though I had been fated to do so… I stretched out my hunched-over body with force. And then once more, taking a long, long deep breath while gazing, I became entranced by the blending of the faded oil pigments’ yellow, brown, and faint, hazy green.

The scene depicted what appeared to be a Western-style burning at the stake or something similar.

In the center of three thick pillars of raw timber stood side by side was bound high up a divine old man with white hair and beard. To his right lay an emaciated pallid youth... while on the old man’s left was a disheveled-haired woman crowned with a floral wreath—each tied stark naked—choking and writhing in flames and smoke that rose from firewood heaped beneath their feet.

From the right side of the frame, a noble-looking couple seated in a golden palanquin gazed with detached fascination at this ghastly spectacle, surrounded by gorgeously attired relatives and retainers—yet in stark contrast, on the opposite left edge, a single child stretched both hands toward his mother’s face emerging from flames and smoke, screaming in desperate longing. A burly man who appeared to be his father and an old man resembling his grandfather were embracing him, their expressions as they glanced back—as if in fear of the nobles—while covering the child’s mouth with their large palms, each vividly depicted.

Moreover, at the very center of that square stood an old crone—her high-nosed face crowned by a red triangular hood, her frame draped in a long black coat—planting a ritual staff into the ground as she stood utterly alone. With a triumphant leer, she pointed out the three figures writhing on the stakes to the nobles nearby, baring her jagged teeth in a broad, creeping grin… A scene that grew increasingly unsettling in its vividness the longer one gazed upon it—an eerie tableau that crawled beneath the skin. “What is this painting?”

I pointed at the painting and turned around. Dr. Wakabayashi answered coldly, just as he had been doing all along, with both hands kept in his trouser pockets. “That is an illustration of a superstitious practice conducted during Europe’s medieval period, and judging from the customs depicted, it is thought to be from France or thereabouts.” “It depicts a scene where mental patients—regarded as those possessed by demons—are indiscriminately burned alive. The old woman at the center, wearing a red hood and black coat, served as a doctor, prayer, diviner, and shamaness of that era.” “It is said that Dr. Masaki purchased this from an antique shop in Yanagawa as reference material showing how the mentally ill were once cruelly treated in this manner.” “There have recently been some people claiming the artist is Rembrandt, and if that were true, this painting would be an extraordinarily valuable artwork even as a mere art object, but…”

“Ah… So burning them to death was the treatment method back then, I see.” “Indeed, indeed.” “Since there was no medicine for a disease as elusive as mental illness, it should rather be deemed a thorough treatment method.” I felt I could neither laugh nor cry. As Dr. Wakabayashi spoke these words and looked down at me, his pallid eyes held a cruelty so absolute that—were it in the name of academic pursuit—he might well have seized me then and there to reduce me to charred remains… I said with a semblance of courtesy, running my palm over my face.

“Madmen born in this present age are fortunate indeed.”

Then once again, something resembling a smile appeared on Dr. Wakabayashi’s left cheek, only to vanish immediately. "...No... It is not necessarily so." “Perhaps the mental patients of old, burned to death in one fell swoop, were the more fortunate ones.”

I regretted having said something unnecessary yet again and hunched my shoulders. While avoiding Dr. Wakabayashi’s unsettling gaze, I wiped my face with a handkerchief when unexpectedly, a large photograph in a black wooden frame hanging on the front left wall caught my eye. It depicted a portly gentleman around sixty years old—his hairline receding deeply, a long salt-and-pepper beard flowing down—dressed in a formal kimono. His face brimmed with a gentle, kindly smile that seemed to mark him as a good-natured soul. When I first noticed that photograph, I thought it might be Dr. Masaki, so I deliberately went directly in front of it and faced it properly, but as it didn’t seem to be him after all, I turned back to Dr. Wakabayashi again.

“Who is this photograph of?” Dr. Wakabayashi’s face appeared to soften markedly the moment I asked this. For reasons I couldn’t grasp, he slowly bowed his head, his features radiating a satisfaction I’d never before witnessed.

“Ah… yes… that photograph.” “Yes… that is Dr. Sōhachi Saitō.” “As I mentioned earlier, he was the one who oversaw this psychiatry department before Dr. Masaki and served as our mentor.” As he spoke thus, Dr. Wakabayashi let out a soft, sentimental sigh, but before long, his elongated face took on an expression of profound emotion as he approached me leisurely. “……You’ve finally noticed it.”

“……Eh…”

I looked up at Dr. Wakabayashi’s face in surprise. I didn’t understand the meaning of Dr. Wakabayashi’s words… However, paying no heed, Dr. Wakabayashi continued to approach me leisurely. Leaning his upper body slightly forward, he compared my face with the photograph, then resumed speaking in an even more earnest and meticulously polite tone. “I am stating that this photograph has finally caught your eye.” “The reason I say this is because this photograph is none other than the one most deeply connected to your past life…”

At those words, I noticed with a start. I recalled having forgotten at some point the initial purpose for which I had entered this room. And at that very moment, I felt a certain light yet deep palpitation stir in the depths of my heart. Yet simultaneously, when I considered the state of my own mind—still not feeling as though I had recalled a single thing—I found myself experiencing something akin to relief or perhaps disappointment, and heaved a single shrug. Then, slightly bowing my head, I listened to Dr. Wakabayashi’s words.

“...The past memories lying dormant within you have appeared to be awakening in an exceedingly subtle manner from the very beginning.” “It can only be concluded that your own subconscious—which began awakening while you were viewing that painting of madmen being burned alive from the Dogra Magra manuscript—has guided and brought you before this photograph at this very moment.” “To explain why—the person who displayed here both that renowned painting of madmen being burned alive and this portrait of Dr. Saitō is none other than...” “...Dr. Masaki, the experimenter of your spiritual consciousness.” “...Since Dr. Masaki was outraged by how cruel and inhumane treatment of mental patients—as depicted in that painting of madmen being burned alive—continues to be practiced everywhere as an open secret even in today’s twentieth century, he resolved to devote his life to studying mental illness...” “And so under Dr. Saitō’s guidance and assistance, he ultimately achieved that objective...”

“Burning of madmen… Is the slaughter of madmen still being carried out even now?”

I muttered as if talking to myself. Again, I found myself ensnared by an abyssal terror… Yet Dr. Wakabayashi nodded calmly. “...It is being carried out.” “It is being carried out without fail, exactly as in days of old.” “No. “Cruelties surpassing burning to death are being carried out openly and brazenly in psychiatric hospitals everywhere across the world.” “Even at this very moment today…”

“Th-that’s… that’s going too far…” I cut myself off mid-sentence and swallowed my words. Because I thought that was too cruel a way to put it… However, Dr. Wakabayashi remained unperturbed. Standing shoulder to shoulder with me, he compared the oil painting of madmen being burned alive with Dr. Saitō’s photograph and began instructing me in a frigid tone. “It is not an exaggeration.” “It is an indisputable fact beyond all doubt.” “You will come to understand these facts in due course, but as a result of Dr. Masaki’s tremendous efforts to save the pitiful masses of madmen suffering such abuse, he ultimately established an unprecedented new theory in spiritual science.” “The principles of this astonishing new theory, as I briefly mentioned earlier, are of an extremely accessible and relatable kind—so much so that even women and children could comprehend them… It was to empirically demonstrate these principles that he initiated the ‘Madness Liberation’ experiment… However… Moreover, this experiment has now been flawlessly completed through none other than your own contributions… Thus, the sole remaining task is for you to recover your former memories and proceed to sign the experimental documentation—a formality already arranged.”

I was once again rendered dumbfounded. With my mouth still hanging open, I looked up at the profile of Dr. Wakabayashi standing beside me. Thus I—bound by an indescribably solemn and terrifying karmic fate—felt myself drawn into this room, forced to confront the two framed objects embodying that fate, maneuvered into utter immobility... Yet Dr. Wakabayashi, wholly indifferent to my inner turmoil, smoothly continued his exposition.

“Therefore, when I explain the causal relationship between Dr. Saitō, Dr. Masaki, and that burning of madmen, each aspect of this account will touch upon your past experiences.” “That is to say—how meticulously Dr. Masaki prepared to subject you to spiritual science experiments at the Liberation Treatment Facility upon coming to Kyushu University… what terrifying hardships and efforts he expended over the years in preparation and research for this experiment…”

“Eh? Eh? To experiment on me… such terrifying preparations…” “Indeed, Dr. Masaki truly expended over twenty long years in preparation for this experiment.” “……Twenty years…”

My voice, which had begun to cry out, turned into something like a groan before it could form properly and recoiled into the depths of my throat. I felt as though Dr. Masaki’s twenty years of arduous efforts were coiling around the nape of my neck… Then, this time, Dr. Wakabayashi seemed to sense my feelings and nodded slowly again.

“That is correct. Dr. Masaki had been preparing this experiment for you since long before your very birth.” “……For me… who hadn’t even been born yet……” “Indeed. When I state this, you may perceive it as an intentionally eccentric phrasing, but I assure you it is nothing of the sort. Dr. Masaki had indeed foreseen your present circumstances from an era predating your conception by decades. Whether you recover your memories at this very moment—no… even should you fail to recall them entirely—it would suffice if you were to deduce your own name through the facts I shall presently disclose. By cross-referencing these with subsequent facts, I am confident you will recognize my statements as unembellished truth… Furthermore… I maintain that this constitutes the supreme—nay, ultimate—method for your authentic recollection of that name.”

Dr. Wakabayashi returned to the front of the large desk while continuing his explanation, then turned back to look at me as he pointed to the small swivel chair facing the stove. Like a surgical patient obeying orders, I timidly approached the chair and hesitantly lowered myself onto it—yet felt not the slightest sensation of actually sitting down. Pressing a hand against my chest as I suffocated from the overwhelming eeriness and strangeness, I could do nothing but swallow saliva over and over.

In the meantime, Dr. Wakabayashi swung around the large desk and sat down in the large swivel chair opposite me. He had curled himself up small in the same posture I’d seen earlier in Room Seven, but now that he’d removed his overcoat, I could clearly observe how his morning coat-clad arms and legs—exposed, elongated limbs bent at sharp angles—framed the sluggish, gradual contraction of his long neck and slender torso. And there in the very center, only his face remained its original size, anchored as before, so that his entire form somehow took on an uncanny, almost supernatural quality. It transformed into the sensation that a giant spider with a large, pallid human face had just now crawled out from the large fireplace behind it, clad in a morning coat, intent on making me its prey.

When I saw that, I involuntarily straightened up in the swivel chair. Then the giant spider-like Dr. Wakabayashi leisurely extended his long arms, pulled closer what appeared to be a bound bundle of documents that had been left untouched in the center of the large desk since earlier, and—while gently dusting them off beneath his knees—let out a couple of small coughs.

“Now, regarding the circumstances surrounding the experiment that Dr. Masaki staked his life to complete—I must humbly beg your pardon, but I find it necessary to bring myself into this account… and the reason is none other than this.” “Dr. Masaki and I hail from the same hometown in Chiba Prefecture, having sat side by side as members of the inaugural class when this university’s predecessor—then called Kyoto Imperial University, Fukuoka Medical College—was newly established in Meiji 36 through the renovation of Fukuoka Prefectural Hospital.” “We subsequently graduated together in Meiji 40, sharing what might be termed a fellow alumni relationship.” “Moreover, we remained identical in every particular—maintaining bachelor lives to this day while devoting ourselves wholly to academic research—yet Dr. Masaki’s extraordinary intellect and immense personal fortune lay entirely beyond our comprehension.” “To speak first of academic matters alone, our research in those days—when foreign texts were not as readily obtainable as today—demanded extraordinary exertions.” “While we borrowed books from the school library to transcribe day and night through desperate labor, Dr. Masaki alone remained carefree—even books he had imported at his own expense were lent freely to others after a single perusal.” “Moreover, he himself engaged in what might be called half-hobbyist pursuits—roving about to collect paleontological fossils or investigate shrine/temple histories wholly unrelated to medicine.” “However, these activities of Dr. Masaki’s—his fossil collecting and shrine investigations—were never mere idle diversions from that time onward.” “...they constituted systematic work profoundly connected to the 'liberation treatment' experiment.” “It is only now, twenty years later, that I have finally begun grasping this truth—leaving me thunderstruck anew by the peerless depth and profundity of Dr. Masaki’s intellect.” “In any event, such being the circumstances, Dr. Masaki had already drawn attention as an eccentric figure among students and faculty since those days—yet it would be no exaggeration to state that the first to recognize his genius was none other than the man in this photograph here: Dr. Sōhachi Saitō.”

"...such being the circumstances." "Now, this Dr. Saitō had served at this university since its founding—an erudite scholar who single-handedly gathered most of the specimens now housed in this room. Yet he was also an impassioned orator; as a digression, there remains such an anecdote." "In the past, on the occasion of the third anniversary commemorative celebration of this university’s founding being held in the grand auditorium, Dr. Masaki, representing the student body, delivered a speech of this nature."

“Lately there seem to be newspaper criticisms about rumors that students and professors of this university frequent pleasure quarters and indulge in gambling—but I consider this utterly unworthy of concern.” “The primary sin of students and scholars lies neither in carousing nor in trifling with playing cards.” “It is that upon becoming bachelors or doctors, they abandon academic research as if having forgotten everything.” “This I believe constitutes a grave malady afflicting Japanese academia.”

At the moment this was declared so emphatically, the complexions of the entire assembly of students and professors underwent a complete transformation. However, amidst them all, I still retain a vivid impression even now of how Dr. Saitō alone rose from his seat, offered enthusiastic applause, and shouted "Bravo!"—this single incident alone should suffice to glimpse an aspect of his character. However, when Dr. Saitō first assumed his position at this university, there was no such division as a psychiatry department at Kyushu University yet, and he—being the sole specialist in mental illness within the institution—merely held an associate professor-level position overseeing a limited number of lectures; regarding this matter, he appeared to harbor considerable dissatisfaction. Whenever he seized upon his favorite colleague Dr. Masaki and me—for I had already begun receiving his guidance at that time—he would rail against the omnipotence of modern materialistic science or lament the future of our national polity; yet despite my utter bewilderment over how to respond on such occasions, Dr. Masaki would invariably launch some fantastical counterattack that left Dr. Saitō speechless… Among these exchanges, what remains particularly vivid in my memory are words of this nature:

“Sooo... here we go again with your signature litany of grievances—that same tired refrain has started up.” “You’re no phonograph for underpaid clerks—why not change your wax cylinder already?” “Every soul today wallows in Western idolatry—the whole lot addicted to materialistic science—so dosing them with your gripes won’t cure their affliction anytime soon, Professor.” “Now, now—no need to fret so. Simply wait another twenty years or so.” “In twenty years’ time, perhaps a magnificent madman will emerge here in Japan.” “......Then this patient shall meticulously document and proclaim—to his very self—the origins of his malady and the course of his mental recovery, thereby stunning scholars worldwide while simultaneously grinding to dust all that mankind has collectively erected: religion, morality, art, law, science—naturally—alongside naturalism, nihilism, anarchism, and every other materialistic cultural creed. In their stead, he’ll hammer into existence upon this earth a spiritual culture of unparalleled exhilaration—one that strips the human soul bare to its deepest depths—and thus that lunatic shall commence his glorious uproar.” “......When that mad professor’s clamor succeeds precisely as intended, spiritual science shall ascend as this earth’s supreme discipline—exactly as you’ve yearned for.” “Simultaneously, institutions treating psychiatry like some bastard stepchild—as this university does—shall crumble into utter worthlessness.” “......Therefore—anticipate this delight! Strive to live long and await it!” “Scholars know no retirement age, after all.”

I recall it being something along those lines, but even the unflappable Dr. Saitō seemed left aghast by this… and I, who had been listening alongside him, was no less taken aback. First and foremost, we could not even ascertain whether Dr. Masaki had been speaking in earnest about these prophet-like pronouncements… How could anyone of that era have imagined that Dr. Masaki had already been planning at that time to personally create such a psychiatric patient to astonish academia?… Moreover, as Dr. Masaki had never been one to shy away from startling people with similarly outlandish statements even back then—indeed, it was by no means an uncommon occurrence—neither Dr. Saitō nor I harbored any particular suspicions regarding this matter, nor did we think to question him deeply about it.

However, before long, such esteemed dissatisfaction of Dr. Saitō’s—combined with Dr. Masaki’s genius intellect—would come to create an opportunity for extraordinary upheaval within the university at that time. “It originated precisely at the time when we were graduating from this university, with Dr. Masaki’s presentation of his uncanny research titled *Fetal Dream* as his graduation thesis.”

“A fetus… a fetus can dream?” I suddenly let out a shrill voice. So profoundly did the term “fetal dream” resonate with eerie strangeness in my ears……and yet……Dr. Wakabayashi was not in the least surprised. He nodded in a manner that suggested my surprise was only natural. He meticulously spread out each document he held, one by one, peering at them with his pallid eyes... “Indeed… You will in due course have the opportunity to examine the contents of what is called the *Fetal Dream* thesis, but even a mere glance at its title alone makes clear that this is no ordinary academic paper.” “Even ordinary dreams seen by ordinary people have remained enigmatic in their true nature to this day—let alone a thesis titled *Fetal Dream* dating back twenty years… to an era when you had either just been born or not yet entered this world. For such a title to have been chosen for an academic research paper… Moreover, given that Dr. Masaki’s extraordinary intellect had already been an established reputation, this thesis’s title instantly became the talk of the entire university—to such an extent that none could help marveling at what its contents might entail.”

However, when this thesis was arranged to undergo review by all university professors in accordance with the regulations of the time, its style—entirely breaking from conventional forms—left those esteemed professors utterly dumbfounded. "The reason being that Dr. Masaki had been abundantly gifted with a natural talent for languages from the outset—to such an extent that his ability to effortlessly read through even abstruse literary materials in English, German, or French, regardless of their specialty, had become legendary among his fellow students." "Thus while his graduation thesis was naturally expected to be written in German—then still regarded as the proper academic language—it instead defied all expectations by being composed in the genbun itchi style of colloquial written vernacular, which had not yet gained widespread acceptance at that time, and was moreover riddled with slang and regional dialects." "To compound matters, the very substance of its assertions deviated so extremely from all academic norms—appearing to mock its readers as brazenly as its title did—that even these professors of the newly established university, who prided themselves on encompassing the latest knowledge of their era, found themselves utterly flustered." "Among them, a certain professor notorious as a taskmaster became so enraged that…"

“...The university president who makes us read such a frivolous thesis is fundamentally mistaken.” “That bastard Masaki’s so puffed up with his own intellect he’d submit this tripe without blinking.” “The one defiling the sanctity of our university’s first graduation thesis review can only be this greenhorn Masaki.” “Expel the brat—make an example of him for posterity.”

Rumors that they were locked in fierce contention had spread even among the students. "Of course, I believe this was indeed the case, but..." ...Given these circumstances, the entire university's tense focus had converged upon the professors' conference for evaluating graduation theses. Yet when the day finally arrived, nearly all professors shared the same opinion: while expulsion remained a separate matter, passing this thesis as a graduation paper was swiftly rejected. At that moment, Dr. Saitō—who had been waiting at the end of the table as the youngest member present—suddenly rose and delivered what would become his legendary opposing opinion, renowned to this day.

“...I must ask you to wait a moment. Though I am keenly aware of the presumption in speaking from my lowly seat, I must speak out for the sake of academic integrity. I hold an opinion diametrically opposed to all of yours regarding this thesis. I shall now state the reasons for this. ...First, those of you condemning this thesis—its writing lacks proper structure. It does not conform to the regulations. ...It seems you are arguing this point, but this is hardly a debatable argument—I see no particular need to defend it. An academic paper is by its very nature fundamentally different from petitions submitted to government offices—documents that merely plead 'Please grant me graduation' or 'Please award me a doctorate.' There exists no such thing as a prescribed format or style... I believe it would suffice to append a single statement to that effect.”

...Next, regarding the content of this thesis—it too is absolutely not the frivolous work you accuse it of being. "The reason this thesis’s value goes unrecognized is that modern medical researchers remain too confined to materialistic studies of the body, lacking knowledge of the scholarly discipline that scientifically observes the human spirit—that is, spiritual science." "You remain unaware of how spiritual scientists worldwide have been anxiously striving—laboring—to discover research methodologies for fundamental aspects of the mind, life, or heredity such as those expounded in this thesis." "It is on the honor of my expertise that I assert that this is precisely why the true value of this thesis remains uncomprehended."

...That is to say, this thesis posits that during the ten months humans spend within their mother’s womb, they experience a single dream that transcends imagination. It is akin to a continuous motion picture spanning hundreds of millions—nay, billions—of years, one that could be titled *The Live Record of Universal Evolution*, with the fetus itself as both director and protagonist. This vision depicts with unerring precision not only prehistoric flora and fauna of utmost bizarre grotesquery—now fossilized—alongside indescribably magnificent spectacles of cataclysms that annihilated those very organisms, but further reveals how primitive humans birthed from such upheavals—the fetus’s distant ancestors—down through successive generations to its present parents accumulated karmic transgressions in their desperate struggle for survival. How they repeated unspeakably cruel deeds while deceiving others’ eyes and ears... and how such psychological states—layered with karmic consequence upon karmic consequence—came to be inherited by the fetus itself through means beyond comprehension... These facts are depicted with exhaustive clarity through the fetus’s own direct subjectivity as a colossal nightmare of extreme horror and dread—one that can be directly or indirectly inferred through anatomical observation of human flesh and spirit. “However, this is neither a fact recorded by the fetus itself nor something preserved in adult records—it is, so to speak, nothing more than a conjecture.” “Therefore, it holds no academic value.” “...and that as a graduation thesis, it deserves a score of zero—it seems you are all in unanimous agreement on this matter.”

“This may seem perfectly reasonable at first glance… However… I must beg your pardon, but there is one matter I should like to ask all of you.” “What manner of reading do you suppose you undertook when studying *World History*—a text you gentlemen must have perused at least once during your middle school years?… Fundamentally, what we call ‘world history’ is a record of humanity’s past existence—a chronicle that, when viewed through an individual lens, proves akin to one’s own memories of personal experience… A matter so self-evident that explaining it before you now borders on insult.” “So long as one possesses a past, they cannot deny this.”

...If we accept this premise, then what dreams did prehistoric humans—those so-called peoples of prehistory who left no historical records—depict in their religions, their arts, their social organizations? “Can scholarly disciplines that infer what dreams they saw while evolving to the point of recording their own history—disciplines such as cultural anthropology, prehistoric archaeology, and primitive archaeology, which extrapolate these matters by cross-referencing the various ruins remaining in our world today—truly be called academically worthless?” “Could they not be deemed scientific research?” “...How much more so then for the geological transitions and the rise and fall of paleontological organisms recorded as Earth’s history prior to humanity’s emergence—who could have witnessed these? Who could have recorded them?” “Can geologists and paleontologists who infer such facts through the various remains left on the Earth’s surface today all be dismissed as mere fabulists spinning fairy tales from imagination?” “Could they not be called scientists?”

"...That is to say, this thesis *Fetal Dream* must be recognized as the most pioneering academic endeavor—one that deduced the content of dreams from our gestational period, unrecorded in our cerebral archives, through the innumerable vestiges persisting throughout our adult flesh and spirit." It had to stand as the most cutting-edge, thorough, and unprecedented new research. ...Moreover, the anatomical explanations concerning the structure of the human mind contained within this thesis constituted truly groundbreaking endeavors—ones that demonstrably encompassed disciplines such as psychoanatomy, psychophysiology, psychopathology, and psychogenetics. These were fields spiritual scientists worldwide had deemed utterly impossible yet ceaselessly yearned for. Should research on this thesis’s principal subject—*Fetal Dream*—have advanced even one step further into these specialized domains, it would likely have precipitated nothing less than a revolutionary transformation in future human culture. "I hereby emphatically reaffirm—from my professional standpoint—that this work pioneered a grand path forward for spiritual science through an approach wholly distinct in its strictly scientific methodology from phenomena traditionally scrutinized by the field: ghostly apparitions, mesmerism, clairvoyance, mind-reading, and the like."

"...I am convinced that this *Fetal Dream* thesis, though originally submitted as a student’s graduation paper, in truth constitutes a publication of such superior and profound scientific value as to lie far beyond comparison with what are now commonplace so-called doctoral dissertations. Needless to say, this thesis should be ranked first among this term’s inaugural graduation papers from our university—a work that ought to be a pride of our department. Any scholar who dares criticize it as worthless must be one ignorant of historical facts: how nascent academic disciplines come into being...how great truths, upon their initial presentation, have so often been dismissed as mere flights of fantasy."

...was, as Dr. Saitō later related to me, to that general effect. Now, of course, Dr. Saitō’s assertions in this vein incurred the antipathy of the other professors. Dr. Saitō instantly became the focal point of all assembled professors’ denunciations and attacks; yet without retreating a single step, he countered and crushed each assault with erudite and profound arguments, so that the meeting which had commenced at three in the afternoon showed no signs of concluding even after sunset. For this was a desperate debate centered on the new Medical Department’s highest mission and honor—truly a thrilling and intense affair, one must imagine. They ultimately postponed evaluating all other theses until the following day; after lighting lamps to continue their debate, they were finally reduced to complete silence by nine o’clock that evening. At that moment, Dean Moriyama—later extolled as an illustrious university president—rendered his verdict, declaring his acknowledgment of this *Fetal Dream* as a legitimate academic research paper, thereby concluding that day’s conference. Thus over three subsequent days—the next day and the one following—all sixteen theses underwent evaluation, resulting in Dr. Masaki’s *Fetal Dream* being elevated to first place among graduation papers exactly as Dr. Saitō had advocated.

"But... when the Medical Department's graduation ceremony—this event that had accrued reputation upon reputation—finally arrived, it was discovered to everyone's astonishment that Dr. Masaki himself, who should have been present to receive the Imperial Silver Watch, had inexplicably vanished without a trace—shocking all once again."

"Hm. "He disappeared on the day of the graduation ceremony... Why would that happen?" When I inadvertently blurted this out, Dr. Wakabayashi abruptly fell silent. He stared at my face as though about to divulge some grave matter, then parted his lips with even greater care than before. "As for the true cause behind why Dr. Masaki vanished on the very eve of such a glorious opportunity, I believe no one has yet conceived of it to this day." "I must admit that even I do not fully comprehend its truth. Yet one cannot deny the possibility of some causal relationship lying hidden between Dr. Masaki's disappearance and the *Fetal Dream* thesis mentioned earlier... To rephrase—it may be surmised that Dr. Masaki was compelled to vanish after being haunted by the protagonist of his own graduation thesis, *Fetal Dream*."

“...The protagonist of *Fetal Dream*... being haunted by a fetus... I don’t quite understand it, but...” “No. I believe it would be best if you did not yet comprehend this matter clearly at this juncture.”

Dr. Wakabayashi raised his right hand from his chair as if to soothe me. And while that uncanny smile twitched beneath his left eye, he continued speaking in the same solemn tone as before. "...For now, I believe it would be best if you did not yet comprehend this matter clearly." "I must apologize for my presumption, but once you have fully recovered every last vestige of your past memories, I trust you will come to discern—with crystalline clarity—the hidden truths regarding who precisely assumes the role of protagonist in that horror film titled *Fetal Dream*. It is for this future reference that I now deem it prudent to alert you to this matter... Now then, when the inaugural graduation ceremony of our department concluded in Dr. Masaki's absence, a letter from him arrived at Dean Moriyama's office the following day. Within it, he was said to have expressed ambitions along these lines."

I never imagined there existed in the modern scientific community a single person capable of comprehending my thesis *Fetal Dream*. Convinced that there was likely not a single person who could understand it, I had submitted the thesis prepared for failure; yet, to my utmost astonishment, upon hearing that it had been recommended by Your Excellency the Dean and Dr. Saitō, I heaved a prolonged sigh over this. If the value of that thesis could be so easily discerned, my research must still have been woefully shallow. I realized that with such work, I could never immortalize the honor of Fukuoka University.

"I cannot show my face before Your Excellency and Dr. Saitō, so I shall conceal myself. Though it may trouble you, I must ask that you kindly keep the Imperial Silver Watch in your possession for the time being. Next time, I shall surely achieve research so profound that none can comprehend it, thereby repaying this great favor—" ...and so forth." Dean Moriyama showed this letter to Dr. Saitō, who is said to have laughed heartily, remarking, "He remains an incorrigible scoundrel through and through." But...

...Now, after that, Dr. Masaki spent eight full years traveling across Europe, where he was awarded honorary degrees from three nations—Austria, Germany, and France—but upon secretly returning to Japan in Taisho 4, he then embarked on a nomadic existence without establishing a permanent residence. “...he visited mental hospitals across the country and investigated biographies, legends, records, and genealogies related to the lineages of mental patients in various regions to gather research materials, all while distributing among the general populace a pamphlet titled *Dogra Magra*.”

“...*Dogra Magra*... What kind of things are written in that...?” “...I shall present its contents to you momentarily, but just like the previous *Fetal Dream*, it contains terrifying facts that have never before been published.” “To summarize—this incantation exposes both the actual conditions of abuse against mental patients in modern society—as I briefly mentioned earlier—and the fraudulent treatments within mental hospitals more horrifying than prisons... To rephrase, it could be described as a kind of manifesto rendered into folk ballads, laying bare the horrifying ‘Dark Age of Madness’ festering beneath modern culture.” “Not only did Dr. Masaki have this comprehensively distributed to government authorities and various institutions, but he himself struck a wooden fish while chanting these incantatory hymns, circulating printed pamphlets among the populace.”

“……Himself… striking a wooden fish…” “Quite so, quite so… It may seem an utterly unhinged tale, but for Dr. Masaki, this appears to have been work of the utmost solemnity… Moreover, regarding these endeavors of Dr. Masaki’s, there are indications that his mentor Dr. Saitō maintained clandestine communications with him, offering support while prepared to stake his own position and reputation.” “However, regrettably—whether because the content of those *Dogra Magra* incantations exposed truths too raw or appeared nonsensical to conventional minds—there seemed to be no one who earnestly resonated with them, and they ultimately ended up being consigned to societal oblivion. A most lamentable outcome indeed.” “Of course, one might conjecture that had the asylum abuses against mental patients—as laid bare in those *Dogra Magra* verses—been taken seriously by the public at large, every modern psychiatric institution might have been razed to the ground, potentially unleashing a global deluge of the mentally afflicted. Yet Dr. Masaki appears to have deemed such consequences wholly irrelevant, regarding this campaign merely as one preparatory maneuver for the *liberation treatment* experiments he would ultimately inaugurate himself.”

"So... then it's really..." Having uttered this halfway, I found myself startled into sitting bolt upright. I muttered the words while swallowing hard again and again.

"So... after all... preparing to use me in the experiment..." “Quite so, quite so…” Dr. Wakabayashi nodded without a moment’s hesitation. "As I have stated before, Dr. Masaki’s intellect far surpasses the limits of our comprehension—yet it is an undeniable fact that within those eccentric, extravagant actions of Dr. Masaki lay certain preparatory efforts toward establishing the liberation treatment." “Every one of the phantasmagorical comings and goings of Dr. Masaki that I shall now recount appears to contain such significance—to rephrase, it must be considered that Dr. Masaki’s entire later life revolved around you down to every last gesture and movement.”

While phrasing things in this manner, Dr. Wakabayashi suddenly directed his pale, cold, and feeble gaze at my face. He continued staring at my face until I could no longer remain seated without straightening up again, but upon seeing that I had grown incapable of even moving—let alone forming a reply—he withdrew a handkerchief as if shifting gears, gave a small cough, and smoothly resumed his account. "However, this concerns an event that occurred at the end of March in the past year of Taisho 13 [1924]." "I shall never forget the events of around 1:00 PM on the 26th [Taisho 13]." "When Dr. Masaki—who had vanished without a trace for eighteen long years since graduating—unexpectedly knocked on the door of my office in the Department of Forensic Medicine at this university, even I was utterly astonished." Feeling as though encountering a ghost, we celebrated his safe return regardless—but when I inquired why he had suddenly come back like this, Dr. Masaki, with his ever-unflappable demeanor unchanged from days past and scratching his head all the while, related the following story.

“No,” “That’s the thing!” “To tell the truth, it’s rather embarrassing, but...” “Two or three weeks ago at Moji Station’s ticket gate, my gold-cased watch was stolen by a pickpocket.” “A Mobad Company special order—worth about a thousand yen at current prices—but losing it was quite a blow.” “So I suddenly recalled that silver watch I’d left here eighteen years prior and came to retrieve it... And while at it, I thought to bring some gift that’d make you all gasp—but since nothing splendid came to mind, I holed up on Isegen Inn’s second floor in Moji and dashed off some trifling paper of sorts at full speed.” “First I meant to present this to the new president through Dr. Saitō’s introduction, but he said given formalities, submitting via Dean Wakabayashi would be better—so here I’ve brought it.” “Though it’s a bother, do handle this for me.”

...That was his account. “And so... needless to say, the stored clock was promptly handed over—but at that very moment, the paper Dr. Masaki submitted was none other than *Brain Theory*, which Dr. Saitō had prophesied would send shockwaves through global academia equal to Darwin’s *On the Origin of Species* or Einstein’s *Theory of Relativity*... no, surpass them entirely.” “......Brain Theory......”

“Quite so. “Titled *Brain Theory*, this approximately thirty-thousand-word paper stood in stark contrast to the previously discussed *Fetal Dream*, being a work of utmost solemnity and dignity. To prevent misinterpretation, it was written in two languages—German and Latin—yet considering that Dr. Masaki completed it within a mere two or three weeks on an inn’s second floor devoid of any reference materials, we must acknowledge his intellect and vigor as nothing short of extraordinary.” “Moreover, through this thesis, Dr. Masaki made the brain’s mysterious functions—which until then none could explain nor prove through experimentation—as clear as if seen in a mirror.” “And simultaneously, he provided an exceedingly clear and direct explanation for the many strange phenomena that had remained unanswered questions in psychiatric academia.” “...Given his professional position as the first to review this thesis, Dr.Saitō was naturally profoundly astonished. He then devoted himself to studying it for nearly a year, forgetting even to eat or sleep—until finally last year... at the end of February in Taisho 14 [1925], having completed a thorough examination and analysis—he visited President Matsubara at his residence early the following morning,”

“...As of today, I shall retire from my professorship in Kyushu University’s Department of Psychiatry and wish to recommend Dr. Masaki as my successor.” “Should another university secure Dr. Masaki’s services, I believe it would bring disgrace upon this institution...”

...he pleaded with silent tears glistening in his eyes. However, as Dr. Masaki had once again vanished without disclosing his whereabouts—indeed, without even leaving word of his residence—and given President Matsubara’s renewed admiration for Dr. Saitō’s character, the president persuaded the insistent Dr. Saitō to remain in his post while tentatively deciding to confer an academic degree upon Dr. Masaki using this thesis as his dissertation… This episode is still recounted as a heartwarming tale in academic circles. "Of course, this matter seems to have leaked from someone’s lips and was apparently published in the newspapers… though I… well, I carelessly failed to see the article myself…"

Having narrated up to this point, Dr. Wakabayashi seemed overcome by the memory of that time and quietly closed his eyes with evident emotion. I too gazed up at Dr. Saitō’s portrait, filled with reverence—yet perhaps because I viewed it through that lens, his likeness appeared as a godlike noble figure, compelling me to let slip a soft sigh as I murmured.

“So it’s as if Dr. Saitō passed away in order to pass his position on to Dr. Masaki, then.” When my question reached Dr. Wakabayashi’s ears, he seemed to grow even more deeply moved, the wrinkles between his closed eyes deepening further still. He let out a long, thick sigh that seemed poised to erupt into a cough, but eventually opened his eyes quietly and, while meaningfully aligning his pallid gaze with mine, slightly intensified his tone.

"That is correct. That Dr. Saitō passed away suddenly on October 19 of last year—Taisho 14—not long after Dr. Masaki had received his degree. Moreover, it was an unnatural death." "Uh... Unnatural death..." I uttered a hollow voice. Taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation’s direction, I alternately looked back and forth between Dr. Wakabayashi’s pallid face and the smiling visage of Dr. Saitō within the picture frame. While wondering why such an upstanding person of high moral character had died an unnatural death...

However, Dr. Wakabayashi quietly fixed his gaze on my face as though pressing those very doubts upon me. He intensified his tone slightly once more. “...That is correct.” “Dr. Saitō passed away due to unnatural circumstances.” “Dr. Saitō had finished his work as usual around 5:00 PM on October 18, Taisho 14—the day before his unnatural death—requested a few tasks from the medical office staff, and left this room, but he never returned to his home in Hakozaki, Amiyamachi.” “And then early the following morning, he was found floating as a drowned corpse off the coast behind Hakozaki Aquarium.” “The discoverer was an aquarium cleaning woman, but upon receiving the urgent report, when the police authorities and we rushed to investigate, it was determined that he had consumed a large amount of alcohol, so it was concluded that he had likely encountered someone with whom he was extremely close while returning home, strayed from his routine after a long interval, mistook his way home, and fell from that stone wall.” “...Of course, if you were to go and see that area for yourself, you would understand—it’s a place on the outskirts of town characteristic for its sprawling garbage dump, grasslands, and fields extending behind the university, where no one would wander in unless thoroughly intoxicated.” “Therefore, while we naturally considered the possibility of murder to the fullest extent and conducted exhaustive investigations into his personal effects and so forth, not a single item was found to be missing.” “…Furthermore, when we compiled accounts from Dr. Saitō’s family members and friends, it became clear that he would only partake in drinks outside his home if invited by those within the university with whom he shared an exceptionally close and trusting rapport—and every single one of these individuals has been identified. It would be no exaggeration to say he absolutely never drank alone outside his evening home routine… Moreover, whenever he did become deeply intoxicated in such social settings, it was customary for one of his companions to escort him home without fail—making this incident a wholly inexplicable exception… Given these testimonies, we imagined every conceivable scenario and conducted thorough investigations in that regard. However, the area where Dr. Saitō fell into the sea—a long breakwater extending from the Chiyoda-machi direction—yielded not a single footprint to indicate from where or how he might have approached, nor where he misstepped into the water.” “Regardless of whether there had been any companions present—and even if we were to consider it a case of homicide—we found absolutely no clues pointing to the perpetrator……”

...On the other hand, given Dr. Saitō’s noble character as I have just described, it was deemed inconceivable that he could have incurred anyone’s resentment. Thus, in the end, it was concluded to have been an accident." "While Dr. Saitō rarely drank alcohol, his sole shortcoming was that when intoxicated, he would lose all sense of time and place. Truly, it was a tragic loss of such an exceptional individual." "...Has the person who drank with him still not been identified?"

“...Indeed... It still has not been determined, but unless one possesses an exceedingly delicate conscience, they would not come forward.” “But… but… if they don’t come forward, they’ll have to endure a suffocating existence their entire life, won’t they?” “According to contemporary common sense, there seems no need to consider matters so conscientiously… Even were someone to come forward, it’s not as though Dr.Saitō would rise from his grave—they alone would merely suffer unpleasant censure under disgraceful circumstances, ultimately increasing society’s losses… That’s likely how they rationalize it… No—in truth, they may have long since forgotten all about it by now…”

“……But isn’t that cowardly?” “That’s……” “……That goes without saying.”

“……First of all, could such a thing be forgotten……? How could that…”

“Well… Such questions would fall under what the late Dr. Masaki termed the ‘Memory and Conscience’ relationship—a most intriguing research subject…” “So Dr. Saitō’s death ended with that perfunctory conclusion?” “Precisely. "That marked its conclusion in practical terms." "Though anticlimactic in execution, its consequences bore profound significance." "Dr. Saitō’s death became both the direct karmic catalyst for Dr. Masaki assuming leadership of Kyushu University’s Department of Psychiatry and occupying this chair, as well as the indirect bond linking you and that young lady in cell six to this classroom." "Indeed… Let us provisionally designate it a karmic bond here." "Yet whether this bond originated from human design or divine will cannot be conclusively determined until you recover your own past memories…”

“Ah… Th-that… even such things are in my memory…” “That is correct. Within your past memories lie even the vital keys necessary to resolve such numerous doubts.” I felt as though my entire body were being buried beneath an unrelenting cascade of icy doubts. Involuntarily closing my eyes, I shook my head from side to side. But no memories whatsoever welled up from within. Yet as I did so, each object before my eyes began to seem profoundly connected to my past—the gruesome *Madman Burning* painting, Dr. Saitō’s smiling portrait, Dr. Wakabayashi’s pallid solemnity, the large desk glowing green, even the yawning red Daruma’s ashes atop it. At once surrounded by these karmically charged artifacts yet utterly incapable of recollection, I could only sink deeper into a profound melancholy.

For a moment, I felt utterly bewildered, my eyes fluttering incessantly, but then abruptly asked as though recalling something.

“Ah… Then how did Dr. Masaki, who had gone missing, come to be at this university?” “It was under such circumstances.” As he spoke, Dr. Wakabayashi dropped the watch he had begun to take out back into his pocket. He let out a feeble cough and resumed speaking.

“It was precisely at Dr. Saitō’s funeral service that Dr. Masaki appeared from out of nowhere.” “Presumably having seen the newspaper announcement... President Matsubara seized him on the spot after the funeral concluded and pressured him into accepting the position as Dr. Saitō’s successor.” Though highly irregular, since none other than President Matsubara himself was conveying the final wishes of Dr. Saitō—a man of such noble character—not a soul found this approach peculiar. In fact, they welcomed him with applause so moved it verged on a standing ovation. “…Were you to examine contemporary newspapers, every detail would lie exposed. At that moment, Dr. Masaki—clad in threadbare formal attire bearing his family crest—stood encircled by professors’ applause, clutching his head as he lamented.”

“This is quite troublesome…” “I wanted to pursue my research independently to the very end...” “If I become a university professor, I won’t be able to play my beloved mokugyo drum anymore or sing Chongare folk songs.” “For one thing, I won’t be able to exercise the innate wanderlust I was born with…” he retorted in a subdued tone, but President Matsubara, upon hearing this— “At this late hour, even if you lodge complaints, there’s no undoing it now.” “Since it’s your own fault for being summoned by Dr. Saitō’s spirit… Even if your precious mokugyo gets beaten like a drum, you’ll just have to bear it—so please do us all a favor and attain Buddhahood.”

When he said this, everyone forgot the solemnity of the occasion and doubled over laughing. ...Soon after Dr. Masaki assumed his position at this university, he commenced putting into practice his so-called “liberation treatment for the insane”—an experiment he had previously extolled within the *Dogra Magra* manuscript—which once again provoked extraordinary reverberations throughout society. At the same time, this initiation of experiments became the karmic thread binding Dr. Masaki himself, you, and that young lady in cell six into a recently formed fateful relationship. “One might indeed call this divine providence if pressed… but regardless, that we could welcome so eminent a scholar as Dr. Masaki to our university and allow him full rein in his work remains undeniably rooted in the late Dr. Saitō’s venerable legacy.” “Dr. Masaki undoubtedly displayed this portrait here with precisely that significance in mind…”

I could not help but sigh deeply and look up at Dr. Saitō's portrait once more. I could not help pondering the unfathomable mystery of these karmic threads that bound together a paragon of virtue like Dr. Saitō, a genius like Dr. Masaki, Dr. Wakabayashi before my eyes, that beautiful girl in cell six, and a fool like myself into one interconnected whole.

A profound silence flowed through the room for a brief moment. But that was soon broken by a question I carelessly posed.

“Ah… October 19, Taisho 15… The date on that calendar hanging below Dr. Saitō’s photograph marks exactly one full year since his passing, doesn’t it?” When I said this and turned around—the terror of Dr. Wakabayashi’s transformed expression in that instant—though it lasted but a fleeting moment—his large, pale lips clamped shut, his jaw thrust forward sharply as his ghastly eyes flew wide open to glare at me. Moreover, because it had been so abrupt, I found myself unwittingly mirroring Dr. Wakabayashi’s expression, feeling as though we were locked in a mutual glare—but soon enough, Dr. Wakabayashi seemed to gradually regain his composure. This time, with his forehead gleaming in a manner that suggested he could scarcely contain his satisfaction, he nodded again and again.

“...You’ve noticed that quite well.” “Your past memories are coming into ever sharper focus.” “It appears your recovery has now reached a point where only the thinnest membrane remains...” “In truth, the moment your question was posed just now, I grew momentarily concerned that this time your past memories might awaken all at once... and if they did, how exactly I ought to attend to you...” “What could I possibly conceal?” “That calendar displays a date approximately one month prior to the present.” “Today being November 20 of Taisho 15...”

“That… why has it been left unchanged?” At this moment, Dr. Wakabayashi nodded solemnly once more. In the same reverent attitude he had shown earlier before the girl in cell six—as though praying to God—he straightened his hunched chest with a forceful motion while firmly clasping both hands together. “That very doubt constitutes one of the keys to unraveling the great mystery surrounding your past.” “In other words, once Dr. Masaki had torn the calendar to that point, he ceased ripping it further.”

“Th-that… why… why would that…”

“Dr. Masaki passed away the very next day… and what’s more, he committed suicide by throwing himself into the very same spot behind Hakozaki Aquarium where Dr. Saitō had met his end by drowning exactly one year prior.” A bolt from the blue—that might be the only way to describe it. Struck by an indescribably strange astonishment, I believe I let out some sort of cry at that moment. And then, when I had finally calmed down, I believe I was moving my mouth as if uttering delirious muttering.

“...Dr. Masaki... committed suicide...”

When that voice entered my ears, I doubted my own hearing once more. A man as great as Dr. Masaki—a veritable master—committing suicide… Could such a thing really be possible?

Not only that—that both men who had become chief professors of this psychiatry department should meet unnatural deaths at yearly intervals, and in the very same coastal waters no less... Could such a terrifying coincidence truly exist in this world? Lost in shock and disbelief, I stared at Dr. Wakabayashi's pallid face. At this, Dr. Wakabayashi—unlike ever before—straightened his posture with solemn dignity and returned my gaze. Once again, he spoke in a voice devout as prayer to God.

“...I repeat. “…Dr. Masaki took his own life.” “Having followed the exact sequence I described—having layered preparation upon preparation over twenty long years to advance his unprecedented grand experiment in liberation therapy—Dr. Masaki ultimately found himself compelled to end his life, as though he had shattered his blade and emptied his quiver’s last arrow… or so one might poetize his predicament.” “...But since mere abstraction may leave you unenlightened, let me clarify concretely: Dr. Masaki’s experiment in spiritual science—a work of unparalleled originality—was designed for completion once you and that young lady in cell six had fully regained your memories, left this hospital, and commenced marital bliss. Yet an unforeseen tragedy halted its progress midway.” “…And regarding whether this tragedy stemmed from Dr. Masaki’s error—no living soul could ascertain.” “…But since that day coincided mysteriously with the first anniversary of Dr. Saitō’s passing—his exact death date—as if guided by celestial design… perhaps sensing life’s impermanence… Dr. Masaki shouldered full responsibility and departed this mortal realm.” “He entrusted to me all experimental materials—yourself, that young lady in cell six, every document and administrative matter pertaining to you both…”

“Th... then...”

I began to speak but faltered. Feeling my entire body grow pallid from indescribable agitation, I barely managed to move my lips. “...Then... could it be... that I... cursed Dr. Masaki’s life...” “...No.” “That is not the case.” “It is precisely the opposite.” Dr. Wakabayashi declared in a solemn tone, still staring fixedly at me as he slowly shook his head from side to side. “It is precisely the opposite. Dr. Masaki fully anticipated that you would come to revile his fate, and it was with that expectation that he embarked upon this research. No... To put it more precisely, Dr. Masaki had resolved himself twenty years prior to bring about such an outcome, and had methodically carried out his work accordingly. Having established an immutable plan to perfectly align the unprecedented grand experiment in academic principles discovered by himself with your fate, he advanced that research accordingly.”

To me, this was an explanation worthy of even greater terror—of shuddering horror. Unconsciously pressing a hand against my increasingly suffocating chest, I forced out the question as though expelling it. “...That... what kind of procedure...” “If you peruse the documents here, you will come to understand.” As he spoke these words, Dr. Wakabayashi snapped shut the bundle of documents he had been perusing with one hand while talking and reverently pushed them toward me.

I too, sensing this must be a collection of important documents, accepted it with equally ceremonious care. Then, quickly flipping through to check the contents, I found a red-covered pamphlet-like item on top, bound together with Western large-format ruled paper and newspaper clippings pasted onto felt sheets, all sandwiched within canvas-covered cardboard—the cover blank. But given its considerable weight, I snapped it shut once more and placed it back on the desk.

From across the desk, Dr. Wakabayashi fixed his pallid eyes squarely upon mine. “...These could be described as Dr. Masaki’s posthumous manuscripts—invaluable documents, I must say.” “To elaborate—the four most crucial manuscripts from Dr. Masaki’s esteemed research in spiritual science that I have just described—namely spiritual anatomy, psychophysiology, psychopathology, and what might be called the very essence of such studies, psychogenetics—were all burned alongside the main text of *Brain Theory*, which he had previously taken into his possession. Consequently, at present, only those documents you see there remain as the sole surviving literature necessary to glimpse the substance of Dr. Masaki’s research.” “Dr. Masaki, just prior to taking his own life, arranged these documents precisely in that sequence, so they do not follow the chronological order of their original publication dates. However, when read in this order, the contents of Dr. Masaki’s esteemed research unfold in a manner that allows them to be effortlessly and engagingly comprehended according to the very progression in which he advanced his studies—a structure I must say appears quite deliberately crafted.”

“Namely, the red-covered pamphlet bound at the very beginning is a satirical ballad titled *Dogra Magra* that Dr. Masaki distributed to gathered crowds on thoroughfares across Japan during his travels—a work that sings of his original motivation for initiating psychiatric research after witnessing the realities of how mentally ill patients were abused in modern times.” "...Next, those affixed to felt-paper mounts are newspaper clippings of interviews with Dr. Masaki published in local papers—articles he himself had preserved. Among these, the first piece titled *'The Earth's Surface as a Vast Liberation Ward for the Insane'* represents Dr. Masaki’s initial research stance following his aforementioned motive to save the mentally ill—a position he had explained to journalists through a blend of scathing wit and sardonic humor. Herein lies an extraordinarily incisive and candid demonstration of psychopathology’s fundamental principle: *'Not a single human inhabiting this Earth’s surface exists free from mental aberration.'* ...Furthermore...the subsequent article titled *'The Brain Is Not an Organ of Thought'* humorously explains to journalists the contents of Dr. Masaki’s magnum opus *Brain Theory*—a work that not only laid bare the true functions of the 'brain' (long deemed unresearchable until today) to their very foundations but also effortlessly resolved every last one of those psychical phenomena related to mental illness and other matters that conventional science had found utterly insoluble."

...And what was written in brushwork on the bound Japanese-ruled paper beneath those was none other than the thesis *Fetal Dream*, which could be regarded as the converse theorem to that *Brain Theory*. In other words, as it elucidated the concept of 'psychological heredity'—specifically how the psychological lives of one’s parents, along with various ancestral habits and accumulated psychologies across generations, became transmitted to the fetus itself—it was none other than this very thesis that had sparked a major controversy during our university’s inaugural graduation thesis evaluation. "...At the same time, one might say that even the distant cause which led Dr. Masaki—despite possessing such prodigious talent—to ultimately reach the inevitable point of taking his own life was indeed gestating within this very thesis... The hasty notations on Western large-format ruled paper that follow may be regarded as Dr. Masaki’s final testament—what could be called his *Report on Liberation Treatment Experiment Results*—left behind to append a definitive conclusion to those very researches... Therefore, should you but peruse these documents in their given sequence, you will readily and methodically comprehend the thrilling chronicle of how Dr. Masaki staked his entire life upon research aimed at pioneering the grand path of spiritual science." "Simultaneously, the unprecedented flow and rotation of university principles that have governed your very existence from its hidden depths—that led you to your present fate—now spin round and round before your very eyes, each radiating brilliant light, resplendent as a kaleidoscope..."

I retained no memory of Dr. Wakabayashi’s explanation beyond this point. Even as I listened to his words, I absently opened the first red-covered pamphlet and began skimming from the title on its initial page—before I knew it, I found myself drawn into the text and continued reading in a trance... *Dogra Magra*

――Alternate Title: The Dark Age of Madmen―― Austrian Doctor of Science German Doctor of Philosophy Menkuro Manji Composed French Doctor of Literature

▼Aah... Aaah... Aaaaaah.

To all esteemed ladies and gentlemen to my right and left. Esteemed newlyweds, gentlemen and ladies, respected elders, youthful ones. Ladies and gentlemen of the assembled crowd! Rat-a-tat! After that, naught but silence. If I say 'riddle,' you'll be shocked. Shocked you must be—by the three thousand realms! No word since before it even began. Today marks my first roadside appearance. Behold the mad monk who emerges... clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat rat-a-tat...

▼……Step right up, step right up! Come on over and take a look! Give it a listen and come on over! A real conversation piece! No money needed! Truly free of charge! Over here, step right over! No pushing! Rat-a-tat rat-a-tat…

Hurry now, hurry hurry! Come see and be shocked… Clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat. Clackety-clack, rat-a-tat…

▼Aah... Aaah... Behold the mad monk who had come forth! His height measured five feet one inch, his age about thirty-five or thirty-six. His head bore a closely shaven pate, eyes sunken deep behind dentures gleaming bright. Emaciated ribs stood like washboard grooves, his tattered robe flapped—scarecrow in barren fields. The sandals dragging at his feet? Mud-caked clattering mounds they were, tanuki-crafted mud-boats made real. This beggar-monk of eccentric guise had drifted through foreign lands afar, wind-scoured and sun-baked raw, beneath today's same endless azure vault. By roadside now he spread his case— clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat!—flaunting infamy, spinning tales of karma's threads, ancestral lore and vagrant paths. Ask the wooden fish's rhythmic tap... clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat! Rat-a-tat rat-a-tat…

▼Aah... Aaah... As for karma—ask the wooden fish. No parents, siblings, kin—no wife or mistress either. Just a lone clatter-clatter man am I. No name nor lineage—clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat. A single suitcase my sole possession. My parents? A tree split by wind's cruel fork. A carefree life left to the wind’s whims. A journey through lands I’ve drifted across: Beijing, Harbin, Petersburg, Red Moscow, square Berlin, Munich’s drunken revels, Vienna’s songs, Paris’ dance, London’s drowsy sprawl— Cross seas to America’s freedom. New York—a women’s marketplace, San Francisco’s gambling dens, Shanghai’s wineshops— My drunken stagger aping Yankee swagger... A fool’s ten-year endeavor it was. Of all I’ve seen and heard— Only one souvenir remains— What a terrifying tale of hell… Clatter-clatter, thud-thud. Clackety-clack, thud-thud…

▼Aa… Aah. Well now—a terrifying tale of hell this is. Moreover, it’s a fact I’ve witnessed clearly with these sunken eyes of mine. Today’s the debut—no money needed. Not only that—as payment for listening, I’ll give you one of these books. I’m singing right this moment. It’s the letterpress-printed lyrics of the song. Later I’ll hand out some sort of sham item. You might think this is a trick to make you buy something. There may be doubters among you. But cast aside all such worries. This is my hobby work. A promotional endeavor for human culture. Nothing but reference material—a seed for conversation. Come closer now, listen and watch… heretic incant—a—tion… MAD—NE——SS——HE——LL…… Clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

I

▼Aah... Aaah... Heretic Incantation Madness Hell. Well now, should you ask where hell lies— The mortal realm itself is hereabouts, I declare! The karma wrought by this very body of mine— Soon comes whirling round to claim me whole. Eyeballs rolling wild, I mount the flaming chariot— To that spiraling pit where all must plunge! Through Asura realms and Beastly Paths past Hungry Ghosts— With a THUD I fell—and there Hell’s true visage loomed! From Needle Mountain to Blood-Pool Hell— Great Frost Hell and Scorching Blaze Hell— Sword-Forest Hell and Stone-Grinding Hell— Fire-Roar Hell, Boiling Cauldron Hell, Inverted Suspension Hell— Eighty thousand Hells beyond counting! Retribution for karma sown in mortal lands— You’ll be sliced! Crushed! Roasted! Boiled! Avīci Hell! Screaming Hell! Twisting in endless throes— Torment unending where death itself dies! Hear but one whisper—and your fate’s sealed!

Head-Bursting Collapse Hell and such. A sermon from the priest on high. ……Clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aa… Aah. From on high comes the priest’s solemn sermon. But this one’s not to be trusted. A rumor of hells you cannot enter unless you die. A living monk’s coin-collecting scheme. It’s a pack of lies even Shakyamuni wouldn’t recognize, I tell you. The hells I’ve witnessed— Differing entirely from such refined hells. No gongs struck, no sutras chanted. No train fare spent to reach ten trillion realms. They’re scattered aplenty right hereabouts. A living hell in this very world… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aah... Aaah... A living hell in this very world. That too is Destitution-and-Toil Hell. The Drifting-Drifting River Bamboo Hell. The Clamp Hell of Duty-and-Compassion. Or Retribution-for-Misdeeds Hell. “Official business! Got you! Quick march!” Fixed-term or indefinite—being thrown in. These differ not from other hells. Such logic holds no validity. No breath drawn; daylight unseen. A hell unknowable in breadth or depth. That Enma there’s a doctor of medicine. The academics surpass ox-headed jailers. Yet hell’s famed tools— They sniff out sins of old. Eyes that see, noses that scent—Enma’s ledger. Human hearts laid utterly bare. The pure glass seeing through all. Mirrors reflecting naught but void.

Whether crimes abounded or none at all. Without discerning earnestness from madness. They’d herd you in haphazardly and stamp you down. The mere telling sets every hair a-bristle. This thing called hell dwells right here among us. Outwardly, a grand mental institution. Doubt my words? Step inside and behold. Torments aplenty await at your whim. What terror—this Madness Hell… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aah——Aa… What a terrifying Madness Hell this is, I tell you. Truly terrifying mental hospital, I tell you. Though I speak of such mysteries to all of you, You may not yet fully grasp this— It’s all about sequence—listen well, I tell you. As you listen, it seems perfectly reasonable—yet you remain unaware of such matters, I tell you. Ah yes—now you understand, I tell you. Once grasped—eighty-four thousand— Every pore on your body erupts in gooseflesh. Those are just your run-of-the-mill hells, I tell you… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aah——Aa… Those are just your run-of-the-mill hells, I tell you. Now then, the origin of such hells is— Tradition has it—the ‘A’ of causality’s ABCs. If you seek the very beginning— We owe it all to Civilization and Enlightenment. Now, as for the world’s Civilization and Enlightenment— As for the origins of this daily advancement— The precious gift of scientific knowledge. Among them lies the noble work of doctors. Their duty is to cure people’s illnesses… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat…… I tell you.

▼Aa… Aah. Their duty is to cure people’s illnesses, I tell you. Now, among the work of doctors— They cure physical ailments of the body. The methods of surgical and internal treatment— They cure mental afflictions of the mind. The methods of mental hospital care and— When you compare their differences, With a startled gasp, the whole machinery halts. The disparity in progress staggers belief… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat…… I tell you.

▼Aa——Aah…

The difference in progress is astonishing indeed, I tell you. It should be different—the counterpart is different, I tell you. The human body has a visible form. If you touch the limbs and torso, you can tell, I tell you. The internal organs too can be seen if dissected. Percussion, auscultation, X-rays. Pirquet reaction, blood tests— Countless examination tools, I tell you. Even some unknown disease, Wrong medications and misdiagnoses, I tell you, Or death from improper treatment— If they later dissect the corpse, They’ll immediately know what’s wrong, I tell you. Thus the methods of examination and treatment— They advance by leaps and bounds, I tell you. In contrast to this, even God Himself Cannot examine the human heart… rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aa——Aah… The human mind cannot be examined. No matter how renowned the doctor— The human spirit—this madness of the psyche— Which pulse do they check—whose tongue do they force out? Where do they inject for such torment? Where do they dissolve such worries? With no lens to observe nervous afflictions… The fever that surged from yearning for you— Could that fever ever climb a thermometer’s glass, I ask you! Counterfeit lunatics! True lunatics! Not even X-rays pierce through this veil. No voice resonates, no form takes shape— The mind’s true nature—more elusive than fart’s vapor! How could this ever be examined? As the saying goes—no cure exists for fools. Those ancient proverbs hold truth even now, I declare! In conclusion—mental illness… Examination and treatment stand utterly impossible. It defies study through scientific knowledge.

They realize it's an incomprehensible thing... clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat... I tell you. Rat-a-tat rat-a-tat......

▼Aa——Aah… When they realize it’s an incomprehensible thing… I tell you. Here too lies an incomprehensible logic. They notice a bizarre and mysterious fact. In the first place—what in blazes—the whole thing altogether— The madness of the human spirit and mind— If they cannot perform examinations or treatments— Everywhere you look in the world today—here and there— Mental hospitals, psychiatric treatment, I tell you. Or lunatic asylums, mental hospitals, I tell you. They spread out their stiffly formal signboards. They’ve erected an ornate entrance facade, I tell you. The cost of expensive examinations and treatments, I tell you. Hospitalization fees, nursing charges, I tell you. The swaggering psychiatrists— What kind of work are they even doing, I ask you! Are they swindlers or shills? I ask you! No doubt everyone finds this most suspicious. Wait a moment—the story has its order, I tell you. An utterly absurd behind-the-scenes farce, I tell you.

Thanks to being unable to examine or treat patients, I tell you. It’s a splendid way for doctors to make their killing, I tell you. This here’s the true chant of fools… clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

II Clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aa——Aah——aaah…

Now, in days of yore beyond yore. In the great antiquity of days long past. In an age when scientific knowledge had not yet advanced. Speaking of human bodily ailments— and mental afflictions alike— Since they couldn’t make heads or tails of either— Their examinations and treatments missed the mark entirely, I tell you. Geomancy, compass divination, star readings—that’s what they leaned on, mark my words. When they spoke of this curse or that blight— Prayers, counter-charms, sanctified water they peddled, protective talismans they hawked—I tell you. Made folk clutch at paper charms and such—I tell you. They muddled through with this hocus and that pocus—I tell you. Countless maladies defied all remedy. Then came medicine’s discovery. Swallow it and your sickness vanishes clean away. Relying on this breakthrough, after painstaking study— They concluded human illness springs from within the body— This organ’s derangement being the root cause, I tell you. This reasoned understanding birthed true medicine. Nowadays we’ve anatomy, physiology, and pathology.

Medical chemistry，bacteriology，pharmacology，and others． Surgery，internal medicine，dermatology，otolaryngology—I tell you． Ophthalmology，orthopedics，gynecology，and pediatrics． Stocking every nook and cranny with all manner of tools． Impenetrable instruments and medicines． They treat physical disorders—I tell you． The great radiance of scientific knowledge． The great radiance of scientific knowledge shines ever brighter each day—I tell you…clatter-clatter，rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aa——Ah… It shone ever brighter each day— But when it comes to mental illness—I tell you— They healed the madness of the human mind? The way doctors examined and treated patients? But when you saw what progress they’d made— In days of yore, they treated the mentally ill— Believing them vessels of God’s spirit. They feared them, revered them, worshipped them— Or blamed it on living spirits and vengeful ghosts— Made offerings and tended them with care— But worse still—in some places— If they claimed a demon possessed this one— Monks and priestesses who served as both doctors and judges— Would point them out on sight— Spears! Swords! Lassoes! Bows! Officials bearing clubs— Smashed heads one after another— Limbs and torsos torn to shreds, scattered in pieces— Burned and discarded or buried beneath tree roots—

Exactly at this time, the powers that be saw fit to act. The same treatment as rabid dog extermination. This is how they treated the mentally ill. The first examination was the first treatment, I tell you! The ABCs of the madness hell… clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aa——Ah… This marks the dawn of Dogra Magra hell. Thus began psychiatry’s— From where the cause remained unclear— They wielded readymade superstitions and black magic. Villains who wrought evil emerged. And these were villains of exceeding cunning. Grudges born of slights, jealousies, aversions. Political foes, business rivals. Through hatreds and suspicions that defied all reason. Once they deemed someone inconvenient— They’d seize blameless souls. Through priestesses, monks, officials’ ilk. Greasing palms to make arrests. Branding them mad without hearing pleas. Subjecting them to capital punishment by state decree.

In less severe cases, they’re confined to prison cells… clank-clank clank-clank…

▼Aa——Ah… In less severe cases, they’re confined to prison cells. If we survey world history— High social standing and peerage and honor… Or inheritance of property and territories. Scandals involving women and matters of heirship… Family feuds and internal strife stemming from… The desire to eliminate troublesome rivals— Examples of such means being used— Such instances linger here and there— Then if we examine how things stand now— I’d declare ’tis just as before— Nay—’tis grown crueler now… clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat. Clatter-clatter—rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

III

…clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat. Clatter-clatter, rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rat-a-tat……

▼Aaah——ah…… Aaah… Ah! This is the grand era of Civilization and Enlightenment, I tell you! The age of science's omnipotence. Yet amidst all this, psychiatry alone remains— Stuck fast in the dark ages of yore. They prattle about being unable to conduct examinations or treatments— Should some fool dare utter such tripe, 'tis naught but flatulent nonsense from their very lips! I say those very scoundrels are the true madmen. There may exist those who proclaim such things. How I do adore these paragons of virtue. Reason and common sense, scientific knowledge— Such magnificent souls who never forget. To these exalted ones do I humbly appeal. Testing truths is best done in leisure hours, mark my words. Your neighborhood madhouse. Or schools, libraries—places of that ilk. Scholars and doctors from every corner of the globe. They descended in swarms to conduct their research. They unfurled tomes on lunatic maladies. Go on then—inspect their contents thoroughly.

And yet they’re just rows of disease names, I tell you. Round Western letters and square kanji characters, Pushing and jostling—hundreds upon thousands of them. To where even counting them on your fingers becomes a chore. Nowadays even mental patients get treated just like surgical cases. Bathed in scientific knowledge’s glow, With examinations that peer into your very depths. Logically justified nursing care— They’re having every procedure under the sun done. But it’s only amateurs who feel grateful… clank-clank clank-clank…

▼Aa——Ah… It’s only amateurs who feel grateful, I tell you… Now don’t go thinking I’m spouting spiteful nonsense— But don’t act shocked! Here in Westernized Japan, I say— From heaven’s edge to earth’s deepest bowels— The scientists who scrutinized every last thing— They swarmed in and researched it all— But that most vital linchpin— The brain coiled inside your own skull’s hollow— What functions does it perform?— The truth remains utterly beyond grasp! If any among you fine folk doubt my words— Scholars from every age and land— Books dissecting human brains— Read them yourself and see! This is where we hear and see things— Where judgments take shape! Knowledge! Experience! Memories of old! The warehouse where they’re stored away!

What does what do this or that? If this were *naniwa-bushi*, it’d be nothing but preamble after preamble, I tell you. There’s been no shortage of lofty debates, mind you. Not a single certain fact came to light… clankety-clank clankety-clank clankety-clank clankety-clank…

▼Aa——Ah… Not a single certain fact remains unknown. It’s only natural they don’t grasp it—there’s nothing wondrous here, I tell you! For all their talk of heaven’s breadth... They’ve truly probed human brains, I say— Infuriatingly plain as day! Strange—absurd—grotesque—unparalleled! If one’s pierced through the brain’s workings— Presumptuous as this unasked-for sermon sounds— ’Tis only myself dwelling here! ……Call it a riddle if you will, good folk. That brain-mush of yours alone— Baked daily beneath heaven’s eye— Has warped its very essence, mark my words! Laugh if you must at this conundrum... In truth, it may be just as I declare— And that’s where my pet project shines! Scholars and doctors worldwide— I’ve finished research to make ’em gasp! For this two-billion-ten-thousand human swarm—

I look forward to switching heads. Sooner or later, that thesis— It’ll be published by a certain university. Read it yourself and you’ll see, I tell ya. As for scholars from every other world— They don’t know squat about studying brains. Their every scheme’s off-target. Just ’bout as much as they probably guessed. A truth-posing popgun, I say! Even if they can explain one rule, Other facts slip right past ’em. Prop up one side—the other won’t hold. In a nine-by-two room with two storm shutters… *clatter*, *clank-clank*. *Clank-clank clank-clank…*

▼Aa——Ah…

In a nine-by-two room with two storm shutters—not to mention from morning till night—a spinning lantern or a kaleidoscope? Cat’s eyeballs, a turkey—crying and laughing, whirling and flickering—mastering the arcane art of infinite transformations. The true nature of the human heart... What form or shape could it possibly take? How on earth could it have gone mad? Not that I’m the liquor store’s Hanshichi, but... Where and how could it possibly exist? Not a single one has been figured out. The proof lies right before your eyes: in current psychiatric texts, diseases lined up in rows, I tell you! The scholars who created such texts—utterly clueless about what’s what—they glance cursorily at patients’ exteriors—take gestures and mannerisms as reference points—keep piling on labels through sheer amateurish deception, I tell you!

