Drawing of the Boundary
“We’re saving her, Ei.”
It’s your funeral, Acchan.
Ei remarks on your choice flippantly as you prepare to destroy the orderly’s shade, book in hand. This time, he senses the danger that you pose, and shifts his attention away from Uehara entirely. The ghost snarls, black mist flowing from his lolling tongue. The fingerprints around his neck, dark purple on white, ashen skin, pulsate with a malignant life. Before you can even lay a hand on him, he floats into the walls and vanishes.
Oh, be careful. He hasn’t run away. Without being in close contact with the spirit, the exorcism spell will not work, either. As long as he’s hiding beyond your reach, you cannot do anything. Not yet, at least!
“He’s going to try and ambush us,” says Uehara suddenly. “Like he did just now.” Her eyes do not meet yours; she is hugging her knees and staring at the wall while biting her lip. There is a slight tremble to her shoulders. You remember the pain inflicted by the builder’s ghost in the museum: thorns that grow under the skin, spreading and entangling the soul. It is not a sensation that can be shrugged off easily. On the other hand, it also seems to have knocked back a semblence of sanity into her. When she shows no sign of talking any further, you turn away and scan the room for the spirit’s presence. He’s probably faster than you are, and his intangibility is also a problem.
Should I lure him out of the walls, or… You decide to test out the new spell Ei has unlocked. A never-ending rush of syllables comes flooding into your mind: the chant for the Nilakantha Dharani Boundary.
H-Hey, I didn’t know it was supposed to be that long!
You better hurry and get to chanting then, Acchan...
You hear an unmistakable tone of glee in Ei’s voice: it looks like she is enjoying your surprise. Grumbling, you begin rushing through the incantation, hoping that the spirit does not attack before you are done. Though you realize that it strongly resembles a Buddhist chant, you are not very familiar with the words, which does not help matters any. Halfway through your chant, you hear a loud moaning. The air thickens with malice as the orderly resurfaces at the far wall. His demented eyes shine with obvious hostility. You tense up your body, preparing to dodge… but Uehara is behind you. Just as you decide to try and chant the exorcism incantation instead, the ghost strikes. He rushes at you, moving faster than you can react. The pale arms blur, and you feel a sharp, tearing pain along your right flank. His nails, black as night and sharp as claws, have raked bloody furrows in your flesh. You sink to one knee, gasping out loud.
Finish the chant! Don’t stop halfway, you’ll lose control of the spell!
The ghost swiftly darts back into the walls.
Hit and run tactics, eh? You let out a strange, bitter laugh, while continuing to press on with the incantation. Soon, you hear that moaning again. It looks like he has no intention of letting you finish. The ghost reappears, and charges at you once more.
“What the hell are you doing?” A small talisman flies towards the ghost and strikes him right in the forehead. There is a slight crackle of electricity which fizzes out quickly. He stops, for just a second, and turns to look at Uehara. She is panting and unsteady on her feet, her fingers outstretched. The mixture of fear, desperation and anger on her face tells you that she never expected it to work at all.
He lets out a rattling laughter, and hisses out broken, unintelligible words from his dead throat.
You shout out the last verses of the incantation in a hurry, drowning out the ghostly cackle.
My boundary parts the six domains of the realm of desire.
Should I go towards the mountain of knives, the mountain of knives will fall.
Should I go towards into the ocean of boiling oil, the boiling oil evaporates into nothingness.
Should I go towards the abyssal hells, the abyssal hells bow before me and offer up their malice.
Should I go towards the hungry ghosts, the hungry ghosts burst from fullness.
Should I go towards the animals, the animals succumb to their instincts and flee.
My boundary controls the desire of the Asuras.
My boundary darkens the bliss of the Devas.
My boundary is the path of Man.
Thus is my complete invocation of these verses both truth and boundary!
The spell is a success, although – rather anticlimatically – there are no brilliant light displays to mark its casting. The boundary is established: a powerful barrier that no spirit can cross. It would be easier for a man to walk through a block of metal than for a ghost to pass the barrier. It is a ward that is shaped according to your will. And as such, rather than placing it around yourself or Uehara, you place it around the ghost.
