It was a rainy evening when the whispers reached Rika. She sat in a corner café, sipping at tea gone lukewarm, listening to the voices of two women at the next table.
"…another one, just last night," one of them whispered, leaning close. "A boy said he saw her on his way home from cram school. A giant old woman, crouching under the bridge. Her skin like bark, her hair trailing to the ground…"
"Don't say it," the other hissed. "You'll call her here."
Rika lowered her cup.
Agubanba.
The name flickered across her mind like a shadow from childhood stories. A monstrous crone who lurked by riversides and alleys, who preyed on children, luring them with sweets before devouring them whole.
She knew then what she had to do.
---
The sky was still heavy with rain clouds as Rika made her way to the riverbank that night. Her umbrella tilted slightly, shielding her from the drizzle. The city around her was quiet, the only sound the occasional splash of car tires on wet asphalt.
The book throbbed faintly against her back. The written stories of the ghosts she had captured seemed to stir, as though sensing the presence of another spirit waiting to be caged.
She stopped at a low bridge where the streetlamps flickered and failed, leaving the path in shadow.
The air was thick. Cold.
And then she heard it.
A laugh—low, wet, and rasping.
From beneath the bridge, something moved. A hulking figure crawled forward, dragging its limbs with a scraping sound against stone. Her umbrella trembled in her hand as she lowered it, revealing the creature.
Agubanba.
Her form was grotesque, like an old woman stretched too tall, her mouth gaping with rows of crooked teeth. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark, and in her long, clawed hands she clutched a paper bag filled with candy that rattled faintly.
"Children…" she crooned, her voice cracked and hungry. "Sweet children…"
Rika stepped forward, her face calm but her pulse pounding.
"There are no children here," she said softly. "Only me."
Agubanba's head jerked toward her, lips stretching into a grin too wide. "Then you'll do nicely."
She lunged.
---
Rika raised her hand, bending the air around her. Reality shifted, slowing Agubanba's movement into a crawl. But the crone roared, breaking through the distortion, her claws swiping dangerously close.
The book flew from Rika's back into her hands, opening with a flash of light. Ink swirled on its pages, ready to write.
Agubanba howled, the sound so sharp it rattled Rika's bones. The monster's hunger pressed against her mind, trying to sink into her, to infect her like the Kubikajiri had once done.
But Rika remembered her grandmother's words.
With my power, you can never lose control.
She gritted her teeth, forcing the hunger outward, bending it into the pages. The book's glow flared, and Agubanba's outline began to twist, her grotesque body shrinking into lines of black ink.
"NO!" the creature screeched, thrashing. Her claws slashed the air, nearly grazing Rika's cheek. "I will not be caged again!"
But Rika's voice was steady as she held the book open.
"You're already just a story."
With a final scream, Agubanba's form collapsed inward, vanishing into the paper. The book snapped shut, trembling in her hands before falling silent.
---
Rika exhaled, sinking against the bridge wall. The rain pattered softly above, cooling the heat of the battle. She lifted the book and opened it.
On a fresh page, new words had appeared:
The monstrous crone who hunted children by the river. She lured them with sweets, but her hunger consumed her. Until she was caged by the girl who writes the stories of ghosts.
Rika traced the words with her fingertip. Her grandmother's prison wasn't just about sealing monsters. It was about rewriting their legacy—turning terror into story, curse into lesson.
She closed the book and stood, the weight against her back now heavier, but also more certain.
But as she walked away from the bridge, she felt eyes on her.
At the far end of the street, Keizo stood with Tamao at his side. The cigarette burned faintly between his fingers, its ember glowing in the dark.
"You saw it?" Tamao asked quietly.
Keizo's expression was unreadable. "Yeah. And she's getting stronger. Too strong."
Tamao bit her lip. "What should we do?"
Keizo flicked the cigarette into the rain. His voice was low.
"We wait. Because the more stories she writes, the closer she gets to the one ghost she won't be able to control."
---
That night, Rika returned home, drenched but steady. She set the book on her desk and sat beside it, staring at its cover.
Each ghost she captured made her stronger, yes—but it also brought her closer to the truth about her parents, and the shadow that had taken them.
And she couldn't shake the feeling that the book itself was waiting.
Not for her to fill it.
But for her to reach its last page.