A flirtatious maniac gets called a sexual pervert, I tell you. Kill someone? That’s a murderous maniac, I tell you. A dance maniac dances their heart out, I tell you. An arson maniac lights up the town, I tell you. What science did they even use to figure this out? I ask you. The way they slap on these obvious labels—any fool could do it, I tell you. You don’t need no medical degree to play this name game, I tell you. Angry drunks and weepy sots—you know the types—I tell you. Giggly fools and clingy nuisances—I tell you. Ladder climbers and society’s darlings—I tell you. Slap a name on how they stagger when drunk—same old song and dance, I tell you. With this rigmarole they call examinations? Pure madness—I tell you… *Clatter-clank*, *clankety-clank clank*.

▼Aa——Ah… With this they conduct examinations—strange business, I tell you— Well then, they take charge of lunatics. These Doctors and Bachelors of Medicine— The place where human minds go mad— Or proof positive of sanity— Where do they probe and sift through it all?— Those who gawk at this are greenhorns again, I tell you. That’s commerce—no need to fret… *clank-clank clank-clank…*

▼Aa——Ah… That's business—no need to fret. They label everyone as mentally ill. From distant lands they come—trudging to the doctor's threshold. If they're souls dragged here— No eye that beholds them sees sanity. They're all too far gone, I tell you. Or those who look no different from ordinary folk— Even the calmest-seeming patients. When kith and kin with their white-coated attendants— Have dotted every i for the authorities— What doubt remains they're mad? Unlawful confinement? No matter! They come armed with permits stamped in triplicate— Brought in fair and square. No great labor for the learned doctors. The kin's tearful tales, I tell you. The patient's twitch and stare, I tell you. Cracked spines of textbooks consulted, I tell you. A fitting label slapped on, I tell you.

And with that, they declared the examination concluded—I tell you. They simply drove them into red bricks—I tell you. Among them were those who'd been misdiagnosed—I tell you. There might be a few scattered here and there—I tell you. But this too was no cause for concern—I tell you. Unlike other kinds of illnesses—I tell you. With this one alone, misdiagnoses went undetected—I tell you. Once branded with the "mad" mark, that was the end—I tell you. A brick hell from which you'd never escape—I tell you. "No! Wrong!" they'd protest—to no avail—I tell you. That very denial became proof of madness—I tell you. A fate unchanged from ancient times to now—I tell you. They'd diagnose you as an arsonist maniac—I tell you. Were they to dissect Yaoya Oshichi—I tell you. They'd pronounce her some unplanned sex fiend—I tell you. They'd deem you a kleptomaniac specimen—I tell you. Had they admitted Ishikawa Goemon—I tell you. They'd have judged him a megalomaniac—I tell you. Fretting over your rear going berserk?—I tell you. No such risk—so rest carefree—I tell you.

They’re patients they can’t diagnose no matter what—I tell you. It’s an illness where they can’t tell what’s what—I tell you. Well then, they’re carefree mad-doctors… *clank-clank, clatter-clatter*. *Clatter-clank, clank-clatter.* *Clank-clank clank-clank…*

▼Ah——Ah…

Well then, they’re carefree mad doctors, I tell you. Then you ask about their treatment methods—I tell you. Worrying over it just proves you’re boorish fools—you amateurs, I tell you. This too remains no different from the examination—I tell you. A pitch-black darkness of blind groping—I tell you. The only mercy is they don’t go smashing your skull straight off—I tell you. Whether we owe this to our enlightened age of progress—who can say—I tell you. If we let the patients’ side speak: The proof lies plain before your eyes yet none can grasp it—I tell you. Any corner of Sonjo will do—I tell you. Peer inside any madhouse—I tell you. Cells with iron bars, naturally—I tell you. Compared to modern jails and lockups—I tell you. Tools never glimpsed even in shadows—I tell you. Iron chains and sleeveless shirts—I tell you. Manacles for hands, shackles for feet—I tell you. Beds for crucifixion—I tell you. Stone coffins with slit windows—I tell you. Row upon row of them lined up—I tell you. Even the vilest felons—I tell you.

Torture instruments that make your whole body tremble… *clank-clank clank-clank*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah… Torture devices that make your whole body quake—I tell you. Yet for all that, what about the inpatients'—I tell you. They claim to truly cure mental afflictions. But when it comes to proper medical tools… Not a single legitimate one can be found. For sleepless patients—anesthetic jabs—I tell you. For rowdy ones—sedatives—I tell you. If you won't eat—nutrient injections—I tell you. Shots and enemas—that's their whole arsenal—I tell you. Worse than back-alley physicians and butchers—I tell you. If you recover? Doctors take the credit—I tell you. If you croak? Just chalk it up to fate—I tell you. Ha ha! Hee hee! Cool as winter melons they are—I tell you. Truly now—a terror-filled madhouse hell… *clank-clank clatter-clatter clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah… Truly terrifying, this madhouse hell—I tell you! But here’s just the warm-up—I tell you! The madhouse hell’s own River Sanzu—I tell you! Merely hearing of it sets your hairs upright—I tell you! Eighty thousand hells? Pure folly—I tell you! Fools rampaging through senseless chaos—I tell you! They sustain every cruelty imaginable—I tell you! Upon this world’s psychiatric patients—I tell you! The hellish cycle—lo!—now commences… *clank-clank, clatter-clatter* *Clank-clank, clatter-clatter* *Clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter…*

IV

▼*Clank-clank, clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*. Aa——Ah…—I tell you. Now don’t you all be so shocked—I tell you. This is no tale of Japan. A story from Tang and Tenjiku—those distant lands—I tell you. Psychiatrists from around the world— Built them with such merciless hearts—I tell you. These grand-looking hospital hells— Filled with such foolish ghost-like patients—I tell you. Every last one packed to capacity—I tell you. And rightly so—first off, As for those hellish beds’ numbers—I tell you. Even increased a thousandfold, ten thousandfold—I tell you. In every corner of the human world—I tell you. They lurch forth one after another and burst out. The madmen’s count can’t be met. What’s more, once they’re admitted—I tell you. Though healing may take time—I tell you. Some patients never leave at all. Willy-nilly, packed to the rafters—I tell you.

So the doctors lord it over everyone—oh how they lord it over them! They pin every conceivable thing on the patients—I tell you. Troublesome? The money you pay. If they show even a hint of reluctance at that point—I tell you. They’ll rush you out of the hospital in no time flat. With their gracious permission for home treatment— There are patients who come out unscathed, and then... With a diagnosis certificate for another illness— There are those who crawl into coffins and depart that way— The next replacements come endlessly—I tell you— It’s a bustling ticket gate—I tell you… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…

▼Aa——Ah… It’s a bustling ticket gate—I tell you. But that story reeks of falsehood—I tell you. Strange, wondrous strange—utterly beyond ken—I tell you. To such a place they pour their coin—I tell you. For what cause do they commit them?—I tell you. Are you one who harbors doubts?—I tell you. If never have you kept company with madness in your kin—I tell you. You’re one untouched by such experience—I tell you. First lend your ear proper—I tell you. A tale more shocking yet approaches—I tell you. *Clank-rattle, clatter-clang* they come bursting forth—I tell you. Not mine to know—the wooden fish holds the truth—I tell you. ……*clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*……

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. I don’t know, but the wooden fish knows—I tell you. There’s an even more shocking fact—I tell you. Moreover, it’s universally consistent—I tell you. If one’s a psychiatric hospital staff member— It’s an open secret known to all—I tell you. Top Secret. Private & Confidential. Verified Authentic. If this be called the ultimate story—I tell you. It may not quite add up—I tell you. The one that fits perfect is the wooden fish’s tale—I tell you. Bringing all mad patients— To the red brick entranceway. Even among those come bowing. Parents, siblings, wives, children and such— “Please cure them,” They shed tears and heaved sighs. No few came pleading desperately. Even among such flesh and blood. Truly, from the heart, imbued with genuine feeling—I tell you. Meaning to treat and tend them—I tell you.

In reality, it's only the mothers—I tell you. That truth too gave my stomach pain—I tell you. When the patient is a son or daughter—I tell you. If they come with other flesh and blood—I tell you. Even fathers and brothers who share the same blood—I tell you. They're truly cold-hearted and callous—I tell you. Especially the young wives—I tell you. They put on a show of concern for just two or three days—I tell you. They'll heave sighs by your side—I tell you. They're already waiting for someone from their hometown to come pick them up—I tell you. They pounce on it as if they'd been waiting—I tell you. That's still not even the absolute pinnacle—I tell you. Handing over the patient to the doctor, and before long—I tell you. Before they've even decided which room—I tell you. Do they go to the restroom to make a phone call—I tell you. Peering into the mirror tucked in their obi. While patting the tips of their noses. They slip away gracefully and vanish—that's the farewell—I tell you. They'll never show their faces again… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you.

They never show their faces again as a matter of course—I tell you. Once it’s deemed an incurable disease—I tell you. Parading them before doctors is just for show—I tell you. Their true aim is to come and abandon them—I tell you. This illness that makes life unlivable—I tell you. "We humbly entrust them to your care"—I tell you. When you hear their polite pleas from behind—I tell you. Should they recover, what a nuisance that’d be—I tell you. They’d rather have them killed outright—I tell you. Their silent hearts lie transparent before us. Here stands the border between life and death for patients. Where doctors line their pockets handsomely—I tell you. ...Oh now, don’t go wide-eyed like that—I tell you. "Such things...!" Don’t glare at me so—I tell you. These eyes have witnessed it firsthand—I tell you. But this doesn’t concern Japan at all. It’s China’s affair, India’s, the West’s—I tell you. Earless, eyeless thing it is—I tell you. The wooden fish’s wordless tale—I tell you. ...Skritch-skritch, clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter...

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you.

The wooden fish’s tale that speaks not a word—I tell you. It’s a tale of China and India—those distant lands—I tell you. It makes no distinction between men and women—I tell you. If someone’s gone mad once—I tell you. No matter how calm a face they keep—I tell you. They’ll lash out without warning—I tell you. They’ll cut people down or torch buildings—I tell you. They’ll wallow in foul moods and commit queer acts—I tell you. They’ll spread their vile humors and strange deeds far and wide—I tell you. Beasts wearing human skins—I tell you. No call to treat them as people—I tell you. However cruel the punishments dealt—I tell you. Even if you stone them with rocks and tiles—I tell you. Guilty of no crime, remembering nothing—I tell you. Though they seem fully cured—I tell you. Who knows when the fit might take them again—I tell you. They must stay ever vigilant—even in this modern age—I tell you. To what’s been said since ancient times—I tell you. Add this terror of bloodlines—I tell you. What curse is this? What retribution?—I tell you.

Pointing fingers and staring daggers—that's society—I tell you. Amidst such times, within one's own kin—I tell you. An unexpected mentally ill individual—I tell you. They spring up out of nowhere—now that's a crisis… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. They spring forth suddenly—now that’s calamity—I tell you. And in upper-class society no less—I tell you. If they’re from well-appointed households—I tell you. Why, build a home confinement cell and be done with it—I tell you. To hospitals offering no hope of cure—I tell you. No need to commit them there at all—I tell you. Such breezy pronouncements come from high society—I tell you. From those unacquainted with hardship’s sting—I tell you. In families of some renown—I tell you. Once madness rears its head—that’s the end—I tell you. It defiles the bloodline through endless generations—I tell you. To put it plainly—their sons and daughters—I tell you. Find their marriage prospects withering away—I tell you. By those beneath them in station nearby—I tell you. ’Tis money’s wicked curse at work—I tell you. Retribution for vaulting ambition’s climb—I tell you. Met with scornful glares and tongues protruded—I tell you. The agony of fingers pointed behind one’s back—I tell you. All concerning deeds to grand ancestral gates—I tell you.

There, they resort to favoritism and abuse of authority—I tell you. They trace every connection and exert every effort—I tell you. They stealthily place them into the red bricks—I tell you. And if it’s full—I tell you. They exert even more far-reaching efforts—I tell you. They make unreasonable requests to the hospital Director—I tell you. After all, this world is a matter of money—I tell you. All the more so when it comes to the affairs of this madhouse hell—I tell you. Even the grim-faced Director—I tell you. He immediately transforms into a benevolent Jizo-like smile—I tell you. Instead of welcoming them with merciful hands—I tell you. They ship other patients off to paradise—I tell you. Even with money, they still end up like this… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Ah——Ah…—I tell you. Even with money, they still end up like this—I tell you. Social standing, pedigree, honor and status—I tell you. The more they possess, the more mentally ill—I tell you. Home treatment grows ever more hopeless—I tell you. To the red bricks they stealthily consign them—I tell you. They must seal them away to feel secure—I tell you. But when it comes to middle-class society—I tell you. Fixed monthly salaries and annual stipends—I tell you. A slender lifeline of income—I tell you. Relying on the master and family members—I tell you. Should anyone in the household go mad—I tell you. If it's a rented house, they're evicted and devoured—I tell you. The very thought of a home confinement cell never occurs—I tell you. If the patient requires but a little extra care—I tell you. Savings, pensions—all vanish in smoke—I tell you. Moreover, atop all that, the caregiver—I tell you. If it's the husband, he cannot go to work—I tell you. If it's the wife, she cannot work—I tell you. Or if it's the child attending school—I tell you.

"That’s the cursed cross-shaped seed—I tell you." They swarm to jeer at them—I tell you. An unspeakable ache and bitterness—I tell you. They all start crumbling at once—I tell you. When only one last hope remained—I tell you. The red-brick Director—I tell you. When they hatch impossible plots and try them—I tell you. Everywhere they turn, it’s packed full… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. Wherever they go, it’s all full—I tell you. Moreover, this wretch drags them down another notch—I tell you. A hand-to-mouth income that can’t be helped—I tell you. The wife takes on piecework; the daughter works at the factory—I tell you. If a family ends up like this—I tell you. The cruelty and misery are beyond description—I tell you. Not only no nursing care, but even medicine is beyond reach—I tell you. Immediately, the entire family gathers just like that—I tell you. They must hang their jaws from the ceiling—I tell you. If only they would just go mad and die—I tell you. Even if they curse, wishing things were better—I tell you. As for Mr. Madman himself—I tell you. Far from dying, he devours large meals—I tell you. With that hopeless look of incurability… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. That hopeless look of incurability—I tell you. In such a state do they appear in human society—I tell you. Wheat smut or rapeseed horse?—I tell you. Just like blighted flowers and twisted vegetables—I tell you. Without rhyme or reason—I tell you. They sprout up one after another—I tell you. Countless mentally ill people—I tell you. They take them in at no charge—I tell you. In all this wide world, nothing but universities—I tell you. With hundreds upon hundreds of beds—I tell you. And not out of charity—I tell you. Raw material for students and professors—I tell you. Living specimens for lecture demonstrations—I tell you. Picking only what suits them—I tell you. The rest get shown the door—I tell you. Now consider private institutions—I tell you. Pure business through and through—I tell you. All money-grubbing and power-mongering—I tell you. Packed to the rafters with your "esteemed" patients… *clatter-clank, clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. Esteemed patients packed to capacity—I tell you. Thus are they overwhelmed—I tell you. Countless madmen—I tell you. Where and how could they be disposed of—I tell you. Having scrutinized this strange phenomenon—I tell you. What follows is hearsay—I tell you. Ears cannot hear and eyeballs cannot see—I tell you. A mute crippled wooden fish—I tell you. The tales it witnessed—I tell you. Empty-stomached and impartial—I tell you. It hammers out this madman’s litany—I tell you. Hell-circling gibberish verses—I tell you. With a thud, deeper it plunges—I tell you. ……Gather round for a juicy tale—I tell you. They need no money—I tell you. Hear it and gasp… *clatter-clank, clatter-clatter*…—I tell you. *Clatter-clank, clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter…*—I tell you.

Five

▼*Clatter-clank, clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter…*—I tell you. Aa——Ah——aah——Ah…—I tell you. Ee——Ee…—I tell you. Well now, ladies and gentlemen, such being the state of affairs—I tell you. When a single madman patient appears—I tell you. Unlike other illnesses and matters—I tell you. The sane family members left behind—I tell you. They suffer unendurable torment—I tell you. They absolutely cannot keep him at home in such a state—I tell you. Even if they ponder what must be done—I tell you. They simply cannot find any means—I tell you. In the midst of this, they resorted to desperate measures—I tell you. They lose their money, they can’t work—I tell you. Before long, the entire family withers away before their very eyes—I tell you. Ah, the heartache, the sorrow, the bitterness… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you.

Ah, the heartache, the sorrow, the bitterness—though my own self cares not a whit—from the elderly parents on down—I tell you. Even to the future of my beloved child—I tell you. For the sake of a single life not worth living—I tell you. Is abandoning them and nursing them the proper course?—I tell you. Before they bring trouble upon others—I tell you. They should hang themselves along with the patient—I tell you. Is it right for the whole household to perish together?—I tell you. By what karma do they weep and curse these woes, while the crucial one remains unmoved?—I tell you. The patient in question stared vacantly—I tell you. Doing naught but darting their eyes about… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. They do nothing but dart their eyes about—I tell you. Even if their original form remains—I tell you. The original mind is but a hollow shell—I tell you. They retain human form alone—I tell you. They’re more troublesome than dogs or cats—I tell you. Pitiable beyond words, beyond anything—utterly beyond—I tell you. If it must come to this, then let it be exchanged for another fate—I tell you. After lamenting and writhing in anguish—I tell you. Driven into a corner, they commit a grave crime… *clatter-clank, clatter-clatter*…—I tell you. *Clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. Driven into a corner, they commit a grave crime—I tell you. They pretend to relocate them to some distant province—I tell you. They direct them to an unfamiliar hospital—I tell you. They pretend to take them in and show them to people—I tell you. To the edge of wilderness from which they will never return—I tell you. With tearful reluctance, they abandon the patient—I tell you. But this one differs from an abandoned child—I tell you. There’s no merciful soul to pick them up and raise them—I tell you. Far from there being any, wherever they go—I tell you. They are beaten and struck, driven out wherever they go—I tell you. In the place where they collapsed, starving and freezing—I tell you. Tree roots, grass roots—perhaps they’ll serve as fertilizer—I tell you. Knowing that, they abandon these demons—I tell you. They dart their eyes about, searching and scanning their surroundings—I tell you. The pitiful remnants of the patient—I tell you. In the distant shade of objects and trees—I tell you. They clasp their hands in countless immeasurable… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. They press their hands together in countless supplications—I tell you. These old traditions date back to the Engi era of antiquity—I tell you. As with Semimaru and Lady Sakagami—I tell you. By what karma did both come to share this fate—I tell you. The wretched sight of a blind bard and mad noblewoman—I tell you. Cast out at their father's gate—I tell you. Leaving the flowered capital far behind—I tell you. To Ōsaka Mountain's unforeseen sorrows—I tell you. A shame to curtail this tale—I tell you. Such is the cruel custom of our fleeting world—I tell you. The disposal of desperate secrets—I tell you. It matters not in past or present, East or West—I tell you. Whether coin-filled purses or empty palms, highborn or low—I tell you. They spurn both justice and reason—I tell you… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…

▼Aa——Ah… They paid no heed to right or reason. Through such circumstances—to wilderness fringes. Among wandering pitiful patients, those retaining shreds of sanity rummaged through others’ garbage heaps. Taking what they received, they survived. Even when sanity returned, the world’s sorrows burned unbearable into their flesh. Or ashamed of their own forms, thinking of remaining family, renouncing people and world alike— their tears took beggars’ shapes. Once three days passed unstoppable, they sank into carefree realms they’d heard of— becoming local beggars of note, or mingling with vagrants and mountain outcasts: Before temple gates, in shrine groves’ shade, at kamaboko stalls by bridge ends.

Picking lice day in and day out—I tell you. If you were to gather them one by one—I tell you. It would truly amount to a considerable number of people—I tell you. Moreover, such pitiful states— All these hellish sufferings— The state and society feign ignorance—I tell you. They stop just short of saying “Why don’t you just die?”—I tell you. The numbers dwindling under cold-hearted treatment— One or two among thousands or tens of thousands… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…—I tell you.

▼Aa——Ah…—I tell you. One or two among thousands or tens of thousands—I tell you. How about this, ladies and gentlemen?—I tell you. If this were an ordinary illness…—I tell you. They would be tended more carefully than the healthy—I tell you. Doctors! Medicine! Nurses!—I tell you. Soft beds and fine meals—I tell you. They receive endless visits—I tell you. Not just humans but dogs and beasts—I tell you. Birds and goldfish too, depending on the case—I tell you. They’re nursed with utmost devotion—I tell you. Yet psychiatric patients—I tell you. Thanks to their illness’s true nature remaining unknown—I tell you. Red bricks or wilderness edges—I tell you. An inescapable hellish torment—I tell you… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*…

▼Aa——Ah… An inescapable hellish torment—I tell you. But listen well, ladies and gentlemen—I tell you. I’ve been pounding this wooden fish—clackety-clack—I tell you. The hellish tale I’ve hammered out—I tell you. The hospital hell and wilderness hell—I tell you. Bona fide, gold-leaf certified—I tell you. It’s where the mentally ill descend—I tell you. Your everyday madman’s inferno—I tell you. Now then—with redoubled fury—I tell you. Ungrateful brats bellowing loud—I tell you. The hell-story I’ll proclaim—I tell you. They threw in an extra twist—I tell you. A terror beyond terrors—I tell you. Knowing neither sin nor retribution. Sane folk—ordinary men and women—I tell you. Fully conscious of their deeds—I tell you.

Suddenly, their limbs were deprived of freedom. Unable to even utter a voice—a forced demise, I tell you. They were dragged in unreasonably and forcibly—I tell you. They were beaten into the madman’s hell—I tell you. Moreover, upon thorough investigation—I tell you. In China, India, the West—places like that. Grand structures lined up in a row. Clatter-clatter clatter-clatter… ▼Aa——Ah… What splendid grand structures they were! Upon burnished golden signboards as well. In the grand advertisements of newspapers as well—such-and-such hospital, such-and-such treatment. Nothing but rigid officialese. They didn’t explicitly write “hell,” of course. The police, newspapers, detective agencies and such…—I tell you. While thoroughly knowing its true nature—I tell you. A strange business of feigned ignorance—I tell you. To the inside of the government-sanctioned door. Once you carelessly stick a foot in, that’s the end—I tell you. Cry though they might; scream though they might; go mad though they might; thrash about though they might.

A dark world from which they can never escape again—I tell you. Unaware that such a place even exists. It’s the cultured world of the twentieth century—I tell you. It’s the omnipotent era of scientific knowledge—I tell you. The world of law, morality, and etiquette—I tell you. They swaggered about with pompous arrogance—I tell you. Tomorrow they themselves may fall—I tell you. It’s the abyssal hell beneath the madman’s hell—I tell you… Clang-clatter, clatter-clatter clatter-clatter…

Six

▼Clatter-clatter clatter-clatter. Clatter-rattle clatter-clatter. Aa——Ah…

Surely such things don’t exist in Japan—I tell you. To kill someone: dagger, pistol. Anesthetics, poisons, silk cords, handkerchiefs. Countless makeshift tools—I tell you. Even among these, in civilized countries—I tell you. It’s Hontou Country—the one they call Number One—I tell you. In the capital city of Tamageta there—I tell you. The new methods I have seen—I tell you. Spirited, noble, and modern tools—I tell you. In broad daylight, openly and publicly—I tell you. Have police officers and doctors act as witnesses—I tell you. Leaving no bloodstains; leaving no fingerprints either. No matter what prosecutors or detectives—I tell you. Even if they harbor suspicions and investigate—I tell you. A splendid method where no fingers can be pointed—I tell you. However, it requires a bit of money—I tell you. But in return, the profits are enormous—I tell you. In this world, money is the enemy… Clatter-clatter clatter-clatter clatter-clatter…

▼Aa——Ah… In this world, money is the enemy—I tell you. First comes inheritance disputes—I tell you. Politics, diplomacy, military secrets—I tell you. Some splendid big money-making scheme—I tell you. The single-minded thought that that bastard was a hindrance—I tell you. The target walks alone. Is it a mistress’s dwelling or a gambling den? Or perhaps a secret meeting place—I tell you. A place to slip in quietly for respite. Track down nearby routes they frequent. The psychiatrist they had previously hired—I tell you. Having their deeply greedy [psychiatrist] accompany them—I tell you. They ask Sonjo and the local police officers—I tell you. "Actually, he’s my close friend"—I tell you. "He exhibits slight mental abnormalities"—I tell you. "Not returning home—to lonely places." "To wander aimlessly is the disease"—I tell you. "But they want to show it to the doctor there"—I tell you. "I keep telling you there’s nothing wrong with me!"

Brandishing his weapon and rampaging—I tell you. An unavoidable emergency measure—I tell you. They always pass through this area—I tell you. They lie in wait to apprehend him—I tell you. There, two or three of your esteemed comrades—I tell you. May I humbly borrow your hand?—I tell you. While spouting such nonsense, they pass along some money—I tell you. The doctor’s recommendation passes from right to left—I tell you. They proceed with the procedure as intended—I tell you. If you drop them with a thud, it’s a sudden reversal—I tell you. The target is a bottomless abyss—I tell you. It’s a madman’s hell from which you can’t escape alive… Clatter-clatter, clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Aa——Ah… It’s a madman’s hell you can’t escape even if you try—I tell you. This is all over some trifling family squabble—I tell you. The target is still so young—I tell you. If they’re bringing their son or daughter—I tell you. There are even more pretentious methods—I tell you. They are particularly infatuated with modern thought—I tell you. If they’re the type with overly sensitive minds—I tell you. It saves them a great deal of trouble—I tell you. They handle them with a touch of irony—I tell you. Or involve them in compromising positions—I tell you. Immediately, it’s the neurasthenia style—I tell you. Their cheeks turned pallid, their eyeballs gleaming. Their behavior and speech began to alter. To the doctor who had thoroughly grasped this— Once they’re examined by the doctor, it’s all ours for the taking—I tell you. Having them convalesce is merely a superficial pretext—I tell you. The flower buds remain unopened—I tell you. Ah, how pitiful—plummeting into the endless hell… Clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Ah... Ah, how pitiful—plunging into the endless hell... He specialized in such patients. Managing to thrive even in a proper nation—I tell you. It's the renowned Dr. Mattaku—I tell you. He too began as an ordinary doctor. The patients he treated were of this very sort. The fees they collected were astonishingly large. Thus he gradually specialized in that field. Now his institution overflows with prosperity—I tell you. In that utterly flabbergasted city—I tell you. They erected a hospital embodying virtue and beauty—I tell you. Within stand arrayed modern culture's—I tell you. Torture devices curated with exquisite refinement—I tell you. An airtight slaughterhouse facility—I tell you. One glance would turn midsummer's swelter into... A frozen hell of subzero cold—I tell you. Yet its outward appearance... A gleaming entrance facade. Cars lined up beyond counting.

Moreover, these wealthy and distinguished households' secrets became their leverage—I tell you. They could squeeze out every last penny through extortion—I tell you. Should that ploy fail—I tell you. The secret incarnate themselves—I tell you. The patient forcibly declared sane—I tell you. They'd proclaim it a misdiagnosis—I tell you. Have them cured and released that very hour—I tell you. Or turn coat and side with the patients—I tell you. Shout those secrets from the rooftops—I tell you. After draining them dry of coin and dignity— The extorted soul driven to ruin—I tell you. If they smelled their own sins coming to light—I tell you. To that very secret patient—I tell you. One injection, a single drop of poison. Even when they cut them open after. They'd have no choice but to use such medicines. Whether the patient thrashed enough to deserve it. No power in modern medicine could prove it. That was precisely Dr. Mattaku's wicked design—I tell you.

It’s the psychiatrists’ bag of tricks—I tell you… Skitter-clack, clackety-clack… Clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Agh… It’s the psychiatrists’ bag of tricks—I tell you. And what’s more—an array of even greater wonders—I tell you. As one would expect of the madhouse hell’s very birthplace—I tell you. In Hontō Country’s Tamageta City—I tell you. Dr.Mattaku operates audaciously—I tell you. While he engages in such dealings To his diligent colleagues in the same profession— Not only does no one point a single finger at him— He isn’t complained about or criticized—I tell you. The government, the police, even newspaper reporters— They just watch in silence... Clatter-clack, clackety-clack—I tell you. Clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Agh…

They just watch in silence—I tell you. The continuing wonders of Hontō Country—I tell you. A great big chest of secret funds—I tell you. The enormous sum of money leaks out from there—I tell you. Into Dr.Mattaku’s pocket. Stealthily, without even making a sound. Not only that, but Dr.Mattaku’s—I tell you. His broad shoulders and massive chest are adorned—I tell you. An array of metals and medals—I tell you. And those too are bestowed for great meritorious service to the nation—I tell you. The civil and military officials who bestowed them—I tell you. They’re extraordinary things rarely bestowed—I tell you. Germany, France, England, Russia. Japan, for one, seems not to have existed though. And speaking of which—Dr.Mattaku— In dealings with such world powers— If he were to render what great meritorious service—I tell you. Could he have obtained such medals—I tell you. This leaves everyone utterly flabbergasted… Skitter-clack, clackety-clack. Clackety-clack clackety-clack…

Seven ▼Skitter-clack, clackety-clack. Clackety-clack clackety-clack. ▼Ah——Agh… "Well now, you must be dreadfully bored... I imagine you’re thinking we should stop here, but— It’s like crafting a Buddha but forgetting to enshrine its soul—I tell you. In this tattered prologue to our grand unveiling—I tell you. An array of wondrous marvels laid bare—I tell you. Unseen by the eye and unheard by the ear. The true nature of scientific culture’s hell. To the very bottom—the rock-bottom thudding depths. Smash through, lay bare, spread wide. This is truly an astonishing tale—I tell you. Dr. Mattaku’s astonishing work—ah yes, now I see! Until every last one of you witnesses grasps the truth—I tell you. Well now—I do hope this finds you in good spirits—I tell you. A hellish wreckage never to be heard again—I tell you. A tale of the most wondrous wooden fish… Skitter-clack, clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Agh… A hellish wreckage never to be heard again—I tell you. The deaf-mute wooden fish’s idiot’s litany—I tell you. And so—skitter-clack, clackety-clack—I tell you. Now then, as for Hontō Country—I tell you. On the surface, it’s a world power—I tell you. If it’s number one in the world, it’s the country’s pride—I tell you. The home of freedom and justice—I tell you. A civil rights-based ideal nation—I tell you. It’s called such, but unlike Japan—I tell you. Anyone can become the head of state. It’s money-based and power-based—I tell you. Because there exists neither the character nor the word for ‘loyalty’—I tell you. From start to finish, money does the talking—I tell you. Justice and law can be bought with money. Conscience, chastity—those too, of course. Civil liberties by any means necessary. The hawkish tenacity that seizes and never releases. The top-tier billionaires— The nation’s interests are one’s own interests—I tell you. An unshakable foundation of relentless calculation.

Because they hold actual political power. No matter how many times the government changes, The influence of billionaires remains unchanged.

From ministers and lawmakers at the top down to police officers and soldiers at the bottom—they monopolized the nation's prosperity. These top-tier billionaires' stewards and lackeys of money-making wore the mask of law and justice. The weak and righteous people's freedom, morality, social obligations and human compassion—they trampled them all indiscriminately underfoot. Such tycoons' cruel splendor was detested from the depths of their hearts by scholars and pastors who were allies of justice. Under the right to freedom of speech, they began tycoon-bullying speeches—or when they wrote in books and such. Everyone would heap praise, exclaiming "How splendid!" The lower classes' favor swelled. Public opinion to overthrow capitalists swelled... Skitter-clack, clackety-clack clackety-clack...

▼Ah——Agh… Public opinion to overthrow the wealthy swelled. Thereupon, the wealthy morphed into demons of calamity. They raised such claims and public opinion—I tell you. They threw them onto magazine and newspaper desks—I tell you. "What do you propose to do about this?" they demanded—I tell you. They blamed the government with cigars in hand—I tell you. Thereupon, the government found itself in dire straits. Government folks were bound to be in trouble—I tell you. As for such stewards of the wealthy—I tell you— They had to keep them appeased, lest their positions crumble—I tell you. They’d lose funding for the next election—I tell you. Yet a person’s freedom remains free—I tell you. They violated not a single national statute. Upstanding individuals of impeccable logic— Scholars and pastors championing justice— They couldn’t even drive them out to starve—I tell you. Were they to imprison them... They’d face thunderous public opposition—I tell you. Thereupon, having exhausted all schemes—

It was the madhouse hell that plumbed deception's deepest depths. Even among such scholars and pastors, they marked only the ringleaders. When it suited their methods, they deployed detectives. Their targets walked unaware of being hunted, utterly alone in desolate places— they crept behind muffling their footsteps, then in an instant dragged them down. Under pretense of restraining madmen, they clamped massive shackles on wrists and ankles. An anesthetic-drenched handkerchief smothered faces. They had Dr. Mattaku waiting in the shadows— hurled them into the waiting hospital van. The rest... well, you know... clackety-clack clackety-clack...

▼Ah——Agh…

The rest goes without saying—I tell you. Even in civilized nations, they catch wind of this. Making no distinction between state and citizen— These souls ensnared in wicked schemes— "There's no handier method than this!" They whisper secret pleas, jostling to be first. Those admitted? Statesmen... scholars... Espionage agents... revolutionary inventors... Scions of wealth... heirs to noble houses... Or silver-screen idols—I tell you! Others' ambitions... ill-gotten gains... Or covert ventures—such trifles as these— Had they such power to hinder progress? High station once theirs—now their karmic due! No indictment... no trial... no sentence... Life terms... fixed imprisonments—naturally! Executions swifter than electric chairs! All dispensed per order—such their decree! Verily, this is hell's own handiwork... Clackety-clack clackety-clack...

▼Ah——Agh…

Truly, this is the work of hell itself—I tell you. Among the patients who fell into that place— Of course, madmen and the insane as well. They did exist—as a token presence—but... Intermingled among them were outstanding individuals: Heroes, great men, geniuses, and the like. Deer-clawed figures in white garments— The ox-headed and horse-headed demons of the madman’s hell— They led them by hand and foot from behind. From atop the mountains of gold and medals they piled up, Dr.Mattaku grinned as he watched them depart... Clatter-clack, clackety-clack. Scatter-clack, clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack...

8

▼Clatter-clack, clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack.

▼Ah——Agh… Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen! To all you honored guests gathered here in multitudes! This here be my Western travels' memento—I tell you. They hover in modern culture's shadow. This be hell spawned from our very world—I tell you.

Birds sang and tree leaves grew thick. Flowers and crimson leaves of the Pure Land— Within this paradise wandered the mentally ill, Cast out by the very relatives they had relied upon. Crime and punishment could not weep even if they tried. The wretched sight of lunatic beggars—I tell you! In this village here, in that town there, Night after day they were hounded and driven out, Pelted with stones and roof tiles, Lashed by rain and buffeted by wind, Only to vanish into snow and ice. They created such a hell in this world That even the round, bright Lord Sun himself— He turned his face away again and again. Did I say I didn't know or didn't I? They grinned with a sinister glint… Clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Agh... They grinned with sinister glints, but... That remained a carefree hell compared to what followed. The ceaseless glare of electric lamps and gaslights day and night. The radiance of materialistic scientific culture. The brighter it blazed, the more fiercely it burned. What darkened was spiritual culture. Money and women. Rights and duties. A contest of wicked wits that recognized no bounds. An irrational struggle for existence. Trains, automobiles, airplanes in the sky—I tell you. Crisscrossing and swarming without restraint. Human fate lay just an inch ahead—I tell you. A secret door concealed in darkness—I tell you. The old and young, men and women they brought here— They drew no line between madness and sincerity. Fools and sages all ranked equally. They kicked it shut with a thud. They permitted not a single word of protest.

A soundless and scentless plummeting path—I tell you. Where neither mortal reason's light nor human compassion's glow—I tell you. Can cast their shadows in this world of darkness—I tell you. Built of reinforced brick and cement—I tell you. This hell born of scientific knowledge—I tell you. Within it stack layered hells of madness— The uppermost being Kindness Hell. Next comes Contempt and Mockery Hell—I tell you. Below that lies Abuse and Assassination Hell— The bottom an unfathomable hell… Clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Ah——Agh… What remained was an unfathomable hell— Next came yet another terrible one—I tell you. This was the hell where all stood revealed—I tell you. Damn that bastard—to cast me in my right mind Into a place like this— Gnashing teeth, writhing agony, stamping feet—stomp and stomp again. The more I stomped, the deeper into kindness' hell I sank. Even then—if they didn't cease—it became abuse's hell. What remained was the resentful hell of bleached bones. Even transformed, you'd never escape—plunging into the bottomless abyss… Clackety-clack clackety-clack… ▼Ah——Agh… You transformed only to plunge into an inescapable abyss—I tell you. Such perilous gates of hell. If these hellgates truly stood everywhere about— And should they exist—what then would transpire? The distinguished spectators were inevitable—I tell you. Government authorities, scholars of the realm. The educated class—sparing none. People with blood and tears—

They cannot feign ignorance and abandon them—I tell you. In an old senryu: "A home confinement cell—" Even when taking medicine, no carelessness is permitted—I tell you. (A note states: "In home confinement cells, even taking medicine requires caution"—Yanagidaru) This was in the days of Edo—I tell you. All the more so in modern culture— Even amidst the progress of scientific knowledge— The human brain—the true nature of the mind. Because they cannot make heads or tails of anything. The approach to psychiatric research— The approach remains at a dead end—unchanged from the old days—I tell you. Fake madmen. True madmen. Even though they cannot clearly distinguish between them. Imitating the form of other medical sciences. They go on about treatment and examinations and such. They build rigidly box-like hospitals. Instruments, specimens, medicine, and books. Line them up and flaunt them with pomp. The emergence of such a hell is only natural. Preventing this is the urgent task at hand—I tell you. Such hospitals must be smashed whenever found.

Smashing them to pieces remains our most urgent task... Clang-clatter, crash-bang, clatter-clang, crash-bang. Crash-bang-crash-bang-crash-bang-crash-bang...

Nine

▼Clatter-clank, thump-thump. Skalakka, pokopoko... Now then, such sham hospitals. To prevent this madhouse hell from arising. You ask if there's a way to stop it? There exists but one method. And a mighty task it is—mark my words. An isle with fair climate and scenery. A conveniently remote island. With ten million yen solid, I myself shall devise innovations— I'll erect a colossal mental hospital. There I'll attach a research laboratory. Admit patients without charge. To ensure no hells take root. I'll execute what's called Liberation Treatment. This too springs from my novel designs—I say. That is to say, true spiritual science's— The proper cure for madness—hear me well. No drugs I'll use nor surgeries perform. Iron chains, stone confinement boxes, iron restraint boxes.

I won't use any damn straitjackets or restraints. Every last one of those mental patients, I'll turn loose in a sprawling compound. Administering nature's own true cure— That's what I call liberation treatment! A pasture for lunatics, mark my words! A madman's paradise, I tell you! Bizarre! Outlandish! Unparalleled!— The world's first psychiatric hospital. Course anyone can come gawk for free— What a show it'll be when we raise the curtain! Hell if I know till we lift that veil. Every last bit's my own invention—hear me? Skalakka, chakapoko. Skalakka-chakapoko-chakapoko...

▼Ah——Agh... Everything from start to finish is a new invention—I tell you. I shall announce its particulars in due course. Not a single scholar in the world knows this— the very principle governing madness' emergence—I tell you. Moreover, it's astonishingly simple and clear— a magnificently absurd and delightful academic theory. Thereupon I shall put it to practical trial. Diagnosis and prevention remain utterly impossible. No medicines exist, no surgeries can be performed. Investigate madness' true nature— should diagnosis and treatment become feasible— why, my renown would know no bounds—I tell you. Among the myriad races of this world— the Japanese race stands most admirable—I tell you. A nation upholding justice and humanity—I tell you. A vanguard in spiritual science—I tell you. My sole desire is to make them declare it—I tell you... *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*...

▼Ah——Agh... My wish is to have them proclaim—I tell you. However—ten million yen, after all— But when you're talking about ten million yen—that's no small sum—I tell you. I inherited from my parents— Rice fields, farmland, savings, and promissory notes. Even if I exchange old loincloths for money— It would barely amount to half that sum—I tell you. The rest I shall seek through government aid—I tell you. And there is one more thing from all of you— Your pure and noble contributions— I wish to carry out my plan relying entirely on such means—I tell you. Five rin and one sen, even a single straw—I tell you. This alms-begging monk cares not for amount—I tell you. I humbly ask you to strike my head... *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*......

▼Ah——Agh... "I humbly ask you to strike my head. However, such a mendicant monk—I tell you. He indeed appears to be one half of the *ki-no-ji* character—I tell you. His gaze and demeanor were somehow odd. In a state no less wretched than that of an outcast beggar. He threw his bag down by the roadside. He strained his hoarse voice and clattered the wooden fish. He exposed his public disgrace in broad daylight. Moreover, his words defied all common sense. Ten million yen for world culture—I tell you. It cannot be heard by the ear, nor even shown to the eye. To cure the madness in people’s hearts—I tell you. Unparalleled research throughout history and such—I tell you. He lines up utterly preposterous claims—I tell you. A fraudulent monk collecting donations—I tell you. Do you think I’d fall for such an old trick—I tell you. He dawdled where it wasn’t needed—I tell you. If you command me to hurry. This is perfectly reasonable in every way—I tell you."

It’s perfectly reasonable—skaraka, clatter-clatter—I tell you. I humbly strike my head in apology… *clatter-clatter clatter-clatter*……

▼Ah——Agh... I humbly strike my head in apology.

What in the blazes—what in the blazes is this all about—I tell you. Such a clang-clang, clatter-clatter head—I tell you. Striking a wooden fish beyond his station—I tell you. No supporters to rely on, no money to be made—I tell you. Exposing undue disgrace to broad daylight—I tell you. The origin of this matter lies in the madhouse hell—I tell you. It spreads across the dark side of civilized society—I tell you. A bottomless hell of recklessness and barbarism—I tell you. Neither brush nor words nor wooden fish can suffice—I tell you. Cruelty, heartache, sorrow, bitterness— Having peered into the deepest depths—thanks to that— This head of mine has gone a little wonky—I tell you. I cannot simply abandon this as it is—I tell you. My conviction became the seed of karma—I tell you. A method and means to save this—I tell you. After all this and that deliberation—I tell you. They take in mentally ill patients free of charge—I tell you. Building a huge hospital comes first—I tell you. To build that, we need all of your—I tell you. We must enlist the power of public opinion—I tell you.

Or even a single rin or sen—I tell you. It’s the fruit of careful planning not to waste a speck—I tell you. The beggar’s guise I conceived—I tell you. A humble apology if it offends your sight—I tell you. This hymn of madhouse hell—I tell you. Such a tome I’ve printed to spread its cry. I distribute copies to all gathered here—I tell you. No coin I ask—this humble plea. Take it home and pore through its leaves—I tell you. Here lies truth stripped bare—I tell you. You who thought to donate gold— Now hear my life’s labor unveiled: The madman’s salvation scheme— Crave I to probe its marrow deep. Or perhaps collect curios— Tales of fresh-stamped madness... Household curses... tainted bloodlines... Grudges nursed by quick and dead... That twist sane minds to frenzy’s thrall— A chronicle of karmic wrath—I tell you.

Shall we try listening to it, or perhaps— At some place where multitudes gather. If we were to have them perform such tales—I tell you. It might make for a most peculiar diversion—I tell you. Should it please your honors, though troublesome it be. Here lies an inserted postcard. Write your honored name and dwelling place here. And here at this very page's end. I've fixed the address label; pray write it. Plop it into the post—this humble plea—I tell you.

Our humble plea in this world—I tell you. That such facts exist—I tell you. Three houses across and both neighbors—I tell you. As fodder for gossip among all and sundry—I tell you. Kindly pass it on—I tell you. If they do so, the aforementioned madhouse hell And humanity's hidden cultural secrets—I tell you. Whether willing or not, they'll spread through society—I tell you. Those psychiatric hospitals committing atrocities—I tell you. Smash through every corner of madhouse hell—I tell you. Public outcry swells—"Crush them all!"... clackety-clack clackety-clack...

▼And so the government could not remain silent. A grave problem that could not be ignored. Thus deemed an urgent social welfare initiative. All of the property I contributed— With over five million yen as the foundation—I tell you. They took in mentally ill patients free of charge. They built a national psychiatric hospital. The mentally ill patients everywhere— They began alleviating overproduction... clackety-clack clackety-clack...

▼Forgotten by people, forgotten by the world— Madly thrashing about, they ended their lives. The poor mentally ill patients were saved… clackety-clack clackety-clack…

▼Not only that—at that hospital, they began researching treatments for the madness disease. The methods spread through society. The madhouse hells around the world— every last one was overturned— all conceivable mentally ill patients— if the tormenting to death ceased— this was hardly our grand ambition... clack-clack clatter-clatter...

Ah—ah! This falls far short of our ultimate aspiration... So indeed—this is your doing— It stands as the very pinnacle of reason! Admirable! Commendable! A splendid scheme!

I'm right here—no need to worry. Hnngh—make 'em cram till their brains burst. Scrape-clatter through madhouse hell—down to the final clang! Smash it all to bits—rah!—rah! Should you deign to praise this labor, My joy'll punch through heaven's roof... clatter-clackety-clack clack-clatter-clack... Ten

▼Clatter-scrape, clackety-clack. Chatter-clatter, clackety-clack. Ah—A. Well now, ladies and gentlemen—this matter remains unresolved—I tell you. Official business—urgent matters—we halt your stroll—I tell you. With grotesque forms and outlandish slogans—I tell you. Detaining you is most regrettable—I tell you. Yet, upon earnest contemplation— The time flowing through the three thousand worlds— Tens of thousands, hundreds of millions, trillions of years—were it within unknowable, infinite time, Fifty, seventy, even a hundred years— A lifetime gone in the blink of an eye. Without ever grasping what was what, Meeting and parting, being born and dying away, Amidst countless multitudes—I tell you. Today, right now, at this wayside— That we should meet here today must be some divine providence—I tell you. I beseech you to grant your pardon. Even should we bid farewell as we are— The lingering remnants scrape-clatter clackety-clack.

If in days to come you hear whispers in the world— In magazines, newspapers, novels and such— Should you chance upon tales of madness... Or cross paths with those truly afflicted... If you glimpse souls clinging to passersby... I implore you to recall this truth. The moon's glow and sun's brilliance... That nearly blot out even starlight... The dazzling glare of modern culture... The radiance of charity and mercy... The searchlight of justice and reason... It remains a world untouched by light as of old. In a madhouse hell beyond all hells... A destination fading without sound or scent—I tell you. Breadth and depth—infinite darkness... A bluish sea of blood adrift in the depths... Above drift phantom flames... They perish sinless and unpunished... The bitter futility of psychiatric patients—I declare! Hear—yet remain deaf—to their countless grievances...

The mind that heard these words now chanted its litany of entreaties. A fool's sutra replacing Buddhist prayers. Keeping time to the wooden fish's clumsy beat, I humbly inquire after your noble disposition— Gedo—saa—ee—moo—nnn... Madness—ii—hell—uu...

Hey— My deepest sympathies for your boredom—

◆Please send postcards to the address below.

Kyushu Imperial University Faculty of Medicine Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Sōhachi Saitō, c/o His Private Room

Addressed to Menkuro Rō Manji

┌───┐

│　　　│ └───┘

The Earth's surface is

The Grand Liberation Treatment Facility for the Insane

Kyushu Imperial University

Statement by Dr. Keishi Masaki Department of Psychiatry

Since its groundbreaking behind the Kyushu Imperial University Department of Psychiatry’s main building in early March of this year, the "Madman Liberation Treatment Facility"—steadily progressing alongside construction of its affiliated hospital while maintaining strict secrecy regarding its operations—was now revealed to have been privately funded and established by Dr. Masaki, the department’s newly appointed professor. Regarding the above matter, Dr. Masaki spoke thus to visiting reporters in his own professorial office.

“The world at large appears to be in an uproar this time, proclaiming the ‘liberation treatment’ I commenced at Kyushu University as my original invention or some novel and groundbreaking therapy—yet in all honesty, it constitutes neither my unique creation nor any revolutionary new methodology.” “To clarify—this terrestrial sphere has functioned as a grand asylum for liberation treatment since primordial epochs predating recorded history or legend. Accordingly, we might analogize the sun as its superintendent, the atmosphere as its nursing staff, and the soil as its provisions officer.”

“That being said,” I continued, “I am not indulging in mere eccentric rhetoric. I speak thus because I possess substantial grounds for asserting these facts—indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say my psychiatric research takes its first step from this foundational truth: that ‘the Earth’s surface constitutes a grand liberation treatment facility for the insane.’” “The reason is this: humans born upon this earth—irrespective of social standing, age, or gender—have resolved that upon discovering those lacking even a finger’s worth of bodily autonomy, or possessing some deficiency or excess, they must immediately brand them ‘cripples,’ thereafter subjecting them to contempt, pity, or special treatment.” “Similarly, when encountering those whose mental faculties defy their control—whether through deficiency or excess—they appear determined to stamp them as psychiatric patients—as madmen—and administer discriminatory treatment.” “They seem convinced it permissible to heap abuse upon these patients as though they ranked below beasts or insects... Yet if this be so—are these so-called normal people who mock and scorn such patients truly endowed with minds in perfect working order?” “Do all human brains operate with flawless freedom, every corner obedient to their owner’s will?”

“I dare declare,” “From the fair and rigorous perspective of academic inquiry, you would never think so.” That differed not from those with twisted limbs or missing eyes and noses—merely indiscernible to the naked eye from without. In truth, I could assert without hesitation that every human being living upon this Earth’s surface was naught but spiritual cripples. Bent and warped, too large or too small, excessive or wanting in wisdom or passions—there was absolutely no mistake in considering them all so-called spiritual cripples, the world presenting itself as one teeming beyond capacity with their kind.

To put it simply—as they say: a man without vices has seven; a man with one has forty-eight. Unsightly, trivial habits persist no matter how much others ridicule them. Or when such habits hinder one’s advancement or trouble others—even after resolving to quit through prayers to gods and buddhas or publishing pledges in newspapers—their inability to abandon these bad habits serves as nothing less than practical proof that their own minds lie beyond their control—is this not so? Does this not demonstrate the stubborn manifestation of psychiatric episodes—the incapacity to correct errors in one’s own mind through sheer will? Or consider when resolved not to weep, yet tears flow unbidden. Even when recognizing a situation warrants no anger, if one nevertheless flares up in irritation and forgets all context—does this not lay bare a fundamental mental frailty: the inability to independently rectify such temporary psychological imbalances?

Beyond these lay obsessiveness, fickleness, capriciousness, moods fickle as the weather, forgetfulness, neuroticism, sundry fixations, varieties of madness, assorted addictions, and perverse psychologies—so that everyone you meet, whether known or unknown, bears some degree of maddening inclination. There exists no one without some inadequacy in their mind's workings. To put it plainly: not a soul walks this earth who isn't fifty steps from being a psychiatric patient. As proof—should one point out these weaknesses in such folk—their mental shortcomings—each will startle and flush crimson, protest with veins popping, or roll sleeves up for confrontation. This mirrors the psychology of a madman denying his own madness—an absurdity reaching comical heights, yet an unavoidable quirk of human nature. ...And if left unchecked, these natural human frailties make psychiatric tendencies appear utterly commonplace. All the more when bestowed with fashionable gentlemanly courtesies—such pathological traits swell uncontrollably until escape proves impossible. When finally unstoppable, they erupt as domestic tragedies or criminal scandals laid bare before society. Minor cases face social censure; graver ones fall to legal judgment. Those beyond redemption—like jalopies careening brakeless—are branded "[Such-and-Such] Lunatics" and carted off to madhouses.

I must clarify to avoid misunderstanding—I’m not saying that’s inherently wrong. I do not in the least mean to insult the lords of creation when I say this—but these so-called gentlemen and ladies, who are born or conditioned in such a way, nevertheless look down upon or fear psychiatric patients whom they consider to be fifty steps removed from their own mental state. Because they are utterly convinced that they alone—no matter what anyone says—possess not a shred of psychiatric tendency and are owners of flawless minds, even I feel tempted to mock them. …it makes one want to defend these innocent psychiatric patients—who have committed no crime nor deserve any punishment—yet are subjected to all manner of cruel discriminatory treatment by such gentlemen and ladies.

In other words, when observed in this manner, the inability to distinguish between ordinary people and madmen would come to be the same as being unable to distinguish between those inside a prison and those walking outside. To put it plainly, what results from combining villains not so blatant as to end up in red bricks with madmen would be what are called ordinary people... or rather, gentlemen and ladies.

Of course, this constitutes a form of inflammatory rhetoric. It was truly an utterly deplorable manner of expression—one that could be called rude, improper, and beyond any possible description—but since a fact remained a fact through and through, there was nothing to be done. This was unavoidable, for it was precisely the same as how all medical research could not be accomplished unless grounded in the perspective that humans were merely one species of animal—if one did not base themselves on such an observational standpoint, they could not conduct genuine scientific research on mental illness. "If, by any chance, there exists someone who declares, ‘I alone am not a madman—" "—I alone possess an absolutely flawless mind,’ then I bid you come to my office at any time." "We will admit that individual as a research patient of this university at government expense." "After all, patients of that very type are precisely what we require for the students’ lectures…"

The sun had spawned these endless hordes of psychiatric patients across the earth’s surface, perpetually continuing its silent liberation treatment. Thus these humans—half-mad creatures inferior even to beasts and insects—over long years naturally came to realize they themselves constituted a massive congregation of lunatics, whereupon they created elaborate systems like religion, morality, law, red ideologies, and blue ideologies to proclaim “Let us cease our mutual recklessness… Let us abandon these strange antics.” “Therefore I too have created a small-scale model of this and, though presumptuous of me, am attempting a ‘drug-free liberation treatment’ by assuming the role of Mr. Sun.” “I am conducting truly scientific research and treatment of mental illness based on the observational standpoint that ‘all humankind is insane.’”

“Well... what kinds of psychiatric patients will be admitted to that liberation treatment facility... I still don’t know. Eventually, I plan to select and admit patients suitable as experimental materials for my theories... this new spiritual science... though...” “...What exactly is this theory... the content of the spiritual science I’ve propounded? That’s an awfully difficult question—it’s not something that can be explained overnight. But in essence, I can declare this approach fundamentally overturns all psychiatric research methods to date.” “First, we must re-examine the human brain’s functions from first principles, uprooting that superstitious old theory claiming ‘the brain is where thinking occurs.’ Then we’ll clarify how hereditary mental functions reflect these new ‘cerebral operations.’” “From the emerging fields of psychoanatomy, psychophysiology, and psychopathology—using observational diagnoses therefrom—I aim to gather only the clearest, most fascinating psychiatric specimens to test my unique therapeutic method combining mental suggestion and stimulation.” “What specimens will gather... what uproar will erupt... even I cannot foresee. Ha ha ha...”

However, let me clarify for thoroughness' sake—it would be most inconvenient if I alone, who am conducting these experiments, were misdiagnosed as some perfectly normal blockhead free of mental abnormalities. Once that sun begins blazing with a fierce glare and starts scorching every corner of the grand liberation treatment facility for the mentally ill—dubbed hell—it shows no sign of stopping. Even if one were to think of dousing it with soy sauce at some reasonable point... it seems to hold no such luxury, continuing instead to scorch every nook and cranny without respite—glaring and sizzling endlessly. In the same way, once I began my research on madmen, I could no longer think of anything else. Just as someone who starts urinating in the street keeps pissing undeterred—whether a lord passes by or a constable appears—resolved to face summary execution or fines, so too do I persist until my very roots are severed.

Therefore, even if all other madmen on earth were cured, I believe my own mental disorder would never fully recover. This alone I can guarantee with certainty. And so on.

The Absolute Detective Novel The brain is not the organ where thinking occurs.

＝＝＝Contents of Dr. Masaki’s Doctoral Thesis＝＝＝

A Reporter “What?” “Why the contents of my doctoral thesis 'Brain Theory' haven't been published in academic circles... Ahaha.” “Don’t mock me.” “I'm not the sort to withhold publication out of fear of causing controversy.” “The truth is, there's a little something I want to add, so I'm just keeping it with me for now.” “Are you telling me to talk about its contents?”

“Yeah.” “It’s not that I can’t speak about it.” “…But if I tell you, you’ll write it in the paper straight away.” “Truth is, after that article I mentioned before—‘The Earth’s Surface as a Grand Liberation Treatment Facility for Madmen’ and such—got published in your rag, I found myself in quite a pickle.” “They called it self-promotional claptrap—had all manner of folks up in arms about it.”

“Nah.” “I’m perfectly fine.” “No matter what they say, I won’t flinch—but whenever I make even a slightly grand statement, I can’t help pitying our conflict-averse university president and that timorous dean when they turn pale with worry.” “Ever since Tsurukawa’s research on ‘Universal Money Return’ and Akai’s ‘Rejuvenation Surgery,’ Kyushu University has been misunderstood as teeming with nothing but charlatans.” “Moreover, when it comes to this ‘Brain Theory’s content, I’ve been touting a theme so perilous it multiplies those previous liberation treatment discussions’ dangers severalfold…”

“Hmph.”

"So you want me to talk because you won't write it down? It's been ages since you newspaper reporters vowed not to publish anything—you sure you can keep that promise?" "Hmm... Well then, I'll talk." "By the way... how about a cigar... a premium Havana." "This covers both my enthusiasm's speaking fee and your hush money for the article." "A bit cheap, wouldn't you say? Hahahaha!" "Well now—since I find myself with free time today..." "I might just turn up the heat a notch." "...By the way... do you read detective novels?" "What? You don't?" "You've got to read them." "A man who doesn't read detective novels—the very nerve center of modern literature—can't call himself modern!" "What... Had your fill already?... Uahahaha!" "Ah! How rude of me! My apologies!" "Though come to think of it—you are a newspaper reporter by trade, aren't you?" "Ahahaha!" "My mistake, my mistake."

“Well then, how about listening to one of the most strikingly novel detective fact-based tales I’ve clandestinely hoarded here? In truth, I’ve been drafting this piece with thoughts of submitting it to some science journal—but as a preliminary test, I might deign to hear your petty critique. The plot’s intricate complexity and resolution’s deliciously ironic satisfaction are likely unprecedented in all recorded history, I should think. Naturally, should any comparable precedents exist, this comes with an exceptionally extraordinary premium—the absolute guarantee you’ll never encounter them again…”

“Nah.” “Don’t play dumb with me.” “It has a major connection to my Brain Theory that I just mentioned.” “After all, detective novels are essentially a sport of the brain.” “The criminal’s brain and the detective’s brain employ every secret technique to play a game of tag and a game of hide-and-seek.” “Isn’t the very essence of detective novels to pull readers’ minds along through the allure of all those illusions, hallucinations, and perverse notions that arise in the process? Right?” “Exactly.”

“But here’s the kicker—my detective novel is something entirely divorced from those trite, overused plotlines you know.” “To put it plainly… it’s a tale where ‘the brain itself’ chases ‘the brain itself’—the supreme and absolute scientific detective novel in all the cosmos.” “And when I reveal the thundering, clanging secret behind this absolute scientific detective novel—the very trick that’ll make two billion human brains gasp—it’s precisely identical to the central theme of my ‘Brain Theory.’ Isn’t that something?”

“What?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ha ha ha ha!” “Of course you don’t understand.” “Well, I haven’t told you anything yet, you see.” “Ha ha.” “Yes, yes, of course.” “I don’t mind if you take shorthand.” “All you need to do is wait until I formally publish my ‘Brain Theory’ as a doctoral dissertation before printing it in the newspaper.” “If you like, I could even go over it with my pen afterward.” “Wouldn’t it be more convenient to publish it as my creative work rather than as an interview…”

“However, I must warn you in advance—even if you hear this detective fact-based tale, I can’t guarantee whether you’ll understand it or not.” “After all, it’s an absolute, supreme detective novel where the brain chases the brain.” “The solution is splendidly in place from the very beginning, yet readers will absolutely fail to grasp it.” “For they might perceive nothing but a chaotic swirl of utterly senseless hallucinations, illusions, and perverse notions—and that very possibility constitutes the essence of this foremost brain novel, you see. Hahahahahaha!”

Now then... Isn't it the standard formula of detective novels to start by slamming down an utterly perplexing riddle right from the very outset, delivering a staggering blow to the readers' heads that leaves them utterly dumbfounded? Moreover, it must inevitably be concluded that any mystery capable of utterly perplexing the "human brain" must itself pertain to none other than the "brain" itself. Just as I thought!!......Let me give you a proper shock... “Ha ha ha ha!” “To tell the truth, this very ‘brain’ is none other than the ‘sacred idol of mystery’ that has reached the pinnacle of cruelty and deviance within modern science.” “Among all the organs of the human body, it is a colossal protein-made Sphinx—the sole entity whose true nature remains unknown.” It is none other than the very monster that keeps two billion skulls on earth clamoring noisily from morning till night.

"The so-called monster known as the human brain sits enthroned at the body's highest seat, driving every organ like slaves while voraciously siphoning off the purest blood and choicest nutrients. Where the brain commands, there is no choice but to act; where the brain desires, there is no choice but to seek. To put it plainly—whether humans exist for the brain's sake, or the brain was created for humanity's—no matter how one ponders, no answer comes... Thus does this sacred idol of bodily organs, this dictatorial monarch of human culture—none other than His Majesty the Brain—display such consummate tyranny."

However, putting that aside for now, there is one strange thing here. This is no trivial matter—when subjecting to rigorous scientific investigation the fact of what role this solid mass of protein that calls itself a brain has played throughout history within the human body, or what purpose it serves... it ultimately concludes at the single point of "we do not know." Inversely speaking, this monster we call the brain has not allowed even a shred of its true function to be perceived by the brains of scholars past and present, East and West. ……Not only that……this brain itself radiates super-scientific monstrous abilities, mystical powers, and magical forces in all directions—so utterly beyond imagining that one could never believe it to be a mere lump of matter weighing one or two kilograms—thereby thoroughly scrambling all scientific deductive research conducted by those scholars’ very own brains. To put it more concisely, perhaps we could describe it as: “The brain strives—strives with all its might—to prevent the brain itself from comprehending the brain’s own functions.” Therefore, this brain—while gradually rendering nonsensical the very core of modern human culture it itself created, peripheralizing it across all domains, decaying it, corrupting it, confounding it, and driving it to agony—lies coiled like a serpent within the skull’s hollow, feigning innocence, until the demon of demons itself becomes none other than the brain itself.

“Of course, this is no mere boast or empty fabrication.” “I swear this upon the honor of my profession…”

“Huh... Are you saying the brain is where thinking occurs...?” “That’s right.” “Everyone thinks that way, you know.” “Of course, modern top scientists—and indeed all people of every kind and class across the globe, proletariat and bourgeoisie alike—every last one lives under the assumption that they think with their brains.” “Radios, airplanes, the theory of relativity, jazz, safety razors, red theory, poison gas—everything—they are convinced beyond doubt that all these were produced from this lump of protein weighing 1,200 grams or more and 1,900 grams or less.”

Indeed，when one dissects a human corpse and peers into what is called the brain，such a way of thinking appears undeniably correct． The cerebrum，cerebellum，medulla oblongata，pineal gland，and so on—cells of bizarre and outlandish shapes overlapping endlessly—are all interconnected through the bizarrely transformed protrusions of nerve cells，reaching every last corner of the thirty trillion cells throughout the entire body． Studying this network system ultimately reveals that the entirety of cells integrating all parts of the human body forms a structure centered around the brain，with thorough，precise，and orderly interconnected threads． Therefore，it is thought that the mind—or what is called the life consciousness—which governs all human actions，might be residing within the brain． At the very least，it is considered permissible to think that “the brain is where thinking occurs．”

Such a way of thinking has now become an unshakable belief—or rather, common sense—for all of humanity. As for this “fact that the brain is where thinking occurs,” it has come to pass that there remains not a single soul anywhere who would now affectingly question it. Modern civilization’s dazzling cultural artifacts—down to a single needle or sheet of paper—have all been conceived by this “thinking brain.” Yet in this age of cerebral supremacy, should one deliver such a speech, not a soul would cry “No, no!”

However... it is here that my cerebral detective novel brings forth a young master detective—one who gazes sidelong with disdain upon this global trend—concurrently serving as the Great Doctor of Cerebrology, an unprecedented, ultra-express figure of unparalleled genius. The plot involves overturning all conventional global superstitions about the brain at their very roots, exposing under the blazing light of science the truth behind this great demon “brain’s” uncanny functions—those nonsensical dead-ends, those simple yet glaringly obvious illusions one might describe as Anpontan-esque bottomless absurdities—and delivering a GWAAAAN strike to readers’ heads… sending them flying clear out of the park with a home run… but how do you suppose… whether readers will accept this or not…?

“What?” “I still don’t get it…… I need to hear a bit more……”

“What do you mean... it’s just a fantasy novel...?” “Preposterous...” “That’s precisely why I declared it a ‘scientific detective fact novel’ right from the very beginning, didn’t I?” “If you were to incorporate even a shred of fantasy into it, wouldn’t the entire work’s intrigue plummet to zero?” “Of course that’s right... It hasn’t contained a single iota of nonsense from the very beginning, so you can rest assured and listen closely.” “You’ll come to realize it’s no trifling matter once you get into it.” “Listen...”

Now then, this young master detective and great doctor of cerebrology is a handsome youth of about twenty whom I have provisionally named Anpontan Pokan-kun. “Listen… Of course he’s a real person.” “Moreover, despite this handsome youth possessing a mind of unparalleled brilliance across all ages, he was struck by an extremely dangerous hereditary mental illness seizure shortly after entering this university, leading to his swift admission into this department’s affiliated hospital.”

“Oh come now… It’s not nonsense, I tell you… What a distrustful reader you are… If you think it’s fiction, I’ll introduce you to the man himself any time you like.” “He’s right across the hall in Room Seven—it’s no trouble at all.” “Hey. When I called out ‘Pokan-kun…,’ the way he turned in surprise—that profile of his was utterly charming.” Now this Seaboy… After Anpontan Pokan-kun triggered that hereditary episode and fell into unconsciousness, he finally regained his senses only to soon realize he’d completely forgotten not just his birthplace and parents’ names, but even his own. Thus he temporarily received the honorable title of Dr. Anpontan Pokan from me—but precisely because the doctor himself was originally so brilliant, this matter seemed to weigh heavily on him. Day and night without respite, he paced about his hospital room’s artificial stone floor, appearing to think of nothing but his own brain. “……I don’t understand… I don’t understand… He would mutter things like ‘What has my brain been doing all this time… What was it thinking?’ or ‘Is my brain controlling my whole body… Or is my body controlling my brain… I don’t know… I don’t know…’—all while wildly tousling his overgrown hair, rhythmically thumping the back of his head with his fists, and pacing around the room without rest for even a minute.

However, as such attacks steadily surged and intensified, Dr. Pokan eventually came to a halt on the artificial stone floor covering the entire room and began peering about restlessly, as if perplexed. Then he would reach into his unkempt, bushy hair, grab something invisible to the eye, and pretend to smash it against the floor with all his might. Then he would point at whatever he had smashed against the floor and launch into an impassioned speech about the brain, complete with animated gestures—but as he grew increasingly moved by his own oratory, reaching the zenith of excitement, he would suddenly raise one foot to mimic stomping flat that very invisible something he had just plucked from his head and dashed against the floor. At the same moment, he would let out a groan, eyes rolling back as he collapsed onto the floor. After sinking into a dazed state of semi-consciousness for some thirty to forty hours and sleeping like the dead, he would awaken once more in true Anpontan Pokan fashion, scrubbing at his eyeballs. And so he would resume pacing round and round the room as before, repeating "I don't understand, I don't understand." In the midst of this, he would once again extract something invisible from his head and smash it against the floor beneath his feet. Looking around in all directions, he raised his clenched fist and began his cerebral oration. Thus, the act of stomping some incomprehensible thing upon the floor and collapsing with a groan... had become the daily routine of this young master detective Anpontan.

……Now, what was most intriguing was this Dr.Pokan’s orations.

When Dr. Pokan delivered his speeches, he seemed to imagine himself standing at some bustling intersection—a busy thoroughfare with trams crisscrossing—amidst teeming crowds. Spreading his arms wide like a traffic officer, he would glare around at the swarms of people before suddenly brandishing his fist in the air and beginning to shriek in a shrill voice. “……Stop……!”

