Disappearance

In the third week after his suspension ended, Suguru Geto accepted an investigation assignment concerning a group of missing jujutsu sorcerers. Over the past two months, four Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerers had vanished while carrying out missions in the Kanto region. No one had found them alive or recovered their bodies. The Association had investigated for a month and found nothing. No residual cursed energy, no signs of a fight, no witnesses.

When Masamichi Yaga handed Suguru Geto the assignment sheet, he added, "This isn't an exorcism mission. It's an investigation. You don't need to fight, just gather information. Retreat if anything unusual happens."

Suguru Geto looked at the four photographs attached to the assignment sheet. Four young faces, three men and one woman, all around twenty. He had seen one of them before, passing him once last year. He couldn't recall his name, only that he wore round glasses. That man had last been seen in a small town in Chiba Prefecture, investigating a grade 3 cursed spirit. Grade 3-something even Haibara could handle alone. But the man had never returned.

Suguru Geto folded the assignment sheet and slipped it into his pocket.

The next morning, he got into a car bound for Chiba. The assistant supervisor was the same taciturn middle-aged man, who said nothing throughout the journey. When the car entered the town, the sky was so gray that it was impossible to tell the time of day. The town was quiet, its streets almost deserted. Most of the shops on either side were closed, their signs faded, as though no one had tended to them in a long time.

The town was tiny, with only three main streets and a few dozen buildings. There was very little residual cursed energy, either-just traces of low-level cursed spirit activity. Nothing unusual.

He walked all three main streets, examining the places where the four jujutsu sorcerers had last been seen. The first was an abandoned grocery store, its door locked and its windows boarded shut. The second was a park, where a swing swayed gently in the wind, its chains creaking. The third was a gas station that had shut down, with a yellowed sheet of paper stuck to a pump: "Equipment under repair." The fourth was a shrine built on a small hill north of town, its stone steps covered in moss.

Suguru Geto stood at the foot of the shrine's stone steps and looked up at the wooden gate. It was closed, but a sliver of light showed through the gap.

There was no one in the shrine courtyard. The worship hall's doors stood open, revealing pitch darkness inside. His flashlight beam shone into it, illuminating the floor and walls. A thin layer of dust covered the floor, marked with footprints. They belonged not to one person, but to several. The footprints led from the entrance into the depths of the worship hall, then abruptly vanished at a certain spot.

Suguru Geto crouched and shone his flashlight on the footprints. They varied in size; some were shod, others barefoot, some deep, others faint. At the edge of one pair of shoeprints, he found a small, dark stain. It looked like blood. He touched it with a finger. The blood had dried long ago and crumbled to powder at his touch.

Echo pulsed once in his chest, as though warning him to be careful. Suguru Geto stood and swept his flashlight around the worship hall. A plaque hung on the wall, bearing the words "Kumano Shrine," its lettering faded almost beyond recognition. Beneath it stood a wooden altar cabinet. Its doors were open, and it was empty.

He approached the altar cabinet and shone his flashlight inside. Fine, densely packed scratches scored its inner walls, as though someone had clawed at them with their fingernails. Suguru Geto reached inside, his fingertips touching the scratches. He traced them with his fingers and felt something protruding at the very back of the cabinet. He pulled it out.

It was an identification plate, silver and palm-sized, engraved with a line of text: "Jujutsu Association · Kanto Branch · Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer · Kazuya Yamada." Kazuya Yamada, one of the four missing people-the man with round glasses. The plate's edges were scorched, and a deep scratch ran across its back.

Suguru Geto put the plate in his pocket and left the worship hall. In the courtyard, a low-level cursed spirit crouched atop a stone lantern in the corner, its body trembling slightly. It was staring at something. Suguru Geto approached and followed its gaze. Beneath the lantern's base was a hole, small enough to admit only a hand. He reached inside and felt something soft. He pulled it out.

It was a rag doll, tiny, no bigger than his palm, and crudely stitched. Two eyes and a curved, smiling mouth had been drawn on its face in black ink. But in the dim light, that smile looked eerie, as though whoever had drawn it hadn't wanted it to smile but knew no other expression to draw. As Suguru Geto looked at the doll, Echo pulsed once in his chest, telling him something was wrong with it.

He put the doll together with the identification plate, tucked them into his pocket, and left the shrine.

By the time he returned to Jujutsu High, it was dark. Suguru Geto skipped the cafeteria and went straight to Masamichi Yaga's office. He placed the identification plate and doll on Yaga's desk and recounted what he had seen at the shrine. Masamichi Yaga picked up the plate, turned it over to examine the scratch on the back, then picked up the doll, squeezed it, and studied it under the lamp.

"There's residual cursed energy on this doll," Masamichi Yaga said quietly. "Very faint, almost imperceptible. But it's there. It doesn't belong to a cursed spirit. It belongs to a person."

"Whose?"

"I don't know." Masamichi Yaga set the doll down. "But anyone who could leave this kind of residue isn't an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer. Perhaps Grade 1. Perhaps Special Grade."

Suguru Geto looked at the doll. Its smile seemed even eerier under the lamplight. Whoever had drawn that smile either couldn't draw a more complicated expression or didn't want anyone who saw it to know what they were smiling about.

"Yaga-sensei, could the four missing jujutsu sorcerers have something to do with this doll?"

Masamichi Yaga fell silent for a few seconds. "Possibly. But we need more evidence. Go back and get some rest. Tomorrow, take the doll and identification plate to Shoko and have her test the specific characteristics of the residual cursed energy."

Suguru Geto nodded, stood, and left the office.

The corridor was quiet. He walked a few steps, then stopped and leaned against the wall. Echo pulsed in his chest, its rhythm a little faster than usual.

Suguru Geto pushed away from the wall and returned to his dorm room.

He lay down on his bed and turned off the light. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling Echo pulse.

Suguru Geto closed his eyes. He thought of the doll, the footprints, the altar cabinet. No answers came to him, only questions. Who had taken those jujutsu sorcerers? Why had they taken them? Was that doll a clue, or a trap?

He didn't know. But he knew that, starting today, his mission was no longer to investigate the disappearances. His mission was to find whoever had taken them. Because the traces that person had left behind were the same kind as those Tokieda had left in the hospital.

Echo recognized them.

So did Suguru Geto. He just couldn't remember yet.