The sun was out for once, slicing through the haze of Tokyo's autumn air, but Rika felt no warmth. She sat at a café across from her university, a forgotten cup of tea cooling beside her notebook. The street outside buzzed with students and office workers, laughter spilling from groups who walked shoulder to shoulder. To anyone else, it was a perfectly normal day.
To Rika, the whispers never stopped. Even under daylight, she could feel threads of the other side brushing against her ears. Usually faint, easily ignored. But today, they pressed harder. Urgent.
"Have you heard about it?"
The voice came from two girls at the table beside her. Rika hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but the word heard always made her listen.
"One of my classmates said her uncle went into that house and never came back," the girl whispered. She leaned forward, her hands clutching her phone like a talisman. "They say the ghost there is a woman… Kayako Saeki. She crawls down the stairs like an animal, hair covering her face. If you see her, she'll follow you home. She doesn't stop."
Her friend shuddered, half-laughing, half-nervous. "Sounds like another campfire story."
But the first girl shook her head. "No. People vanish. Whole families. No one dares go near the house now. Even the police avoid it."
Kayako Saeki.
The name sat like a stone in Rika's chest. She had heard it before, muttered in passing by the ghosts she sealed. Some names stuck, lingering across the whispers of the dead. This one always carried weight. A spirit too old to be just a fragment. Too strong to be dismissed.
Rika closed her notebook and stood. She left her tea untouched.
The book against her back grew heavier, as though it, too, had heard the name.
---
By the time evening fell, Rika had already walked the narrow streets of a quiet neighborhood on Tokyo's edge. The houses here leaned close, their walls pressing together like whispers conspiring in secret. Few lights shone from the windows. The air was different—thicker, as though the world itself warned her to turn back.
She didn't.
The house appeared at the end of the street, its windows like black eyes, its wooden panels rotting with neglect. Weeds grew tall in the yard, and the gate leaned crooked, opening into a silence that pressed against her ears.
Even before stepping closer, she could feel it.
A presence heavy enough to choke the air.
She whispered to herself. "Kayako."
The house groaned. A low creak, as if answering her.
Her hand twitched behind her back, the glow of the book faint but ready. She steadied her breath. Capturing wandering spirits was one thing—restless fragments, lonely ghosts, vengeful tales given form. But Kayako was something else. A legend made flesh.
Rika pushed the gate. It wailed as it swung open. The yard was still. No sound of insects, no rustle of leaves. The silence was absolute.
She stepped inside.
The floorboards moaned under her weight. Dust hung thick in the air, stirred only by her presence. She could smell the house—stale, damp, heavy with something metallic beneath.
A shadow shifted at the edge of her vision. She froze.
From upstairs came the sound.
A guttural croak. Low at first, then louder, dragging across her skin like claws.
Uh… uh… uh…
Her pulse quickened. She had heard countless whispers from the dead. But this voice was different—wet, broken, filled with a hatred that had curdled into something inhuman.
The book's glow flared behind her.
And then she saw it.
At the top of the staircase, a figure appeared—slowly, unnaturally. A woman, hair matted and black as tar, crawling forward on her hands, her body bending at angles no living thing could hold. Her head tilted sideways, bones cracking audibly, her wide, hollow eyes fixed on Rika.
Kayako Saeki.
The croak grew louder, rattling through the house.
Rika tightened her grip on reality, forcing the air itself to harden around her like glass. Her voice was steady, though her throat ached with tension.
"You will be sealed."
The book tore into existence, its pages ripping open, ink bleeding across the air like veins. The pull began—tendrils of light stretching toward the crawling woman.
But Kayako didn't scream like the others.
She smiled.
And the house trembled.
The walls buckled inward. Shadows poured from the ceiling like liquid. Every window slammed shut at once. Kayako's form shattered into dozens—hair, limbs, faces, crawling across the walls and ceiling like a swarm of nightmares.
Rika's breath caught. She had never seen a ghost split like this, never felt reality resist her so violently. The book strained, its pages flapping wildly, as if unsure it could contain what it was being asked to bind.
Kayako's voice filled the house, echoing from every wall, every crack, every shadow.
"You are mine."
And in that moment, Rika knew this would not be a simple capture. This was not a fragment. This was not just a legend.
This was war.