“……Stop……!” “Trains, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, trucks, rickshaws—all of you stop……! Gentlemen, ladies, modern girls, modern boys, salarymen, career women, bourgeoisie, proletariat, pickpockets, police officers—none of you may move!” “……You are all facing grave danger at this very moment.” “……You are walking right now—at this very instant—thinking with your brains.……With that brain’s discernment, you distinguish traffic officers’ ‘go’ and ‘stop,’ differentiate flag-wavers’ blue and red, critique latest fashions in display windows, learn of newcomers through posters, discover topics in pasted evening paper articles, stay wary of pickpockets, avoid creditors, pursue the fragrance of It……all while intensifying—against your will—those brain’s sensations, fancying yourselves stepping with cultured pride……aren’t you?”

……That is dangerous, he declared. That was an emergency, he warned……A state of emergency for the brain……. ……Behold! "Listen!" "Be astonished!" "Be appalled……!" ……All two billion members of modern humanity are fools—every last one of you. "You are fools who go to the post office to ask about your own new address." "You are panickers who shout your own number into telephone receivers." "You are imbeciles who hallucinate that 'the brain' is 'the place that thinks.'" "And it is your own brains that proudly bear such preposterous hallucinations upon your shoulders—brains that take this singular delusion as supreme doctrine while racing countless trains, cars, and motorcycles through this coliseum of perverse notions: 'The brain is our ultimate capital! Ours is the brain's speed era!'—brains that night after sleepless day hurl human culture into this tangled realm of anguished chaos!"

“How can anyone stand idly by and witness such madness?” “……Behold!” “Listen!” “Be astonished!” “Be appalled……!” That was Anpontan Pokan’s slogan.

A denunciation of human culture.

The collapse of brain civilization. The complete overhaul and reconstruction of materialistic scientific thought.

Pokan declared: “……The ‘brain that thinks’ is humanity’s greatest enemy. “……It is the supreme demon among demons throughout creation……At the dawn of time, Satan’s serpent—the very one that made Eve eat the fruit of knowledge—crept into the hollow of mankind’s skull to coil itself in hiding, cursing Adam and Eve’s descendants for all eternity……That serpent became the progenitor of this ‘brain that thinks’……thus I proclaim……” “……Open your eyes…….”

“……Gaze upon this horrifying demonic nature of the brain! ……And settle all superstitions and delusions concerning the brain.”

The human brain proclaims itself.

“The brain is the organ that thinks.”

"The brain is the creator of scientific civilization." "The brain is the all-knowing, all-powerful god in the real world." ……And……. Thus, while arrogating to itself supreme authority across creation, the brain sat enthroned at humanity’s apex—commanding every organ like enslaved subjects. It extracted purest blood and richest nutrients from fleshly domains while wallowing in regal hubris. And as it endlessly amplified its own dominion over trembling minds that worshipped its power—day by day—step by step—it dragged mankind into corruption’s abyss.

“Behold the monstrous scale of this ‘Criminal History of the Brain’!” “I... Anpontan Pokan... having scrutinized world history from every conceivable angle, hereby pronounce these definitive conclusions.” “Thus I declare: The criminal history of the brain is wholly encompassed within these five items...” “Made humanity conceited into believing itself superior to gods”

This was the first page of the brain’s criminal history. “Made humanity rebel against the natural world” This was its second page. “Drove humanity back into the world of beasts” This was its third page. “Drove humanity to madly circle through a void world of mere matter and instinct.” This was its fourth page. “Drove humanity down the slope of self-destruction” And that was the end of it.

Facts speak louder than anything. If one peruses the history of medicine, it becomes clear...

The first person to discover what we call the human brain within a human corpse was Mr. Hepomeniasu—the great scientist revered as the father of Western medicine’s renaissance. Yet this very brain of Mr. Hepomeniasu—that titan of modern science—had employed an extraordinarily bold and cunning trick to seal away in absolute secrecy the functions of the cadaver’s brain he himself had unearthed. To put it plainly—as if snarling “Who could fathom my true nature?”—Mr. Hepomeniasu’s brain pitted his own wild-haired skull’s “living brain” against the “dead brain’s” ashen-white coils oozing like congealed fat, sparking an all-out war of deductive reasoning.

……Hmm… What in the world could this possibly be useful for? For what purpose could the Creator Deity have deigned to store these ashen-white serpentine coils within the attic of the skull…….

It was this conundrum that snagged and tormented Mr. Hepomeniasu’s mind for days and nights on end. ...Hmm... This clump of protein resembled both a factory producing tears and nasal mucus and something akin to octopus excrement. Judging from its presence in the attic of the edifice called a human being, he thought it might be a precious storage tank for vital nutrients; yet imagining how it coiled in viscous tangles with curves akin to the small intestine, he considered it some sort of digestive organ. ……Hmm… What was this... I don’t know... I don’t know….

In such a manner, it made him tilt his head in endless puzzlement, subjected him to agonizing torment, and plunged him into dazed exhaustion. In the end, it rendered him utterly incapable of comprehending anything, until at last it made the inside of Mr. Hepomeniasu’s skull begin to throb with a piercing ache.

Here at last, the great genius scientist Mr. Hepomeniasu had magnificently fallen victim to his own brain's trick. And then he struck his desk and leapt up.

“...I’ve got it! The brain is the organ that thinks!” “It’s because I overused that brain that my head started hurting like this…!” …And….

Thereupon, the scientist immediately took up a scalpel and sliced the entire corpse—from which he had extracted that brain—into sections one hundred-thousandth of a millimeter thick. And then, no sooner had he confirmed that thirty trillion cell clusters forming every organ of the human body—down to the last particle in every corner—were interconnected via threads of nerve cells centered on the brain, than he rushed out into the street in one breath, cradling the dead person’s brain in both hands. “...I’ve got it! "I’ve got it! "I’ve got it all...!”

"The notion that divine providence governs life's origin was a lie. God was nothing more than a concept conceived by the human brain. ...Behold this brain..."

The origin of life resides within this twelve-hundred- to nineteen-hundred-gram mass of protein. Our mental consciousness is nothing more than a form of chemical energy stimulus produced through the decomposition of this protein. ……Everything proceeds by the brain’s decree……. "The brain uncovered by science is none other than the omniscient and omnipotent deity of the material world." ……And thus……. The progressive minds of that era—those who had grown thoroughly disgusted with Christian superstitions and the clergy’s moral decay—no sooner heard these words than they roared their fervent approval. They jostled to gulp down Mr. Hepomeniasu’s delusional theories whole. With zealous abandon, they came to superstitiously embrace the illusion that “the brain constitutes the seat of thought.”

“That’s right, that’s right.” “There’s no such thing as God in this world.” “Everything is nothing but the action of matter.” “We’re creating a new materialist culture through the chemical actions of the protein inside our own skulls…!”

……And……. Thus, having splendidly erased God from the human world, the "brain that thinks" next made humanity rebel against the natural world. And thus began creating a materialist culture for humanity. The brain first devised all manner of weapons for humanity, making it easier for them to kill one another. It pioneered all medical techniques to make them rebel against natural health practices, multiplied the sickly populace, and granted complete freedom in birth control. It set all manner of machinery into motion to make the world smaller for them.

It devised all manner of artificial light to drive out the sun, moon, and stars for them.

And then, one after another, it made humanity—children of nature—crawl into houses of iron and stone built with rigid logic. It made them breathe gas and electricity until their arteries hardened. It made them adorn themselves with lead and soil to play with mechanical dolls. And it taught them to use alcohol, nicotine, opium, digestive agents, cardiac stimulants, hypnotics, aphrodisiacs, chastity disinfectants, and poisons—then made them believe the unnatural perverse beauty born from this chaotic jumble constituted true human culture. ……It habituated mankind to survive not a single day without unnaturalness.

...Not only that... The "brain that thinks," having expelled "God" from the human world and subsequently banished "Nature," simultaneously stripped away all natural psychological manifestations that had promised humanity proliferation, evolutionary progress, and comfort and happiness. It denounced parental love, fraternal love, romantic love, chastity, fidelity, shame, social obligations, human empathy, sincerity, and conscience as "irrational from a material-scientific perspective"—compelling their denial under the illusion of being "unnatural," thereby ushering in a world of individualism ruled solely by matter and bestial instincts. Thus did it render human culture increasingly decentralized, self-polluting, neurasthenic, and mentally deranged—until finally reducing all mankind to spiritual self-destruction and suicide, leaving only nonsensical ghosts yearning for red and blue lights to wander the crossroads of this nihilistic world.

Thus did "the brain that thinks," unknowingly and imperceptibly, seek to bring about humanity’s extinction. Behold the cold-blooded cruelty of this brain culture. Could such a thing have been left unchecked? Not only that... Thus did "the brain that thinks" strengthen its harmful effects to bury each human being in an illusory void of delusions while subjecting all humanity’s minds to elaborately crafted tricks—tossing them about like dead leaves in a gale.

And at the same time, I—Anpontan Pokan—was attempting to thoroughly blind my detective’s eye.

……Behold……. “Behold how abundantly this ‘tragicomedy of the brain’—tossed about by ‘the brain’s own tricks’—rolls and tumbles before your very noses.” “Behold how earnestly this ‘Brain’s Nonsense Drama’ unfolds across the world’s stage with utmost gravity.”

……Behold…….

"The brain that thinks reigns supreme over human culture in precisely this manner." ...While boasting there is nothing it cannot conceive—even to the profound mysteries of all creation—it now dominates and guides scientific culture to its very depths. ...But consider this... How is it that this "brain capable of conceiving all things"—while amassing across Earth's surface its self-spawned scientific theories and materialist cultural products in quantities so vast they dazzle the eyes and stagger the mind with their glittering accumulation—leaves rotting in pitch-black ignorance the single most vital scientific research concerning "the brain itself"? How is it that the brain, having exhaustively plumbed the universe's deepest mysteries, neglects to contemplate its own nature? ...What wondrous irony that among all scientific theories and papers to date, not one document exists that accurately explains the brain's workings!

Not only you gentlemen… but also the brains of scientists worldwide—those representatives of your own brains—what a monumental oversight it is that they have failed to notice this contradiction and inexplicability to this very day! ……Behold…… The human brain has advanced research on the human body to its farthest reaches. Have they not divided their efforts across all domains—anatomy, physiology, pathology, and genetics—delving into the minutest details and extending to the finest particulars? In the treatment of disease as well, have they not exhaustively covered every specialty—internal medicine, surgery, otolaryngology, dermatology, ophthalmology, and dentistry—competing in their research?

And yet—amidst all this—what a staggering oversight that they left neglected in its primitive state of groping blindness the very brain that devised such research, along with studies on diseases afflicting that brain! What a dereliction by the brain itself that not a single university worldwide established departments for disciplines essential to psychiatric research—psychoanatomy, psychophysiology, psychopathology, psychogenetics—instead making all doctors throw up their hands at treating so-called "brain diseases" or "mental illnesses"! What colossal incompetence that this supremely wise human brain buried one after another—amidst collective yawns of incomprehension—such vital cerebral questions as: "Where and how does human life or life consciousness reside?" "How do hallucinations manifest visually?" "What exactly constitutes premature dementia?"...

Just as a diviner cannot divine their own fate, it had become accepted as natural that the brain could not contemplate itself—a fact no one found strange anymore. What else could this be but the tragicomedy of the brain? What else could this be but the grandiose nonsense drama of brains being manipulated by the brain itself? To take a more immediate and poignant example, there existed what were vulgarly termed "crying palsy" and "laughing palsy." This condition—whether one felt anger, surprise, or any emotional agitation—invariably reduced all affective responses to a single-minded focus on either crying or laughing, rendering every other emotion impossible to outwardly express. Yet the brain strictly commanded scientists worldwide to explain this very illness through its persistent "brain thinks" dogma. Therefore, scientists worldwide who had received this strict mandate could only explain such stroke symptoms as: “This occurs because the entire brain has become paralyzed due to hemorrhage. "And within that state, only the single region governing emotions like 'crying' or 'laughing' survives and remains active." "Therefore, all emotions arising in that individual have no other outlet but to be expressed through the activity of these specific nerve cells responsible for either 'crying' or 'laughing.'...Given that we premise our reasoning on 'the brain being the seat of thought,' we can offer no explanation other than this—no matter how we try—can we not?"

However, unfortunately, when examining the results of pathological autopsies performed on the brains of such stroke patients, they always turned out to be completely contrary to all expectations. What was affected by cerebral hemorrhage was not the entire brain. It was ironic indeed that in most cases it remained limited to just one small, narrow location within the brain. Was it not tragic that this could only manifest as the brain's farcical prank—leaving one unable to either cry or laugh?

A more ironic and bizarre example is somnambulism. This illness was naturally dismissed and avoided by all-brain sect scientists as an inexplicable disease beyond their comprehension—yet these very dazed somnambulists would sometimes perform miracles to mock their intellects all the more... For instance, such patients exhibited astonishing wisdom and skills utterly inconceivable from their ordinary minds precisely during their somnambulistic episodes, accomplishing superhuman feats beyond mortal capability. Not only that—when that person awakened the next morning, they somehow reverted to being the same old Kerorin fellow, manifesting such an unfathomable mystery by leaving not a single trace of those splendid memories in their brain. Thus did it leave not a single shred of judgment intact in the brains of those specialists who superstitiously clung to such delusions as "the brain is where thinking occurs," "where feeling occurs," or "where memory occurs"—clogging them absolutely and permanently in a state of utter constipation.

"Utterly inconceivable to the human brain." Because it makes them scream "How?!" in terror—isn't that astonishing? Is this not the terror theater of a brain overwhelmed beyond endurance? Moreover, all scientists who appoint themselves as priests of the Materialist Sect and missionaries of the Science-Almighty Religion remain unrepentant, loudly proclaiming the brain's absolute supremacy.

"The size of the brain indicates its owner’s evolutionary advancement," they declared with sacerdotal gravity, fingers tracing cortical convolutions like augurs reading divine script. "The abundance of its gyri proclaims cultural refinement." Their voices swelled with liturgical fervor: "Thus humanity exists solely to serve this hypertrophied organ—which itself exists solely for ratiocination! Behold! The brain reigns as deity of culture! Demiurge of science! Guardian idol enshrined by acolytes of materialism!" Yet even as they genuflected before microscopes—those reliquaries of their faith—headless vermin scuttling across laboratory slides performed miracles that mocked this creed. Limbless nematodes discerned thermal gradients with uncanny precision; eyeless flatworms exhibited gustatory discernment surpassing sommeliers; brainless sea cucumbers predicted atmospheric shifts more accurately than any meteorologist licensed by their vaunted academies—the whole squirming pantheon laughing soundlessly through every cell of their decentralized being. And laugh they did—these lowly creatures—not through vocal cords they lacked but through undulant choreographies of contempt: pseudopodia curling into derisive grins; cilia conducting silent symphonies of mockery; hermaphroditic pores puckering in scatological disdain—each motion articulating truths that eviscerated cerebral hubris more thoroughly than any Lancet editorial.

“You don’t need a brain to think!” “Our entire bodies are brains, you see.” “We transform our whole brain—exactly as it is—into limbs, torsos, ears, eyes, mouths, noses, digestive systems, reproductive organs, and all the rest.” “You’ve merely divided these functions into specialized roles assigned to separate organs.” “Even your limbs are properly capable of thought.”

“Even your buttocks can see and hear, you know.” “If you pinch your crotch, only your crotch hurts, you see.” “If a flea bites you, only that spot itches, you see.”

"The brain feels neither pain nor itch nor anything at all, you see." "Do you still not understand?"

“Hahahahahaha!” “Hohohohohoho!” “Heeheeheehee!” They were rolling around laughing—how utterly absurd! What else could this have been but the brain’s satirical play?

What else could this be but the brain’s trick play? And yet, on the other hand, amidst this very materialistic culture, spiritual and soul-related phenomena—grotesque and mystical dramas—emerged exactly as they did in ancient times. And they kept appearing in such abundance—one after another—each sneering at human intellect. Wasn’t it delightful? In the golden age of materialist capitalism, right in the heart of metropolises fortified by scientific culture, dead people made phone calls and strangers appeared together in photographs. Or even if one set aside jewels draining a beauty’s lifespan or demonic railroad crossings threatening trains, there were ghosts of great lords stroking Amerongen Castle’s walls to sigh into the aged Kaiser’s ears, and King Tutankhamun’s mummy haunting Egyptologists. In fact, even Sherlock Holmes—that titan of scientific deduction, founder of materialistic detective methods utilizing fingerprints, footprints, and tobacco ash analysis—was ultimately dragged into such uncanny phenomena in his later years, dying while obsessively researching spiritualism... Not to mention reportedly communicating from beyond the grave using sound waves independent of ether vibrations to speak with his surviving wife and children—such was the extent of it. Everyone marveled and marveled at how strange it all was, yet there remained not a single person who could definitively assert whether such facts were possible or impossible. For even if they did exist, it would ultimately devolve into a futile debate—so it had been clear from the start that they would end up parting ways while mutually suspecting each other’s brains. And so—no—that wasn’t it. Was this not our current state—where after exhausting all reasoning and imagination only to find every approach futile, they finally began screaming “How can a brain contemplate the brain itself?!” and endlessly repeated these konnyaku debates clashing like cheap vaudeville acts in some backwater theater?

“How about it, ladies and gentlemen... This is precisely how things stand.” “The ‘pathology of the human brain’—which should take precedence over all other research—along with psychiatry’s critical foundational issues that ought to form its core... As you see, they’ve all become utterly constipated from end to end by this ‘brain that thinks.’” “Have they not brought every psychiatrist on earth and every psychiatric hospital’s diagnoses and treatments to a complete standstill amidst derisive laughter of incompetence and futility?” “And have they not abandoned countless mentally ill patients across the globe forever in a world of contempt and abuse from which salvation remains impossible?” “Are they not manifesting this lunatic hell born of our world across the entire earth’s surface?”

What else could this be but the grand "Brain’s Prank Theater"? What else could this be but the grand culmination of a terror nonsense play where the "brain that thinks" forces the "brain that thinks" to perform its own farce? Let those who would applaud, applaud.

Let those who would cheer, cheer.

Let those who would cry, cry. Let those who would laugh, laugh.

The moment I...Anpontan Pokan became aware of this brain-worshipping culture's current state, my teeth began chattering uncontrollably. The instant I recognized both this brain-obsessed society's spectacle—worthy of terror and dread—and the chill of my own brain secretly mocking it, the bones in both my kneecaps started rattling as if about to dislocate. Having smashed through this cerebral trickery and overturned the global materialist scientific superstitions surrounding brains from their very foundations, I could no longer stand by while this grand terror-nonsense theater—so utterly gruesome and tragic in its extremes—continued its performance.

I... Anpontan Pokan rose to my feet here. Resolutely, I wrapped a twined rope around my arms. Fiercely applying the supreme detective techniques into which I had poured my life's blood, advancing my search across infinite time and space, I at last succeeded in thoroughly exposing the true nature of this so-called great demon of the brain—the essence of that "accursed idol of materialist culture." I... Anpontan Pokan had at last arrived at the "supreme and absolute great truth"—the truth that could awaken all humanity from its great nightmare of superstitions and obsessions surrounding "the brain that thinks."

Moreover... this so-called great truth was an astonishingly great truth—one so simple and ordinary that it had paradoxically gone unnoticed by all. Ever since brains were first discovered, all extraordinary brains from Bacon and Locke through Darwin and Spencer to Bergson and others had themselves been nothing less than the very 'brain's true activity' that they had been unable to recognize. This supreme truth was none other than a single matchstick that burns away the "Great Evil Incantation of Brains"—which toys with and slaughters two billion living souls on earth.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Rejoice and leap for joy! Bravely leap up, stand upside down, somersault! Foxtrot! Jidanda! Step! Kick away both traffic officers and safety zones!”

“Sing a triumphant song liberated from humanity’s final superstition—the tyranny of brains spanning all ages!” I... Anpontan Pokan had finally—in this very manner—tracked down the great earthly demon before your very eyes. I had plumbed to their deepest depths the truths behind this elusive phantom criminal’s tricks—this shape-shifting prankster of cruelty. And now—at this very moment—I had the honor of smashing down before your eyes this great demon’s true identity... my own brain... while screaming my proclamation: ...Thus...

……The brain is not the organ that thinks…… “……Thus……”

×　　　　　　　　　　×　　　　　　　　　　×

“AHAHAHAHA!”

"How about that!" "Isn't it exhilarating?" "Lightning-fast, no?" "An absolute bravo-worthy spectacle!" "A detective novel so supersonic it could fuse two billion brains worldwide into one—isn't that right?!" "...What?!" "You still don't grasp it...?..." "AHAHAHA!" "That's because you're still enslaved to brain-bound thinking!" "Because materialist superstitions like 'spirit equals matter' still crust your skull's crevices!" "Hearken!" The young genius detective Dr. Anpontan Pokan was now continuing his argumentation while gesturing at the mud-caked brain he'd just smashed upon the ground.

×　　　　　　　　　　×　　　　　　　　　　×

“……Behold… hear… be astonished… be appalled.

“Behold the truth of this cerebral trickery... the depravity surpassing even demons themselves... We humanity have been ceaselessly manipulated by this 'brain that thinks' ever since Hepomenias, the first scientist to discover the brain. Day after day, night after night before this brain—forced to make our own heads bow in worship... compelled to devote our entire physical and spiritual being in service—we have been kept deluded. And thus, even the head of this very Anpontan Pokan who speaks these words was but one such head among those heads.”

……However……the time had now come when that illusion must be shattered. The time had come for the illusion of Mr. Hepomenias—the first scientist to discover the brain—to be rectified. Just like the brain of Pokan lying at Pokan’s feet, the time had come when it must end covered in mud.

……Pokan proclaimed resoundingly the first earthly declaration at this crossroads. Namely, the most cutting-edge academia... the final scientific religion... he had the honor of proclaiming the Anpontan Pokan-style "Brain Theory."

I, Pokan, declare. "The proposition that 'a brain which thinks cannot conceive of itself as a brain which thinks' must stand as an eternal and immutable axiom—no less fundamental than the physical principle stating 'two objects cannot occupy the same space simultaneously.'" Therefore, this "brain that thinks"—which contemplates the "brain that thinks"—has perpetually plagued Hepomenias, the first scientist to discover the brain, through the "phantom of the brain" born from his own misperception of cerebral functions. And now, this is precisely the current state in which he stands on the verge of being slain by the phantom of his own brain.

Therefore, I... Anpontan Pokan boldly challenged this very notion. ......The organ that thinks is not the brain...... ......The organ that feels is not the brain either......

......The brain is nothing more than a solid mass of insentient, unfeeling protein...... ......Thus...... ......This is outrageous.

“Gentlemen, what is so amusing that you roll about laughing so uproariously?” “……Why on earth are you rolling about the streets like that?” “What on earth makes you crawl into a police box?” “……Why on earth do you cling to telephone poles?” “……Why on earth do you kiss red postboxes? ……Have you all not suffered some mental derangement?” “……What’s this… what…？？？？？…….” “……Are you saying, ‘If not in the brain, then where does one think?’……” “……Are you saying, ‘If not in the brain, then where does one feel?’……”

“……‘Where does our spiritual consciousness reside?’……‘How do we sustain existence?’ you ask……” “……What in…” “Is this not a perfectly trivial matter?” “Neither mysterious nor groundbreaking.” “Is this not the most mundane of issues?”

“……Brush off the mud from your pants. “……Straighten your hat. “……Adjust your collar and listen…… Our spirit… or life consciousness exists nowhere. It permeates every corner of our entire bodies. It’s no different from lower creatures lacking brains. Pinch your buttocks and your buttocks hurt. Feel hunger and hunger arises—that’s the nature of it.”

It was extremely simple and clear. But this alone might have been too simple and clear to grasp, so allow me to break it down further: every last one of our perpetually conscious desires, emotions, volitions, memories, judgments, beliefs and all such matters resided with absolute equality—in precisely the same manner—within each and every one of the thirty trillion cells comprising our entire bodies. And thus, the brain was nothing more than a cluster of cells whose sole function lay in mediating—without omission—the reflexive interaction of conscious content between each individual cell throughout the entire body and every other cell.

Communists call each and every one of their party members cells. In the same manner, if we regard each individual cell as a single human being and liken the entire human body to a great metropolis, then the brain would correspond to the telephone exchange situated at its center. Thereby, one comes to realize that it cannot possibly be anything other than that. ……If you still can’t grasp this, then come along with me—I, Pokan—over here. Retrace once more the arduous footsteps of Pokan—who raced through the utmost limits of time and space to uncover the brain’s true nature—by following his painstaking trajectory all over again.

First, to investigate from where, for what reason, and through what means the brain emerged, you were to ride alongside me—Anpontan Pokan—between the silver wings of Atama Airlines’ ultra-high-speed aircraft *Inference*. With engines roaring valiantly as we took off from Atama Airport, we soared through infinite time and space in one breath, traveling backward six hundred million years along the majestic expanse of universal evolution’s grand flow unfurling beneath your eyes.

Behold. The current world of human dominance became in an instant a future dream as the million-year-old realm of elephants unfolded beneath your feet—where mammoths, Elephas, Stegodon and other colossal beasts roamed triumphant. Then further we raced—from that dragon-haunted million-year epoch back through avian dominions, further still through piscine kingdoms and mollusk-sponge realms—plunging at super-speed into ever-primordial biospheres until reaching six hundred million years past… Behold! This world’s youthful vigor—where volcanic plumes and tsunami mists spiraled upward in endless succession to veil sun and moon! How’s that! And Earth’s vitality? How’s that!

There, take a drop of the low-salinity seawater bubbling and drifting across this terrain—maintaining a temperature around forty degrees Celsius—place it under a microscope, and behold. Gentlemen, before your eyes you would discover the magnified forms of countless single-celled organisms floating about. You could survey as it were the vast assembly of primordial cells destined to become the common ancestors of all future life. ……Moreover, these primordial cells were none other than the final and most highly complex compounds to emerge—one after another—amidst the Earth’s surface gradually cooling while triggering cataclysmic upheavals before your very eyes, surpassing all other substances produced in succession. An exquisite elite of organic entities forged through the most harmonious and dynamic combination of elemental energies—the legitimate lineage of Ame-no-Minakanushi, Jehovah’s beloved child, Horus prince of the sun god—they were none other than Earth’s first congregation of life.

Therefore, each and every one of these primordial cells possessed infinite spiritual abilities that enabled them to manifest all manner of consciousness, emotions, and judgmental faculties in response to changes in their environment. They assimilated inorganic and organic matter external to themselves to grow and split, while simultaneously possessing the spiritual ability to reflexively interact—exchanging sensations and consciousness—with neighboring cells that had divided off. Behold the evidence... Before your very eyes, are not these primordial cells now vigorously splitting and proliferating, their forms and capabilities rapidly beginning to evolve? With that spiritual ability, have they not swiftly grown, divided, combined, reflexively interacted, become one in mind and body to resonate and thrive—all while striving to manifest their communistic spiritual ability upon the earth to the utmost—thereby beginning to evolve into increasingly advanced and complex forms? And thus...

"Once we've evolved this far, we must be invincible! There's no one more evolved than yours truly!" Thus resting assured, these utterly self-conceited ones passed down their triumphant forms exactly as they were—through sponges, shellfish, fish, birds, beasts—to each generation of descendants... How about that!... Until before you knew it, they had unfolded before your very eyes this present-day biosphere of utmost complexity and endless transformations—every conceivable variety of life! Have they not?

Now then... behold.

Among these countless varieties of animals differing in every way imaginable, those with extremely low evolutionary development—creatures at or below the level of jellyfish—as you can plainly see, possess no such fancy apparatuses as brains or nerve granules. They must be thinking, moving, eating, sleeping, and living—just as in ancient times—through the reflexive interaction of all their bodily cells with each other, while being mutually aware of every sensation throughout their entire bodies simultaneously.

However, when animals that had undergone highly complex evolution—as we had observed—came into being, as you well know, the content of their consciousness became extremely crowded. The intervals between cells gradually grew more distant, leading them to wonder, "Is that faraway place still part of my body?"—until their forms became so enormous that merely moving a toe within a bathtub-like space became an effort. Therefore, just as limbs and sensory organs had become specialized through division of labor, consciousness too created an automatic duplex system called the "brain"—this reflexive interaction hub—through which the sensations and awareness of thirty trillion bodily cells interacted unrestrictedly with each other, until the entire body simultaneously came to feel... *I am me!... This is how I'm alive!*

In this manner, each and every one of the thirty trillion cells throughout our entire bodies—from the circulating red and white blood cells to the hard bones and even the very tips of our hair—simultaneously feel and are mutually aware of the exact same content of consciousness that we perceive. One cannot see things with eyeballs alone. One cannot hear sounds with ears alone. Behind that, there must necessarily exist the sensory judgment of all cells throughout the body.

Similarly, it was impossible for the brain to think or feel things using only the brain itself. Behind that, there had to necessarily exist the mutual subjective and objective aspects of all cells throughout the body. Otherwise, the human brain would have become something utterly meaningless—like a movie projector that had lost both its silver screen and audience.

Moreover, the swiftness and nimbleness of the reflexive interaction within the entire body's consciousness—mediated by that brain—was truly nothing short of astonishing. Human social organizations connected through mere telegraphs, telephones, and radios could never keep pace... A chill ran down your spine while your entire body erupted in goosebumps... You leapt up with a start at the slightest prickling sensation in your buttocks... Such was the extreme rapidity and agility of this system.

The thirty trillion cells forming every organ throughout our entire bodies—each one diligently performing their specialized tasks while utilizing the brain's reflexive interaction function—simultaneously and directly see, hear, smell, and taste. Centered around the brain, they become aware, feel moved, battle, sing, dance, shriek and scream in unison. ...Happiness makes your appetite surge. Because your stomach bustles along too. ...Eat a meal and you regain vigor before digestion starts. Every cell in your body fills simultaneously.

Therefore, the true nature of what we consciously perceive as our own life or spirit was nothing more than looking through the perfectly overlapping layers of subjective and objective realities depicted by each individual cell throughout our entire body—mediated by the brain's reflexive interaction—a fact that should now be understood beyond any dispute. Simultaneously, the fact that the great content of the brain—which we had been superstitiously revering until today—was actually an illusion born from mistaking the infinite spiritual wisdom contained within each individual cell being reflexively channeled there... much like how one might think a telephone exchange governs a metropolis... would be acknowledged without hesitation.

"Why, gentlemen... isn't it simple and clear?" "Is your jaw not left hanging?" "The fundamental problem of life consciousness—which modern scientists regarded as the greatest, most supreme mystery and marvel—did it not effortlessly dissolve away the moment we overturned the notion that 'the brain thinks' and reconsidered it thus?" "Didn’t the role assumed by the brain become just as clear as that of the limbs?"

“……If you still don’t understand even then, come over here once more. Behold the interior of this so-called brain—this Anpontan Pokan-style automatic reflexive interaction hub—lying beneath Pokan’s feet. Observe the work of these switchboard operators—exceedingly kind and astute—crowded within this exchange hub... Witness the nerve cells in action... They—this great collective of nerve cells—transformed themselves before your very eyes into wires, switches, cords, switchboards, relay stations, antennas, vacuum tubes, dials, coils and more, while simultaneously dividing into every conceivable specialized role corresponding to each type of conscious sensation contained within the body’s individual cells: weepers-in-charge, laughers-in-charge, seers-in-charge, hearers-in-charge, rememberers-in-charge, lovestrucks-in-charge and such—all while maintaining a state of mind detached from worldly concerns, day and night without cease, reflexively interacting every last sentiment of thirty trillion bodily citizens from corner to corner.”

“……Gentlemen—you must not speak to them. They were specialist technicians of reflexive interaction technique selected from among the entire body’s cellular assemblies. Therefore, just like their counterparts in ordinary exchange offices, they continued being summoned, summoning others, switching lines, and reconnecting circuits without a moment’s rest—all while remaining utterly unaware of what sort of reflexive interactions they were performing... Whether the cabinet changed or war broke out, whether a great earthquake struck or a massive fire erupted—or whether it was sweltering or freezing, a bee stung their heads or fire caught their rears—they had no time to be concerned. They were merely Anpontan Pokan-style batteries, codes, exchange desks, coils, dials, vacuum tubes, and so on—all reflexively interacting throughout the entire body—after all...”

"Therefore, gentlemen, you must not speak to them. You must not let them think. You must not make them perform duties beyond such responsibilities and doubly exhaust them." "And so, the less they think about other matters... the more single-mindedly they devote themselves solely to the simple work of reflexive interaction, the more agile and rapid the entire body’s reflexive interaction functions become. The head doesn’t tire. The flickering ceases. The mind becomes sharp... crystal-clear... transparently lucid—and thus it proceeds."

How utterly simple and clear! Doesn't the head become Anpontan Pokan? I... Director Anpontan Pokan... can hereby declare with certainty. For you Anpontan gentlemen whose heads—now sharp-witted with crystal-clear consciousness after doffing your hats to this simple and lucid Anpontan Pokan-style reflexive interaction system of the brain bureau—will never again be ensnared by the brain's tricks. You will not think with your brains... And having become grand doctors leading the pinnacle of cutting-edge cerebrology—simultaneously capable of transforming all brain-related mysteries into Anpontan Pokan principles—you cannot help but tip your hats once more to this Anpontan Pokan's celebrated cerebral prowess... I, who have so precisely detected and exposed the true form of this great demon "brain" that grips humanity's cultural lifeblood... thus...

“However, among you gentlemen, there may still be those who have not removed their hats.” There may yet exist learned scholars scratching their heads over various uncanny and inexplicable phenomena related to mental disorders or spiritual matters—those which even this explanation may not have sufficiently accounted for. ……Splendid... Most splendid. Such people are precisely those worthy of discussing the uncanny together. The true form of this world’s greatest uncanny mystery—the Brain that serves as protagonist of all ero, gro, and nonsense—must be thoroughly Anpontan Pokan-ized by none other than the newest, sharpest, supreme-grade vanguard race who will not cease until this is done.

......Splendid... Most splendid. "Such people must—though it pains me—once more don their hats and kindly return to the grand entrance of the Brain Bureau. And here—right here—read what's posted here: the 'Brain Bureau: Pokan-Style Reflexive Interaction Affairs Membership Regulations'." "Gentlemen... as you see here, these regulations contain merely three clauses. They don't reach even a fraction of ordinary telephone exchange membership terms." They were remarkably straightforward. Moreover, these three-clause regulations—which the thirty trillion cells throughout the human body fanatically observe as ancestral unwritten laws beyond all reason—yet should you gentlemen but digest these simple three articles, you shall become splendid, fully-fledged, indubitable grand doctors of cerebrology. At present, one could effortlessly perceive—without the slightest difficulty—how utterly trivial were the backstage mechanisms behind all brain-related mystery plays, ironic farces, abusive spectacles, nonsense comedies, horror dramas and such being performed across the globe's entire surface.

◇ Article 1: All reports reflexively interacted from the Brain Bureau—even if not factual—must be believed as facts and committed to memory. ……Those who dreamed of burglars breaking in and raised their voices to rouse their entire households were none other than those governed by this First Clause.

◇ Article 2: Any matter not reflexively mediated from the Brain Bureau—even if one has performed it oneself—must not be recognized as fact. Nor must they remain in memory. ...Those who stubbornly insist on claims like “I have no recollection of snatching your futon last night” were undoubtedly honest individuals strictly adhering to this Second Clause.

Now then，these two preceding clauses were regulations that induced what psychiatry now recognizes with double-underlined urgency as the "somnambulistic state"—a paramount enigma in contemporary psychiatric academia. Naturally，such phenomena occurred frequently even among those with ordinary minds，and their concise phrasing made them easily memorable—yet when reaching the third clause，as you could observe，the wording grew somewhat labyrinthine. Nevertheless，its significance remained every bit as crystalline clear as its predecessors.

That is to say... "When abnormalities occur in the brain’s reflexive interaction functions, activate the reflexive interaction functions of all bodily cells outside the brain in place of the brain—in the same manner as lower animals without brains." This regulation—let us call it an emergency measure for cerebral crises—meant precisely that... Moreover, the terrifying secret mechanism behind all magic tricks whereby the "thinking brain" had until now staged every manner of superscientific or hyper-explanatory bizarre phenomenon—ghosts, specters, hallucinations, mental aberrations, weeping fits, laughing fits, somnambulism, trance states—confounding scientists' brains worldwide to their very core, proved indeed none other than the inverse application of this simple, lucid Third Regulation Clause itself.

It states: ◇ Article 3: When a malfunction occurs in the Brain Bureau’s reflexive interaction functions, any consciousness that had been reflexively interacted at the site of said malfunction shall sever connections with other consciousnesses and—in a state equivalent to primordial lower animals (unrelated to the Brain Bureau’s reflexive interaction functions)—directly employ the reflexive interaction functions preserved within all bodily cells since primordial times. Thereby, it may sense, judge, deliberate prior to other consciousnesses, or command and activate movement throughout the entire body.

Supplementary Provisions: (i) In urgent situations where the Brain Bureau lacks time to perform reflexive interaction... e.g., unconsciously closing one's eyes or leaping back. (ii) When anesthetized... e.g., cases where the entire brain's reflexive interaction functions have been halted via anesthetics, resulting in unconscious behaviors and speech conducted through the sensations, consciousness memories, etc., of all bodily cells. (iii) When the brain is in an abnormally deep sleep... e.g., somnambulism, sleep-talking, teeth-grinding, etc. The above three types of cases shall also conform to this.

“Before you forget, kindly write this down in a notebook or something.” “I particularly recommend this to you students.” This Third Clause constituted the alpha and omega of brain hygiene—your chronic ailment called neurasthenia was fundamentally none other than a disease born from this regulation... no... the majority of self-proclaimed civilized peoples among humanity were now ensnared by this Third Clause, plunging into states of mental bankruptcy and annihilation...

And... this was for no other reason. As you could likely surmise from what had been explained thus far, the Brain Bureau's Pokan-style reflexive interaction machine—being so delicately constructed—was not only prone to various malfunctions, but the replacement of its faulty components could not be hastily performed. Therefore, such emergency measure-like regulations had been established out of necessity. Moreover, what could serve as the prime example—most powerfully and lucidly evidencing both this emergency regulation regarding reflexive interaction at the Brain Bureau and the existence of its Third Clause—for exposing the trick mechanism behind all terrestrial uncanny phenomena created by the brain, if not those very "weeping fits" and "laughing fits" I had just cited? Was this not delightful?

That is to say, when a certain part of the brain—for instance, the 'laughter control' interaction hub—becomes paralyzed due to cerebral hemorrhage, rendering reflexive interaction impossible, only the 'laughter current' that had been reflexively interacting there becomes severed from other consciousnesses and drifts free in accordance with the Third Regulation Clause. Then, bypassing the brain, it utilizes the reflexive interaction functions inherited by all bodily cells outside the brain since primordial times, inducing uncontrollable laughter at absolutely anything without reason. Even when currents of 'anger' or 'sadness' begin to stir—while those currents detour around the central reflexive interaction hub—the free-floating 'laughter current' races directly through all bodily cells, spreading laughter ever onward and leaving no opportunity for other emotions to manifest outwardly. This is what is commonly called a "laughing fit," and whether it be "fits of rage" or "weeping fits," they all arise through the same mechanism.

Needless to say, this malfunction stems from cerebral hemorrhage—perform a pathological autopsy and remove the cranial vault, and you'll understand immediately... "Ah, ha! Here lies the interaction hub for laughter's electric current!"... While this fact becomes self-evident, in truth, such brain malfunctions visible to the naked eye prove more the exception than the rule—and who could fathom how many varieties of uncanny phenomena are staged by invisible cerebral defects beyond these? The so-called ero, gro, and nonsense—their most monstrous aspects intermingled—swarm and slither ceaselessly day and night, from the attics to the basements of scientific civilization... from the tram-lined thoroughfares to the back alleys of cerebral culture... Moreover, isn't it fascinating how each of these uncanny phenomena themselves—precisely as they manifest—serves as clear evidence of delicate cerebral malfunctions that elude both stethoscopes and X-rays?

First and foremost, what I found most intolerable was how you gentlemen of modern so-called "thinking brains" remained utterly oblivious—even in your wildest dreams—to the fact that this Third Regulation Clause existed between your very brains and all bodily cells... Hence why you all uniformly clung to habits of absurdly clutching your heads or tilting your necks while spouting nonsense like "Brains don't wear out no matter how much you use 'em," forcibly compelling your brains to think... You strove to make brains—which weren't thinking organs at all but mere Anpontan Pokan Bureaus specialized in simple reflexive interaction—function like some cognitive municipal office, heedless of this truth... It was akin to nonchalantly burdening a telephone exchange bureau with municipal governance!

The operators at the Brain Bureau must have been suffering under such an overwhelming burden of work... One could scarcely imagine how many drastic errors in reflexive interaction affairs this caused—whirlpools of hallucinations, illusions, and perverse notions swirling about. Proof over theory... The facts lay before your eyes. When you overused your brain for thinking—much like a coil overloaded with current—the entire cerebral tissue became heated, and its reflexive interaction functions began to deteriorate. Then the various consciousnesses contained within all bodily cells lost contact with one another, each beginning to act independently and arbitrarily. That became a light, semi-conscious somnambulism of consciousness, roaming boundlessly through the space of awareness created by all bodily cells. ...That so-called endless fantasy or delusion you gazed vacantly upon when overthinking had exhausted your head—that very phenomenon occurred as the brain grew increasingly fatigued and slipped into sleep, whereupon the connections between these consciousnesses grew increasingly fragmented. This state of gradually transforming into increasingly incoherent dreams was something you gentlemen had likely experienced firsthand when dozing off while reading a novel or nodding off in classrooms or trains.

In days of old, people were deeply superstitious, so when walking through darkness, they would exhaust their brains with fear and succumb to all manner of hallucinations and perverse notions. Such visions and sensations have been passed down through tales as ghosts and supernatural apparitions, yet those who mock such realities—pitifully enough—cannot be deemed possessors of modern, fashionable nerves. They cannot even join the company of gentlemen and ladies who carry inhibitors and sleeping pills alongside their neurasthenia and hysteria.

Even among modern individuals like yourselves—particularly those leading frenetic urban lifestyles—the brain’s functions grow fatigued even in broad daylight, causing various conscious operations and senses of judgment to detach and crawl through the reflexive interaction functions of the body’s nerve endings…the intercellular networks…teetering into a flickering, unsteady somnambulistic state. …Thus, when passing by a great smokestack, they unconsciously quicken their pace, seized by the sensation it might topple onto their heads this very instant… When asleep at their pillows, they feel compelled to light lamps, haunted by the illusion of streetcar noises charging toward them from the thoroughfare. Beyond these—a stove yawning, an egg yolk glaring whitely from its plate, the red postbox at the far intersection having shifted positions last night on your way home, a bread oven sighing at midnight, a portrait sweating, a pale hand emerging from a desk drawer beckoning “Come hither,” a pistol turning toward you with a BANG—such uncanny phenomena ceaselessly erupting amid scientific culture all arise from cerebral fatigue-induced errors in reflexive interaction affairs…none other than somnambulism of consciousness.

As I have previously explained, this level of mental aberration is commonplace among you all. Moreover, these individuals—being dimly aware of their own aberrations—are deliberately excluded from psychiatric statistics, as careless labeling risks worsening their conditions. Yet should they advance one step further, they become impossible to leave unattended. They descend into gold-leafed madness, qualifying for escorted living in red-brick apartments.

I... Anpontan Pokan... had witnessed such individuals teeming within the psychiatry department of Kyushu Imperial University where I'd been under observation until recently. Moreover, when those very specimens were dragged one after another to the lectern and you heard Dr. Masaki the Mad—the department chair—lecturing students, it proved most amusing, for he expounded exactly what I, Anpontan Pokan, had been theorizing. "Ahem... As previously elucidated, the human brain resembles a compound spherical reflector that reflexively interacts—omitting not a single detail—with the consciousness contents of all bodily cells, thereby forming a unified focal point." The human brain's state of simultaneously illuminating every phenomenon of conscious sensation coursing through each of the body's thirty trillion cells precisely mirrors how a dragonfly's compound eye surveys the entire cosmos—above, below, and all directions—in one glance. Now, this spirit—momentarily reflexively interacted by the brain, momentarily forming focal points—that is to say, the individuality and characteristics equally embedded within each cell of a person's body, according to my experiments, constitute nothing less than accumulations of psychological effects inherited from ancestral generations... What we dub 'ordinary people' are those in whom countless psychological habitualities experienced by ancestors achieve unity through the brain's reflexive interactions, maintaining mutual harmony while forming focal points. Yet... human psychological functions inherently possess individual quirks. When ancestors bequeath these uncorrected peculiarities to descendants, they may grow increasingly depraved over generations. Consider a woman inheriting an obsessive fixation tendency who develops fancy for some man... Should she persist in ceaselessly contemplating meetings, sightings... union day and night, the brain region reflexively interacting this 'longing consciousness' eventually exhausts itself into paralysis. The longing consciousness once mediated there gradually detaches, congeals into fantasy and delusion, and initiates an obsessively serpentine somnambulism. Day and night they'd materialize your noble visage midair until doing naught but prattle of it. When this occurs, the beloved interaction hub's attendant ultimately buckles under strain and flounders helplessly. The longing consciousness fully liberates itself to spin in frenzied activity. Madness intensifies... They dash into thoroughfares... only to be restrained. They rattle iron bars in lunatic fury... or receive mania designations before flower-bedecked stages where masses applaud them centuries hence... such becomes their progression.

Of course, this represented the ordinary sequence by which ordinary people descended into madness—those possessing the slightest such tendencies were deemed normal, while those possessing them in abundance were labeled as belonging to the so-called mentally ill lineage, nothing more. Therefore, invention maniacs, research maniacs, collection maniacs, and all others branded with some "mania" or "lunacy"—though differing in degree—were undoubtedly part of this same cohort. While cases where timely intervention could lead to salvation were not entirely nonexistent, once such individuals became fully entrenched and transitioned into genuine somnambulism, the situation assumed an entirely different character. Undoubtedly, this constituted a form of mental illness whose manifestations surpassed ordinary madness in intensity—yet the afflicted themselves remained indistinguishable from normal persons. No—rather, this peculiar malady was often found among specially crafted paragons of virtue: those slightly dazed from nasal ailments, those with exquisitely delicate intellects overqualified for scholarship, those too tenderhearted to harm even insects. It defied classification as mere lunacy. Yet when midnight descended, these individuals would abruptly rise up to perpetrate absurdities eclipsing madness and atrocities transcending barbarity—rendering the affair both dreadful and perversely fascinating.

That is to say, while awake, the state of consciousness of that person did not differ at all from that of an ordinary human. The consciousness permeating every cell of their body became uniformly unified and harmonized through the brain's reflexive interaction—yet when night deepened and that person's brain plunged into complete suspended slumber, this sleep-state diverged from ordinary human rest... surpassing normal deep sleep thresholds to approach death's realm, plunging into what we called a corpse-like state where neither gentle rocking nor shouted alarms could rouse them... This constituted the defining characteristic of somnambulism patients.

Now, when sleep deepens in such a manner, it naturally follows that within the consciousness permeating every cell of the body, one or two entities unable to sink into such profound slumber will emerge. Moreover, this delayed consciousness—much like how the foreground brightens as the background darkens—awakens ever more clearly the deeper the sleep becomes, commencing all manner of activities. For instance, suppose someone falls asleep while intensely fixated on a single emotion or desire—closing their eyes in feverish agitation while thinking, “I must have that diamond…” or “I’ll kill that detestable _anchikishō_…” Eventually, when their brain plummets into the abyss of deepest slumber, among all cells sleeping alongside that brain, only that one consciousness—delayed in sleep—remains awake. And that consciousness—having severed all ties to conscience, common sense, and reason—rises in a half-slumbering state, mobilizing through the reflexive interaction functions inherent in all bodily cells as substitutes for the brain. And then, while maintaining contact with judgments and sensations arbitrarily summoned from among all bodily cells as needed, it sees, hears, thinks, and carries out its desired work. It will pilfer desired diamonds or murder loathed wretches, yet none of the events occurring during such activities leave any memory, as they never pass through the brain’s impressions. Even after awakening later, they remain utterly unfazed, reverting to their usual Anpontan Pokan breed without the slightest alteration. Even if confronted with stolen diamonds or the corpse of someone they’ve killed, they cannot confess to what they don’t know—thus only growing ever more Anpontan Pokan.

Conversely, during such somnambulism episodes, all bodily cells were simultaneously undertaking both the brain’s role and their own specialized duties—which explains why one typically became aware of an uncanny fatigue upon awakening. This principle could be readily acknowledged by observing its complete equivalence to cases where only the brain had been anesthetized through drugs—yet since post-anesthesia fatigue and post-somnambulism fatigue shared such identical properties that they proved exceedingly difficult to distinguish between them, this phenomenon constituted a profoundly intriguing research problem in forensic medicine.

As the prime specimen exemplifying this phenomenon, there stood before us this young man, intently listening to my lecture. Some among you gentlemen might have recognized this young man. Though withholding his address and full name as customary, that spring—having just turned twenty—he had taken this university’s entrance examination and passed with highest honors, only to soon thereafter fall victim to a pitiable attack of hereditary somnambulism inherited from his ancestors, strangling his bride on their wedding eve. Moreover—mark this—prior to that at sixteen years of age, this youth had suffered an identical episode, murdering his own mother by strangulation, rendering him an exceptional prodigy even within this field! Yet after entering this lecture hall and undergoing my unique liberation therapy, he gradually began regaining sanity—lately scratching his scalp and pounding the area above his ears with clenched fists while insisting “This must be where it’s all going wrong.” At times he would halt mid-stride in his chamber to deliver cerebral orations—speeches so delightfully derivative, being verbatim recitations of my own lectures heard here, that I occasionally attended for scholarly amusement. The mnemonic prowess of such specimens defies imagination... For having endured violent somnambulistic fits, this youth became utterly severed from past recollections—his present memory functions now adrift in an absolute realm of freedom, unshackled by any interference. Thus when focusing his attention, he could commit even minutiae to memory with superhuman exactitude. Yet in ordinary states he perpetually wore this startled mien—like some creature newly hatched from its egg—hence our provisional bestowal of the honorary title ‘Dr.Anpontan Pokan’...

When Professor Masaki reached this point in his lecture, the students would all turn this way at once and roar with laughter. Therefore, I fled the mental hospital in utter bewilderment. And so here I stand now at this crossroads—observing the aberrant states of your brains—until I could no longer contain myself, thus issuing this warning. I have boldly published the Pokan-style brain theory transcending time and space.

“……How utterly astounded you must be, my dear gentlemen! Did you witness?! Did you hear?! Are you astonished?!” “The moment I, Anpontan Pokan, emphatically declared ‘The brain is not the organ of thought,’ did not the trees shed their verdure and the flowers bleach their crimson? Has not all materialist culture been uprooted from its very foundations? Has not every last school of psychiatry crumbled into theoretical nonsense?”

...I declare once more. Humanity denied God through the brain that thinks. Humanity rebelled against Nature and forged materialist culture. They spurned human compassion and morality born from natural psychology, superstitiously pledging allegiance to an individualistic materialist creed. Thus did they render that materialist culture ever more nihilistic—decentralizing it, bestializing it, self-defiling it, neurasthenizing it, maddening it, driving it to suicide. This was wholly the mischief of "the brain that thinks." This was the toxic legacy of the materialist sect that worshipped the brain's phantom.

But now had come the time when this superstition must needs be liquidated. Humanity—having cast off superstitions toward deities—now found itself cornered at life’s climactic juncture where it must repudiate this “brain that thinks.” The glorious age had arrived when we must return from material science’s unnaturalness to idealist science’s natural order. “Thus as inaugural proof of this slogan’s implementation—behold how I, Anpontan Pokan, have demonstrated by dashing my own ‘brain that thinks’ upon the earth!”

And thus I proceeded to crush it underfoot. “……Hngh……Uuungh……”

×　　　　　　　　　　×　　　　　　　　　　× ...And... “AHAHAHAHA! How utterly ASTOUNDED are you?!...Did you WITNESS?!” “Did you HEAR?!” “Are you DAZZLED?!” “This is what I proclaim as The Absolute Scientific Detective’s Authentic Case Records!” “The full chronicle of how Dr. Anpontan Pokan—that ultra-cerebral young luminary detective—pursued his own brain, captured it in splendid fashion, dashed it against the earth’s surface, and delivered its final rites!” “The decomposition formula for the higher-order equation of ‘Brain-Brain’—the world’s supreme scientific romance!”

"So if you possess a mind capable of truly grasping this novel's ingenious tricks... Look here... Didn't I lend it to you the other day? You'll come to understand the true terrifying nature of that thesis titled 'Fetal Dream.' You'll comprehend the principles governing the colossal nightmare that fetus endures within its mother's womb. The liberation therapy experimenting with those monstrous principles, the true identity of Dr. Anpontan Pokan confined there, and his chilling history—all became as clear as if held in your hands."

"Moreover, as an additional bonus amusement... once you’ve grasped how pursuing the conventional notion of 'the brain thinks' within the brain itself gives birth to the conclusion that 'the brain is not the organ of thought'... then if you take that 'not the organ of thought' and hammer it one step further, you’ll come to comprehend my uniquely spiritual science-style looping principle—a wondrously bizarre, supremely mysterious phenomenon where you end up circling right back to the original 'organ of thought'... Should this demonstration have captured your esteemed attention, then pray grant me your applause…"

“……What?!” “My eyes are growing dizzy… Ah…” “AHAHAHAHA! That must be blinding!” “Once subjected to my blazing rhetoric, most fellows stagger and sway…” “Wh... what’s this?” “That’s not it.” “Are you suggesting I became intoxicated from cigars?…”

“AHAHAHAHA! This is utterly hilarious!” “AHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

(Responsibility for the text lies with the reporter.)

Fetal Dream

——Through human fetuses were made representative of all other animal and plant embryos in their entirety. ——Religious doctrines, scientific theories, artistic concepts—along with all other infinitely vast domains requiring textual research—along with cited examples and explanatory notes concerning literature were omitted or reduced to their most essential points. The human fetus saw one dream during its ten-month sojourn within its mother’s womb. That dream was akin to an interminably long continuous film—one that might have been titled *The Live Documentation of Universal Evolution*—wherein the fetus itself starred as protagonist-director across hundreds of millions or even tens of billions of years. This film commenced with primordial single-celled microorganisms—the fetus’s most ancient ancestors—then depicted how its protagonist cell gradually evolved into human form… into the fetus’s own shape. It rendered with visceral immediacy—as the fetus’s own lived experience—the terrifying celestial anomalies and terrestrial monstrosities that had tormented its lineage through eons: breathless calamities endured via natural selection and survival struggles; persecutions; agonies; hardships beyond measure. This constituted a magnificent supernatural horror film surpassing imagination… one where prehistorical monstrosities now fossilized were projected alongside indescribably cataclysmic spectacles that had annihilated entire species—all portrayed with unflinching realism. Furthermore—through resolving two great mysteries regarding embryology and dreams—it became demonstrably clear that this nightmare of supreme horror must also depict each immeasurable sin committed by ancestral generations: from primordial humans surviving amidst those cataclysms down to its immediate parents—all driven by desperate survival instincts and multifarious desires—directly rendering these atrocities as deeds perpetrated by the fetus itself.

First and foremost, when a human fetus comes into being within the mother’s womb, the very first form it manifests is a single perfectly round cell—identical to the primordial animal that serves as the common ancestor of all living organisms.

That perfectly round cell, shortly after taking residence in the maternal womb, divided and proliferated into two cells—left and right. And thus they clung tightly together, still forming a single organism.

The two left and right cells would soon each divide and proliferate into two upper and lower cells. And again, all four clung tightly together as one, taking in nutrients from the maternal womb while functioning as a single organism. In this manner—dividing into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four... continuing endlessly—they split into multiples and clung tightly together, gradually growing larger while faithfully repeating within the maternal womb, in the exact sequence of evolutionary progression, the ancestral forms that had evolved from humanity's earliest ancestor—the single-celled microorganism—into human beings.

First, it took the form of a fish. Next, the front and rear fins of this fish transformed into four legs, changing into the form of an amphibian that crawled about. Next, it developed four powerful limbs and assumed the form of a beast that ran about. Finally, it retracted its tail, raised its front legs into the shape of hands, stood upright on its hind legs to walk about—evolving into human form… the typical fetal appearance—before emerging with a cry… This sequence became established such that the time required followed an order customary for nearly all people to experience with minimal variation.

This was an established fact in embryology—a phenomenon none could deny. Yet if that were so, why did every fetus repeat such an arduous sequence of embryonic development within the womb? Why didn't they immediately assume a miniature human form, grow accordingly, and emerge into the world? Or why did that initial solitary cell unfailingly repeat the developmental sequence without the slightest deviation, as though all humanity had conspired to follow this exact pattern? That is to say...

"What compels the fetus to do so?" When it comes to this question, there exists not a single person capable of providing an appropriate interpretation. Even if one were to search every corner of modern scientific literature, this interpretation alone remains undiscovered. It has come to be regarded as something that can only be described as a mystery, with no other means of explanation available. Next, all fetuses unfailingly repeat within the maternal womb—without the slightest deviation in sequence—the evolutionary forms of their ancestral lineage as it progressed through time. However, since this developmental duration is drastically compressed, there even occur instances where the forms from each epoch—shaped gradually over millions or tens of millions of years as humanity’s ancestral animals evolved fins into limbs, scales into hair, and so forth—are repeated and undergone within mere minutes or seconds of measurable time. This can already be counted as one inexplicable mystery, but what makes it even more mystifying is that the ratio between this compressed time and the actual time required for evolution does not appear to be arbitrary at all.

That is to say, the human fetus is said to repeat the evolutionary path of its ancestors from primordial times over approximately ten months; however, for other animals in general, the lower their degree of evolution, the shorter their required gestation period becomes—so that those with the lowest evolutionary degrees—namely bacteria and other single-celled organisms retaining their primordial forms—largely possess no gestation period at all. The fact that they split into two new organisms while remaining in their current form has become an established reality—but what could possibly be the reason for this? Why does the human fetus—the one with the highest degree of evolution—require the longest gestation period? To rephrase it,

"What compels the fetus to do so?" When attempting to apply an appropriate interpretation to this problem, it was discovered that modern scientific knowledge rendered such efforts utterly impossible. It ultimately came to be regarded as something that could only be termed a mystery—utterly inexplicable by any other means.

The above were actual examples of inexplicable phenomena concerning fetuses; however, when we next researched and observed the human "body"—formed through such processes—from an anatomical perspective, innumerable similar inexplicable phenomena emerged. When observing the human body from its surface, precisely because its degree of evolution was high—or to rephrase, precisely because its gestation was so meticulously crafted—it could be readily acknowledged as being far more noble and elegant in construction than other animals. From its gentle yet dignified facial features to its beautiful skin and aesthetically balanced skeletal structure and musculature, the human form appeared thoroughly befitting its status as the pinnacle of creation. However, once one stripped away this body's epidermal layer, separated the flesh, examined the internal organs, and meticulously dissected the brain and sensory apparatus for observation, it became evident that each constituent part's composition represented an inherited legacy from our ancestral lineage—the living organs of fish, reptiles, apes and other lower creatures from which we had evolved. For even in the shape of a single tooth or the structure of one strand of hair, there lay vividly recorded the astonishingly prolonged history of natural selection's great persecutions—or rather, the bitter hardships of survival struggles—that had refined and evolved them to their current state. Thus, because this history was minutely commemorated in every detail, driving the fetus's form to repeat these evolutionary steps until perfected into human shape, the profound memory function that accomplished this became clearly imprinted into every last corner of completed human cells.

Needless to say, since such phenomena had been conclusively demonstrated by evolutionary theory, genetics, anatomy, and other fields, we refrained from providing detailed explanations here. However, the question remained: Who retained the memory of this history and caused its repetition? "What compels the fetus to do so?" Regarding what compelled the fetus thus, not a single explanation had yet been provided. It ultimately came to be regarded as something that could only be described as a singular mystery.

Moreover, that was not all. When one delved one step further and observed the contents of what constituted the human spirit, such facts were demonstrated even more profoundly and acutely. That is to say, when observed from its surface, the human spirit too exhibited a beauty of a different order, incomparable to other animals. Humans preserved their composure through what might be termed a single layer of "human skin"—the self-awareness that "man is lord of all creation" or so-called "cultural pride"—cloaking the substance of their mental lives while applying cosmetic labels like common sense and personality; yet once that epidermis—the so-called human skin—was peeled away, what emerged beneath revealed all too starkly this fact: nothing but psychological traits inherited intact through successive animalistic forms—the vigilance against persecution or survival instincts forged through astonishingly prolonged natural selection and survival struggles by microorganisms, humanity’s most distant ancestors, honed into present-day humans.

First, if one peeled away the so-called epidermis of the cultured individual—that human skin adorned with benevolence, justice, humanity, etiquette, and the like—beneath it emerged the living psychology of a savage or primitive human. The ones who most clearly demonstrated this fact were innocent children. Children who had not yet learned how to don the cultural veneer exhibited the same traits of ancient peoples—equally unversed in cultural veneer—in every aspect of their behavior. When they picked up a stick and felt compelled to play war, this stemmed from the inheritance of so-called warlike primitive human traits—those that had persisted through survival struggles waged in inter-tribal and inter-clan warfare. In other words, it was the awakening of instinctual memories from humanity’s savage era—latently transmitted within their cells—triggered by the suggestive resemblance of a stick to a weapon. When they found insects and chased them around without any purpose, this was triggered by the insects’ suggestion stimulating vestiges of hunting-era psychology—the impulse to pursue anything that moved—and when they tore off the limbs of captured insects, plucked their wings, split their abdomens, roasted them over fire, and delighted in such play, this was none other than a faithful reproduction of ancient peoples’ cruelty—memories of processing prey and captives through such methods, toying with and humiliating them to thoroughly satisfy their sense of victory and superiority. Furthermore, when a baby was left in a dark place and started crying, this was a revival of primitive humans' fear—from the era without fire—of darkness teeming with wild beasts and venomous snakes; while their tendency to relieve themselves anywhere reproduced habits from ancient times when people had slept among tree roots and grasses—all of which had been explained by modern advanced psychological research.

If one were to peel back this savage or primitive human's skin once more, beneath it would be discovered a beast... that is, the character of wild animals overflowing in full measure. For instance, when members of the same sex—that is, unfamiliar men or women—met for the first time, they exchanged what appeared to be human-like greetings on the surface. Yet inwardly, their eyes turned white with peculiar intensity as they furtively sniffed around each other's presence. If one let their guard down, they turned their attention to the area around the other's rear, discovering unpleasant details from minor points, hinting at mutual feelings of wrinkling their noses or baring their teeth at each other. If one became careless, they started snarling. They snapped at each other... exhibiting exactly the same psychology as dogs and cats encountering one another at a town crossroads. When they found someone weaker than themselves, they felt like tormenting them a bit. They thought about having someone kill those who became even slightly inconvenient. If no one was around, they thought about stealing. They thought about sniffing others' urine. "Should I bury my own waste…?" We exhibited such bestial psychological expressions everywhere in our daily lives—so all instances of psychological manifestations that fit the common insults people uttered—like "You beast!" or "You animal!"—were none other than this very phenomenon.

Next, if one made another incision into the membrane beneath this beastly nature, this time the psychology of insects came swarming out from below. For example, even if they pushed down their comrades, they tried to crawl up to a high place. They tried to crawl around where no one could see them to sneak some advantage. When they managed something clever, they immediately tried to burrow into a hole of utmost safety. When they found a nutrient-rich one, they stealthily approached and attempted to parasitize it. They attempted to protect themselves by adopting heedless, unpleasant appearances and behaviors. They tried to keep others at bay by hiding within a hard shell. When they perceived an enemy, they tried to save themselves even if it meant sacrificing others. When push came to shove, they brandished their poisonous stingers. They released ink. They released urine and emitted foul odors. Or they disguised themselves as local creatures or took on the appearance of those stronger than them... All such base, cowardly acts by humans laid bare these insectile instincts. The vulgar epithets found in common sayings—"cowards," "maggots," "rice weevils," "sniveling worms," "blood flukes," "latrine bugs," "fart beetles," "centipede bastards," "mosquito larva scum"—were none other than contemptuous terms pointing to manifestations of psychological traits inherited from our insect-era ancestors.

Next... finally, if we dissect the core of this insectile psychology—that is to say, the nucleus of all animal psychology lying deepest within human instinct—there appears a protozoan psychology shared with bacteria and other microorganisms. It manifests as a mode of existence and movement that seems utterly devoid of meaning—a phenomenon most often expressed through what we call group psychology, trend psychology, or mob mentality. When each of these aimlessly moving actions is isolated and examined individually, they may appear entirely meaningless; yet when gathered en masse, they give rise to fearsome effects akin to various bacteria. That is to say, they swarm toward glittering things, splendid things, loud voices, simple logic, clear stimuli—new, easily comprehensible things of that sort—yet possess neither discernment nor comprehension. In the same unconscious, aimless trance as microorganisms observed under a microscope, the multitude moves—drawn along by their own numbers. There lies meaningless rapture alongside pride and security; yet ultimately, swept away by unnameable fervor, they abandon their lives without hesitation—plunging into riots... revolutions... presenting a spectacle uncannily resembling sperm cells converging en masse upon a single drop of malic acid.

Human psychology only upon reaching this point finally approached the laws of physics and chemical motion changes. That is to say, when human psychology came to be separated from inanimate matter by just a thin membrane, what politicians and others in professions reliant on popularity exploited was none other than these microbial undercurrents lying at humanity’s core. Within such psychological architecture—centered upon the most primitive and base elements, then successively wrapped outward in increasingly complex animal psychologies—our human spiritual life paraded through existence clad in this so-called “human skin,” packaged with social graces and adorned with ribbons and labels like propriety, status, lineage, reputation, and character—applying makeup, dousing ourselves in perfume, and strutting down the boulevard. Yet when subjected to anatomical dissection, its substance was discovered to consist largely of ancestral animal psychologies latent within human cells—nothing more than reproduced memories passed down through generations. However, just as with the anatomical observations of the body discussed earlier, how had the fetus come to encapsulate such countless complex and diverse psychological memories within its cells’ subconscious or instincts—?

"What compels the fetus to do so?" Such matters had not been explained at all. No—the very fact that a single human's mental substance constituted nothing less than relics of universal evolution spanning hundreds of millions of years remained concealed beneath shallow self-conceit like "humans are lords of all creation" or "I'm a human being!", its significance remaining entirely unnoticed. The above had enumerated the mysterious phenomena concerning fetal development, the adult body completed through that development, and vestiges of universal evolution manifesting in the human spirit; next, we would observe the mysterious phenomena of "dreams" witnessed by these humans.

Dreams have long been regarded as the epitome of mystery, so much so that when people encounter even the slightest unexpected event, they immediately wonder, "Is this a dream?" One moment, all phenomena of nature appear indistinguishable from reality; the next, unimaginably bizarre and unnatural landscapes and jumbled objects emerge. Scenes that initially seem governed by the psychological and physical laws of the real world suddenly transform without restraint according to preposterous rules not found in any myth or legend. Since ancient times, countless scholars have agonized over dreams' true nature and the laws governing their psychological and visual metamorphoses. Here, among such dream characteristics, I shall enumerate the following three items as most crucial for illuminating dreams' essence and true form.

(1) Events within dreams frequently exhibit extremely preposterous and incongruous developments during their progression. No. In fact, such cases are far more common, so it is quicker to consider those utterly irrational activities and transformations of supernatural scenes and objects as being dreams. Nevertheless, while experiencing such a dream, one not only hardly feels any suspicion toward these supernatural and irrational elements, but also perceives the events with a seriousness and sincerity that feel more profound and acute than reality itself.

(2) Scenes one had never before seen or heard of, along with unremarkable natural disasters and supernatural phenomena, manifested with a sense of reality indistinguishable from actual experience. (3) That events appearing in dreams—even when perceived as continuous occurrences spanning years or decades—were actually experienced within spans of time measurable in mere minutes or seconds had been demonstrated by modern science.

The various mysterious phenomena concerning "the fetus" and "dreams" enumerated above have become major, undeniable questions in the scientific community—yet why have they remained unresolved to this day? When we consider why the keys to solving these mysteries have eluded everyone until today, we find there are two causes. The first lies in traditional scholars' fundamental misunderstanding regarding human cells—those very cells that enable human gestation and subsequently allow fully developed adults to dream. The second resides in humanity's fundamentally flawed conception of the "time" flowing through this universe... these two factors.

In other words, the content of each individual cell composing the human body is more profound than that of the entire human being who serves as their protagonist.

No. Each individual cell possesses content and capabilities of such extraordinarily grand complexity that they stand on par with the entire universe. Therefore, peering at a single cell’s contents through a microscope based on its exterior appearance, chemically analyzing its components, and studying its division and proliferation through morphological and chromatic changes—this conventional materialist scientific approach remains utterly incapable of comprehending the true grandeur of a cell’s substance and capabilities. It becomes an equally unreasonable demand—like ignoring the lifetime achievements of heroes and great figures while attempting to ascertain their noble nature and capabilities solely through observing a corpse’s external appearance and dissecting its interior. …And precisely the same applies to our conception of time…The time indicated by the Central Meteorological Observatory’s instruments, the hands of our clocks, Earth’s rotation, the sun’s revolution—this is not true time. It constitutes an artificial time arbitrarily fabricated by materialist science. A time of illusion—a fraudulent time. ……True time defies such constricted rigidity measurable by standardized units. If one could genuinely accept this reality—that true time grows increasingly malleable, an arcane enigma defying comprehension—then one must simultaneously accept the actual existence of “fetal dreams.” This equates to clutching the master key that unlocks life’s mysteries and the universe’s enigmas.

