It was morning. Perhaps because it had rained last night, the sun was unexpectedly bright.
At the crossroads beneath the steps of Twins Shrine, two women stood at the intersection.
"Miwa... are you sure this is the right shrine?" A woman who looked to be in her thirties asked the girl beside her, who was probably around twenty. There was some doubt in her voice.
"I... I remember it being here! Why... has it become Twin Shrine? Did they change the name?" The girl looked at the words on the sign ahead of her with a trace of confusion.
"Could you have remembered wrong? Wouldn't it be better to send Yuzo to a Tokyo hospital as soon as possible? We can't afford to delay with Yuzo's condition!"
The woman's voice was clearly filled with disbelief and urgency.
"But Aunt Kaika, haven't you already taken him to so many doctors? None of them had any effect at all. I told you, what Yuzo has isn't an illness. He's been tainted by something unclean."
Miwa sounded rather helpless at her words.
"Besides, Aunt Kaika, you know a little about what happened to me last time. If it hadn't been for that priest's help, I might have died long ago."
Unlike the woman beside her, Kaika did not seem to fully believe in gods and ghosts, while Miwa believed in them deeply.
After all, she had experienced it herself. Just a few months ago... during a late-night game, she and several roommates had provoked an evil spirit.
If not for that priest's help in the end, she might no longer have been among the living.
And that priest was the one from Moon Shadow Shrine. But... when Miwa had come last time, this place had still been called Moon Shadow Shrine. It had