He bounces off the invisible wall, and for once, you get to enjoy the sight of a ghost looking perplexed. With a gesture of your hand, the barrier shrinks, until the ghost only has enough space to stand straight up. Then, a smile playing across your lips, you make it shrink again. The ghost wails and screams, as his limbs and torso are crushed, compacted into the area of a small cube. He struggles, slamming himself mindlessly against the barrier, but it does not budge one bit. Calmly, you walk towards the tormented spirit, your lips reciting the incantation for exorcism.
“Thus I speak.”
A wave of shadow bursts forward from the cube, suffusing you with its powerful negative emotions. Lust and hatred and anger and fear. Again, scenes flash through your head like pages in a book.
You see the orderly cajoling and coercing a young female patient.
You see him doing the same, with a different patient; another girl.
You see him cowering in the closet of a staff lounge.
You see the doors of the closet open, the hands of the dead reaching for his throat.
You see the eyes of the girls that he touched, staring blankly as their hands squeeze the life from him.
And as the pressure from his malice fades, you see his pathetic remains quivering inside the prison you created, awaiting your judgment.
***
A. Disperse the spirit, returning the essence to the hospital.
B. Absorb the spirit, taking its malice into yourself.
C. Feed the spirit to Ei, allowing her to unlock more of her seals.
***
“You… what have you become? How did you do that?” Uehara says, half laughing, half horrified. “But… no wonder. With all that incessant, dangerous meddling in the occult, this was bound to happen one way or another, wasn’t it? You truly are a monster...”
She sinks to the floor, exhausted, and covers her face with her hands.
“Aren’t you going to try and kill me again?” you ask.
“Come closer and you’ll find out,” she says wearily.
While you were busy with the ghost, she had successfully retrieved her knife, it seems. It is angled at you threateningly, even now. You look at Uehara, shivering on the floor, and decide to ask something else. “You could have let the ghost kill me while I was trying to prepare the spell. Instead, you distracted him. Why?”
“Why, you ask? I… I don’t…” Uehara seems confused. Then, she seems to regain herself, to realize where she is. Her eyes narrow, glaring at you venomously. “D-Don’t get me wrong, I would be perfectly happy to see you die. But not in that way… not by some thrall of this world you unleashed. I would rather cut you up myself. Besides, it would have come after me after killing you, and if I die here I won’t be able to find my sister. Only one of us is going to leave this room… only one of us is going to find Seika-nee. And it won’t be you, Shinohara Seiji.”
You calmly fob off her bloodthirst and say, “You keep calling me by that name, Shinohara Seiji.”
“What should I call you, then?” she asks sarcastically.
“I told you, my name is Shinoseki Adachi.”
Uehara only laughs, before continuing to stare at you. She must be wondering whether she should make the first move.
“I have some questions, Uehara-san,” you say politely, sitting down in front of her. She tenses up, pushing her back up against the wall as you draw closer.
“Don’t… don’t come near me.”
“You can’t kill me if I stay away, Uehara-san. But I do have to sit closer to ask my questions, don’t I? Uehara-san?”
You are planning on killing her after tricking her into spilling the beans, Acchan? Oh, how devious!
No. You think, in response to Ei’s delighted squeal.
No, I’m just going to find out what I want. I think this might work out.
It might work, if you pick your questions carefully. You get the feeling that Uehara is vulnerable at the moment – her mental state certainly isn’t very stable after the ghostly encounter, and if you push in the right way, find out the right things, you can manage to get her to stop trying to kill you. At least temporarily.
***
You ask your questions by trying to be:
A. Gentle, kind and patient.
B. Rational, calm and professional.
C. Rough, aggressive and confrontational.
D. Seductive, alluring and passionate.
No matter what you ask, you are certain you will get a sense of the overall picture, but the specifics of the questions themselves would frame the story that she tells. You focus on asking about (pick two):
I. Her.
II. Her sister.
III. Yourself.
IV. The others trapped here.
V. The hospital.