Originally, cells were minuscule particles—so small as to be a mere fraction of tens of trillions within the human body—invisible even under low-powered microscopes. Therefore, the complexity of their substance and the extent of their expressible capabilities were still considered to be merely a fraction of tens of trillions of the entire human being’s capacity… In any case, they were thought to be utterly simple and powerless… This notion had dominated the majority of scientists’ minds until today. Thus, although scientists continued to be astonished by successive discoveries of cells' remarkable capacities for living, reproduction, heredity, and other functions since then, their research remained confined to what could be observed through microscopes and analyzed chemically—that is, to studies explainable through materialist science. The prevailing understanding had not advanced one step beyond the notion that cells were merely simple, powerless entities constituting a fraction of tens of trillions within the human body. To conduct research beyond that would be blasphemy against materialist science. It had even been considered tantamount to committing a sin as a scholar.

However, this miscalculation arose from a preconceived notion—an utterly unreasonable conjecture where scholars constrained by modern so-called materialist scientific reasoning estimated cells' contents and capabilities based on their shape and size, concluding "probably about this much." The reason why great mysteries of the scientific community—the enigma of life’s secrets and dreams' unfathomable nature—remained perpetually unexplained lay precisely in this fact that had to be acknowledged: that we studied cells, this vast subject of life, through methods shackled by a "peering-at-the-ceiling-through-a-reed’s-pith" mentality—materialistically restrictive, irrational... or rephrased, through unscientific methodologies overbound by science itself. When one swept away such antiquated academic conventions and entrenched superstitions regarding contrived theories, adopting a freer attitude to observe universal phenomena while cross-examining practical manifestations, the fact had to be recognized through transcendent scientific truth: that within a single cell lay substance so profoundly vast—surpassing microscopic observation and chemical measurement—it defied hierarchical comparison against the cosmos itself. Those who superstitiously regarded materialist scientific methods as life’s foundation had to face irrefutable facts despite their denials.

The first that must be mentioned was cells' ability to construct human beings. That single cell implanted in the mother's womb as life's seed had divided and grown according to the previously described order, progressing through successive stages of ancestral evolution as it developed. There it had been so; here it had been thus—recalling and recalling, building itself up without error through fish, lizard, monkey, human. Though one could not generalize—striving to synthesize parental virtues into something more advanced—the uniform positioning of ears, eyes, nose and mouth across all humanity... This was my child. It resembled everyone. It took after him too. Its tantrum-throwing mirrored Father's exact manner; its quick learning matched mine perfectly... aligning even microscopic details with exquisite precision. The ferocious mnemonic capacity within each cell—what then of their mutual resonance's profundity? Their judgment? Reasoning? Aspiration? Conscience? Capacity for spiritual-art critique? When humans—vast cellular assemblies—encountered cosmic phenomena, comprehending or resonating profoundly with them to form nations and societies that progressively shaped human culture—how fathomless was this creative power? All such near-omniscient functions ultimately manifested the spiritual power within that initial cell when inductively considered. Modern humanity's boundless culture could only be this microscopic entity's spiritual power reflected across Earth's surface.

Note: A human being constitutes a vast assembly of cells possessing such grand content—through the brain’s mediation—unifying their spiritual power into one under a shared collective consciousness common to all cells. Therefore, while the knowledge, emotions, willpower and such manifested by humans ought by all rights to far surpass those of each individual cell, reality proves precisely the opposite—so since the world’s dawn, any sage or great personage has been rendered powerless before the cells’ magnificent spiritual power, forced to kneel like stars before the sun. Thus, the capabilities of this vast cellular assembly unified into human form exhibit the bizarre phenomenon of not even equaling a further fraction of tens of trillions compared to a single cell’s own capabilities—itself but a fraction of tens of trillions. This was thought to occur because the unifying organ for cellular spiritual power throughout the human body—the brain’s function—had not yet undergone sufficient evolution, thereby obstructing the full activation of cellular spiritual power. Simultaneously—could this be that primordial impulse when Earth’s first life-seed cell emerged? —that infinite spiritual power evolved through manifold processes to manifest itself concretely upon Earth as humanity’s most advantageous and capable form while continuing its evolution toward ever more advantageous organisms. It followed that such contradictions, inconveniences and strange phenomena arose precisely because present-day humans remained these transitional unfinished creatures. However, this matter constituted an exceedingly crucial research topic impossible to exhaustively expound within brief confines; thus I confined myself here to merely noting it for reference.

Now that the relationship between the human body and spirit on one hand and the spiritual power of cells on the other had become so clear, elucidating the essence of what we call "dreams" had also become an exceedingly straightforward matter. Every single cell was an individual life form possessing conscious awareness and spiritual power equivalent to—nay surpassing—that of our own individual human lives. Therefore, modern medicine had proven that all cells—as long as they were engaged in some form of work—absorbed nutrients through their labor, grew, divided, proliferated, became fatigued, aged and died, decomposed, and ultimately vanished. Moreover, each individual cell itself—while laboring, developing, dividing, proliferating, fatiguing, decomposing, and vanishing—was conscious of the suffering and joy accompanying its work to a degree equal to, nay surpassing, our own individual awareness…… Simultaneously, in response to such joys and sufferings, we individuals perceived associations, imaginings, and fantasies of utmost strangeness and mutability—impressions that manifested boundlessly with vigor equivalent to or exceeding our own—much like how a nation left behind countless artistic works across its rise and fall.

The phenomenon that most directly demonstrates this fact is none other than the dreams we experience. Fundamentally, what we call dreams occur when—while the entire human body sleeps—the spiritual power of certain cells within the body awakens due to some stimulus and becomes active. The conscious state of these awakened cells themselves becomes reflected in the brain, and what remains in memory is what we name as "dreams." For example, when a human sleeps without properly digesting what they’ve swallowed, during that time, only the cells of their stomach awaken and labor on with groaning effort. ……Ah, how agonizing. It’s unbearable. What in the world is going to become of this? As we keep grumbling—"Why must we alone suffer such cruel treatment?"—the stomach cells' endless agony and discontent coalesce into an association that gradually reflects itself within the brain. Namely, the protagonist of this agony—though innocent—is imprisoned, shackled with heavy chains, and forced to carry stones beyond their strength while groaning and laboring... Or crushed beneath a house during an irresistible great earthquake, thrashing about and screaming... Then, as that grueling digestive work gradually eases, comes the feeling of "At last..." ……Then, the emotions within the dream…the content of associations and fantasies reflected in the brain also ease, transforming into scenes like reverently witnessing a sunrise atop a mountain peak or the exhilaration of skiing down a magnificent slope in one breath.

Or again—when one closed their eyes while thinking “I want to see her” on sleep’s threshold—that single carnal impulse alone lingered in their drowsiness, desperately yearning yet utterly unable to reach her—this tormenting impossibility manifesting as dream. Her form—symbolized through beautiful flowers, birds, or landscapes—shone smiling before him; yet when he tried to seize it, sundry obstacles arose rendering approach impossible. No sooner did primordial cataclysms preserved in cellular memory burst before one’s eyes than there loomed terrible mountains and cliffs where ancestral hominids once dwelled. Within these vistas one might know their grandfather’s despair when reduced to beggary or swim their father’s river with identical anguish. Or becoming ape to scale peaks or fish plunging through seas—through countless trials finally grasping her…the flower or bird…only for that initial torment to fade, ending both dream and slumber.

Additionally, due to bedwetting, one dreamed of ancient deluges. Because of nasal congestion, one was compelled to relive childhood near-drowning agonies through dreams once more. And so... Whether hands or feet, internal organs or patches of skin—any location sufficed. While the entire body slept, cells roused by some stimulus inevitably conjured associations, fantasies, and delusions matching that stimulus... They were dreaming some manner of dream. That is to say—summoning scenes and landscapes from ancestral memories inherited through generations and from their own protagonist's past recollections—they haphazardly layered and connected these fragments corresponding to their momentary emotional states, rendering such feelings with utmost profundity and intensity. When such moods proved nonsensical or aberrant—lacking associative materials to express corresponding sensations—they promptly compensated with imagined objects or landscapes. To manifest cells' unique terrors and anxieties within human bodies—associating kitchen implements writhing like earthworms or snakes; to articulate pain—depicting great trees dripping fresh blood or blossoms flowering amidst flames—this paralleled how mystery-ignorant humans envision winged angels.

This stood in stark contrast to how our moods while awake changed as they were governed by surrounding circumstances—in dreams, the mood itself took precedence and shifted first. And so as these scenes, landscapes, and settings that perfectly matched the mood ceaselessly transformed while chasing after its shifting course—no matter how abrupt or incongruous these myriad transformations might appear—one felt neither contradiction nor unnaturalness throughout. Moreover, it seemed only natural that one would perceive these sensations as more natural, profound, and intense than impressions from reality.

In other words, what we call dreams can be described as the unique art of cells—combining symbolic forms, object memories, hallucinations, and clusters of associations that only the cell acting as the dream's protagonist can comprehend, fusing them without logic or coherence to depict shifts in emotional states with utmost clarity.

Note: Modern trends in various art movements across Western nations are gradually approaching dreamlike modes of expression—through meaningless or fragmentary colors and sounds, or through combinations of bizarre scenes and objects—by attempting to express more poignant and profound emotions than traditional realistic or conventional methods of representation. As explained above, the true nature of dreams lies in their reflection upon the brain of cellular conscious content accompanying cellular growth, division, and proliferation; we shall now clarify why the time perceived within dream content does not align with actual time. In other words, if one explains how ordinary people—believing the time indicated by clocks or the sun to be true time—are generating such grand illusions, inducing delusions in rigorous scientific judgment while being astonished and bewildered, this question should immediately dissolve like ice.

According to modern medicine, one minute was defined as the standard duration equivalent to approximately eighteen calm breaths or around seventy pulse beats in an ordinary person. Sixty times that constituted an hour, twenty-four times that a day, and approximately three hundred sixty times that a year. Moreover, since that year had also been established as corresponding to the duration of Earth’s revolution around the sun, the time indicated by timepieces produced by reputable companies came to represent an hour uniformly identical for all people—however, this was ultimately artificial time, and the true nature of temporal reality was no such thing. As proof of this, it was astonishing that when each individual separately experienced the same span of artificial time, an extraordinary discrepancy emerged.

To take a familiar example, even an hour measured by the same clock revealed an astonishing difference in perceived duration between one spent engrossed in an intriguing novel and another spent idly awaiting a train at the station. Just as an object measured as one shaku with a bamboo ruler did not appear uniformly as one shaku to all people. Or even if one compared a minute spent submerged underwater holding their breath with a minute spent engaged in idle chatter, it became abundantly clear that the former felt unbearably long in contrast to the latter seeming to pass in an instant—this had to be an undeniable fact.

Taking one more step forward, let us suppose there exists a dead person here. If this deceased individual—even after death—perceives the flow of time through this senseless sensation, then one second and a hundred million years must feel of equal duration. Moreover, to perceive thus constitutes the true sensation of the afterlife—for within a single second resides a hundred million years, while even the universe's lifespan can be apprehended within but a second. The true nature of infinite time flowing through this infinite cosmos is none other than such an extreme illusion—that is to say, within infinite truth, it stands motionless as an arrow yet races forth like a stone.

True Time was something entirely different from what was commonly conceived as Artificial Time. Rather than being in any way related to the movements of celestial bodies like the sun and earth or the rotations of clock hands, it came to be understood here that True Time—with infinitely elastic stasis while simultaneously flowing—existed for each and every one of countless, boundless lives, perceived individually through their distinct senses in simultaneous yet distinct multiplicity.

Next, when comparing the lifespans of organisms existing on earth—from plants that flourish for centuries to large animals living over a hundred years, down to microorganisms that are born and perish within mere minutes or seconds—it generally appears that the smaller the form, the shorter the lifespan. Cells are no different—if we take the average of the long- and short-lived cells within the human body and compare it to the entirety of a human life, we can consider the disparity to be as great as that between the lifespan of a nation and that of an individual. However, for those cells with variously long or short lives, the length of their subjectively perceived lifespan is identical—whether the interval from birth to death measures a minute or a century in Artificial Time is irrelevant. The actual length of time perceived while being born, growing, reproducing, aging, and proceeding toward extinction—each and every one of these constitutes an entire lifespan no different in duration. Not comprehending this principle, their attempt to resign themselves by comparing the pitifulness of an infant born at dawn and dead by dusk with the life of an insect likewise born at dawn and perishing of old age by twilight becomes an absurdly unnatural and irrational notion—ultimately nothing but a tragicomedy arising from conflating inflexible Artificial Time with infinitely elastic Natural Time.

All of nature...all living beings seized this infinitely elastic Natural Time—each claiming a length of their own choosing—and breathed, grew, reproduced, and proceeded through old age to death across that span as their entire lifespan. Similarly, even if the lifespan of the cells constituting the human body was measured as short in Artificial Time, the Natural Time they possessed had to be infinite. Therefore, when those cells used both the content of their infinite memory and infinite time to paint a "dream" in grand wheel-like fashion, depicting events spanning fifty years or even a century within an instant—a single second—posed no difficulty at all. In the old Chinese legend passed down in Japan as "The Pillow of Kantan"...Lu Sheng's fifty-year dream. In fact, that "the time it takes to cook a meal of millet rice" was stated [as such] remained factual—there was nothing strange about it.

From what has been explained above, the general outline of these facts should now be understood: how immense and infinite is the psychic faculty contained within a single cell, and particularly how profoundly immeasurable exists that which we call the "cellular memory" within that very same solitary cell. I believe that once one fully acknowledges the immense role of “cellular memory”—which simultaneously gestates and constructs both the human spirit and body—the numerous questions regarding the existence of “fetal dreams”…what compels the fetus to act thus…will have largely been resolved.

The fetus existed in a state akin to a deep sleep within the mother's womb—completely insulated from external sensations. During this period, all cells throughout its body divided vigorously, proliferated abundantly, and evolved ceaselessly while striving in unison *“toward humanity”*—repeating ancestral evolutionary memories and successively projecting those primordial scenes into fetal consciousness. Moreover—as previously noted—this fetus remained not only shielded from external stimuli by the maternal body but also nurtured with perfect tranquility and regularity; thus there existed no necessity whatsoever for considering extraneous matters. All required was single-minded pursuit of this sole dream of “humanity,” whose content accordingly shifted with flawless precision and meticulous detail—a process fundamentally distinct from adults’ self-indulgent and unfettered dreaming.

To explain this conversely: what creates the fetus is the fetus’s dream. Thus, what governs the fetal dreams is what we call "cellular memory." All fetuses repeat the same evolutionary course within the maternal womb, requiring a uniformly fixed duration for this process precisely because modern humankind evolved from a common ancestor, resulting in cellular memory—that is, the length of “fetal dreams”—being uniformly fixed. Moreover, that these “fetal dreams”—which should span hundreds of millions or even billions of years—are fully experienced within a mere ten months is by no means strange when considering the aforementioned psychic faculty of cells. The relatively short gestational period of evolutionarily primitive animals stems precisely because their evolutionary recollections are comparatively simple. [...] Thus, lower microorganisms that have undergone no evolution since primordial times possess no “fetal dreams” whatsoever. The reason why ancestors split and proliferate in their original form within an instant should also be readily acknowledged here.

Note: The above facts demonstrate how profoundly deep and subtly nuanced are the psychic faculties of cells—including their "cellular memory"—and... As for how this phenomenon profoundly and subtly influences the reincarnation of all living beings' descendants while governing the fate of all creation, it had already been expounded for thousands of years in various scriptures originating from Egyptian monotheism. Thus, what are now called religions—lingering across the world as mere vestiges—are superstitious remnants: rituals and expedients that dressed up such scientific insights to instruct primitive peoples. Therefore, I particularly note here that the existence of fetal dreams is by no means a new theory.

Then, if we were to concretely explain the content of these "fetal dreams" that remain absent from our memories, what would their general nature be?

By considering what had been discussed thus far across these sections, one could likely already infer this sufficiently; however, for further reference, should I attempt to explain my own conjecture, I believed it must generally take the following form. Among the evolutionary dreams of ancestors that the human fetus saw within the mother’s womb, those witnessed most frequently had to be nightmares. The reason was that humans, in evolving to their present state, had developed neither horns like cattle, fangs and claws like tigers, wings like birds, protective coloration like fish, venom like insects, nor shells like mollusks—equipping themselves with none of nature’s defensive or offensive tools. Despite possessing a body far more fragile, harmless, non-toxic, and featureless compared to other animals, they exposed this very body to all manner of ferocious arenas of survival competition, battling every terrifying natural calamity and monstrous phenomenon until finally evolving and ascending to become the supreme animal lifeform seen today. During this period, they must have experienced pains of the struggle for existence and persecutions of natural selection incomparable to those of other animals, and the memories of those hardships were thought to have been truly immeasurable and suffocating in their enormity. Amidst this, the fetus’s hardship—vividly dreaming of its own past, of same-sex ancestors’ profound memories spanning hundreds of millions, tens of millions of years…perceiving them with their true temporal weight…while relentlessly growing—could never be matched by the brief, shallow struggles its parents endured in this world.

First, a single cell that was the seed of humanity took on the form of a microorganism—the common ancestor of all living beings—and, shortly after attaching to a certain point on the uterine wall, began to dream of drifting in lukewarm water alongside countless fellow microorganisms billions of years ago during the Precambrian era, when it had existed in such a form. In each and every one of those countless—nay, infinite—microorganisms comprising this vast swarm, their transparent bodies absorbed and reflected the fierce light from the heavens, some emitting rainbows of seven colors while others scattered golden-silver radiance. Reveling in the freedom of Earth's earliest life, they drifted without aim, swirling and swaying as they divided and perished moment by moment—such was their dauntless existence. The joy of it. The beauty... scarcely had they thought it when a slight change in the water they inhabited transformed into indescribable agony and assailed them. The vast swarm of companions perished rapidly before one’s eyes. It tried to flee somewhere but found itself bound by pain enveloping its entire body and unable to move. The agony, the unbearable torment... Just when it thought these tortures had finally passed—the primordial sun came blazing down like inferno, and the pallid moonlight pierced through like ice. It was scattered into the boundless void by the wind, or cast down into the endless abyss by the rain. Thus tossed about in a world of unimaginable terror and anguish, unaware of life or death... Ah, if only it could somehow become a sturdier form! Desiring a body that could withstand both cold and heat... As it writhed and struggled desperately, the cell gradually divided and multiplied, soon taking the form of a fish—the next ancestor of humankind. That is to say, it took on an astonishingly advanced form—fully equipped with heat-and-cold-enduring skin and scales, fins and tail for swimming, mouth and eyeballs, nerves for discernment... Ah, how grateful! With this, there could be no complaint. Proudly thinking there was likely no creature as clever as itself, it strolled along the water’s edge—when suddenly, a monstrous octopus thousands of times its size spread enormous hands vast enough to blot out the sky and came chasing after it. "Ahh— Help me…" it dived into a forest of seaweed, and by holding its breath, barely managed to survive. Just as it began to lift its head slowly with relief, this time—unimaginably close before its nose—the pincers of a sea scorpion dozens of times larger than the previous octopus came pressing in. As it swayed and flipped its body to flee from this new crisis, a cloud-like trilobite descended upon it from behind. From the side, sea anemones flashed their poison spears. Slipping through that gap with its life barely intact and diving beneath a small pebble... trembling. Ah, how terrifying! How pitiful. At this rate, it still couldn’t live in peace.

While my fellow creatures who evolved alongside me, deeming it perilous, encased their bodies in hard shells or extended only their limbs from between rocks, I found it unbearable to endure this dark, oppressive water even if it meant resorting to such measures. I wanted to get to land even sooner than that. As I desperately prayed—"I want a body that can leap and dart about freely in that light, bright air!"—thanks to that very prayer, I transformed into something resembling a small three-eyed lizard and came scurrying up onto land.

……Ah! How delightful! Ah, how grateful!... No sooner had I darted my eyes about and scurried around than cataclysms swirled up from all directions—earthquakes to obliterate the world, volcanic eruptions, tsunami—each vying to erase existence itself. The sea seethed like boiling water, leaving nowhere to escape. The suffocating feeling of thrashing about on scorched sand, gasping for breath. How cruel... Just when I thought I’d barely overcome that suffering, this time I found myself beneath the foot of a mountain-like walking dragon. I was sent flying by the flying dragon’s wing. I was nearly caught in the monstrous beak of an Archaeopteryx. ……Ahh, I couldn’t bear it! Unbearable. Those who evolved alongside me grew spines across their bodies, mimicked colors and shapes of nearby creatures, donned shells or spewed poison—but must we resort to such lopsided, cowardly, spineless mimicry? Could there not be a way to settle in this hell while maintaining a truer, unbound, gentler form?... As I hid between rocks, holding my breath and desperately praying, the eyeball at my fontanelle disappeared. Transformed into a two-eyed monkey’s shape, I became able to leap from tree to tree.

……There! I’d made it! I was safe now! Thinking myself the most free and evolved creature, I peered from a tree hollow—when a python lunged from behind to swallow me whole. Startled, I fled in panic—only for a great eagle to swoop down and try to strike me from above. No sooner had I escaped through the branches than lice swarmed across my body. Mountain leeches latched onto my skin. Amidst this ceaseless vigilance, cataclysms descended—thunderstorms to overturn heaven, hurricanes, blizzards—rending earth’s trees and grasses to ruin. Upon this ravaged ground, I writhed in near-fatal frenzy……Ah……How cruel… Unbearable. I’d done nothing wrong—why must I endure such relentless cruelty? "If only I could grow mightier…gain a form that weathers these calamities unflinching…" Head buried in the tree’s hollow, heart pounding prayers—until at last my tail dropped away, and human form was mine.

……Ah! How delightful! Ah! How grateful! Just as I thought I could finally begin my blissful life—no no—the dream had yet to end. As soon as it took human form, it immediately began to have nightmares as a human. The human ancestors corresponding to the fetus’s lineage—driven by mutual struggle for existence, the cruel and cowardly bestial mentality inherited since primitive times, and myriad other selfish desires—had accumulated immeasurable and boundless sins, great and small, of every kind, through directly or indirectly inflicting suffering upon others. Each of those blood-soaked, suffocating memories became the fetus’s present subjective experience, reproduced vividly before its eyes. ...Assassinating lords to seize their castles...Forcing loyal retainers to commit seppuku and watching with drinks as entertainment...Poisoning wives and heirs to install one's own grandsons...Starving ailing husbands to death while frolicking with lovers...The unbearable urge to smother newborn bastards...The satisfaction of framing daughters-in-law for adultery and hanging them...The exhilaration of pushing hated stepchildren down wells...Alongside these—the amusement of mobs tormenting young maidens...The pride in driving married men to lovelorn suicide...The perverse thrill of gathering beautiful youths to abuse...The delight in squandering fortunes...The gravity of sodomy...The savor of human flesh...Poison experiments...Betrayals...Sword-testing on captives...Bullying the weak...Such countless unbearable scenes transformed into dreams before its eyes, shifting vividly from one to the next. Or else, the crimes concealed by one’s ancestors… or by the fetus itself in past lives—countless secrets taken to the grave—transformed into bloodied faces, headless torsos, hair in wells, daggers in ceilings, white bones in swamp bottoms, and so forth, appearing one after another in its dreams; each time this happened, the fetus was startled, tormented, and anguished, its limbs twitching jerkily within the mother’s womb.

Thus, after dreaming through the generations up to its parents, when at last there were no more dreams to be seen, the fetus finally fell into a quiet slumber. Before long, labor pains began in the mother’s body and it was pushed out of the uterus. Air rushed into the fetus's lungs. At that jolt, the previous dreams plunged into the abyss of the fetus's subconscious, and an entirely different, superficial yet intense, piercing consciousness of reality permeated throughout its entire body. Startled and terrified, it burst into frenzied tears. Thus, that fetus...baby finally came into contact with boundless parental love and began to form human-like peaceful dreams.

And thus, it soon began to awaken to reality in order to create for itself the continuation of those "Fetal Dreams." The reason a baby—who should have had no memories—might suddenly startle awake crying during sleep or smile sweetly as if recalling something was that it witnessed remnants of the "Fetal Dreams" left behind in the womb. For those born with physical disabilities or mental defects, there must have existed corresponding dreams during their fetal period that explained each cause. Or when only fetal bones remained in the womb, or when so-called "monstrous fetuses"—comprising nothing but clumped hair and teeth—were occasionally discovered, these had to be the remnants of such fetal dreams having been severed after becoming unbearable, either due to some cause halting their progression or their abrupt acceleration.—End—

**Unprecedented and Unparalleled Testament**

――Night of October 19, Taisho 15

――Mad Doctor’s Notes

Hear ye, hear ye!

You in the far reaches—train your telescopes upon my words! You crowding near—press your eyes to microscopes! I am he who bears the name Keishi Masaki—the Mad Doctor of Kyushu Imperial University’s Department of Psychiatry! On this very day—to turn the entrails of all convention-mongers under heaven inside out—I resolved upon sudden suicide, and hereby present through this preamble an unparalleled testament across ages! Let this stroke of my pen decide whether reader or writer be fool or madman... Let every self-styled pillar of common sense moisten their brows and come forth to confront me!

Well, I managed to start writing, but there was no punch to it at all.

……There shouldn’t be.

I sat in my swivel chair before my desk at Kyushu University's Psychiatry Department, in the main building's upper-floor professor's office—a square whiskey bottle within arm's reach, fountain pen held at a slant while glaring down at several quires of Western foolscap paper. The electric clock above my head had just ticked past ten in the evening... Purple smoke swayed gently from the cigar clenched sideways in my mouth... In truth, it was nothing more than the pitiful sight of a hack professor burning the midnight oil on his research. It’s hard to believe that by this time tomorrow, I’ll be pushing up daisies. ……AHAHAHA…….

Yours Truly had always been of such disposition that I couldn't rest easy unless transcending common sense in this manner. Be that as it may, I couldn't help but sympathize with all you conventionalists across the globe who'd deemed Yours Truly a certified madman. So... So there I was, tapping my pen with no clue where to begin... After all, this was my first time—and would certainly be my last—writing something like a will. However, were I to briefly play the ordinary person here and adopt commonsense structure...the first matter requiring clarification would naturally be Yours Truly's motive for suicide.

First and foremost, I can assert that my motive for suicide relates to a certain lovely young girl... *Ahem*. Don't you dare laugh. To begin with—the girl's beauty was such that one might as well scrawl "utterly, utterly, utterly, utterly" across twenty or thirty lines and call it sufficient—it would convey the matter far quicker. Even were you to gather every handkerchief box, cosmetic label, ladies' magazine cover, clothing store mannequin, beer hall placard, and department store poster across the globe... even were you to ransack every Western film studio... you'd never find beauty this ruinously pure, this painfully fragrant, this grotesquely alluring... AHAHAHAHA! I shall stop here. Lest you misunderstand this as some senile fool spurned by a beauty and renouncing the world in despair... Such concerns I must emphatically reject on my part. For in truth, that girl was struck from humanity's registry half a year past...

Now then, some conventionalist might come rushing in, leaping to the conclusion that I’m abandoning this world because that girl died… but wait a moment… don’t be hasty. The girl now registered among the dead shall soon form a pledge of eternal union with a youth as splendidly peerless as her own elegance—a jewel-like beautiful young man of utterly incomparable radiance. Thus would Yours Truly’s earthly business be concluded... But should I say such a thing, some clever dementia patient would surely emerge... And then—at long last—it would be time for a madman’s suicide. No doubt they’ll think I went mad from dreaming up some love scene between a dead beautiful girl and a living beautiful youth… or something along those lines.

……Well, this is quite astonishing. I never knew composing a will could prove this grueling—such an excruciating endeavor. Yet since I’m committing suicide with such fanfare, I must press on with this writing lest my posthumous impact ring hollow; though I scribble begrudgingly, let me confess—through that beauty now entered into death’s register and that youth still bursting with life actually kissing and embracing, the foundational principle of my life’s work in spiritual science… that experiment which should crown my research into what I’ve termed psychological heredity… is fated to achieve glorious, glorious fruition.

How about that? Could there possibly exist another academic experiment as fascinating and exhilarating as this? AHAHAHA... No. There should likely be none... For first and foremost, the discipline of spiritual science forming this experiment's foundation belongs to my own original invention... Moreover, even within that framework, my proprietary psychiatric experiments differ from ordinary medicine in that one cannot conduct research using birds, beasts, or human corpses. The reason for this is that birds and beasts—much like certain psychiatric patients—are unsuitable as research material from the very start due to their raw animalistic nature, while dead humans lack the crucial soul required to serve as experimental material. One must use as material the correct, healthy minds of vigorous, lively humans. Such a splendid mind suddenly goes mad, then gradually recovers... It becomes an immense task to thoroughly study and document these transitional states before and after. Particularly troublesome is how the material I selected for my research theme—if labeled by modern scholarly conventions—would be called something like hereditary homicidal delusions compounded with premature dementia and perverse sexual desires, making it an exceedingly convoluted entity that defies all measure.

The individuals chosen as material for such experiments were by no means gentle souls. For if I let my guard down even slightly, I might have been utterly crushed—which was precisely why I had embarked upon this experiment staking my very life from its inception—yet in the end, having been caught in its backlash, I now found myself driven to the very brink of suicide... No. Since there remained ample time before my suicide, I settled in most thoroughly—twelvefold thoroughly—and leisurely wielded my fountain pen in the company of purple smoke and amber liquid.

Ladies and gentlemen, kindly read through this at your leisure. Calling it a will or whatever—it’s a trifling matter. It’s fundamentally different from Namu Amida-style testaments, Amen-style final declarations, or those regret-steeped last words. Consider it something like an amusing sideshow to the Mad Doctor’s deranged experiment. The lingering smoke reveals the punchline...... For the hidden mechanism behind this spontaneous combustion—how my earth-shattering experiment on the perverse desires binding that peerless youth and incomparable maiden at my research’s nucleus became governed by whatever academic doctrines, strained under whatever pressures, reached incandescent fervor, and now threatens to detonate—utterly pulverizing this experimenter’s entire existence—stands increasingly laid bare as if held in one’s palm......

Let us trace back the story a bit. I must admit I was utterly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of public backlash when my discourse titled "The Brain Is Not the Organ of Thought" was serialized in the academic column of a certain Fukuoka newspaper one October day this past year. I had been vaguely aware that "humans are creatures petrified by vanity and superstition," but even so, I hadn't realized until this very moment that they could be so utterly absurd. They—the conventionalists—tried to stamp out my outrageous claims through every means imaginable: in newspapers, magazines, through elaborate letters, and even more painstakingly through direct meetings with Yours Truly. What proved most appalling was how even within this university that trumpeted academic freedom, those professors putting on refined airs—primly stroking their chins and twisting their mustaches—all rose up in unison: "Expel that unreasonable, arrogant, irreverent madman scholar! If not, drive him into the red brick walls!"—pounding their desks as they pressured the President.

When I heard this, even a warhorse like Yours Truly nearly turned tail and fled. I had believed the university alone to be a sanctuary for academic inquiry—little did I know it concealed a jack-in-the-box. Fortunately, the President—that bureaucratically inclined nonconfrontationalist—artfully sidestepped the issue through diplomatic equivocations, allowing Yours Truly to persist until today; yet when one truly considers it, isn't this entire affair preposterously idiotic? Those who attain positions like Dr. Dōse or university professors are determined to be—at their finest—honor maniacs or research addicts. Without an ounce of shame, they apprehend Yours Truly—now elevated beyond them as both honor maniac and research fanatic supreme—and denounce me as a madman; one cannot help but find this sidesplittingly ludicrous, can one? How excruciatingly comical I found this predicament is known solely to my cherished colleague Dean Wakabayashi.

“In such circumstances, Yours Truly’s psycho-anatomy, psycho-physiology, psycho-pathology, psychological heredity and such would be far too dangerous to publish.” “After all, it’s a theory claiming psychiatric patients possess firmer convictions than ordinary people.” “HAHAHA...”

“That’s quite true. Most people remain unaware that nothing insults humanity as profoundly as science.” “Absolutely—but isn’t it a spectacle how those preening themselves over ‘humans being apes’ descendants’… fly into indignant panic when told ‘You’re all lunatics’? Not only do they ignore how apes evolved into humans and humans into lunatics—they seem to have the entire sequence backward. HAHAHA...”

We had shared such a laugh over these things that... Therefore, Yours Truly even withheld publication of "On the Brain"—which I had procured for revisions and additions. And now, on this very day approximately half a year later, I gathered all those manuscript writings together and burned them up.

What of it. There was no particular reason. It was simply too trivial.

Human culture remains too foolishly immature to accept Yours Truly’s research...... Moreover, having failed to notice such an enormous truth for twenty long years while billowing black smoke through these outlandish studies, my own foolishness has now come to be profoundly understood—at long last. Or perhaps my mental aberration is beginning to subside in this manner... heh heh... ...However... I resolved to preserve only the choicest cut—the prime rib’s crust, so to speak—from those writings within this will, to serve as reference for those mad scholars who will inevitably conceive such research in due time. Among these, the contents of Yours Truly’s "Brain Theory"—as per the newspaper clippings inserted here—had already been thoroughly exposed to the public, so there being no further substance to them, I felt not the slightest regret. Furthermore, since the essence of my research spanning from psycho-anatomy to psycho-pathology was already contained within this graduation thesis titled "Fetal Dreams," which I had submitted to Kyushu University twenty years prior, I outlined it only briefly here. Thus, I wished to provide a concise account regarding the relationship between my crowning achievement—"Liberation Treatment for the Insane"—and "Psychological Heredity."

If one reads this together with the previous newspaper articles and the "Fetal Dreams" thesis, it became crystal clear how the bizarre principles of spiritual science had operated—how that grotesque experiment employing the aforementioned beautiful youth and peerless maiden as material simultaneously heralded unprecedented success and culminated in cataclysmic failure on October 19th of Taisho 15... that is to say, at today's noon hour. Simultaneously, all that common sense and erudition representing modern culture's pinnacle would be reduced to splinters in one stroke, leaving behind only hollow skulls strewn about in heaps... or so the logic went......

...Now then... um... I believe I'll step away momentarily to relight my extinguished cigar... A particular weakness of mine, you see. However destitute I became, I never lacked this fellow and alcohol at my side... But having now tallied how many remain until death's door, I must beg your indulgence. HAHAHA...

“Thank you for your patience... Now then... It seems everyone who saw his ‘Liberation Treatment for the Insane’—the very thing that directly caused Yours Truly’s journey to paradise—regarded it as nothing more than a madman’s strolling ground.” Among them were those who read newspaper articles and went, “Ah, I see...” No sooner would you find some nodding along as if to say “Ah, I see,” than others immediately chimed in with remarks like “Quite so. Keeping things like this must prevent the lunatics from getting agitated,” or “Ah, I—” “It’s a kind of light therapy, isn’t it?” With them just spouting such know-it-all comments, it proved amusing how not a single soul had seen through this experiment’s true nature. No. The secret of this experiment had never been divulged even to the assistants and lab technicians working in this classroom—they merely understood it as something like an exceedingly lofty experiment... when in reality, it was a trifling... yet marvelously fascinating experiment. “Liberation Treatment” That pretentious-sounding appellation was nothing more than a temporary alias to conceal its true nature.

To tell the truth, this "Liberation Treatment" experiment was none other than the practical application of a thesis I once wrote titled "Fetal Dreams" when graduating from Fukuoka Medical College—the predecessor of this university. However, the examples I had listed in "Fetal Dreams" all concerned psychological heredity of the most utterly commonplace variety—shared universally among human individuals through mutual kinship—such as desires to eat, sleep, play, fight, or win. What we were researching here, however, delved far deeper—individual-specific, extreme, and bizarre episodes of psychological heredity. The morbid curiosities and detective fiction fads so popular these days paled in comparison to the mysterious, cutting-edge, grotesque, bizarre, and venomously malicious... What? You’d never seen it? Then allow me to show you. Nothing could be simpler. Allow me to show you right now...

...Step right up, step right up! Behold what you'll find nowhere else in the world—living specimens of karmically bound souls! Daylight phantoms! Noonday monsters! A squelching, oozing scientific spectacle—this is it, this is it! Admission ten sen for adults, half-price for children, free for the blind... Ah! No shoving now! You'll become laughingstocks for the lunatics! Quiet now, quiet... ...Ahem...

What I humbly present here is the "Natural Color, Three-Dimensional, Sound Film" of the Liberation Treatment for the Insane—established by Dr. Masaki, Professor of the Psychiatry Department at Kyushu Imperial University’s Faculty of Medicine—located behind said department’s main building. The projection apparatus being presented was recently manufactured at Kyushu University’s Faculty of Medicine through the collaborative efforts of Ophthalmology’s Dr. Taninishi, Otolaryngology’s Professor Kanetsubo, and Dr. Masaki for use in medical research—truly exquisitely precise beyond compare… Even the sound films currently under research in America cannot rival these talkies… I earnestly hope you will observe how there is not a hair’s breadth of difference between the screen image and reality itself.

First... as befits the opening of our volume, allow me to present Kyushu Imperial University Faculty of Medicine’s panoramic view projected onto the screen for your viewing.

As you could see, both the interior and exterior of Kyushu University’s campus lay entirely buried beneath an unbroken expanse of pine grove greenery. At its western edge, beneath two towering smokestacks, stood a shabby blue-painted Western-style two-story building—the main hall of the Psychiatry Department where resided the world-renowned Mad Doctor, Dr. Masaki. Immediately to its south lay a square plot of land measuring approximately two hundred tsubo—this was the "Liberation Treatment Field for the Insane," which I would now present to you. [...] The aircraft carrying both camera and technician gradually descended, alighting upon the southern windowsill of the Psychiatry Department’s main building—specifically, the edge of the professor’s office on the upper floor. ...looking exactly like a dragonfly or a fly... Now then, let us designate the time as 9:00 AM on October 19th of Taisho 15...

The red brick wall surrounding this Liberation Treatment Field stood one jō and five shaku in height. The square plot enclosed by this consisted entirely of this region’s distinctive pure white, quartz-based sand, rendering it supremely pristine. At the center stood about five paulownia trees, each bearing a cluster of yellow withered leaves. These paulownia trees had stood here since long before, contributing to the main building's garden-like atmosphere, but ever since the surrounding ground was leveled to establish this Liberation Treatment Field, they had manifested such marked decline that one could not deny this bore the aspect of some ominous portent. It might be considered that these paulownia trees had exhibited mental abnormalities due to being confined in such an unexpected location; however, our department had yet to discern a diagnosis regarding that matter. ...My apologies for wasting your time with such trivialities.

The entrance to the treatment field—opened solely near the eastern ward and doubling as a passageway to the restroom—had a small horizontal slit carved beside its wooden door. Through this aperture peered a giant man in black uniform and cap, his visage sinister, who coldly surveilled the grounds from dawn till dusk as one observed here. Witnessing this scene, one perceived the entire square Liberation Treatment Field as akin to an enormous magic box planted amidst green waves.

Upon the white sand spread across the bottom of this magic box—glittering under the deep blue sky’s light—black human figures moved about, standing and sitting. One... two... three... four... five... six... making ten people in total. These were the lunatics governed by the principle of "Psychological Heredity"—derived from what Dr. Masaki had termed his "Brain Theory" and continuing from "Fetal Dreams." ...Moreover, three hours from then... when noon would arrive on October 19th of Taisho 15, and a thunderous report from the noon cannon resounded across the bay from Odaiba, it would serve as the signal for an extraordinary tragedy of Psychological Heredity—utterly unforeseen—to erupt from among these ten lunatics. This catastrophe would shock the world while simultaneously driving Dr. Masaki to resolve upon suicide. Yet even at that moment, phenomena that might be called precursors to this great tragedy were already manifesting within this Liberation Treatment Field. I earnestly entreated you to fix your gaze attentively and observe with utmost precision every movement of these lunatics.

Therefore, to facilitate your meticulous observation, I now present each of these ten lunatics in magnified detail for your viewing.

First and foremost, I presented the white-haired elderly man working assiduously with his upper body bared beside the western brick wall. As you could observe, this elderly man grasped a single hoe with both hands, swinging it as he tilled a long field running parallel to the brick wall—approximately two and a half furrows in length—yet when examining his physique as evident to your eyes, his arms and shins appeared pale and slender, not only lacking the deep neck wrinkles characteristic of aged laborers but altogether leading one to conclude he could not possibly have any experience in such peasant labor. What proved particularly pitiable were his palms; though not clearly visible as he gripped the hoe, one could see black stains dotting and clinging to various parts of the hoe’s handle. Those were indeed traces of blood seeping from the torn parts of his palms. Moreover... when you observed how this elderly man continued swinging his hoe without yielding or bending—working assiduously despite all—you would come to understand in full measure just how cruel and coldly rigorous were these Psychological Heredity experiments born of Dr. Masaki’s discoveries.

Next, I present a young man standing beside him, observing the elderly man's field-tilling. At first glance, his dark cotton kimono fastened with a white cotton obi of old military style and his disheveled, bushy hair might make him appear somewhat older than his years. However, upon closer inspection, you would discern that he was in fact a fresh-faced youth of around twenty years of age. Perhaps from having emerged into sunlight after so long indoors, his skin appeared as pale as a woman's, his faintly flushed cheeks bearing a gentle smile as he intently watched the hands of the white-haired old man swinging his hoe. At first glance at his expression alone, one might think him an ordinary person—but I earnestly entreat you to fix your gaze attentively. The clarity of his eyes and the purity of their light... they appeared as serenely limpid as those of a princess raised in deep seclusion. This constitutes a characteristic exhibited by a certain type of psychiatric patient either before returning to sanity or shortly before an episode manifests—a particular ocular expression that Dr. Masaki constantly contended with in his appraisals of true madness versus feigned madness, renowned for its exceptional difficulty in differentiation.

Next, let us bring the lens closer to a single girl crouching far behind the old man and young man. As you could see, she had a ghostly pale, emaciated face covered in freckles with reddish-brown hair tied back, and was crouching at the edge of the field created by the old man, planting various things with her delicate hands. Paulownia leaves, withered pine branches, bamboo fragments, broken roof tiles...and among them were even some blue grasses—who knew where she had found them. However, given that the field in question consisted of dry, granular white sand ridges, as you observed, she went to great lengths to carefully prop up bamboo sticks and the like that threatened to topple over at the slightest provocation. Some might think it would suffice to simply thrust them deep into the sand without such tedious effort...but with all due respect, that was a layperson’s notion...for this girl firmly believed these tile fragments and bamboo sticks to be ordinary seedlings of flowers or plants, and thus never subjected them to such rough treatment. She carefully covered their bases with sand as if tending precious things...yet when those bamboo sticks she had so painstakingly cared for toppled over two or three times...Oh! As you witnessed, she flew into a rage and tore them off effortlessly like tender seedlings, casting them aside. One could only marvel at how such terrifying strength—surpassing even that of men—emanated from those delicate, slender arms. Yet in truth, all humans—even the gentlest of women—inherently possess such power...However...due to suggestions accumulated over generations—that humans are refined yet feeble compared to other animals, women especially—they remain unable to exert this latent force. It was only when mental abnormalities arose or calamities like earthquakes or fires occurred that these suggestions shattered temporarily, allowing a reversion to innate physical strength—a phenomenon being demonstrated before our very eyes by this girl. I must apologize for my repeated digressive explanations, but as this served as an inverse demonstration of Dr. Masaki’s “Psychological Heredity,” I have humbly appended it here with particular emphasis.

Next came a small man in a torn morning coat with a chestnut-burr head, who was delivering a speech toward the eastern red brick wall—directly opposite where the previous group of old man, youth, and girl resided. "...Bodhidharma faced a wall for nine years and came to be called Kumano of Shaolin." "Therefore we shall face walls for nine years to forge arguments, shatter this haphazardly patched political world, and flatten all inequalities...In the coming era of universal suffrage...That is to say...We shall..."

No sooner had he shouted loudly than he raised his right hand high and waved it from side to side, as if suddenly remembering.

Behind him passed a woman of bizarre appearance. As you could see, she was a truly vulgar middle-aged woman with a contorted face, the mud smeared all over her countenance apparently intended as thick makeup. Her kimono hem hung exposed as she went barefoot, dragging a long tattered maruobi sash behind her. Someone had fashioned for her a crown-shaped object from cardboard painted with red ink, which she balanced atop her disheveled hair. Tilting her head back to keep it from toppling, she glared sharply from side to side while playing the queen—pacing back and forth in a manner that made for quite the spectacle.

Each and every time that woman passed before him, the bearded giant prostrating himself at the base of the paulownia tree—performing countless obeisances—was none other than the principal of a certain elementary school in Nagasaki. When this man—whose family's generations-old Christian faith had reached its zenith—was admitted to this hospital, he had carved holy images into fragments of bricks and roof tiles, forcing his fellow patients to worship them. But now, believing the queen-posing madwoman to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, he shed tears of ecstatic devotion and fervent adoration.

Furthermore, that long-haired girl hopping around the prostrating bearded man was originally a second-year student at a girls' high school—naturally introverted and melancholic in disposition—who developed what was called early-onset dementia while demonstrating exceptional talent in the arts. ...However, upon falling ill, her entire personality underwent a complete transformation. When first admitted here and asked her name by Director Masaki, she reportedly answered, “I am a dance maniac… Anna Pavlova!” Thus she became the hospital’s foremost eccentric—forever singing self-composed songs and dancing about as could be observed.

“When I looked up at the blue, blue sky, White clouds high above, Black-black clouds low-below, Nicely lined up together, Flutter-flutter away they fly, Fura-ra Fura-ra Fuu——rara…… I wanna line up too— Flutter-flutter if I walk ah— I bumped into a red-red wall ah— Fura-ra Fura-ra Fuu—rara…… Fura-ra Fura-ra Fuu—rara……” Meanwhile, two craftsmen-like men around forty years old—shouldering each other intimately—paced back and forth in a direction perpendicular to the middle-aged woman mentioned earlier. The man on the far right conducted Tokyo sightseeing while the one on the left undertook an Antarctic expedition in spirit; their delusions aligned so perfectly that they continued this grand journey together, proving truly troublesome to manage. The plump old woman seated near the entrance appeared to be someone of considerable status, as could be inferred from her kimono’s elegant pattern. Yet she herself seemed oblivious to this distinction, perpetually attired as though dwelling in slums while desperately picking and crushing nonexistent lice between her fingers before discarding them... Then suddenly—oh!—she undid her obi to become completely naked and began beating her garments with loud slaps. Each time this occurred, the orator, two craftsmen, and schoolgirl alike ceased their Psychological Heredity episodes to point, stare, and clutch their stomachs in mirth.

Now then... Among those of you who observed every movement and action of the lunatics we projected thus far, there must certainly be some who found this unexpected—of that I had no doubt.

“What the... This is... "They’re just ordinary lunatics! This isn’t something unique to this liberation therapy ward. You can see scenes like this in any mental hospital’s garden! Given that it’s called a liberation therapy ward for lunatics, I expected hundreds—no, thousands—of madmen swarming across some vast field, performing every imaginable act of derangement. But this... there’s no spectacle here at all! And this ‘Psychological Heredity’ nonsense—what part of this even counts as heredity? I don’t get it one bit!”

Now... I was certain there were those among you harboring disappointment, discouragement, contempt, or derision—but pray, do not judge with such haste. To speak plainly, these ten individuals alone sufficed for Dr. Masaki's Psychological Heredity experiments—for even a cursory cinematic exposition of how merely two or three among them manifested derangements orchestrated by specific heredity principles would illuminate every conceivable cause of mental aberration worldwide... In essence, these psychiatric patients could be regarded either as paramount exemplars of madness culled from Earth's teeming multitudes of lunatics... or as international specimens manifesting expressly to corporeally demonstrate the Psychological Heredity principles underpinning Dr. Masaki's two decades of research.

First and foremost among those I shall humbly present is that white-haired old man who had been tilling the field beside the red brick wall from earlier. This old man's name was Hachimaki Gisaku, but his fifth-generation ancestor—that is to say, this Gisaku's great-great-grandfather—had been a renowned wealthy farmer who resided in Torikai Village of Fukuoka's castle town, bearing the identical given name of Giju. This man called Giju was born left-handed, but being possessed of considerable physical stamina and vigor, he built up a great fortune within his own lifetime using nothing but a single hoe, and was said to be a figure straight from an inspirational biography—having been granted both the surname "Hachimaki" and the privilege of wearing a sword by his lordship Lord Kuroda.

Now, when one inquires as to why he came to receive such an unusual surname, this "Hachimaki" originated as a nickname from the man’s younger days. This epithet derived from his practice of always tying a hand towel into a headband across his brow while working the fields—too precious was his time to spare for wiping sweat—thereby revealing the ferocity of his labors. He would rest but once between dawn and dusk... When the noon drum at Maizuru Castle’s keep tower in Fukuoka resounded with a BOOM—marking the Hour of the Horse—he would immediately cast aside his hoe to eat lunch beneath a nearby embankment, in grassy shade, or under eaves. After approximately half a koku—equivalent to one hour in modern terms—he would take a midday nap before snapping his eyes wide open again, working without respite until sunset rendered his hands invisible in the fading light—a testament to his dauntless spirit... One might surmise this man possessed an obsessive-compulsive disposition. The white horizontal mark from his headband remained etched upon that reddish-black forehead even after his final breath. Even when appearing before his lordship, he maintained this habit, prompting a flustered attendant to exclaim, "Remove that headband at once!"—thereby greatly amusing his lordship, who consequently bestowed upon him this most honorable surname of Hachimaki.

However, as time passed and circumstances changed, when we reach this fifth-generation descendant of Hachimaki Giemon—Old Man Gisaku—both that honorable headband and left-handedness had vanished somewhere, along with (most regrettably) that great family fortune, until he was reduced to working as a craftsman at Hakata's renowned brush workshop. And so, having reached old age in this manner, as his eyes grew clouded and he became unable to handle the fine brush hairs, he was compelled to resign from his position. Tormented by this outcome, he suffered a mental aberration and—just one week prior—met the pitiful fate of being brought to our university.

However, it was most strange. Not long after Dr. Masaki had released this old man into the liberation therapy ward to investigate the motive behind his madness—that is, the content of his Psychological Heredity—he discovered a hoe in a corner of the grounds that a janitor had left behind after killing a snake, whereupon he immediately began imitating his ancestor. Though he wore no headband, as you can see, he did not wipe his sweat even once from the very start. Moreover, his manner of gripping the hoe had shifted to left-handedness—directly opposite to his pre-madness state—and upon hearing the twelve o'clock noon cannon, he flung down the implement, returned to his ward, promptly finished his meal, and plopped down upon his bed; one could only perceive him as the living reincarnation of Giju from five generations prior. However, once he fell asleep—whether due to extreme fatigue—he slept straight through until morning without so much as a ripple, eating neither supper nor anything else. It was likely that in his dreams, he became his great-great-grandfather Giju and built a great fortune.

...This constitutes the first example of Psychological Heredity... Should any questions arise, please do not hesitate to raise your hand. Next, I humbly present the small man in a tattered morning coat who has been delivering a speech toward the red brick wall from earlier. This—comprising those right hand gestures swinging through the air, that posture of supporting an object with his left hand, and furthermore, the language employed in his oration—shall serve as valuable references.

“...This constitutes a great barrier lying across the empire’s path forward." “If superficially-applied ideologies continue to run rampant as they do today, and haphazard political patchworks persist indefinitely, then the unity of our Japanese nation—like an earthen wall lacking straw binding—shall inevitably crumble beneath the tempest of foreign doctrines...”

How does that strike you?

As you have heard from the beginning, in this Chestnut Frock-sensei’s speech, phrases such as "wall" or words related to walls frequently appear. That is to say, this small man’s maternal grandfather served as an official plasterer for the Kuroda domain—I must ask you not to laugh. This is no rakugo tale... For it came to pass that this plasterer grandfather, while working atop Fukuoka Castle’s keep tower one day, tragically slipped and fell to his death—as we humbly inform you. Yet this same grandfather had prided himself on his nimbleness in all matters... Indeed, when replastering the donjon’s roof, his lordship reportedly observed his daring feats through a telescope—such was his renown. Moreover, even during ordinary times, he had maintained a habit of working with extremely simplified scaffolding—which allowed him to complete tasks swiftly—but this led to numerous instances where he nearly lost his life through missteps or getting caught mid-task, only to have been miraculously saved each time, as we humbly inform you.

Now, at what age this occurred I cannot say, but while laboring atop the castle keep’s highest roof—visible through his lordship’s telescope—he inadvertently turned his backside toward his lordship. At this, the clerk who had been watching from below—though he should have kept silent—raised his voice in a booming shout: "Be careful! His lordship observes from the Honmaru!" This unnecessary warning likely caused him to freeze stiff. "...for His lordship observes from the Honmaru zo——u!"—this unnecessary warning likely caused him to freeze stiff. Suddenly, his foot slipped, and as he tumbled down the several-yard-high stone wall, he met his end, shattered into a thousand pieces. Since that incident, the plastering profession in that family has died out—as we humbly inform you—but now, when the grandfather’s bloodline passed through his daughter to this small man in a morning coat, it became a truly terrifying matter. This man had a habit since his middle school days of occasionally starting up in his sleep at night and screaming things like “Help me!” Each time this occurred, his family members would startle and ask while trying to calm him: “What happened?” To which he reportedly replied: “It felt as though I were plummeting headfirst from some high roof or cloud-like place…” How utterly bizarre, don’t you think? What a wondrous example of Psychological Heredity this is—where even what appears to ordinary eyes as trivial, fleeting sleepwalking episodes reproduce the moments of utter terror experienced by ancestors generations past, those instants when they gasped in shock time and again. No—how preposterous! This phenomenon is by no means limited solely to this orator man. Generally speaking, when we consider in light of these examples the fact that people often jolt awake with a start during sleep, feeling as though they are falling from some great height, it hardly seems particularly mysterious. That the memory of those utterly desolate and anguished conceptual moments—when anyone among our parents or grandparents must have once or twice thought “Oh no!” or “I’m going to die!”—has become a form of Psychological Heredity transmitted to us descendants, reproducing itself through us, must surely become impossible to doubt.

Are there any questions…?

In addition, I present that middle-aged woman pacing back and forth with a cardboard crown upon her head. This woman—evident from her disheveled kimono collar—had been a townsman's daughter sold into geishahood, but demonstrating notable skill, she was soon redeemed by a young banker. However, when the banker’s old-fashioned parents forbade her installation as his legal wife under pretext of “social disparity,” she grew bitterly fixated on this rejection. At a banquet, she suddenly snapped at a new client: “You dare… offer a cup to your humble servant? Such insolence!”—then smashed the sake cup against him and stomped his shamisen to splinters… Thus she became owner of this dramatic tale before being brought directly to our ward. Though such distress might seem excessive for a modern geisha in this age of new ideas—given her profession’s inherent fickleness—herein lies Psychological Heredity’s terror: “social disparity” wounded deeper than mere pride, as her post-madness demeanor reveals. Observe how she affects exaggerated refinement—posture, gaze, and gait all mimicking high nobility. Her mental aberration proves her lineage descended from Kyoto’s pot-acquiring court nobles—impoverished aristocrats—hence her uncommon registered surname Kiyokahara. Essentially, while previously adopting townsman airs to blend with her environment, once madness struck, she shed recent generations’ commoner habits to embody ancestral aristocratic bearing in full purity.

“Yes... Do we have a question?” “Please, proceed….”

...Hmm... Ah... Indeed... Most perfectly reasonable... I quite understand now. "So you’re saying this ‘Psychological Heredity’ amounts to nothing more than that? That Dr. Masaki is risking his life over research so trivial?" ...I stand corrected. Anticipating that your question would arise around this time, the film editors had the foresight to arrange for Dr. Masaki himself—the discoverer of Psychological Heredity—to be projected onto the central screen next, while simultaneously having him deliver a lecture addressing your current inquiry. ...should Dr. Masaki—the mad scientist of Kyushu University, more renowned than Einstein and Steinach—appear upon the screen, we earnestly hope you will welcome him with thunderous applause that might split the very air. The reason being, the man himself adored applause to such a degree that eliciting clapping from students during lectures was his greatest pleasure… But… wait… you might say… if he’s inside the screen, wouldn’t our handclaps go unheard?... Aha ha! This is most perfectly reasonable... yet it is most strange that it can be heard. Evidence over theory... If you were to strike it, you would understand... As for where the trick mechanism lies—if you were to examine it with a skeptical eye, you would immediately grasp it, I should think... Ahem, ahem...

...Well... this was none other than the world-renowned Kyushu Imperial University Faculty of Medicine Professor of Psychiatry, Doctor of Medicine, Dr. Keishi Masaki. The backdrop showed Kyushu Imperial University’s Psychiatry Department Main Building lecture hall screen, with the figure clad in a white examination gown faithfully reproducing his usual lecturing appearance as we humbly inform you. As your discerning eyes had noted, he stood precisely five shaku and one sun in height—a swarthy, diminutive man—yet from his round salt-and-pepper head cropped so short it gleamed; the large pince-nez glasses glittering on either side of his high nose; the deeply sunken sharp eyes beneath them; the broad mouth drawn taut in a horizontal line; to the skull-like countenance framed by those spectacles—blocking the table’s forefront, he surveyed you all once before baring his full set of dentures in a laugh—his entire being radiated vitality, his whole body embodied courage, every fiber exuded intellect…

...Now, now... I must ask you not to laugh so. ...What? “A question… Yes—what is it?” “Ah…” Am I—the one explaining—and Dr. Masaki on-screen the same person or someone else…?

“AHAHAHAHA!”

"This was a blunder... I made haste to withdraw and leave the explanation to myself within the screen... No—" I would have Dr. Masaki provide the explanation.

[Explainer Disappearance] [Dr. Masaki on the projection screen vocalized in accordance with his gestures]

...Ahem... *Ahem*...

...I deem it the greatest honor of my life, and indeed my supreme satisfaction, to encounter all you new gentlemen of the world upon this silver screen.

You dwelled within the realm of common sense, yet yearned for the world beyond reason. Now, across every corner of this earth—where steam trains and ships reached their farthest limits, where automobiles and airplanes darted into every crevice—you, wearied to death by modern society’s so-called “common sense” that clung solemnly to frozen social conventions, superstitious reverence for science, slavish imitation of foreign ways, and lifeless moral concepts… your hearts thirsted for expressions of life’s true vitality: dynamic, unrestrained authenticity. Thus when you observed my life’s work—the “Psychological Heredity” experiment—through eyes brimming with insatiable curiosity, you comprehended it instantly. The fact that general psychiatric patients were controlled by what forces and performed what actions was effortlessly acknowledged. Not only did your curiosity refuse to be satisfied with this alone—it compelled you to climb a hundred-foot pole only to take one step further and pose even more probing questions. Someone inquired... “Is Psychological Heredity merely that?”... and... That is to say, your brains stood shoulder to shoulder with my twenty years’ research... No... with a clarity surpassing even the mental velocity of Dr. Masaki the Mad... Ah... Thank you for that. It was too early for applause… On this point, I wished to express my utmost respect and gratitude.

...To tell the truth. If what I call "extreme Psychological Heredity" manifested solely in psychiatric patients in such a manner, there would be little cause for astonishment or concern. Admittedly, even research of the caliber I have thus far explained might constitute a discovery so astonishing it would make the eyes bulge from their sockets for those swarms of tadpole scholars teeming about—but for I, Dr. Madman, who speak thus, it amounts to no more than a novelty as trivial as witnessing a crippled beggar break into a run.

The primary reason I so loudly proclaim and advocate the terrifying reality of Psychological Heredity is that its manifestations are by no means limited to psychiatric patients in this manner. Ordinary people—that is, you all and I—have Psychological Heredity manifesting just as prominently within us as it does in psychiatric patients, and this can be clearly proven. ...What? "A question... No." “Kindly wait a moment.” "I fully grasp the intent of your question... Then wouldn’t we lose all distinction between psychiatric patients and ordinary people?" "You must be thinking... ‘How could such an absurd notion exist?’"

"However, from the standpoint of a pure scientist, we’re confounded by having no possible response except to acknowledge that such preposterous notions 'exist.'" Moreover, this was no mere matter of being on par with psychiatric patients. We—and of course this includes all of you—harbored within our mental lives a Psychological Heredity indistinguishable from that of psychiatric patients—or rather, one even more terrifying—that operated ceaselessly from morning till night without respite… Even during sleep, it manifested in dreams, relentlessly dominating our psyches—and this was precisely what confounded us. This was precisely why we were confounded by the frequent instances in which our own minds refused to obey our will. Thanks to this, newspapers’ and magazines’ social columns became infinitely supplied with material, making it impossible to disregard the issue any longer.

This was something I mentioned briefly to a newspaper reporter long ago—a most elementary example within Psychological Heredity—but the adage “No habits? Seven remain; Have habits? Forty-eight sustain” serves as an ideal illustration of how one’s own emotions cannot be governed freely by oneself, precisely like psychiatric patients. Moreover, regardless of how derisively others might mock it, or how desperately one feels compelled to reform oneself, people remain powerless to cease—for this constitutes nothing less than a manifestation of what we now term Psychological Heredity... Even when resolved against weeping, tears will flow unbidden. Even when recognizing a situation warrants no fury, one finds oneself swept by an irresistible surge that obliterates all sense of context—this too arises from an inherited disposition preventing self-correction of transient mental imbalances, which undeniably manifests as Psychological Heredity and is precisely what confounds us.

Beyond these, when one exhaustively listed all such traits—obsessiveness, fickleness, capriciousness, weather-dependent moods, forgetfulness, nervousness, sundry hobbies, various manias, assorted addictions, womanizing, philandering, perverse psychologies—there was not a single person among a hundred or a thousand who did not exhibit some degree of abnormal psychological tendency. The fact that there existed no one not governed by Psychological Heredity was precisely what made it so dire. This principle would become all the clearer if you read my earlier paper titled *Fetal Dreams*, but in essence, humanity’s so-called spirit or soul was nothing more than a boundless aggregation of various animal psychologies and folk psychologies inherited from our ancestral lineage of animals and humans across generations. They wrapped this surface in what was called a single layer of human skin—prattling “If I do this they’ll laugh” or “If caught I’ll be ruined”—then bound it with tapes labeled ethics, morality, law, and custom; adorned it with assorted ribbons and tags like social graces, decorum, status, and personality; slathered another layer of makeup and grease atop it all; then brandished parasols and canes while declaring, “If you’re a gentleman, then I too am a zhentleman.” “If you are a lady, then I too am a lady.” “If you’re human, then I’m human too!”—those who swaggered down broad daylight avenues with shoulders slicing through wind in precisely this manner were none other than so-called ordinary people…or rather, cultured individuals.

However, this veneer of refinement encasing cultured individuals remained perpetually taut, straining to contain the vulgarly profound and recklessly lawless substance of psychological heredity from leaking out. In their desperation, ordinary people stole moments to catch their breath while maintaining appearances in public and feigning ignorance; yet when they could no longer endure it at all, there came a moment when this facade suddenly tore wide open. In individuals, this manifested as tantrums, digressions, brawls, killings, fraud, theft, adultery and other immoral acts; those whose facades ruptured beyond repair became mentally abnormal individuals, while among masses it transformed into riots, wars, pernicious ideologies, and decadent trends. Such instances of Psychological Heredity’s exposure were displayed in daily newspapers to a sickening degree.

I dare assert... that you ladies and gentlemen and I alike live in psychological states separated by but fifty steps from psychiatric patients—a distinction without difference. The inability to distinguish ordinary people from psychiatric patients precisely mirrors being unable to differentiate between those imprisoned and those walking free in matters of good and evil. Thus has the Earth’s surface persisted through all ages as “the grand liberation asylum for lunatics,” making Kyushu University’s liberation therapy ward but its miniature replica. As proof—do not even these confined patients vigorously manifest Psychological Heredity while insisting “I’m not insane!”, mirroring our own convictions?

“Hahahaha... How about that, ladies and gentlemen? Doesn’t this make you just a bit angry? What? …You don’t get angry… How admirable. I see—you are all splendid common sense merchants. You are gentlemen and ladies worthy of representing modern culture... Eh? What’s that…?”

“That’s not it.” “Since I’m Dr. Madman, you haven’t been taking any of this seriously from the start…? …Uhah.” “This leaves me speechless.” “I’m no match for common sense refined to such perfection.”

Very well.

Very well. If that is how it shall be, then I too am prepared.

From time immemorial, scientific research has made shamelessness, rudeness, and ill manners its very essence. Having thus begged your pardon, I shall now proceed to expose your most blatant shames from close at hand and most assuredly provoke your indignation.

I believed this was something anyone had experienced—when one’s mind grew slightly hazy, various fantasies and hallucinations emerged one after another. Now, these so-called fantasies and hallucinations were none other than phantoms of Psychological Heredity itself. To explain this academically: when the brain’s reflexive interaction functions became fatigued and congested, these unrestrained elements of Psychological Heredity—having lost their connection to reason and common sense—began running amok within the body’s reflexive interaction system, each vying to act out their capricious somnambulisms. Take a woman, for instance—while fussing over laundry behind a shoji screen and pondering her past and future, she unwittingly started entertaining endless what-ifs… *What if I shoplifted that ring from the department store? If I got away with it…* Or… *If my husband died now and left his fortune behind, I could live such a delightful life with that wonderful man…* Or… *What if I tortured that hateful wretch to death like this…* Or… *How refreshing it’d feel to poison my mother-in-law with cat’s bane…* Or… *What if I committed lovers’ suicide with that actor…* Or maybe… *Should I just become a vampire…?* And so on… Meanwhile, a man might gaze out a train window while yawning languidly... imagining what expression that gentleman would make if someone slapped his cheek... or how beautifully the town would look if set ablaze from windward and reduced to a sea of flames. How exhilarating it would be to mow down that entire crowd. If someone were to blast that pottery shop with dynamite... if someone were to smash that police officer's shin... if someone were to scatter that goldfish vendor's wares across the tram tracks... if someone were to take that young lady as their mistress... if someone were to pocket that bank vault... they painted these outrageous scenes right before their very nose. And then, when they suddenly became aware of it, they found themselves blushing in solitude.

All of these are manifestations within our consciousness—in modern guises—of the cruelty, combativeness, bestiality, and perverse psychologies that our ancestral predecessors desperately yearned to act upon yet firmly suppressed. To claim such things do not exist is merely the mark of unreflective blockheads or feeble-minded fools who have forgotten even what little self-awareness they possess. As evidence, one need only observe how even a single instance of such somnambulistic psychology, when excessively intensified, develops into outright mental aberration. Just as one might drool unconsciously while engrossed in a novel’s intense scene—vividly picturing its imagery—so too within the psychiatric patient’s exhausted reflexive interaction functions does such genetic psychology somnambulistically manifest with far greater intensity and gravity than real-world emotions or sensations… And since nearly all other consciousness has been negated, they act out this somnambulistic awareness with deadly earnestness. Therefore, each and every thing they do comes to align precisely with the emotions passed down from their ancestors. Thus, they come to align exactly as they are—perfectly consistent with my doctrine.

Over three thousand years have passed since then. A distance of three thousand ri from here. It was here beneath the Bodhi Tree in Buddhagaya, India, that the Great Sage Shakyamuni Buddha—having clarified the true nature of the three times—past, present, and future—and attained supreme perfect enlightenment—declared what we call Karmic Retribution. The parent’s karma comes back to haunt the child… Isn’t that just the way… AHAHAHAHAHAHA. This is no Sutra of Bleached Bones. No need for votive offerings or tossed coins. This constitutes a lecture on spiritual science—the newest and most cutting-edge discipline within modern science. This explains the terrifying mental existence you all constantly endure in your daily lives.

“However, ladies and gentlemen—it’s still too soon to be shocked! The principles of spiritual science provide facts far more terrifying—truly eye-opening and mind-shattering facts—than this!” By what had been explained thus far, you should already have come to a rough understanding. The changing of human generations was akin to us sleeping and waking. One might expect that after a night’s sleep, yesterday’s matters would be cleanly forgotten—but upon rising, almost unconsciously, the carpenter went to continue building the house he had begun yesterday, and the plasterer likewise went to continue plastering yesterday’s wall. Then they recalled yesterday’s events—“Hmm, I dropped a ten-sen coin here yesterday…” or “Right around this time yesterday, a beauty passed by over there…”—and so at that same hour from yesterday’s timeline, in those very spots, they found themselves glancing about or staring vacantly.

