Tokyo Exorcism Diary

After a journey that included a taxi, a long-distance bus, and finally the JR Line, Hoshino Gen and Hoshino Rin arrived at their destination—Sapporo—just before noon.

They’d barely stepped out of the station when a sleek black McLaren supercar pulled up in front of them.

The window rolled down, revealing the interior of a rather unique three-seater sports car—the McLaren Speedtail. The driver’s seat was right in the center, with a passenger seat on each side.

Behind the wheel sat none other than Asaba Shinichi, sporting oversized sunglasses and a high ponytail. He turned his head, whistled at the two outside, and flashed a breezy grin at Hoshino Gen.

“Hey, Hoshino, now this I gotta call you out for. I get that your little sister’s adorable, and sure, maybe you hate being apart from her… but did you seriously bring her along for this gig? What if you lose her or break her? That’d be a total disaster~”

Though Rin was decked out in a full disguise—cap, sunglasses, and mask—it clearly didn’t fool Shinichi in the slightest. He recognized her instantly.

And Rin, too, recognized Shinichi sitting inside the car. Wasn’t this the guy who got into that brawl with her brother outside the antique shop the other night? She remembered clearly—her brother had even cut off this guy’s arm!

Instinctively, her eyes flicked to Shinichi’s left arm… but it looked completely fine! She blinked in mild surprise, but quickly came to terms with it. I mean, if someone can go toe-to-toe with her brother, having a few freaky tricks up his sleeve wasn’t that unbelievable.

But still—an arm getting sliced off and then growing back this fast was just within the bounds of her understanding. What really puzzled her was what she was seeing now. These two had just been locked in a vicious fight not long ago—like, you slice me, I take your arm level—but now?

Now they looked like… like two old frenemies running into each other again?

Confused, Rin blinked and glanced at her brother.

Only to see Hoshino Gen scoff with visible disdain, as if the very presence of the sports car in front of them was insulting to his intelligence.

He casually flagged down a passing taxi and tugged Rin by the wrist toward it.

“Oi, you serious?” Shinichi shouted from behind them. “You’re ditching my fly ride—shipped all the way from Tokyo—for a taxi? And I even tossed Yusuke back at the hotel just so I could make space for you two!”

Pulled along by her brother, Rin couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder at Shinichi’s indignant face and suppress a quiet laugh.

She snuck a glance at Hoshino Gen’s profile again, her lips pressing together. Then, slowly, the corners of her soft pink lips lifted ever so slightly…

Their taxi’s destination: New Chitose Airport. As the capital of Hokkaido and Japan’s fifth largest city, Sapporo was naturally home to a number of corporations under the Hoshino Group. So of course, it made perfect sense for a few of the conglomerate’s private jets to be parked at the local airport.

Once he saw Rin safely aboard her flight back to Tokyo, Hoshino Gen turned away from the runway and left the airport alone.

He slipped into the left-side passenger seat of Shinichi’s parked McLaren.

The engine roared to life, and the force of acceleration slammed them back in their seats as the city streets blurred past. Hoshino Gen stared out the window at the unfamiliar landscape and asked calmly, “Any leads from the Special Affairs Unit investigation?”

“Of course~” Shinichi replied, one hand lazily on the wheel, his tone annoyingly relaxed. “Honestly, sending the three of us to handle a needle-in-a-haystack scouting mission like this? Total waste of resources. I mean, even if the Special Affairs Unit is only a couple years old, it’s already one of the most critical gears in the national machine. Sure, maybe we’re not shaping the country’s future or anything, but if we really wanted to, we could mobilize half of Japan’s social infrastructure with ease~”

He paused and shot Hoshino Gen a sly look, grinning. “Hell, if needed, bleeding a few family conglomerates dry overnight wouldn’t be all that hard, y’know?”

Hoshino Gen rolled his eyes. That wasn’t what he’d asked. He knew how powerful the state apparatus was. Even ignoring people like them—who operated outside the bounds of normal society—any private or family force that thought it could go toe-to-toe with a modern nation was laughably naïve.

“So. The lead. Did you find the new location of that ghost village?”

“Not exactly,” Shinichi admitted with a chuckle. “We only just confirmed yesterday morning that the village had vanished from its original coordinates. But yeah—we’ve got a probable target now. Thing is, every intel agent who’s gone in has gone missing, so odds are looking pretty good.”

Hoshino Gen gave a small nod. That was enough. Once they had a location, the rest was simple—storm in, find the ghost, exorcise it. Business as usual.

The supercar roared its way into the heart of Sapporo and stopped in front of a five-star hotel. Shinichi made a quick phone call.

Moments later, Takasugi Yusuke stepped out through the hotel’s automatic doors.

Still smiling as always, he climbed into the car and greeted both Shinichi and Hoshino Gen with unfailing politeness.

“Cut the act, would ya?” Shinichi said bluntly from the center seat, slapping Yusuke on the shoulder. “It’s just the three of us—no one here to watch your performance.”

Then, without waiting for a response, he laughed and added, “Alright, team’s all here. Let’s roll.”

He spun the car around, slammed the gas pedal, and the McLaren screamed off down the road at a speed that looked like it was just asking for an accident.

…

The drive lasted a long time.

From noon all the way to dusk.

The bustling urban landscape slowly gave way to vast, empty wilderness. As the last rays of the setting sun disappeared beyond the horizon, dark clouds swallowed up the sky. In the distance, lightning occasionally tore across the heavens like claws.

The wind howled outside the car, but inside, all was silent. In the right-hand passenger seat, Yusuke leaned back with arms crossed and eyes closed, resting. On the left, Hoshino Gen propped his chin on a hand, watching the scenery blur by outside the window.

“Hmm… I did see a weather report before we left saying a typhoon was headed this way,” Shinichi muttered from the driver’s seat, his foot long since numb from pressing the gas pedal. “Looks like it’s gonna hit right on time.”

Hoshino Gen gave him a sideways glance but didn’t respond. Yusuke cracked an eye open and glanced at him, then closed it again.

Among the three, only Shinichi had the “chronic chatter” trait. He’d been spewing one-sided nonsense the entire drive. The other two had long since tuned him out.

But Shinichi didn’t seem to mind at all.

He knew how these two were.