Psychological Heredity followed precisely this principle... Parents were the self of yesterday, children the self of tomorrow. Night became the time when today’s self emerged from yesterday’s self—a dark, unconscious state of gestation. Therefore, regardless of gender, whenever humans encountered suggestive stimuli—scenes, objects, seasons, weather conditions, or what have you—that had once evoked particular moods or mental states in their ancestors, they reverted to those ancient psychological states just as present-day carpenters and plasterers did... Moreover, the psychological traits inherited through generations in this manner were by no means limited to one or two instances, I tell you. Furthermore, these very scenes, objects, weather conditions, and other elements that served as psychological suggestions were thickly packed everywhere around us—ceaselessly stimulating our Psychological Heredity day and night without respite for even an instant, so long as eyes could see and ears could hear. It was terrifying, I tell you. The “Ushitora no Konjin” that governed our entire lives was indeed none other than this principle of Psychological Heredity itself, I tell you. I shall soon present extraordinary evidence... I tell you.

Ahahahaha. You must not mistake this for the Ōmoto sect's Ofudesaki. It is an utterly mundane fact we experience in our daily lives.

Our moods swayed and shifted ceaselessly from dawn till dusk—someone resolved to attend a business meeting only to become abruptly ensnared by festival stalls en route… another rushed out with travel preparations yet sneaked into a library instead… lovers on the verge of matrimony suddenly grew disenchanted… a job secured through relentless efforts got rejected with one postcard. These profound psychological upheavals occurred incessantly because countless varied suggestions perpetually governed our Psychological Heredity—and we remained oblivious to this due to the permutations between these suggestions and Psychological Heredity being too ephemeral, too exquisitely nuanced, too profoundly intricate in their endless transformations.

……Now then…… What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? “If one were to study the relationship between such suggestions and Psychological Heredity more deeply and academically, don’t you think all manner of amusing mischief could be executed?” “Does it not seem possible to induce precisely desired changes in another’s psyche—much like observing physics or chemistry experiments?” To give a proximate example, human criminal psychology was in fact often subjected to unexpectedly significant stimulation through what appeared utterly trivial—or entirely unrelated—suggestions. …For instance: one might stare at a pen tip dipped in red ink and feel inexplicably compelled to stab the eyes of an actress’s photograph beside it… gaze at azure skies or alabaster walls and find cruel impulses abruptly stirred… view mist beyond a window and conceive urges to clean a pistol… hear tempestuous winds and fancy walking with a dagger concealed in one’s robe… behold a keen razor and smirk while comparing it to one’s mirror reflection… encounter a woman’s jesting smile in bed murmuring “You may kill me if you wish” and nurture genuine homicidal intent… or hear parlor sparrows’ chirping kindle illicit passions between hitherto decorous lovers… When observing such shifts in emotional states, their very emergence devoid of logical rationale constituted an irrefutable manifestation of Psychological Heredity. Moreover, needless to say, each instance represented nothing less than the primordial budding of extraordinarily consequential criminal psychology.

Or consider this: when reading old kōdan tales, essays, legends, or records, you’ll find countless accounts like someone viewing a ghostly hanging scroll their ancestors had forbidden them to observe—then beginning to utter strange things—or unsheathing a forbidden ancestral sword they’d been prohibited from drawing—only for their countenance to change drastically… Such stories proliferate precisely because they manifest the terrifying suggestive power of Psychological Heredity through tangible objects anyone can comprehend. In my investigative records alone, examples of this phenomenon lie piled in mountainous heaps.

Now then, if one were able to academically study these terrifying effects of suggestion and vigorously apply them in practice, what manner of consequences might arise? Wouldn't phantom magic surpassing that of Inuyama Dōsetsu, Ishikawa Goemon, Tenjiku Tokubei, and Jiraiya become possible to perform in modern times? Even without reaching such extremes, by skillfully utilizing this type of suggestion, one could drive others to madness upon first encounter. Like a clumsily applied modern scientific murder weapon—making no sound nor spilling blood—even those passing by in bustling daytime streets would not suspect it. Crimes that even the greatest detectives of our time couldn't begin to trace could be committed—no, what if they're already being perpetrated left and right as we speak?

Heh heh heh... No need to stiffen up and readjust your posture like that. Even were I a master of spiritual science, I have yet to discover a method to drive all you ladies and gentlemen simultaneously mad through suggestions from this screen. Though I must admit... were such a feat possible... how intriguing that would prove... Hah hah hah...

No—this is a joke—but such criminal methods have already transcended the realms of fantasy and conjecture to become a present-day issue before our very eyes. If I were to declare that facts always exist prior to research... you might feel compelled to raise an eyebrow in skepticism. However, do not be astonished. Indeed, within the draft manuscript titled *Crimes Utilizing Spiritual Science and Their Evidentiary Traces* by my esteemed friend Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi—Dean of the Medical Department at Kyushu Imperial University—there lies an introduction filled with precisely such grievances. As only that introduction had been sent to me for proofreading, I took the liberty of skimming through it and found it in such a state... It reads...

According to the results of my investigations, we must recognize the fact that this type of crime has indeed been perpetrated since ancient times. For instance: among those transmitting the lineages of En no Gyōja, Abe no Seimei, Kūkai’s esoteric Buddhism, Onmyōdō arts, Shingon mystics, mountain ascetics, prayer masters, substitute ritualists, shrine maidens, and others serving cults deifying “such-and-such teachings” or “such-and-such deities”—there existed individuals who had orally and mentally transmitted a form of spiritual-scientific suggestion method refined through years of experience. They applied this to women, children, or else ignorant and benighted men whose reason and intellect remained underdeveloped, thereby inflicting alterations or injuries upon their mental faculties while arbitrarily reaping benefits—precisely mirroring the ancient practices of “fox manipulation,” “Shingon curse techniques,” or “possession by living or dead spirits.” Acts such as "divine punishments" or other miracles, divine works, and ascetic feats were not absolutely impossible when viewed through the lens of spiritual science; indeed, higher-level practitioners of hypnosis, spiritualism, necromancy, and similar arts maintained extraordinary influence within the underbelly of civilized society. When one observed evidence of these techniques active behind inexplicable crimes too mysterious to apprehend, it became difficult to deny that they all constituted intellectual frauds—

Even in our present-day nation, it remains difficult to assert that victims of such criminal acts do not exist among psychiatric hospital patients, vagrant asylum inmates, or mentally disturbed individuals wandering the streets. However, as rationally investigating these cases and apprehending perpetrators proves nearly impossible at present, concrete examples remain equally difficult to enumerate. For when employing such methods to mentally harm or kill individuals, not only do they leave behind no physical evidence—unlike other criminal means—such as a drop of blood, an instant’s sound, or even a wisp of smoke, but the victims themselves immediately lose all capacity to testify. Simultaneously, restoring their mental faculties requires considerable time—assuming recovery proves possible at all. Even should they recover, whether any recollection of victimization or residual memory of criminal methods persists remains highly questionable. Thus one can hardly feign surprise when investigations encounter extreme difficulties—

When one considers it, modern culture is what might be called a culture of material science. Therefore, it stands to reason that the types of crimes committed in such a society would predominantly apply the principles of material science. Thus in the future—when the various principles of spiritual science have spread as common knowledge—it goes without saying that crimes applying these principles will become rampant, and that the terror of such offenses, worthy of shuddering dread, will surpass those of modern so-called material science-based crimes; this too shall stand as self-evident truth. And in the face of such crimes, how are we forensic scientists to investigate the offenses and study the murder weapons? By what fundamental knowledge should we elucidate the path of the crime and the nature of the methods employed? —and so forth—

“…What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? My revered colleague in forensic medicine, Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi, researches ‘crimes utilizing spiritual science’ that threaten to become a global pandemic—scouring for concrete cases with flea-picking precision to stem this impending tide before it spreads. Though apparent victims swarm across the earth—madmen and suicides teeming in every corner—he persists through all manner of trials and tribulations, thwarted from publishing his true research by the absence of suggestive materials or tangible evidence that might serve as criminal leads. Thus does he maintain perpetual suspicion that even the slightest human gesture—every shift in posture, flicker of gaze, twitch of hands, inflection of speech—might conceal some spiritual-scientific crime.”

……And yet… you see. ……What do you think, ladies and gentlemen…… “Here lies an extraordinary research specimen that has rolled into my possession… Though let it be known that it was none other than Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi who first discovered this thing—he concluded it must be an unprecedented ‘crime utilizing spiritual science’ and has pursued his investigation accordingly. Yet as reference material for my so-called ‘Psychological Heredity,’ its value proves indescribably magnificent.” “Moreover, once lured into meddling with it carelessly—marking one’s doom—even I had to purchase a one-way ticket to the realm of ten trillion lands and flee naked into exile. Such was the terror of this research material… Not only the true nature of the monstrous suggestive materials that drove its madness, but also the grotesque and heartrending circumstances surrounding the onset of its somnambulism—utterly governed by Psychological Heredity—stood laid bare.” “Or rather, I had obtained this preposterous investigative record—so thorough that not a single detail was lacking, down to the minutiae of Psychological Heredity’s inner workings, which felt as disturbingly satisfying as watching one’s own heart slowly dissolve and ooze away.” “Truly… something beyond classification as national treasure or world treasure… A work of extreme scientific rigor and unrelenting romanticism, containing over 120% eroticism, grotesquerie, and nonsense… A scale of grandeur unprecedented in any super-special production before or since, manifesting a story of profound gravity… truly… it defies all description…”

"Aha ha ha ha! My apologies, my profound apologies. 'Enough, enough... cease your applause at once.' Merely lining up adjectives proved insufficient. You see, when alcohol stores deplete, the brain's reflexive interaction functions grow sluggish. I shall briefly excuse myself to have them sound the trumpet of the King of Kings. And while we're at it—let's have them blow a smoke ring from this Havana... Oh dear... This won't do. Wait—am I still standing before this lectern? I shall promptly retire from within the screen and assume the narrator's role while projecting that aforementioned bizarre incident's contents. Then—with one decisive strike—I shall reduce your common sense to smithereens..."

“……What…? You’re saying that even if I step outside the screen, it’s all the same thing…?……” “Gah!” “He’s fallen for it again!” “A sharp mind is such a nuisance, isn’t it? …Truth is, in just a moment, another version of myself will appear on this silver screen to stage a live demonstration—subjecting that supremely grotesque Psychological Heredity incident to ‘Liberation Treatment’ experiments.” “So at that moment, I—being that other me—simply must step out from the projection screen and take up the role of commentator, or else things will get dreadfully awkward.” “This isn’t some Futurist play, you see….”

"...A most extravagant ultra-special production from K.C.MASARKEY Co., titled *Madman's Liberation Treatment*—marking its premiere as a natural color, stereoscopic, talking motion picture—featuring performers who are none other than the real-life individuals embroiled in this affair... Centered around a youth of unparalleled beauty and a maiden of transcendent loveliness, amidst whirling enigmas spiraling into greater mysteries, shudders escalating into cosmic horrors, the blood, flesh, and souls of over twenty men and women churn in a manji-patterned frenzy—untraceable in origin, unknowable in inception—until at last within these 'Liberation Treatment Grounds for the Mad,' they approach a razor-fine climax threatening to unveil an ending so ghastly, so merciless, so too-horrific-to-behold... or perhaps not... We earnestly beseech your most fervid anticipations... [Fade to black]..."

[Subtitle] Suspect in the mysterious double strangulation of his biological mother and fiancée: Takeichirō Wu (born November 20, Meiji 40 [1907]). Filmed on October 19, Taisho 15 [1926], at the Liberation Treatment Ward for the Insane, affiliated with the Psychiatry Department of Kyushu Imperial University——

[Explanation] First, I humbly present the young protagonist of this incident—namely, a frontal close-up of the young man who had been observed watching an elderly man tilling a field among the ten madmen previously shown as a preliminary exercise. As indicated in the subtitle, his name is Takeichirō Wu, being twenty years of age at this time. As you behold, he is a fresh-faced beautiful youth of such allure that even men might feel compelled to gravitate toward him.

Now, before delving into the details of this incident, if I were to explain why we have presented the protagonist’s face in such an enlarged view for your perusal, it is for no other reason than— This is because the youth’s bone structure bears a significant relationship to the Psychological Heredity that governs the very foundation of this incident. As you are aware, what is termed phrenology cannot yet be called a pure science at present; however, certain portions of it have indeed been established to align with reality. For this reason, Dr. Masaki—whenever encountering a new mental patient’s face—would conduct detailed research into their bone structure in this manner, diligently investigating what racial characteristics were intermingled within their blood. To rephrase: Psychological Heredity in all humans manifests not only the individual characteristics of one’s recent ancestors but also concurrently reveals the psychological traits of various races that intermingled from all directions in the distant barbaric past. Thus, even when we speak broadly of “Japan,” within its people’s bone structures and personalities reside the visages and temperaments of Mongol, Indian, Malay, Jewish, Latin, Ainu, Slav, and other ethnicities—inextricably bound by causal relationships that collectively forge each individual’s distinctive features. ...That is to say, human bone structure constitutes a microcosm of ancestral lineage... while an individual’s personality should be considered a congealed amalgamation of their forebears’ mental lives across generations. Taking such points into account, identifying not only the superficial personality traits but also those hidden characteristics—unknown even to the individual themselves—and comparing these with the individual’s state of insanity proves truly indispensable for research purposes... When dog fanciers or horse enthusiasts glance at an animal’s facial features, coat texture, or skeletal frame in a marketplace and pinpoint its lineage, temperament, habits—even latent proclivities—with astral precision, they are merely applying this principle to animals. Dr. Masaki has long held the conviction that future detective methodologies and forensic research must penetrate to this depth of analysis; otherwise, they remain mere falsehoods.

Now, when one anatomically explains this boy’s bone structure based on Dr. Masaki’s diagnostic notes and humbly contrasts it with the characteristics of the horrific incident to be subsequently exposed, the first thing anyone would notice was that this boy’s complexion appeared excessively pale for a Japanese person. As could be observed, while the rosy tinge flushing his cheeks—evidence of his virgin state—might be set aside, the translucent milky-white hue flowing beneath the Japanese-specific healthy complexion evident in his skin undeniably suggested the mingling of fair-skinned racial blood within this boy’s lineage… Moreover… accepting this premise allowed conjecture through ancestral records to be presented later that blood from those termed Hu people—who had crossed the Tianshan Mountain Range into Chinese regions at least thirteen hundred years prior—had entered his ancestry, now resurrected in modern times through manifestations in this boy’s bone structure.

Next, within this youth’s bone structure, that which purely represented the Mongoloid lineage consisted solely of his neat black hairline and the internal shape of his nasal cavity. The boy’s nasal cavities were less curved—when viewed through an instrument one could see straight to their depths… You must not laugh. From a genetic standpoint this constituted an important investigation; had the nasal cavity been of Caucasian lineage it would have been dreadfully twisted and winding—humbly speaking.

Now then… upon conducting a thorough examination of this youth’s bone structure with the aforementioned Mongoloid lineage characteristics excluded, one discovered there a veritable conglomeration of every conceivable foreign racial lineage—humbly speaking. First... while the general facial shape was an oval possessing Latin lineage's fullness, what must emphatically be called Ainu-style were the eyebrows and eyelashes—thick and long as if painted with a brush—and the eye sockets' rims appearing indiscernibly tinged with blue. Furthermore, the external form of the nose was purely Grecian in type, and when one observed the parabolic curve from cheek to jawline and the clearly undulating shape of the small, thin lips, it evoked association with techniques of Aryan lineage preserved in Japan’s ancient Buddhist statues… I humbly request you observe closely. ...for there was a Nordic race-style indentation at the center of his somewhat slender jawline—what is called “if a cheek’s laughter dimple is a ruby, a jaw’s laughter dimple is a diamond,” an aesthetic element rather unnecessary for a man… yet as you could observe, it became all the more discernible when he smiled…

Now, when one examines each individual’s bone structure in this manner and compares it with their personal characteristics, they indeed align remarkably well. Among these, what corresponds most precisely are proclivities, followed by inclinations, and then talents in that order... That is to say, this boy simultaneously possesses Japanese-style docility, Ainu-style reverence, and Latin race-style intellectual acuity. Yet these traits—as one might discern from his entranced manner of blinking—remain not vividly apparent on the surface, being enveloped by a Nordic race-style reclusive elegance and noble bearing. ...In short, this boy should be considered to possess a personality that is rather settled and calm for his age.

However, when such a superficially calm personality was suddenly destroyed and overturned by the suggestion of Psychological Heredity, the unimaginably tenacious, profound—nay, ferociously cruel—blood of continental ethnic lineage that had hitherto lurked and flowed within him leapt forth abruptly to perform bizarre and extraordinary feats. Thus, the truth of the unprecedented mysterious incident we shall now present may be understood as nothing less than the Psychological Heredity of Mongoloid lineage—which had lain concealed within the recesses of this boy’s nasal cavity—erupting all at once.

Furthermore, within this boy’s bone structure, there remained yet another essential element that must not be overlooked. This feature—while embodying an extremely carefree optimism on one hand—reacted with immediate emotional fervor to even slight stimuli or minor environmental changes, erupting into laughter, tears, or anger without restraint... In short, it possessed a slender jaw of pure Latin type symbolizing an exceedingly mercurial temperament akin to French people. Yet this characteristic too appeared scarcely manifest in this boy’s ordinary demeanor. It appeared to be suppressed by the extremely clear intellect previously described and a character that was averse to people and prone to shyness. That being said, given its remarkably pronounced nature, Dr. Masaki had been eagerly awaiting the inevitable emergence of this boy’s jaw-related temperament—whether sentimental or impassioned—during the prolonged Psychological Heredity episodes or their convalescent phases following his admission to the Liberation Treatment Ward.

Having explained the above, I trust you have now largely grasped the bone structure of this youth named Takeichirō Wu. When one considers how the divine creator could combine features from so many racial lineages with such exquisitely elegant purity—so flawlessly that it becomes unsettling—even we, who make our living under the banner of scientific authority and human progress, can only hold our breath, swallow our voices, and bow our heads when confronted with this masterpiece of living art. There is no other recourse.

Next, how the progression of events centered on this boy’s Psychological Heredity—with its utterly bizarre plot—came to be imprinted upon Dr. Masaki’s lens of analysis… Oh, that’s incorrect. I shall now proceed to explain—in accordance with the sequential rotation of film—how the progression of these events was imprinted upon the two eyeball lenses and bilateral lobe microphones attached to what the same doctor dubbed his "skull": a natural color, three-dimensional, talking motion picture camera’s dark chamber. ...[Fade out...]

[Subtitle] Kyushu Imperial University, Forensic Medicine Department, Autopsy Room Bizarre Incident… Filmed on the Night of April 26, Taisho 15 [1926]―― [Explanation] As you can see, the film now appearing on screen remains utterly incomprehensible from corner to corner—where is where, what is what, nothing makes sense. It presented a scene of lacquer-like pitch darkness. Therefore, there was no way to provide an explanation—humbly speaking—but I earnestly requested you observe closely. In the upper-left corner of a screen so pitch-black it might be mistaken for satin, velvet, or crow-patterned nocturnal void, you might discern—barely visible—a faintly bluish, firefly-like cluster of lights drifting in an irregular ring formation. ...That was the stomach contents of a geisha who had recently committed suicide using the widely popular cat-repellent poison, emitting a phosphorescent glow from within a glass dish—humbly speaking.

If you have discerned that, then I trust you astute ladies and gentlemen have now sufficiently inferred this darkness was no ordinary darkness. ...That is to say, this darkness constituted a scene—humbly speaking—of peering through a gap between boards within a space crawled into from the storage room beneath the adjacent staircase, thereby observing the nocturnal state of the Autopsy Room located in a corner of Kyushu Imperial University’s Forensic Medicine Department. This ceiling peephole served as the haunt of janitors gripped by voyeuristic impulses or journalists driven by curiosity who clandestinely observed autopsies—humbly speaking—though it appeared to have existed for quite some time, its inner edge widened into a Y-shape through fingernail and knife scratches. By slightly adjusting one’s viewing angle, one could survey every corner of the room’s lower half as if examining it in one’s palm… Moreover, though somewhat cramped, stretching out atop the storage shelves allowed one to lie down in far greater comfort than riding a third-class train—a truly convenient arrangement… The aforementioned phosphorescent unclean dish in fact rested on a desk in the opposite corner, but appeared at the film’s upper edge due to being photographed directly from above.

It goes without saying that the objects present in this room were not limited to that single dish. Moreover, with both side windows’ shutters and the entrance door securely fastened, rendering the room’s darkness profoundly deep, nothing could be discerned save for the faint phosphorescent glow of that putrid matter. Amidst a deathly silence broken only by a distant hiss—like steam rising from boiling water—Dr. Masaki’s “Natural Color, 3D, Talkie Motion Picture” film flowed on, black as lacquer, slipping by as quietly as time itself… fifty feet… a hundred… two hundred… three hundred………….

Now, what possible necessity could have driven Dr. Masaki to go to such great pains of hauling that dual-eared, dual-lensed natural color, three-dimensional, talking motion picture camera’s dark chamber up into this autopsy room’s ceiling space… Under what purpose did he persist in gazing—no, continuing to film—such a trivial pitch-black scene indefinitely… For a man of his stature as a distinguished university professor to exhaust himself in such rat-like deeds—what a grotesque spectacle… You ladies and gentlemen must surely find this suspicious, but as this explanation will naturally become clear later on, I shall omit it here.

...The time hovered around 10 PM on April 26, Taisho 15... A scene unfolding approximately twenty hours after the eruption of the bizarre incident centered on Takeichirō Wu’s Psychological Heredity... The film continued sliding through the projector, still pitch-black as lacquer. Five hundred feet... eight hundred... one thousand... fifteen hundred... The screen’s stillness and stygian darkness remained unaltered from before, save that the phosphorescence from that putrid matter grew gradually more ghostly pale and distinct. At that precise moment, from deep within the building enclosing this classroom, the muffled sound of a clock striking in the distant janitor’s quarters resonated sepulchrally... One... Two... Three... BONG... BONG... BONG... BONG... BONGBONGBONGBONG………… BOOOO——OOOO——NNNN…….

...The moment the clock finished striking eleven, a heavy thud resounded within the pitch darkness before my eyes—like the sound of a thick wooden crate being slammed shut—and immediately afterward, a brilliant light flooded the room. Something glaringly bright shimmered into existence, undulating across every surface to sear one’s vision. As you can see, this occurred because the switches of four 200-candlepower bulbs hanging near the room’s center had been twisted one after another by a human hand that had apparently been holding its breath within this chamber from the very beginning… Yet upon closer inspection…

...Oh... How dreadfully ominous this indoor scene appears...

First and foremost commanding attention was the dissection table at the room's center—outlined in an oval shape and emitting a ghastly pale light—humbly speaking. This table had originally been fashioned from pristine white marble—humbly speaking—but over decades of use, blood from innumerable corpses processed upon it along with fatty residues and bodily grime had gradually permeated the stone's grain, transforming its surface into this morbid coloration—humbly speaking.

Upon the dissection table—near the black U-shaped wooden pillow cast aside there—positioned to the left of the screen and shining with a glare so intense it seared the eyes stood a tall cylindrical nickel-plated kettle. This may well have been a specially commissioned piece—the cylindrical tower resembled a model of some massive medieval European monastery or prison, from whose countless windows threadlike wisps of steam seeped persistently outward—a spectacle more than sufficient to conjure visions of some unearthly scene. And then another... Though it might have proven somewhat difficult to notice at first, there was an object that would eventually strike one’s eyes as peculiar—a large rectangular box lying flush against the wall beneath the window on the right-hand side. When one observed that it was covered with a white cloth, there could be no doubt this was a coffin containing a corpse... To be sure, a coffin in an autopsy room constituted a combination so inevitable as to be almost too obvious—yet what made this one strike one as peculiarly arresting may well have been the white covering draped over it, which appeared to be of costly silk-like material emitting an elegant glow... This might have been a digression, but it would have been no exaggeration to say such splendid coffins were almost never brought into forensic autopsy rooms—in most cases, one typically found simple pine or similar thin-plank coffins with numbers hastily scrawled in chalk...

The reflections from these three uncanny objects—the dissection table, kettle, and white coffin—were encircled on all sides by a vast procession of shadows cast by test tubes, retorts, beakers, flasks, large bottles, small bottles, blades, and more... Scattered among them were machines and instruments of gold, silver, white, and black in diverse forms and postures... From floor to desk edges to shelves crowded with purple, brown, milky-white, and colorless glass bowls alongside dark-brown ceramic pots. The gray of human flesh contained within, the cobalt of bones, the sepia of blood… All these emitted a radiance—dazzling… cold… stabbing, slashing, gouging—and from the symphony wrought by their aberrant projections arose a silence that seeped into one’s very being…

And… behold… near the center of this spectacle, between the white silk-wrapped coffin and the white marble dissection table, rose abruptly the form of a jet-black mysterious figure—its head, face, and torso entirely swathed in ashen-gray rubber cloth, hands clad in double-layered black gloves of rubber and silk, legs sheathed in massive rubber boots akin to those worn by Arctic fishermen. Yet within this shrouded form, only the eyes—encircled by yellow borders and transformed into transparent celluloid—remained visible, lending it the ominous aura of a demonic entity devouring corpses’ hearts… or the uncanny dread of a black butterfly larva lurking in thickets, magnified tens of thousands of times… To compound this terror, its astonishing height allowed it to effortlessly reach up and twist the switches of bulbs suspended far above… Having said this, you must have inferred by now. This mysterious figure was none other than Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi himself—the world’s first discoverer of his renowned “Method for Distinguishing Parentage via Blood” and, simultaneously, the foremost authority in modern forensic medicine currently drafting an unprecedented masterwork titled *Crimes and Their Traces through Applied Spiritual Science*.

The eminent forensic scientist Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi—who had entered this autopsy room surreptitiously at this late hour, approximately twenty hours after the outbreak of spiritual science's unprecedented criminal incident centered on Takeichirō Wu's Psychological Heredity—now stood poised with these elaborate preparations in place, awaiting the clock's hands to point toward eleven o'clock...the hour when on-duty physicians and janitorial staff had fallen into slumber...a circumstance one could readily infer from the present situation. But ah! When we illuminated the scene thus...what a revelation awaited you, ladies and gentlemen! Have you not noticed yet another strange fact that had emerged here?

The state of this room's interior, as you could see, held not a single thing that was not bizarre for one seeing it for the first time. There was not a single thing that was not eerie... or so it might have seemed to you—humbly speaking—but even so, based on what you had observed thus far, I trusted you had by now sufficiently inferred matters such as "Dr. Wakabayashi must be about to commence some manner of work at the dissection table" or "The corpse serving as material for said work likely lies within that coffin."

However... if that were indeed the case, how could it be that not a single assistant who should have attended Dr. Wakabayashi was present in this room? In autopsies of this nature, it had become an established principle—nay, a customary rule—that one or two individuals would typically be present as witnesses... Yet despite this, as you could plainly observe, Dr. Wakabayashi had not permitted any such persons to enter. Though the reason remained unclear, one could not help but conclude he must have been compelled to undertake some grave and profoundly secretive task entirely alone that night—indeed, when verifying that both doors flanking the dissection table had been left unlocked with keys inserted, there could be no doubt of this necessity. It became clear—nay, you ladies and gentlemen must plainly surmise—that tonight's work contained extraordinary secrets wholly unlike the autopsies or forensic inspections of corpses from ordinary cases...

...Even as one might ponder these things, Dr. Wakabayashi—having gone to the washbasin in the corner of the room and meticulously washed his gloved hands—now slowly bent his body forward, removed the white shroud from the coffin, and opened the thick, unpainted wooden lid (a rarity seldom seen in such chambers). From within, he extracted the lavishly adorned corpse of a young girl. For those esteemed ladies and gentlemen who have remembered the preceding explanations, I believe you have by now largely surmised who this young girl might be.

This girl is none other than the young lady previously introduced—the bride-to-be of Takeichirō Wu, this incident’s protagonist, who stood on the very threshold of conducting their nuptial rites. Her name was Moyoko Wu. She was Moyoko Wu, an unparalleled beauty having reached seventeen years of age that very year. This girl—betrothed to Takeichirō Wu...the ultra-special production of K.C.MASARKEY Co., wherein he starred as the peerless beautiful youth protagonist of *Madmen Liberation Treatment*, that era-transcending, reason-defying Spiritual Science film—now became his counterpart. The leading star actress who should have jointly portrayed Spiritual Science’s every uncanny beauty and terror with him thus made her debut before you ladies and gentlemen in the form of a corpse within this coffin.

A vest in the crescent moon hue popular that year, embroidered with five-needle pines and a spring haze so dazzling it hurt the eyes. Laid within the unpainted wooden coffin was a figure dressed in three layered long-sleeved kimonos of purple habutae silk—their hems still stiff with dressing starch—inverted to display a thousand-crane pattern at the skirts. Over these, a cylindrical obi resembling wholesale tailoring stock had been wound pole-like with thread-brocade woven through gold and silver ground paper... The grotesque beauty of it all—a splendor that lacerated the soul. Not only did the extraordinary nature of this case become apparent, but one could also perceive the sentiments of those who had placed such a corpse into the coffin in this manner—leaving one’s heart inexplicably constricted—humbly speaking.

However, Dr. Wakabayashi—who seemed to have entered a psychological state that could be called the very incarnation of academia—showed not the slightest hint of concern for such matters. With an air of dismissing ceremonial garments as unnecessary, he carelessly grabbed and stripped off the three-layered attire—the vest, obi sash, and long-sleeved kimono—pushing them aside by the coffin. What emerged beneath was a face veiled in plain silk; pristine forearms with prayer-folded wrists bound in white cotton; a crimson yuzen-dyed under-kimono; a scarlet dappled handling sash; blazing red crepe undergarments; white ankles clad in white tabi... These elements—juxtaposed against the autopsy room’s coldly brutal array of instruments embodying cruelty itself—undulated with an indescribable grotesqueness and sensuality as the black-robed arms cradled them, drawing the corpse into the blazing electric light. Among these, what appeared most horrifying yet pitiful was the thick makeup and lipstick remaining in disarray upon the face of the girl—her long, glossy black hair neatly arranged, eyes tightly closed. And then… Oh… behold that.

Around that cosmetically adorned neck clustered vivid blotches - remnants of strangulation... ligature marks layering mottled purples and reds... Dr. Wakabayashi—that black-mysterious figure—quietly laid the body upon the marble dissection table, then mercilessly undid the white cotton bindings around the prayer-folded wrists, unfastened the scarlet dappled sash, and tore open the chest of the under-kimono. With the skill and thoroughness befitting an authority widely acknowledged in his field, he completed a flawlessly meticulous inspection of every inch of the girl's body—its pristine form resembling a crystalline gemstone devoid of blemish. Then, letting out a breath that seemed to carry relief through his shoulders, he crossed his arms loftily and became as motionless as a jet-black iron statue, his gaze fixed unwaveringly upon the girl's corpse.

...What could Dr. Wakabayashi—clad in black robes and facing alone, at this late hour in such a place, the corpse of a beauty rare even in this world—possibly be contemplating? Could he be laboring to reconsider the circumstances of utmost cruelty and strangeness entwined with this girl’s death before her remains, striving to focus his uniquely penetrating and razor-sharp observations? Or might this corpse—displaying a pitiless beauty and profound allure unmatched by any ever discovered in this classroom—have caused even this lifelong bachelor devoted to academia to unwittingly freeze in rapt fascination, overwhelmed by boundless emotion? No, no... To entertain such imaginings would be a disservice to the respect owed to the Doctor’s strictly rigorous and meticulous everyday character; thus, I shall refrain from delving any deeper into the matter.

...And then—suddenly regaining his senses with a start—Dr. Wakabayashi sharply surveyed the room that should have been empty. He thrust his hand into the right pocket of his black robes as if rummaging for something, but soon approached the coffin as though struck by recollection. From beneath the gorgeously piled garments, he extracted a single black trumpet-shaped tube no larger than a child’s toy. This was an old-fashioned stethoscope rarely used by physicians these days—more effective than modern rubber-tube models for detecting minute internal sounds. Dr. Wakabayashi pressed the smaller end against the area beneath the girl’s left breast, then brought the other end beneath his mask to press against his own ear, every auditory nerve focused with surgical intensity.

He listened to the corpse’s heartbeat. Oh... What a bizarre act this was by Dr. Wakabayashi! The hearts of those watching only grew increasingly horrified, to such an extent that...

But behold... Dr. Wakabayashi kept the old-fashioned stethoscope pressed to his ear while retrieving a large silver pocket watch from beneath his autopsy gown with his free hand, staring at it intently... The sound of a heartbeat could indeed be heard. This meant the young girl's body on the dissection table must still have been alive... Now that I recalled, when Dr. Wakabayashi had previously examined the girl's entire body, he'd found no trace of the faint bluish lividity that should necessarily have appeared somewhere as characteristic of a corpse left postmortem... Moreover, given the complete absence of rigor mortis patterns, it became clear this girl hadn't died even while lying in that coffin... No— One could surmise she mustn't have died even before being placed in that coffin. Around her neck remained distinct ligature marks—traces of strangulation......

...What an unfathomable occurrence... Yet Dr. Wakabayashi displayed no particular astonishment. Presently removing the stethoscope from his ear, he thrust both it and his pocketwatch into his vest before nodding deeply two or three times with evident satisfaction, gazing anew at the girl's form. From this demeanor, one could infer that Dr. Wakabayashi had discerned from his initial forensic examination that the girl had entered a state of suspended animation—a phenomenon deemed exceedingly rare in medical circles. Naturally, this conclusion could only follow thorough examinations by local physicians and police doctors who likely attended earlier—yet what crucial evidence had led him to confirm this suspended state? Moreover, under what pretext had this body in suspended animation been sealed within such a coffin and brought to this chamber? Why manipulate this bizarre specimen alone under utmost secrecy—to what end? Though we possess no means of inquiry, considering this concerns Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi—foremost forensic authority of his generation—he must have exhaustively studied every documented case of suspended animation across eras and civilizations. Thus, his decision to keep this truth an absolute secret—known solely to himself—undoubtedly stemmed from some grave necessity he alone recognized as essential for unraveling this unprecedented enigma.

But that is not all. ...That black-mysterious figure—Dr. Wakabayashi in disguise—had, while lurking in the darkness earlier, quietly opened the lid of her coffin and applied some unique stimulative method of his own to rouse this girl from her suspended animation state, all while periodically monitoring her heart sounds with a stethoscope—a fact that can be ascertained beyond doubt. ...For this could be none other than the sound of Dr. Wakabayashi's black-mysterious figure closing the coffin lid just moments earlier—immediately before hearing the eleven o'clock chime and switching on the electric lights—which would mean the stethoscope too must have been left beneath the garments at that very moment. However—and though an extremely trivial matter—the fact that he had left behind such an essential professional tool stood as a truly unexpected occurrence when considered against the same doctor’s ordinarily supremely calm and meticulous disposition, proving beyond doubt that Dr. Wakabayashi tonight existed in a psychological state wholly unlike his normal self. At the very least, could we not amply infer from this single incident alone just how absorbed the same doctor had become—how he had striven and engrossed himself in the darkness to summon this girl back to life in this world?

However, how extraordinarily fearsome Dr. Wakabayashi's skills were would gradually become clear hereafter; what had been revealed thus far was merely the prologue. When Dr. Wakabayashi perceived that the girl on the dissection table was awakening moment by moment from her suspended animation state, he removed both gloves with an air of extreme tension—as you might observe. He thrust his hands into the pockets of Western-style trousers that bulged perfectly round beneath his autopsy gown, withdrawing various items one by one while arranging them upon the nearby wooden desk. A bottle of hair dye and bamboo toothbrush. Three or four new brushes. A small inkpot. A compact containing rouge and lipstick. Skin lotion. Perfumed oil. Cream. Assorted face powders... and so on. All were items utterly incongruous with such a room... Then opening the brown paper package hidden deep within the shelf near the entrance, he extracted only brand-new articles: white cotton and white flannel kimonos with straight sleeves; a cheap Hakata-ori waistband; a Miyako-style undergarment; a white nurse's uniform and cap; a complete set of bands; slippers; another nurse's cap; hairpins—all of which he similarly arrayed upon the nearby wooden desk. These items had all been prepared since daytime, and while one might presume they were intended to dress the girl upon the dissection table, the purpose behind such actions remained unclear.

Next, Dr. Wakabayashi once more took out his stethoscope and meticulously listened to the girl's heart sounds again. Then he fetched a small brown bottle from the medicine shelf across the room and, tilting his face slightly away, dripped—drip... drip...—the colorless transparent liquid within onto a piece of absorbent cotton. He slowly brought it toward the nose of the girl, where traces of powder still lingered, while quietly taking her pulse with his left hand. Needless to say, this was administering an anesthetic... It appeared complications would arise were the girl to awaken too quickly. Yet what exactly he intended by keeping her anesthetized... remained unclear at present. Thus Dr. Wakabayashi's actions only grew more pronounced, appearing increasingly bizarre with each development...

In the midst of these thoughts, Dr. Wakabayashi—having finished administering the anesthetic—adjusted the girl’s still-exposed chest, then briskly approached the medicine shelf ahead, from whose corner he extracted a single Mino-style, Japanese-bound ledger. The cover bore the large-character inscription in regular script: "CORPSE LEDGER... KYUSHU UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF MEDICINE." Upon opening it, each page displayed regimented columns for "Corpse Number," "Date Received," "Claimant Address/Name," and "Date Released," all meticulously filled out. At the top and bottom of every page, Wakabayashi’s verification seal had been stamped in every instance. ...Having flipped through nearly half the ledger to reach its remaining filled pages with a rustle, Dr. Wakabayashi pressed his finger against the penultimate entry—Corpse Number "414," Container Number "7"—then discarded the ledger onto the nearby desk. Reaching up with his elongated arms, he switched off all four two-hundred-candlepower lights overhead.

The room returned to its original state of pitch-black darkness.

Moreover, this film’s darkness—if I may say so—transitioned exactly as it was into the darkness of other rooms. But what manner of darkness truly lay in wait ahead for this film... FADE OUT. ...The pitch-black film continued unspooling before your eyes, ladies and gentlemen...10 feet...15 feet...30 feet...50 feet...At the coagulating core of this darkness hardening before you, a small yellow light bulb—grimy with age—flickered to life. As you can see, there materialized through what might have been a keyhole’s perspective the gloomy interior of some chamber.

...Well, ladies and gentlemen... Have you ever laid eyes upon such a room? The dark concrete staircase visible on the right indicated that this room was a basement, so the dozen or so large white-painted drawers lined up at the front were all containers for corpses. In other words, this room was the corpse refrigeration room under the Kyushu University Medical Faculty Dean's management—maintaining a cold so intense it raised goosebumps even in midsummer's daylight. But now at midnight, the eerie silence grew so profound one might imagine hearing corpses breathe...

The very person responsible who now appeared here—Dr. Wakabayashi, Dean of the Medical Faculty, disguised as a black-mysterious figure—seemed struck by the room's frigid air, enduring agonizing coughs that nearly choked him for some time. When he finally managed to suppress them with great effort, he withdrew a master key from his pocket and removed the sturdy padlock attached to corpse container number "7." Then, with a rumbling sound, he pulled out the wheel-mounted sturdy container onto an available platform, but without even a moment to catch his breath, he deliberately leaned his upper body and lowered the rigid corpse of a girl—whose entire body was wrapped in bandages like a pole—onto the floor with a dragging sound. Upon looking, this rigid corpse indeed had a dark-complexioned, ugly countenance that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the girl in suspended animation from before; however, in aspects such as age, height, build, or hairline, they appeared to share a certain similarity.

Dr. Wakabayashi appeared to have marked this corpse long beforehand; without thorough examination or the slightest hesitation, he snugly restored the container to its original position and fastened the padlock. Then, hoisting the corpse as if it were lumber, he ascended the concrete stairs step by step while switching off the wall-mounted switch with one hand, extinguishing the basement's electric light. [FADE OUT.]

Here again, for some time, the dark scenes continued—humbly speaking—but... I ask that you listen. That cacophony of countless dogs barking—... It was none other than the pack of wild dogs in the experimental animal cages near that pine grove—howling now as they discovered Dr. Wakabayashi’s bizarre figure carrying a corpse along the darkened path behind the corpse refrigeration room and forensic medicine classroom, evading human eyes all the while. The monkeys, driven mad by this disturbance, shrieked with ear-splitting cries... even the placid sheep and chickens had awoken, bleating and squawking at the top of their lungs in frenzied uproar. The clamor of that darkness... terrifying... Yet as such uproars from these animals occurred nearly every night, no one found it suspicious. Who could possibly imagine that the esteemed Dean of the Medical Faculty would sneak off with a corpse under his own management... let alone think to proclaim such an unprecedented bizarre fact? The spring night's darkness enveloped Kyushu Imperial University campus, deepening into profound silence amidst the dreadful screams and shrieks of creatures—humbly speaking.

No sooner had those cries gradually faded into complete silence than the four two-hundred-candlepower electric lights snapped on once more with a sharp crackle, returning the scene to where it had been before—the forensic medicine dissection table.

Looking now, Corpse No. 414 lay stretched out on the concrete floor, while Dr. Wakabayashi—having securely relocked the entrance door as before—stood rigidly before the dissection table, panting heavily as he wiped sweat from beneath his black mask.

On the night of April 27, Taisho 15 (1926), two young women’s bodies were thus laid out side by side within the Kyushu University Forensic Medicine Department’s autopsy room. The girl beautifully returning to life and the girl rigidly frozen in ugliness... And among them, the body of the maiden draped in crimson Yuzen-patterned fabric upon the dissection table had within this brief span remarkably regained its healthy complexion; under lingering anesthesia she began faint, shallow breaths—so pronounced were the rise and fall of her ample bosom that one could discern each movement. That abnormal peacefulness, that sensuality... Perhaps due to their stark contrast with the ugly girl’s face beneath the table, her beauty appeared even more beautiful—so much so that it felt almost eerie, alluringly vivid.

Dr. Wakabayashi took her pulse and began examining the anesthesia's efficacy while fixating on his watch's second hand. As his jet-black figure—head slightly tilted—froze like a stone statue, the room's void filled with an indescribable silence akin to a thousand-foot-deep grave pit. Having discarded the girl's wrist and pocketed his watch, Dr. Wakabayashi gently lifted her body onto a coffin lid in the corner. He then hoisted Corpse No. 414's rigid form onto the dissection table. Positioning a weathered U-shaped wooden headrest beneath its skull, he seized large silver shears and began slicing through the bandages swathing its body—strip after strip falling away... Behold—across that bluish-black skin from back to chest to thighs lay a crisscrossing tapestry of scars: welts from beatings, burns from branding, scrapes from abrasions... These brown-black-violet streaks—jagged lines and serpentine curves—blazed under brilliant white light alongside vivid lividity at the waist, their hues and shapes so reptilian one might fear snakes and toads slithering across that flesh any moment...

As some of you may already have been aware, such types of corpses were frequently brought in as anatomical cadavers for research at universities and specialized colleges nationwide. In particular, those admitted to Kyushu University spanned various categories: individuals abducted and abused in coal mines, textile mills, other factories, or dens of iniquity prevalent in the region; suicides; vagrants afflicted with illness; among others. While it was not uncommon for some to lack claimants, Kyushu University proceeded to dissect each one indiscriminately as research material, cremate them at the university-affiliated crematory, reduce them to bones, and deliver them to bereaved families with a five-yen condolence offering. Furthermore, as those without claimants were buried in the communal cemetery and an annual memorial service was conducted, this corpse too was considered to be one of such cases.

As I describe this, Dr. Wakabayashi—having quickly finished examining the corpse’s entire body—let out another hoarse sigh that resembled a gasp, wiping sweat from beneath his mask all the while. He then approached the washbasin in the corner of the room and gulped water directly from the faucet, choking between swallows. Calming his breathing only to drink again, he spent some time coughing in ragged bursts. For Dr. Wakabayashi, who had long been afflicted by pulmonary disease and whose weakness had compounded with time, such strenuous work must have been excruciatingly painful, taking a severe physical toll.

However, Dr. Wakabayashi's work—emerging from one bizarre act only to plunge into another—had not yet advanced even halfway. Having returned from the washbasin moments later, Dr. Wakabayashi first positioned a bowl at the corpse's feet, thrust the attached faucet hose into it, and began directing a stream of water across the dissection table surface from the cadaver's legs toward its back. He then took hot water in another bowl and—using sponge and soap—scrubbed every inch of the murdered girl's corpse on the table with clinical precision. After patting dry the entire dermal surface with gauze and cotton wool, he parted her sparse russet hair down the middle. In one decisive motion he snatched a gleaming scalpel from those arrayed nearby and plunged it into the corpse's brow... then methodically sliced through the scalp along a single unbroken line reaching to the occiput.

Now, those with even a modicum of knowledge in this field would surely think *"Hm?"* here, I should imagine. Dr. Wakabayashi’s methodology here ignored the standard autopsy procedure—which typically progresses from chest and abdomen to head, then back—by commencing directly with the head... No sooner could one question under what purpose Dr. Wakabayashi—renowned forensic scholar of past and present—had begun wielding his scalpel in such capricious disregard for procedure than the scalp of Corpse No. 414 was deftly flipped inside out. Hair and skin were peeled down past both eyes like stripping off a sock. Next, having sawed through the exposed white shaven head in a headband shape with a bone saw, Dr. Wakabayashi extracted the brain matter that emerged beneath—using scissors with dexterous hands—and placed it upon a glass dish. One might have expected him to attempt his signature meticulous investigation here or perhaps preserve it as a specimen... Yet contrary to expectation, he handled the cerebral matter with the indifference of flipping a steak or omelette, deftly flipping the brain in the dish midair before reinserting it into its original cavity. Capping it with the skull, he flipped the scalp and hair back over, then rapidly manipulated needle and thread to crudely suture everything together.

...This was unexpected. This could only be seen as an act of desecration. As I stared in suspicion—wondering why Dr. Wakabayashi, renowned for his rigorous discipline, would attempt such a perfunctory autopsy tonight of all nights—the corpse was soon... flipped face-down with a heavy thud... Whereupon the scar-riddled back's central muscles flanking the spine were gratingly sliced open using a rounded scalpel. Inserting a two-pronged saw into this opening, Dr. Wakabayashi excised the left and right ribs, split the extracted spine cleanly down the middle lengthwise, and—without proper examination—roughly repositioned it before crudely suturing everything together with a thick needle—stab after stab. That single-breath recklessness—it was indeed identical to before...

After turning the corpse face-up once more and briskly washing the soiled areas, Dr. Wakabayashi attempted to gauge the abdominal skin's thickness... Midway through this effort, a fresh scalpel glinted as he picked it up—stabbed straight into the throat... Incising downward from between the breasts to the epigastric region... Swerving leftward at the navel for half a rotation... Then slicing unbroken to the pubic bone... He first detached the costal cartilage and removed the sternum, deftly working both hands to open from chest wall downward to abdominal wall—yet with a single stroke, both abdominal wall and peritoneum were incised simultaneously, leaving the internal organs entirely unscathed. ...The arrangement of viscera lay starkly ordered before us—a spectacle glistening wet under pale light that one might call eerie or describe as ghastly... The black contamination spread across one lung testified to this girl's labor in coal mines, while the liver's rupture and internal hemorrhage—likely her direct cause of death—proved how violently she had been abused or persecuted. Yet Dr. Wakabayashi, as ever, paid no heed to such matters. He merely rotated and disarrayed each of those internal organs haphazardly, and in the end, after superficially slicing open the stomach, intestines, and bladder—merely going through the motions of every examination—he once again took up a thick needle and hemp thread, stitching upward from the lower abdomen to the throat... yet... the decisively cruel manner in which he wielded the scalpel... the astonishing dexterity with which he employed the needle and thread... and the unbearably acrid tremor of satisfaction manifest in his gestures... so much so that one might suspect this to be the very expression of a deranged mind gratifying some profound desire through such labor...

From the very beginning, ladies and gentlemen who have been observing each of these actions in detail must have clearly realized by now. Now, Dr. Wakabayashi’s demeanor had utterly shed its usual composure and dignified bearing, transforming him into a man of vigorous vitality—one so cruel and intense he seemed almost another person altogether, driven by a peculiar fascination… However, this is by no means a phenomenon that should be considered suspicious. Since ancient times, there have been numerous accounts of individuals hailed as masters of their craft, virtuosos of technique, or geniuses who—upon becoming engrossed in their work—enter psychological states utterly divorced from their usual selves through abnormal excitement born of fatigue and delusions arising from supernatural neural acuity. They develop profound interest in what appears at first glance to be sheer absurdity or calmly commit acts of extreme perversity and grotesquery... How much more unfathomable, then, must be the neural excitation and psychological metamorphosis of a man like Dr. Wakabayashi—possessed of such unique constitution and intellect—who, having just completed the mystically delicate work of reviving a peerless beauty from suspended animation within darkness, now engages in an abnormality surpassing all abnormality: the frenzied mutilation of a horribly abused girl’s corpse, an act unparalleled in past or present? This lies utterly beyond ordinary imagination.

The enigmatic black figure shrouded in such inexplicable psychology—Dr. Wakabayashi—having finished suturing the girl’s thoracoabdominal region up to the pharynx, now took up an exceptionally sharp small scalpel and turned to confront the visage of Corpse No. 414. First thrusting the scalpel into the right eye’s edge, he gouged out both orbs in a circular motion as if performing his characteristic poison reaction test—yet as always, without examining the retinas, immediately crammed them back into their sockets. Next, he split the nasal bridge down the middle with a grating motion until exposing the deep mucous membranes. Then he slashed both corners of the lips toward the ears and wrenched off the lower jaw until revealing the pharynx.

The corpse's face had been deformed beyond human recognition through these procedures, but the black-clad giant who meticulously stitched each part back into its original position without pausing for breath then took up gauze and a sponge soaked liberally in alcohol, meticulously wiping every soiled spot until finally there lay before him a single corpse of such bizarre appearance—its countenance utterly transformed—that none could tell who was who.

After finally catching his breath, the black-clad doctor repeatedly compared the two girls' bodies lying on and beneath the dissection table. Soon removing the double-layered gloves from both hands, he began dissolving solid white powder in his palm from the nearby desk—meticulously avoiding spilling a single drop—before applying makeup to Corpse No. 414's face, both shoulders, both arms, and everything below the waist. ...Now observe those hands. What do you think? Watch how delicately he works his fingers, carefully preventing powder from accumulating in rough suture lines or along hairlines—wouldn't you say these hands appear thoroughly accustomed to handling such cosmetics?

Could this perhaps stem from Dr. Wakabayashi having altered his own appearance countless times? Or might this reveal tendencies that had long festered within him—born of his hidden personality’s insatiable perverse appetites merging with forensic research obsessions—culminating in a macabre fascination akin to ancient “mummy cosmetics” rituals now exposed through this opportunity? Regardless, his technique of concealing those bluish-black and brown fatal abuse scars with polishing powder—smoothing skin wrinkles and bandage marks while layering white makeup—proved truly astonishing, likely learned from methods brothel madams used to hide prostitutes’ diseases... until at last he’d coated the dark-skinned girl’s scarred flesh to match the fair girl’s complexion. He then took up lipstick, rouge, eyebrow ink and powders in turn, replicating even the subtlest hue variations across her body before dyeing every hair with barber-surpassing skill and anointing each treated area with perfumed oil.

……No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than he opened a nearby desk drawer, took out red, blue, purple, and other aniline dyes for microscopic staining onto a plum-blossom-shaped palette, and began dabbing lightly with a new brush to mix them. He then started coloring the strangulation marks around the neck to perfectly match the original in both hue and form—a feat executed with such exquisite precision that raised earthworm-like welts and lizard-like bloodstains soon encircled the neck as one watched.

However, the black-mysterious figure’s black-mysterious work still appeared to be progressing.

The black-mysterious figure then hurriedly put on a fresh pair of double-layered gloves and retrieved a bundle of bandages from beneath the desk. Using those bandages, he swathed the made-up corpse’s face and head in pure white, then proceeded to wrap around and around and around the neck, shoulders, upper arms, chest, abdomen, and both legs in that order until—as you can see—it took on the appearance of either a botched mummy or the naked form of a crude makeshift doll made by a child. Then this time, he stripped off the gaudy undergarments from the beautiful girl lying upon the coffin lid and dressed the white-shorn corpse in them, tightly winding a crimson dotted-pattern sash around its torso—the grotesque absurdity of this figure... And confronting it, gazing down, stood the black-mysterious figure whose sinister supernatural aura now glared more ominously than ever...

However, on the makeshift doll-like corpse, both hands—with their prominent joints, dried and roughened—remained stiffly outstretched. As one watched, wondering how he would conceal this, it became clear—truly, this was the peerless enigmatic figure: the black-clad doctor. With no difficulty at all... he bent both arms at the elbows with a snap-snap, pressed the palms together in a clap, and bound them securely with white cotton cloth. Indeed. While thinking this should be secure, he forcibly crammed the cracked heels of her feet—similarly impossible to conceal—into the beautiful girl’s small tabi socks and fastened the clasps with a series of tight snaps. With a heave-ho, he lifted the stiffened white-shorn corpse—its form unnervingly alluring—and softly lowered it into the coffin. After dressing it upside-down in a three-layered furisode and ceremonial vest, then wrapping an embroidered silk obi around its torso, he proceeded to scour every last corner of the dissection table using copious amounts of sponge, hot water, cold water, soap, and alcohol. He then gently lifted the nude form of the beautiful girl—now beginning to regain consciousness—and snugly fitted the thick coffin lid that had served as her foundation over the makeshift doll-like corpse, before swathing everything completely in a white silk shroud.

Yet the black-mysterious figure’s monstrous work still remained unfinished. Moreover, this time truly—should we call it the genuine monstrous work that reveals the black-mysterious skill among black-mysterious skills? Here, the black-clad giant—having stood rigidly between the coffin and dissection table, heaved a sigh while shuddering his shoulders once more—soon hurriedly discarded his gloves. He then picked up scissors and, parting the girl’s long, luxuriant locks splayed across the dissection table, cleanly snipped off a clump’s worth of hair near the center. He wrapped it in Japanese paper retrieved from the desk drawer, then arranged the parcel alongside printed copies of the corpse examination report and two or three stationery items—all taken from the same drawer—next to the earlier corpse ledger. Pulling the iron round stool closer, he picked up a new brush, dipped it in ink, and reverently inscribed “Hair of the Deceased” and “Ms. Moyoko Wu” upon the paper-wrapped bundle. He then took out his watch and stared intently while seemingly deep in thought, but having resolved to postpone filling out the corpse examination report, he quietly pushed it aside. Spreading open the corpse ledger instead, he meticulously tore out—alongside other rows of entries—the page near its center marked “No. 414...7” and plucked it free.

He then dissolved ink in a separate dish and, while creating various ink tones, proceeded to write over a dozen entries into the corpse ledger—names, dates, numbers—in handwriting perfectly matching the torn page’s text… yet… among these, he entirely omitted all entries related to the current “No. 414...7,” instead entering details for the subsequent “No. 423...4,” stamping each one meticulously with his “Wakabayashi” seal. In other words, all entries pertaining to the disguised corpse of the girl who had just been placed into the coffin were thus completely expunged from this corpse ledger.

……Ladies and gentlemen, you had now—here and at this very moment—come to fully and clearly comprehend what each and every one of Dr. Wakabayashi’s painstakingly bizarre deeds up to this point had signified…… The murdered corpse of an unknown girl—one without family or connections, her whereabouts untraceable—now lay enshrined within the coffin as a substitute for the beauty Moyoko Wu. It could readily be inferred that this was precisely the sort of remains for which no one would come to collect the bones unless notified by our side.

At this university, relatives of those subjected to autopsy were generally notified to collect the remains the following day. However, in truth, immediately after each procedure concluded, workers from the university’s dedicated crematorium in the rear Matsubara area collected the body. Without any witnesses present, they cremated it and handed over only the ash-like bones and preserved hair to those who came to claim them... This system—wholly distinct from ordinary cremation practices and operating solely on institutional trust—ensured there was not a one-in-ten-thousand chance of the substitute corpse being detected. Admittedly, we could not definitively assert that no distraught parents might arrive before cremation demanding to see the deceased’s face one last time. However, even had such an event occurred, showing them that messily stitched visage would have left no blood relative likely to recognize it at a second glance.

However, the sole concern here lay in the possibility of relevant officials or involved physicians returning for a precautionary inspection—but how could they possibly detect this substitute corpse, crafted with such multilayered care and subjected to such ingenious, meticulous work? In any case, given that this was the work of Dr. Wakabayashi—a man renowned throughout the land for both his character and reputation—completed with excessive care bordering on overkill while leveraging his authority as Dean of Kyushu University’s Medical Department, who could possibly detect any flaws? Where could there have been any oversight… By the time Kyushu University’s corpse refrigeration room incident—having merely caused the sole attending physician besides Dr. Wakabayashi to tilt his head in suspicion—was consigned from one darkness to another, the missing girl’s murdered corpse would already have been reduced to mere bones, interred beneath an imposing grave with incense offerings laid before it.

Simultaneously, the girl on the dissection table now regaining her breath—the beauty named Moyoko Wu—would become a living ghost expunged from family registries, drawn into the clutches of that pallid, towering Dr. Wakabayashi as she resumed breathing. Yet what purpose could this serve hereafter? To what end had Dr. Wakabayashi reduced this girl to a living phantom? "I would delight in saying 'Let us save that explanation for later enjoyment...'" but in truth, even Dr. Masaki—who until this moment had been peering down from the ceiling space—had not the slightest inkling... Thus I imagine you ladies and gentlemen must find yourselves similarly benighted... yet...

...But at the same time, ladies and gentlemen, you must now have formed expectations exceeding sufficiency regarding this fact: that the case's substance—which Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi, that peerless possessor of a monstrous intellect even praised in newspapers as a "labyrinth-breaker," challenges through such excruciating efforts and supernatural tricks—or rather, that the criminal mind behind it must constitute something reaching pinnacles of grotesquery and incomprehensibility, something dreadfully extreme... Moreover, considering how soon—how imminently—the astonishing substance of this case that shall not betray your esteemed expectations, along with the concrete particulars of its process, will unfold sequentially before your very eyes...

As you can see, I must inform you that the case had already fallen into the hands of that black-mysterious figure in the dissection room of Kyushu University’s Department of Forensic Medicine—Dr. Wakabayashi. And now, that very doctor was devoting his once-in-a-generation intellect and vigor to preparing for battle against the shadowy figure behind this bizarre incident...

Having thus completed rewriting the corpse ledger, Dr. Wakabayashi casually tossed it onto the desk alongside the blank corpse examination report. Heaving up his utterly exhausted body, he gathered every last piece of gauze, sponges, absorbent cotton, and such scattered about the room, wrapped them together with stationery and cosmetics into a new piece of bleached cloth, and secured it tightly with bandages. It must have been part of his plan to secretly dispose of it somewhere and keep tonight’s work as concealed as possible. The fact that he had not taken samples from each part of Corpse No. 414 must have been due to such considerations.

Having completed these tasks and thoroughly inspected the area once more, Dr. Wakabayashi picked up the new nurse uniform and white cotton kimono placed on the nearby desk and approached the dissection table to dress the still-unconscious girl... yet... Dr. Wakabayashi involuntarily halted. He dropped what he held in his hands and staggered backward as if about to collapse. The overwhelming beauty of the girl's form—no, not merely beauty, but a pure radiance of life wholly unlike her earlier corpse-like state—now struck the observer anew. With each breath, her entire body seemed to blaze with vitality... Her cheeks... Her lips... revived to the color of warm blood, like fragrant petals... or like sweet, trembling jelly. Above all, those alluring breasts swelled in a vivid rose hue like the exposed flesh of a great shell born in a land of mystery, their form under the blazing light faintly suggestive of a mind hovering between dream and waking.

...Cold...ominous—upon the marble slab of Kyushu University Department of Forensic Medicine's Autopsy Room lay an anesthetized peerless beauty never to be found again...voluptuous breaths swelling in her pure chest enough to bring anyone on earth to their knees... As if intoxicated by the fragrance of her breath, Dr. Wakabayashi unsteadily rose to his feet. No sooner had a feeble gasp—as if resonating with the girl’s breathing—begun rippling across his black-clad shoulders than he slowly leaned his upper body forward and, with trembling fingertips devoid of strength, lifted the black shroud from her face up to her forehead.

Oh… the horror of that expression… The elongated face revealed under the incandescent light lay slackened with exhaustion like a corpse’s, drenched in pallid sweat—a stark contrast to the girl upon the dissection table. In his eyes, extreme exhaustion and extreme excitement blazed bloodshot, like those of a fever patient. On his lips was a scarlet hue unseen in ordinary people, parched with sickness. He gazed down from within his black attire, his black hair plastered to his forehead, temples quivering rhythmically...

He remained motionless like this for some time. What was he thinking...? What was he trying to do...? It remained unclear... ...As I watched, suddenly a deep wrinkle formed beneath his right eye as a spasm began—before thought could follow, the convulsive wave rippled outward across his entire face. Unclear whether he wept or laughed... Within his paper-white pallor, crimson eyes alternately began opening and closing. As if rejoicing in something...his scarlet-parched lips gaped open like a wolf's, a pale withered tongue lolling limply within. As if mocking some unseen foe...a countenance unimaginable even in nightmares to those who knew the solemn, gentlemanly Dr. Wakabayashi—no—the demonic visage that manifested only when he stood utterly alone.

Yet amidst this, he slowly raised his face. Pushing back the disheveled hair on his forehead—dried unnoticed—with both hands, he raised his pale eyes to glare fixedly at the four shining light bulbs overhead. His breath once more began to heave, gradually rising higher and higher. A peculiar redness began to spread softly across his cheeks. Narrowing his eyes as if conversing with someone in the air, he intermittently emitted a low, unpleasant sound from the pit of his stomach—

“...Ah... ah... ahaha...” He had been laughing thus when suddenly he clenched his lips tight and gazed down at the beautiful girl’s sleeping face. Raising his violently trembling fingers, he flipped off the overhead light switches one… two… three… before finally snapping the fourth one shut. Yet the room did not return to its former darkness. Through narrow gaps in the closed window’s armor-plated shutters, dawn’s pale hues seeped in, bathing everything within in a bluish translucence as though submerged in oceanic depths.

...He, who was staring vacantly at that light, soon began trembling his fingers and pressed them tightly against his face. Staggering unsteadily backward, he collided with the wall. As he slumped down onto the floor with a dragging motion, he dropped both hands onto the floor as if in a faint, flung out his legs, and let his head hang limply.

At that moment, the girl on the dissection table's lips faintly began to stir. She let out a faint... dream-like voice. "...Beloved brother... Where are you..." [Dissolve to darkness]

[Subtitle] Meeting of Dr. Masaki and Dr. Wakabayashi.

[Subtitle] Next to be projected was the dozing figure of Dr. Masaki within the professor's office on the upper floor of Kyushu Imperial University's Department of Psychiatry main building. The date was May 2, Taisho 15 (1926)... precisely one week after Dr. Wakabayashi's corpse substitution scene—as shown in the previous film—had been captured on Dr. Masaki's natural color sound-on-film camera, during a fine-weather afternoon. Through three sides of windows in the professor's office, pine greenery rippled under intense sunlight while already carrying the oppressive drone of pine cicadas. Yet across each south-facing window stretched a May-clear sky colored like white lead paintings, beneath which a bright wind carried wave after wave of construction noise from the ongoing Liberation Treatment site.

Dr. Masaki sat dozing in an enormous swivel armchair positioned between the grand desk and large fireplace, an extinguished cigar pinched between the fingers of his right hand in a white lab coat while clutching that day's newspaper in his left, nose glasses perched as his head bobbed intermittently in sleep. *Rat-a-tat!* Here materialized the spitting image of a quack doctor straight from foreign caricatures... We now focus particularly on the newspaper's verso where the headline "Bride Killer Enters Labyrinth" blazed across three columns in boldest primer type. Presently, as the electric clock above the fireplace clicked its hands to 3:03, a fortyish janitor wearing institutional livery entered with neatly parted hair, reverently presenting a single name card before Dr. Masaki.

Awakened by the sound of the closing door, Dr. Masaki received the name card and, upon giving it a brief glance, hollowed his eyes in manifest displeasure.

“Naaah. “No matter how many times I tell you, you never get it, you blockhead. “You’re taking this polite idiot routine too far. “From now on, don’t bother bringing these every time. Just tell them to come right in without announcing themselves.” As he said this, he flung the name card onto the large desk. Quite the pompous fellow... He simply closed his eyes and drifted back into slumber.

Just then, Dr. Wakabayashi—clad in a long frock coat and cradling a single blue merino cloth bundle with great care—soundlessly glided into the room and settled into the small swivel chair facing Dr. Masaki. The sight of the diminutive Dr. Masaki perched starkly within an oversized chair, contrasted against the hulking Dr. Wakabayashi reverently hunched within a petite swivel seat, presented supremely choice material for caricature. And then, Dr. Wakabayashi was seized by his usual hacking cough, clutching a white handkerchief to his mouth as he began convulsing with hoarse, racking coughs.

Dr. Masaki appeared to have finally awakened by the commotion, thrusting his newspaper and cigar into the air as he unleashed a monstrous yawn—one so vast it seemed ready to swallow not only Dr. Wakabayashi before his eyes, but the entire room, Kyushu University itself, and ultimately even his own being.

Thus was the first meeting between the two doctors following the incident’s outbreak commenced by this monstrous yawn. Yet though their ensuing conversation appeared—on its surface—utterly devoid of discord, should you discern how its undercurrents seethed with scathing mutual sarcasm, sparks flew as each strove to intimidate the other with utmost severity… I trust this will suffice for you to infer the vastness and profundity of the dark currents lying concealed within this event’s depths…

"Aah... Aah..." "No." "You've finally come. Ha ha ha ha ha! I had thought it was about time you'd appear." "Ah... Then you are already aware of the incident's details..." "You must know already... This one here... 'Bride Killer Enters Labyrinth'... Though naturally the article's riddled with fabrications..." "That is correct... But how did you come to know that I have been involved in this incident..."

“Well... The other day when I called you about some trivial matter, they said you’d canceled your afternoon lecture and dashed off somewhere by car, so I figured something must’ve started... Then that evening’s paper came out with... what was it... ‘Bride Strangled on Wedding Eve’ or some such drivel—a four-line headline in bold type—so I deduced you’d gotten ensnared in this case... That’s the long and short of it.” “I see. But how did you know I would be coming here today...”

“Hmm... Whether today or some other time, I knew you’d show up without fail.” “You see... this case... look here... I’d had it pegged from the very beginning as that psychological heredity business we’ve discussed.” “Truth is, I’ve been waiting for you to dig it all up and bring it to me. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

"I must beg your pardon. As you have surmised... The truth is, I have been involved with this case for two years now..." "Huh? From more than two years ago..." "That is correct..."

"...Hmm..." "So there was another incident like this two years ago?" "Yes, this too was an incident in which the same youth strangled his own mother…"

“Hmm. The same guy... using the same method... and his own mother... Hmm...” “In truth, at that time I took the initiative to involve myself in the incident... The culprit in this case is someone else. I maintained that this youth was not the killer... but despite all efforts, the true perpetrator could not be found thereafter.” “Even with your penetrating insight?” “...I must confess my inadequacy—this being the first time in my life I have encountered such a perplexing case... How best to explain it... While the criminal traces remain unmistakably clear, one might say there exists no evidence whatsoever of the perpetrator’s presence...”

"...Hmm..." "Interesting..." "...Therefore, even after the youth was acquitted in the previous maternal strangulation case, I remained profoundly unsettled. Having resolved to identify the true culprit, I established contact with Yaeko Yashiro—the victim's biological sister who served as the youth's aunt—as well as police authorities. I arranged to be notified immediately should any changes occur in the youth's daily conduct or personal affairs, maintaining constant surveillance. Yet through these efforts spanning two years to this very day, that same youth has now strangled Moyoko Wu—both Yaeko Yashiro's daughter and his own betrothed—on the eve of their nuptials. Consequently, it has become incontrovertible that both this crime and the maternal homicide two years prior were committed by this youth during identical psychiatric episodes..." "As a result, my assertion from two years past... that another party murdered this youth's mother... now lies utterly discredited..."

“AHAHAHA! Exhilarating, utterly exhilarating—.” “Now that’s more like it!” “This seems like the perfect case to test your mettle.” “Oh, not at all... This is no mere test of skill...” “In truth, I too have long believed this case—under your esteemed guidance—to be prime research material for psycho-spiritual crimes, and thus investigated every facet of it from three or four different angles, compiling thorough documentation... What lies within this cloth bundle is precisely that...”

“...Ghastly! A monstrously huge bundle... To compile this mountain of documents when the incident only began a week ago...” “Ah no—this contains documentation from both the current case and the incident two years prior... Moreover, to prevent complications should my condition suddenly decline, I’ve been documenting every scrap of evidence without sleep or rest... Consequently, my chronic asthma has severely worsened, leaving me certain that my already limited remaining days grow ever more uncertain.”

"Hmm... Come to think of it, you've grown remarkably gaunt of late." "You need to take care." "If a mummifier becomes a spiritual science ghost through his own preservation methods, there'd be no way to handle it like stuffing a duck." "AHAHAHA! Well done indeed... Now then—what's that square box sticking up stiffly atop that bundle over there...?" "Yes." "This is the picture scroll used for suggestion in the psychological heredity case. The box was made by a joiner I commissioned." "It is believed that Takeichirō Wu developed mental abnormalities after someone showed him this scroll—a conclusion I maintain—but as I said earlier, my assessment diverges entirely from the authorities'. They recognize his mental state either as spontaneous illness or feigned insanity, so even when I present this scroll as evidence, they dismiss it outright with derision." "However, from another perspective... thanks to that dismissal, such precious reference material has conveniently come into my possession..."

“AHAHAHA! Well, that’s convenient! If you—with that disheveled appearance of yours—were to present such a scroll before those police and court officials, declaring, ‘Behold! This is none other than the esteemed Dr. Masaki’s unprecedented new theory of psychological heredity—a suggestion material for his unique research!’... they would have been utterly flabbergasted. You weren’t mistaken for a carnival barker after all, AHAHAHAHAHA!” “Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, actually… I merely presented it formally to avoid any suspicion of concealment, I must say, but the truth is, I was simply dying to claim it for myself…”

"Indeed... You truly are a man who leaves no stone unturned..." "Oh, not at all..."

“...Now then—today’s business is that you’ve come to foist these documents and the case onto me, eh?” “Yes. “Yes, that is indeed one matter, but there is another… At present, I must humbly request your psychiatric evaluation of the youth Takeichirō Wu, who stands accused of the bride murder and is currently detained at Fukuoka Dotecho Detention Center…”

“Hmm. That boy? His mental state’s plain enough from the newspaper reports—typical post-episodic amnesia. Let me guess: someone showed him that cursed scroll, triggered a psychotic break, and he went sleepwalking through the bride’s murder. Then when they tried restraining his somnambulist rampage, he thrashed like a beast. The neural exhaustion from that frenzy hammered every memory—even pre-episode recollections—into useless slag. ‘Retrograde amnesia’ they call it—any half-literate could diagnose that from the headlines. Common as dirt these cases—no need dragging me out when you’ve got the whole story yourself.”

“Yes. However, in this recent incident... my credibility has been completely overturned, and as my evaluation alone no longer holds any weight, the court authorities appear to be at a loss... They’re now suggesting that Takeichirō Wu might be a murderous maniac... or so they claim...”

“Hmm. Outrageous!” “For judicial officers to wallow in such ignorance—this surpasses mere incompetence!” “First—this preposterous notion of a ‘murderous maniac’ psychiatric category existing at all—are they taking us for fools?” “To brand any killer a ‘maniac’—that’s a fouler error than conflating manslaughter with premeditated murder!”

“That may be so...” “Exactly… You must have realized long ago how critically significant a patient’s words and actions—both preceding and following symptom onset—are as reference materials for psychiatric evaluations, just as crucial as a suspect’s behavior before and after a crime in criminal investigations. Yet none of today’s scholars comprehend this—a most vexing predicament.” “Mentally ill people, no matter how insane they may be, never act in a completely irrational or violent manner.” “Based on the stimuli that triggered their illness’s onset, the content of their psychological heredity, and the depth of their abnormal mental state, they follow a clear logical progression through various digressions—with absolutely no deception involved in the process—making them far more rational and orderly than the traces left by ordinary crimes.” “When it comes to killing someone, the circumstances surrounding the violent act must be regarded as even more critical evidence than in ordinary crimes.”

“Most astute... This is the first I’ve heard such reasoning.” “Because they don’t grasp this logic, whenever someone kills a person, they immediately slap on a label like ‘murderous maniac’. Kill two people, and it becomes all the more certain. Now, considering the outcome of murder alone, one might call them a maniac—but what if this so-called maniac had smashed open a human’s skull instead of breaking a red-alcohol thermometer? HAHAHAHA! Any scholar who’d still call that a ‘murderous maniac’ deserves an audience with me... From a psychiatric patient’s perspective, all existence beyond themselves—be it human, animal, scenery, or any natural phenomenon—might appear as mere shadow puppets or moving pictures. For instance, should they desire red paint, such patients would consider smashing someone’s head or shattering a thermometer equally valid methods. Once you understand their true aim was obtaining red liquid to paint crimson blossoms, you could never brand them ‘murderous maniacs’. Through my eyes, this youth’s violence serves another purpose entirely. In short—it hinges on the psychological heredity governing him.”

“Most astute… In truth, I too suspected it might be as you say. Since this matter lies entirely outside my domain—being rather within your esteemed purview—I have brought all relevant documents for your reference. However… there remains one final point of uncertainty regarding this case that naturally falls under my responsibility. It is specifically for your assistance with this matter that I have come to call upon you today…”

“Hmm. Somehow this conversation has grown dreadfully tense. What’s this ‘final point’ you mentioned…?” “Yes… It concerns the individual who used this picture scroll to implant suggestions in Takeichirō Wu…” “Ah… I see now. If such a person exists, they’d be an extraordinarily novel type of criminal. That would indeed fall under your jurisdiction. As for tracking down that individual…” “Precisely… However, as this single point remains entirely obscure at present, the entire case has become thoroughly enveloped in thick clouds of mystery from every angle…”

“Of course it would be. Cases governed by psychological heredity have always followed the age-old custom of remaining shrouded in clouds of mystery until fading away unsolved—that’s simply how it’s been since antiquity. Even just those reported in newspapers—who knows how many there are.” “However… When I consider this matter, there appears to be potential to pierce these clouds of mystery in this particular case… And when I say this, I do not speak without grounds.” “As for that final point of uncertainty—it must lie buried deep within that youth’s memories…”

“Ah—! Got it, got it. “Crystal clear now... So if we restore the boy’s mental state, he’ll remember who showed him that picture scroll... Which means you want me to conduct a psychiatric evaluation to dig out those memories—am I right?” “Precisely... My deepest apologies, but this matter lies entirely beyond my humble capabilities...” “Nonsense. “Understood. “Thoroughly understood. “Now that’s what I expect from a forensic scientist of your caliber! “You’ve zeroed in on the crux of it... haven’t you? “BWAHAHA! “No—consider it done. “Done and dusted.”

“Well… truly…” “Right, right. Got it, got it. Everything’s clear. First off—completely put this case out of your mind and peacefully get some vitamins... Wait, speaking of vitamins—how about we go eat eel at Yoshizuka right now? “It’s been ages since my last drink… Though mind you—I’ll be the only one drinking… Ah well. As thanks for your work on this case…” “Most kind… However—when might we ask you to conduct that youth’s psychiatric evaluation? “I shall notify the court beforehand, but…”

“Yeah. That guy’ll do just fine.” “It’s no trouble at all.” “With just one look at that youth’s face—this is neither murderous insanity nor feigned madness.” “However, since hospitalization remains necessary for detailed examination, the arrangements to bring him to this psychiatry department have already been properly settled from this moment—making it all rather trivial.” “While Dr. Wakabayashi’s reputation plummets, I wonder if Masaki’s fame soars ever higher… HAHAHAHA!” “My deepest apologies… Then, what should be done with these documents?”

"...Ah... I'll take custody of that." "Well now, what should I do... Hmm." "I've got an idea." "Hand it over here... Toss it into this stove and shut the lid like so." "No need to light fires until winter comes." "Not even Lord Buddha would notice... that's what he says..." "Hah... What sort of voice imitation was that?" "It's no imitation." "That's a passage from the Noh play *Kanjinchō*." "For a forensic scientist, you're remarkably ignorant." "Ah..." — [Fade to black] —

Oh dear, oh dear… Naaah… Clunk… Natural Color Embossed Sound Motion Pictures had finally become nothing but dialogue. This was just like a poorly made radio or phonograph. Being a silent film narrator wasn't nearly as easy as it looked, you know. Just having to append "gozaimasu" to every single phrase was an enormous hassle. When I grew weary of the hassle and tried omitting "gozaimasu," this was what happened… Thanks to that, I’d grown somewhat weary, so this time I decided to present a film without a single "gozaimasu"—one requiring no explanation. "No... Far from being 'no explanation needed.'" "A film requiring no screen, no projector, no film... In short, you might call it 'a film needing absolutely nothing at all'—something those outdated German-made silent films could never hope to match. Now, what exactly was this contraption? The secret was simplicity itself. Specifically: those pages of so-called excerpts that Dr. Wakabayashi had just handed me—the ones I’d thrown into the empty stove—which I later retrieved to read, extracted key points from, and added my personal annotations to... By presenting these pages one by one in sequence as a 'film,' it might seem like an enormous hassle, but in truth it was nothing of the sort." All it required was the minor effort of inserting the original excerpts into this very section of the will… Ahem… You need only read them to comprehend everything—a trick film of my recent invention. I believed this style of film would soon become wildly popular, so if you wished, I could even transfer the patent rights. "If there are any among you who agree… Right now… please wait just a moment."

The truth is, these excerpted records were something I had intended to include within my "Psychological Heredity Theory." However, while I had completely burned all drafts of that thesis beforehand, I specifically preserved this particular portion. Ladies and gentlemen, through my explanations thus far, you have now splendidly become renowned detectives who also double as spiritual scientists. Therefore, should you proceed to read this record with those abilities, I believe there will be no difficulty whatsoever in thoroughly penetrating the truth of this case to the point of leaving me utterly confounded.

...By what eruption of Psychological Heredity did this incident arise? Is there someone who deliberately detonated this Psychological Heredity, or not? And if such a person exists, where might they reside? Then—what manner of clues do Wakabayashi's and my own attitudes toward this case cast upon its resolution... so to speak. But you'll need to cinch your fundoshi mighty tight... After issuing such dire warnings, my scheme involves leisurely sipping Scotch and savoring a Havana in the interim... Hah...

◆Appendix to the Psychological Heredity Theory◆…………Various Case Examples

Case One: The Full Account of Takeichirō Wu’s Episodes

—Based on Mr. W’s Notes—

First Episode

◆First Reference: Takeichirō Wu’s Testimony

▼ Date/Time of Interview: April 2, Taisho 13 (1924), around 12:30 PM. After the seventh-day Buddhist memorial service for the victim Chiyoko (36 years old)—mother of the aforementioned individual and proprietor of the women's academy noted below—

▼ Location of Interview: 20-2 Hiyoshi-cho, Nogata Town, Kurate District, Fukuoka Prefecture—in the eight-tatami mat room on the second floor of Tsukushi Women's Academy, serving as Takeichirō Wu’s study and bedroom—

▼ Attendees: Takeichirō Wu (18 years old) — biological son of victim Chiyoko; aunt Yaeko Yashiro (37 years old) — resident of 1586 Meinohama Town, Sawara District, Fukuoka Prefecture, occupation: agriculture; myself (Mr. W) — the above three individuals――

Thank you very much. Until the Doctor asked me at that time, "What kind of dream were you having?", I couldn't recall that dream no matter what. Thanks to you, Dr. W, I managed to avoid becoming a parent-killer.

“If all of you could understand that I am not the one who killed my mother, I would be more than satisfied.” “I have nothing to say.” “But if it can serve as a reference in your search for the culprit, please ask me anything.” “Since my mother passed away without ever speaking of the distant past, I only know things from after I grew up, but I don’t believe there’s anything improper to discuss.”

—I was born at the end of Meiji 40 (1907) in Komazawa Village near Tokyo, or so I’ve been told. I know nothing about my father. (Note: There is reason to suspect that Takeichirō Wu’s stated birthplace may differ from factual records. However, as this presents no particular hindrance to our research, we have refrained from making corrections here.) —I’ve been told that my mother lived in Nishi-no-hama with this aunt since birth, but at seventeen, she left her aunt’s home saying she wanted to study painting and embroidery. After that, while searching for my father in Tokyo and looking everywhere, I was born. “Men—the greater they are, the more lies they tell.” Mother used to say that often, but I suppose she spoke those words out of resentment toward Father (blushing). However, whenever I asked about Father, Mother would immediately look like she was about to cry, so after I grew older, I stopped asking much.

But even I could clearly see that Mother was working tirelessly, likely searching for Father’s whereabouts. I believe it was when I was four or five—Mother and I boarded a steam train from some large station in Tokyo and rode what felt like ages. Then we switched to a carriage, traveling endlessly through rice fields and along broad mountain roads. When I awoke after falling asleep once, I remember still being in that carriage. Then in the evening, after darkness had fully fallen, we arrived at an inn in some town. After that, Mother would carry me on her back as she visited house after house day upon day. But whichever way we turned, there were only mountains, so each day I would weep to go home and be scolded for it. Later, after taking carriage and train back to Tokyo, I recall being given a trumpet that made the same sound as what the carriage driver had been blowing in the mountains.

"Then much later, when I realized this must have been when Mother went searching for Father's hometown, I asked, 'Which station was it where we boarded the train that time?' But Mother began shedding tears again and said, 'Asking about that won't do any good.' She'd already been there three times by then but had completely given up, so she told me I should too. 'If I'm still alive and well by the time you graduate university,' she said, 'I'll tell you everything about your father.' So I never asked again. The shapes of the mountains and details of the town we'd seen had grown hazy in my mind, leaving only the sound of that rickety carriage's trumpet in my ears. Still, afterward I bought various maps and tried calculating how long our train and carriage rides had lasted. Through this investigation, I became convinced it must have been somewhere in the mountains of Chiba or Tochigi Prefecture. Yes. Near the railway tracks, I don't recall seeing the sea. But since I might have only been looking at the opposite side of the train window, I can't say for certain."

"As for where we lived in Tokyo... We seemed to move from place to place. From what I recall, we relocated through Komazawa, Kanesugi, Koume, and Sannougi in that order, finally coming here from Azabu Kōgaichō where we last stayed. We always rented odd spaces - second floors, storehouse interiors, detached rooms like guesthouses - where Mother would make various embroidered crafts. When she finished several pieces, she'd carry me on her back to a house called Omiya in Nihonbashi Denmacho. The beautifully made-up lady there would invariably give me sweets. I still remember that house and the lady's face clearly."

"What kinds of embroidered crafts was my mother making at that time? Well, I don't remember clearly, but I think there were various things such as sacred curtains, detachable collars, wrapping cloths, kimono hem patterns, and haori coat crests. As for how she sewed them... or how much they sold for, I was still too young at the time to understand any of that... But there is one thing I still remember clearly—the small wrapping cloth pattern that Mother gave to the lady at Omiya when we came from Tokyo to Nogata. It was an exquisitely beautiful piece embroidered all over extremely thin, nearly translucent silk with chrysanthemum flowers of various colors and shapes. Though she could only complete about the size of a fingertip each day, when I took the finished work from my hands to give to the lady at Omiya, she was so astonished that she called out loudly to everyone in the house, and they all gathered round wide-eyed, marveling at it. When I later heard about it, they said it was genuine 'nuitsubushi' embroidery—an ancient technique that no one today knows how to create. Then, it seems the lady’s husband tried to give Mother some money, but she bowed and returned it, accepting only the sweets before we left. Because Mother and the lady stood crying at the entrance for what felt like forever, I was at a loss."

The reason we came from Tokyo to Nogata was that Mother had performed divination, or so I’d been told. “The Master of Tanuki-ana’s predictions often come true,” she used to say, so it must have been that Master who advised her. “You and your child will remain forever unlucky if you stay in Tokyo. You must surely be cursed by something—to rid yourself of this misfortune, you should return to your hometown. This year’s departure should be westward—it’s written here on the front of Tōrieya. You are under the Three Green Wood Star, sharing the same celestial cycle as Sugawara no Michizane and Ichikawa Sadanji IV, so between thirty-four and forty years old will be your most crucial period fraught with calamities. The person you seek is under the Seven Red Metal Star, which conflicts with the Three Green Wood Star—if you don’t abandon your search soon, something terrible will happen. Even the belongings of both parties, if placed near each other, would try to harm one another to such a degree—this being the most dreadful form of conflict among all clashes—so you must never keep the other party’s mementos close at hand, not even by accident. Then once you pass forty, your fortune will stabilize, and once you pass forty-five, an extraordinarily good fortune will open up for you,” he had said. And so that’s why I came here when I was eight years old. “It truly came to pass just as he said—since I share the same celestial cycle as Tenjin and such, I suppose that’s why I’m fond of literature and the arts,” Mother would repeatedly tell her students with a laugh, so I ended up memorizing that explanation by rote without truly understanding it... But she apparently only told me about the Seven Red Metal Star and made me promise not to speak of it to anyone...

―Mother rented this house and opened an academy soon after coming to Nogata. She would divide about twenty students into day and night groups, teaching them in the eight-tatami room downstairs, always remarking how pleased she was to have young ladies from fine families attending. Yet Mother being short-tempered, she often scolded the pupils. Ruffians and delinquent-looking types would frequently come to harass students or threaten Mother for money, but she'd always drive them off herself with sharp rebukes. ...Thus the only men ever entering our home were the elderly landlord, my middle school homeroom teacher Mr. Kamochi, and the electrician. No letters ever came for Mother, nor did we send any out. She didn't even contact the lady at Omiya she'd been so close with, seemingly terrified of anyone discovering our whereabouts. She never told me why, but I believe she took the Tanuki-ana diviner's warnings too much to heart—became convinced someone was hunting her. Mother wasn't superstitious generally, yet placed absolute faith in that Tanuki-ana seer alone...

But to tell the truth, I disliked this Nogata. This was likely because—on our way here from Tokyo—perhaps due to feeling unwell, I became terribly carsick on the train and developed an intense hatred for the coal smoke smell. Yet upon arriving, finding the whole area filled with coal mines where that stench lingered from morning till night, I suppose that reinforced my dislike. Still, since Mother kept saying what a good place it was with such delight, I had no choice but to endure it. In time I grew accustomed and stopped getting carsick, though I came to detest the foul air and coal stench from my very core. Then when I entered school, the students' rough and varied speech patterns left me bewildered—after all, these were children gathered from all across Japan...

Moreover, perhaps because I had moved around various places since childhood, I had few friends. Even after coming here, I didn’t make many school friends, but during my fourth year of middle school, I resolved to work as hard as I could and managed to enter Rokkomatsu High School in Fukuoka. The air there was so clean and the views so splendid that I felt utterly overjoyed…… Well…… While part of why I took the exams so early was my dislike of Nogata, the truth is, I wanted to graduate from university as soon as possible. I couldn’t help feeling an intense desire to hear about my father from Mother as soon as possible, just as we had promised…… Though I never mentioned this to her…… It was the same when I entered middle school. There was no particular reason why... but... and so I had just barely reached my second year in humanities (blushing, hidden tears).

But strangely enough, even when I did well on exams, Mother never seemed particularly pleased. This had always been her way—while she never commented on my studying or good grades, she appeared to genuinely despise having my results publicly posted or my name appearing in newspapers and magazines. I disliked such attention too, so whenever school rules required displaying exemplary work, Mother would even take me to the teacher to plead, "Please place it in the most inconspicuous corner you can find." The teacher would remark, "She’s such a refined lady," praising Mother with those words, but far from being refined about it, she seemed to genuinely loathe the practice. When I was entering high school, she still seemed excessively anxious about my name appearing in Fukuoka papers, so I proposed, "Why not have me take exams for some obscure private vocational school in Tōhoku or another distant region? We could move there together." When I added, "Then it might not make the Fukuoka newspapers," she pondered before replying, "You must attend university without fail, and it would be a shame to abandon all these students," ultimately settling on Fukuoka. Yet even then, she lectured me endlessly—"Fukuoka teems with delinquent boys and girls, so never leave the dormitory without good reason," or "Don’t engage strangers who approach you on the street." She drilled these warnings into me, but reflecting now, since that Master of Tanuki-ana’s predictions had indeed proven true, I believe Mother must have felt pursued by someone—thus desperately concealing our whereabouts through every possible means.

While at school, I stayed in the dormitory, but from Saturday night through Sunday, I would surely return to Nogata. During holidays as well, I stayed home the entire time, waking up a bit early each morning to help Mother with chores or other tasks, but in exchange, I would go to bed around nine or ten o'clock at night. My mother was an exceptionally strong-willed woman; despite living in unfavorable Nogata, she would sleep alone in this room whenever I was away, saying, "From around eight-thirty in the morning, students start trickling in, and I have no time to rest until about eleven at night, so I don't feel lonely in the slightest." "There's no need to force yourself to come home during busy study periods." She would often say things like that.

Even until very recently, there had been no particular changes. However, last summer—or perhaps it was—Mother brought an American newspaper that had been used as wrapping for embroidery materials and asked, "Who is this person here?" When I read the article there and found out it was a clown role played by an actor named Lon Chaney, Mother said dismissively, "Hmph. Is that so," and went back downstairs. At that moment, I thought my father must be a man with such a face living abroad, which is why I remember every detail of that photograph clearly. At first glance, his face looked like a large silkworm, so I quietly went downstairs to Mother’s vanity in the six-tatami room and looked at my own face, but there was no resemblance at all (blushing).

That night too, there was nothing out of the ordinary. I went to bed around nine as usual, but I don't recall what time Mother retired. If it was as usual, she probably went to bed around eleven.

And then—this is something I didn’t tell the police—that night I woke up in the middle of the night. Since such occurrences had been rare before, I feared being doubted if mentioned... Though uncertain why, I thought I heard a loud thud that made me snap awake, but finding everything pitch-dark, I switched on the bedside lamp I’d placed earlier and checked the wristwatch beneath my half-read book—it showed five past one. ...Then, meaning to relieve myself, I started rising and inadvertently glimpsed Mother’s face as she slept facing me—her lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed crimson, forehead porcelain-pale and translucent, appearing mysteriously youthful. She looked no older than the senior students visiting our house. Descending to use the toilet, I turned on lights in both six- and eight-mat rooms but found nothing amiss. Puzzling over that supposed thud, I reconsidered—perhaps imagined—and returning upstairs saw Mother had turned away, only her chignon-rolled head visible above futon covers. Switching off the light, I slept again—never to see her face thereafter.

"And then, as I told you at the police station, Dr. W, I kept seeing nothing but strange dreams. I rarely ever have dreams, but that night was truly strange. No... I don’t recall having any dreams of killing people, but there was a train derailing from its tracks, groaning as it chased after me; a gigantic black bull sticking out its long purple tongue and glaring at me with bulging eyes; the sun in the middle of a bright blue sky spewing thick black smoke as it rolled about; the peak of Mount Fuji splitting in two, gushing crimson blood that surged toward me in great waves—all so terrifying, so utterly terrifying I could hardly bear it, yet somehow my legs wouldn’t move, and no matter how I tried to flee, I couldn’t escape. Though amidst it all I thought I heard a chicken crow two or three times from the landlord’s henhouse, even so, because those terrifying dreams kept appearing clearly one after another, I absolutely couldn’t wake up. And so, struggling desperately, writhing in agony, and thrashing about, I finally managed to open my eyes."

By that time, the window bars were already bright, so I felt relieved and tried to sit up when suddenly my head began throbbing intensely. At the same time, my mouth felt strangely foul, and a wave of nausea rose in my chest, so thinking I must have fallen ill, I went back to sleep. I had intended it to be just a short while, but this time, without seeing any dreams at all, I was drenched in sweat and seemed to be sleeping soundly.

Then after some time came someone—I couldn't tell who—suddenly dragging me up by my right arm in an iron grip to take me somewhere. Still bleary-eyed and thinking this must be another dream, I tried wrenching free to escape when another figure appeared, seizing my left wrist to haul me roughly toward the staircase. Only then did I finally snap to awareness—twisting around to see a suited man and saber-dragging policeman hunched over Mother's bedside, examining something.

When I saw that, I thought Mother must have contracted cholera or something. And since I must have caught the same illness, this strange physical condition was likely why—so I mused in a half-dreaming state as the two men dragged me away, but the agony of that moment remains unforgettable to this day. My entire body felt meltingly weary, as if all my bones might slip out of me. With each step down the stairs, my vision turned pitch black, and inside my head something swayed like water—or something of that nature—causing pain. When I tried to stop and endure it, someone suddenly yanked my arm from below, so I desperately tumbled down the stairs; halfway down, I abruptly looked up and saw my mother’s faded sash dangling in a loop from the railing above the staircase opposite me.

But at that moment, I lacked the mental capacity to consider why it was arranged that way. Then, as the man accompanying me began roughly jabbing me until my vision started to blur, I simply moved to the back door. There, I slipped into the red-strapped geta that Mother had habitually worn and stepped out onto the side path. At that moment, struck by the thought that Mother might already be dead, I jolted to a halt and looked around. The men restraining my arms turned out to be detectives and officers from Nogata Police Station whose faces I vaguely recognized. Glaring at me with terrifying expressions as they forcibly dragged me forward by both arms, I found myself unable to ask anything.

The sun blazed down on the street with blinding intensity. A crowd had massed before the house, and when I emerged, every face swiveled toward me in unison. Those nearest scrambled backward in retreat, but glimpsing their sallow, glinting faces made my vision reel until I nearly collapsed. Simultaneously, a needle-sharp pain lanced through my skull—I tried pressing my forehead, but with both hands restrained, could do nothing. In that moment: Mother hadn't been ill. Realizing she might have been murdered and suspicion now fell on me, I let them lead me away without resistance.

At that moment, I must have had something wrong with my head. I felt neither sadness nor fear. But drenched in sweat with only a soaked white yukata clinging to my back and waist, I shivered uncontrollably. The sickly yellow sunlight pressing down made me lightheaded while a metallic taste threatened vomit, so I walked spitting occasionally, eyes fixed on the glittering ground. When they turned toward the police station instead of a clinic, my heart raced until climbing its steps restored unnatural calm. Staring at grimy floorboards as if reading my own detective novel or trapped in a dream, I startled at a shout behind me - the detective who'd brought me was berating crowds trying to push into the station. Among them lingered half-familiar faces now lost to memory.

―After that, I was made to sit on a wooden bench (a Kyushu regional term for stool) in a narrow room at the back and questioned about various matters by the police sergeant and detectives. However, as my head was splitting with pain, I completely forgot what answers I had given. They kept saying "It's a lie! It's a lie!" over and over, so all I remember is stubbornly insisting "It's not! It's not!" but………….

Then, shortly after, Inspector Tani—known throughout Nogata Town by his nickname "Inspector Crocodile"—entered and bluntly declared, "Your mother was murdered." At that moment, my chest tightened unbearably—a feeling so overwhelming that no matter how I tried to restrain myself, I couldn’t help but sob aloud. As I desperately held back tears and wiped my eyes, Inspector Tani, who had remained silent until now, threw something onto the grimy wooden desk before me and declared, “You couldn’t possibly be unaware of this.” It was the obi cord from Mother’s everyday kimono that she always kept by her futon when sleeping—a purple braided cord with an iron eggplant-shaped fastener attached. Though it was apparently something quite old that Mother had worn since leaving her hometown, since I didn’t understand its significance, I kept my head bowed when Inspector Tani thundered in a voice like roaring thunder, 'You strangled your mother with this, didn’t you?' The accusation was so unjustly cruel that I flew into a rage and instinctively stood up to glare at Inspector Tani, but at that moment, my head began splitting with pain and nausea surged through me, so I braced both hands against the desk, trembling violently as I endured it. But I was so frustrated, so utterly vexed, that tears began streaming down my face, and I couldn’t stop them no matter how hard I tried.

Inspector Tani then proceeded to blame me with all sorts of things. This inspector was apparently feared by local coal mine ruffians who called him "Demon" or "Crocodile," but since it didn’t faze me, I kept listening silently... Then around eight-thirty that morning, two or three academy students came for their usual lessons but, finding both front and back doors uncharacteristically closed, notified the landlord at the rear. So the landlord’s old man tried calling out loudly through the gap in the back door, but she still wouldn’t wake up. Eventually, through the dim light, he could make out two white legs dangling at the top of the stairs leading down to the back door, causing the old man to turn deathly pale and rush to the police station.... When the police went to investigate, they first discovered the latch bar fallen by the back door. When they then tried to go upstairs, Mother was found in her nightgown alone, having tied a thin sash to the upper railing and hung her neck from it with limbs dangling—while I lay half-fallen from bed, sprawled in a 大-shaped posture, snoring soundly as if oblivious. However, upon examining Mother’s corpse, they found neck marks inconsistent with the thin sash, and since her bedding had been disturbed, it became clear she’d been strangled first then staged as a hanging. With no signs of theft or forced entry, suspicion fell on no one but you…….

“And there’s more. Your mother struggled fiercely while being strangled in bed—the ligature marks were so deep they appeared doubled, even tripled. There’s no way you could’ve slept through that lying right beside her. First off—why did you sleep three hours past your usual time? Overslept after strangling her and staging the scene? Or is there another woman sweet on you? Some academy girl you’re chasing that made you quarrel with your mother? Did you squeeze money from her? How much allowance do you get monthly? Is that even your real mother? You passing off some mistress as kin? Out with it—what’s this nonsense about ‘not knowing’?”

……But as I listened to all this, my head went numb—could it truly be possible for someone to kill another without even realizing it? As I kept my head bowed, vague thoughts swirling—Had I killed Mother in some dreamlike state and forgotten?—they threw me into a holding cell with the command: “Then stay here and think it through.” ——That day and through the night, I ate nothing, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Come morning, I left breakfast untouched due to my pounding head, but when hunger grew unbearable by noon, I ate the midday meal—it tasted astonishingly delicious, completely curing my headache. At evening’s approach, a woman who looked exactly like Mother came visiting, shocking me—it turned out to be this aunt I was meeting for the first time since birth. At that moment, this aunt said the same thing as Dr. W: “Didn’t you have any unpleasant dreams?” …she asked… But try as I might then, I couldn’t recall anything—so I answered that I knew nothing. ……Though I’d had no inkling whatsoever about being made to inhale anesthetic……

The next day, Dr. W came, and Mr. Kamochi—who had been my homeroom teacher during middle school—also came to see me. Then when another day passed, people from the court came and kindly asked me various questions, so it seemed I might be pardoned. I was desperate to go see how Mother was doing, but when I returned home the day before yesterday, her remains had already been cremated, leaving me utterly dejected. There isn't a single photograph in my house, so I can no longer see Mother's face. However, since this aunt says she’ll take me to her home in Meinohama tomorrow, and I hear there’s a cousin named Moyoko, I don’t think I’ll feel too lonely.

――What I liked most was linguistics, but among those interests, the most fascinating had been reading foreign novels—particularly those by Poe, Stevenson, and Hawthorne. Everyone said they were old-fashioned, but... I’d even been thinking of studying psychiatry when entering university someday. Truthfully, I had wanted to join the humanities department to study various languages and search for Father’s whereabouts with Mother, but since she passed away having shared only fragments about him, I’d been left utterly dejected. Beyond that, at present, I had no thoughts of becoming anything in particular. While I didn’t dislike Japanese literature or Chinese classics, after graduating middle school, I’d never intended to pursue them further. What I liked next were history and natural history, while what bored me were geography, physics, and mathematics. The thing I was worst at was singing, though I still loved listening to it. Whenever I listened to good Western music records, it felt like gazing upon famous paintings. As for folk songs—when Mother was in good spirits, she’d often sing them with the academy students, and I’d listen thinking how wonderful they sounded (blushing).

I had never once fallen ill before in my life. Mother too appeared never to have taken to her bed.

I will now go to express my gratitude to Mr. Kamochi, who came to visit me at the police station.

◆Second Reference: Testimony of Yaeko Yashiro, Aunt of Takeichirō Wu

At the same location and time, after Takeichirō Wu went out—

“Absolutely everything feels like a dream. There is no doubt Takeichirō is my sister’s child—his facial features are his mother’s living image, and even his voice perfectly matches our father’s.” “Though unacquainted with ancient family history, my household had farmed in Meinohama for generations. We sisters lost our mother young, then Father passed away during my nineteenth New Year celebrations—reducing our lineage to just myself and this sister here,” she said with a glance toward Chiyoko’s memorial tablet. “At year’s end after marrying my late husband Genkichi,” she continued, “my sister left home with a farewell note: ‘I shall study painting and embroidery in Tokyo—live unmarried—do not pursue me.’ This occurred around New Year of Meiji 40 [1907]. Though some later claimed seeing her in Fukuoka,” she added while smoothing her kimono sleeve, “nothing was confirmed.” “Her passion for arts alone drove this departure,” Yaeko affirmed with a shallow bow toward investigators’ notes. “As Takeichirō testified,” she resumed with measured cadence suitable for courtroom testimony, “she possessed extraordinary determination—graduating top from prefectural girls’ school at seventeen—yet once engrossed would stay awake nights reading novels or painting.” Her fingers unconsciously mimicked needlework motions while explaining: “From elementary days she embroidered temple fusuma reproductions on drawing paper using cotton scraps—even by twilight on verandas.” A faint smile surfaced before vanishing into decorum. “Our final earthly parting,” she concluded with downcast eyes. “Admittedly,” came her practical afterthought while adjusting seating cushions, “we often had her mind house rather than fields—our home stood within town limits near busy gates—thus her departure raised no suspicion.”

After that, the only contact we had about my sister was a notification from the village office in Komazawa Village near Tokyo at the end of Meiji 40 (1907), informing us that a boy named Ichirō had been born there. At that time as well, we immediately requested the police to search, but the house at the registered address had apparently been a rental property for quite some time, and furthermore, as a precaution, the letters I had sent out were returned, so I lost heart. We never did find out how they managed to obtain the family register documents when Ichirō entered elementary school, and there was absolutely no word from them after that. And then, in the New Year when I turned twenty-three, soon after parting with my husband, I gave birth to a single daughter—the one now here named Moyoko—and from then on lived with just my daughter.

When I saw this incident in the newspaper, I rushed here in a dreamlike state. I underwent various inquiries, but have now given my answers accordingly as you have just heard.

When I first saw Ichirō, tears streamed down my face before I knew it. The reason I inquired about dreams then was that the moving picture story read by the young man staying at my place mentioned somnambulism. Though we scarcely understood such Western matters, he had joked, "If you act while sleepwalking, it's no crime—shall we pretend to be somnambulists and commit misdeeds?" Remembering this, I ventured to ask despite knowing it was forward for a woman—but I acted solely from desperation to help (blushing). Through your gracious efforts, not only will Ichirō regain his untainted body, but examining my sister's remains revealed she long maintained propriety—this being my sole consolation. Therefore I shall properly conduct memorial rites here before bidding fitting farewells to all who showed me kindness.

“Yesterday, along with a condolence offering, we received this letter from the proprietor of Ōmiya in Tokyo.” “He wrote: ‘When I was asked by an official of the Imperial Household Ministry to have court garments repaired and was searching for my sister’s whereabouts, people from the police came—I was shocked to learn of it for the first time.’ However, judging from the letter’s contents, it appears the lady to whom my sister had confided various details of her circumstances had already passed away.” “If only my sister had lived a little longer, she might have met better circumstances... Though I know not what grudge drove them, should the one who committed such a terrible deed be captured, I would wish to see them torn to shreds.” (Tears falling.)

"As for my household, at present we have only distant relatives, so when it comes to close family members now, there are only my daughter and myself. 'I intend to raise Ichirō as my own child from now on, devoting all my strength to make him into a splendid person... but when I think of living relying solely on this fatherless child and the memorial tablet...' (tearfully)."

◆Third Reference: Testimony of Ms. Matsuko Matsumura (Mizuchaya, Fukuoka City; Head of Suii Girls' Academy)

▼Same year, same month, 4th day: Reprint of clippings from the Gen'yō Shinpō-sha morning edition "That young lady skilled at embroidery attended this Suii Girls' Academy around the time of the Russo-Japanese War—two decades past. As I was in my thirties then, I can't recall details clearly." "Yes, she certainly attended." "She must have been seventeen or eighteen at the time." "Though not striking at first glance, she was a petite, sharp-featured beauty called Ms. Nijino Migiwa." "No mistake about that." "It's an uncommon name—I remember it well." "And regarding that 'nui-tsubushi' embroidery technique you mentioned—I've never seen anyone but Ms. Nijino who could perform it."

“None of Ms. Nijino’s works remain in my possession.” “At that time, we still didn’t understand the value of such luxurious things—it was considered wasted effort.” “Just once, I exhibited a small fukusa—a square cloth about five sun in size that took roughly two months to make—at my academy’s exhibition, but with a price tag of twenty yen, it ended up unsold.” “If it existed now, it would be something extraordinary.” “I also wish I had learned it.” “Ms. Nijino not only possessed such skill, but she wrote characters far more beautifully than Mr. Ono Gadō’s models—I often had her write the characters used in my disciples’ embroidery.” “Her drawings were quite skillful too—she’d usually copy the better ones from the sketches I kept at my place.” “But just when I thought she’d been attending for over half a year, she suddenly stopped coming.” “Hmm... You’re asking if there were any signs of pregnancy then... No—given her petite frame, it should’ve been obvious... Are you saying that playboy abandoned Ms. Nijino and ran off?” “Oh, is that so?” “Hmm...”

“The house where she lived at that time?” “Well, had I known that... but all the students from those days have become women nearing forty now, you see.” “Heh heh heh heh.” “My, they say that man apparently killed Ms. Nijino... How dreadful!” “What a waste of such beauty... Now that you mention it, something does come to mind.” “But I must ask you not to speak of this to anyone.”

“Ms. Nijino was quite the man-eater—they say two or three university students had their hearts broken by her.” “Though of course this is just hearsay.” “Back then nobody ever knew where Ms. Nijino lived—she’d come from the east one day and the west the next, leaving just as mysteriously.” “I never permitted anyone of questionable character into my academy, mind you—but truth be told, I never had cause to dismiss anyone for such behavior either. Especially since she herself carried herself properly and worked so skillfully.” “No, there aren’t any photographs or such.” “But holding a grudge from those days seems rather ancient now, doesn’t it?” “Hoh...”

"Huh?! So that's the Mr. Wu from the famous labyrinth incident?" "Oh my, what should I do?" "How was it discovered that Ms. Nijino was a Wu?" "Oh, she had confided her circumstances to the proprietor of a bag shop in Tokyo." "Only the man's name remains unknown... Huh, is that so?" "Please keep this matter confidential." and so forth.

▲Supplementary Note: As all essential points regarding Takeichirō Wu's initial episode are wholly contained within the fragments of the three preceding items, particulars shall be omitted.

However, while the Third Reference - "Ms. Matsumura's Fragment" - belonged entirely to the realm of unnecessary material for my so-called "Takeichirō Wu's First Episode," I presented it here both out of respect for Dr. W's insistence as the compiler of this record, and as evidence that the judicial authorities' investigative policies regarding said incident, along with contemporary newspaper articles, had been tacitly influenced by Dr. W's opinions.

◆ Summary of Dr. W's Opinions on the Preceding Matters

I (Dr. W), upon first discovering reports of this incident in the newspapers, had concluded it might present an exceptionally rare and ideal case of somnambulism, and thus dispatched myself to investigate. However, this Nogata region—originally situated at the heart of the Chikuhō Coalfield—stood as one of Japan's foremost locales for violent crimes. Consequently, the investigative approach taken by the police proved simplistic and haphazard. By the day following the incident, all evidence at the scene had been utterly disrupted and trampled, rendering a thorough investigation impossible. Nevertheless, through synthesizing the crime scene's conditions with the aforementioned testimonies, recollections of police personnel involved, and neighborhood rumors, we were able to identify the following characteristics as distinctive features of this case.

(A) Within the crime scene at the girls' academy, aside from traces related to Takeichirō Wu and his mother along with academy students, and a bamboo support rod—which served as the sole fastening for the back entrance, measuring approximately 3 cm in diameter and over 124 cm in length—having fallen to the earthen floor for unknown reasons, no fingerprints, footprints, or any other traces of the perpetrator were detected; it remained unclear whether such evidence had been wiped away. Furthermore, it could be inferred that the aforementioned support rod had been positioned such that if the plank door was pushed firmly from the outside, one could insert fingers and remove it. Moreover, while the portion of the plank door's edge that came into contact with the support rod had been newly covered with a zinc plate to prevent wear and ensure secure functioning, this very measure appeared to have conversely become the cause that allowed the support rod to be dislodged with minimal force.

(B) It was conclusively determined that victim Chiyoko had been strangled from behind with a silk obi cord between 2:00 and 3:00 AM that same night; after scattering bedding and thrashing about on tatami mats—leaving clear signs of extreme agony—she expired. The body was subsequently transported to the stairway area where it was suspended from a handrail using a narrow sash and positioned facing downward at the stair landing to simulate death by hanging. Moreover, though investigators could infer that the dual or triple-layered strangulation marks would have been clearly discernible even during the crime's commission, the additional simulation of hanging initially appeared to constitute a crude concealment method. However, when considered alongside the perpetrator's fingerprint-erasing actions, this contradiction between acts was concluded to represent an extremely cunning technique—one exploiting misperceptions arising from mutually conflicting behaviors to misdirect investigative focus regarding the perpetrator.

Furthermore, nothing was found in the victim's hands or elsewhere. It was suspected that a mild anesthetic might have been administered. Moreover, regarding the obi cord identified as the murder weapon at that time—after passing through the hands of several police officers—no evidence related to the criminal could be detected.

(C) That Takeichirō Wu had been administered an anesthetic could be inferred from various post-event symptoms manifested in his statements. (D) Approximately forty hours post-mortem, through an autopsy I performed under Dr. Funaki's supervision in the rear garden of the girls' academy, it was confirmed that the corpse exhibited no recent signs of sexual intercourse, with the uterus bearing only traces of having once carried a child. Based on these facts, drawing inferences regarding both the perpetrator and the crime's motive proved nearly impossible. However, one might deduce that the perpetrator possessed considerable knowledge, was accustomed to using anesthetics, demonstrated thoughtful planning, lacked formidable physical strength, and sought to avoid implicating Takeichirō Wu. (Omitted). The investigative authorities initially pursued this line of reasoning, resulting in Takeichirō Wu's release. Yet they ultimately abandoned this approach once more, resorting to purely speculative searches that yielded no results, until finally consigning the case to what might be termed a labyrinthine oblivion. (Omitted)

▼ Spiritual-Scientific Observations Regarding the Preceding As this incident had not been directly investigated by the author (Masaki) himself, there was some inconvenience in providing specialized spiritual-scientific analysis and explanation. However, when observing through the various characteristics of this case as documented by Dr. W from his unique forensic medical perspective, there remained no doubt that its truth lay in a "psychological heredity episode"—a phenomenon that fundamentally defied judgment and explanation within the developmental scope of modern scientific knowledge and its accompanying so-called common sense. This case stood as the most prominent and ideal example of what the author terms "crimes without a criminal." Namely, that all phenomena pointed to and could individually demonstrate how Dr. W’s initial intuition had been correct. One could not help but express profound respect for Dr. W's meticulous preparations—his persistence in clinging to doubts regarding this matter even after the incident, and his recording of the aforementioned valuable testimonies.

Namely, through Dr. W's aforementioned observations and the three testimonies, the key observational points necessary for investigating this case's truth were enumerated as follows.

I. Takeichirō Wu’s Personality and Sexual Life Takeichirō Wu, then a youth of sixteen years and four months, had been raised in a household centered on maternal love. As a cultured, delicate, and bright adolescent—one naturally inclined toward intellectual pursuits yet physically well-developed—he had already attained full sexual maturity prior to the incident. However, purified by the immaculate beauty of this maternal affection and the clarity of his own intellect, he lacked any psychological defect that might manifest such urges physically, maintaining instead an unsullied virginity as recognized by those who examined him. The fact that he confessed to attentively listening to a woman’s singing and appeared to blush may be recognized as characteristic of a youth with such temperament in this era; moreover, from the artless sincerity observed throughout his statements—and from how he remained unafraid of his own predicament despite being aware of irrefutable reasons for being suspected as the perpetrator—one can discern that he had maintained a pristine virginal life, his psyche untainted by even the faintest shadow. And thus, this estimation of age and sexual life—which affects all spiritual-scientific observations concerning this incident and should form the foundation for significant determinations—is specifically placed at the outset to draw attention.

II. The Hypnotic Suggestion That Induced the Somnambulistic State Takeichirō Wu's confession—that he awoke around 1:00 AM on the night of the incident and perceived an abnormal beauty in his sleeping mother's countenance—not only corroborated the validity of the aforementioned observations but also elucidated the nature of that night's psychological heredity episode: specifically, the hypnotic suggestion that induced somnambulism. When considering how this midnight awakening bore an essential relationship to the climax of sexual impulses, it became evident through Wu's own admission that his mental state had reached the peak of a critical juncture. This crisis should have been significantly alleviated during the interval when he descended to relieve himself and returned upstairs. Moreover, seeing his mother Chiyoko—the very object of this stimulation—turned away from him could not have failed to disillusion him considerably, prompting his return to ordinary composure before retiring again. Yet these temporarily suppressed sexual impulses—when Wu later fell into deep sleep—stimulated a dreadful psychological heredity latent within his unconscious realm, inducing a somnambulistic state (see Section II regarding subsequent episodes) that ultimately drove him to commit the atrocity. This causal chain would become fully comprehensible through each rationale detailed hereafter.

III. The Relationship Between Takeichirō Wu’s First Awakening and Somnambulism That Takeichirō Wu experienced a midnight awakening only on that particular night—an abnormal occurrence he stated he had rarely experienced before—provides reasonable grounds to recognize this as an indicator suggesting the existence of a somnambulistic state during subsequent sleep. However, before clarifying this rationale, one must necessarily consider a crucial matter: the widespread assumption that the sound of the support rod falling at the back entrance caused Takeichirō’s initial awakening. Though Takeichirō himself appears convinced of this connection, I unhesitatingly recognize it as a misconception born from conflating sensory functions during sleep with perceptual functions during wakefulness—an exceedingly rash conclusion. For there exist no small number of instances where those believing they awoke immediately upon hearing a sound during sleep later discover—through post-awakening scrutiny—that several minutes or even hours of sleep had intervened. The most extreme manifestation of this phenomenon appears in the widely recognized case of chronic oversleepers who respond to multiple wake-up calls only to fall back asleep repeatedly, finally rising late while insisting they awoke after a single summons. The profound discrepancy between perceived elapsed time during sleep and actual duration can be sufficiently demonstrated through this example alone. Moreover, countless cases exist where individuals clearly perceive sounds during sleep and awaken accordingly, only to later confirm through calm investigation that no such sounds occurred. When viewed through this lens, positing an inevitable causal link between the fallen support rod’s sound and Takeichirō’s awakening becomes a perilous endeavor for rigorous deduction—far more natural instead to regard these phenomena as wholly unrelated when analyzing this incident. Furthermore, hastily concluding that some external party entered to commit this atrocity while administering anesthetics—directly connecting this to Takeichirō’s abnormal post-awakening mental state—could justifiably be deemed an act of extreme recklessness and irrationality.

Regarding the true nature of what was mistaken for the sound of the aforementioned support rod falling during sleep—an auditory illusion—I indeed possess significant research materials worthy of separate publication. However, as this would require an extensive array of examples along with exceedingly detailed psychological explanations, I shall confine myself here to briefly outlining only two or three particularly striking instances of "perceiving non-existent sounds during sleep" that were sufficiently pronounced to disrupt sleep itself, presented for reference purposes. (a) When the progression of hallucinations being perceived during sleep suddenly encounters an impasse... For instance, the moment when a certain emotion (joy, anger, sorrow, etc.) rapidly surges to its climax while simultaneously hallucinating visions of something exploding, scattering, or falling... etc...

(b) When a dream's progression suddenly falls into a void of infinite depth... For instance, when one steps off the world's edge, or the instant one plummets into a pitch-black chasm... etc.... (c) When two psychological phenomena progressing within a dream state abruptly intersect or collide... For example, the moment secret work being performed in fear of someone is discovered by that very feared individual; or when a steamship or automobile—having anticipated collision—veers sharply onto one's path and collides head-on before one's eyes... etc....

(d) When events progressing within a dream abruptly transformed into psychological objects diametrically opposed to all expectations... For instance, discovering a close friend to be a criminal; or a companion suddenly transforming into a terrifying entity; or again, the instant when comfortable room furnishings or delightful garden flowers mutated into forms and objects one most feared and loathed... etc.... When observed according to the above principles, the true nature of non-actual sounds perceived within dreams revealed itself as follows: Namely, one came to understand that during the progression of a dream, sudden irresistible experiences of shock, terror, delight, or other abrupt psychological shifts—bearing striking resemblance to the abrupt psychological alteration experienced when startled by loud noises while awake—were conversely misperceived and sensed as singular auditory phenomena.

Furthermore, when examining this incident in light of the aforementioned cases, it may be considered that Takeichirō Wu's first awakening was none other than an auditory illusion produced by a momentary state of terror-induced psychology—a state arising from the irresistible intersection and collision between the progression of a certain type of dream being depicted by sexual impulses that had filled his psyche to overflowing immediately prior, and the appearance of a phantom symbolizing conscientious impulses stimulated and aroused thereby. If we accept this assumption, the fact that Takeichirō Wu—having awakened amidst the crisis of sexual impulse—perceived an abnormal beauty in his sleeping mother’s countenance constitutes an entirely natural psychological outcome. This may be regarded as a pure, unfeigned confession concerning the secret mental experiences common to youthful male virgins in springtime, while simultaneously providing even more robust corroboration for the plausible existence of somnambulism subsequently induced during deep sleep by these very same impulses.

Furthermore, the fact that the support rod had fallen—is this not necessarily a means of concealing the crime carried out through the activation of unconscious intellect during somnambulism? It is by no means rare for somnambulists who frequently commit violent acts and other misdeeds to perform such concealment behaviors in tandem. Moreover, considering that most such cases—as seen here—invariably employ laughably crude methods, one may understand how these doubts arise quite naturally. Alternatively, one might consider whether this constituted merely a coincidental alignment of events—such as an intruder accidentally dislodging the support rod while peering inside, then fleeing upon Takeichirō Wu’s approach. However, given the apparent lack of investigation into these uncertainties, they must temporarily remain open questions.

IV. Initial Actions During the Somnambulistic Episode…Strangulation… The fact that the motive behind the atrocity—which should form the fundamental explanation of this incident—remained obscure to this day, lying beyond rational deduction, coincided with Dr. W's investigative findings that "within Tsukushi Women’s Academy, no activities other than those pertaining to Takeichirō Wu, his mother, and the female students had been identified." When considering these investigative items collectively, one could most simply and appropriately acknowledge that the truth of this incident resided in Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulistic episode directed at his mother, while simultaneously explaining exhaustively how inferences regarding other perpetrators stemmed from an illusion born of forcibly hypothesizing a third party. Specifically, it was inferred that Takeichirō Wu—having fallen into deep sleep with his psyche enveloped by the aforementioned sexual impulses—had risen in a somnambulistic state induced by a psychological heredity episode stimulated thereby; that he had picked up the victim’s obi cord lying before his eyes in accordance with the desires of a hallucinatory vision (its contents remaining unknown at this juncture) manifesting within his consciousness; that he had committed violence against a woman who was the object of this hallucination…in reality, his mother…; and that after continuing several bizarre somnambulistic acts worthy of academic marvel as later described, he had returned to bed. This violent act had been committed during a period when cerebral functions—that is, conscious mental activity—lay suspended in deep sleep, during which reflexive sympathetic interactions between cells throughout the body substituted for the brain (primarily through visceral organs connected to the sympathetic and vagus nerves performing this role, with muscles, connective tissues, fat, blood, etc., also participating—resulting in abnormal post-incident fatigue states as detailed in my work Psychopathology). These interactions had directly linked with sensory organs to see, hear, judge, and execute actions. Consequently, almost no trace of memory remained within egocentric consciousness upon awakening. The confusion arising from this—namely, the deluded belief that all judgment-dependent actions could only be performed through egocentric consciousness (the brain’s conscious functions during wakefulness)—had led to deductive errors such as fabricating imaginary perpetrators as previously described. This outcome had to be acknowledged as an inevitable consequence given contemporary scientific knowledge’s developmental stage.

Incidentally, among the somnambulistic states of Takeichirō Wu that demand study through this incident, the episode bearing direct connection to the psychological heredity content constituting this case's focal point—that which should be demonstrated through the second episode (see subsequent section)—resides solely in this act of...strangulation..., while subsequent somnambulistic episodes might more aptly be termed digressive. However, the true nature of these digressive somnambulistic episodes constitutes what might veritably be called an academic rarity—possessing immeasurable research value in spiritual science—and since no other reference case of such intimate relevance could be discovered elsewhere, I shall document them here despite risking digression; this determination stems precisely from my intent to render unequivocally clear how the truth of this incident remains inextricably rooted in Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulistic episodes.

V. The Second Stage of Somnambulism Following Strangulation...Corpse Manipulation... Despite the victim showing conspicuous traces of agony—writhing across bedding and other surfaces—along with clear strangulation marks, the additional staging as death by hanging appeared superficially as crude criminal concealment, yet this was not truly the case. While suspicions about an imaginary third-party perpetrator possessing extraordinary intellect might seem superficially reasonable, I unhesitatingly deem this an excessively contrived and unnatural interpretation. For these phenomena precisely attest that the bizarre actions characteristic of somnambulism were indeed performed at that very location that night. Not only does recognizing this—that what the author terms "corpse manipulation" was enacted by Takeichirō Wu that night—feel entirely natural, but it further provides a simple and appropriate explanation for said phenomena that admits no doubt.

However, regarding the phenomenon of corpse manipulation during somnambulism, there have been almost no reliable records worthy of citation since ancient times. Such phenomena are found only sporadically in records passed down among the Laputian race—those with profound interest in such ultra-materialistic scientific phenomena—and in legends surviving among superstitious Eastern peoples. Moreover, these so-called records do not belong to the category of firsthand accounts or similar documentation. These writings amount to little more than essays compiled by monks and physicians possessing peculiar intellects—records of matters heard from others or obtained through inquiry—yet eight or nine out of ten such accounts consist of misinterpreted or misrepresented deeds: using corpses to intimidate people; attempting to animate the dead with electricity; committing misdeeds while feigning death; acquiring organs as superstitious remedies; plundering burial goods; necrophilia; and other such acts. Consequently, one finds it regrettably difficult to apprehend the truth with ease.

However, there was no doubt that such acts of corpse manipulation had existed since ancient times. When examining supernatural tales from China, India, Japan and other regions—those concerning so-called corpse deities, corpse demons or fiery chariots—one could infer through fields like natural science and spiritual science that these represented distorted accounts of somnambulistic behaviors...that is to say, corpse manipulation. The detailed facts regarding these phenomena would be compiled and systematically researched in a future treatise titled *Yōkai Chapter*, though materials remained under organization at present. To summarize a portion: these supernatural occurrences termed corpse deities, corpse demons or fiery chariots had traditionally been believed to stem from creatures like foxes and cats, or strange birds and beasts such as crows and owls. Yet the facts differed entirely from such assumptions. According to these legendary records describing circumstances of corpse manipulation, initial accounts typically depicted corpses lying peacefully in coffins or on beds suddenly rising to sprint through empty air. Subsequent descriptions portrayed the deceased—eyes closed, hair and hands hanging limp—performing inverted stances, backward somersaults, frozen oblique postures, log-like rolling motions, inchworm crawling, midair suspension upside-down, drill-like spinning, script-whirling rotations, Buddha-toppling backbends, backward flips, upward leaps and tumbling descents—all manner of bizarre contortions as if manipulated by invisible strings. Yet through calm observation of these accounts, one discerned how such movements strikingly resembled an innocent child gleefully tormenting dolls or animal figures—forcing them into cruel poses while reveling in play. Moreover, during such play sessions, the child nearly forgot their own role as manipulator—deluding themselves that the dolls moved through autonomous will—while satisfying latent cruelty; this psychology could be observed ubiquitously in daily life. This tendency to manipulate living or pseudo-living entities constituted a transformed hereditary trait from humanity's barbaric past—a refined version of prey-tormenting behaviors seen in modern carnivores—rooted in ancestral exultation over conquered enemies (historical records solemnly attested to practices like jubilant head-tossing of foes). Furthermore, one must note this pseudo-organism manipulation predominantly manifested in male children—a fact corroborated by cross-referencing with variant heredity theories outlined in my treatise *Psychological Heredity: A Fundamental Theory*. There remained no doubt such psychological heredity could induce somnambulistic corpse manipulation of this nature.

Next, to explain this concretely through comparison with factual observations: first consider those who had attended a dying patient until the end or handled corpse preparations—when such individuals fell into deeper-than-normal sleep after their labors, particularly due to physical and mental exhaustion from caregiving or a sense of relief, they would become subject to profound suggestive influences from the corpse. This would induce the aforementioned cruel somnambulistic psychology, leading them to retrieve either unburied or interred corpses for manipulation. It should be deemed natural that they themselves retained almost no memory of having personally committed these acts. Alternatively, even if partially conscious in a semi-lucid state—much like a child manipulating dolls—they would not recognize their own agency, instead deluding themselves into believing the corpse itself had animated. Persisting in this nightmare conviction, they would manhandle the corpse—abandoning it elsewhere or returning it to a coffin—before retreating to bed. When discovering the corpse's displacement or disappearance come morning, they would inevitably interpret this as supernatural mischief, thereby spawning such legends. Indeed, observing how nearly all these oral traditions center on minor misfortunes of impoverished households connected to corpses—using a single corpse and attendant as narrative focus—one readily discerns that these tales' protagonists were neither corpses nor demonic beasts, but rather the somnambulistic acts of those who had slept nearby. The modern practice of multi-person all-night vigils thus stands as living proof that this custom—confirmed through generations of collective experience, whether consciously recognized or not—has historically proven most effective in preventing such supernatural occurrences. Furthermore, does not the custom of placing blades at the deceased's bedside originate precisely from how their gleam or fearsome shape—through visual suggestive stimulation—effectively shattered the hallucinations of such somnambulists? In any case, through such observations we find no room to doubt the existence of this somnambulistic corpse manipulation. Particularly before the advent of all-night vigils and prevalence of cremation, it stands as self-evident truth that this form of somnambulism was enacted by a significant number of those closely associated with corpses.

Upon collating the aforementioned research with this incident, Takeichirō Wu's somnambulistic episodes following his act of strangling the woman that night were presumed to closely align with previous cases, yet the clear addition of somnambulism imbued with perverse sexual elements here demands particular scrutiny and academic interest. That is to say, Takeichirō Wu—through a somnambulistic episode of perverse sexual "psychological heredity" uniquely transmitted through his bloodline (see the second episode in later sections)—first strangled his hallucinated female counterpart to achieve initial satisfaction. Subsequently, guided by the corpse's suggestion, he transitioned into the aforementioned general somnambulistic state of corpse manipulation—a progression readily deducible given...the corpse's marks of extreme agonized writhing...which might be confused with traces of manipulation itself, while the victim's genuine suffering likely constituted but a minimal portion thereof—a distinction challenging to quantify. Simultaneously, that this corpse manipulation contained a peculiar depth driven by perverse sexual gratification becomes evident when observing how the relentless manipulations ultimately culminated in what must be acknowledged as the most extreme form of deviance (see next section) within such sexual aberrations.

VI. The Third Stage of Somnambulism Following Corpse Manipulation...

Hallucinations of self-slaughter and visualizations of one's own corpse... The perverse psychological states termed "hallucinations of self-slaughter" and "visualizations of one's own corpse" belonged to the most extraordinary of anomalies even in ordinary cases outside somnambulism; thus, elucidating the psychological processes that led to such deviance proved no simple task. However, to summarize this for present reference: while sexual desire or love fundamentally denoted psychological attachment to an opposite-sex other, tracing it to its origin revealed that even the most selfless expressions of love or desire ultimately amounted to nothing but instinctive or egoistic manifestations of cherishing and prioritizing one’s own living body and soul. Thus, when such desire or love—shaped by constitution, temperament, and circumstances—became perpetually insatiable...or ignorant of satiation methods...or unaware of satiation itself (though senile sexual decline produced similar results inversely, omitted here)...the craving intensified to an extreme peak and sharpened into profound agony. Consequently, conventional means failed to satisfy, inevitably derailing into the realm of perverse sexual desires while remaining unfulfilled. At the ultimate extremity, this psychology reverted to its source, culminating in the inevitable outcome of narcissistic self-obsession.

To begin with an illustration from the active aspect: when an insatiable craving for caressing the opposite sex intensifies to its most extreme and acrid peak, one grows weary of satisfaction through ordinary intercourse and develops a taste for either abusing or slaughtering the opposite sex (Sadism) or corpse fixation (Necrophilia). Progressing further through sequential stages—voyeuristic observation of the opposite sex's flesh (Voyeurism), obsession with their physical forms (Morphophilia), fetishistic admiration of their accessories (Fetishism)—one gradually withdraws from direct stimulation or sensations derived from the opposite sex while paradoxically attaining profound aesthetic gratification. The relentless pursuit of ever more heretical or grotesque intensities ultimately draws one back to humanity's primal instinct of self-preservation, culminating in narcissistic self-obsession.

Conversely, when observing this from the passive aspect: should the insatiable desire for caressed satisfaction intensify beyond natural bounds, it transforms into a craving for abuse (masochism); pivots further toward coprophilic fixation (coprolagnia); undergoes phases of deriving gratification from the opposite sex’s contemptuous disregard, mockery, and revulsion (exhibitionism et al.); and must ultimately culminate in the same conclusion as its active counterpart—this being the natural progression. What is termed NARZISSMUSS (self-obsession) constitutes precisely this phenomenon, and may be regarded as the manifestation of the very convergence point between what this author calls the active and passive forms of perverse love.

Moreover, within this so-called "self-obsession" there also exists a perversion that unites both extremes—the active and the passive. That is to say, extreme self-caressing and self-adornment progress into perverse tastes such as self-abuse, partial self-exposure, or voyeurism; this shifts abruptly into psychological states of self-disparagement, neglect, mockery, revulsion, or self-terror; and advancing further still, one becomes an indulger in the comfort of self-slaughter or the aesthetic pleasure of visualizing one’s own corpse. In fact, instances of this psychological phenomenon possess an exceedingly broad, multifaceted, and universal nature. One cannot fail to recognize traces of such perverse psychology underlying even the dreamlike “self-admiration” found in the mental states behind ancient acts of seppuku, honorable suicide, or death by indignation, or the psychology of “self-intoxication” laced with sweet tears discovered in ordinary suicide victims’ final testaments. Particularly regarding jilted lovers’ suicides, it is no exaggeration to assert that not a single individual exists who does not seek ultimate—nay, singularly supreme—satisfaction through these deviant desires. Beyond these, among the peculiar manifestations of this psychological state lie acts ranging from milder forms—such as erasing one’s own name and portrait…gratuitous shattering of mirrors…volunteering to play wounded or deceased roles in mock battles or theatrical productions…brutal depictions of self-surrogates in artistic works—to extremes verging on the incomprehensible: suicides without final testaments…self-annihilation before strangers or crowds…suicides beautified through self-and-environmental adornment…symbiotic love suicides…same-sex companion suicides…the existence of suicide clubs…all testifying to the metamorphic cravings and grotesque expressions of desire. Furthermore, within the quotidian rhythms of human existence—amidst all rising, sleeping, casual chatter, and laughter—this variety of perverse psychology seeps forth through unspoken means, whether consciously recognized or not, while maintaining an inseparable relationship with natural self-attachment; thus there remains no need to enumerate each instance here. Therefore, though such extreme perverse psychology holds remarkably high and extraordinary research value, its manifestations are by no means rare or bizarre curiosities—indeed, they exhibit a more universal tendency than other intermediate forms of sexual deviance. We must simply suffice to demonstrate that individuals with sufficient self-awareness may perpetually discover these psychological aberrations permeating every corner of their mental lives.

Based on the foregoing analysis, when examining the distinctive features demonstrated by this incident, it was not difficult to infer that Takeichirō Wu must have recognized during the initial somnambulistic stage—the act of strangulation—that the victim’s appearance bore a striking resemblance to his own. Simultaneously, because the profound sexual impulse underlying his somnambulism could not be resolved through these somnambulistic acts themselves—even as he continued his ceaseless manipulation—he must have repeatedly recognized the corpse’s visage as resembling his own. Consequently, being naturally induced into delusions and hallucinations of self-slaughter, he came to equate the corpse with himself and must be considered to have strangled it multiple times—a conclusion by no means unnatural. Finally transitioning into a somnambulistic state of visualizing his own corpse, he hung the victim’s corpse—which he had equated with himself—from an upper-floor railing and gazed directly at it from the opposite staircase area while deriving perverse pleasure. When observed in this manner, this incident’s most crucial characteristics—such as the victim being strangled repeatedly before being staged as a hanging—could be explained with utmost naturalness and clarity. The forensic investigation of this case had failed to take these points into account and consequently treated it as an ordinary crime, showing a tendency to largely overlook evidence such as fingerprints and footprints. As a result, one remained unable to conjecture in detail regarding the bizarre actions unique to such peculiar somnambulism—an unavoidable and regrettable circumstance.

Incidentally, there existed reasonable grounds to infer that the climactic state of sexual impulse sustaining Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulistic episodes—having reached its ultimate expression through this vision of his own corpse—had thereby been resolved. Takeichirō Wu’s subsequent actions could be recognized as somnambulism constituting an aftermath of this condition—a lapse into what the author terms a “reeling state.” However, since significant questionable features manifesting in this incident could be inferred even within the somnambulistic actions performed under that reeling state, it became necessary to particularly dedicate a new section to document them.

VII. Characteristics of Somnambulism Manifested by Takeichirō Wu’s Nightmares, Halitosis, and Other Symptoms The suspicion regarding anesthetic use—arising from synthesizing Takeichirō Wu’s nightmares with post-awakening symptoms like headaches, dizziness, chills, halitosis, and nausea—possessed a certain superficial logic. However, when observed through spiritual science’s lens, this conclusion must be deemed an error inevitable given modern science’s developmental limitations. In essence, this misapprehension stemmed from the shallow academic elucidation and common understanding of dreams and somnambulism’s true nature. When evaluated through the two explanations below, these phenomena reveal themselves not as anesthetic effects but rather as somnambulism’s most striking concomitant symptoms.

(A) Halitosis, Other Symptoms, and the Legend of the Rokurokubi — Takeichirō Wu’s post-awakening symptoms—headache, nausea, fatigue, etc.—as previously mentioned, all represent commonly occurring concurrent symptoms characteristic of somnambulism. However, what one particularly wishes to present here as an intriguing observational datum is… the subject’s own statement about perceiving an unpleasant odor in his mouth. Now, while I shall reserve detailed discussion of such somnambulists’ halitosis and related matters for a future treatise titled *Yōkai Theory*, to lay out part of my tentative hypothesis here: generally speaking, there exist no few cases where certain somnambulists—driven by the primal internal impulses underlying their somnambulism until completing an episode—not only perceive no fatigue whatsoever but sustain energy and endurance surpassing ordinary imagination. However, after passing through the seizure’s climax or its principal phase, one experiences abnormal fatigue alongside mental relaxation—the intense thirst that arises constituting a natural physiological consequence. (This holds true even upon awakening from nightmares accompanied by minor somnambulistic behaviors such as agonized moaning.) Furthermore, grounded in this principle, the ideal reference material for comparative study with this incident proves to be the supernatural tales transmitted throughout Japan called Rokurokubi or Nukekubi.

That rokurokubi legends and their visual depictions symbolized the psychology of human dreams or somnambulism required no further elaboration here. Moreover, these rokurokubi's purported habit of licking oil, sewage, or other impure waters—resulting in perceived morning halitosis—had been explained through such folklore and iconography; while appearing fantastical at first glance, this interpretation was not without foundation. The tale's inference that only the head detached itself to writhe about licking substances constituted a fanciful projection born of ignorance regarding somnambulism's true nature—in reality, it simply reflected sleepwalkers driven by physiological thirst to desperately seek and ingest liquids. This compulsion inevitably arose after passing the episode's climax—a state where somnambulism persisted through sheer thirst stimulation—with consciousness clarity markedly diminished and investigative capacities severely impaired. Thus regardless of content, any liquid resembling water would be immediately swallowed—a perfectly logical outcome. When sleepwalkers unknowingly consumed substances like lamp oil or ditch wastewater—later complaining of foul breath or indigestion-related symptoms—premodern societies naturally suspected supernatural causes like detached heads, especially when correlating such reports with diminished altar oil levels or andon lamp fuel—a reasonable conclusion for underdeveloped eras. Furthermore, this rokurokubi archetype—embodying somnambulism's essence—manifested two forms: a repressed young beauty and a three-eyed monster symbolizing humanity's STEGOCEPHALIA ancestors. The bestial tongue-protruding behavior offered prime psychogenetic research material regarding inherited animal psychology—though elaboration would prove redundant here. From this analysis emerged clear evidence: Takeichirō Wu's morning halitosis stemmed neither from anesthetic-induced olfactory nerve abnormalities nor drug resecretion through oral mucosa. That night's ingestion of non-aqueous liquid—perfume, facial tonic, or cleaning solvent—provided conclusive proof, with most pathological symptoms naturally attributable to such substances' effects. Yet the complete neglect of investigating this aspect—though unavoidable—remained an eternal forensic lament.

(B) The nightmares that Takeichirō Wu believed he had continuously experienced after awakening around 1:05 AM on the night of the incident and returning to sleep were in fact those he had seen during the brief period preceding his second awakening—ordinary dreams retained in memory with no direct connection to his somnambulistic acts. Rather, what had been uttered during his somnambulism must clearly be attributed to external influence as outlined in the preceding analysis.

VIII. Time of Somnambulism Occurrence and Other Matters Based on the aforementioned rationale, when analyzing this incident, one may infer that Takeichirō Wu’s episode that night had occurred between his first and second awakenings. If the victim’s time of death fell between 2-3 AM, it could be deduced that Takeichirō had entered the deepest sleep conducive to somnambulistic states approximately thirty minutes to one hour after his second retirement to bed. The second awakening at dawn might be regarded as a manifestation of habitual subconscious patterns during ordinary waking hours. In his subsequent sleep, Takeichirō Wu finally broke free from nightmares—stimulated by either lingering effects of somnambulism or substances ingested during the episode—and entered true restorative slumber, a transition discernible through his perspiration.

IX. Examination of Post-Awakening Awareness Regarding Somnambulism and Considerations on Dual Personality Next, when Takeichirō Wu—after awakening—was interrogated by police under suspicion of matricide, he confessed that even in his bewildered state, an exceedingly faint doubt had stirred within him akin to: “Then… could it be that I killed her and simply forgot?” At first glance, this may seem to constitute critical evidence that he retained some memory of his somnambulistic episodes. As briefly explained in Section IV, while the fact of Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulism that night should not exist within his conscious memory, one may reasonably doubt whether certain elements from the unconscious memories created by cells other than those of the cerebrum—such as the intense fatigue experienced at the time—had not surfaced into consciousness through the Inspector’s suggestive influence during interrogation. However, when observed from another perspective, it becomes difficult to guarantee that this was not an illusion peculiar to the mind of Takeichirō Wu—a lover of novels and possessor of an exceptionally keen intellect that reflected his pure temperament and clear conscience—arising from his position in such circumstances. Therefore, these doubts do not serve as conclusive proof of the existence of Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulism. It can only be presented here as a single supplementary reference.

Furthermore, based on the foregoing discussion, one could comprehend the genuine rationale behind the longstanding perception that somnambulists were thought to possess a form of dual personality. That is to say: within the character of a human being—a unified entity comprising immeasurable memories inherited through ancestral generations and countless traits embedded within that bloodline, including diverse ethnicities, familial lineages, and individual dispositions—the phenomenon wherein a portion separates and manifests during wakefulness constitutes what we term dual personality, while that which expresses itself during sleep forms somnambulism. Given that such predispositions in somnambulists inherently bear hereditary qualities, it follows axiomatically that instances requiring the somnambulist themselves to assume responsibility for crimes committed during episodes prove exceedingly rare. Far more commonly, accountability must fall upon the ancestors who transmitted these traits and the societal structures of their era—a consideration meriting annotation here for legal deliberations regarding this case.

X. The Enigma Surrounding the Wu Family Bloodline Among the four discussions presented at the outset, beyond those previously extracted, there appeared to be no small number of passages suggesting that within Takeichirō Wu's psychology existed certain hereditary elements capable of inducing such somnambulistic episodes. Namely, as follows. In Takeichirō Wu's testimony: While it had been explained that his mother Chiyoko possessed an unusually clear intellect for a woman and maintained a strong-willed character, and while she had defended herself as being no superstitious person, the fact that she clung with extreme tenacity to utterly commonplace and foolish superstitions concerning the destiny or fate binding mother and son led one to suspect there must have existed within her psyche some inescapable, persistent distress or anxiety.

In the same [testimony]: The statement by the diviner known as Tanuki-ana no Sensei—"You are being cursed by someone"—was suspected to derive from his having inferred some fact contained within the woman’s words during their dialogue, leading him to utter these words. =From Yaeko Yashiro's Testimony= When first meeting Takeichirō Wu at Nōgata Police Station’s detention cell, her inquiry of “Didn’t you see any dreams?” was explained as “Because I had previously heard about sleepwalking.” She explained this as being due to having "previously heard about sleepwalking," yet the fact that Yaeko Yashiro—a woman who, beyond the education expected of a farmhouse housewife, should possess no advanced scholarly knowledge—could even conceive of such an extraordinarily sophisticated psychoscientific phenomenon’s possible existence amid this extraordinary incident was itself astonishing. That she then attempted to practically apply this understanding to immediately penetrate the incident’s underlying truth constituted a truly astounding reality; even if one were to regard this woman as possessing remarkable intelligence and resolute judgment, it still could not escape an air of unnaturalness. However, if the same woman had constantly been compelled by some pressing circumstance to keep such matters in mind and had devoted keen attention to rumors or explanations concerning facts of this nature, then her posing such a question under these circumstances could not be deemed entirely unnatural.

The same woman had disclosed that her family home in Himenoura had few close relatives; however, among rural affluent families, there are often such lineages that remain genealogically isolated. Moreover, since in many cases the cause of such isolation lies in traditional ill repute surrounding the family lineage or bloodline, or in some abhorrent hereditary trait that leads those nearby to avoid forming marital ties, it is suspected that the Wu family too may belong to this category of lineage.

In the same [testimony], though she repeatedly maintained that her younger sister Chiyoko had left home solely to study embroidery and painting, when collated with the aforementioned points of suspicion, it appeared to harbor additional implications. That is to say, Chiyoko had likely foreseen that remaining in the household with her sister Yaeko would make marriage ultimately impossible, and thus absconded under a tacit pact to perpetuate the Wu family bloodline elsewhere—a circumstance leaving room to suspect that Yaeko’s tepid efforts to locate her sister were not without grounds. Moreover, given both sisters’ possession of unusually strong-willed personalities for women, one could readily imagine such a silent compact forming between them.

=From Matsuko Matsumoto’s Testimony= “the rumor that Chiyoko was a notorious man-eater” When synthesized with the aforementioned doubts and facts, this allowed one to glimpse fragments of her subsequent actions after absconding under such circumstances. Through these enumerated points of suspicion, it became evident that both the existence of a profoundly dreadful traditional element within Himenoura’s Wu family lineage and the sisters Yaeko and Chiyoko—bearers of its final bloodline—having been fully cognizant of this matter had been sufficiently implied since the incident’s very inception.

XI. The remaining matter was the question of by what variety of psychological heredity—and to what degree of manifestation—Takeichirō Wu’s somnambulistic episode in this incident had been perpetrated. That is to say: this initial episode’s somnambulism had as its direct inducement nothing more than a physical suggestion—the simple notion of “the beauty of a woman’s sleeping face”—and since this stimulus had been administered by a mother possessing minimal heterosexual allure, one had to infer that even the degree of suggestion acting upon the Wu family’s extraordinary psychological heredity remained remarkably shallow. Consequently, the content of that somnambulism aligned with the content of the Wu family’s unique psychological heredity (see later section) in only one aspect: "strangulation." The remainder [of the episode], having transitioned into deviant somnambulism arising from suggestions of the corpse and its visage, could be considered as demonstrating no further content of psychological heredity.

And so, all fundamental questions regarding the aforementioned items could be thoroughly clarified through the various circumstances that manifested in the second episode—as noted below—which emerged approximately two years after the occurrence of this Nōgata Incident.

II. The Second Episode

◆First Reference: Tokura Sengorō’s Testimony

▼ Interview Date/Time: April 26, Taisho 15 (the day of the so-called Himenoura Bride Murder Incident), around 1:00 PM――

▼ Interview Location: 2427 Banchi, Himenoura Town, Sawara District, Fukuoka Prefecture, at the individual's residence――

▼ Attendees: Tokura Sengorō (permanent farmhand of Yaeko Yashiro's household, age fifty-five at the time)――several family members including his wife and children――I (Dr. W)――the above―― Note: Due to the strong dialect present, this testimony has been rendered in a form closer to standard Japanese. “Oh no sir, there weren’t nothin’ so terrible as all that,” “Back then when I fell from the ladder’s top and hurt my back—aches somethin’ fierce like this here still. Had to crawl even for my privy business, near ’bout lost my life I did.” “But since mornin’ I been drinkin’ burnt eggplant ash in sake—see here—and slapped on this crushed carp plaster folk remedy. Thanks to that, the pain’s eased considerable-like.”

“The Wu family’s household produced over a thousand koku of rice—humbly speaking—making them renowned as the foremost wealthy farming family in this entire area.” “Besides that—from sericulture to poultry farming and everything in between—Madam Yaeko handled all the accounts single-handedly with her abacus, so the family fortune kept swelling... Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—I couldn’t begin to say—but it was truly remarkable.” “The school was one they built themselves, and the temple was built by their ancestors—with Young Master Takeichirō being a man of such great fortune—yet such an unexpected thing occurred…”

“The Young Master was a gentle soul—a man of few words. After coming here from Nōgata, he was always studying in the inner room—yet never put on airs with the hired help or neighbors. He had an excellent reputation, he did. And though until now—if I may speak of the Wu family—there were only Madam Yaeko the widow and her seventeen-year-old daughter Miss Moyoko keeping house, making the place feel somehow gloomy... ever since Young Master came to stay in the spring before last, strange to say, the household grew cheerier somehow, and we workers came to feel our labors worthwhile... if you take my meaning... sir...... Then when this spring came around, Young Master graduated from Fukuoka High School with top honors and entered Fukuoka University ranked first again too. To celebrate that occasion, there was to be a wedding between Young Master and Miss Moyoko—why, the Wu household was practically floating on air... sir......”

"But it was precisely yesterday—April 25th—when this occurred, sir...... At a large Western-style building called the Memorial Hall in Inaba-cho, Fukuoka, there was said to be an English speech contest for high school students. The Young Master was serving as valedictorian and delivering the opening address on that occasion. When he tried attending wearing his high school uniform, Madam Yaeko stopped him and tried getting him to wear a new university student's uniform instead." "At that moment, the Young Master forced a bitter smile and absolutely refused to put it on." "He kept insisting it was too soon and tried slipping away, but Madam Yaeko forced him into it—even now the sight of her wiping tears while seeing him off remains burned into my mind." "Looking back now, that must've been the Young Master's last time wearing his university uniform, sir......"

“Now, as I mentioned earlier, today—the day after that—was set to be the auspicious day for Young Master Takeichirō and Miss Moyoko’s wedding, so we’d been staying over since two days before to help with the preparations. Miss Moyoko had her hair done up in the Takashimada style and was working in a grass-green furisode kimono with a red sash tied about her sleeves—though ’twas said her beauty surpassed even the ancestral portrait of Lady Rokubime, such was the common talk. And her nature being truly gentle, the nursemaids sang of her: ‘A thousand ryo for her skills, a thousand for her nature—the rest depends on the groom,’ sir......” “As for the Young Master—though he was but twenty years of age—his judgment and bearing were steadier than men nearing thirty, sir...... And his manly bearing was truly a sight to behold—conduct so impeccable you’d scarce find its equal even among court nobles. ’Twas said no couple in Hakata could match their standing.” “...And the preparations spared no expense—to make it an uxorilocal wedding from the Young Master’s side, they demolished boundary fields and built one splendid separate house. As for garments, they had them tailored from Kyōya Gofukuten, the top Kyoto-style draper in Fukuoka.” “As for the catering, since yesterday as well, Uoyoshi—reputed to be Fukuoka’s finest caterer—had been brought in and were making such a commotion—the extent of Madam Yaeko’s efforts was nothing short of remarkable, sir......”

“However, Young Master’s role at yesterday’s speech meetin’ was but a brief one—he’d declared when leavin’ that he’d return without fail by two o’clock no matter the delay—yet even as we busied ourselves with this ’n’ that, three o’clock came ’n’ went with no sign of ’im returnin’.” “The Young Master weren’t one to make such mistakes—not ever—so when I voiced my doubts to the elders, they just said things like ‘Ah, likely the speeches started late,’ ’n’ paid it no particular mind...” “But there’d never been such an occurrence before—what with the circumstances bein’ what they were—I couldn’t help feelin’ uneasy, sir... Yet amidst the bustle, the weather turned fickle—the sky clouded over all sudden-like, ’n’ that long spring day turned dark as evenin’.” “Then Madam Yaeko—seemin’ to notice this—called me aside while wipin’ her damp hands ’n’ entreated, ‘He’s twenty now, so there oughtn’t be any mistake... but since he still hasn’t returned, could ya go check round there?’” “I’d just been thinkin’ the same myself, so I finished mendin’ that steamer basket I’d started on, had a smoke, then set out still wearin’ my straw sandals—must’ve been ’round four o’clock or thereabouts.” “I took the light railway to Nishishinmachi, then stopped by my brother’s stew shop near the tram terminus at Imagawa Bridge ’n’ asked, ‘Haven’t ya seen our Young Master?’ He says, ‘Oh... that Young Master passed through here ’bout two hours back—walked west without takin’ the tracks.’” “‘Twas the first time we’d seen ’im wearin’ his university uniform, so the two of us went out front ’n’ watched ’im go for a spell.” “‘What a fine groom he makes,’ the couple said.”

“The Young Master had always disliked the smell of railway smoke—so much so that even when attending high school, he would walk every single day from Himenoura along the rice fields for exercise, sir... “But even so, the distance from Imagawa Bridge to Himenoura being just a single ri or thereabouts, there was no way it should’ve taken two hours...” I thought with growing anxiety as I began making my way back around half past four, sir... “I returned along the tracks by the national highway when—right near Himenoura, on the mountainside by the coast along the roadside—there lies a quarry, sir... “The stone quarried there’s called Himenoura stone—a black, soft rock you’d recognize if you examined it upon returning. Whether coming from Fukuoka or heading toward Fukuoka from here, it’s an unavoidable point of passage, sir... “...amidst those quarry rocks rising like a folding screen, their western faces bathed crimson in the setting sun, I thought I glimpsed the figure of a Western-suited man wearing a square hat moving through the dimness at the far end.”

"My eyes aren't what they used to be, sir... but thinking this must be it, I approached for a closer look—and sure enough, there was the Young Master, seated in the shadow of a tall rock, gazing at what appeared to be some sort of scroll. I made my way across the stacked cut stones there and came out right above the Young Master’s head, then stealthily craned my neck to peer down. It appeared to be part of a long scroll—but strangely enough, it seemed to be nothing but blank white paper with not a single thing written on it. However, something seemed visible to the Young Master’s eyes, for he was studying that blank space with rapt concentration."

“I’d long heard tell of a cursed picture scroll in the Wu household,” “But that was ancient history—no place for such things in today’s world.” “Even if it did exist, I reckoned ’twas just talk—never dreamed that very scroll could be the real thing.” “Figured my eyes were failing me—leaned in close without letting the Young Master notice—but that white paper stayed white. Rubbed my eyes raw, still couldn’t make out no writing nor pictures.”

“Well… I couldn’t help but feel mystified,” “Thinking to ask what the Young Master was looking at, I hurriedly descended the rock ledge.” Then, after deliberately taking a detour and suddenly coming face to face with him, he showed no sign of noticing my approach. Holding the half-opened scroll in both hands, he seemed to be vaguely pondering something while gazing at the western sky, now crimson. When I gave a cough and called out, “Young Master,” he appeared startled and stared intently at my face before saying, “Ah… Sengorō.” When he smiled gently as though just noticing me and asked, “Why did you come here?” he finished rolling up the scroll he had been holding reverse-side out, winding the cord tightly around it. At that time, I simply thought he must have been pondering something of great importance, so without any suspicion, I relayed Madam Yaeko’s concerns and asked, pointing to what he held in his hand, “Might that scroll be something of particular significance?” “Then, having turned back toward Mount Seburi at some point and been deep in thought, he suddenly looked back and forth between my face and the scroll before saying, ‘This? This is a scroll I must now complete—an important item to be presented to His Majesty the Emperor once finished.’” “I can’t show this to anyone,” he said repeatedly, and placed it into his coat pocket beneath his overcoat.

“I grew increasingly perplexed. ‘But what is written inside it…?’ I asked. At this, the Young Master flushed slightly and replied with a pained smile, ‘You’ll understand soon.’ “‘There’s a fascinating story and some terrifying pictures drawn on it.’ “‘...that person said it was something we absolutely must see before holding our ceremony… You’ll understand… You’ll understand…,’ he said.” I was left with this strange feeling—as if I both understood and didn’t understand—but noticing how distractedly the Young Master spoke, so unlike his usual self, I pressed once more despite seeming pushy: “Heeh… Who gave you such a thing?” At this, the Young Master—who had been staring holes into my face—suddenly widened his eyes as though regaining his senses and blinked two or three times rapidly. “And then—perhaps lost in thought—he said with tears welling up and a stammer, ‘The one who gave this to me…? That was an acquaintance of my late mother’s who came to return a scroll she had secretly entrusted to me.’ “‘That person will surely come to meet me again before long.’ “‘They said they’d tell me their name then… and with that, disappeared somewhere—but I know exactly who that person is.’ “‘But... they haven’t told me anything yet—not a word.’ “‘You must not speak of this matter to others.’ “‘Alright… Come now, let’s go let’s go’”—even as these words were spoken, the Young Master abruptly grew restless, leapt from stone to stone onto the path, strode briskly ahead of me—but the swiftness of his steps… it was as though he’d been possessed, utterly unlike his usual self. Looking back now, there already seemed to be some strange premonition from that very moment…….

When the Young Master arrived home, Madam Yaeko immediately said, “You’re… late,” but when she asked, “Did you meet Sengorō?” he replied, “Yes.” “I met him at the quarry.” “He’s just returned there now,” he said, pointing at me who had entered from behind, then briskly headed toward the annex. Madam Yaeko appeared relieved by this and asked me nothing further, merely saying “You’ve done well” before signaling with a meaningful look to Miss Moyoko—who had been arranging and wiping ancestral bowls on the wooden floorboards beside her. Though under the gaze of many, Miss Moyoko stood up bashfully, picked up the iron kettle, and followed after the Young Master toward the annex.

“Then there was one more thing—though I only came to understand its meaning later—that occurred just before nightfall: something rather odd happened. ……After that, I laid out a straw mat beneath the gardenias by the back entrance and continued mending the steamer basket while clenching my pipe between my teeth. Through the gardenia branches, I had a direct view into the annex’s main room. As I watched absentmindedly, I saw the Young Master—after changing clothes at the desk in the annex—drinking tea Miss Moyoko had prepared while seeming to explain something to her…… Though their voices were muffled by the glass storm shutters, his face was unusually pallid, and the way his eyebrows quivered made it appear as though he were reprimanding her. Yet upon closer observation, that wasn’t quite the case. Miss Moyoko, for her part, was folding Western clothes before him, her face flushed as she giggled and shook her head with repeated ‘No, no’s—it was a truly peculiar scene.”

However, upon seeing this, the Young Master’s face turned even paler, and he pressed right up to Miss Moyoko with a grin. Then—from where we could see—as he pointed toward the direction of those three aligned storehouses while placing one hand on Miss Moyoko’s shoulder and shaking her two or three times, Miss Moyoko—who had been blushing fiery red and shrinking into herself from earlier—finally raised her face and looked toward the storehouses together with the Young Master. Yet soon, with an expression neither clearly joyful nor sorrowful, she gave a slight vertical shake of her head adorned with that dewy Shimada hairstyle before flushing crimson down to the nape of her neck and collapsing limply… It was a scene straight out of a Shinpa theater drama… Heh…

Then Young Master—who had been staring intently at that attitude—remained squatting with his hand on Miss Moyoko’s shoulder, peering around through the glass storm shutters. Soon, however, he looked up at the evening sky beneath the eaves and—as though recalling something—bared his white teeth in a grin. Then he stuck out a red tongue and began licking his lips repeatedly, but that ghastly pale, eerie smile of his made me shudder to the core… Heh… Yet never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this very moment heralded what was to come. “I just thought maybe educated folks make such strange gestures… something I’d forgotten amid the busyness… Heh….”

“Then last night—it must’ve been around two in the morning—every soul in the house had finally fallen asleep. The bride Miss Moyoko and her mother Madam Yaeko were in the inner room of the main house… while the groom Young Master and I—standing in as parental attendant—took our bedding in the annex. Truth be told, I’d retired much later than the Young Master—soaking in the bath past midnight before securing the annex doors and laying out my bedding in what served as the tearoom next to his chamber. But old men’s habits being what they are, I awoke this morning while dawn was still grey. Meaning to visit the privy, I followed the faint light through two glass storm shutters to the veranda before the Young Master’s room—only to find one new shoji screen slid open, its corresponding glass shutter likewise ajar. When I peered inside, his bedding lay empty. ‘How peculiar…’ I thought, a prickle of unease in my chest. Since a drizzle still fell outside, I retrieved my geta from the new kitchen entrance and picked my way along the stepping stones toward the main house. There at the inner room’s shutter frame—one panel left open—I could just make out sandy geta tracks in the dim light. I hesitated there but soon steeled myself, kicking off my geta to creep barefoot down the corridor on cat’s paws. Peering through glass shoji screens into the inner room, I found Madam Yaeko sprawled asleep under a dim electric lamp—one arm flung out—while beside her lay Miss Moyoko’s vacated bedding: futon folded toward the foot, nothing but a scarlet-brocaded high pillow centered on the mattress.”

At that moment, I finally recalled what I had seen the previous evening… Ah, so that’s what it was. "In that case, there was no particular need to worry after all……" I somehow managed to calm myself with a hand to my chest. "...but... upon reconsidering—though this matter alone might seem separate—I noticed the Young Master’s behavior was slightly more suspicious than usual, and so that foreboding unease began stirring within me again." "Was this indeed that premonition people speak of...? At any rate, I must not let this become my oversight."

“Thinking to act before everyone awoke... I roused Madam Yaeko. When I pointed at Miss Moyoko’s bedding and gestured while speaking, Madam Yaeko—who had been rubbing her eyes—startled... then abruptly asked an odd question: ‘Haven’t you seen Ichirō carrying something like a scroll lately?’... all while sitting bolt upright on her futon.” “But at that time, I hadn’t noticed anything amiss, so I said, ‘...Heeh... When I met him at the quarry yesterday, it seemed he was reading a long scroll with nothing but blank white paper—though I couldn’t say what it was...’ But I’ll never forget the drastic change in Madam Yaeko’s countenance then... ‘It’s appeared again—!’ she said in a frayed voice, gritting her teeth until they creaked, clenching both fists until they trembled violently, rolling her eyes upward until they nearly inverted—as though seized by a frenzied trance.” I remained sitting on my backside, utterly bewildered, when Madam Yaeko seemed to regain her composure. With tears streaming down her face—which she wiped away with her sleeve—she forced a tearful smile and said, “No, no... It must be my misunderstanding. Or perhaps yours.” “Anyway, go look for where he is,” she said, standing up. At that moment, she appeared with her usual composure and led the way down from the veranda—though in truth must have been greatly flustered—as I followed behind her barefoot form heading toward the front entrance, having donned my geta.

The light rain had already stopped by then, it seemed, and before long, as we arrived before the third storehouse—the one on the far right visible from here—in front of the annex, I noticed that the copper-clad door facing north on the storehouse had been left open. I stopped Madam Yaeko, who was walking ahead, and pointed it out to her. Looking back now, this third storehouse had been empty until around the wheat harvest season, with various farm tools thrown inside and frequent comings and goings—so the young ones would often carelessly leave the windows open. At that moment, this too might have been such a case, so there should have been nothing particularly strange about it—but perhaps because I recalled what had happened during the day, I involuntarily froze in my tracks... Then Madam Yaeko nodded and went around to the front of the storehouse door, but it appeared to have been secured from the inside, as the earthen door did not budge in the slightest. Then Madam Yaeko nodded again, brought over a six-foot ladder that had been hooked on the main house's waistboard nearby, quietly propped it beneath the storehouse window, and gestured for me to climb up and look—but her expression was again far from ordinary. Moreover, when I looked up at that window, there appeared to be some sort of glimmering light shining through.

As you well know, I’m an utter coward, so I felt anything but at ease. However, Madam Yaeko’s expression was far from ordinary, leaving me no choice but to remove my geta, tuck up my kimono skirt, and climb the ladder. Gripping the window ledge with both hands, I stealthily peered inside... but as I looked, the strength drained from my legs, leaving me unable to climb back down. At the same moment, the strength in both hands gripping the window ledge seemed to abandon me entirely. I tumbled head over heels to the ground, striking my lower back so hard that I became unable to stand up or flee.

——Heh.

The scene I witnessed through that window at that moment is something I’ve tried to forget my entire life—yet cannot. To describe it: In a corner of the storehouse’s second floor where empty straw bags had been piled, something like a square bed had been constructed on the wooden floorboards at the center. Spread out over this were Miss Moyoko’s gaudy nightclothes and a red undergarment thrown haphazardly. Upon this lay Miss Moyoko’s corpse—styled in a Takashimada coiffure glossy as dripping water—completely naked and supine, with the old sutra desk from the main house’s parlor placed before her. To its left stood a brass candlestick from the household Buddhist altar bearing a single hundred-monme candle’s flame, while on the right side I believe school supplies like paints and what resembled brushes were arranged—though finer details escape my memory. And there in the very center before the Young Master lay yesterday’s quarry scroll spread out neatly… Heh… There’s no mistaking it. Indeed it was yesterday’s scroll—I recognized the gold-brocade patterns at its edges and spindle’s hue. It appeared blank—pure white paper alone… Heh… The Young Master sat ramrod straight facing it, properly clad in white hemp sleepwear, yet when I peered in—somehow sensing me—he calmly turned with a smile and waved his hands side-to-side as if warning “Mustn’t look.” Though I recount this now coherently, these details returned to me later; at that instant I stood petrified as if electrocuted—utterly beside myself, unaware what cries escaped me.

At that moment, Madam Yaeko seemed to ask me something while helping me up, but whether I replied or not, I cannot clearly recall. I believe I may have been pointing at the storehouse window and muttering something... whereupon Madam Yaeko appeared to grasp some understanding, righted the nearly toppled ladder, and began climbing it herself. I tried to stop her but found myself paralyzed—my hips refusing to lift, teeth chattering uncontrollably, voice utterly frozen. There I remained on the cold ground, propped on my hands behind me as I gazed upward, watching Madam Yaeko—still with her kimono front hem tucked up—ascend the ladder with brisk resolve. She gripped the window ledge just as I had done earlier, peering inside with equal stealth. Yet... the absolute composure Madam Yaeko maintained in that instant—even now, remembering it makes every hair on my body bristle.

Madam Yaeko stared through the window, intently surveying the scene inside, then asked in a composed voice, “What are you doing there?” From within came the Young Master’s reply in his usual calm tone: “Mother… please wait a moment.” “In a little while, it will start to rot…” his voice carried clearly through the silence. The surroundings lay utterly still… Madam Yaeko appeared to consider this briefly before responding, “It hasn’t even begun rotting yet.” “More importantly, dawn has already broken—come down to eat your meal,” she urged. A “Yes” echoed from inside as the Young Master seemed to rise—the firelight reflected in the window abruptly dimmed… But… could these truly be words spoken by a mother confronting her daughter’s corpse?… Madam Yaeko then hurried down the ladder and ran toward the storehouse door shouting “Doctor! Doctor!” at me… To my shame, I comprehended nothing of what transpired—and even had I understood, my legs had turned to jelly, leaving me immobilized. I simply trembled uncontrollably, incapable of standing or sitting still, consumed by terror.

When the storehouse door opened, the Young Master emerged holding a key in one hand and wearing garden geta. He grinned at us, but his eyes were now completely unlike their usual selves. Madam Yaeko—who had been waiting impatiently—quietly took the key from his hand and, with an air of deceptive coaxing, pressed her mouth to his ear to whisper a few words before briskly pulling the Young Master by the hand and leading him into the annex to put him to bed—all of which I could clearly see from my position.

Then Madam Yaeko turned back and went up to the second floor of the storehouse, appearing to furtively handle something. But during this time, finding myself utterly alone, I became so terrified I could hardly breathe. I crawled to the rear gate behind the storehouse and clung to the pomelo tree standing there, finally managing to straighten my paralyzed legs and stand up. From beneath the leaves above my head came the metallic *clang* of the copper-clad storehouse window shutting, startling me into whirling around—only to hear the decisive *click* of a lock being fastened at the storehouse entrance. Moments later, Madam Yaeko—barefoot with disheveled hair and gripping the scroll like a lifeline—raced past my left side toward the annex. With mud-caked feet, she charged up the veranda and violently roused the Young Master—who had only just lain down—thrusting the scroll at him with a demonic expression as she hissed sharp accusations through the now sunlit glass door.

At that moment, the Young Master seemed to be earnestly explaining something—gesturing toward yesterday’s quarry with a shake of his head while mixing in peculiar hand motions and body language. Though I couldn’t catch his words clearly amidst all that convoluted speech, phrases like “for His Majesty” and “for the people” kept surfacing repeatedly. Madam Yaeko listened wide-eyed, nodding along, until abruptly the Young Master fell silent. His gaze fixed on the scroll she thrust toward him before he suddenly snatched it away, burying it deep within his breast pocket. When Madam Yaeko wrested it back by force—a decision we’d later rue—the Young Master seemed to deflate, jaw slackening as he stared vacantly at her with such an unnerving expression that even she recoiled, slowly rising to retreat. But he seized her sleeve in a flash, slamming her back onto the tatami with a thud, then narrowed his eyes in perverse delight and grinned—a sly, creeping smile.

When I saw that face, I shuddered as if doused with cold water. Madam Yaeko appeared to be trembling violently as she tried desperately to break free, whereupon the Young Master sprang upright. From behind, he seized the hair at her nape as she descended the veranda, then yanked her backward to slam her supine onto the ground. Dragging her roughly from the veranda edge into the garden, he picked up a nearby geta and began striking her head—again and again—with apparent relish, all while maintaining that calm smile. Madam Yaeko rapidly lost all color until her face turned ashen, her hair becoming wildly disheveled as she crawled across the dirt with blood streaming down her face, letting out a deathly scream—but... witnessing this, I became paralyzed with fear. Clutching my trembling knees and waist, I staggered back to this house where I pulled a futon over my head and shook uncontrollably while shouting “Doctor! Doctor!” to my wife. So then when Dr. Munemoto came to my house in confusion, I urged him onward with “It’s the Wu residence! It’s the Wu residence!”

“What I witnessed is only this… Heh… All of it is genuine and without exaggeration. I later heard that two or three young men—roused by Madam Yaeko’s screams—awoke and came running to restrain the Young Master with thin cord. But his struggling strength at that time was said to surpass even that of three or five men combined, snapping the cord twice over. After they finally managed to immobilize him by tying him to the base of the annex’s central pillar, the Young Master seemed exhausted and fell into deep, snoring sleep right there. Yet when he awoke later, his demeanor had changed utterly—so completely that even when police officers questioned him, he merely darted his eyes about without responding at all… Madam Yaeko stated this same affliction had manifested previously in Naogata, where university doctors discovered he’d been administered paralytic drugs. Since no further issues arose afterward, they brought him here. But seeing this latest episode… bloodline is a fearsome thing—without doubt, this must be the curse of that scroll at work.”

“Though truth be told, this scroll’s curse hasn’t manifested in many a year, so we simple folk know naught of its true workings… But they say that scroll was enshrined within the belly of the principal Buddha statue at yonder Kisaragi Temple—the one whose roof you can spy over there. And it’s said any Wu-blooded man who lays eyes on it’ll surely lose his wits… murdering parents, sisters, even strangers—any woman alive. There’s talk the temple keeps records of its origins… or maybe not… But how that accursed thing found its way into the Young Master’s hands beggars belief.” “……Heh… The current abbot of Kisaragi Temple—Reverend Hōrin they call him—stands as renowned as Shōfuku-ji’s head priest in Hakata. He’d know all about such cursed lineage matters… Heh… An ancient soul he is, withered like a crane with eyebrows and beard hanging white as snowfall—a right venerable sight, that holy man.” “Why not seek audience with him yourself? Hear the tale from his own lips?” “I’ll have my old woman show you the way…”

——Heh... Madam Yaeko was now said to be lying in bed half out of her mind with a sprained ankle. They said the head injury wasn’t serious, but her words made sense one moment and none the next—leaving no way to make heads or tails of anything. With my legs having given out, I couldn’t even go visit her...

“It’s been said by some that everything turned out too late because I didn’t run to Dr. Munemoto—but that’s unreasonable,” he said. “When Dr. Munemoto came to examine my back, he stated Miss Moyoko had been strangled between three and four this morning.” The extent of the candle’s burning was indeed said to match that timeframe. “Hmm… The rest is exactly as I’ve related.” “If Madam Yaeko were in her right mind, all would be clear… but as I said earlier, one moment she speaks resentfully of the Young Master—‘Regain your senses soon, I beg you!’” “She mutters things like ‘You alone are my pillar…’ in half-sleeping states—none of it makes any sense.”

“The police have not yet sent a single officer to inquire at my residence.” “The reason I say this is that none noticed the commotion first save those young live-in workers who came running upon hearing Madam Yaeko’s shrill cries.” “The police had already thoroughly investigated subsequent matters before departing... Fearing suspicion myself beforehand—I entreated Dr. Munemoto for silence—yet amidst fortuitous chaos ere discerning who summoned him—his unforeseen visit left me utterly confounded.”

“Heh.”

“I have concealed nothing at all.” “If at all possible, could you use your influence as a doctor to ensure I’m not summoned by the police again?” “As you can see, my legs have given out, and I’m the sort who shudders at even the mention of the police… Heh…”

◆ Second Reference: The Origins of Seidai-san Kisaragi Temple

(Memoirs of Founding Monk Ikkō Shōnin) —Note— The temple is located at Meihama-cho 24-banchi.

Pertaining to the founding by Kōtei, forty-ninth-generation ancestor of the Wu family— Morning’s snow, adorned with golden light across the land; by evening, turns to muddy water, vanishing into rivers and seas. Tonight’s blossoms of glory, arrayed with silver candles; by dawn, become dust and debris, consigned to the earth. The Three Realms are but patterns on the waves; a lifetime, a rainbow in the void—or so it is said. How much more so for those who form evil karmic bonds and fail to sever them with each passing thought. In life, they plunge into hell’s ceaseless transformations, manifesting the visage of shrieking demon-beasts; in death, they pass evil fruits to their descendants, driving them mad under the eternal torments of karmic retribution. To what can we compare this dread, this suffering?

Herein perceiving this chain of cause and effect, he thoroughly investigated the principles of origin and culmination therein; severed and verified the root source, transforming it into bodhicitta; erected a temple complex to reverently adorn it with Buddha's wisdom; thus creating a pure sanctuary where all beings—human and divine—gather in veneration through single-minded recitation. Tracing these origins: during the Keian era [1648-1652], in Yamashiro Province's capital Kyoto, near Gion's sacred precincts—in a bustling district where people of all stations had gathered for years—there existed a tea house called Midoriya. Each year they selected Uji's finest harvests to present at court, naming this offering "Gyokuro" and spreading its renown nationwide. The household head Tsuboemon had one son and three daughters. They named the boy Tsubotarō and cherished him beyond measure, yet this youth naturally disdained commerce; from tender years he studied under Ingen Shōnin of Uji's Ōbaku school, surpassing even learned scholars. He mastered Yagyū swordsmanship on one hand, absorbed techniques from the Tosa painting tradition, and embraced the Shōfū style of haikai poetry to forge his distinctive artistic manner. Upon reaching manhood he took the name Kōtei ("Rainbow Bank"), yearning solely for mountain streams with no thought of inheriting the family business. Yet as years advanced and no male heir remained, they pressed him relentlessly to wed; though he steadfastly refused on grounds of unfinished studies, conflict became unavoidable. At last, when through his father Tsuboemon's entreaties he received an edict from Master Ingen, a profound transformation stirred within him—

"Until this day at twenty-five, I heeded not the cuckoo's call." After inscribing this verse upon his family’s gate, he departed home, took monastic vows, and entrusted himself to a single straw hat and staff. Spending nearly a year journeying westward while exploring famed sites and ancient ruins, he entered Hizen Karatsu via the Nagasaki Road. It was toward the end of the fourth month of spring in Enpō 2 (1674); Kōtei was twenty-six years old. Kōtei toured the scenic beauty of this place, admiring it immensely. Taking inspiration from Niji no Matsubara (Rainbow Pine Grove), he changed his name to Kōtei; selecting Eight Views, he unfurled brush and paper, personally carved printing blocks, and resolved to distribute them widely throughout the realm. Thus having lingered for over half a year, he was lured forth by the full moon of late autumn to depart his inn and ascend to Niji no Matsubara. The ancient famed pines lining the silver waves and sands fully displayed their graceful forms within the pure moonlight, as though imbued with the celestial artistry of a master’s ink technique. Having traveled one ri and passed through the fishing village of Hamazaki, his interest remained undiminished. After pursuing the flowing frost for another half a ri, he arrived at Ebisu Cape; leaning against a rocky crag to gaze afar upon the bay’s scenery, counting the shadows of wild geese until reaching midnight.

At that very moment, there appeared a woman. She seemed no older than sixteen summers, her resplendent sleeves fluttering as she traversed the rugged shore on pale, delicate feet that appeared heartbreakingly fragile. Drawing near to Kōtei without noticing his presence, she clasped her hands westward in prolonged prayer until at last wiping away tears and gathering her sleeves about herself—manifesting every indication of casting her body into the sea’s embrace. Startled, Kōtei dashed forward to seize her arm. Guiding her to a stretch of immaculate sand within the nearby pine grove, he pressed urgently for an explanation of these events. At first, the maiden could do naught but weep bitterly into her sleeves, yet gradually she began to speak: “I am called Rokubime—sole daughter of the Wu household dwelling here in Hamazaki. “Our family prospered for generations as leaders of this land, yet such is the transience of worldly affairs—what swells must ebb. “But verily, they speak of dreadful karmic bonds within this realm. “Since time immemorial, madness has coursed unbroken through our lineage. “Now that matters have come to this pass, I alone remain—a pitiful survivor clinging to bitter existence.”

“To speak of how it began—there exists in our family a picture scroll passed down from our ancestors,” she said. “Within it was depicted the nude figure of a beautiful woman. As I have heard it told, a certain ancestor of the Wu family—grieving the loss of his beloved wife—sought to preserve her corpse’s likeness through painting, pouring his soul into creating a memento for this fleeting world of lightning and morning dew. Yet by some cruel fate, even as he labored, the body decayed before his eyes—rotting away to bare bones ere his brush could complete half its work.” “The master’s grief knew no bounds until at last madness seized him,” she continued. “The late wife’s sister, Madam Kuregashi, attended to him with every care imaginable, yet her efforts proved futile—she too ultimately met the same fate as her sister.” “At that time,” she added, her voice lowering, “Madam Kuregashi—the younger sister—carried that madman’s child within her womb, already near her time of childbirth. Grieving that same sorrow anew, she stood upon death’s threshold once more when someone—somehow—persuaded her to stay her hand... or so I have been told.”

Around that time, there was a visiting monk called Shōkū who had come down from the capital to restore the Buddhist statues at Kanzeon-ji Temple in Dazaifu, Chikuzen Province. Having completed the restoration work and preparing to return, during his pilgrimage he visited this vicinity; upon hearing these circumstances, he must have deemed it a pitiable matter. Having taken residence at our household and inspected that scroll, [Shōkū] performed a karmic binding ritual before the Buddha and earnestly conducted sutra recitations; thereafter, felling the great sandalwood tree in the rear garden and selecting its red heartwood, he personally carved a seated statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva, enshrined that scroll within its hollow core, and installed it as the principal object of worship at our family altar—decreed henceforth that only the women of this household may attend to this altar’s rites and unseal this scroll. Furthermore, [he] strictly prohibited any male individuals from approaching [the altar] under any circumstances and departed.

After that, the descendant of that madman—a jewel of a son—was safely born into this world. He grew to take a wife and succeeded to our family’s name; in accordance with Reverend Shōkū’s prohibition, he permitted no others near the Buddhist altar. Entrusting the management of water offerings and incense and floral tributes to his wife alone, he devotedly prayed for peace in this world and a favorable rebirth in the next. Yet this was likely because he had inherited the blood of a madman. When this man reached adulthood and sired several children, he once again met his wife’s untimely death; driven to madness like his predecessor, he met his end. Thereafter, among the male descendants through successive generations, one or two would periodically succumb to madness when confronted with triggering events. Their madness was no ordinary affliction. Some would attempt to murder women; others would apply digging tools to women’s fresh graves—committing nothing but unsettling acts. When people tried to restrain them, they would not only kill or injure those interveners but also bite off their own tongues or hang themselves to death. Generation after generation without variation, it reached a truly dreadful extremity.

Since matters had come to such a pass, how could those who saw or heard of them not tremble in fear and dread? Some whispered it was a curse upon men who had glimpsed that picture scroll; others suspected an affliction from impure women approaching that Buddha statue. Far and wide, people passed down warnings to shun marital bonds with us—thus our family’s bloodline had repeatedly teetered on the brink of extinction. Therefore, some resorted to gold and silver, while others sought spouses from distant lands to barely sustain our family name; yet in recent years, even when approaching lowly beggars, the mere mention of ties to our house made their tongues quiver and bodies tremble. Now, all my blood relatives have perished without exception, leaving me utterly alone. “Above all, my two elder brothers had grown increasingly deranged of late—the eldest desecrated the Kaimori burial grounds, while the second tried to stone me. After committing such horrors, they both met untimely ends in quick succession. When these rumors peaked, most servants begged leave to depart, and even those who had served us for years could only sigh when they looked upon me.” “There was no one left to speak with—it had become a desolation beyond all pity.”

In due course during such times, Unno Nanigashi—chief retainer of the Karatsu domain—having heard of these circumstances, issued a decree that his third son Kisaburō should be given to me as a son-in-law to succeed the family name. The male and female servants all stood about in commotion, rejoicing and chattering excitedly over how such a favorable turn of events could scarcely have been imagined compared to our previous circumstances. Yet among them, only my nursemaid—who had protected and raised me—wore an unsmiling expression as she sat despondent. When I inquired into her reasons, she sighed and spoke thus: "This is by no means a joyous decree—for according to what my husband, who serves at the manor, inadvertently disclosed: that nobleman Kisaburō is Lord Unno’s illegitimate son, a master swordsman renowned as foremost in the domain. Yet from youth his conduct has been turbulent; ever since accompanying the Nagasaki guard contingent to that land, he became infatuated with Maruyama courtesans, ultimately consorting with unsavory sorts to destroy dojos hither and thither, forcibly commandeering teahouses—committing every manner of outrage until he found himself with nowhere to dwell—and has now secretly returned to the domain." "Yet not a soul in Lord Unno’s household would consent to take him as a son-in-law—nay, they shunned him like snakes or caterpillars. It was only upon learning of our Wu family’s circumstances that this decree came to pass." "Not only that, but I have heard their true underlying intention is a scheme to seize all possessions of the Wu family—house and storehouse alike—by wielding the chief retainer’s authority once the matter is settled." "Though I speak of your fate, though I speak of powerlessness—when I think of the anguish awaiting your future, my eyes grow dim and my heart near to vanishing," she declared through flowing tears. "I too was thrown into confusion over what to do, yet this frail self had no recourse but to grow anxious and despondent. Then, on this very night—after the recent autumn harvest had concluded and matters had somewhat settled—the nobleman Unno Kisaburō appeared unexpectedly at our home alone, without attendants or formal attire."

At this unexpected turn, the household scrambled in confusion; before they could even prepare an honorable repast, they ushered him to the inner chamber. Meanwhile, this humble self adjusted my makeup and proceeded to appear at the gathering—but when I beheld the nobleman’s form, half his face lay burned and festering like clods of earth, while the remaining side bore brows torn asunder, whites of eyes glaring forth, lips twisted askew—truly a visage one might call a veritable demon. Moreover, wherever he had imbibed drink, the nobleman’s breath reeked thick with liquor—so terrifying that this humble self could scarce keep from trembling uncontrollably. Enduring this somehow, with a heart fraught with peril, I rose to pour his drink—but ere the cups had made three rounds, he grabbed my hand with his free one. At that moment, when this humble self reflexively pulled back my hand, the contents of the nobleman’s cup spilled onto his lap—whereupon he suddenly flew into a drunken rage and, without even drawing his blade, struck down my nursemaid who sought to restrain him. In that chaos, this humble self managed to escape and somehow made my way here, but with such unending misfortunes plaguing our family and no means to escape my wretched fate, I had resolved to simply end my life when I was thus prevented. Henceforth, I suppose I must become a nun. I suppose I must become a pilgrim. Though I know not from which land you hail, in your further mercy I beseech you to teach me the means—prostrating herself in the sand while stifling her voice.

Having heard her out and pondered at length, Kōtei finally helped the maiden rise and spoke: "Very well—I have a solution. Pray do not grieve so bitterly now." As he took Rokubime's hand to leave—intending first to examine that scroll and illuminate the karmic bonds of her fate—a brutish warrior with half a demon's visage emerged from pine shadows. Without a word, he swung his blade at Kōtei. Wielding Zen-honed reflexes, Kōtei pivoted to let the strike cleave empty air while bellowing a thunderous cry. The warrior staggered several paces through void space with gleaming sword still in hand, then missed his footing at the cliff's edge and plunged into the moon-flooded sea below, vanishing in a burst of spray.

Thus Kōtei arrived at the Wu residence with Rokubime, gathered her nursemaid's remains alongside the household members, personally conducted memorial sutra recitations, and strictly forbade them from speaking of it to outsiders. Then entering the Buddhist altar room and keeping others at a distance, he extracted that scroll from within the body of the principal Maitreya Buddha statue. Having performed reverent worship while unrolling and examining it, he found only the beautiful woman's form in a state of putrid decay—festering with pus—that made every hair on his body stand rigid. Thereupon he sat in meditation before the Buddha, steadied his vital essence, and entered samādhi for over ten days. Then at the first hour of dawn on the final day of the eleventh month of Enpō 2 (1674), he suddenly opened his eyes and declared:

“To dispel ordinary beings’ delusions, nothing surpasses Buddhist invocation—Namu Amida, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida, Namu Amida Butsu…”

Having intoned this in a resounding voice three times, he cast the aforementioned scroll into the nearby brazier, where it transformed into a wisp of smoke and vanished. Thus, Kōtei calmly emerged from his meditative state, gathered the household members, and declared: “Through my spiritual power, I have succeeded in severing the Wu family’s evil karmic bonds. That is to say, I shall enshrine these ashes within the Buddha statue to conduct memorial rites alongside all souls of the Three Realms; then, having returned to secular life, I desire to enter this household as its son-in-law and implant victorious fruits for ten thousand generations. Should any among the household have concerns, I would hear them without delay,” he declared—yet not a single soul voiced their thoughts, their entire being consumed by fear of reprisal from the Unno family, the domain’s chief retainers. Kōtei, perceiving their unspoken concerns, on that very day generously rewarded the household members before dismissing them, then sealed the residence and storehouses with a declaration: “To be returned to the authorities.” He nailed a wooden placard boldly inscribed “Wu Heida,” had only gold and silver items and calligraphic works loaded onto four packhorse burdens prepared as towering cargo, entrusted the reins to burly porters, shouldered the Maitreya Buddha statue himself while tucking the Wu family genealogy into his robe, took Rokubime by the hand, and at dawn the following day departed from Hamasaki, setting his course eastward. At that time, on the first day of the twelfth month of Enpō 2 (1674), the snow fell in flurries as if taking its name from Rokubime; the peerless beauty of their journey spanning five ri along long shores and winding inlets transformed in an instant into a long silver screen, making one wonder if it rivaled Kōtei’s painted brushwork.

Thus, when they had traveled about one ri from Hamasaki—just as the eastern sky began to redden at dawn—a great clamor of approaching voices arose from behind them. Kōtei turned around, wondering what was happening, to see twenty or thirty constables—among them Unno Kisaburō, that half-demonic visage who had fallen into the sea, now inexplicably revived—resplendent in white headbands, close-quarter armor, campaign surcoats, and field trousers. Brandishing a longsword, they closed in until directly before him. “Halt there, wicked monk—move not an inch!” Kisaburō bellowed in a thunderous voice. “Previously we mistook you for a secret inspector of the shogunate—out of momentary restraint, we sheathed our precious blades. But thereafter, under domain orders, we thoroughly investigated your background and deeds: not only posing as a painter to survey this castle town’s terrain but also disguising yourself as a monk to wander provinces, deceiving virtuous households to plunder their treasures, luring children to conceal their whereabouts—your nature as an audacious, lawless rogue is as clear as heaven and earth! Even if you soar to the skies or burrow into the earth, there shall be no escape for you now! Behold, men! Here stands Heida—the outlaw who plundered our domain’s possessions through lawless violence!” “And there stands the cowardly, indecisive thieving monk—the kidnapper of women!” When he ruthlessly pressed forward and roared, “Capture that scoundrel without mercy!”, his subordinate constables kicked up snow in unison as they charged with full force. On one side loomed a towering cliff that soared halfway to the sky. On one side, a precipice overlooked the sea, offering no foothold. At their rear waited a delicate woman along with horses and men. Though escape seemed impossible, Kōtei showed not a flicker of agitation. He handed the revered Buddha statue he had been carrying to a horse attendant, brushed snow from his woven bamboo hat and had Rokubime hold it, planted his well-worn bamboo staff firmly, adjusted his robes while fingering his prayer beads, then calmly and deliberately turned to advance toward them. The constables—their expectations upended—appeared utterly daunted by his bearing.

At that moment, Kōtei turned to face the multitude and bowed courteously before clearing his throat to declare: “This humble one must express deepest gratitude for your arduous journey from afar—truly a most commendable exertion.” “That such an outrageous ruffian should be escorted by so large a retinue speaks volumes about the enlightened governance of your domain—truly a most admirable display.” “Though you say that, if these are your gracious intentions, might I trouble you to escort me just a little further to the Chikuzen border?” “Thus, your duties will be smoothly fulfilled without hindrance, there will be no need for futile bloodshed, and your domain will avoid disgrace.” “What say you to this proposition?” As he spoke these words with a refreshingly clear voice and a faint smile—“I should very much like to hear your answer”—the entire group remained dumbfounded for quite some time. Suddenly, Kumoi Kisaburō’s entire face flushed crimson. “You dare spew such twisted drivel from that mangled mouth of yours?!” “Before, I was drunk and took a misstep—but today my blade shall know no rust.” “Charge, you lot! The foe is but one!” “Spare none but the women—cut down all others without hesitation.” When he struck his sword hilt crying “Charge!”, the men who should have responded with vigor found themselves facing but a lone, unremarkable traveling monk. Belittling what they perceived as trivial opposition, they drew their ice-cold blades that mirrored the snowy landscape and charged forth one after another. Kōtei, seeing no alternative, took his bamboo staff in his left hand. With an empty fist technique, he disarmed the first attacker’s blade, then swept aside the following strikes. He clashed through the raining clubs and tridents, maneuvering across the full width of the path to keep men and horses at bay. With ridge strikes and pressure point blows, he left some unconscious or writhing—bodies tumbling into snowdrifts or plunging into the sea—until over a dozen had fallen.

Overwhelmed by the traveling monk’s unforeseen mastery—such that even their considerable numbers proved inadequate to counter him, leaving them visibly routed—Kumoi Kisaburō could no longer contain himself. “The impudent prowess of this priest!” “Come then—to demonstrate the keenness of my new blade and deliver final rites to this ill-fated encounter—” he drew his long battlefield sword with a flourish, assumed the blue-eyed stance without disrupting his footwork, and closed in with razor-edged precision. What must Kōtei have thought? Discarding the sword he had seized, Kōtei lightly re-gripped the bamboo staff in his right hand. Meeting Kisaburō’s bloodthirsty blade without yielding a hair’s breadth of ground, he seized control of the initiative like flowing water and pressed down on subsequent openings like biting frost. Even Kisaburō’s renowned blade—once famed for its edge—now seemed trapped between colossal boulders; he could only strain his breath and gnash his teeth in silent fury. Kōtei observed this and broke into a gentle smile. “How now, Kisaburō?” “Have you realized it now?” “The sharp sword of Amida Buddha lies within this bamboo staff.” “The immovable binding is none other than this breath of compassion.” “Even a sword refined through hundreds of temperings and thousands of polishings—if it cannot transcend the boundaries of illusion and reality, life and death—is inferior to but a single bamboo staff grasped in enlightenment.” “Behold this marvel before your eyes! If you harbor doubts, cast aside that sword, transform your wicked heart to enter the Buddhist path, and attain that liberated realm where not a single thought wavers nor a moment's confusion arises.” “If not, I shall entrust myself to the principle of 'one killed to save many,' cut you into two pieces, and thereby remove the imminent disgrace from the Karatsu Domain.” “Therefore, this very moment marks the boundary between life and death’s final throes.” “This is the instant when hell and heaven become clear!” As Kōtei pressed forward again and again, even the peerlessly bold Kisaburō could only turn pale, his eyes bloodshot, white sweat streaming as he panted—though perhaps his accumulated karmic power had not yet been exhausted. Perhaps having shifted tactics through a single subtle movement, Kisaburō suddenly summoned heaven-piercing courage to swing his great sword overhead in a direct strike; as he charged forward with elite precision like lightning, Kōtei nimbly evaded while delivering a counterblow with a resounding impact. The bamboo staff’s keenness did not fail to find its mark. When the staff struck Kisaburō's forehead, he reeled back dizzily—Kōtei, exploiting the opening created by his sideways parry, grasped the hilt of the dagger at Kisaburō's waist as if claiming it for his own. “Then I shall act as I please!” he declared, though before the words fully left his mouth, Kisaburō appeared to retreat about one ken. Yet as Kisaburō swung up his greatsword once more, he arched backward into empty air and was struck down with a resounding blow to the crown of his head. From his right shoulder, which had been slashed in a grandiose manner, blood gushed forth, staining the snow as he breathed his last.

They were likely frightened by this display of force. Those who remained fled far away, with no pursuers in sight; now at ease, Kōtei returned the seized dagger to the corpse, clasped his palms together while fingering his rosary, and chanted Buddhist prayers two or three times. Then brushing snow from his black robes, he shouldered the Buddha statue as if to say "Let us go," comforted the despondent Rokubime, tilted his hat, and urged the group onward. Without delay they entered Chikuzen Province, lodged one night in a place called Fukae, and at dawn the next day trod upon still-unmelted snow to travel east another five ri until arriving at this Himenoura, where they settled down.

Kōtei surveyed the lay of this land and contemplated: To the north rose Atago's sacred peak piercing the heavens, while to the south it joined through mist and cloud with Seburi, Raizan, and Ukigake—mountains of renown. The endless expanse of Toyota Meguri's fields stretched to the horizon, ample to sustain descendants for ten thousand generations, while the Muroumi River's clear currents proved fit for floating ceremonial wine cups. Historic Akirehama blended with Odo's ancient sites, Aya's landmarks, and Iku no Matsubara's famed pines—all harmoniously arranged yet lying not far from the Kuroda clan's castle town of 550,000 koku. Truly this place gathered nature's quintessence—the very cream of mountain and sea topography. Thus he cultivated the horsemen who had followed him into household retainers, secured fields to erect dwellings and granaries, and while establishing communication with his Kyoto homeland to forge plans for eternity, he chose a site to amass giant timbers from Raizan and Seburi. Personally wielding carpenter's line and ink, he raised a great temple complex, enshrining as its principal image the seated Maitreya Bodhisattva statue he had borne—intending this to become both an ancestral temple for generations without end and an eternal sanctuary of prayer. When its mountain gate soared high to greet the moon of absolute reality; when its hall roofs aligned to reflect the golden visage of Buddha's realm. With groves and springs hidden deep where azure waters met white sands; with birdsong and leaping fish; with devotees chanting homage to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—it truly seemed both a marvel of this degenerate age and a sacred ground without peer.

Thus,

When Kōtei completed his work by early November in the fifth year of Enpo (1677), during the reign of Emperor Reigen, the 111th sovereign of Japan, the head temple in Kyoto summoned this humble monk to appoint him as founding abbot. I, citing my limited knowledge and shallow learning, firmly declined time and again—yet they would not heed. Finally moved by its wondrousness, I descended with my traveling pack to assume the abbacy, bestowing upon the temple the name Seidai-san Kisaragi-ji. Thereupon, on an auspicious date divined for the 21st day of the Second Month in Enpo 6 (1678), we delivered the Seven-Gate Lecture on Rebirth, recited the Three Pure Land Sutras, and conducted a Grand Memorial Service alongside a Grand Segaki Ceremony spanning seven days. On that day, Kōtei himself ascended the dais, succinctly recounted the preceding karmic circumstances and led the congregation in repentance, then recited two waka poems.

Chant: The Six Realms—now I shall not wander; the Six Characters.

In the Buddha’s world—a kuretake bamboo staff　　　　　　 Tsubotarō

Layer upon layer of kuretake bamboo—behold the Buddha’s

Immediately shall I return to the empty path　　　　　Rokubime Then this humble monk ascended the dais, expounded in detail on the karmic causality of the temple's origins, elucidated the principles of transmigration through the Six Realms and reincarnation, imparted the profound truth that "a single thought of Amida Buddha instantly eradicates immeasurable karmic obstructions," and concluded by reciting a verse. One thought invoking the sacred name—merit transmitted through ten thousand generations; The bell of Seidai-san Temple welcomes the moon of true reality. Furthermore, Rokubime was eighteen years old at the time. It is said she had already copied the six-character sacred name onto thirty thousand sheets of paper, and when she distributed these at the gathering of devotees, they were completely exhausted in less than three days.

Such tales revealed the thoroughfares of the Six Realms within this saha world, laying bare before our eyes the principles of karmic retribution. Hearken: earthly desires were none other than enlightenment; the six dusts none other than the Pure Land. Thus did the peaceful repose of the Wu family ancestors and their karmic bonds leading all future generations to supreme perfect enlightenment know no end. Any male or female born hereafter into the Wu family who wished to repay this great kindness had to deeply engrave this principle within their hearts and never neglect Buddhist services and invocations. They must not permit others to hear of these matters; should they mistakenly leak them, they might fear incurring the resentment of other domains. This was to be limited solely to the then head priest of this temple and the head of the Wu family and his wife. Anaken.

Enpo 7th Year, 7th Month, 7th Day - Recorded in one line.

◆ Third Reference: Account by Venerable Nomiyama Hōrin

▼ Interview Date/Time: Same Day as Previously Mentioned, Approximately 3:00 PM

▼ Interview Location: At the Abbot’s Quarters of Kisaragi Temple

▼ Attendees: Venerable Nomiyama Hōrin (Head Priest of this temple, seventy-seven years old at the time; (died August of the same year)) Myself (Dr. W) — the two individuals mentioned above — “Your doubts are entirely justified. As clearly recorded in this temple’s founding chronicle, regarding how the scroll—which over a century ago Lord Kōtei, whom we might call the Wu family’s restorer, reduced entirely to ashes and sealed away until Maitreya’s era—could have reverted to its original form as a scroll, manifested in this present age, and come into Mr. Takeichirō’s possession to become the seed of such unseemly derangement… In truth, even had you not inquired, I had resolved to speak of this matter and humbly seek your (Dr. W’s) discerning judgment.”

“By tradition, this temple’s origin document is presented exclusively to the master and his wife of the Wu family when they first visit the ancestral graves after inheriting the family name, with all others dismissed. Other matters pertaining to the Wu family’s honorable bloodline—beyond ordinary affairs—are never to be disclosed to outsiders, as this has been ordained as the fundamental secret duty of this temple’s abbots since the time of our founding abbot. However, given that it is an unavoidable inquiry from your esteemed self, and particularly since discerning whether Mr. Takeichirō’s madness is genuine or feigned stands as the threshold determining his condemnation or exoneration… how could I possibly conceal anything…”

“The reason I say this is none other than... There existed a person who had long ago ascertained that the scroll—which was supposed to have been reduced to ashes within the honorable principal image’s sacred interior—remained preserved in its original form. Moreover, I am well aware of whom I believe to be none other than that very individual who not only extracted the scroll from within the principal image but also induced Mr. Takeichirō’s condition through it.” “I must preface that this stems solely from my own conjectures—hence it may strike anyone as unexpected—but it concerns none other than Mr. Takeichirō’s birth mother, Ms. Chiyoko, who met a mysterious violent death years ago in Nōgata... Indeed... This is a most improper tale, for above all else, one cannot conceive of a mother in this world so heartless as to pass such an ill-omened object to her irreplaceable child. Yet I perceive there must be some profound circumstance behind this matter. In any case, should you deign to hear the account I shall now relate, all will soon become clear.”

"When I think back... it must be two decades past now... No... perhaps closer to thirty years." "It is indeed a matter of great antiquity." "You may already be aware of this, but that esteemed lady Chiyoko was said to have been exceptionally bright and dexterous with her hands from early childhood—particularly skilled at painting and embroidery. Even when she was still a young girl in hakama during her long-sleeved kimono years, I would often observe her sitting quietly alone in a corner of this temple's main hall, copying the four-season floral patterns on the sliding doors and the celestial carvings on the transoms." "From that time onward, she already possessed truly adorable, doll-like features…"

“However, I believe it was around when she reached fourteen or fifteen years of age... On her way back from school—or so it appeared—Ms. Chiyoko entered this abbot’s quarters wearing maroon hakama trousers and carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle. Finding me drinking tea alone, she addressed me: ‘Venerable Abbot... I’ve heard there’s a beautiful picture scroll inside that jet-black Buddha statue... Might you show it to me quietly?’ “The scroll’s legend had been widely known in these parts since our temple’s founding ceremony—doubtless many villagers still remembered it—so I assumed she’d heard it from someone... At the time I laughed... ‘That was reduced to ashes long ago—I couldn’t show it now even if I wished.’ Yet she persisted—‘When I shook that Buddha statue just now, something rattled inside its belly.’ “‘There must be something in there!’ she insisted. “I was aghast... ‘I would never do such a thing! You’ll incur divine punishment!’... After she left and I found myself alone, such anxiety gripped me that I stole into the main hall. Though it pained me to show such irreverence, when I shook the principal image of Maitreya Bodhisattva... there indeed came that rattling sound—a tactile sensation suggesting something precisely scroll-shaped lay within...”

"I was so astonished by the sheer strangeness that my very chest seemed to roar. 'Since I had firmly believed—exactly as written in this temple's origin text—that the interior of the principal image contained nothing but ashes from the burned scroll... however, at that moment it occurred to me: might this not be that Lord Kōtei of old pretended to burn the scroll, yet in truth enshrined it within the Buddha statue in its original form? Might it not be that the packing material around it had dried and loosened over the years, producing such sounds? For one fond of paintings—a plausible scenario—might they not have acted thus out of excessive reluctance to destroy the scroll? By enshrining it and conducting memorial rites over years, perhaps believing that through gradual attenuation of karmic bonds and extinguishing of curses, they could resolve matters through their own judgment. In that case, should it be taken out anew and burned away completely?' I could not help entertaining various thoughts—'What should be done...?' and the like—yet even so, there remained points I could not fully reconcile, and feeling an eerie dread, I pondered that surely no one would dare break open the principal image to look inside, and thus left matters as they were."

“However, time passes swiftly, and when last autumn arrived, on the evening just before the equinox, Madam Yaeko, Mr. Takeichirō, and Miss Moyoko came together to clean the graves.” “At that time, Madam Yaeko—while cleaning the mausoleum alone—stopped by this abbot’s quarters and drank tea. Amidst our various conversations… though it may seem a bit premature, she consulted me: ‘Once Takeichirō graduates from Roppōmatsu School (Fukuoka High School) next spring, I intend to have him and Moyoko wed immediately. What do you think?’” Madam Yaeko had always consulted me before making such announcements, so I responded that it was truly an excellent plan. When the two of us then stood and went out to the main hall’s veranda, we could see Mr. Takeichirō in his school uniform and Miss Moyoko wearing a red obi—having finished cleaning—standing side by side affectionately, crouching as they pressed their hands together in prayer before the cemetery beside the temple gate. When Madam Yaeko saw this, she seemed to feel a pang in her chest—hurriedly covering her face as she made her way toward the mausoleum—while I remained behind. As I watched the truly well-matched figures of the two, idly pondering the future of the Wu family’s lineage, I suddenly recalled a story about Ms. Chiyoko from two decades prior, and before I knew it, I had gasped aloud. Though at the time, I could not help but think this was an old man’s unnecessary fretfulness, yet it seems my mind remained troubled, for when night fell, I found myself utterly unable to sleep.

So I slowly rose... Guided by moonlight streaming through the window and ritual lamplight, I went alone to the main hall. Though it pained me to show such irreverence, I placed both hands upon the Principal Image and shook it—yet not a trace remained of the distinct rattling sound I had heard before. "Moreover, does it not feel to you as though the contents have become hollow?"

“At that moment as well—if I may call it a premonition—I was overcome by an eerie dread. Nevertheless, steeling myself, I reverently removed the principal image from its shrine, carried it to this abbot’s quarters, and upon donning spectacles to scrutinize it closely—though the thick layer of dust made discernment somewhat difficult—I discovered the statue’s neck had been fitted at the collar joint such that it would come loose when shaken with force.” “At that moment, I realized.” “Then, suppressing my pounding heart, I carried it out along the corridor to the earthen floor, quietly brushed away the dust, and returned here. After spreading a rug beneath this electric light, I removed the honorable image’s head from its fitted joint. At the base—hollowed precisely into the shape of a sutra cylinder—lay ashes wrapped in old Chinese-style paper. Yet the center of that ash bundle was perfectly indented in the form of a scroll’s spindle.” “When one sees this, though Lord Kōtei stated that he had burned the scroll, there must have been some deeper intention behind it.” “The truth is that it was stored without being burned, preserved in its original form, and that someone subsequently stole it... This has become an indisputable fact.” “Yes… Beyond that, aside from old cotton that seems to have been packed around it, not a single scrap of paper is to be found… Please come over here.” “I will show you the honorable principal image.” ＝See remarks in latter section＝

“As you can plainly see... Whether this stems from my own negligence or some other failing... Ah... How I have agonized, time and again, praying no calamity would come to pass.” “Yet when considered from another perspective, if it was Ms. Chiyoko who took it away, what possible necessity could there have been for such an act?” “Moreover, after she met such an end in Nookata, who could have kept it hidden until today?” “Considering that Madam Yaeko—who had sorted through Ms. Chiyoko’s belongings after her passing—would surely have mentioned even a single word to me had she discovered anything... Yet as I agonized over this back and forth, the recent incident occurred, leaving me with no recourse but to call it a mystery beyond the reach of both heart and words.” “...It has come to my understanding that following Mr. Takeichirō’s fit of madness, the whereabouts of that scroll have become unknown—this too stands as one of the mysteries.” “Among the villagers, there are those who claim to have witnessed the scroll undulating like a serpent through the void both before and after Mr. Takeichirō’s fit of madness... What are we to make of this?” “This too arose from my negligence, bringing profound sorrow upon the late Miss Moyoko and driving Mr. Takeichirō to madness.” “I find myself overwhelmed by tears, wishing I could exchange my own dwindling life... and so it goes...”

◆Fourth Reference: Summary of Yaeko Yashiro's Testimony

▼Approximately 5:00 PM on the same day prior to the recorded testimony time

▼Location of Testimony Inner tatami room of the same individual’s residence

▼ Attendees: Yaeko Yashiro, myself (Dr. W)—the above two—

“Ah, Doctor… You’ve come at last.” “How I’ve waited… No, no.” “My injury matters not.” “I need neither life nor anything else.” “Please—(…drawing out the scroll tightly concealed in her bosom and thrusting it forward)—find the fiend who stole this scroll from the temple, lay in wait at that quarry to pass it to Takeichirō, and schemed to slaughter this household! Find them without fail!” “And once found—one question suffices—(sobbing)—ask what grudge drove such cruelty—(sobbing)—one question alone I beg… How I rue—how bitterly—that we failed to uncover them while Takeichirō still had his wits… Were I to know them, I’d gnaw their bones to splinters yet remain unsated—(sobbing)—No… No…” “When we withdrew from Nookata, no such thing existed.” “I’ve searched every crevice of Takeichirō’s person… What could those police dolts comprehend?” “To subject Takeichirō to such barbarity… Even when he pleaded for answers, I had none… I’ve relinquished hope.” “Whether Takeichirō regains reason or not, whether my daughter revives or rots—I care not what becomes of this wretched life.” “Only this—my sister Chiyoko, Takeichirō, and my daughter share one enemy… The wretch who knew this scroll’s curse yet showed it to that Takeichirō…” (Her agitation mounts into incoherence.)

Thereafter, after approximately one week had passed, while gradually returning to calmness, a tendency toward a trance-like state was being observed.)

Remarks (A): At 10:30 AM on the day of the incident, during the inspection of the interior of the Wu family storehouse (referred to as the Third Storehouse), which had been prohibited from entry, upon the old newspapers spread at the entrance to the wooden-floored area downstairs were found the imprints of Takeichirō Wu’s plain-toothed geta and Moyoko’s red cork zōri sandals for outings neatly aligned. From beside these, candle drippings began and continued in a dotted trail up the steep staircase. No signs of struggle, resistance, or agony were found either in the state of the upper floor or on the victim’s corpse.

On the corpse’s neck were intertwined ligature furrow marks, congestion, and other overlapping strangulation grooves; however, no external damage could be recognized to the trachea, larynx, or carotid arteries. Furthermore, one new Western-style handkerchief bearing the scent of face powder was found fallen beneath the desk placed before the corpse; the aforementioned item was recognized as being in the perpetrator’s possession and having been used in the aforementioned violent act. In the center of the desk lay what appeared to be tissue paper, with over a dozen sheets of Japanese paper folded into fours—bearing a woman’s bodily scent—spread out in layers. At the leftmost edge facing forward had been placed a brass candlestick—one of the family's ritual implements—with evidence showing a single 100-monme candle had been erected and lit. Subsequent examination results estimated it had been extinguished approximately two hours and forty minutes after ignition.

Furthermore, three new 100-monme candles along with a matchbox had been placed beneath the desk; of these four candles in total, the numerous fingerprints imprinted upon their upper and central areas consisted solely of those from all fingers of both hands of the victim Moyoko Wu, with not a single fingerprint belonging to the perpetrator Takeichirō Wu being present. Moreover, given that only the victim's fingerprints were detected on the matchbox, there remained no room for doubt that the aforementioned four candles had been brought by the victim herself, who personally struck a match to light one of them and placed it at the left end of the desk. (Omitted: Descriptions concerning Yaeko Yashiro's footprints and related matters.)

(B) At 9:00 PM that same night, the victim's corpse arrived at the Kyushu Imperial University Faculty of Medicine's Department of Forensic Medicine. I (Dr. W) immediately conducted the autopsy with Dr. Funaki in attendance as witness. The procedure concluded at 11:00 PM that night, with the cause of death determined to be compression of the neck—strangulation. Furthermore, it was presumed that after losing consciousness due to some cause, the victim had been strangled. No abnormalities were detected in the hymen. (Other details omitted)

Remarks (A): Upon investigating the seated statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva—the principal image of Kisaragi Temple—it was found to have a large head and small body, with a bizarre countenance, lacking a halo and not wearing the kasaya in the henge style. Clad in an ordinary priestly robe with a ring-shaped Buddhist stole and seated in the full lotus position forming Maitreya’s mudra, there were aspects suggesting it might be a self-portrait of its creator. The overall chiseling technique was remarkably simple yet vigorous, bold and powerful, with sawtooth-shaped and wavelike tool marks present throughout. On the center of the base, the two characters "Kōshū" were intaglio-carved in an exceedingly solemn chiseling technique, each approximately one sun square in size.

(B) The central hollow formed a cylindrical shape measuring 1 shaku in vertical depth and approximately 3 sun 3 bu in horizontal diameter. When deducting the thickness of cotton packed at the top and bottom along with the ash layer, the resulting height of slightly over 1 shaku 6 bu precisely matched the volume of the illustrated scroll (separate reference item). Furthermore, traces of adhesive residue remained visible on the square portion at the base of the neck that served as the lid. (C) Examination of the Chinese-style paper containing ashes and what appeared to be cotton packed on all sides (top, bottom, left, right) revealed that their aged patina and other characteristics approximately corresponded to the recorded period. Microscopic analysis of the ash showed traces only of burned ordinary Japanese paper and silk cloth. No remnants whatsoever of gold thread used for mounting or wood that should have formed the scroll axis were detected (other details omitted).

Remarks (1): As a result of investigating the stone quarry area at the mountain base along the coastal side of the national highway near Meinohama's entrance, it was confirmed that the rock where Takeichirō Wu had been seated while unrolling and viewing the illustrated scroll the previous day was situated in the shadow of an uncut rough stone, positioned in a location unlikely to draw attention from passersby on the thoroughfare. (2) Within the stone quarry were found innumerable stone fragments and boulders of varying sizes, traces of stonemasons' work, and miscellaneous debris that had scattered in from the thoroughfare—straw, paper, straw sandals, horseshoe fragments, and other such trash-like items—but no artifacts warranting particular attention were identified. Furthermore, perhaps due to being washed by the light rain, no footprints resembling those of Takeichirō Wu or any other individuals could be detected.

(3) Gunpei Wakino—a stonemason who ordinarily worked at said location and resided at 1-75 Meinohama Town—had developed abdominal pain and diarrhea along with his wife Mitsu and adopted son Kakui since two days prior, leading to their quarantine under suspicion of having contracted an epidemic. Shortly after their recovery, when the two were questioned and their testimonies synthesized, it was concluded that in recent days during work hours, they had no memory of any suspicious individuals entering the stone quarry or loitering nearby. As for their epidemic, since the fish and other seafood at that location were consistently fresh, the cause could not be attributed to food poisoning or similar factors. In the end, it was attributed to an unknown pathogen.

――――――――――――――――――――

◇ Matter of Inserting Photographic Plates of the Illustrated Scroll

◇ Matter of Recording the Origin Account of the Aforementioned Illustrated Scroll ◇ Matter of Recording Observation and Research Items Pertaining to the Aforementioned Second Episode Seizure in Its Entirety

×　　　　　　　　　　×　　　　　　　　　　×

“Hah hah hah hah…”

“...How about it, gentlemen? Were you taken aback? “You’ve likely been reading this while thoroughly forgetting that this constitutes the most crucial portion of my testament. “Tragedy exists. “Comedy exists. “Swordplay exists. “A colossal element exists. “To this add the fanfare of gratitude peddlers’ publicity, resulting in a record’s content so bizarrely fantastical—quite worthy of eliciting Ohh’s of admiration and Ahh’s of astonishment—that it defies all reason. “Particularly, the outlandish manner in which this psychological heredity manifests is truly unparalleled throughout history; even if one were to consult any so-called tiger scroll of modern common sense or scientific knowledge, they would find themselves utterly outmatched. “Even the renowned forensic scientist Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi seems to have struggled somewhat with this case, as evidenced by such a sigh escaping within his investigative documents. “It reads:

I dare designate the perpetrator of this case as a hypothetical entity. For this reason alone must we conceive of said perpetrator as an owner of fearsome divine-mystery attributes—one transcending not merely all modern scholarship but every moral code, custom, obligation, and human sentiment—leaving no alternative imaginable. That is to say: though having dared commit such atrocities—over mere two years either slaughtering three women and one youth or driving them mad, thereby annihilating a family bloodline beyond revival—the execution methods permit no speculation save coincidental happenstance or some superscientific mystical agency masquerading as such. The perpetrator's very existence stands naturally suspect—nay, even any consistent purpose behind these crimes grows doubtful... et cetera.

……And…… Now then, how about this? You gentlemen who compared the previously presented records with this text must have realized by now— how the core arguments between Dr. Wakabayashi, approaching from his forensic medicine expertise, and myself as a psychiatrist regarding this case have been diametrically opposed since the incident's outbreak, remaining irreconcilable to this day... That is to say, through his distinct forensic lens, Dr. Wakabayashi inevitably concludes there must exist a separate hidden perpetrator behind this incident— someone pulling strings from somewhere to freely manipulate all mysterious phenomena surrounding the case while eluding public scrutiny—a conclusion he dogmatically embraced from the outset. My position remains unyieldingly opposed to this view. From Spiritual Science's perspective, this constitutes what we call a 'crime without a criminal.' Both in form and content, it amounts to nothing more than an extraordinarily bizarre psychotic episode—an act of violence where victim and perpetrator merged into one entity under shared delusion. Should you still demand a perpetrator regardless, I maintain we should arrest the ancestor who genetically imprinted this psychology upon Takeichirō Wu and throw them in jail. This marks where the case's central intrigue lies...

“Huh... Wh-what’s th-this... sh-shiver... Are you claiming to have already identified this case’s true culprit...?” “Oh... This is utterly astonishing.” “No matter how renowned a detective you may be, such razor-sharp deductions are downright inconvenient.” “First off, Wakabayashi and I would be out of work.” “Now now—don’t be hasty. Wait a moment, if you please.” “Even if this individual you’re pursuing is indeed the pitch-black star of this case—Dr. Wakabayashi’s so-called hypothetical demon—it remains mere conjecture without definitive evidence.” “Furthermore—suppose you did possess irrefutable proof and knew precisely where this culprit resides and what they’re doing at this very moment—even after apprehending and thrashing them soundly, what would you propose should some shocking new fact emerge from the case’s shadowy depths... leaving you speechless?” “Heh heh heh….”

That's precisely why I haven't mentioned it. To judge such a profoundly mysterious case based on meager evidence and conceptual reasoning was absolutely dangerous and utterly impermissible. At the very least—through what course had this incident, having erupted in the aforementioned state, come slithering stickily into my hands? In response, what observations had I made? By what methods had I advanced my research? And how gruesome, intense, dazzling, bizarre—indeed utterly nonsensical—was the explanation of the second seizure's content uncovered through that research? Moreover, unless one thoroughly observed how such a research trajectory could have abruptly transformed and evolved into the very cause of my suicide...the presence or absence of a perpetrator could not be determined. "Ah—so that's how it was...Hmm—" I first had to knock you off balance with this dazzling revelation...Now then, I would proceed to explain—stripped of all "esteemed" prefaces—the actual progression of my research into this case through what followed, much like a natural color relief film.

Now then, if one were to strip away the "esteemed" from the spiel of a provincial film narrator like myself—and a greenhorn at that—what remained would amount to little more than an amateur's script recitation. I—having never produced such things as scenarios or Chinese food—cannot claim full understanding of their nature, but since ample time remains before dawn breaks, I resolved to tackle this so-called scenario as a final jest in this lifetime. However, let me clarify anew: structuring this by relegating the core matter of Psychological Heredity to the very end and progressing from external facts layer by layer toward the essence—Chinese cuisine... *ahem*—as a scenario constitutes no clever pun on "champon." My records concerning this incident follow precisely the plot sequence through which events entered my perception at the time—so thoroughly that studying this chronology alone reveals most truths... On this point, though impertinent to say, I maintain these constitute a rigorously scientific account that need not blush before heaven or earth... *ahem*... So I declare... Well now.

[Subtitle] Takeichirō Wu's Psychiatric Evaluation: May 3, 1926, 9:00 AM, Fukuoka District Court Reception Room

[Film] Dr. Masaki sat reclined on a chair near the window opposite the entrance, dressed in a village headman-like costume of yōkan-brown crested haori over a thin serge kimono and hakama, with bleached white tabi socks, leisurely blowing cigar smoke. On the central round table lay an old Western umbrella that appeared to belong to Dr. Masaki alongside Koyamataka carelessly tossed aside. Beside them stood Dr. Wakabayashi in a frock coat, introducing a stern-uniformed inspector and a well-built gentleman dressed entirely in serge to Dr. Masaki.

“Inspector Ōtsuka… Judge Suzuki… Both of whom have been involved in this case from the very beginning…” Dr. Masaki stood up, received the two name cards, and bowed his head repeatedly in an utterly casual manner. “I am Masaki, who has come forth in response to your summons… Regrettably, I do not possess a calling card…” The inspector and the judge straightened their formal bearing even further and returned the bow.

At that moment, Takeichirō Wu entered—wearing nothing beneath a single indigo-dyed kasuri-patterned lined kimono, a waist rope pulled by two court officers—whereupon the three gentlemen parted to either side, clearing a path as they took up positions attending upon Dr. Masaki. Takeichirō Wu stood motionless before them, his shadowed eyes brimming with gloom as they slowly and methodically scanned the room. His pale arms and neck bore numerous scrapes and bruises from having been violently subdued during his frenzied thrashing—injuries that rendered his otherwise extraordinarily handsome visage all the more uncanny. From behind him, the two court officers saluted in perfect unison.

Dr. Masaki returned the nod with his eyes, then after exhaling a long puff of cigar smoke, he casually took Takeichirō Wu's handcuffed hands and pulled them closer, bringing their faces about a foot apart until their eyes met perfectly—peering into the depths of his pupils as if hinting at something… or as if pushing back the light in Takeichirō’s eyes with his own, driving it down into the depths of those pupils… And so the two remained motionless for some time, eyes locked.

Gradually, a subtle tension began creeping into Dr. Masaki's expression... The expressions of the attending gentlemen too grew taut in response. Yet amidst this, only Dr. Wakabayashi remained utterly still—not a single eyebrow twitching—as he coldly lowered his pallid eyes and fixed them on Dr. Masaki's profile. He seemed to be secretly probing for something within Dr. Masaki's countenance... But Takeichirō Wu remained unperturbed. With the lucid gaze peculiar to those who've lost their sanity, he effortlessly shifted his eyes from Dr. Masaki's face and slowly looked up from feet to head at Dr. Wakabayashi's towering frock-coated figure standing rigid beside him.

Dr. Masaki's expression visibly softened. While looking at Takeichirō Wu's cheek, he grinned, puffing on his dwindling cigar, and spoke in a casual tone.

"Do you know this gentleman...?"

Takeichirō Wu kept looking up at Dr. Wakabayashi's pale, elongated face and gave a slight nod. His eyes took on a dreamlike gaze... When he saw that, Dr. Masaki's smile deepened further. At that moment, Takeichirō’s lips twitched. “...I know. He is my father.” ……And…… But the terrifying transformation of Dr. Wakabayashi's expression as these words were spoken—his already pallid face rapidly draining of color until his forehead turned chalk-white, two thick blue veins bulging at its center. No sooner had his face contorted into an expression beyond rage or astonishment than he whirled toward Dr. Masaki, temples quivering... glaring with feral intensity as if to bite through flesh—

However, Dr. Masaki burst into loud, boisterous laughter, as though completely oblivious to such matters.

“Ha ha ha ha! That’s good about your father, huh? …Then do you know who this gentleman is?” As he said this, he pointed at his own nose. Takeichirō Wu continued staring fixedly at Dr.Masaki’s face with the same intent gaze, but before long, his lips twitched restlessly. “…Father…”

“Ah hah hah hah hah hah hah!”

Dr. Masaki appeared even more amused... Finally releasing Takeichirō Wu's hand, he collapsed into laughter as though utterly overcome. “Aaaah hah hah hah hah! Well now, that's astonishing! So that means you have two fathers, huh?”

Takeichirō Wu hesitated almost unconsciously but soon nodded silently. Dr. Masaki finally doubled over clutching his stomach. “Wah hah hah hah! Absolutely splendid! Extraordinary! …Then do you remember the names of those two fathers of yours?” When Dr. Masaki uttered this in a half-joking manner, the faces of the assembled people—who until then had been caught off guard as if enveloped in smoke—all simultaneously showed sudden tension.

However, when Takeichirō Wu was asked this, his expression suddenly darkened. He quietly averted his eyes and appeared to gaze endlessly at the clear May sky shining fully beyond the window, but soon seemed to recall something, filling his large eyes with tears that welled up completely. Dr. Masaki, who had been watching this, took Takeichirō Wu’s hand once more and leisurely exhaled a mouthful of cigar smoke. “Nah. Enough, enough. You needn’t force yourself to recall your father’s name. No matter which one you remember first, it would be quite unfair, you see.” He burst into laughter. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

The people who had been gripped by an eerie tension all burst into laughter at once. Dr. Wakabayashi, who had with great effort regained his usual expression, let out a stiff, tearful-looking laugh. Takeichirō Wu, who had been looking around at each and every laughing face with an exceedingly careful gaze, soon let out a sigh as if disappointed and lowered his eyes, tears streaming down. The teardrops fell scattered from over the handcuffs onto the dirty floor.

While still holding that hand, Dr. Masaki casually looked around at the people's faces. "In any case, I would like to take custody of this patient. What do you think?" "I believe some memory related to the incident's truth undoubtedly remains within this patient's mind." "As you have just heard, his perception of every face as a father's may well be a crucial psychological manifestation hinting at hidden truths behind this incident... If possible, I should like to restore this young man's mind through my own methods and extract memories concerning the incident's truth. What do you think...?"

[Subtitle] The First Day Takeichirō Wu Appeared at the Liberation Treatment Ward (Filmed July 7, Taisho 15 [1926])

[Film] In the midst of the Liberation Treatment Ward, five or six paulownia trees stood with their lush green leaves fluttering and glistening in the midsummer light.

From the eastern entrance, eight madmen formed a line and entered one after another. Some among them looked around curiously at their surroundings, but soon each began to display their own variety of mad antics.

At the very end, Takeichirō Wu entered.

With a thoroughly melancholy and desolate expression, he stood vacantly for some time, gazing blankly at the surrounding brick walls and the sand at his feet, when he suddenly seemed to discover something beneath him. His eyes glittering abruptly, he picked it up, sandwiched it between his palms and rolled it around, then held it up to examine against the dazzling sun. It was a blue, beautiful ramune marble. Takeichirō Wu turned his face directly toward the sun and grinned as he tucked the marble into his black sash. Then, hurriedly gathering his hem and bending forward, he began vigorously digging through the scorching sand with both hands.

Dr. Masaki, who had been standing at the entrance from the outset observing this scene, ordered the janitor to bring a single hoe and gave it to Takeichirō Wu.

Takeichirō Wu bowed repeatedly with apparent delight as he accepted the hoe, then began digging through the glittering sand with several times more fervor than before. As this continued, wherever patches of wet sand were exposed to sunlight, they dried out and whitened progressively. Dr. Masaki, who had been intently observing this behavior, soon grinned knowingly, nodded, and briskly walked off toward the entrance.

[Subtitle] Takeichirō Wu at the Liberation Treatment Ward Approximately Two Months Later (Filmed September 10, same year [1926])

[Film] In the center of the Liberation Treatment Ward, paulownia leaves showed scattered withered patches here and there.

Across the surrounding grounds, jet-black patches of sand dug up like grave pits overlapped and scattered in disarray.

Takeichirō Wu stood in a corner of the flat sandy ground between the pits, stretching his back while using the hoe as a staff as he let out a pained breath. His face had been scorched pitch-black by the autumn sun and appeared utterly exhausted from days of labor, so emaciated he was barely recognizable save for his eyes glaring with an uncanny light. Sweat streamed unceasingly; his heaving breath burned like flames... Most terrifying of all was the hoe blade gripped in his hands—its edge worn thin into undulating waves, glittering silver-bright—a brutal testament to how fanatically he had dug through sand these dozens of days. Here stood the very image of a tormented soul cast alive into burning hell.

Takeichirō Wu soon took up the hoe again with his jet-black arms, as if pursued by someone. He thrust his hoe into a fresh expanse of quartz-rich sand to begin another pit, but upon unearthing a single large fish vertebra, he suddenly revived and continued swinging the tool with twice his former vigor.

The dance-crazed female student fell into one of the large holes behind Takeichirō Wu and screamed, swinging both legs wildly in the air. The other patients clapped their hands and cheered. Yet Takeichirō Wu, without so much as turning around, kept digging with single-minded frenzy until he seemed to unearth something invisible this time, his fingers twisting frantically at empty space. He then seized the hoe anew, eyes blazing like fire, white teeth clenched as though to shatter them, and began tearing at the ground beneath his feet with a body consumed by desperate frenzy.

From behind him, Dr. Masaki entered leisurely, his pince-nez glinting as he watched Takeichirō Wu's work for some time. He then approached close by and tapped the right shoulder raised with the hoe. Takeichirō Wu started, lowering the hoe and turning blankly to face Dr. Masaki while wiping away sweat that streamed down his face. Seizing this moment, Dr. Masaki thrust one hand into Takeichirō's pocket with lightning speed, pulling out a round object wrapped in a soiled handkerchief and the fish vertebra previously unearthed, swiftly concealing them behind his back. Yet Takeichirō appeared utterly unaware, still wiping away the pouring sweat again and again as he blinked and peered up from the hole. Dr. Masaki smiled down at that face from the pit's edge.

"What did you just dig up there?" Takeichirō Wu flushed with apparent discomfort and thrust the index finger of his left hand toward the doctor’s nose. When Dr. Masaki brought his pince-nez closer to examine it, he found a single strand of woman’s hair tightly coiled around the fingertip. Dr. Masaki nodded gravely as if understanding its significance, then unwrapped the soiled handkerchief he had been concealing behind his back. Holding its contents in his left palm, he thrust them under Takeichirō’s nose. Glittering there alongside the ramune marble discovered two months earlier upon entering the Liberation Treatment Ward and today’s fish vertebra lay a fragment of red rubber comb and a broken glass tube the size of a little finger.

“This is something you dug out from the ground, isn’t it?” Takeichirō Wu nodded, gasping for breath. While comparing Dr. Masaki’s face and the four items... “Hmm… Now then, what’s this? What’s the use of this, huh…” “That is a lapis lazuli orb, a crystal tube, a human bone, and a coral comb.” Takeichirō Wu answered casually without any particular thought. Soon after receiving the four pieces of junk and handkerchief from the doctor’s hand, he tied them into a hard bundle like a stone and pushed it deep into his pocket as if it were something precious.

“Hmm… Then why are you digging up the earth so desperately?”

Takeichirō Wu, having once more driven the hoe into the earth, leaned on it with his left hand and pointed below his feet with his right hand. “There’s a woman’s corpse buried around here.”

“Hmm.” “I see.” “Hmm...”

Dr. Masaki groaned. Through his pince-nez, he peered into Takeichirō Wu’s eyes with such intensity it seemed to bore holes, then pressed each question into the man’s ears in a stern, deliberate tone. "...Hmm... I see... "But... as for when that woman's corpse was buried beneath the earth... just when was that...?"

Takeichirō Wu stared up at the doctor’s face in shock, both hands still gripping the hoe. The color drained from his cheeks in an instant as his lips twitched spasmodically. “Wh... wh... when... when it happened...” he began repeating in a tormented tone.

he began repeating in a tormented tone. For a short while, he blankly looked around the area, but soon his expression shifted to an indescribably lonely, utterly lost look. ...the hoe clattered down from his hands. He weakly lowered his eyes, slumped his shoulders dejectedly as he climbed out of the hole, and trudged slowly toward the entrance. Dr. Masaki, having watched him leave, crossed his arms and let slip a knowing smile.

“So it has come to pass! Psychological Heredity manifests without the slightest deviation! But I must endure one more trial… Now comes the true spectacle…”

[Subtitle] The scene inside the Liberation Treatment Ward on October 19 of the same year (approximately one month after the previous scene).

[Film] Gisaku, an old man wearing a headband and tilling a field, appeared before the brick wall inside the flattened sandy grounds—just as shown in the very first projection. However, Gisaku had cultivated about one se more of field than when he first appeared in the initial scene, but the emaciated girl beside him had also planted withered branches and tile fragments up to half that area.

Takeichirō Wu stood rigidly before them, just as in the initial scene—hands clasped behind his back, faint smile lingering—intently watching the old man’s hoe rise and fall. Yet in the mere month that had passed, his complexion had turned completely pale while his flesh plumped out roundly, no doubt from ceasing all digging labor to confine himself in his room… Room Seven.

Dr. Masaki approached from behind with a grin and abruptly placed his hand on his shoulder. Takeichirō Wu turned around with a start. “Well… it’s been quite some time since you last came out, hasn’t it? You’ve turned completely pale… and even put on weight.” “...Yes...”

Takeichirō Wu, still smiling as usual, began watching the hoe's up-and-down movements once more.

“What are you doing here… here…” Dr. Masaki asked, peering into his face. “……,” Takeichirō Wu answered quietly, his eyes still fixed on the hoe. “……I’m watching that person tilling the field.”

“Hmm.” “Your consciousness has become much clearer.” Dr. Masaki muttered as if to himself while looking up and down at his profile, then gradually strengthened his tone and spoke.

"...That can't be it. You want to borrow that hoe, don't you?" Before these words had even finished, Takeichirō's cheeks drained of color. He stared wide-eyed at Dr. Masaki's face, but soon turned back to the hoe and muttered as if to himself. "...That's right... That hoe is mine." "Yeah. I know that already."

Dr. Masaki nodded demonstratively.

“...That hoe is yours.” “But since he’s working so earnestly like that after going to all that trouble, could you wait a little longer?” “Once the noon bell rings, that old man will surely throw down that hoe and go eat… And once he does, he absolutely won’t come back out until sunset in the afternoon.” “Are you sure?”

As he said this and turned back to Dr. Masaki, Takeichirō's eyes gleamed with vague unease. Dr. Masaki nodded deeply in a manner meant to reassure. "I'm certain of it... I'll get you a new one soon enough." Takeichirō nevertheless kept staring fixedly at the hoe's rising and falling motions with lingering anxiety, soon muttering haltingly as if soliloquizing. "I want it now..." "Hmm. Why... would that be..."

However, Takeichirō Wu did not answer. He pressed his lips tightly together and resumed watching the hoe's rise and fall. Dr. Masaki stared fixedly at his profile with a strained expression. He appeared to be attempting to extract something from that countenance.

A large hawk's shadow glided smoothly over the sandy ground before the two.

――――――――――――――――――――

Ahem... Having presented this much for your consideration, I have finally ascertained two matters: first, that the foundation of Takeichirō Wu’s psychological heredity appears connected to an ancient noblewoman who adorned herself with blue langgan gemstone beads, crystal tubes, coral combs and suchlike; second, that Takeichirō has been seeking a woman’s corpse with such fervor—all to complete an illustrated scroll modeled after this very noblewoman. Yet when Dr. Masaki pressed him—when exactly had that corpse been buried?—Takeichirō could only stare blankly, utterly unable to answer... retreating instead to his room to brood... but why...?

And why did he now—one month later on this very day of October 19, Taisho 15—casually come out to this Liberation Treatment Ward and wait intently for the old man’s hoe to become free…?

...Even now, during all this—from what quarter and by what means was the crisis facing this Liberation Treatment Ward drawing near...? Those who could clarify this doubt were, at present time, only Dr. Wakabayashi—who had investigated the case—and myself, his consultant... No—not Dr. Masaki on the screen... No, that wasn't it either... Ah, what a nuisance—I'll take care of it myself... And stop this moving picture while I'm at it. And while I'm at it, I might as well become Dr. Masaki the Madman writing this testament alone late at night in the Kyushu Imperial University Psychiatry Department professor's office.

It might be a bit too much nonsense, but after all, it was a testament I was writing to kill time before dying. No matter how much whiskey I'd had, it didn't matter. Let the fields become wilderness and mountains remain mountains... Maybe I'll take a breather here. ...Ah, how delightful. Like this, on the eve of suicide, I kept writing the testament while ridiculing all creation. When exhausted from writing, I'd plop down in the swivel chair still wearing slippers, hugging my knees as I exhaled puffs of ultramarine and gamboge-colored smoke. ...Then that smoke would rise like lingering morning and evening clouds—swaying gently as it swirled higher and higher toward the ceiling—until reaching a certain height where it would spread languidly like oil floating on water. Like spiritual beings tangling and untangling, it traced various non-geometric curves that seemed sorrowful one moment and joyful the next, gradually fading into nothingness. Gazing up vacantly at this from within the large swivel chair, my skeletal little figure must have looked exactly like a sorcerer straight out of Arabian Nights...... Ah, how sleepy. The whiskey must have taken effect. Mumble mumble mumble... The window outside was filled with stars... Er... What was it again... Hmm hmm. A single star... "Find one star and end the doctor's worldly existence"... Heh... Not very auspicious... Mumble mumble mumble... Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble... Mumble mumble... Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble...

×　　　　　　　　　　×　　　　　　　　　　×

“Well… Have you finished reading it?”

The voice had suddenly arisen by my ear... Before I could fully process it, the sound reverberated through the room with an "Aaaah..." before vanishing completely. In that instant, I thought it might be Dr. Wakabayashi's voice, but immediately noticed its entirely different tone—resonant and carrying a youthful timbre. Startled, I whirled around to look behind me. Yet the room stood utterly empty in every corner—not a single mouse could be seen.

...How strange...

The bright autumn morning light flooded in through the windows on three sides, dazzlingly reflecting off the glass of specimen cabinets lined in rows, the varnished paint, and the linoleum floor before settling into stillness. ......Chirp chirp chirp chirp... Trill trill trill trill... Chirp chirp......

The only sound was that of a flock of small birds flitting through the pines... "...Strange..." I thought as I snapped the testament shut. When my unfocused gaze fell upon what lay before me—I nearly leapt to my feet in shock.

Before my very nose sat a bizarre human being... On the swivel chair across the massive desk where I had been certain Dr. Wakabayashi was seated all along, his figure had vanished without trace. In its place sat a small skeletal-looking man wearing a white examination gown facing me, perched rigidly upright in the chair. There sat a gentleman with a close-cropped head... eyebrows completely shaven off... his entire face sunburned reddish-black in a fiftyish manner though appearing younger... large rimless pince-nez glasses perched on his high nose... freshly lit cigar clenched between lips shaped like an inverted "へ"... arms crossed high over his chest as he leaned back... a skeletal little man... When our eyes met, he leisurely transferred the cigar to his right hand, bared a full set of gleaming white teeth, and roared with laughter.

I leapt up. "Ah! Dr. Masaki..." “Ahahahaha… Did I startle you… Hahahahaha. No, seriously impressive! Seriously impressive! That you remembered my name so clearly is damn impressive. What’s even more admirable is that you didn’t mistake me for a ghost and run away. Ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!”

I felt my entire body growing numb of its own accord as I became enveloped in the reverberations of that laughter. The testament of Dr. Masaki I had been clutching in my right hand fell flat onto the large desk with a thud... At the same time, with the appearance of the very Dr. Masaki who had written it, I felt as though every single event since that morning had been utterly negated. Suddenly all strength drained from my body, and once again I collapsed back into the swivel chair with a heavy thud, landing squarely on my backside. Over and over I swallowed saliva...

Observing my demeanor, Dr. Masaki leaned back in his chair and bellowed with laughter, looking all the more delighted.

“Ah ha ha ha! You look absolutely stunned! Ah ha ha ha! There’s no need to be so startled. You’re currently under a preposterous delusion.” "...Preposterous... delusion..." “Still don’t get it? Hmm hmm... Then try to figure it out. You were brought here to this room by Wakabayashi earlier... I believe it was before eight... and made to listen to all sorts of stories, weren’t you? That it’s been one month since I died or some such... Hmm hmm... That calendar’s date being this or that... Ha ha ha ha! Surprised? I know everything, you see... I... Then, while you were made to read all that—‘Madhouse Hell’s Litany,’ ‘Fetal Dream,’ newspaper clippings, the testament—you truly came to believe I’d been dead for a whole month ages ago... Isn’t that right?”

“……” “Ah ha ha ha! But that whole setup is Wakabayashi’s con. You swallowed his trick hook, line, and sinker. Look at this proof—just check the very end of that testament. That part’s open right there… Well? The evidence I wrote all night still reeks of fresh ink, doesn’t it? Ha ha ha! How’s that for you? A testament doesn’t have to appear only after the writer’s death. Nothing strange about me still being alive, eh? Ah ha ha ha!”

“……………”

My gaping mouth wouldn’t close. I was perplexed, wondering why Dr. Masaki and Dr. Wakabayashi would play such an odd prank. Even as a prank, this was all too bizarre and nonsensical... Were all these events I'd witnessed since morning and the contents of those various documents truly serious facts, I wondered. Or perhaps this was nothing more than an elaborate act staged by the two doctors colluding to toy with me... As such thoughts churned through my mind, the mountainous accumulation of astonishments, shocks, and curiosities that had filled my head until this very moment began swaying and crumbling all at once, until I felt both my body and consciousness slipping away somewhere, vanishing like smoke.

Steadfastly bracing against that, I planted both hands firmly on the edge of the large desk and gazed dimly at Dr. Masaki's smirking face before my nose as if in a dream. “Hmph hmph hmph hmph.”

Dr. Masaki snorted with laughter. In the process, he choked on the cigar smoke he'd been inhaling, making a face contorted between agony and mirth as he frantically pressed his pince-nez into place.

“Ah ha ha ha ha! *cough* *cough*... What a peculiar face you’re making... Hmm hmm hmm... Are you complaining that it’s inconvenient I’m not actually dead... *hack* *hack*... Is that it?” “Hack... This is quite the predicament, I tell you—that’s how it stands.” “Now listen.” “You were lying spread-eagled in the middle of Room 7 early this morning... around one o’clock, I’d reckon.” “And when you awoke, startled to find yourself having forgotten your own name, you made quite the solitary commotion, didn’t you?”

“Wh-what… How do you know that…” “As if you didn’t know—you were the one who shouted so loudly and made such a racket. The others were all asleep, but when I—who’d been writing this testament in this room—heard the commotion and went to check, there you were in Room 7, desperately searching for your own name… ‘Ah! At last he’s beginning to awaken from his somnambulism!’ I thought, and hurried back upstairs to finish writing the testament. Then, after dawn broke and I finally roused myself from dozing off—still feeling rather drained as I sat there vacantly—before long, Wakabayashi came rushing over in that newfangled siren car of his.” “…This is shady.” “It appears someone already discovered that you were beginning to awaken from your somnambulistic state and reported it to Wakabayashi.” “Someone’s remarkably quick-witted, but I kept watching from the shadows, wondering what he’d do after rushing over… Then Wakabayashi had your hair cut, bathed you, dressed you up as a proper university student, and likely introduced you to that beautiful girl hospitalized in Room 6 next to yours… And claiming she was your fiancée, he must’ve utterly dumbfounded you.”

“Wh-what… Then that girl… she really is a mental patient…” “Precisely. “What’s more, she’s got a psychiatric anomaly rare enough to make academics salivate. “On the very eve of her wedding night—that crucial moment—her groom subjected her to an outrageous somnambulistic display of ‘abnormal psychosexual heredity.’ Through sheer suggestive power of that sleepwalking fit, she unwittingly developed matching psychogenetic symptoms from the same hereditary strain, plunging her into temporary catalepsy. “But when Wakabayashi worked his resurrectionist magic, she came back pining for Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei—dead a millennium!—apologizing to imaginary sisters, cradling phantom babies while insisting ‘You must become Japanese!’... Though granted, she’s grown somewhat saner since...”

“Th... then... wh... what’s... that girl’s... name...” “What? You should know... without even asking. The renowned beauty of Meinohama... Wu Moyoko...” “Wh... th... then... I am Takeichirō Wu...” Just as I began to say this, Dr. Masaki tightly clamped his large frown-shaped mouth shut. With his face grimacing at the cigar smoke, he fixed his black eyes squarely on my face.

I felt all the blood in my body rapidly concentrating into my heart as though draining away. Cold sweat dripped from my forehead, my lips began quivering uncontrollably, and I felt myself swaying once more. My body—propped up by both hands on the massive desk—dissipated like mist scattering through air, leaving only my eyeballs hovering behind to stare unblinkingly at Dr. Masaki... Within this sensation, my soul raced through infinite time and space at lethal velocity... Trembling at the dread of potentially recalling my past as Takeichirō Wu... Listening intently to the roar of my own lungs and heart—like tidal waves assaulting me from some unknowable distance... Quivering and shuddering beyond control.

But... no matter how much my heart and lungs clamored and gasped in turmoil, my soul simply couldn't summon forth any memories of Takeichirō Wu's past. No matter how many times I might have repeated "Takeichirō Wu" in my head during that time, I could not feel even a shred of nostalgia or familiarity toward this name as being my own. No matter how much I retraced my past memories, whenever I reached that buzzing sound I'd heard in the dark this morning, they would hit an impasse and end there. ...No matter what others thought... no matter what evidence was thrust before me... I could not recognize myself as Takeichirō Wu.

...I let out one deep sigh—Hoo. As I did, the consciousness of my entire body gradually returned around me. The pulsations of my heart and lungs began to subside. I plopped down onto the tinplate chair with a thud, cold sweat trickling from both armpits. At that very moment, right before my nose, Dr. Masaki—his face composed—puffed out a mouthful of purple smoke. "So? Did you remember your past?"

I wordlessly shook my head from side to side. And then, as I pulled out a new handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the sweat from my face, I began to feel considerably calmer. But even so, there seemed to be far too many incomprehensible things, and as even moving became terrifying, I stealthily sank deeper into the chair. And then... moments later, when Dr. Masaki gave a loud cough, I was so startled I nearly leapt out of my seat.

“Ahem… If you can’t recall, I’ll explain once more. Now listen—calm yourself and pay close attention.” “You’re currently ensnared in a scheme, you see.” “In other words… my colleague Dr.Kyōichirō Wakabayashi aims to make you acknowledge yourself as Takeichirō Wu, thoroughly convince you of its irrefutability, and then orchestrate our meeting.” “Thereafter, he intends for you to denounce me as this world’s most unparalleled villain—a wicked, inhuman monster.”

“Huh? You... You...” “Mm. Now listen. If you calmly compose yourself and thoroughly reconsider in your mind the events that have occurred since this morning, then everything will resolve itself without any difficulty.” ...You following?” Dr. Masaki coughed once in a composed tone, as if resuming his serious demeanor. Leaning back in his chair and blowing thick smoke puff after puff, he then calmly turned his gaze to the calendar hanging beside the large fireplace.

“Now listen. “Let me state this clearly once again: today is October 20th of the fifteenth year of Taisho. “Now listen. “Let me repeat this once more. “Today is October 20th of the fifteenth year of Taisho... As written in this testament, Takeichirō Wu suddenly reappeared at this Liberation Treatment Ward after a month’s absence to observe Headband-wearing Old Man Gisaku’s field work on October 19th—the day before today.... As proof, look at that calendar. “...OCTOBER...19...meaning it’s still set to yesterday’s date. “This is because I was too busy since yesterday to tear off that page—which simultaneously proves I’ve been here working through the night. You see? “Understood? “Now, while we’re at it, look at the electric clock above my head. “It must be ten thirteen now.” “Right.” “It matches mine perfectly. “In other words, it stands to reason that only five hours have passed since I began dozing off this morning while leaving that testament half-written... When you synthesize this fact with the ink still being fresh and vivid at the end of said testament, there should be nothing strange about me sitting here perfectly composed, now should there? “Now listen... If you don’t first firmly lodge this point in your mind, there’s a real danger you might fall into another terrible illusion later on.”

“But... Dr. Wakabayashi just now...” “You mustn’t—” As he declared this in an especially loud voice, Dr. Masaki’s right fist rose high and danced through the air as if to violently dispel all the confusion in my mind—vigorous—overflowing with an energy that seemed to negate everything... “You mustn’t. You must believe what I tell you! You must not take what Wakabayashi says as truth. Wakabayashi has made just one critical mistake from the very beginning on this point. That guy must have detected the acrid stench of the manuscript I burned in this fireplace moments after entering the room earlier. Then, upon finding this testament on this desk, he immediately devised a trick and explained it to you precisely as such.”

"But... however... today is November 20th—one month after you passed away..." “Tch... You're impossible. If you keep stubbornly clinging to your preconceived notions like that, I can’t deal with you... Now listen.” "Listen well... This is how it is."

While enunciating each word with deliberate clarity, Dr. Masaki—visibly irritated—spat out the cigar fragments clinging to his tongue onto the floor. Then he heaved himself over the desk, planting both elbows firmly as he thrust his tobacco-yellowed right finger inches from my bewildered face, driving each syllable into my skull through sheer physical insistence.

“Now listen.” “Now listen carefully!” “Now, don’t get this wrong… That preposterous nonsense Wakabayashi is spouting about today being one month since my death is nothing but a petty trick to keep you from panicking.” “Now listen... If you were to realize that only a few hours have passed since I disappeared after leaving this testament half-written like this, you’d surely be on tenterhooks thinking I’d gone out to kill myself.” “And if that actually happened, even that bastard couldn’t just sit idly by.” “Whether out of duty as a friend or responsibility as Dean, he’d have no choice but to abandon everything, track down my whereabouts, and stop me from committing suicide… But then again, doing so might make Wakabayashi lose his one and only chance to use his own hands to revive your past memories… Don’t you see? Whether you recall your past or not—for Wakabayashi—is a matter of life-altering importance.” “And since this morning presents the perfect opportunity…”

“……………” “...So Wakabayashi, though he knew full well I was listening in from somewhere, spouted this forensic scientist’s utterly unbecoming, half-baked nonsense about today being November 20th—a month after this testament was written—trying by hook or by crook to keep you calm.” "And then, by slowly carrying out this experiment and restoring your memories as Takeichirō Wu, he must have figured everything would fall into his grasp." "...If you, just as Wakabayashi anticipates, were to recover your past memories as Takeichirō Wu, then next—through mere explanation—it would become child’s play to make you recognize me, who stands before you now, as your mortal enemy who slaughtered both your parents and wife." “…And in fact, I—being a spiritual scientist by blessed profession—could easily hypnotize some unsuspecting Takeichirō Wu at any hour to have him throttle his kin and bride, thereby assembling all these experimental materials—work I’m dead certain I can execute whenever required.” "I’m the tailor-made suspect for this case. Don’t you agree?" “Isn’t that right?”

“……………” "And then, if by any chance that experiment were to fail... In other words, even if they made you read those documents and you yourself recalled nothing, they would employ a last resort... This time, concealing their presence from you, they would surely bring me—who would undoubtedly emerge here later—face-to-face with you to test whether seeing my face would trigger your memory... And if you did recall, they would test whether that impression could restore your past memories... And should that test by any chance succeed, ultimately, it would amount to an exquisitely cunning and ruthless scheme to make me—through my own power—cower in fear of myself through psychological manipulation." "That sharp sense of timing in such matters is truly that bastard’s patented specialty." "Now listen."

“……………”

“When it comes to schemes like this, that bastard has always had a unique mastery.” “Even suspects with no memory of wrongdoing end up psychologically overwhelmed when subjected to his interrogations—their minds turn to mush, trapped in unthinkable mental states.” “Eventually they become utterly confused, resign themselves to inescapable guilt, or in their panic become so convinced by his flawless logic that they confess to crimes they never committed.” “Those much-touted ‘third-degree’ interrogation methods from America? Laughable.” “That bastard employs every trick imaginable—from first-class to hundredth-class tactics, overt and covert—until resistance becomes impossible.” “...This very moment proves it.” “Suppose I were exactly as he claims—a man who murdered Dr. Saitō, usurped his position, conducted failed experiments, then resolved to kill myself?” “While I listen helplessly from some hidden corner, he rationally constructs this narrative—first establishing me as a villain... then confirming you as Takeichirō Wu, my sworn enemy.” “Consider this torture—being forced to watch my life’s work stolen away while I can’t lift a finger to stop it! Could greater agony exist?” “My choices narrow to silent suicide or bursting forth with confession—that’s the essence of Wakabayashi’s insufferable ‘balanced approach’!” “No matter how impossible the case, once in his hands, he’ll wring out a culprit from thin air.” “This is the truth behind his newspaper-glorified title of ‘Labyrinth Breaker’.”

“……………”

“But here’s the thing. “But it seems this time—this particular time—things aren’t going his way. “Not only have all that bastard’s experiments attempted since this morning ended in failure without eliciting any reaction from you whatsoever, but seeing how his prized interrogation tricks are being exposed from their very foundations like this, there seems little cause for such terror. “…Even the great peerless Doctor of Forensic Science appears somewhat flustered since morning—perhaps from overstraining himself against an opponent like me. “Or perhaps this may become what we might call the Doctor’s ‘unprecedented and unparalleled failure.’ Ha ha…”

"But... but... but..." "Still clinging to 'buts'... What's this... this 'but' of yours..." "But... that experiment should naturally be conducted by you, Professor..." "That's right. "Of course, the experiment to restore your past memories is naturally my responsibility." "That's why he employed such tricks to monopolize the experiment's results... He did everything possible to leave me for dead."

"Huh... Tha... That's such an outrageous thing..." "It's proceeding precisely as planned—isn't it delightful? Above all, isn't my very presence here—alive, unharmed by that ploy, speaking to you now—the most irrefutable proof?" Having said this, Dr. Masaki twisted his lips into a loathsome sneer dripping with sarcasm. He threw himself back in the swivel chair, arms crossed in haughty defiance. Cigar smoke billowed theatrically from his mouth as he scoffed, perfectly anticipating Dr. Wakabayashi eavesdropping from some hidden vantage point...

At that sight, my heart was struck anew by terror, shrinking instantly without resistance. ……What a terrifying battle between these two doctors! What a profoundly relentless contest of wits this was. Until this very moment, I had never dreamed that I myself was caught in the midst of such a terrifying struggle... Until this very moment, I had never realized that all the suffering, anguish, terror, and maddening intensity I had witnessed were consequences of being ensnared and dragged about by these two doctors' devilish tricks... Now that I finally understood, I became filled with an impulse to scream and flee. I began to lift my hips as though about to stand at any moment. ...But...

……But at that moment, for some reason, I couldn’t move an inch from the chair. Wiping the beads of sweat from my brow with a handkerchief, I settled back into my seat and sighed. And so, while staring fixedly at Dr. Masaki’s face, I had fallen into a psychological state where I had to wait with life-or-death intensity for those darkened, sinister lips to begin moving…… Perhaps it was because my soul had already been utterly consumed by the allure of this grotesque spiritual science experiment—one so monstrous that these two doctors were battling over it not merely with their full strength, but with every last shred of their being…… Or perhaps it was because the indescribable truth flowing beneath this narrative had gripped my heart, sending waves of nameless curiosity coursing through my veins…… Lost in such thoughts, I stared vacantly into the space before me—when suddenly Dr. Masaki’s voice, punctuated by another cough, rang out fresh and vibrant by my ear.

“Ha ha ha ha ha… How about it? Have you figured it out yet? The cause of your illusion… Hmm? You’ve grasped some of it… But there must still be parts eluding you.” “Hmm.” “There are… You’re quite sharp, aren’t you? …First and foremost, you sitting there must have no inkling of who you truly are—what youth from where, entangled in this affair through what karmic threads…” “Ha ha ha… But rest assured.” “If you listen to what I’m about to recount, every question will unravel like strands combed through with fine teeth.” “This tale may repeat certain details, but it continues my testament—progressing from Wakabayashi’s and my past secrets regarding this experiment, delving into Takeichirō Wu’s psychological heredity, until at last you’ll comprehend your own nature.” “Naturally, should you discern your circumstances midway, there’ll be no helping it.” “The story would conclude then with felicitations all around—but when that moment comes, we’ll face it then. For now, simply listen and savor… However—” “Let me stress this again: you mustn’t succumb to further illusions.” “It would prove most inconvenient if you began fancying me a ghost or believing a month has passed since my demise.” “Ha ha ha… Understand?” “Should you lapse into such delusions upon hearing what follows, there may be no return.” “You grasp this? …Are you truly prepared?” “…Hmm… There there.” “Then I’ll proceed with confidence…”

As he spoke, Dr. Masaki lit his dying cigar. Then he thrust both hands into his pockets and began puffing vigorously on the cigar with evident relish. Soon after readjusting it between his lips, he plopped back down into his seat amidst the billowing smoke.

“...Now then. "...Now then—this affair will inevitably come to light in society. You'll understand when you see it in the papers... No—" "It may have already appeared in yesterday's evening edition or this morning's newspaper... But in truth, a great catastrophe erupted yesterday at that Liberation Treatment Ward for lunatics." "In short—the fuse of that spiritual science bomb I'd planted among those madmen to conclude this psychological heredity experiment had been smoldering away since earlier... and yesterday at noon—precisely as the noon cannon sounded on October 19, Taisho 15 [1926]—it detonated with magnificent timing... Hah!" "The trick's simplicity beggars belief." "That fuse amounted to nothing more than a single hoe rigged with spiritual science applications—no smoke, no visible flame. To ordinary eyes, it appeared utterly mundane." "A common farming implement through and through." "...Yet truth be told, the explosion exceeded expectations—such an unforeseen tragedy even I was momentarily staggered. Bearing responsibility, I immediately tendered my resignation at the president's office... But upon reflection... this seems the natural endpoint for my experiments." "Wakabayashi shall handle publishing my life's work... Truthfully, I hadn't reckoned him quite so conniving until now... He'll manage somehow." "With human affairs growing tiresome, I resolved to resign entirely... Returning to my lodgings to pack, then fortifying myself with drink in Higashi Nakasu's lively quarters... Imagine my shock upon returning here to organize documents—" "That very Ward Six stood vacant when I departed—now blazing crimson!" "Suspicious, I questioned the janitor preparing to leave. He claimed Wakabayashi had brought some young lady from who-knows-where, compelling the duty physician to admit her moments prior." "And get this—they say this girl possesses beauty beyond compare, a radiance defying description."

...Even I couldn't help but let out an involuntary "Ah!" and slap my knee in admiration. This affair had taken a sinister turn. Judging by these developments, that fellow Wakabayashi Kyōichirō wasn't someone to be restrained by one rope—nor even two. He was a villain matching his worth as a forensic scientist—no, perhaps surpassing it. First off, while maintaining a perfectly innocent facade before me, he was a psychiatrist who could nearly rival me if I let down my guard—moreover, I realized in a flash how exquisitely he'd mastered exploiting emotional vulnerabilities. To put it plainly—as I'd recorded in this testament, that Wakabayashi Kyōichirō had used the university president's authority during the incident's outbreak to transform his young lady into a living corpse under his control. Though his purpose had remained utterly incomprehensible from then until now, the truth proved simple enough. That scoundrel had been waiting for you to regain some semblance of your true nature before secretly arranging your meeting with that girl—seeking through three prongs of carnal allure, base desire, and logical coercion to forcibly make you acknowledge yourself as Takeichirō Wu. And as I said earlier, he aimed to make you believe me your mortal enemy and have you publicly declare that fact... intending to expose his warped version of events to society... Furthermore, it became crystal clear—as if holding it in my hand—that he schemed to present your testimony as the inaugural case study in his magnum opus 『Spiritual Scientific Crimes and Their Evidence』.

……And so I too considered. ……Very well. If that’s your scheme, then I’ve got countermeasures of my own. After all, Wakabayashi’s research into spiritual scientific crimes is built upon the foundational principles of psychological heredity that I originated—so turning the tables on him would be child’s play. If I were to resolutely burn all my spiritual science research manuscripts here and leave behind this half-baked testament outlining their contents, that fellow Wakabayashi would have no choice but to incorporate this document into his writings—otherwise the entire framework of his research publication would collapse. But whether that wretch can actually publish my testament... and if he does publish it, what sort of conjurer’s tricks he’ll employ to do so—that would make for quite the spectacle... Depending on how matters unfold, my testament might well become the most malicious parting gift ever devised... truly unprecedented in its sheer spitefulness...

And... thinking this way, I suddenly felt elated. I hurried to this room, thoroughly burned all the documents, and began writing this testament—but when dawn broke and it became clear you were beginning to awaken, Wakabayashi—who had been eagerly preparing for this moment—rushed over without delay and promptly introduced you to his beautiful young lady. But... this has turned into a splendid failure for him. To be sure, they had acknowledged you as their dearly beloved brother, so half the scheme had succeeded—but you yourself, the central figure, gave that beautiful girl a firm rebuff... Since you refused to recognize her as either your cousin or fiancée, they now appear to be bringing you to this room through changed methods.

...Now then, to tell the truth, even I found myself somewhat flustered at this moment. The true menace lay with that fellow—Kyōichirō Wakabayashi. He had already pierced through every layer of my machinations. Long had he anticipated that I would eventually terminate this perilously reckless Liberation Treatment experiment—publishing its findings to academia before vanishing without a trace. Moreover, he'd thoroughly discerned my intention to repurpose the Nie-no-Hama bride-killing incident as solitary experimental material—crafting it into an academically presentable case stripped of criminal traces. Thus did that fellow marshal his full resources and act with lightning urgency. His scheme aimed to corner me before I could disappear—to force my utter capitulation.

...That fellow must have discerned I'd been holed up here since last night the moment he entered the main building this morning. And having realized he was bringing you here to unsettle me through some scheme... That's an old trick if I ever saw one. Thinking to give them a good scare, I left that testament and the remaining documents lying there as they were and vanished along with the whiskey bottle. Of course, I had neither jumped out of the window nor slipped out through the door on the opposite side. Vanishing without ever leaving this room and without anyone noticing... To put it that way makes it sound like some spiritual science-applied magic trick again, but that's not what happened. The trick was this large furnace.

This large furnace was designed so that in the event this experiment failed or someone tried to steal my research, it would burn up all such manuscript drafts inside it. In fact, I myself might one day use this furnace to vanish in a cloud of smoke while obscuring my whereabouts—which is why I had designed it from the start as an automatic ignition system combining gas and electricity... Observe... When you remove this iron lid, you'll find the interior remarkably spacious, with gas jets spouting up through electric heating elements covering the entire base. It's nothing more than two hundred large Bunsen burner units arranged in parallel. If you placed a living creature atop this, opened the gas valve and twisted the electric switch, the gas would immediately gush out to suffocate it. As the electric heater grew hot and ignited the gas with a bang, within an hour even the bones would crumble away completely. Should you pile stones or tiles on top, they'd all glow white-hot and emit intense radiant heat. Look here—those nearly four boxes of Western-style paper manuscripts they claim are harder to burn than flesh—what do you think? They've been reduced to nothing but this handful of white ash. If I were to turn to smoke now, all the university's grand principles would simply return to their original state in the ether. Ha ha ha!... The moment I heard you and Wakabayashi ascending those stairs, I slipped inside here with the whiskey bottle—spread newspaper over this ash just so, sat cross-legged in comfort, ready to vanish in smoke at any moment—all while puffing on a cigar and keeping my ears sharp.

...But I must concede—that fellow remained formidable. He was a world-renowned forensic scientist. Not only did he stay utterly unperturbed by my absence, he immediately seized that opportunity to plunge you into illusion. ...That scoundrel’s mind works in layers upon layers, like Prince Shōtoku himself. So while telling you all manner of things about myself and Dr. Saitō in passing, I’d hurriedly inspected this testament’s contents—though some inconvenient parts remained, it was safe enough lacking a conclusion. Moreover, realizing that making you read this could far more easily convince you of being Takeichirō Wu than any explanation of mine, I’d deliberately thrust it upon you and vanished while you were engrossed. And now it seemed he was testing what countermeasures I’d employ against this.

...And then I found it more and more intriguing, you see. ...Very well... If that's how it stands, then I too shall invert his scheme and counterattack that bastard's challenge in reverse—so resolving, I stealthily emerged from the furnace, settled into this chair, and waited while you finished reading that testament...

“Hah hah... How about that?” “Now you and I are confronting each other under the scheme of the world-renowned forensic scientist, Dr. Kyōichirō Wakabayashi.” “And as for who you are—what name you bear and where you come from…the causal connection binding you to this incident and why you now sit in that chair—none of this has yet been definitively determined, neither theoretically nor practically.” ...Thus if—as that fellow Wakabayashi predicted—you awakened from your dissociative amnesia as Takeichirō Wu of Niehama and identified me as the demonic manipulator operating behind this incident... a heartless and utterly wicked conjurer of spiritual science... then this confrontation would end in my defeat. “But conversely, if you utterly fail to recall your past memories as Takeichirō Wu, then plainly speaking—I win… The fact that you—a nameless young man dragged suddenly into this incident by Wakabayashi’s machinations from the position of a third party—are experiencing a form of self-consciousness disorder called ‘dissociative amnesia’ and confined to Kyushu Imperial University’s psychiatry ward could be made public, placing you on the razor’s edge where Wakabayashi’s scheme collapses… You stand there now…” “Isn’t this just thrilling?” “A contest of wits between history’s greatest forensic scientist and an unprecedented spiritual researcher—a battle both exhilarating and profound in its extremity.” “And what’s more, whether Takeichirō Wu—who should determine this contest’s outcome—is actually yourself remains undecided, exactly as I stated earlier.” “This brings us to now—the referee’s cry of ‘Hakkeyoi! Still standing! Still standing!’” “Ha ha ha!...”

Dr. Masaki’s raucous laughter reverberated off every object in the room before crashing into my ears. And then, tearing chaotically through my dazed mind—still unable to discern whether either of the two doctors’ claims were true or false—it swiftly vanished somewhere. However, Dr. Masaki paid no heed to my state of mind. Once again, he firmly shut one eye and inhaled the cigar smoke as if savoring it. Then, pressing both hands on the armrests of the swivel chair, he slowly began to rise.

"...Hmm... Heave-ho... And now we must finally get down to the real showdown." "First and foremost, I must personally restore your past memories and have you confirm who you are—it would be cowardly of me otherwise in Wakabayashi’s eyes. …Come over here for now." “This time, I myself will conduct the first experiment to make you remember your past, so…”

In a state of half-sleepwalking, I drifted dazedly away from the chair. Guided by Dr. Masaki through an eerie sensation that Dr. Wakabayashi's pale eyes were peering from somewhere, I approached the southern window... but... when I glanced outside past the white shoulder of Dr. Masaki's lab coat, I gasped and froze in place.

Spread out below me was the full panorama of the Liberation Treatment Ward. There, in one corner, stood none other than Takeichirō Wu. ...watching over an old man's field tilling, his back turned toward me—disheveled hair standing erect, pale-skinned, cheeks flushed red—the figure of a young man carelessly draped in a black kimono...

The moment I saw that ghastly figure so vividly in reality, I instinctively closed my eyes. Then I pressed both hands tightly over my face. Struck by a shock too horrifying to face... a dread... and an indescribable tension gripping my nerves... ...Takeichirō Wu is right there, isn't he? That must be Takeichirō Wu's exact form as described in his testament. And if that truly is Takeichirō Wu... then what am I—standing here?...

...In that single moment when I peered out the window just now, it felt as though I myself had slipped free from my own body—transformed into that figure standing over there—while only the lingering soul left behind observed it all... that kind of ghastly, desolate sensation...

......Could it be that what I had just seen was not my hallucination? Could it have been a waking dream…? As these thoughts flashed like lightning through my mind... while gripped by an indescribably suffocating, inexplicable excitement... I once again slowly opened my eyes. However, no matter how I looked, the scene within the Liberation Treatment Ward did not seem like a dream. ...A blue blue sky... A red brick wall... White sand dazzlingly bright... Black figures wandering across it...

At that moment, Dr. Masaki, who had been standing before me lost in thought, calmly turned to face me and casually pointed out the window.

"...Well... Do you know where this place is...?"

But I couldn't respond. I could only manage a slight nod. Thus, from the very next moment I opened my eyes, I was utterly captivated by the indescribably bizarre spectacle within the grounds. The dark silhouettes of patients wandering restlessly across the white sand that mirrored the azure sky were nearly all repeating, just as before, the exact tasks described in the Testament. As if each and every one of their movements were a play performed to empirically demonstrate Dr. Masaki’s principles of psychological heredity...the old man continued swinging his hoe, now creating a new ridge in the sand...while young Takeichirō Wu remained standing before him with his back turned toward us, intently watching the movements of the hoe. ...The middle-aged woman strutted about, oblivious to having dropped her cardboard crown...The bearded large man who had been worshiping it—now exhausted—buried his forehead in the sand and slept...The small-statured orator pressed his fists against the brick wall in prayer...The emaciated bluish-pale girl, seemingly searching for something to plant in the old man’s newly made ridges, wandered restlessly around the grounds, looking this way and that. The rest of them too—though their positions seemed different—were performing tasks whose significance did not differ at all from the description in the Testament I had read earlier. Only...the long-haired female student with dance mania, who should have been singing and dancing all along, now beneath our window was digging a hole deep enough to submerge her arms up to the shoulders—using a cardboard crown and dead pine branches to construct a small pitfall—this alone seemed slightly deviant. However, despite Dr. Masaki having just spoken of "yesterday noon's great tragedy," I couldn't help but find it strange that there remained no visible traces whatsoever indicating when, where, or which patient had caused such an incident. Whether because the girl with dance mania had stopped singing or perhaps due to viewing it through glass panes—everything had fallen as silent as shadows. That eerie feeling...When I tentatively counted them, there were exactly ten people as written in the Testament—neither more nor fewer. What could this mean?

Moreover, what struck me as even more mysterious was that as I continued gazing down upon this scene—unchanged and quietly distinct—the spiritual science explosion Dr. Masaki had engineered using these ten madmen’s psychological heredity... the great tragedy that had caused his resignation... was about to commence at any moment... It was neither yesterday’s affair nor the day before’s. I couldn’t shake the premonition that this was a fact beginning to unfold right before my eyes… No... It wasn't just the madmen within the grounds. The two large red-brick smokestacks standing side by side on the opposite roof, propping up the indigo expanse of sky... The thick black undulations of soot just beginning to spew forth from their tops... Even the perfectly round, gleaming sun above them—all seemed governed by some mysterious principle of spiritual science, hurtling moment by moment toward that unprecedented catastrophe... An unfathomably cold, solemn sensation assailed my neck incessantly, sending shivers through my entire body that I could no longer bear. The more I tried to dismiss it as an absurd notion, the more inescapably real it felt. I tried desperately—trying to suppress that mysterious... suffocating feeling—and yet continued to fix my gaze upon the scene within the Liberation Treatment Ward. I stared at the back of Takeichirō Wu watching the old man till the field, amidst an abnormal pounding in my chest…….

That was the moment. A low, whisper-like voice suddenly sounded beside my ear… “What are you looking at… you…”

The tone of that voice was completely different from Dr. Masaki's usual one, so I started and turned around again. When I looked, Dr. Masaki had come right beside me without my noticing—stood rigidly holding a cigar that emitted thin wisps of smoke—but the smile that had been on his face until now had completely vanished. Beneath his pince-nez, he fixed me with jet-black eyes that glared at my profile so intensely they might have bored holes through me.

……I let out a deep sigh. ...I did my best to compose myself and replied. "I am watching the Liberation Treatment Ward." "Hm———"

Dr. Masaki groaned from the depths of his stomach and, still not blinking once, stared fixedly into my eyes. "Hmm——... And do you see anything... inside the Liberation Treatment Ward..." Because Dr. Masaki's questioning manner seemed somehow uncanny, I quietly looked back into his eyes. "Yes... There seem to be ten madmen here."

"What... ten madmen..."

Dr. Masaki cut in with a flustered voice, apparently utterly astonished by something, and glared at me intensely once again.

Feeling his gaze upon my cheek, I turned back once more toward the Liberation Treatment Ward and began staring intently at Takeichirō Wu's retreating figure. ...I felt he might turn around at any moment and meet my eyes... and if that happened, I sensed something terrible would occur... my entire body growing rigid naturally... "Hmm…"

Dr. Masaki groaned with disturbing clarity beside me. "In there—where the madmen are playing—does that appear vividly clear to you...?"

I nodded silently. Though I thought his questioning manner was growing increasingly strange, I paid it no particular mind...

“Hmm———.” “And you’re still saying there are ten people?”

I nodded once more and turned back. “Yes. “Yes—there are exactly ten people here.” "...Hmm———..."

Dr. Masaki groaned. With his jet-black eyeballs retracting deep into their sockets... "Hmm. This is strange... This is an extremely interesting phenomenon..." Muttering as if to himself, he slowly averted his gaze from my face and looked out the window. And then his face turned slightly pale, and he seemed to be lost in deep thought. Eventually regaining his former healthy complexion, he turned back to me with a grin, showing his white teeth. He asked in a hearty tone while pointing outside the window.

“Then I’ll ask one more thing—there’s a young man standing in that corner of the field watching the old man’s hoe movements, don’t you think?”

"Yes. He is there." "Hmm... He's there... Now then, which way is that young man standing and facing?" As Dr. Masaki's questions grew increasingly peculiar, I answered while feeling increasingly strange. "He's standing rigidly with his back turned this way." "So I can't see his face." "Hmm... I thought that might be the case." "...But keep watching." "He may turn this way at any moment..." "At that moment, what sort of face that young man will be making—you will..."

When Dr. Masaki said this, my entire body twitched violently and stiffened for some unknown reason. It felt as though my heartbeat and breath had stopped simultaneously. At that moment, the young man who had been indicated by Dr. Masaki... Takeichirō Wu's retreating figure turned around abruptly toward us, as though he had received some sort of suggestion. Through the glass window we were peering through, he locked eyes perfectly with me... and... the smile that had been on his face until now vanished smoothly... transforming into an expression of shock that was indistinguishable from my own face I had seen in the bathhouse mirror this morning....a round face, large eyes, a thin jaw... Before I could process it, he had already turned back toward where the old man was hoeing, once again wearing a soft grin... or so I thought...

……I had unconsciously covered my face with both hands. “……Takeichirō Wu is……me……I am……” I think I staggered backward unsteadily while shouting... Dr. Masaki caught and held me. Then poured into my mouth a fragrantly potent liquid that burned my tongue like fire—or so I think—but I can’t clearly remember what exactly happened. Only Dr. Masaki’s words, which he had been shouting beside my ear at that moment, remained in my memory in fragments.

“...Pull yourself together. “Steady now. “Now take another good look at that young man’s face.” “There, there… You mustn’t tremble so much.” “Don’t be so shocked.” “There’s nothing strange about this at all. Steady now, steady... That young man resembling you so perfectly is only natural.” “It’s something that’s entirely possible both academically and logically… Calm yourself, calm yourself… There, there…” I think it’s a wonder I didn’t faint outright then. Perhaps by this point I had grown somewhat accustomed to various strange occurrences, but even so, it must have taken me countless times of opening and closing my eyes while desperately trying to call back my soul—scattering and thinning out toward some distant place—bit by bit, until I could stand steadfastly before the glass window again, rubbing my face all over with a handkerchief. And yet, even so, I could not muster the courage to look out the window once more. Lowering my head, I kept staring at the linoleum floor, exhaling trembling sigh after trembling sigh, blowing out again and again the intense whiskey aroma that burned across my entire tongue.

Dr. Masaki slipped the flat whiskey bottle he had been holding into his white coat's pocket during that interval. Then he finally composed himself with a throat-clearing cough. "No. You've every right to be shocked," he said. "That young man was born in the same year as you - same month, same day, same hour - from the very same woman's womb." "...Huh...!"

With a shout, I glared at Dr. Masaki's face. At the same time, I felt as though everything was beginning to make sense, and I finally mustered the courage to turn back toward Takeichirō Wu outside the window. "S...So...that means I and that Takeichirō Wu are twins—"

"No—that's incorrect..." Dr. Masaki shook his head sternly. "You share a connection far more intimate than twins... This is certainly no mere coincidental resemblance."

"...Th...that kind of thing..." Before I could finish speaking, my mind became muddled again, unable to comprehend anything. I stared at Dr. Masaki's face—bearing a sardonic half-smile—at his black eyes beneath the pince-nez. Was he mocking me or being sincere...? I wondered while...

Dr. Masaki’s face rapidly took on a smile that seemed to pity me. Nodding repeatedly over and over, he inhaled the cigar smoke and exhaled it again.

“Yes, yes. It’s only natural you’re confused… You’ve been suffering since long ago from that famous dissociative amnesia written about in books, you see…” “…Ngh…! D-dissociative amnesia…” “…That’s right. What they call dissociative amnesia—when another self appears and acts differently from you—has been recorded in various books as ghost stories since ancient times. But let me tell you this: as a specialist in spiritual science, it’s something that can actually exist academically. Yet when you see it right before your eyes in reality… well, you can’t help but feel an indescribably strange sensation.”

I panicked and rubbed my eyes once more. I timidly peered out the window—but the young man remained standing in his original position, unchanged. This time he had turned slightly to show his profile... "...That...is me...Takeichirō Wu...and me...which one is Takeichirō..." "Hahahaha! Seems you still can't remember, can you?" "You haven't awakened from the dream yet, have you?" "A dream...? Am I the dream...?" I whirled around, eyes bulging wide. I stared up and down at Dr. Masaki, who stood with his chest puffed out triumphantly.

“That’s right. “You’re dreaming right now.” “As evidence of this dream, through my eyes, there hasn’t been a single soul in that Liberation Treatment Ward for some time now, I tell you.” “There are only five or six paulownia trees with withered leaves standing there… The Liberation Treatment Ward has been strictly closed since yesterday’s major incident broke out, you see…” “...” “...This is how it is... You see.” “This is a somewhat technical explanation, you see.” “Within your consciousness, the part that is currently awake and active is largely composed of sensory functions toward reality.” “Namely, it sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels present facts.” “It processes those.” “The part that recalls past memories—this happened, that happened—through functions such as remembering... is still only half-awake enough to dream.” “When you peer through this window at that scene in the courtyard, in that very instant, your memory of having stood there in such a manner until yesterday revives to the level of a dream, emerging into your consciousness as a vivid hallucination exactly matching what you now see.” “And thus, it appears overlapping with your own current consciousness standing there rigidly.” “In other words, the you standing outside the window is an objective image of your own past that has emerged as a dream from within your memories, while the you inside this glass pane is your current subjective consciousness.” “You are seeing both dreams and reality together… right now…”